Best Friends With Benefits (Most Likely To)

by Candy Sloane

  His phone dinged. He took it out and glanced at it. “My mom says hi.”

  Someone was inside her using her lungs as trampolines. “You just texted your mom?” There was no hiding the shock in her voice.

  He smiled his understanding. “Earlier to let her know I got in okay. She’s still real big on that, even now.”

  It had always been Alec and his mom against the world—or more importantly, his father. Even though Alec had escaped him, it still was.

  “My mom told me to say hi to you, too.”

  Were they seriously not going to talk about the closet? If something like that had happened with someone else, she’d be desperate to tell Alec about it, but now…

  “Nice cover,” he said.

  She smirked, relaxed by something familiar to their friendship. Her mom had not told her to say hi to Alec, and she never would have. She thought he was a bad influence because of his father. But Alec wasn’t his father. He’d spent his whole life trying to prove that fact.

  She considered for the first time that her mother might have been right. Before this weekend, the only thing on Valerie’s mind had been receiving the acceptance email from the London Philharmonic, but now Alec had swaggered in, turned her to jelly in a closet, and flipped her mind inside out. No more. She glanced at her phone—still nothing in her inbox.

  “Fifth floor,” Alec said as the doors opened, “everyone out who doesn’t want to go down.” He licked his lips and waited for her to exit before following her out.

  It was a terrible cliché joke, and usually she would have told him so, but now she felt that tongue on her hot skin, that mouth whispering her name.

  She exhaled heavily. What had happened in the closet was nothing new to him. He whispered women’s names in the dark like he was the announcer at a Bingo game. She needed to get a grip.

  Their room was right off the elevator. As soon as they entered, she flicked on every light she could find. Unfortunately that made it so the white and perfectly made bed stared at her from the center of the room.

  Her stomach pitched. She couldn’t bring herself to say yes to the cot because she didn’t want one, but did she want Alec? Did that question even matter anymore?

  He seemed over it now—over her now. Of course he was. She wasn’t the kind of woman he went for. He was used to models and actresses. It could only have been pity and vodka pulling his strings.

  Before she knew what was happening, he stacked his luggage and guitar case in the corner and started stripping. She wanted to ask what he was doing, but she was paused in captivated silence. Her eyes traced the tattoos that spilled along the curves of his shoulders, the strong heft of his arms. His chest and stomach were free of ink, and her eyes continued to invade, slipping past his hard pecs and sliding down his celebrity-fit stomach. She couldn’t help counting his ab muscles—one, two, three…

  “You going to sleep in your clothes?” he asked with a shrewd smile on his face, his eyes sparkling. He was down to his boxers, and he knew she’d been staring.

  God, how long have I been staring?

  “What?” she managed.

  “Are you sleeping in your clothes?” he repeated slowly, the smile not leaving his lips. It spread wider when he noticed her eyes were still on his stomach—paused at ab muscle number three, to be exact. He slung his jeans over a chair just as his phone rang from the pocket.

  Phew. Saved by the bell. Right?

  “Hey, G.” Alec pressed the phone to his ear.

  Gideon, Alec’s other best friend from high school. It didn’t surprise her that they were still close. Alec valued things that were real, true. She knew that came from living with a father who made lies his life goal.

  “No fucking way,” Alec said.

  She tried not to eavesdrop. But she wondered if Alec might say something about what had happened. If he wouldn’t talk to her, he would certainly talk to Gideon. That is, if she made herself scarce. She grabbed her toiletries from her luggage, ducked into the bathroom, and closed the door.

  She could hear murmurs as she brushed her teeth. The water was off, her ear to the door, toothpaste foam filling her mouth to an almost choking level so she didn’t have to step away. She could only make out certain words: “bed,” “peach,” “couldn’t get,” and “so out of your league.”

  She spit out the toothpaste and cursed under her breath. Gideon had called to talk about his own someone and Alec was not almost-sexing and telling. She wished he wouldn’t be a gentleman, just so she could know what to do next.

  Should she strip down to her underwear so that she mirrored Alec? Step out of the bathroom in her bra and panties so she wouldn’t have to say anything, ask anything? She pressed her ear to the door again, playing with the buttons on her shirt, trying to summon the courage to unbutton them. To be the woman he had awakened.

  “Val? She hasn’t changed at all.”

  Alec’s words came loud and clear, and the small fire of determination inside her evaporated into smoke.

  She hasn’t changed at all. She glanced into the mirror, heard the whisper in her mind—Barking. If she hadn’t changed at all, then that was how he saw her. To Alec she was still dorky, knock-kneed, stringy-hair Valerie. No matter what he said in the closet, no matter how close they came. There it was. He hadn’t found her attractive, or even wanted her. She was just a body. A place he could stick it.

  But wasn’t that what he’d told her she needed? To find someone to fuck. Not to tell her how beautiful she was, or cuddle with her after, or marry her, but fuck.

  Even with his question still unanswered, it shouldn’t be Alec. She clearly couldn’t handle it.

  She stepped out of the bathroom. Alec was off the phone and in bed, the covers to his waist. His tattooed skin against the white sheets was dizzying.

  “I sleep naked,” he said, his eyes an even deeper brown.

  Her pulse sped like an out-of-control metronome. He’s naked under there?

  Of course he was. As if the bed wasn’t enough, as if his sculpted chest wasn’t enough, she had to deal with the hardness that had been teasing her in the closet, bare against those pristine sheets.

  “Not tonight, though?” she asked, hoping to hide the shakiness in her voice.

  He pulled the sheets back to reveal his plaid boxers and laughed. “No,” he acquiesced, “not tonight.”

  “Hilarious,” she said, expelling a grateful sigh. She headed over to her suitcase to grab her pajamas, a robin egg blue tank top and boy shorts, and went back to the bathroom to change.

  She was just about to close the door when Alec clicked off the light. “But who knows about tomorrow night?”

  Chapter Four

  Light trickled into the hotel room and dappled Alec and Valerie in shared sunshine. His morning wood—he glanced over at Val’s back rising and falling under the covers—was caused by a lot more than the morning.

  Why hadn’t he finished what they’d started last night?

  Because it wasn’t only his decision.

  The minute they’d been interrupted by Randy, Valerie started acting like a terrified animal. Like he was a fox and she was a hare and she had no intention of getting near his mouth, or more specifically the cock straining against his boxers, ever again.

  Though he was disappointed, he understood. Anxieties had churned through his mind, too. The loudest being, what would the morning after be like?

  Their morning after was now, sunlight continuing to creep around the sides of the drapes and Val at the farthest edge of their bed.

  If she was afraid to touch him by mistake as they slept, if she couldn’t talk to him last night, if his usual jokes were coming off like innuendo—and fine, maybe they were—what he’d wanted so singularly in the closet could never happen. Their friendship couldn’t take it and shouldn’t have to. Their friendship had withstood a lot over the years, had been the glue that held him together when his father broke him over and over again.

  Sober and in the morning li
ght with no body parts confusing them—well, other than his currently hard cock—last night seemed like a terrible mistake.

  Logically, he knew this, but he couldn’t stop thinking how she turned to liquid below the sweep of his lips, his fingers. He couldn’t help replaying her moan over and over. Just thinking of it drowned him in warm shivers, the kind that could only be soothed by hearing it again.

  His cock grew even harder. Fuck, he needed to let this go.

  He slunk out of bed to use the bathroom and when he returned, Valerie was awake, sitting up against the pillow.

  “You snore,” she said.

  “I’ve always snored.”

  “I know. I guess I forgot.” She stretched, and her breasts pulled against the light blue fabric of her tank top.

  He tried to look away from her, but he couldn’t. The sunlight was casting glitter in her rumpled hair, a glow on her cheeks. Seeing her glimmering in early morning sunlight brought a memory, too, whisked him back to all the times he’d slept at her house in high school—the smell of pancakes or coffee wafting up from her kitchen. The smell of a normal family, something he didn’t have.

  The heady aroma was as much the reason he stayed over as Val being his best friend. He never got to partake, though. The smell of breakfast was his cue to go. If her parents ever found him in her room, they’d distrust him even more than they did already. Alec had been Val’s one rebellion.

  He stole a glance at her nipples stabbing through cotton. How could he help wanting to be her rebellion again?

  “You sleep okay otherwise?” He wondered if he should get back into the bed. They weren’t in her high school bedroom anymore. He didn’t have to sneak out at the first slant of light against the sheets.

  “Sure, fine.” She ran her hands through her hair.

  He was frozen, unsure what to say or what to do. Fuck. He had to bring up last night. He had to do something. Avoiding the subject would make for a weekend full of this—uncomfortable niceties and silences. So not them.

  Maybe she’d agree it had been a mistake and they could chalk last night up to nostalgia and too much vodka. They hadn’t gone so far that they couldn’t take it all back yet. They could just return to the way things were. For their friendship, logic would have to win out.

  He returned to bed and took a deep, centering breath. He was about to speak when Val talked first.

  “Yes,” she spoke into the air in front of her. “I’ve had time to think about it, and the answer to your question is yes.”

  He sat up, echoed her stance. The two of them filled the mirror across from the bed, their backs tight against the headboard, messy haired, sleep worn.

  Yes?

  Yes.

  Yes!

  NO!

  His cock battered against his boxers, but this was a bad idea. Just because he didn’t want anyone else to fuck her didn’t mean he should. Unfortunately, the current radio station he’d managed to tune his brain to didn’t change that she’d been all he thought about since their bodies were startled apart by Randy Tines.

  “Are you going to say anything?” she asked.

  Of course, he wanted her, but was that enough?

  “You couldn’t have said that last night?” Better to keep his response light. As if he could take it or leave it. Even though, who was he kidding?

  Not his still-hard cock, that was for sure.

  She glanced at him sideways. “I could always change my answer.” She’d never put up with his shit, and it was clear she wasn’t about to start now.

  “But I’ll always know you said yes to begin with,” he replied, still not moving.

  Why was he hesitating? He was in bed next to a hot woman who wanted to fuck him right now. Instead of fulfilling her fantasy, he was wavering his way out of where he’d been desperate to be last night—inside her hungry, wet pussy.

  Man up, Alec. Best friend or not, she is telling you to fuck her.

  No more talking, no more thinking. He’d fuck her so hard she’d shriek the answer he’d waited for like it was the only word she knew. She’d forever equate the affirmative with the plunge of his cock. He reached for her. His fingers were inches away from those teasing nipples when she pulled back.

  “I have rules.”

  “What?” His voice was filled with shocked laughter. He pressed his outstretched hands against the bed. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.

  “If we’re going to do this,” she said, her face so serious he thought it might crack, “there are things we need—”

  “I have rules, too,” he interrupted. He didn’t at the moment, but Val’s maturity always did that to him. It was something he admired and tried, though usually failed, to copy.

  “Mine first.” She focused her eyes on the mirror across the room and away from him. “I want an orgasm.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh again, a sputtered spit laugh, not at her but at her bluntness.

  She glared at him, her cheeks pricked pink. She clearly didn’t see the joke, but hell, that request was too fun not to play with her a little bit.

  “Just one?” he retorted.

  “Please.” She sighed, staring down at her hands. “If you’re okay with it, say agree.”

  “Okay,” he said, putting the brakes on his laughter. “Agree.” He would give her an orgasm. He would give her twenty orgasms. He was always an overachiever when it came to her.

  “Rule number two.” She opened her hand and ticked off a finger. “While we’re doing it you need to treat me like one of the women you sleep with.”

  “Fuck, you mean.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Like the women I fuck.” He spoke slowly, letting the words hit her like hot raindrops.

  “Right,” she replied, the blush in her cheeks running down her neck and washing over her bare shoulders.

  He splayed his fingers out on the mattress. “If we’re going to do this, Val, you can say the word. Actually, you have to—that’s one of my rules.”

  “Fine.” She sighed again. “I want you to treat me like one of the women you fuck.”

  “Agree.” The sound of that word on her lips would make him agree to just about anything. His cock rising even higher was his solemn swear.

  “Wait, are you ‘fucking’ anyone right now?” The skin on her face blistered with concern.

  “No, not at this very moment.” He intensified his gaze, hoping he was illustrating just how much he’d like to be.

  “When was the last time you had sex?”

  “Sex, sex?” He leaned back on the pillow. “Or sexual contact?”

  “Don’t make me feel like an idiot for asking, especially when you answer questions that way.”

  “Stop slut shaming me,” he said with mock irritation. “There’s nothing wrong with consensual sex between two adults. That’s what you’re asking for, isn’t it?”

  Her breath was measured. “All I’m getting at is that when this is happening between us, I want to be the only one. It’s not like you tell me about every woman you’re with.”

  “That sounds like you’re asking to be a lot more than just a woman I’m fucking,” he replied with a sweeping gaze, even though she was right. He didn’t tell her about every woman he was with, because most of them didn’t last long enough to even bother.

  “Stop being an asshole.”

  “Calm down, Val, I haven’t slept with anyone in two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?” She whistled. “Going for a record?”

  “Now who’s being an asshole?”

  There was a threatening gleam in her eyes. “Maybe we should just forget this whole thing.”

  He huffed. “I can’t believe you think I would hurt you like that. You’re my friend.”

  She shook her head. “You’re already breaking rule number two. When we’re fucking”—the word came out like a foreign language on her lips—“I’m not your friend.”

  “Understood.” He fought a smile. This was a whole lot to remem
ber while he was required to rock her world.

  “You need to promise me, though. You can’t be involved with anyone else, not even one of your little groupies.”

  “Agreed. Do you need me to put my hand on the bible in the nightstand?” His response was flippant, though he knew why she needed him to repeat it. He’d never hidden his reputation from her. She had a right to be worried if she really was about to be a woman he was fucking.

  His eyes feasted on the slope of Val’s neck and lower, settling on the provocative line between the fabric and the curve of her tits. He couldn’t wait until she was a woman he was fucking.

  “No talking about how we feel,” she continued.

  “You’re telling me you want it to be only about sex.”

  “Oh right, I forgot I was talking to Cock-fucius,” she replied, a smile finally creeping out. “No kissing.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “I think you’ve seen Pretty Woman too many times.”

  “Considering you know that, how many times have you seen it, tough guy?”

  “What? Hooker Julia Roberts is a babe,” he said as cover.

  She rolled her eyes. “She’s also smart. Kissing is far too intimate.”

  He ran his hand beside where her thigh lay under the blankets. He didn’t touch her, but was close enough he could have. “Even without kissing, it’s going to get intimate.”

  She fought a smile but stayed silent. He needed to get her through these rules soon or he was going to explode.

  “Agree,” he said. They hadn’t kissed last night, and it had been hot as hell. No kissing was fine by him. “Wait, you mean on the lips only, right?”

  She didn’t respond, just ticked off another finger. “You can’t tell anyone. Not even Gideon.”

  “I would never talk to Gideon about this.”

  “I heard my name last night.”

  “Were you eavesdropping?”

  She ignored him and continued. “We only do this once.” She ticked off another finger.

  “Seriously, should I get a pen?”

  “No, that’s the last one, but it’s the most important.”