Roomies with Benefits

by Amy Brent

  “You making dinner for us?” I asked, and she grinned, heading to the kitchen and tasting a spoonful of something from one of the pots.

  “Trying to,” she pulled a face. “Probably not up to the standards of your chefs, but…”

  “It smells good,” I made my way through the kitchen and looked over her shoulder, checking out what she was making. I looked down at her as she continued to cook, stirring a pot of creamy sauce to keep it from sticking. I wanted to lean down and wrap my arms around her, bury my face in her neck, let the smell of her brush away the scent of the world outside.

  “Yeah, it does,” she grinned cockily. “I don’t do much, but I do a mean Alfredo. You want to get the table set?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, pulling some plates out of the cupboards and going to lay up the dining table. I didn’t have much time to use this thing, as enormous as it was, and usually just ate on my couch in front of the fire. Why would I need to use something like that? It was just too enormous, all mighty knotted wood hewn into a giant table. But now that I had company, it seemed the perfect setting for a romantic dinner.

  She served up a few minutes later, and even poured a bottle of wine. I cocked an eyebrow as I saw her pouring the glass.

  “And where did you find that?” I asked, and she bit her lip and looked up at me, playing the innocent, but eventually the play stopped.

  “I have this nose for good wine,” she shrugged. “I can sniff it out from miles around. And this is some really good wine…”

  “Yeah, it is,” I clinked myself glass against hers and took a sip. I didn’t drink a lot, but the low light thrown by the fire, the food, the fact that she was wearing that beautiful dress…it would have been rude not to.

  “So, what’s all this in aid of?” I asked as I sat down and reached for my cutlery.

  “Does it have to be in aid of anything?” She replied, tucking in to her food. “You’ve been looking after me this whole time, I just want to do the same to you.”

  “Huh,” I grinned, and then took my first bite. She cocked her head at me; the quiet and stillness of the room, lit lightly by the dark gold of the fireplace, her eyes seemed to be shining.

  “What?”

  “I just haven’t had anyone take care of me in a long time,” I admitted. “It’s a novelty.”

  “A good one?”

  “Well, let’s wait till I see what I think of the dinner,” I teased, and she watched me intently as I ate.

  “It’s really good,” I confirmed to her, and I was telling the truth; the sauce was creamy and decadent and the pasta had just the right amount of bite to it. The wine, by chance, fit well with the flavour profile, tart and sour where the pasta was soothing and almost sweet.

  “Really?” She beamed across the table at me. “I just saw that kitchen of yours and I knew I had to make something…”

  “You like to cook?” I asked, and she shrugged.

  “Yeah, but I’m not very good at it,” She admitted. “I only have a few things that I can make with any kind of skill.”

  “I’ll show you, if you like,” I suggested. The two of us, in the kitchen – on the kitchen countertop, maybe…

  “I would like that,” she replied, and I was sure I could see her flushing slightly as she eyed me across the table. There was a heat rising between us, and I knew at that moment where this evening was going. Was this what she had set out to do? Her lips parted slightly and she glanced in the direction of the bedroom, as though she wanted to forget all of this and just go back to bed. But then she turned back to her meal and began to eat once more.

  “So, when do I get to come and collect firewood with you?” She asked, nodding out beyond the window. “I want to see what it looks like out there. Feel like I’ve got everything down in here.”

  And with that, we spent the rest of the meal just talking. Not about anything deep or serious, but the kind of conversation that was regularly punctuated with gales of laughter. I finished a glass, and then another, and she did the same thing, her eyes growing a little heavy as she watched me from where she sat.

  We dumped the plates in the sink and then took a seat in front of the fire; I was aware of how close our bodies were, that I could so easily have just reached out and skimmed my fingers over her face, but something in me was holding back. Maybe it was because I was enjoying her company so much, and knew that I had the whole rest of the night to fuck her senseless.

  “Cormac,” she turned to me, and the change in her tone of voice told me that this was serious.

  “Yeah?” I turned to her. I was feeling a little less hard around the edges towards her now, like I didn’t need to defend myself against her questions. She had gotten me just how she wanted me, and it turned out that I wasn’t too averse to it either.

  “How did you get all this?” She gestured around, taking a sip of the wine; her lips were slightly coloured by the wine, and their deeper stain suited her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, where did you get your money from?” She asked again. “I know I’m not meant to ask that, but…is it legal? I just need to know I’m not getting pulled into another-”

  “Another?” I caught and hung on to the word. It was the closest thing she had give me to the truth about what had happened in her past, but she immediately shook her head and held up the wine glass.

  “Just drank a little too much, my words slipped,” she smiled at me, and that smile made me forget everything that I had been so intent on pursuing. She nodded at me again. “So?”

  “I…” I stared into the fire, which was burning brighter again since I had stoked it after dinner. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her about this. I was sure that somehow, knowing the truth about me, any truth about me, would be enough to drive her away from me. We had both lived in this house for a few days now, getting to know each other on a superficial level, and I wasn’t sure what knowing something deeper about me might make her think.

  But the way she was looking at me, expectant and curious, I knew I couldn’t turn her down. I wanted something deeper with her. I wanted everything I could get with her.

  “I came from this really high-achieving family, you have to know that,” I began, speaking slowly. “Everything I did, they were pushing me from the very start. If I’d had the choice and the cash I’d have come out to this place as soon as I’d left home.”

  “What did you do before this, then?” She demanded, and I could hear an undertone of worry in her voice. Guess she wanted to check that my money was actually good.

  “I ran a publishing company,” I explained. “I pretty much started working in my twenties and then didn’t stop all the way through till a couple of years ago.”

  “And you made good money doing that?” She pressed.

  “Yeah, a lot of money,” I shook my head, remembering the cash that I had pulled in doing that job. Even to me, at the time, it had seemed like so much; I had supposed that towards the end I had started taking it for granted, and that was when that I knew that I had been in this business for way to long. When I took billions as run-of-the-mill, then I was making too much money for my own good.

  “Enough to retire out here for the rest of my life, if I wanted to,” I gestured around this place. Me and my partner, we got the whole thing rolling near the end. It’s still going on now, I’m still making a little money from it, but I just couldn’t face that kind of life anymore.”

  “Your partner?” Her ears pricked up. “Like, romantic, or business?”

  “Business,” I replied, and winced slightly as I thought about what had happened between Jeb and I. “I haven’t thought about him in a long time.”

  “Sore spot?” She wondered aloud, and I realized this was my way straight out of having to continue this conversation and spill anything more about what had gone down in the city to drive me out here for good.

  “Sore spot,” I nodded, and she leaned back into the couch and turned her gaze back to the fire.

&n
bsp; “Publishing, huh?” She looked over at me. “You must love books.”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” I agreed. “I was going to have a library wing built on to this place, but I decided to keep it to e-books instead. Makes more sense.”

  “Right,” she cocked her head at me, a smiling blooming over her face. “You’ll have to introduce me to your collection.

  “I’d love to,” I replied, and she put her wine glass down. It seemed like the two of us had broken through a wall, the first time that either of us had shared anything serious about ourselves. It felt strange now, knowing that she understood about that part of my life. Not the details, just the sketched-in outline, but still – it was something. Her eyes were soft in the low light, the light fading away to nothing outside the windows. We were the only two people in the entire world at that moment, the alcohol making everything feel that much more intense.

  “I’ve been thinking about what we did,” Laurie finally broke the silence, her voice low, and I felt my desire for her crest and burst all at once. I couldn’t resist her. The way she was looking at me, the fact that we were a mere few inches away from each other on the couch, the fact that it felt as though we were the only two people left in the world right now…

  She slid towards me, and my arms reached out for her as though on instinct. Climbing on top of me, her eyes seemed to shine with something darker than before, as she leaned down to press her mouth against mine.

  Chapter Seven

  My heart was racing as I put the moves on him, not that I thought he was going to turn me down, but because I had never done anything like this before and had no idea how I was meant to seduce someone like him.

  His hands sank into my hips as our lips met again, and he let out a soft moan against my mouth – it sounded almost like relief, like he was glad he didn’t have to make the pretence of not wanting me any longer. He pushed his tongue roughly into my mouth, catching me off-guard, and then flipped me around so I was underneath him on the couch. I let out a little squeal of excitement and wrapped my arms around him, tasting the expensive wine on his lips and his tongue and wondering how he was going to use them today.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he breathed into my ear, and it was the sexiest thing he could have said to me; he had been all up in my head these last few days, as I wondered what it would take to get him to make me come the way he had the first time we’d made love. I had lain in bed, basically on fire for him, some part of me wanting to get to my feet and march into his room and remind him that we had a baby to conceive and that we needed to get on that.

  “Me neither,” I replied, and he kissed me again, his hands tracing up my waist and pushing my hands above my head; he pinned them there easily, one strong hand pinning both my wrists to the couch, and he let his other one roam all over my body. He had been so soft and sweet that first time, but I knew that this was going to be different. He had been gentle with me, and now that I was broken in, I was pretty sure that both of us were ready for more.

  He pushed up my skirt and slipped his hand up my thigh, his fingers pinching at my flesh as though he was reminding himself of what it had been like the first time for us. And then, all at once, he was sliding down my body.

  “What are you doing?” I panted as he pulled me around, letting my legs hang off the side of the couch.

  “Spread your legs,” He ordered, and I did as I was told as soon as the words came out of his mouth. He was on his knees in front of me, the fire crackling behind him, picking his outline from behind so that all I could really see was the shape of him. My skirt was flipped up over my hips and I was exposed from the waist down, my belly rising and falling rapidly. He leaned forward, pushing my thighs as far apart as they would go, and planted a soft kiss on my pussy through my panties. I groaned and tipped my head back – I couldn’t take this. There was something inimitably hot about this man, this man who I had never met a sexier version of, wanting me above anyone else.

  “You smell so good,” he murmured, brushing his nose across my inner thigh, and I could only pant with pleasure as I waited for him to go further. I needed more, right now. And finally, finally, he gave it to me.

  He hooked his fingers around my panties and slowly inched them down my legs, looking up at me – I couldn’t much make out the expression on his face in the darkness, the fire still the only thing lighting us, but I could imagine it from the first time we had been together. The way the lust furrowed his brow, tightened his jaw, like he was holding himself down from pushing me down and fucking me hard. I would have to let him know, one of these days, that I wouldn’t mind that at all.

  But for now, all I could focus on were the sensations – the heat of the fire on my bare skin, the warmth of his breath on the inside of my thigh as he kissed his way up my leg, going slow, letting his soft, sweet mouth linger on those sensitive spots that even I hadn’t known had existed before now. He let out a soft moan, as though he was as turned-on by what was about to come as I was.

  Suddenly, he slid his hands beneath my butt and pulled me forward a few inches, and his mouth was all at once so close to my pussy that I could practically feel it. My toes curled against the lush carpet and my teeth clenched as I waited for him to give me what I wanted so badly; he raised his gaze, eyes shining in the dark, and a smile passed over his lips and I knew that he was seeing how long he could make me wait before I gave up and begged him. I pressed my lips together, not giving him the satisfaction, a small part of me wanting to win this twisted little game that he seemed to have going on.

  And then he gave in, pressing his mouth to my pussy and drawing a cry of pleasure from between my lips. His tongue found my clit at once, working in long, slow strokes from my slit all the way up and then down again. He flattened his tongue against me as though determined to taste as much of me as he could all at once, and he let out a sharp breath as he did so. I reached down and nervously raked my nails through his hair, letting him know that this was working for me – I had never been with a guy who seemed to actually enjoy going down on me before, but the way he seemed to let out these soft little moans and groans with every movement told me that this was getting him off as much as it was me.

  He focused his attentions in on my clit, drawing it out and between his lips and sucking lightly as he flicked his tongue against it. His fingers sank into my ass as he drew me on to him, and my breath started coming faster as the pleasure coursed out all over my body. I tipped my head back, letting it rest against the luxurious comfort of the pillows behind me, and closed my eyes, focusing on the way his mouth felt against my pussy. I was already getting wet, and some part of me wanted to pull him away from me and ask him to fuck me again. But for now, I knew that this was too addictive to put a stop to.

  I wasn’t sure how long he was there, between my legs, but he seemed keen to make it clear that he would have spent the rest of the evening there if he could have; he took his time, in rush to make me come, and knowing that he wasn’t pushing me to get somewhere was all I needed to find my way there. I was usually self-conscious about the way my body looked when I was with someone, about how they read my reactions and about how I sounded, but with him all of that seemed to drop away and then only thing that mattered was the feel of his tongue, soft and insistent, against my clit, the knowledge that soon he would be inside of me once more…

  “Oh,” I gasped as the feeling hit me. It took me off-guard, the pleasure suddenly swelling and arcing inside me in a way that made my body crumple with the intensity of it. The feeling seemed to wipr my mind clear, the only thing in the world how good it felt, and how I never wanted this to end. I gripped his hair, hard, holding him in place, as my clit pulsed beneath his deft tongue. He slowly pulled back once I had unclamped my thighs from either side of his face, and he leaned up to kiss me at once, his tongue snaking into my mouth so that I could taste myself on his lips. That reminder, of where he had just been, spiked the pleasure in me once more.

  “Fuck
me,” I gasped, pressing my head against his. “Please, Cormac.”

  “Ask me again,” he murmured, grinning, and he kissed my neck softly, sending another jolt of desire through me. Any pride I had taken in holding back and not letting him get the better of me vanished in that instance, and I knew I would have done anything to get him to give me what I wanted so badly in that moment.

  “Please, Cormac, please,” I breathed, the words pouring out of me like they had been bottled up since the moment I laid eyes on him. “I want to feel you inside me, I need to…”

  “That’s more like it,” He bit my earlobe softly between his teeth and finally seemed satisfied by my desperation, thank goodness. He clambered back up on top of me, quickly unbuckling his pants as he pushed me down into the couch. I could already feel how hard he was, pressing up against me like that, and it sent this jolt of excitement through my entire body knowing how much just eating me out had turned him on. He took his cock in his hand and pressed it against my slit, sliding his other hand up my body and catching my own wrists in his fingers. He held me there, poised beneath him, helpless in the best way possible, and then finally he pushed himself inside of me.

  “Ah!” I cried out. It hurt a tiny bit, just like the first time, but within a moment it mellowed into something sweet and hot and oh, so, good.

  “Fuck,” he growled in my ear, and for a moment it was as though he had lost control, and I felt this desire sweep over me as I thought about how much he wanted me. Enough that his voice seemed ragged around the edges, enough that his breath came fast and that he moved into me hard as soon as he got the chance, as though every second he was around me he was barely holding himself back from this. I wrapped my legs around him, just like I had done last time, and pushed up playfully against the hand that was holding me down. I had imagined it like this – well, maybe not on the couch, but the intensity of it, how much he seemed to need me.

  He fucked me hard, one hand on my hip holding me steady, and I leaned up to kiss him; he pulled back an inch, looking deep into my eyes, before he kissed me properly, pushing his tongue into my mouth and sharing that mingled taste of the two of us once again. I wanted to touch his face, to run my hands over his body, and something about not being able to have that made me pulse with a desire I had never felt before. He was giving me so much but holding back on what I wanted the most, and somehow that was the hottest thing in the world.