Green: a friends to lovers romantic comedy

by Kayley Loring

  “You have no idea what I’ll be and neither do I—yet.” The elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

  We walked down the hall to our suite at a brisk pace, wordlessly, without touching, both of us practically vibrating with desire.

  As soon as he opened the door, he lifted me up and pinned me against the wall behind it, his bent knee positioned between my legs to hold me in place while he tore my blouse open. I let out a loud gasp before grabbing onto his thick sexy hair and smashed my lips against his. He undid my jeans with ease and his determined hand was inside my brand new panties.

  He groaned, his voice deeper than I’d ever heard it before. “You sure you aren’t turned-on by jealous assholes? You telling me it was that other guy who made you this wet?”

  I bit his lower lip. He hissed and slid another taunting finger inside of me.

  “Tell me.”

  I shook my head and lowered it. He brushed my hair aside and held my face up with one hand so I could look directly into his dark, hooded eyes.

  “You like being with me like this?”

  I nodded. I didn’t know yet if my brain liked this side of him, but my body was not keeping any secrets from either of us. I finally understood what it meant to be turned-on. My whole body was awake and ready and powered-up, but only for Theo. As strange as it was for me to see him act so possessive of me, my body was his to possess and it had no problem with that.

  He carried me over to the bedroom, lay me down on the bed and pulled my jeans off faster than I’ve ever managed to. He reached back to pull that Henley shirt off over his head, and dropped his jeans to the floor, stepping out of them, crawling towards me and then hovering over me like he was about to do a push-up. I looked down to see the massive bulge in his boxer briefs, and gulped.

  He grinned, lowered himself down and kissed me. He swiftly maneuvered me around so that he was sitting up and I was straddling him. His hand squeezed my breast and his finger traced around my nipple. He licked it through the lacy bra, gently tugging at it with his teeth.

  It wasn’t until we’d slowed down to kiss and touch each other with less fiery anger that it occurred to me that Theo may have been getting me all riled-up so that I wouldn’t feel nervous about this. It had worked. Until now.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about right now—stop it.” he grumbled, as he reached around to unhook my bra.

  “I think I just forgot how to do this,” I whispered.

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “Because all of a sudden I can’t remember how to do anything else.”

  From the way he consumed my breasts once they were fully exposed, I believed him. And I completely forgot that I was ever nervous. I leaned back and let him take me, devour me, any way he wanted to.

  Eventually, his mouth traveled down from the top of my ribcage, to my belly, and then he licked and exhaled warm breath over my panties before taking hold of them with his teeth and pulling them down to my knees. He used one hand to drag them off the rest of the way, positioned himself between my legs, looked up at my bare lady bits, growled and muttered: “You should probably order up a movie and room service, I’ll be busy down here for a couple of hours.”

  Hah. A couple of hours. The five times that Andrew went down on me he spent less than a minute tickling me with his tongue and then looking at me like he deserved a medal. What could Theo possibly do down there for a couple of hours?

  Answer: A lot.

  He did a lot.

  Maybe not for two hours, but for a long time.

  All that restraint he showed on the plane was replaced with hungry, urgent sucking and licking and swirling and flicking and thrusting, like his life depended on it. I made such a crumpled mess of the linens as I traveled on my back, up and down the bed, gripping onto the sheets, the pillows, the headboard, clinging to the bedspread with my toes, arching my back and crashing back down again. I may have lost consciousness at one point, and I actually thought I was going to die, because how could I go on living after experiencing so much intense physical pleasure from someone I cared about so deeply? He brought me to the brink so many times before letting me come, and afterwards I was just jelly, but I lay there knowing that I would have no trouble at all accommodating this guy’s huge erection.

  I was right. He started slow. I wrapped one leg around him, held on tight to his biceps and opened my eyes because I wanted to see what he looked like now that he was actually inside of me. He was so beautiful. His long dark eyelashes fluttered as he winced. Once he was all the way in, he began thrusting, and my eyes stayed wide open because holy fuck I was feeling things I had never felt before, in parts of me that I didn’t even know existed. I do mean that metaphorically, but also literally. Physically. Gynecologically. I had no idea a dick could fill me up and penetrate so deep inside of me.

  Chloe was right—it didn’t matter how little experience I’d had while we were actually fucking because Theo was doing most of the work. I just tried not to pass out.

  I was panting when he suddenly sat up on his knees and said huskily: “Let’s see if those yoga classes are paying off.”

  I tried to open my eyes and lift my head up. “What?” There’s more?

  His hand slid down my thigh and calf to my ankle and swiftly pushed my left leg to the side and then up to rest on his shoulder. “Well done,” he grinned. “Namaste.” When he pressed himself against the back of my leg, coming at me from a new angle, I was done. Or was I undone?

  His touch was strong and gentle. I felt weak and empowered beneath him. He was the Theo that I had always known and loved, but he was also someone new. I was more me than ever, but I also wasn’t. I was just a body. A stunned, happy body. I felt everything and nothing and too much and not enough. I wanted more, to disappear into him. He raised my other leg up, and moaned, as though he was feeling things he had never felt before, though surely he had.

  He flipped me around so I was facing the headboard, pulled me up and back so I was on my knees, and entered me from yet another new angle that I hadn’t experienced before. I held onto the headboard, he held onto my hips, and I have no idea how loud I was or if I was actually forming words, but I could not keep quiet as he slammed into me.

  Stamina. Endurance. Pacing. Grace. These are the qualities that made Theo a fantastic marathon runner, and it turned out they are also the qualities that make him a fanfuckingtastic lover. How could anyone be so good at this at twenty-five and be a CEO of his own company? That was the second-to-last clear thought I remember having before he grabbed onto my shoulders and told me that he was going to come. My last thought was Thank God, and then I just dissolved into an epic orgasmic oblivion as he made the sexiest sound I had ever heard in my life.

  I didn’t have the strength to turn my head and watch him when he walked to the bathroom, in all his sweaty naked glory, but I really really wanted to.

  Ohhhh Laaawdy. I was mentally fanning myself. Sex is amazing. I never had any idea what I was missing.

  I was so pissed.

  All this time I could have been feeling like that?

  I wanted more. I wanted it all the time. It was shocking to me that people who had this kind of sex would ever stop it to do anything else. How do other things even get done in this world when people could be doing that?

  I realized that I had fallen asleep, that Theo had fallen asleep in bed beside me, and although my body was quite exhausted and thoroughly satisfied, I was now wide awake. This was my chance. I carefully lifted the sheet up from his body and tossed it down to the foot of the bed, exposing him completely.

  And I stared.

  I stared down at his totally naked body, finally allowing myself to fully appreciate the beauty of it. The smooth golden skin, the broad shoulders that inspired confidence, the firm rounded biceps that made me want to grab on and never let go while he plowed away at me.

  “See anything you like?” he asked, eyes still closed, smirking.

  “I’m seeing everything that I like.”


  I squealed when he suddenly reached out to grab me. He rolled on top of me and pushed the mess of wavy hair out of my face. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “No,” I giggled. “It wasn’t nearly as awful as I feared it would be.”

  He laughed and kissed my neck. “Ready to go again?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He pulled back. “Can I just say one thing to my best friend Grandma Kelly for a sec?”

  “You may proceed.” I waved my hand in front of my face and gave him a friendly smile.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “But I need to tell you about this woman I’m dating.”

  I scrunched up my face. “Do you have to?”

  “Yeah. Because I’m going to be spending a lot of time with her from now on and I don’t want you to feel left out.”

  “What makes you so sure she wants to spend a lot of time with you too?”

  “Because I see the way she looks at me and I can feel how wet I make her.”

  I punched his beautiful firm rounded bicep.

  “I hope to be with both of you at the same time someday.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “What, like a threesome?”

  “Well that’s not what I was thinking, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Okay.” I swiped my hand back up over my face and gave him a sexy frown. At least I hoped it was sexy. “Grandma Kelly’s got to go.”

  “Just give her a message for me. Tell her I still love her in the way that I always have but now I’m falling for this other woman in ways that I didn’t know were possible.”

  Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop saying such amazing things and looking so cute and touching me all the time like you can’t get enough of me.

  “Also I need to know one thing, just one thing.”

  Yes. I’m in love with you. Don’t make me say it or I’ll start ugly crying and you’ll never want to have sex with me again

  “DiCaprio or Damon? Come on, just tell me. If you had to pick one of them which would it be?”

  “You. I’d pick you. Every time.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d just said such a cheesy thing out loud, but the way his eyelids fluttered, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like he was holding back emotions, the way he held me even tighter—it was worth it. I was mortified, but it was worth it.

  “You don’t have to look so scared. My heart was always yours to break, Gem. You can do it now or you can do it later. But at least believe me when I say that the last thing I’d ever want to do is break yours.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “You believe me?”

  I nodded my head.

  He traced the tip of his index finger down the center of my torso from between my collarbone to my belly button, along the vertical line that had become more defined in recent months.

  “I like this,” he said, tracing his fingertip back up again. “You know what this is called?”

  “An ab crack?”

  “The linea alba. Not everyone has this. It’s genetic. Like dimples.”

  “Really? I thought I worked for it.”

  His finger wandered down to my nipple, lightly circling it. “I like this too.” He placed his whole hand on my breast and squeezed before kissing me there and everywhere, as promised.

  “I really do like every part of you.”

  “Good. Because it’s all yours.”

  19

  Theo

  We kissed. For five minutes or five hours. We kissed as lovers, we kissed as friends, we kissed like hungry desperate strangers, until our lips were swollen and numb and raw, and she fell asleep beneath me.

  It would have been a huge blow to my ego if we hadn’t already fucked three times. To be honest, I needed the break. She was insatiable. And I just wanted to lie there beside her, to stare at the becoming shape of her, in the half-light, and enjoy the nearness of her for as long as I could before either of us started to get nervous about things changing.

  I’m usually obsessed with time. As a runner, you’re constantly aware of it—race timing, recovery time, beats per minute. As a techpreneur, you have to be aware of your burn down schedule—how much longer your money will last versus how many days until the product launches. But when I was with Gemma, for the most part, I was just with Gemma. All I was aware of was her. Even when we’ve got the TV on and I’m catching up on emails, I always knew if she was laughing or crying or bored or annoyed with me for not paying attention to the home makeover show or noticing the brilliant and subtle layering of colors in the main character’s bedroom.

  Here on vacation, I was aware only of the fact that our stay wasn’t limitless, but underneath that there was still this constant flicker of fear that my time with Gemma had an end date, no matter how many times I asked her to stay. Three years was definitely not enough. Five years wasn’t enough. All that time wasted, not being like this with each other. I used to think I was so smart, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  Now I knew what she tasted like, how she trembled and whimpered and moaned before letting loose and crying out my name, I knew I was right about that brave and naughty side of her. I’d had some very beautiful and sexy partners in bed before, but this was something else entirely. I knew as I watched her sleeping that I would never get enough of Gemma Kelly, and that even while I had her I couldn’t let go of the nagging thought that someone else had had her before me, and I hated the thought of anyone coming between us. It was like running a marathon with a sustained injury. I knew I could push through the pain and get through it, but the longer I ran with it, the harder it would be to heal.

  I must have slept, and when I woke up, Gemma was lying on top of me, out like a light. Just like on the morning after we met, she began to stir, sighing and gently moaning, but this time my brain didn’t have to fight my body’s response, I could run my fingers through her scented hair all I wanted, and I was ninety-nine percent sure that if she was dreaming or feeling frisky it was because of me.

  Thirty seconds later, I was one hundred percent sure, because she started kissing my chest and reaching her hands downwards, God bless her.

  “We have to be quick,” I whispered, as I squeezed her perfect, luscious ass.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got something fun planned for us out in the world.”

  “This is the world,” she purred, as she covered us with the sheet and flipped me over so I was on top of her.

  She was right.

  And we weren’t quick.

  We were an hour behind schedule by the time we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and I didn’t care one bit.

  I knew that this wasn’t Gemma’s idea of paradise when I first brought it up, but I was confident that her mind would be changed soon. It was like being in a storybook, as we approached our destination. Passing by the Rainbow residential area, making a right at the Emerald entrance, onto Summer Lane, to park the rental car and then emerge to breathe in the crisp mountain air.

  As she shut the passenger side door, I asked her if her shoelaces were tied.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes!” Then she looked down at her feet, bent down and tied them. “Shut up.”

  “Double-tie them.”

  “I am, I am, shut up.”

  “Also, by the way, it’s very unlikely, but if we happen to come across a bear, it’s important to get still and quiet. Stop moving. Speak calmly and softly to the bear so it knows you mean no harm, and then back away slowly. Never turn your back and run.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and gave me a You could have taken me to Maui you turd look, but she nodded and said: “Roger that. Are we bringing the picnic food now, or leaving it in the trunk?”

  “Trunk for now. We’re gonna go for a little walk and do something and then we’ll relax on the dock. You’ve got your bathing suit on, right?”

  “Yes sir I do.”

  I watched, as she to
ok in the view.

  As much as I loved taking her breath away last night, watching her forget to breathe as she took in all the green and blue, as far as the eye could see, may have been even more satisfying.

  “So beautiful,” she whispered, as she stared out at the still turquoise Green Lake, surrounded by towering evergreen trees and mountains and blue sky. “Layer upon layer of green. Mother Nature is the best production designer. No one could top this.”

  This girl. Cheesy without even trying, but somehow she could say things like that without making you want to throw up in your mouth. I just put my arm around her and smiled.

  We walked hand-in-hand and I told her about the time I came here with my parents. It was our last family vacation before everything changed between them. My Dad seemed almost desperate to show us a good time. It was so unexpected when, a few months later, he started staying in a hotel. As I walked down the path with Gemma, I realized that he had already met the woman that he’d eventually leave my Mom for, but was fighting to make himself stay, to start over and make everything new again. When you’re aware that something might be ending, you cling to it in a way that you wouldn’t if you completely trusted that it would go on forever.

  I had been so angry with my Dad for years, but I understood him better now.

  I just hoped that I would learn how to hold onto what I had with Gemma in a way that would work for both of us, and as always, I had to work on it with both my body and my mind.

  There was no one else around this area. When we reached the edge of the cliff, I dropped my backpack, pulled out the towels, pulled off my shirt and shoes and socks. With this girl we had to do new things before she could talk herself out of it. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said. “We’re gonna jump off this cliff into the lake.”

  “Um. No.”

  I was in full-on Jedi mode. She was going to do this with me. “I did this when I was a kid, it’s really fun. The water’s from a glacier, so it’ll be a bit cold but refreshing.” I ignored her glare and grabbed her arm as she started to turn away. “It’s only a forty-two foot drop, and the water is plenty deep, there are no rocks below, nothing you could hit on the way down. Be confident. Visualize yourself doing it first. Jump feet first, keep your body tight, toes stretched, arms close to your body.” I pulled off her shirt, and she let me. She removed her shorts, but made her reluctance known with her very articulate facial expressions and body language. She was game, but as with everything else I’ve persuaded her to do over the years, she wasn’t going to play without resisting first. “Remember to breathe out through your nose after you hit the water. I promise we’ll relax and feel amazing after this. You with me?”