by Emilia Finn
“Dirty boy,” she taunts. “You’ve been thinking about me in compromising situations, and you never once let on to your best friend?”
“I was fucking terrified,” I admit on a sobering breath. “We aren’t supposed to look at our best friend’s ass, Emma.”
She scoffs and moves her hands up to my hair to keep me close. “I’ve been checking out your ass since we were teenagers.”
“Really?” Our lips brush together, gentle and almost not at all.
“Totally,” she catches my bottom lip between her teeth. “Even before I wanted you, I still appreciated how you looked in the summer at the lake. You had all those abs, and your chest was so broad, even in high school. You have this smile, Rob.” She meets my eyes, and grins. “Such a pretty smile, especially when I see your cracked tooth.”
My heart tenses, then releases. It aches, and flies.
“Now, take me to bed?”
I swallow the nerves in my throat. The lump is so large that it hurts, so choking that my head turns woozy – though I bet that has more to do with Emma and ‘bed’ in one sentence.
“I, uh…” I shake my head and step in closer until there’s no space between me and my best friend. No room between my best friend and the door. “No bed here.”
“The floor, then?” She flashes a wicked grin and slowly lowers. Lowers. Lowers so that I’m forced to follow or be left behind.
Em bends her legs, and slides down until her ass touches the floor, and following her, I find myself kneeling between her legs for only a moment, a single hair of time, before she pulls me in and slams her lips to mine the way they were fused at the tracks.
“Moratorium,” she pants past nipping kisses. “Don’t ruin tonight with worry, Rob. This is a hall pass, free and clear.” Then she grabs my shoulders, shoves me to the side until I drop to my ass, and my back presses to the wall. Climbing over me, she straddles my lap until she sits square on my cock, and grinds down until my balls bunch and prepare to shoot.
“Fuckkkk,” I groan with pleasure.
Each time I try to breathe, she steals it from me. Each time I want to speak, she forces herself closer. It’s like she knows we have a time limit. An expiration date.
Even knowing that, she reaches down and fingers the hem of her shirt. Her arctic blue eyes meet mine for a moment – worry, exhilaration, insecurity, but acceptance – then she pulls her top up and reveals her bare chest. No bra, no barrier between her feverish skin and my seeking hands.
I let my fingertips wander. I can’t stop them, even if I tried, so I stop worrying, and start feeling. I explore her skin, and thrill that her act of being cool and confident is undone by the goosebumps I find. She’s nervous, she’s worried. She’s just really skilled at pretending she’s not.
Knowing I’m not alone in my terror means I’m able to smile, to accept this moment and run with it.
“I’ve thought about you like this since…” I nip on her bottom lip, and grin. “Maybe tenth grade.”
“So long ago,” she purrs and glides on my lap. We both wear jeans, but denim does nothing to hide my straining cock or the lava-like heat coming from her core. “I had a naughty dream about you way back then, too. I woke up and thought I’d gone crazy.” She giggles and dives in to nibble on my throat. “It was completely insane, because I didn’t know I felt that way.”
“Did you touch yourself?” I wind a hand into the back of her hair and pull hard enough to transform her purr to a growl. “After you woke up, did you touch yourself?”
She nods, sheepish and shy as a rosy red blush works over her cheeks. “I woke up and found my fingers already inside,” she rasps. “I was touching myself in my sleep.”
“Fuckkkk.” I let the tips of my fingers work over her ribs – each one is tiny, delicate, and so fucking breakable inside this woman who considers herself a battering ram. I count ribs, and run my fingertips over lines of ink that stretch around from her back.
Emma Kincaid stopped being a virgin-skinned princess the day she turned eighteen. And hell, but perhaps I woke up touching myself after that day too.
“When I realized that I’d been dreaming of you,” her lips cruise along my jaw. Biting kisses, punishing nips. “I scrambled out of bed and gave myself a talking-to for being such a freak.”
I snort-laugh and circle her nipples with my fingers. I brush the pads of my thumbs over the peaks, and breathe through imminent explosion when she quivers in my lap.
“I was so sure that it wasn’t allowed,” she explains breathlessly. “You were my best friend, not some dumb jock at school, a placeholder who was fun until I was ready for the real thing.”
“Did you finish?” I bury my face at the warm skin behind her ear and taste. “That time you woke up, did you make yourself come?”
“No,” she rumbles and stretches her head back to give me room to work. “I was scandalized! It was so naughty, so I stopped and ran myself a cold shower. Then I climbed through your window and into bed.”
She groans when I bite, and grinds down when my cock twitches. “You remember that day? We laid there until the sun came up, and while Luke snored, you and I talked about our plans for college.”
“That day?” I whisper. “That day you slid in and we snuggled, you’d dreamed about me?”
“Uh huh. My heart was racing the whole time, and my fingers touched a little bit more.” She stops and brings her eyes back to mine. When I can focus and see past the lust choking me half to death, I see Emma’s goofy grin. Her sparkling eyes. “I touched myself a little bit while we laid in that bed. Not a lot,” she slides on my lap and purrs under her breath. “And only above my clothes. But I just needed to make the ache go away.”
“I’m gonna fucking explode.” I shove her off my lap with rough hands, and drop her to the wooden floor.
Em hits the ground with a grunt, but I climb over her and nestle between her legs so I cover her completely. There’s nowhere she can look except at me. Nothing she can touch except me.
Lowering myself so she’s forced to support a lot of my weight, I thrill at how her breathing turns shallower. Her chin doubles as I lower along her torso and slide my tongue over the swell of her breasts. We both remain in our jeans, our top halves bare, but as I come closer to her peak, then take the rosy pink tip between my teeth, Emma cries out and arches up.
The sound almost brings me to the end. The feel of her body taut beneath mine is enough to make me beg.
“Moratorium?” I plead. I wish, and hope, and dream. “Please, EmKat?”
“Moratorium,” she cries out. “No consequences. I swear.”
“Thank you Jesus.”
With fast moves and a flick of her button, I unfasten Em’s jeans and shove them down so fast that the denim scrapes her skin. Instead of hissing in pain, she growls out her pleasure.
She likes it rough; I already knew that about her, but applying that here, doing this, is next-level insanity.
I tear her jeans away blindly, with fumbling hands and skillful legs, and while I do that, I taste her fiery skin, and nibble on her tits. The moment I free her from the tight denim, Em bridges up, flips us over and, climbing onto my hips, she mirrors my moves. The difference is, she sits tall and lets me see her all.
Her shoulders, dainty despite the muscle, her tits, not large, but not small either. Her ink glistens in the moonlight coming in from the uncovered windows, and her smile sparkles as she pops my jeans open and drags them down just far enough for my cock to spring free and slap my hipbone.
Em stops for a moment, stunned, I suppose, at what she’s seeing. She stares at my dick, licks her bottom lip, and when I clear my throat, her eyes flicker back up to me.
“Don’t make this weird,” she rasps. “You’re Rob, so… ya know. But we’re not making this weird.”
“Not making it weird.”
“Absolutely not.” She slides down my thighs with lightning-fast speed, then grabbing my cock without warning, she lifts it just once – e
nough to almost make me blow – then she takes me in her mouth, and chuckles when I cry out like a little bitch.
“Oh god!” My voice cracks, and my throat closes. My orgasm teeters on the edge of oblivion, awaiting my permission to kamikaze into the abyss.
But I don’t allow it. I fucking refuse.
“Emma Kincaid is sucking my dick. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” I lift my head, and glance down at the top of her blonde locks. “Oh fuck.” I drop back with a thud. “Emma Kincaid is sucking my dick.”
“Shh,” she snickers and laps at my shaft like it’s a fucking lollipop. “You’re making it weird.”
“I think maybe we died in the car at Piper’s Lane,” I grunt out. “That’s the only explanation for this nonsense.”
“This ‘nonsense’ is gonna be fun.”
She opens wide and takes me right to the back of her throat. Swallowing, she squeezes my cock until I have to slam my fist into my own mouth and bite down.
She releases me with a laugh, and pops up to accuse, “You’re holding out! Stop it!”
“I can’t come yet!” I exclaim on a desperate laugh. “Dammit, Emma. I need at least thirty thrusts before I’m allowed to even consider it.”
I sit up and grab her under the arms, and lifting her, I place her back onto my hips, but this time, we touch, core to core. My breath shudders to a painful stop, only to start again with a gasp, like I’m finally breaking the surface of a still pond after too long under.
“EmKat…”
“Moratorium.” Pushing up onto her knees, Em looks down between us, pushes her barely-there panties aside, then she grabs my cock and navigates it to her fiery opening. “I’m clean,” she rasps. “On the pill. Never gone without protection with anyone, ever. You have my word.”
“Same,” I choke out. “Never. Clean. Gonna tell my swimmers not to swim too hard.”
“Deal.”
Holding her breath, Em begins lowering, takes my first inch without any trouble, then stopping with a squeak, her scared eyes come to mine and beg that I actually participate in this.
I’m being a pussy, letting her take the lead, letting her call the shots, because she’s always so self-assured and confident. But she doesn’t always have to be. She doesn’t always have to be our instigator.
Bridging up once again, but gently, since I’m already partially in, I lower Em to her back, open her legs wide, and wrap them around my hips, then I slowly inch my way in.
“You’re so fucking tight, EmKat.”
“Thanks,” she snickers. “I take my kegels seriously.”
“Your…” I study her laughing eyes, try to understand her secrets, only to give up and shake my head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” But I continue to sink deeper. Deeper. And though Em’s breath catches, I keep moving, slow and steady, until I’m seated deep inside.
I hesitate to continue. I let my mind take over, rather than my instincts, and because Em knows me so well, she sees the change. The worry.
Reaching up and cupping her hands at the back of my head, she pulls me down until our lips feather together, and her tongue darts out. “Moratorium,” she whispers one last time. “Move, Rob. Let us both live out our fantasies right now. Make me cry your name.”
Emma
It’s All Gonna Be Okay
Rob and I lay on his new kitchen floor for hours. The moon outside is our only light, the sound of almost-nonexistent traffic our symphony. We lay the way we have hundreds – thousands – of times before, except this time, we have nothing on.
Rob fashioned the best bed he could out of our clothes, like that thin layer of shirt is better than nothing at all… and really, it is. Because he cares enough to provide something out of nothing, and that might be the most romantic thing to ever happen to me.
We lay until the sun teases the edges of the horizon, we talk about nothing, about everything, we laugh, and tease, and when we’re not doing that, we make love. When we need to shower, we do that, but since there are no towels, we simply have to air dry – helped along by sex and our racing hearts, emitting so much heat that the water on our skin turns to steam.
The sky outside changes from pitch-black, to pink, to orange. It’s still early enough that none of Rob’s new neighbors stir, but not so early that our phones don’t bleep and demand we answer to our families.
Somewhere around five, I reach out to my phone that lays discarded on the floor, turn it over, and discover a text from Bry. He’s not especially worried, nor is he suspicious that I’m with a guy, but he does demand that I let him know I got out of Piper’s Lane safely. So I hit reply and send him a kiss emoji. That’s all he needs, all I need to do to make him happy.
Rob does the same, but it’s Luke who texts, and though I can’t read Rob’s screen as I lay with our legs tangled and my cheek on his muscular chest, I glance up when he chuckles.
“What?”
“Luke almost got arrested last night.” This, of course, is news that, in most families, would worry the recipients of such texts. But to Rob, it’s laughable. It’s a typical Saturday night. “He was down at the other fight gym, picking up girls.” He adds, “trying to pick up another fighter’s girl.”
“Smart of him,” I reply dryly and slide my fingertips over the ridges on Rob’s stomach. “That’s like the owner of that place walking into our gym and lifting his chin at Mom.”
He laughs again. “Yeah, not a guy’s smartest move. He just got home, he said. Apparently, Mom and Dad had to go get him out of X’s cage.”
“So he’s in big trouble?” I hitch my leg higher on his thighs and sigh so it’s a throaty grumble.
My hipbone is numb, and my bottom leg has pins and needles stabbing me right down to my toes. But still, I’m too relaxed to move away.
“He’s gonna be glad we’re moving out today,” Rob mutters, and types a reply as he goes. “He needs to duck and hide away from Mom after this.”
He hits send, locks his phone, and sets it down on the floor. Then turning a little with soft grunts, he cups my cheek and smiles in the semi-darkness. “Are you sleepy?”
I shrug and stretch my lips forward to peck his. “Little bit. I’m okay for now, but this afternoon will suck.” I lift a brow when Rob’s phone vibrates with a reply. “Did you tell Pukey where you are?” I swallow the unfamiliar nerves that flutter in my stomach. “Did you tell him you’re with me?”
“I told him I was at the apartment,” he strokes my cheek with soft, rhythmic brushes of his fingertips. “I didn’t say I was with you. I figured…” He hesitates for a second. “I dunno. You and I haven’t discussed this yet. So I didn’t spill.”
“Well…” I lick my lips and feel some of my nervousness leach away when his eyes drop to the movement. He still wants me. He’s not freaking out. And that, in itself, is a damn miracle. “What is this?”
“A moratorium?” he hedges. “A pause in friendship to test out something a little different.”
“Okay… And?” I press. “What did you find?”
He flashes a wolfish grin that allows my heart to unclench. “That we fit in all the best ways. That it wasn’t weird. That you do things with your mouth I had no clue you could, but damn, Em, I’m not sorry for finding out about it.”
“Thanks.” I glance down, meek and shy, and grin. “I’ve been practicing.”
“Huh?”
My eyes whip up to his. “What?” I ask innocently.
“Practicing?” His face burns red with rage, and his ears practically pour steam. “The fuck, EmKat! Practicing on who?”
I burst out laughing and throw most of my body over his – a hug, and restraint. “I was kidding,” I giggle. “Geez, Fart. Relax.”
“Not fuckin’ funny. Not even a little bit, asshole.”
“It was a little bit funny,” I snicker and push up to sit on his hips.
There are no nerves anymore. No wondering if we fit, or if we’ll regret it tomorrow. It’s already tomorrow, and here we
are, still smiling, still best friends.
“Rob?” I push up to create a little space between his dick and my core. He’s rock-hard and ready for me. “Hey?”
His eyes are locked onto my hands, onto my movements. But he knows his role in this. “Mm?”
“I love you.”
Finally, when I sit atop the very tip of his dick and begin sliding down, his eyes come to mine and steal far too much of my heart.
“I love you too, EmKat. Forever.”
He helps me, holds my weight until he’s seated deep inside me, then he smiles and steals the rest of me.
A heart for a Hart. It’s apt, really. A fair trade.
Inkalot is the best tattoo studio in this town; in fact, it’s arguably the best in a thousand-mile radius. This is where every Kincaid since the dawn of ink has spent their money for art. It’s where clients drive for days to visit, and where the appointment books are full for at least half a year in advance.
There’s a cancelation list, of course, but it’s rare for anyone to ever forfeit their spot because they’re sick. Rather, folks know their slot is coming up in a week or two, so they pump the vitamin C into their systems, eat fruit, sit in the sun, and stay away from crowded places, lest they pick up germs and ruin their shot at more one-of-a-kind art.
It’s the studio that is a hundred percent, without exception, responsible for every last design on my family members’ bodies: my dad, my brother and sister, my mother, my cousins, my best friend. My own ink was designed by me, and drawn on by Inkalot’s owner and creator, Ian Moses.
My penchant for drawing and my dad’s hunger for never-ending tattoos led me into this shop a million times in my youth, so what began as a silly hobby with a pencil and sketchpad turned into me drawing for money and selling my designs to Ian’s clientele, then to me holding a tattoo gun for the first time when I was just seventeen years old.
Now this is my career, my passion, and it makes me proud to say my appointment book is full well into next year.