by T Gephart
In my head, it was going to be no big deal.
I wanted him, he’d wanted me, and we’d had sex.
But we’d also reconnected in a way I hadn’t expected, the friendship we’d rebuilt in a short week something I’d mourn with regret if I ever lost it. There were going to be repercussions, whether I wanted to admit them or not.
We’d also run out of condoms, which meant that when he did eventually wake up we couldn’t have sex. So the conversation I had been so diligently ignoring would probably happen sooner than later.
Unless I gave him a blowjob, that would distract him a little longer.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice rumbled as his fingers traced the length of my spine.
He was awake.
I turned in his arms, lifting my head to look at him and answered honestly. “About giving you a blowjob.”
Hey, I said I was being honest, and it had been my last thought.
“Mmm, I like the sound of that. Except that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the look of concern on your face when you’re thinking about my dick in your mouth. Something I should be worried about?” Our eyes crashed, the ice blue of his melting against my green, thawing me from the inside with nothing more than a look.
I couldn’t lie to him.
I wouldn’t.
“I hate we have to talk about what we did, but I also can’t make myself regret it.” I rolled onto my stomach, forcing myself up onto my elbows. There was enough light in the room from the rising sun sneaking glimpses from between the curtains and I wanted to see him.
His fingers brushed the hair out of my eyes. “Good, because honestly, you regretting it is the only thing I was worried about.”
It was the right thing to say but still didn’t magically take away all my concerns either. And I was still unsure where we stood in all of it, and if he’d been considering seeing someone else.
I didn’t care he didn’t call it dating, I didn’t want to share.
“Then why—”
“Why did I leave you on Friday night?” He stopped me, not giving me a chance to ask the millions of questions that were coming. “Because I needed you to be sure. Yes, you assured me that you knew what you were doing, and I wasn’t trying to be an asshole and tell you what to do. But I needed to protect us. The first time I’d lost you, it hadn’t been either of our faults. I wasn’t going to chance losing you again because I couldn’t stop thinking about sleeping with you.”
“Wait a minute, how long exactly have you been thinking about sleeping with me?”
I mean, I had become a bag of raging hormones the minute he’d opened the door the first time at his place. Not even going to pretend I didn’t want to climb him like a tree and cling to him like a baby koala. But I hadn’t expected it to be the same for him, secretly hoping the dress that made my boobs look good was at least partially responsible.
“A while.” His only answer, avoiding a more precise timeline. “But I would have kept my dick in my pants.” He grinned.
My fingers wandered underneath the covers and found that he was hard. “Such a wonderful dick too, it would have been a shame if I hadn’t seen it.”
He laughed, the aforementioned dick jerking in my hand. “You and him seem to be on the same page. It took everything I had to leave you that night. And I had every intention of waiting until Monday to see you, made it until six a.m. before I realized that wasn’t going to work.” His eyes were clouded with regret.
I’d have assumed it would have made me glad to know he’d suffered like I had, but knowing the truth didn’t make me feel better.
“Is that why you came back?” I asked, the mystery of his Saturday morning visit still unsolved.
He groaned, reaching down and unwrapping my hand from around his shaft. “Yeah, it was either come see you or lose my balls. I’d been hard all night.” The word vibrated on his lips, sending a shiver down my spine.
Which meant.
Hold on.
I stopped trying to seduce him as my attention focused. “You mean to tell me that if I had just admitted I remembered the night before—”
“I’d have taken you to bed that second.” He didn’t hesitate.
Well, that was annoying. Finding out after the fact of the wasted opportunity. We could have been screwing hours ago and possibly replenished our condom supply.
“So you want to tell me what you were doing in a cocktail dress?” His finger traced small circles on my skin. “And don’t tell me it’s a fucking Yale thing, give me a little credit.”
I groaned, flipping over, throwing myself back against the pillow and covering my eyes with my hands. “It’s dumb, but I put the dress on because it makes me feel beautiful. And I’d been feeling so hurt and rejected, I just needed something.”
It was more vulnerable than I wanted to sound, but I didn’t want to lie. I’d once trusted him with my most sensitive parts, been naked with him in everything except skin. And like a pair of old jeans, I slipped right back there with him. Laying myself bare, and knowing he’d keep me safe.
“I’m sorry I made you feel like that.” He pulled my hands away from my face and dropped a soft chaste kiss on my lips. “Honestly, Maya, hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do.”
I could be the biggest moron of all time, setting myself up for a heartbreak I might never recover from. But I believed him.
“Soooooo.” I threaded my hands through his hair, holding him close. “Are we dating now?”
He kissed me again, moving his mouth slowly against mine—no tongue—before pulling away. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes.” Dying to say it fast enough.
He grinned, rolling on top of me and caging me in with his body. I tried to ignore his erection poking me in the hip. “Good, because you said you hate being told what to do, but I wasn’t giving you a choice.”
I shoved his chest roughly, giving him my best pout. “And what about Astrid?”
Oh yeah, I hadn’t forgotten about the saucy ice queen who was annoyingly beautiful. As a couple, the two of them would look like they made sense. Both of them tall and stunning. Unlike me who was on the outside of the gorgeous Venn diagram.
“I told you, Maya, it’s not like that.” He shook his head before fixing his gaze on mine. “But in the interest of full disclosure, I have slept with her. Once. Over a year ago. And occasionally I’ll be her date at an industry thing if I’m free. But I promise you, I don’t want her.”
While I appreciated his honesty, hearing he’d slept with her didn’t make me feel better. Even though it had been a year ago, and only one time. It was ridiculous to even be jealous, but I was literally a green-eyed “monster.” I could only fight genetics so far.
But what was I going to do? Lock us in a fallout shelter and live on canned food for the rest of our lives? If I was going to date him—or anyone—I was going to have to trust them. Not easy when the one man who you trusted with your life proved how misguided that faith had been. Just another thing to thank my dad for.
“I know I have no right to ask, and this is serious psycho girlfriend behavior. But please stop going on dates with her. I’m not asking you to stop talking to her, or even not to see her. It’s just those events . . . it might mean something else to her than it does to you.”
Had to admit, the fallout shelter was looking pretty attractive.
“If it makes you feel better, I had no intention of going. She called, and I just wanted to get off the phone before you got back. Not because I was hiding it, but there was no way not to give you my full attention.”
“Yeah, well, Stefan will probably still want to meet her.” I rolled my eyes, wishing I could forget about the promise I’d made. Maybe they could go live in the fallout shelter.
“It will be my pleasure to introduce them. Anything else you want to talk about?” He waited, his body pressed to mine, holding me captive.
“This could get complicated.” I winced, thinking of almo
st everything that could go wrong. There were too many interconnections. Our families, our jobs, the memories of a perfect childhood friendship—all at risk if something went wrong.
He chuckled, kissing me on the nose. “Lucky for you, I love complicated.”
As much as I wanted to spend the day in bed with Alex, the condom situation hadn’t rectified itself. I’d tried visualizing them and putting them up on a vision board, but no boxes of Trojans landed on my doorstep.
And while I was on the pill, and both of us had a clean bill of health, we’d—uh-hum Alex—decided that we needed to go out and at the very least, get food.
Other than one or two bites of our burgers, dinner had been non-existent. After the kissing had started, I’d even forgotten we were eating, leaving whatever had been in my mouth in favor of putting Alex there instead. It was a great plan, and I was happy with it. But my stomach didn’t share the same feelings of gratitude. It growled in protest, demanding attention.
So, with Alex deciding we were going to be responsible, we got out of bed and into the shower. Sadly, there was no shower sex but I had given him that blowjob and he’d done some magical things with his hands. Being creative was actually pretty awesome.
Alex left me to get dressed, heading back to his house to get a change of clothes with the promise to return. We were going to spend the day together, our first as a shiny new couple.
Not knowing our plans, I threw on a dress and a pair of flats, keeping my makeup simple. Then giving the family group chat enough information so nobody called, I was ready to ignore my phone and give Alex my undivided attention.
He arrived back in a clean pair of jeans, a fresh T-shirt, and generous dousing of that seductive man-scent he always seemed to wear. I didn’t know if it was cologne, deodorant, or the tears of unicorns, but it was magical.
“Where are we going?” I threw myself at him the minute he’d walked through the door. Now that I could touch him, I wanted to all of the time.
He caught me, scooping me up and bringing me to his lips. “Where ever you want to go. I just need to go past Roman’s house to pick up something and then we can do whatever we want.”
“What about breakfast?” I asked, knowing that my stomach would not be pleased food hadn’t been mentioned in our current agenda.
He looked at me with a sly grin. “It’s Sunday, that means breakfast burritos from Los Rancheros. We can get them on the way to Roman’s.”
Los Rancheros had been a Sunday ritual when we were younger. I think it was probably Jordon who’d started it, being hung over and asked to babysit while my mom and dad went to visit my great aunt Louise. She was my dad’s only family, but had dementia and scared me a little, so the kids would stay home while our parents went. Of course Jordon had spent his Saturday nights out, which usually meant coming home late. So in order to keep us happy, he’d call Roman to round up the Larsson tribe and we’d all go out for breakfast. I was positive Jordon had slept with the waitress at some point, which was why he stopped taking us.
“We should pick one up for Roman for old times sake.” I laughed, grabbing my keys and locking the door behind us.
We ate in the car, enjoying the food as we drove to Santa Monica. Roman and his wife Lauren had a large double story, not far from the beach. It was modern, with clean architectural lines and a neat front lawn. I was sure the grass was probably scared to grow, keeping itself at regulation length at all time.
Alex parked in front, kissing my hand as we walked up the driveway. “Not in front of your brother.” I glared at him. “The last thing we need is the third degree.”
He rolled his eyes, holding up his offering housed in a white paper bag. “Then why did we bring him breakfast? I assumed it was to encourage him to be nice, like positive reinforcement.”
“Not now, okay,” I warned, just wanting a day to keep it all to myself.
“Okay,” he agreed, kissing my hand again, then gently dropping it and ringing the doorbell.
When Roman answered I had to look twice just to be sure it was him. He was still gorgeous, but his eyes looked tired, his hair ruffled and he had a burp cloth draped over his shoulder. He was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and T-shirt, answering the door in bare feet.
“You ring that thing again and I’ll kill you,” he warned, his voice ice cold like a killer. “Lauren went out to get her hair done, and it’s taken me an hour to get Lucas down for a nap.”
“Maybe you need to make a sign for your door.” Alex smirked. “You know, like forget the dog, beware of owner.”
He mocked laughed. “You’re hilarious. Now shut up and get inside.” His eyes floated to me, a grin that I didn’t trust widening on his lips. “Hi, Maya. You helping Alex run errands?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a car so your brother is being my chauffeur.” I laughed, wondering if seeing us together was suspect. We’d shown up to his mother’s last weekend and no one had assumed we were a couple, and they knew he’d been driving me to work. Surely, if anything, Roman would just assume we had just become close again.
“How nice of him.” Roman smirked, stretching out his hand and welcoming us inside.
We followed him down the hall to a large living area. The baby toys on the couch and how-to-parent books on the coffee table were juxtaposed with law magazines and The Wall Street Journal.
“Sit,” Roman offered pulling the burp cloth off his shoulder.
“Oh, before I forget.” Alex held out the paper bag. “We got you a breakfast burrito from Los Rancheros.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed, taking a moment like he was examining some evidence. He didn’t speak, looked at the bag, and then looked at each of us before chuckling. “Holy shit, you’re sleeping together?”
“What?” I squeaked out nervously, wondering how the hell could he know that simply because we brought him breakfast. Was the man psychic?
“Sweet little Maya and moronic baby brother.” He shook his head, assumingly. “You know, I’ve had about two hours of sleep and I didn’t think anything was going to cheer me up but this is fucking brilliant.”
“Roman,” Alex warned, a concerned glance shot my way before continuing. “We just had breakfast.”
Roman shook his head. “Oh? You just had breakfast? Please, save it for someone who’ll buy that bullshit.” He laughed. “Even if it wasn’t written all over your faces, Los Rancheros is a dead giveaway. You aren’t usually sentimental, Alex, which means you must have had a reason to be.”
The more I thought about it, the more I knew Roman was right. Alex had never done things out of habit or emotional attachment. He hadn’t kept old T-shirts until they fell apart like I did, or reread birthday cards, or gone back to the same place without good reason. While I hadn’t started working straight out of college because of lack of opportunity, he had voluntarily taken the time off to go travel. He wanted to experience new things, see new places and create new memories. Where as I had been desperate to get back to the place I’d been happiest.
“You did it for me.” It wasn’t a question. The doughnuts, the breakfast, the reliving of your youth—all of it—not because he wanted to revisit any of it, but because he knew I did. To remind me of a time before my father tainted it. “Alex, thank you so much.”
Forgetting I was all but confirming Roman’s suspicion, I threw my arms around him and kissed him. “Thank you,” I mumbled against his lips.
Alex’s arms engulfed me, lifting me off the floor as he turned my sweet kiss into something a little dirtier. I didn’t care who was watching, unwilling to sacrifice the moment.
“Still going to tell me I’m wrong?” Roman’s voice came from behind. “Because your tongue down each other’s throat would argue otherwise.”
I reluctantly pulled my lips away from Alex as he lowered me. “You can’t tell anyone,” I warned, spinning to face Roman. “I mean it.” I glared at him.
Roman smirked, my warning sliding right off him without leaving a mark. “Or what? You’r
e going to kill me with your little death stare?” He laughed. “Have you met my wife?”
Alex might not be sentimental but he’d never been scared to stand up to his brothers. Even when they towered over him—not the case anymore as he matched them in height—he’d gone toe-to-toe without fear. “It’s not Maya’s death stare you should be worried about, Roman.” He slung an arm around my waist, bringing me close to his side. “If she doesn’t want you to tell anyone, you won’t.”
Roman lifted a brow in surprise. “I’m not saying a fucking word to anyone. You two want to screw each other’s brains out, it’s your own business but I’d work on your,” he waved his hand between us, “interactions if you don’t want anyone to find out. The hand on her ass, dead giveaway, and do something about that look on your faces as well, it’s like happiness threw up on you.”
We were interrupted by an ear-piercing scream. The noise loud enough without amplification, echoed through the baby monitor sitting on the end table.
“Fuuuuuuuuck.” Roman scrubbed his hands down his face. “I swear he is a perfect angel for Lauren, she thinks I make this shit up. Give me a minute to go get him, I’ll let you decide who gets to die.”
He stormed off, taking the stairs two at a time as his son cried his little heart out not waiting for an answer.
“He’s joking about killing us, right?” I heard the baby monitor click to static, the crying less muffled without the assist.
Alex shrugged as he looked at the stairs Roman had climbed. “Not sure. He knows how to get away with it and I’m pretty sure he could convince a jury he was innocent. It really could go either way. Maybe we should go before we find out?”
He might have been more convincing if he hadn’t been grinning, or if he hadn’t lowered his head and brushed his lips to mine.
“You’re terrible.” I pushed gently against his chest. “And we’re not leaving.”
Roman returned, a bright blue eyed little boy cradled in his arms. I wasn’t sure at what age babies started to smile, but if I wasn’t mistaken, little Lucas was wearing a grin. Almost like he knew he’d won that round. The taunting each other seemed to be a family trait, and while Lucas didn’t have the Larsson last name, he most definitely had the DNA.