by Cole, Fiona
I sucked on them, rolling my tongue around the long digits, giving him plenty of lube. I fisted my cock slowly as his hand slid between my cheeks and two fingers rimmed my ass, slowly slipping in.
“Just fuck me,” I growled. “Do it.”
I cried out when his fingers roughly shoved in and wiggled to stretch me, but for only a second before they were replaced with his cock. His knees bent and we both cried out as he pushed in all the way on one go. The fucking was frantic, not slow and romantic like it had been before. No time for dirty talk or commands. He fell over my back and rutted against me as I stroked myself. The only sounds coming from either of us were grunts and panting breaths.
Too soon, I could feel the electricity shooting down my spine. Nothing was holding back my orgasm. I stroked and groaned as I coated the back of the couch with ropes of my cum, the head of my dick brushed the leather with each of his rough thrusts pushing me forward. Almost as soon as I was done, he clamped his teeth on my shoulder and held himself inside me as he groaned his own release. I hoped he left a mark, broke skin, or left a scar. Anything I could take with me.
When he finally stopped moving, he stayed inside me and kissed the bite, his breaths panting in my ear. I had to taste him one more time. I reached back and gripped his hair, tugging him close so I could feast at his lips. Between breaths, I panted, “I love you. I love you.”
Feeling like I had to say it as many times as I could in fear I’d never get to say it again.
But then Jake crumbled. He pushed his head against my back and his whole body shook over me. His penis slipped from me, but he still held on with his arms wrapped tight. It was silent at first, but then I could hear the quick gasps of breath, the sniff, and the quiet cries he refused to let loose.
My body began shaking with the urge to turn and hold him. Stroke his back as I promised him lies and told him it would all be okay.
“Fuck. Carina,” he breathed. “What have I done?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I pried his fingers off me and turned, pulling him into my arms. I stroked his back and held him as he cried, forcing myself not to say anything, being the friend I should’ve been from the beginning. My body ached to be more, but as my best friend broke in my arms, I forced the selfish side of me down, knowing it was too late, but doing it anyway.
“What’s wrong with me?” he finally cried. “I’m so damn lost, Jackson. I’m confused and don’t recognize myself anymore.”
“Jake. Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing,” I said vehemently. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s not okay I care about you this much but I’m still with Carina. It’s not okay that I just cheated on her.” I could feel his hands tighten into fists against my back, but he still held me close, not looking up. If he needed the sanctuary of my chest to make his confessions, then I’d be it. “It’s not okay that I’d disappoint my mom. It’s not all right that I just made love to you with Carina only a few floors below. It’s not okay that I don’t know myself. Am I gay? Who am I?”
“You’re Jake Wellington,” I said. “You are one of the best men I know. One of the smartest businessmen I know. You love crosswords. You love to have a few drinks with every dinner. You love being pushed and challenged. You are strong. You are confident in who you are. Being attracted to a man, even just one, doesn’t change who you are as a person.”
Jake took a few more shuddering breaths and eventually loosened his grip on me. I waited for him to raise his head, and when he did I gripped his jaw in my hands and wiped his tears with my thumbs.
“Look at me.”
He squeezed his eyes closed tight before finally opening them, his eyes shining like the waves of the bluest ocean. I yearned to lean in and kiss him but didn’t. Which seemed like a hollow feat considering we were glued to each other’s naked bodies in the middle of his living room.
“I’m here for you, no matter what. Even if it’s just as your friend. I’m always here for you.”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine softly and I had to clench my muscles to hold back from taking it further. I’d already taken too much.
“Stay with me tonight? Not for more. Just so I’m not alone. I’ll take you up on that offer to be my friend right now.”
“I have to work later, but I’ll stay as long as I can.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Then like it was our first time, and we were both awkward teens unsure of how to act, we stepped back and got dressed. Not saying a word, he grabbed two beers and two puzzle books before sitting on the couch. I followed, and we worked in silence.
Maybe an hour later, he passed out, probably emotionally exhausted. I stayed as long as I could and covered him with a blanket, pressing a kiss to his forehead before whispering, “I love you.”
I walked out and hoped it wasn’t the last time my lips touched his skin. He’d allowed me to be his friend tonight, but we both knew a decision needed to be made. And after his rant, we both knew friendship wasn’t one of the options.
I wanted him to choose me as his lover—his partner. But while he decided, I could be his friend.
No matter how much it hurt.
26
Jake
There was only a dim glow of light from the kitchen when I pried my eyes open. They were hot and swollen from my breakdown earlier. When I sat up, my head throbbed, and I felt like I had drunk an entire bottle of whiskey rather than just lost my mind.
Dragging a hand across my face, I sat up before seeing it was almost nine. I looked around, but knew Jackson was gone. He must have covered me with a blanket before he left. I flung it off and rested my elbows on my knees cradling my head in my hands. My feelings were a mix of pain that had my stomach sinking with excitement, which made the pain worse. I wanted to hate the butterflies I felt when I remembered the way Jackson’s skin burned under my own. I wanted to regret the way he’d kissed me, the way he held me as I broke. I wanted to. But I didn’t.
I tugged at my hair and let out a soft chuckle at the predicament I was in. So lost and angry and excited and filled with self-loathing and hope and dread and every goddamn emotion under the sun that I felt like I was about to burst, causing an explosion leaving nothing behind. At that point, I kind of wish it happened, so I didn’t have to face my mistakes.
But I needed to. I needed to own the decisions I made and face Carina. I needed to own the hole I kept digging myself deeper and deeper into. I needed to talk to her, and as much as my body wanted to revolt against it, my skin tightening, feeling almost unbearable and like it didn’t fit anymore, I needed to let her go.
I couldn’t drag Carina along through my mess and until I could hold tight to myself, I couldn’t hold tight to her too. Just the thought had a lump choking me. I wanted to scream and beat myself at how much I’d messed up.
What hurt the most wasn’t my deceptiveness to my fiancée, but the betrayal to my friend. Carina had always been my friend. Even when we were kids we managed to laugh with each other. Once we began working together, it was all over. We spent so much time together, bonded together. She gave me a connection I’d been missing since Jackson and reminded me what it felt like to be excited to see someone. I remembered the time at the hotel when we got drunk and laughed until three in the morning. I remembered her making faces at me in the back in the middle of board presentations, seeing if I could keep going. I remembered her laughing at me when I walked into the glass door at work.
I remembered her holding me while I cried after my dad’s funeral. I remembered the first time she told me she loved me, kissed me, accepted me. Each memory hit me like a blow to my chest, knocking every last bit of oxygen from me. And it hurt like knives digging in deeper because I knew…I knew I needed to face her and it was over. I didn’t know where I was with Jackson, but I owed her the respect of dealing with her first.
When I got out of the shower, I had a message waiting for me on my phone and my nerves hit me so hard, the words blurred as m
y vision wavered.
Carina: We need to talk.
Carina: Come by tonight if you can. I’ll be awake.
I took the stairs to her apartment, using every second I could to try and prepare myself. But nothing was going to prepare me to face my mistakes. There wasn’t enough time in the world for me to be ready to accept my consequences.
Inhaling as big as my lungs would allow, I knocked on the door and waited. I exhaled slowly when I heard the clicks of the lock. She cracked the door looking resigned and defeated before pulling it all the way open and stepping back, her eyes at her feet. I wanted to grab her chin and make her look at me, but I had no right to touch her; no right to demand anything.
“Hey,” I said once the door was closed.
“Hey.” She gestured to the couch. “Want to sit?”
Sitting next to her, I watched her pick at her fingernails, avoiding meeting my eyes. How did we get here? Weren’t we happy Friday night before the opening? Weren’t we all supposed to come back here and celebrate? And yet, two days later, we’re all desperate and lost, floating away from each other. Like a curtain had been pulled back to reveal what we’d all been hiding from. It’d been so sudden and like a flash. Boom. All of it on display for no one to ignore.
I wanted to say that I wanted to go back and change it, but it would have only bought us time. The outcome would have always been the same. Just because we hid it from ourselves, didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.
“We need to stop with Jackson.” She spoke first, and her words were soft and hollow. Like maybe she was reading from a script that she didn’t believe. “I wanted it because I wanted to give us a spark again when I felt like we were drifting apart. When I felt like we were more friends than soon to be husband and wife. I wanted to remind us that there was passion there. I wanted it because being sexually adventurous is who we are, and I needed that connection with you.” She still stared at her fingers, her voice now filled with choked emotion. “But we went too far.”
Too far.
Too far was an understatement.
“Carina. . .” I reached my hand to cover hers, but she jerked away. Her head snapped up to stare at me, and her red-rimmed eyes and pinched lips tore at my insides.
“How long have you cared for him? And I don’t mean the sex.” The hollow script was thrown out the window. She was full of fire, hurt, and anger.
“Carina, please.”
“Just tell me!” she shouted, her voice breaking, making us both jump.
My eyes burned, and I fought to hold it back. She deserved my honesty. Not my feelings. I chewed on my bottom lip trying to prepare my words, trying to dig deep to say them. “I—I don’t think I understood my feelings for Jackson because they were for a man. I twisted it into friendship. I ignored the depth of them, was scared of them, and hid them behind the mask of just being buddies. Then that night in college happened, and it was like the mask was ripped off, and I was forced to look at it. It scared the fuck out of me and I ran. Then when it was all of us, I put a new mask on it, saying it was for you. It wasn’t me who was making the decision to be with a man, it was for you. It was easy, because it wasn’t like I went down the street looking at other men. Obviously, I wasn’t gay.” Heat burned up my cheeks just saying it. “I guess the attraction was always there, mixing with the friendship we already had. I just covered it with lies.”
Her eyes were back on her hands. I had to clench my fists to keep from reaching out to her when her shoulders shook, and she sniffed. “Did you ever love me?” she asked, her voice small. It might as well have been a scream for the damage it did to me.
“God, yes, Carina.” Unable to hold back, I grabbed her hands even though I didn’t have the right, but she needed to believe me. “You mean the world to me. You’ve been by my side when I’ve needed you most. You’ve been my best friend. I do love you.” But we both knew the love I professed was not deep enough to hold us together.
“Then why not me?”
I wanted to deny it. I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about. I wanted to pretend this wasn’t the end for us and hold on a little tighter. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie anymore.
I squeezed her small hands in mine, memorizing every last touch. “I—I don’t know.” I breathed a hysterical laugh. “I don’t know anything and feel like I’m losing my mind, not seeing anything clearly.”
Her hands clenched into fists before asking, “Were you and Jackson ever together without me? I know you spent a lot of time alone together. Did you ch—” She choked on the word and had to swallow before letting it past her lips. “Did you cheat with him?”
My veins filled with ice and I let go of her. I had to swallow over and over again to find the words and work them past the panic in my chest. I hadn’t even spoken yet and she was already crying, looking up at me with devastation written all over her face. Her blue eyes brighter than I’d ever seen behind her tears. Her lips quivered, and her brows furrowed as she shook her head, like she could make it not true.
My emotions broke, and I couldn’t stop the tears flooding my eyes and falling. I swiped at them, but they kept coming like a tidal wave wracking my body. I gasped for breaths and kept choking out, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“When?”
“I…”
“When!” she shouted.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, and I knew it made me a bigger coward. “Friday at the bar and last night.” I didn’t give details because what happened didn’t take away from the fact that it did. One discretion wasn’t more forgivable than another.
I didn’t see the shove coming. Her hands slammed against my chest as she growled and shoved me back. Again and again until the shoves became slaps. She slapped my arms and chest and sobbed her whole way through it. And I let her. I let her take her anger out on me.
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you so much. I ha—” She choked on a sob, her shoves becoming softer and losing steam. “I hate you,” she whispered.
When she was finally done, her hands rested on my shoulders and her head fell to rest on her arm. Taking a chance, I pulled her into me and held her. She didn’t pull away, just gripped my shirt and cried. Every once in a while, her fist would come down and she’d whimper ‘I hate you’, but for however long she let me, I held her in my arms and we cried over everything we were losing.
“I’m so sorry,” I began whispering into her hair. “So sorry. I’m a mess and I—I don’t know who I am anymore. You deserved more than this. More than me dragging you through this. You deserve a better man—a better friend. You deserve to be happy.”
Her tears trickled off and she began taking deep breaths, getting herself back under control. I did the same and wiped my eyes, still holding her for as long as she’d let me.
So quiet, I almost couldn’t hear, she spoke. “And you deserve to be happy too.”
What? My muscles clenched, surprised.
She wiped her eyes and sat up, and I reluctantly let her go. “You are a cheating asshole and I hate you, but I need to admit my role.”
Carina had always been big on accepting responsibility, facing it and not putting blame on others. But this was not her fault. “Carina, no.”
“I knew we were struggling. And maybe I held onto you tighter because I liked the feeling of my father being proud of me for a change. But our relationship was falling into more of a convenience than a passion to spend our lives together. We were comfortable. We were friends.” Her voice hardened and trembled with sincerity. She sat tall like a queen. “And I deserve passion. I deserve to be first.”
“You do. God, Carina, you do.”
Her shoulders fell again, more tears leaking from her eyes, matching my own. Fuck, I wanted to hold her again, but she wrapped her arms around herself and I knew she didn’t need me anymore.
“Jake—” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat before meeting my gaze. “Don’t let a label ruin you.”
&nb
sp; How this woman could sit there after I’d done nothing but be undeserving of her, and give me words of wisdom, try to boost my morale, I’d never know. She was a queen and I was unworthy to be her king. But no matter what, I would always be there for her if she ever needed me. “Don’t let your father make you question yourself.” I hesitantly reached my hand out to rest on her arm and she let me. “I’m always here for you, Carina.”
She breathed a laugh but pulled away. “I may take you up on that. You’re my best friend, which may have been our downfall. But God, I hate you so much and I can’t look at you right now. It hurts too much.”
I cringed, knowing I deserved much worse.
“But someday it won’t, and I’ll want my friend. So, you better fucking wait for me to be done hating you.”
“Of course. I’d be honored to wait.”
We stared at each other, not saying anything, knowing it would be the last time we were this close for who knew how long.
“I will always love you,” I said.
She bit her lip and nodded, looking down. “You should probably go.”
“Okay.” I stood and waited, just in case she had more to say, but she continued to look at her lap and I decided to give her some peace.
Each step toward the door felt like a struggle. Somehow my body wanted to sink into the floor and never get back up, but also wanted to smile because I knew I wasn’t hurting her anymore. Carina deserved more happiness than I could ever give her. I just hoped she found it.
27
Carina
The click of the door closing rang with finality.
It wasn’t just Jake walking out of my apartment, it was a whole chapter of my life closing. And what waited for me on the other side, I had no clue. Everything looked so dark and murky.