by Moira McTark
Getting Friendly
By
Moira McTark
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Getting Friendly
Copyright © 2008 Moira McTark
ISBN: 978-1-60088-223-4
Cover Artist: Sable Grey
Editor: Melanie Noto
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Cobblestone Press, LLC
www.cobblestone-press.com
Dedication
To my husband, Chris, and all the McTarks.
Chapter One
February 14th
Twelve years of friendship. In all that time, he hadn’t done it. And he was not going to kiss her now. Absolutely not.
Matt Reeves clenched his jaw. Standing beside the couch with his best friend, Nichole Drake, folded in his arms, he gripped her an instant longer than platonic allowed.
Shit.
She pressed her body against his and looked up at him, her blue eyes glistening and her damp lashes forming dark points against her creamy skin.
They were friends.
“Matt, tonight is so important to me. My PR company, along with the reputation I’ve worked so hard to build, was going to fall apart.” Her voice, still ragged from the afternoon’s turmoil, had gone husky and thick. “But you’re saving me, like you always do.”
This was gratitude. Misplaced emotion under the guise of attraction, because he’d offered to bail her out of a jam. She was looking at him as if he were a hero, and that was enough to send stray signals to the wrong organ. Gratitude and relief. Appreciation. Nothing more. To allow himself to get lost in the crystalline depths of her eyes and her soft, parted lips, so pink and full, to give in to the folly of temptation, would be a disservice to the both of them.
She was his best friend. His love ’em and leave ’em best friend who he would never give in to loving, so the invariable consequence would never be an issue.
Her fists, tucked between them, unfurled against his chest.
He gritted his teeth. He’d resisted temptation all these years. He could resist now.
He bunched the fabric of her shirt in his hands and cinched his arm around her more tightly. Her head angled back as she rose. Her fingers curved over his shoulders—and he rubbed his hands roughly over her back, effectively replacing the previous embrace with a bear hug.
“Nichole, it’s okay,” he said, forcing the strain from his voice. “I’ll always help you. That’s what friends are for.”
She stiffened against him as he chafed his palms over her shoulders and pushed her back a step. She bowed her head, and he silently willed her to play along and stop looking at him like she wanted his mouth on her.
When he tilted her face to his, he caught a fleeting glimpse of hurt in her gaze before it turned bright and cheery. She might have wanted him for that one split second, but it was only a moment of vulnerability due to stress, brought on by equating the importance of one night to the success of her career. That, coupled with this obnoxious hearts-and-roses holiday, was all that lay behind her smoky gaze and momentary lapse in judgment. Every retailer in the world used Valentine’s Day to make single people feel like shit if they didn’t have a date to buy them an expensive gift. As much as Matt strove to accommodate Nichole in all things, a romp in the sack wouldn’t be one of them. Friendships were lost when friends fell into bed together. She’d be glad he stopped when he did—and once the ache in his chest disappeared, he’d be glad, too.
“You’re right. That’s what friends are for.” She nodded, her eyes clearing along with the tension inside the room. One corner of her mouth pulled up, and she arched her brow at him. “I just hope you still feel friendly toward me after you put on the outfit I need you to wear tonight. Are you sure about this?”
Matt nodded. The guy she’d hired for the event had broken his leg an hour ago, and Nichole had been frantic about the show being ruined. Of course Matt would help. He’d look silly waltzing around dressed like Eros in some droopy toga with wings and a frilly crossbow, but he was willing to do it for Nichole.
He grazed her chin with a faux knock of his knuckles and smiled down at her. “Of course, I’m sure. How bad can it be?”
Two hours later, he knew.
“I’m going to kill you.” Matt glowered into the full-length mirror, speaking to the sliver of T-shirt and gray sweats visible behind him. Dread sank into his knotted gut. By Nichole’s hand, he’d become Eros, the Gigolo. It was humiliation in the extreme.
Nichole’s long red nails crept over his shoulders, and her slender arms followed to link around his neck. Her intense blue eyes, flashing with impish glee, peeked up over his shoulder to meet his gaze in their reflection. “Oh, please. As if a few little things like skin-tight red short-shorts and strap-on wings could ever come between us. Where’s your mythological enthusiasm, you hunky god of love, you?”
“I thought the costume was a toga or something. I didn’t realize I would be so…exposed.”
“Think of it as a swimsuit, only smaller and tighter.”
“I wear trunks.”
“Maybe you should reconsider your choice of suits, because this looks hot.” She shook her head. She was enjoying this entirely too much. “Besides, it’s part of the theme. You’re Eros. What did you expect?”
“Right,” he said. In the name of appreciation, the least she could do was pretend to feel bad about it. Obviously, she didn’t. “Eros always drives his chariot around Club Kink wearing red briefs and shooting sprays of rubbers instead of arrows out of his bow. How is it I didn’t get these details until I’d already agreed to do it? And why am I still going through with it now that I know?”
He looked ridiculous. Why couldn’t he have been some couch potato with a beer belly, pasty skin, and big, squishy candy drop nipples?
She walked around him and adjusted the fabric of his shorts. “Because I might lose my business if tonight isn’t a success. Your inability to cope with my tears, begging, and self-pity—the spirit of friendship and all. Plus, by filling in as my replacement Love God, you get to be my hero.”
Matt grunted. Hero. Well, it was nice at least one woman thought of him that way. The girl he’d broken up with only a few weeks ago certainly hadn’t. Peg had called him a coward. But he disregarded that statement because she’d also claimed he was in love with Nichole—which was absurd. He cared about Nichole and loved her as a friend. Sure, he had to fight a physical attraction from time to time, but was he in love with her? No. That was crazy. From both a credibility and an ego standpoint, he deferred to Nichole’s better judgment.
Her ripple of barely suppressed laughter caught his nerves, and he leveled her with a glare. “You don’t have to giggle. I’m not that desperate to feed my hero complex.”
What a lie.
“Fine. This gets you off the hook for a birthday present for me this year. Is that better?” Her scrutinizing gaze dragged over him. It was unnerving. He felt like he should flex.
She smirked. “I’d say you pass muster.”
Then, with a dismissive wave, she turned and crossed the living room to where she’d tossed her PR binder on the coffee table. She flipped it open and casually leafed through the pages. “Seeing you in all your splendor sort of makes me wish you’d penetrate me with your big love arrow.”
The second smirk she threw over her shoulder promised him that she was playing, bu
t after what had happened—no, almost happened—between them earlier this afternoon, it was all Matt could do not to groan out loud. His cock swelled within his tight polyester shorts and, clenching his jaw, he tried to banish the elaborate fantasies his brain conjured up of Nichole wetting her lip, looking anything but contrite, and telling him to penetrate her.
What the fuck was the matter with him? This wasn’t supposed to happen between them. Yes, she was a notorious flirt—her teasing banter was always thick with innuendo. But until a few months ago, none of it had gotten to him. Now that she lived with him, however, when there was nowhere for him to run and hide, it suddenly took next to nothing to get a rise out of him.
A glance down at his straining cock noted the case in point. He forced himself to calm down and willed the blood back up to his head. Ultimately, it was the sight of those pitiful red shorts that worked the flaccid magic, and just in the nick of time. Nichole’s attention had been so focused on the PR for the club opening that she’d missed the whole show.
Lucky break.
With a resigned sigh, Matt picked up the rest of his costume and shrugged it on. The three-foot wide wings were secured to his back by thick leather straps crossing his chest. Eros was apparently into bondage. Only for Nichole would he suffer through this.
He shot her a glare. “I ought to spank you.”
“Promises, promises.” She winked at him and then softened, turning serious.
Her stare lingered, their eyes locked, and he fought the recurrent need to pull her into his arms, take her mouth, and back her against the wall. He could almost feel her legs slide around his hips, her mouth and body move in sweet surrender to him—
Down boy!
Why the hell had he suggested she move in with him? If he’d known what having his townhouse saturated in her pheromones would do to him, he never would have come up with such an “excellent” idea in the first place. At the time, sharing the place had made sense. Her lease was up, and his roommate had just moved cross country for a new job. Her moving in seemed mutually beneficial, and no other two people got along as well as they did. Hell, they spent part of almost every day together anyway. Why not share the rent?
Why not? Because for months now—ever since that damn morning when everything changed—he’d been fighting the need to sink his cock into her, and he knew the fallout from that would be devastating. Nichole was notoriously fickle. She didn’t know how to have a long-term relationship, and she evaded commitment with the determination of a lifelong bachelorette. With the exception of his brother, Jack, who she’d been seeing since high school, she never maintained a relationship with any guy once the romance was over. Not even when he’d been a friend first.
His gut knotted thinking about the last friend she’d dated. It had taken that sad sap years to get over Nichole, and friends was about as far from what they were now as two people could get. But then, a restraining order and Matt’s fists had a tendency to come between people.
Nothing would come between him and Nichole. He wouldn’t let it.
She meant more to him than anyone. This crush, or lust, or infatuation—whatever the hell it was he felt for her—would pass like it always did. Like it had for twelve long years. He would be strong, just like always. Controlled. Restrained. He wouldn’t give.
He adjusted the too-small red shorts in the hopes of finding more coverage. Fuck.
Nichole scuffed her foot and then spoke softly, with no silliness, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Nickie. I’m always glad to help. It’s no big deal—so don’t look so serious. Give me one of your smiles.”
A gorgeous grin split her face, and she leaned back against the arm of the couch. How the hell could she look so enticing in a pair of baggy gray sweat pants and a ratty old pizza parlor T-shirt with holes around the collar? The no-bra element of her ensemble might have played a part, but damn, she looked good in everything.
She raised her arms over head in a languid stretch, and her breasts rose against the threadbare garment. Matt’s body burned. His mouth went dry. His brain shut down and relinquished power to the substation below his belt.
Carefully modulating his voice, he said, “You’ve got to get rid of that T-shirt, babe.”
Quirking one eyebrow—another hard-on trigger—she dropped her hands to pull at the cotton stretched across her breasts. “But you gave it to me, and it’s so comfy.”
Comfy and thin. He could see every ridge and bump of her nipples. God help him, she needed to get out of that provocative thing before he forgot how much her mind and heart meant to him, and he ravaged her body.
“Don’t you have to get dressed?”
“Yeah. The limo will be here in about ten minutes. Just give me a sec.”
—
Nichole headed into her bedroom and closed the door. With an inch gap left, she paused, rested her forehead against the frame, and took one last glance at Matt, savoring the view.
He scowled that perpetually sexy scowl of his, cursing at the thick leather strapped across his well defined chest.
She swallowed hard, thinking about his bare skin and all those layered muscles under her fingertips. She’d been reckless. Unable to keep her hands to herself, she’d used every lame excuse she could think of to touch him. The costume itself probably consisted of less than six inches of actual fabric, and she’d found a way to fiddle with and straighten every millimeter of it.
Cheap feels, that’s what she’d taken. She’d be ashamed if they hadn’t been so worth it. Besides, Matt hadn’t even noticed. He was too pissed off about the skimpy getup she’d packed him in to realize she’d all but mauled him.
She should feel guilty, objectifying someone she cared about so much. But Matt was heart-stopping hot; built tall and lean, with chiseled muscles that attested to his love of the outdoors. She was beyond restraint. Forces outside her control fueled the insanity of her lust. It was Valentine’s Day. Everywhere she turned, posters and commercials advertised products with the backdrop of passion that threatened to burn out of control. Diamonds, perfume, stuffed animals and greeting cards—she couldn’t turn around without a reminder that she, too, longed for a lingering stare and tentative touch filled with the promise of seduction.
Matt had inadvertently been feeding her fantasy file ever since they’d decided to share the apartment. When he walked around in a towel, with drops of water clinging to the forbidden stretch of curls beneath his navel, or stretched after a game of hoops at the gym with the guys—her mouth all but watered. How was she supposed to think when the bulk of his muscular shoulders and biceps rotated, bunched, and extended in front of her?
Of course, Matt had no idea how he affected her. He had no idea she had to change her panties after catching him with one arm braced against the freezer door as he drank orange juice straight from the carton. Or that she had nearly orgasmed when she found him shirtless under the sink in the kitchen, his jeans loose around his hips, his abdominal muscles flexing as he worked the wrench. Or that she’d abused one battery operated friend after another, desperate to find enough relief to help her actually fall asleep.
He had no idea, because they were just friends—and she’d learned long ago that Matt didn’t want anything more. Back in college, she’d gotten up her nerve to broach the subject, and she’d gotten so far as to rest her palm against his chest and ask if he’d ever thought about the two of them together. Matt had shut her down with a single word response. No. Then he’d given her a hug and walked out of her room.
She’d accepted it and moved on. Mostly.
They were friends…best friends…lifelong, touchy-feely friends, she rationalized, knowing full well that every time she knocked him in the arm or rested her hand against his shoulder to lean in and tell him a secret, or pressed her cheek against his forehead to test his skin for a fever, which was her worst offense to date—the guy hadn’t even been sick—it was only an excuse to touch h
im. To feel the sizzle across her skin, the simmer in her belly, that accompanied the slightest contact. But all the games were about to end.
He’d almost kissed her tonight. As she stood within the circle of his arms, she’d known with complete certainty that he was only a hair’s breadth away from giving in. He hadn’t acted on the impulse, but at least physically, to some degree, he had wanted her.
He wanted her, she wanted him—and knowing that, she came to a decision. Come hell or high water, she would get Matt into her bed. Getting this sexual need for him out of her system before she went crazy was the only way their friendship could survive.
Chapter Two
Nichole’s bedroom door swung open, and she strode out dressed for the gig. She was the only woman in the world who could primp in less time than it took Matt to get ready. Someone upstairs had it in for him.
She was difficult enough to resist in the clothes she normally bummed around in; the suits she wore to meetings, even her ugly, fluffy, antacid-pink robe looked hot. Her outfit tonight, however, spoke to his senses on a level he couldn’t deny.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
If possible, her outfit revealed more than his did. She was dressed in a filmy white toga style dress that was knotted over one shoulder and cinched in with a bright red band under her bust. Folds of sheer fabric stretched over the creamy mounds of her breasts and did little to hide the rosy outline of her nipples.
It didn’t end there. When she walked a turn for him, the tempting curves of her firm ass and the barest hint of red silk panties flashed below the criminally short skirt with every step. Red ribbons snaked up her calves, securing her delicately-heeled sandals.
He couldn’t think.
She arched her eyebrow. “Well?”
“You need a sweater. Christ, Nichole, you can’t go out like that.” His voice was low and gravelly. The images flooding his mind were hot and powerful. Images of her beneath him, her ribbon-clad calves hooked over his shoulders as he buried himself deep inside her. God, this was Nichole. He’d fantasized about her, sure. But she’d never made his fantasies seem chaste before. “Look, how about you wear that red cocktail dress—?”