Roomies with Benefits

by Amy Brent

  She emerged from the shower, and took her seat at the table behind me, the same one that I had lifted her on to when I’d first found out about the pregnancy; I could remember it now, the conflict so present and pressing in my head.

  “Hey,” I greeted her. “Nice shower?”

  “Amazing,” she sighed. “I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere with such good water pressure before.”

  “Good,” I grinned, and then sat down opposite her as she went to help herself to the food.

  “This looks excellent,” She sighed, and then took a big bite of some of the bread and closed her eyes as though to savour it. “Mmm. That’s so good.”

  “Good,” I watched her for a moment, reaching for the coffee pot that I had put out and pouring myself a generous dose. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell her this, but I knew I needed to get it out if we were going to be together properly.

  “So,” I began, and she raised her gaze to mine, eyes wide, as though she was nervous about whatever it was I was about to say. I knew how she felt. Sometimes, when I was around her, I felt as though my head was spinning out of control, like my entire life was twisting and turning to find some way to fit her into it.

  “What’s up?” She prompted me. I looked down at my hands and then back up at her. I had done such an exceptionally good job of pretending than none of this had ever happened, these last few months, but now that she was here in front of me and I was going to have to face up to it, I felt uneasy.

  “Laurie, I really like you,” I blurted out all at once. She smiled and took my hand.

  “I really like you too,” she admitted, and I felt my stomach clench at her words. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed to hear them before now.

  “But there’s something I need to tell you,” I bowed my hand, looking at our linked fingers on the table in front of me; what they represented gave me the strength to go on, even though I didn’t want to.

  “A while ago,” I began, speaking hesitantly. I had never had to speak this story out loud and in some ways it felt as though I was speaking it into existence. But I pushed on, knowing that I had to do this.

  “When I was back in the city, I was dating this woman, Julia,” I explained, disconnecting from the words that were coming out of my mouth as best I could so I could just get the story out. “And I was working with this guy, Jeb – we’d known each other since college and we started the business together, this catering business, and it had just started to really take off. We were doing really well and I was with her and I worked with him and it was all…yeah, it was all pretty good.”

  “Right,” she nodded, looking slightly confused, as though she couldn’t figure out why I’d be telling her this story.

  “Julia and I ended up engaged,” I went on, and the rest of the story came pouring out of my mouth as though it had been barely stored up inside me all this time.

  I remembered it vividly, even now – the two of us at that restaurant, having just made the first million, feeling like nothing in the world could take me down or stop me. That, right there, was a feeling I wasn’t sure I would ever truly get over. It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t the business, but it was the feeling that all of this was just going right somehow, like I had earned all of this after pouring so much time and effort and energy into my life. I had worked my butt off for years, and now it was finally coming back around to pay off.

  I had been with Julia was three years at that point, and I was so sure she was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Why wouldn’t I? She was smart, charming, clever – sure, she had always had that slightly callous side that I had never liked, but that was just who she was, part of her upbringing as part of a family who had worked in business their entire lives and needed to be a little hard around the edges. It wasn’t some terrible reflection on her, I had always promised myself, even when she would sneer at a waitress or snap at a delivery guy or look blankly down at the gifts I’d given her as though they were the last things in the world she’d wanted. She was just a product of how she’d been brought up and I wasn’t allowed to hold that against her.

  But there I was, sure that this woman was the one for me, and when she accepted my proposal it just sealed the deal. Now there would be no arguing with it. Now we would be together forever, and I would just ignore the little pit of doubt in my stomach that told me she wasn’t as good a person as she liked to make herself out to be. It had nothing to do with her, I assured myself – just some leftover insecurity from being the lonely kid at high school.

  Jeb had slapped me on the shoulder and congratulated me straight to my face when he had found out, an act which looking back I found galling. But it had been different with him. I really thought he was a good person, that he would always have my back when I needed him to, and finding out that wasn’t the case…well, it damn near ripped me in half. But Jeb, back then, had been my man, my intellectual other half, the guy who ran my business with me, the guy I trusted more than anyone in the world. He was a hard worker, like me, and the two of us shared the same values; honesty, integrity, decency.

  And the business was thriving so much that I didn’t really mind when Jeb stepped in on occasion to take Julia out to dinner, to cover my dates when I would be out doing something else more important. He was my best friend, after all, and I was lucky that him and Julia got on so well; I had heard so many stories of people who had to choose between their partners and their friends, and it was such a relief that neither of them put me in that situation. So I ignored that nagging little something at the back of my mind, that something that told me there was something fishy going on, and went about my life. The business exploded, and before I knew it we were talking in millions, billions, more. I was rich beyond my wildest dreams, and maybe part of that was because I knew there was something wrong at home and wanted to avoid going back to the apartment as much as I could. Sometimes, the thought of being in that cold, huge place, with just Julia for company, was practically impossible to stomach. But at least I knew Jeb would step in where I needed him, so she wouldn’t notice the difference. Would she?

  One of those nights I did come back to the apartment, after I’d told her I was staying late. It was on a whim, when I realized that it had been weeks since I had come back when I said I would, and I felt guilty for neglecting her; she’d started to feel distant and I knew that it had to be down to the fact that I was at the office all the time, instead of helping her with the wedding planning.

  And when I opened the door back to my place, I knew my entire life as I knew it was over.

  The two of them were there, on the couch, unarguably together. They were both naked, he was on top, and the both of them looked up at the same moment with the precise same look of nearly comical horror in their eyes. I would have laughed, had it not been for the fact that my best friend was fucking the person I was meant to marry.

  What happened after all of that was still something of a blur, even a year later. I knew that there was a whole lot of yelling, accusation, recriminations, that she blamed me for it even though she was the one fucking him. He tried to make excuses and apologise, but I wouldn’t hear it. How could I? I thought he was like me, I thought he was good and decent, and now here he was sleeping with the one woman who was off-limits to him. He had always been a thrillseeker, but this too much. It had been going on since before we got engaged, I found out, so when he’d looked me in the eye and told me that he was happy for me, he was probably thinking about the exact position he was going to fuck her in as soon as he got the chance.

  And that’s when I’d moved out of the city. How could I stay there, knowing what the two of them had done to me? Everywhere I went I was reminded of the betrayal that they’d meted out on me, and I found myself going over and over in my mind what I could have done differently to keep it from happening. Even though I knew there was nothing. They had made the decision to destroy my life between them, and it had nothing and everything to do with me.

 
; So I handed over control of the company to a man I trusted to run it in my absence, and I’d come all the way out here to live by myself. I was sure that I would grow tired of it eventually, that I would want to go back and be near my friends and family again, but I didn’t. I kept in touch with them online where I could, but I found that my life was richer for just living it for myself.

  I finished up what I was saying, and felt as though I had run a marathon. I was actually out of breath. I looked down at her hand on mine, and wondered how in the world I’d kept it in for so long; it was like I’d been saving it for her all this time, without knowing it.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed as soon as I was done. She was staring at me, jaw hanging open, like I had just told her the most insane story she’d ever heard in her life.

  “And I’m telling you all of this,” I finished up, remembering that there had been a reason for this painful rehashing of the past. “Because I need you…I need you to know that I’m going to be honest with you. If we’re going to be together properly, and I want to be with you every way I can, then I need you to know what I’ve been through.”

  “Right,” she nodded, eyes still wide, as the words sunk in.

  “I need you to be honest with me,” I met her gaze steadily. “I can’t deal with people who lie to me or hide things from me, you understand?”

  “I understand,” she replied, but she paused for just a moment before the words to come out of her mouth. I hooked on to that silence, my brain running away with it before she could speak again. Was she keeping something from me? She hadn’t told me why she had been so keen to get away from her life back in the city, and I knew there had to be something back there if she had been so keen to get out of there.

  “After what happened with my ex, you know that I’m not going to be able to handle it if someone new starts lying to me,” I stared at her intently. I wanted to give her to chance to come out and tell me the truth, but she seemed determined to keep her mouth shut.

  “I get it,” She squeezed my hand, furrowing her brow. “I can’t believe that they would do that to you.”

  “Me neither,” I chuckled mirthlessly, and took a sip of my coffee. I felt a little better now, lighter, like I didn’t have all that weighing me down any longer.

  “So, what about you?” I asked, looking up at her as she bit into a strawberry. I was momentarily distracted by the way that her lips looked against the soft red of the fruit, but then I focused back on the task at hand. She chewed and swallowed slowly, her eyes sliding away from mine.

  “What about me?”

  “I mean, what about your exes?” I asked. “You said you hadn’t been with anyone before me-”

  “I was telling the truth,” she replied, a little too quickly. “I mean, I dated a few people before you but…but nothing serious. And I never slept with any of them.”

  “You know I wouldn’t mind if you had, right?” I cocked an eyebrow, and she looked down at the fruit on the plate in front of her.

  “I know,” she replied softly. “I just wanted you to know that you’re my first.”

  She bit her lip and looked up at me, and as soon as she did that I knew I was done for. I knew I should have pressed the topic further, maybe tried to get the truth out of her, but I also knew that I wanted nothing more than to take her right there over the breakfast table.

  “Come here,” I murmured, and I leaned forward and kissed her hard on the mouth. She tasted sweet, lightly of strawberries, and I forgot about everything that I’d been meaning to get out of her as I moved around the table and pulled her upright. I wanted to be gentle with her, wanted to be careful with this woman who was carrying my baby, but I was also so desperate for her that it was hard to keep it in my pants.

  She wasn’t wearing much, just a shirt and a pair of my boxers, and I was glad for it because I needed her naked, right now. I lifted her up on to the counter and planted her down, and she let out this little squeal of delight as I did so. The plates that I had left out clattered around her and I paid them no attention. As long as I had her, nothing else mattered.

  I kneeled down and pulled the boxers off her long legs, tossing them to the side, and then pushed her legs apart and looked as her freshly-washed pussy. The first time I had gone down on her was still one of the most prized memories I had of our time together; the way she rocked against me in front of the fire, the way her body had wriggled and writhed back and forth under my touch. I craved the taste of her, more than I did any of the food on the table behind us.

  I kissed quickly up the inside of her thigh, but I had no intention of teasing her this morning. No, I just wanted to make her come, and then fuck her. I wanted this fast and hard and now, just like it had been the night before. Now that the stressful part of this morning was over, now that I had told her the truth, I was ready to reward myself.

  I pressed my mouth against her clean, warm pussy, and the noise that she made was a good enough incentive for me to spill my guts to her all over again. I found her clit at once, stroking sideways back and forth over it with my tongue a few times before I drew it into my mouth and sucked softly. She shuddered and I lightened my touch, knowing at once when it was too intense for her. I couldn’t believe that only a day or so before I’d been trying to talk myself out of this. The taste of her, the sounds she made, all of this was worth any amount of my own rules that I had to break. I just wished I could have accepted how much I wanted her from the start, so we could have been doing this from the first moment she was through the door.

  I sucked softly on her clit, flicking my tongue against it every now and then, my hands resting on the inside of her thighs as I contentedly lost myself between her legs. Had anyone ever tasted as sweet as her? The strawberries on her lips had nothing on this, on how incredible it felt to feel her scent fill my mouth.

  “Mmm,” she sighed from above me, stroking her hands through my hair, letting her nails drag over my scalp lightly as I ate her out mercilessly. Her hands moved down, tracing over my shoulders and my upper back, and I pried her legs open a little further so I could take more of her pussy into my mouth. She was addictive. I wonder if she knew.

  I wasn’t sure how long I was down there, between her legs, but I knew that I would have stayed all day long if that was what it had taken to get her there; as it was, it didn’t take long for her legs to begin to tremble and her body to start to shake as she clamped her thighs around my face and rocked her hips back and forth against me and then, all at once…

  “Ah, fuck,” She moaned, breathing the words as though she didn’t want me to catch her cursing; she pushed my head away at once, already over sensitized by the feel of my tongue against her. I knew how she felt. Sometimes, when I was around her, it was hard not to feel as though every touch was too much to bear.

  I got to my feet, quickly unzipping my pants and pulling out my cock; it was such a relief to be able to go raw into her, not to have to worry about going to grab a condom or fiddling around with contraception. There was something so reckless, so exciting, about just being able to take her however and whenever I wanted. I grabbed her leg as I stood up, and she seemed to have the same idea as me as she lifted it and hooked it over my shoulder. I took hold of her hips and yanked them towards me, and pushed inside her in one hard motion.

  She slumped against me on that first thrust, as though she had been craving this all day and was now satisfied, but I was so far from done with her yet – the angle that her leg position was allowing me was utterly crazy, deeper than I’d ever been inside her before, and the way her gorgeously tight cunt seemed to flex and spread to take my dick was one of the most singularly hot things I’d ever felt in my life. I moved fast as she pressed her face to my chest, her breath coming in short, sharp, desperate little bursts.

  I grabbed her hair, tugging it back, so she was looking up at me, and kissed her again, my tongue snaking hungrily into her mouth and her breasts pressing up against me even through the shirt she was wearing. She plante
d her hands against my chest and used that as leverage, grinding back against me as best she could, taking me even deeper, and I groaned into her mouth and bit her bottom lip between my teeth. How could she feel this good? How could it always be this good?

  “Are you close?” She breathed in my ear. “I want you to come inside of me…”

  “Fuck, Laurie,” I growled, this time biting her earlobe. Those words alone were almost my undoing, knowing that she wanted to feel my seed inside of her, but I held out for a few more moments, slowing down, determined to make her come again before I did. She let out a groan that seemed to come from the back of her throat, and then I felt her pussy contract again, pulling me in, holding me there, milking me. And only then, when I knew that she had climaxed once more, did I allow myself to come as well.

  “Fuck!” I cried out, tipping my head back and holding her steady as I came inside of her. The feeling was an intense gut-punch of pleasure – making her come was always what did it for me, and there was something undeniably sexy about knowing she was so eager for this that she would do it on the kitchen counter. I held myself there inside her for a long moment, savouring how good it felt, before I slid my cock out of her and offered her a hand to help her down from the counter. She took it with a giggle, swaying slightly as she landed back on her feet, and she looked up at me with something I had never seen before in her eyes.

  She leaned up suddenly and kissed me, and the feel of her mouth on mine – so sweet given what the two of us had just done – was something more intense than I had been prepared for. It was just…how could she do this to me? It was one thing for her to make my heart sing like it never had before, and it was one thing for her to fuck me in ways I’d never thought I would, but for her to do both with such ease so close together…it seemed like she was some kind of impossibility, dropped out of the sky and at my feet, and I was falling for her harder than I should have been.