Leakage: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance

by Harley, Karen

  Within the short span of a year, Harrison had become a good friend. A friend who stubbornly looked at her like a brother, almost paternally, even though he was only four stinking years older than her.

  Sara jumped out of bed and rummaged in her nightstand drawer. Her little purple silicone friend was freshly cleaned. Being without a boyfriend for almost a month had meant taking the thing out of hibernation where it had been gathering dust. She held it up and tilted her head, trying to find it sexy.

  It would be if Harrison were here to use it on her…

  Three more days. Just three more days….

  The furnace was out of control in Jasmine's room.

  Jasmine lay on the bed on top of the covers, aware of a film of sweat covering her naked body from head to foot. She stared up at the ceiling. Behind the dusty ceiling fan, the plastering job was pathetic. Sheet rock under mud and tape, she assessed. Her parents would be disparaging if they could see the apartment she was living in.

  Her mother would say she lived in a slum, even though it was hardly the cheapest neighborhood in Seattle. Her dad would try to bribe her to come home to Bellevue.

  You don't ever have to live with your parents again.

  Damn that man. Damn Matt.

  He was basically a lazy bum. He spent all his days doing just what he said. Sleeping, eating, and having sex. And playing with his toys. And blogging reviews about them, she supposed—if you called that work.

  It was easy for him.

  She closed her eyes, letting her limbs go wide to cool off as best as she could. Warm air blew down from the ceiling over her clammy skin.

  The port had been a bad idea. Sweet. So delicious. Jasmine never could resist sweet things. And with the guys for company, and Sara, who was always wonderful, she'd felt cheered after a stressful week and a half covering for her parents and discovering all the assholish things they did to their employees at work.

  But then the room had gotten hot, and what with one thing and another, she'd ended up basically stripping in front of all her friends. It hadn't even occurred to her what she'd done. It had just felt natural. Not a big deal. After all, it's not like she didn't have her underwear on.

  She could still see Matt's gaze on her breasts.

  Her sex was hurting, swollen. Jasmine's slender fingers eased down her slim hip and slid into her own slick, wet folds. She moaned and turned her head, because she didn't want to do this. Solitary orgasms felt nice but they were purely selfish things, and she wasn't selfish. She didn't want to be.

  But her fingers worked quickly, bringing herself to a swift culmination. As the waves pulsed deep inside, then rippled outward, she tried to forget them.

  Jasmine wasn't a fan of sex. It wasn't fun, and on the whole, it was a nasty reminder of everything in her life she couldn't control.

  Yet somehow she had allowed herself to agree to Sara's absolutely ridiculous scheme. Even worked out the itinerary so that she didn't have so much as a week's grace period. In three days she was supposed to have sex with Matt? In his apartment?

  She could just see it. He was going to have a fine time making digs. Making her feel stalked.

  Matt was a great friend…when he wasn't flirting.

  My lap is your lap, angel.

  Sticks and stones, Jas, but I have a pair of velvet blindfolds reserved just for you…

  You have my heart, you want my rum-soaked pound cake, too?

  To him, it was a casual bit of amusement. He had no idea she took him seriously. No idea how she felt about him.

  He thought it was playful fun, to steal food off her plate. To smile at her like he knew everything she was thinking. To flirt. He flirted with Sara, too, even more than with her. But Sara didn't seem nervous about the whole idea, just eager to get started. Only she didn't have to start with Matt the first time. Jasmine did.

  And Jasmine was terrified. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure she knew exactly what would happen, come Friday. He'd grin wickedly in that seductive way he had and say something sarcastic, like, "Don't you want to take off your clothes in front of me, Jas?"

  And when she refused to take the bait, he'd shrug and proceed to ignore her. Maybe forget the whole thing and spend the hours from eight to midnight on his computer, which would be humiliating.

  Tears seeped out of her eyes. This was going to be a disaster.

  Wearing a pair of plain boxers, Harrison got grimly into bed. His head was killing him. He'd been drunk only a couple of other times in his life. The first time had been in high school, and he'd decided then that he greatly disliked the feeling of losing control. The second time, a fellow college student had advised guzzling down a quart of water before he passed out. He'd had to admit it worked to prevent the hangover. But he still didn't like being drunk.

  But he didn't do the water thing tonight. He didn't particularly want to get rid of the pain. His headache was the only thing keeping him from thinking about…

  Well, dammit. It wasn't working. He had to think about it.

  How the hell had he let himself get talked into this nutso scheme of Sara's? He should have known she'd do something like that, too. She was always coming up with mad schemes to try to save "dire" situations. Paying for people's groceries in random acts of kindness. Giving little old ladies her seats on buses and walking them home and making lunch dates with them. Basically getting involved where most people would quietly slink on by, pretending not to notice there was even a problem.

  Sara, with her fluffy, short red hair and her juicy, bouncing breasts, those tight skinny jeans and flowing dresses all with that silly embroidery and flowers….

  The very idea of having sex with her made his belly clench. Arousal was part of it. But the other part was that he didn't want to treat her as anything but a friend. Women were always driving him crazy. He didn't understand them. They made no sense, with their games and manipulations.

  The fact that Sara and Jasmine were the only two women in his life who were not out to hit on him meant he could trust them. Sara was an inveterate do-gooder. He could always count on her to be totally honest. But only as long as she was his friend. He did not want to put his cock in her. Have her breasts spill over into his hands. Just…no. That was a one-way street.

  As for Jasmine…well, she wasn't exactly an open book like Sara, but she was a good kid. She always did nice things for them, especially Sara. Last week, he'd caught Jasmine smilingly putting her finger to her lips to shush him as she sneaked something into Sara's room. Turns out, her roommate had lost her headphones and Jasmine had spent all afternoon looking for them—as far as Harrison could tell, just to make her happy. Yeah, behind her cool facade, Jasmine was just plain nice.

  But sex. With each one of them.

  Jasmine was actually lovely, with her slim, tall figure and dark sweep of thick hair. Her exotic looks were hard to place without knowing her background, but Harrison had met her parents when he'd picked Jasmine up from work one day when her car was in the shop. Jasmine's dad was an Oregon-born ex-Marine with a mostly-African-American, smidgen-of-Alaskan-native lineage and her mother was a second-generation Japanese Bostonian who spoke Japanese less well than Harrison, who had spent three months in Japan during undergrad, did.

  Physically, he found no fault with her, except her poise was kind of off-putting sometimes. She really was like a sister to him. Just no chemistry there. And he was fairly sure the feeling was mutual.

  But Sara. Sara didn't bother to disguise her outright enthusiasm for men. That annoyed him, along with her nonexistent sense of self-preservation. She seemed resilient when her loser guys disappointed her. But Harrison wished she wouldn't be so foolish in the first place.

  And she wanted him to teach her control.

  That was unfortunate. He wasn't exactly an expert at all this boyfriend stuff, himself. A stellar lover he was not. Distractions tended to affect his performance in bed. And not just in bed, either. He was rarely all present and accounted for when he was
with a woman.

  He was pretty sure that was why women kept leaving him—his lack of focus. Even while he was fucking, half the time he was thinking about some reference he needed to track down, or a logical point he'd need to cover in his thesis defense.

  Not to mention his bewilderment with women in general and what they expected of him.

  He felt around, then grabbed a small towel out of the drawer in his bedside table and unfolded it. His dick was hard, predictably. It often got that way when he got frustrated with Sara. She was his friend, but he was still a man.

  Get on the schedule and teach me.

  He wondered if she'd be as plump between her legs as she was on her sweet little belly and her voluptuous tits. If her pubic hair was red, or….

  This was going to be a disaster. But then, he'd known that all along. He had really only one goal, and he was going to have to focus all his energies on accomplishing it. Do not disappoint Sara or Jasmine.

  He could not bear the idea of losing them.

  Matt had delayed as long as he could. It was past midnight, and he'd replied to some comments on his blog, researched a few things, and generally procrastinated going to bed like a pro.

  But tomorrow he needed to get up before sunrise. He was going to need a long run in the morning. Hell, he needed a long run now.

  What the hell. What was the point in living just blocks from a freaking lake with a path around it if he couldn't go on midnight runs?

  Swiftly, he changed into loose cotton running pants, a long-sleeved tee, and a hoodie and grabbed his keys. The light was out under Harrison's door, so he closed the door softly behind him.

  Green Lake Park had a lit, wooded path around the lake, but the lights did more to increase night blindness than offset it. He focused away from them. As his eyes adjusted, he could see one person up in the distance. He recognized the guy, a regular, an older man who tended to come out for a brisk walk at the odd and unpopulated hours, like in the rain. Matt started running in his direction, passed him and gave him a friendly nod.

  There was a subtle etiquette at work at the park that he liked, at least among the loner types who came when the crowds weren't there. You went in the same direction as other runners, so as to minimize face-to-face contact, and you acknowledged each other once. That was it. Then you could ignore each other.

  Matt didn't think of himself as a loner. But he didn't like to interact when he ran. Running was how he kept his sanity.

  The night air was frigid, but he quickly warmed up. He did one lap, then another. Five miles. He wanted to go on. But he knew he'd need the release running offered come the morning, too.

  Coming back, though, he did something stupid. He glanced up at the apartment building as he was rummaging around for his key card. Saw the light on in the third story apartment. It was a dim light. Either her computer, he thought, or a night light. He'd always wondered which it was.

  And then he felt the bolt shudder through him. Electric, like a storm. Yeah. Stupid.

  Don't think about it.

  Three. Long. Endless. Days.

  Sara was still half-asleep when she bundled up Pencil in his sweater and took him out before dawn the next morning, ready for his frigid morning walk. One quick walk, then it would be back to her room, back to bed, and a good snuggle with her comforter before she had to get ready for work.

  About to head down the stairs, she suddenly stopped short, pulling up on the lead and making Pencil yelp.

  Harrison. He was just locking the door of his apartment, his back to her. Sara felt the heat creep into her face. She'd forgotten that he left for his swim pretty much every morning around this time. Whoa, boy. What was she going to say to him? After what they'd all decided to do last night, a casual encounter promised to be too, too embarrassing…

  He swung around and didn't look surprised. Of course, he'd heard the dog bark so he had full warning she was there.

  He looked wary. "Good morning."

  "Hi, there." She tried to sound bright and chipper and searched around for something to say. "Going on your swim?"

  "Yes." He paused. "Going to walk the dog?"

  "Yes."

  They stared at each other.

  Then Sara couldn't help it; she burst out laughing.

  He looked startled. Then, as if reluctantly, he grinned. "We're a pair of idiots, aren't we? We're doing this crazy thing in a few days. But not yet."

  "No," she said and let Pencil pull her forward. "Not yet. And it doesn't matter, anyway. We're still gonna be buds. Nothing will change that." To prove it, she jabbed an elbow into his ribcage as she passed.

  Harrison mock-gasped and fell back, as if injured.

  No leakage.

  A good start.

  Mornings were always better than nights, and for that, Jasmine was grateful. She slipped out the door of her apartment, fairly well awake considering it was pitch black and an hour earlier than her normal work time. She'd found that subbing for her parents at the office required longer hours, but that hadn't been a big deal. Getting up early was not a problem. It was the rest of the day that would suck.

  She turned, tucking her keys into her purse, and walked briskly from the landing to the staircase. Halfway down the first flight, she heard the building door swing open and glanced automatically below toward the lobby.

  A few moments later, Matt Berne appeared in the stairwell below in his running sweats. She halted.

  He paused just a moment when he spotted her, then trotted up the steps. For a second, she thought he would keep going right past her. But at the last moment, he halted one step below her. She caught a whiff of his sweat. It smelled good.

  She geared herself up.

  But all he said was, "Jasmine."

  He hadn't shaved yet; there was a dark shadow on the lower half of his face, and his eyes were hooded. His voice sounded hoarse. Enough to make her knees go weak.

  "Sorry," he added. "Long run. Out of breath."

  Of course. Why would I think you'd be even slightly unnerved at seeing me? Just because I'm about to lose it, myself. And the morning had been going so well…. "Mind if I pass? I'm late."

  He studied her face as he got his breath back. She wondered if he were deliberately blocking her way. Yes, she was pretty sure he was. He was about the same height as she when level, a couple inches shy of six feet, but a head lower standing on his step. Then why did she feel like he, and not she, was the towering one?

  "You know, Jas, we're not there yet," he said finally.

  "Where?"

  "Friday. So you might as well calm down."

  Her heart thundered. He'd actually dared to bring it up. What happened to "no leakage?"

  "What makes you think I'm not calm?" She smiled coolly. "We decided to try an experiment. It's not that big of a deal, is it?"

  He smiled slowly. "Attagirl."

  "I would like," she said stiffly, "to pass, Matt. Now, please."

  He stood aside pointedly. The stairway was narrow. As she stepped down, she brushed against him, flinched and retreated instinctively back up the step. Then she realized what she'd done and what it had revealed.

  "One of us has to move," he pointed out. "Either you or me."

  She stood aside quickly. He somehow managed to pass her without contact and without looking like he was avoiding it.

  She started to head down—with extra care.

  "Oh, Jasmine? One more thing."

  Stiffening, she stopped but didn't turn.

  "I don't care how many second thoughts you have before Friday. You are going to go through with it."

  The words were said gently, yet Jasmine was left in no doubt about Matt's meaning.

  The breath hissed out of her. That weakness in her knees came abruptly back and they wobbled precariously. She reached for the railing.

  She opened her mouth to issue a cool retort. Then it occurred to her that whatever she'd say in denial, she'd sound like a fool. So she nodded.

  She felt him
watch her walk down the whole way.

  EPISODE 2

  THE AGREEMENT

  FROM: Sara Brogan

  TO: Matt Berne, Harrison Thomasson, JasmineFrazier

  RE: The Challenge—Terms and Conditions

  Here it is, you guys. This is what I got from Harrison's notes. (Harrison, did I get all the marinara off the tablet screen??)

  The Challenge

  Who: Matt, Sara, Jasmine, Harrison

  What: One guy will pair off with one girl to have sex for a four-hour period every Friday night, switching partners each Challenge night.

  Why: Having sex with friends will teach us how to have better relationships. Friends help each other and we're good at different things.

  When: Each Friday, 8:00 p.m. until 12:00 Midnight, Pacific Standard time

  How Long: From Friday, January 15 onward

  Schedule:

  Week 1

  Matt and Jasmine

  Location: Matt and Harrison's apartment

  Sara and Harrison

  Location: Jasmine and Sara's apartment

  Week 2

  Sara and Matt

  Location: Jasmine and Sara's apartment

  Jasmine and Harrison

  Location: Matt and Harrison's apartment

  Week 3

  Matt and Jasmine

  Location: Jasmine and Sara's apartment

  Sara and Harrison

  Location: Matt and Harrison's apartment

  Week 4

  Sara and Matt

  Location: Matt and Harrison's apartment

  Jasmine and Harrison

  Location: Jasmine and Sara's apartment

  Then start repeating Week 1—Week 4