by Lacey Dailey
He patted his chest. “This is your new pillow.”
I could not argue with that.
He rounded the counter and cupped my face, leaning in. I turned my head to the side at the last minute. “Gross, no,” I blurted. “My mouth tastes like a landfill.”
He made a noise and yanked my head back, pressing his lips to mine. It was a quick kiss but the sound he made when he pulled back told me he was happy. He winked at me and turned around, grabbing two mugs from the sink and pouring two cups of coffee. He added sugar to one and creamer to the other, sliding the one with creamer across the counter.
I wrapped my hands around it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He took a sip of his coffee, looking around our apartment as if waiting for everything to change or the walls to crumble.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked.
“I’ve been waiting for this to happen between us since like the second I sat next to you on that plane. I guess I thought when it happened things would feel different. Or weird. Like something would shift, but I feel… exactly like I always have. More content, maybe. Less shaky.”
“You ever think maybe you feel the same because nothing really changed? We’ve always crossed the friend line with the way we brushed against each other and talked to one another. We’ve never been just friends, Brett. Us dating doesn’t change our dynamic. It just intensifies it. I think maybe you feel less shaky because the parts of us that were trembling have finally clicked together.”
He shook his head, a smile forming on his lips. “You really know how to turn a grown man into a puddle, babe. You practice those lines in the mirror?”
“Maybe it’s just a reaction to you calling me babe.”
“You like that, huh?”
“Not until now, actually,” I admitted, sipping my coffee. “Didn’t have a desire to be anyone’s babe. It weirded me out. Made me feel like I belonged to the person. Like when other guys called me babe, it made me barfy. Belonging to you doesn’t make me feel barfy.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, well that’s a relief. I’d say babe is pretty tame compared to boo bear.”
I choked on my coffee. “Who told you that?!”
“Ah, come on.” He laughed hysterically. “I think it’s cute.”
“I hate you.” I stood up, my cheeks reddening. I plopped my mug on the counter and took off down the hall so I could curl into a ball and die.
“Hey!” His arms snaked around my waist and yanked me backward, molding his front to my back. “I like it.”
“You shouldn’t. It’s ridiculous. I think I called you that because it was ridiculous. Like nobody I called boo bear would ever be my boyfriend. Because I’m crazy. A grown ass man calling another grown ass man boo bear.”
He chuckled low in my ear. “Can’t say I ever imagined being someone’s boo bear but whatever makes you happy.”
“Tell me who told you so I can beat their ass.”
“It was Sage.” He kissed my cheek.
“Ah, damn it.” I pouted. “I’m still gonna send her a super mean, passive-aggressive meme.”
“I’m sure she’ll really feel it, babe.” He started walking us down the hall, his arms wound around my middle. I attempted to move my feet in time with his. We were like a giant robot, walking stiffly while I tried to maintain a frown. “Shower with me and we can go for lunch or something before you have to go to Pathways tonight.”
I stumbled in the doorway. Holy shit. I was lying to my brand-new boyfriend.
He tightened his arm around my middle and flipped on the light. “Whoa there, clumsy.”
I managed a chuckle.
Turning me around, he gripped my face. “You okay? Is this too much? Yesterday we were friends and now I’m shoving you in the shower with me. Should I leave? I’ll leave.” He turned away.
I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and hauled him back into my chest, kissing his cheek and practically climbing up his body. “Nothing is wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I was still lying. It made my insides burn. But I’d rather burn from the inside out than deny myself any more seconds with Brett Maddison. I just had to figure out a way to keep Ace and Mischief separate. Lots of people in Circuit had relationships. I could do this.
“Good,” he mumbled, kissing the corner of my mouth. “You already circled yes.”
I wound my arms around his neck without a second thought and kissed his lips. He smiled and started to unknot my hair, humming while he ran his fingers through the stray pieces like it provided him with a strange sort of comfort.
“This feels so normal,” I mumbled. “Being with you.”
“Did you expect it not to?”
“A day ago, I was pretending I wasn’t affected by every step you took. Now, I’m about to take my drawers off and get into a shower the size of my tennis shoe with you.” My hair fell down around my shoulders. I lifted my gaze and met his. “And then tonight, when I get home, you’ll be lying in my bed and I’ll look at you like you’ve been doing it for years.”
His thumbs hooked into the waistband of my briefs and slid them down. “Yeah. Except this time, it’ll be your mouth on my wig wong.”
I cackled and dragged him into the shower.
His fingers wrapped around the end of my hair and tugged, lifting my chin. He kissed me, sliding his tongue into my mouth, damning coffee breath and landfill mouth all to hell. His forehead came to lie against mine when we separated. His eyes were closed, lips parted, and chest rocking slowly.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah.” He smiled softly. “Just breathing.”
10
Ace
“Oh, Lucy, I’m home!” I sang out the words and kicked the door shut behind me, a dopey grin on my face. The exact grin I've had plastered on my face for the last month. A natural, easy reaction to the joy that came with being his boyfriend.
“Hey, gorgeous.” He appeared from the hallway, dressed in soft jeans and a sweatshirt that was far too baggy for my eyeball’s liking. “How was work?”
“Lame. You’re better.” Randall laid down an extra layer of douchery today. I thought maybe something happened at school or with his diagnosis. I was tempted to ask, but ultimately, it wasn’t any of my damn business. That bugged me.
Flailing my legs, I let my sandals soar through the apartment without a care in the world over where they landed. I danced over to my boyfriend and jumped without warning. He caught me with ease and a throaty chuckle.
“Well, hello.”
“Hi.” I tightened my thighs around his middle and pushed my face into his neck, inhaling. The smell of his skin was so fucking yummy. Sometimes, I just wanted to eat him. Like roll him up, slather him in milk chocolate and eat him. Even when he was dripping in sweat after one of our runs, I wanted to nuzzle into his chest. He was invigorating, and I couldn’t get enough.
“Hey.” The tip of his nose ran down the length of my face, nudging me. “Kiss me.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I angled my head and dove into him, licking at his lips and tasting him from all angles. The legs I had wrapped around him shook with underlying lust and the need to consume the man tongue fucking my mouth.
A trail of red-hot heat ran from the base of my neck all the way down my spine, sending jolts of electricity throughout my body and causing me to tingle all over. When he moaned into my mouth, the vibrations of sound hitting the back of my throat, I fucking melted. My grip slipped and I let out a whine, clawing at the back of his shirt because I wasn’t ready to disconnect from him.
The grip he had on my ass tightened, holding me steady while the other buried itself into my hair, tugging at the band that held it up.
A soft sigh escaped his lips when the band came free. Tossing the thing over his shoulder, he wrapped his hand around my locks, tugging so my face came in direct view of his. Our eyes met. There was a moment. A split secon
d we just looked at each other. Almost in disbelief. Like we expected the other to disperse into thin air. But no. This was real. We were real.
“Every time I look at you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the base of my neck. “I can’t fucking remember why I didn’t kiss you the first time you touched me.”
“Brett.”
“I was scared I’d lose my best friend. It sounds cliché but I–"
“Already lost so much. I know, B.” My knuckles made a trail down his face. “But I’m not going anywhere. And not because you have me pinned against this wall, but because I’m just as enamored as you are.”
I wasn’t sure enamored was the right word, but I was at a loss on how to describe Brett and the last month. From the moment I met Brett, I knew there was something about him. We clicked. Instant best friends. Similar to that moment in elementary school when you’re sitting at the lunch table and the kid across from you brought peanut butter and you brought jelly. Boom. Best friends for life and that’s what it was like seeing Brett for the first time.
I just knew.
I thought my crush stemmed from how incredibly delicious he looked on a daily basis. While the shape of his scruffy jaw, his yummy scent, and his low voice attracted me to him no doubt, it was the pull of him that got all of the credit for the blood pumping beneath my skin. The feelings of affinity I seemed to share with him were so much more intense than my reaction to his looks.
“You're kind of really fucking beautiful, Ace.” He licked at my lips and then proceeded to devour me.
I whined. Ugh. I fucking whined.
I took needy to a level ten. But the way he slammed my back against the wall in our living room and tugged at my uniform with frantic fingers told me he liked needy.
“Jesus,” he panted, tearing his mouth from mine. He stared down at my uniform with frustration and impatience. “How many God damn buttons does this thing need?”
“Over my head.” I started tugging, supporting myself against the wall. “Come on, Brett.”
He made quick work of yanking the damn smock off me and whipping it across the room. He scanned my chest and his face contorted in what looked like unimaginable pain. “You’re wearing an undershirt?!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Uhm, yes. You know this. You’ve watched me dress countless number of times.”
“Yes, and now I’m trying to undress you and all these layers are making it difficult. You don’t even wear underwear half the time and you’re wearing an undershirt?” He snorted in disgust.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry, did you want me to walk through the door buck ass naked every afternoon?”
He used the heels of his palms to start sliding it up my body. “It has its merits, but no. I don’t share you.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest when he finally got me shirtless. All two hundred and six of my bones shuddered and I arched off the wall, into his touch when he flicked his tongue across my nipple. “Jesus, Brett,” I grunted. “Can I get this greeting every time I come home?”
Usually, when I walked in, there was a really hot make-out session followed by the regular conversation of how our days went. I’d tell him about massaging old people and he’d tell me about the progress he was making when it came to enrolling in the police academy.
Being attacked and stripped naked was a brand-new addition to our regular programming. But I was not complaining.
“Missed you today.” He licked at my earlobe. “Been thinking about you. Couldn’t concentrate on jackshit with you on my mind.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Kissing you until you can’t breathe, making them sweet lips raw, grabbing a fist full of hair, and shoving you to your knees so you can swallow my dick.”
All real thoughts stopped after that one sentence. I squirmed against him and dropped my feet to the floor with a thud. It took one flick of my fingers to get his button undone. The sound of his zipper lowering had my mouth watering. I lowered to my knees with no grace whatsoever and hooked my fingers in his waistband, tugging the denim off his hips.
“Commando?” I gasped, my own cock swelling with the sight of his. “Brett Maddison, you dirty bird.”
“Baby, come on.” His hand found my hair. I could tell by the muscles pulling tight in his thighs he was struggling not to pummel his dick down my throat with no regard for my breathing.
Lucky for him, I could breathe through my nose.
I licked my lips and wasted no time. Late at night when we were getting sweaty in my sheets, I took my time, teasing him and licking the sweet spots I knew made him shiver. But with the way he was shaking and quietly desperate for me after his brain could only think of me all damn day, I just wanted to give him what he was silently begging for.
I took him down to the back of my throat in one smooth motion. He let out a hoarse shout that was masked by the sound of a thud above my head. I lifted my gaze and peered at him through my eyelashes. Our eyes met and he groaned, the sound waves from another thud ricocheting off the surfaces in our home. The strain in his arm beneath his sweater and the tick in his jaw told me that thud was his fist hitting the wall. I smiled as much as possible when one’s mouth was full and gripped his ass, shoving him deeper. I couldn’t have cared any less about a hole in our wall.
“Don’t stop.”
His whispered plea came straight from one of my dirtiest fantasies. Peering back at him, I found his eyes wild and pupils blown. He captured his bottom lip between his teeth and grunted with each snap of his hips.
“Yeah,” he panted. “Ace.”
He held my gaze until it became physically impossible. I watched with fire brimming beneath the surface of my skin as his eyes rolled backward and his lashes met the tops of his cheeks. The fingertips he had twisted in my hair went still as stone, his hips jerking roughly as he shouted my name in nothing less than pure ecstasy.
The grip I had on him became vise-like while I drank down everything he was giving me and took my sweet time licking him clean. His kneecaps were bobbing something fierce by the time he slipped from my mouth. There wasn’t even a second to catch my breath before he sank to the floor and pummeled me.
I grunted when my back hit the ground, the cold tile cooling my overheated body. He straddled me and dipped his chest, the cotton rubbing against my nipples.
I arched upward, gripping the back of his neck and wondering why the fuck he still had his sweatshirt on. I opened my mouth to demand he take the damn thing off and throw it out the window when he swooped in and sucked my bottom lip directly into his mouth.
“Oh, shit.” I slopped out.
“I like tasting myself on you.” Licking into my mouth, he thrust his hips downward, my cotton covered cock making contact with his exposed one. It provided me with exactly one and a half seconds of relief before it was gone and I thought I was going to pass out from need. I’ll be damned if I was going to clunk out half-naked on the floor before I got his mouth on me.
“Brett,” I snarled, pressing my palm against the top of his head. “There’s a very large gift for you inside my pants.”
“A very large gift, huh?” The breath of his throaty chuckle moved across my neck. “You sound quite sure of yourself.”
“Never been surer of anything.” The force beneath my hand tightened until he started to slide down my body, pressing sloppy kisses against my chest. “Keep going.”
“But what if I can’t find it?”
“Oh, you’ll find it.” I thrust my hips. “It’s practically waving at you.”
“Oh. Well, looky here.” He grinned up at me, his mouth in direct line with the cock threatening to punch a hole in my pants. “I found it.”
“Great.” I let my eyes fall closed. “Now suck it.”
My heart leapt when he slid his fingertips into my waistband. “Say please.”
“Oh, you fucking tease.” I wiggled my hips in hopes my pants would just miraculously slide right off my hips. “Brett.”
>
“That didn’t sound like please. Though I do enjoy the sound of my name on your lips.”
That fucker didn’t budge no matter how desperately and aggressively I wiggled my hips. I let out a noise of frustration. Behind a haze of lust, I became a wonton, needy man, primed to get off to his boyfriend’s hot mouth. So I bit the bullet and mumbled the damn word. “Please.”
“Please, what?”
Christ. “Please, suck my dick.”
“Brett.”
“Brett.” I corrected, snarling the word between my teeth. My patience had run out and if I wasn’t pulsing down his throat in five minutes, I was positive the world as we knew it would be over. “Please suck my dick, Brett.”
“Much better.”
He pressed a wet kiss directly below my belly button a second before he ripped my pants downward and licked up the base of my shaft. Bending my knees, I grabbed the nape of his neck and growled like a man possessed. The fucker laughed right before he opened his mouth and took me down his throat. My hips pumped in a crazed frenzy, words flying from my mouth. I had no idea what I was saying. Hell. I didn’t even know if I was speaking English. I didn’t care. I arched my back off the floor and thrust like my life was about to end. I felt the muscles in my neck strain. His name exploded from my mouth, my body rippling and legs shaking as I came down from what might be the greatest feeling known to man.
I heard his harsh pants and felt his body collapsing beside mine. Like clockwork, our legs tangled together and hands found one another’s. I’m not sure how long I laid there before I opened my eyes and found pretty blues staring back at me.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi.”
He smiled softly before capturing my chin and connecting our lips on a sigh. We probably came across as a couple of insatiable fiends, half-naked on the old tile floor connecting our kitchen and living room. Our pants around our hips and cocks hanging out while we were wound together with invisible rope and engaging in lazy kisses.
It was one of the best things about being both his best friend and his boyfriend. He cast a blaze upon me hotter than no open flame ever would, making me crave his touch every second of every day. But I also knew if I could only ever lie here with him, kissing him slowly and lazily while he stroked my hair, I’d die a very happy man.