Best Friends With Benefits (Most Likely To)

by Candy Sloane

  She laughed at his statement, gaped at his still shirtless chest. Had his muscles gotten tauter overnight, his abs more defined? “I’m sure it will taste delicious.”

  I’m hungry, all right.

  She herded her disobedient eyes to her plate. There was only one dish on the menu that morning.

  He took a seat across from her and they ate in silence—the ting of forks, the slurp of coffee, the non-crunch of his toast. It was not gourmet, but they both ate greedily. She wasn’t sure if it was out of hunger or out of uncertainty.

  They’d had plenty of silences in their relationship, but it was not lost on her that this silence was new, expectant.

  She bit her lip; she shouldn’t be expecting anything. Certainly not what all their flirting this morning would lead to if they were a normal couple. The reminder knocked against her brain—we are not a normal couple.

  “How come we’re not talking?” she finally asked.

  Alec’s gaze intensified. “We can talk. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know,” she blurted, more harshly than she’d intended. “I feel like…” She swallowed, searching for words. “I can’t tell you things the way I used to. Or at least, I think about everything I’m going to say before I say it.”

  He fisted a light punch against her chin. “In your case that might not be a bad thing.”

  She glanced down, unable to look him in the eye. He wasn’t taking this seriously. He wasn’t taking her seriously—yet another reminder to add to the list.

  “Val.” He reached out for her hand, forced her to look at him. His eyes were like caramel in the sunlight. “Nothing has changed. We’re still exactly the same. I can tell you anything, and you can tell me anything.”

  She paused, uncertainty scratching at her belly.

  “Tell me something,” he pushed.

  She exhaled. This was her chance. He was asking, for God’s sake. I’m having confusing feelings about you. I know I’m supposed to be able to compartmentalize sex and friendship, but both sides are overflowing and mixing together into one big beautiful mess. No, she couldn’t just say that. She needed him to speak, to prove that nothing had changed.

  She jutted her chin out in determination. “You first.”

  “I can’t cook,” he admitted, his face spreading into a smile.

  She returned it even though she knew he was still playing with her. “That’s no secret.” She allowed the two of them to spin in that carefree haze for only a moment before she gave him a heavy look that demanded more.

  He blinked, ran his finger along the rim of his mug, and let out a jerky breath. He was going to tell her something big, something terrible. She braced herself, hoping to hell it wasn’t about her, about them.

  “This house”—he opened his hands to indicate the kitchen around him—“is my mother’s.”

  Phew, not about her. But why was that huge news? Her face creased in confusion.

  “I bought it for her,” he explained, “so she could finally leave my dad.”

  “Alec,” Valerie said, her breath high in her throat, “that was so amazing of you. When is she moving in?”

  “She doesn’t want it,” he admitted, his eyes dull. “She doesn’t want to leave him.”

  Val’s lungs felt like they had been popped, air shooting up and scratching her throat. “I’m sure if you just told her—”

  He held his hand up. “No, it’s been a year. I can’t ask anymore.” His voice was monotone.

  He’d kept this secret from her for a year. She let it sink in, though she understood. There was nothing more embarrassing and hurtful than being rejected by your own mother.

  “I’m so sorry.” She knew this was about more than the house. It was Alec trying to save his mother, to do what he couldn’t do as a teenager or a child. He’d admitted a long time ago that his helplessness in the face of his father was his biggest regret.

  The paleness that bathed his face pushed her to speak again, suddenly desperate to do anything to wash away his pain. “This isn’t your life anymore, Alec, and maybe your mom knows it. She’s allowing you to leave this behind.”

  “I thought I’d escaped. I realize now he’s right here.” He pressed his hand to his temple. “Maybe he always will be.”

  His words, his admission, were pulling her face closer—to his cheek, to his jaw, to his lips. Her pulse banged at her neck. She was going to kiss him. He was going to kiss her.

  No, she couldn’t—as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Once she broke that rule, the confusion would have nowhere left to go but straight to the center of her heart. She somehow managed to pull back.

  “There’s one other thing.” Alec reached for her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “I just realized that this attempt at breakfast, at food…” He chuckled. “It wasn’t just about eating or even an excuse to bring you here.”

  The stiffness she hadn’t realized she was holding in her shoulders fell.

  His chin was in a persistent line. “When we were in high school, do you remember how I snuck in and stayed over sometimes?”

  She nodded, spooling back to the memory. He’d come to her first-floor bedroom window late at night, eyes wet and frightened. He would take his place on her floor, she on her bed, and they would stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, talking about the future. The lives they could have beyond the walls of their parents’ houses, beyond their stupid town.

  It was ironic that a future they’d never even considered, that Val still wasn’t sure of, had brought them right back here—right back into one of their parents’ houses.

  “I’d always have to leave when your mom started making breakfast. The smell of coffee was my cue to go,” he said, “my signal refuge was over.”

  “Alec,” she managed. Her throat was tight, and warmth welled up in her—a fountain of emotion.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I might not have realized it until you were sitting across from me in the sun, but having a time where I could have breakfast with you, Val, just once, just the two of us—one time when my refuge didn’t have to end is the only thing that matters right now.”

  Her heart seemed to swing like a pendulum; the warmth that had started low deluged her chest and every limb, like she was a maple tree filled with sweet, gooey sap.

  She was kissing him now. Screw her stupid rules. They couldn’t stop her from this feeling, from this want. From responding to the sweet gesture he’d offered her that morning. She leaned in to him, slowly at first, so he’d know exactly where she was going—for his lips, his sweet, hot, naughty lips.

  She brushed against them lightly, testing, but when Alec pressed against her with more force, opened her mouth with his tongue and dove in deep, she could do nothing but meet his demand—nothing but ride to wherever he was taking her.

  …

  Kissing Valerie. I am kissing Valerie—her soft lips, her expert tongue.

  It wasn’t where he’d expected this morning to go, but he was finally tasting her, all of her. He drove his lips against hers, their tongues glided and wound, until the kiss became hungry, until the innocent, testing lips they had started with were overwhelmed by their want. Their kiss continued to build, expanding and spiraling down to his cock where the need for her detonated, turned his body to ragged ash.

  His lips were unrelenting as his hands cut from her face, down her neck, to cup her tits. His fingers traced over them lightly, as if their first kiss made this new—like they were discovering each other for the first time.

  She whimpered under his touch, and he fought the urge to travel beneath her shirt. He wanted this. Holy fucking shit, did he want this, but he needed to hear that she did, too.

  Their bodies never said no. Their bodies couldn’t be trusted.

  He put his hand to the side of her face, her skin hot and shiny. “If we keep going, I’m going to have to have you naked and panting under me.”

  “I know.” She scanned his face. Her
eyelashes flitted like butterflies around her big brown eyes.

  “I’m not going to break your rules unless you tell me to.”

  “You kissed me back,” she said with a sly smile. “That was a rule.”

  “I couldn’t not kiss you back, Val. I couldn’t not kiss you,” he admitted. Their bodies were still so close. The skin of his bare chest itched to be against hers.

  “Me neither.” Her mouth parted. A mouth he still had the taste of, was still desperate to taste.

  He ran his thumb along her jaw. “Truth is, now that you have kissed me, I’m never going to be able to follow that rule again.”

  Could their screwing turn sweet like this? In some ways it was what he wanted. To kiss every uncharted inch of her, take his time with her pleasure rather than fuck her hard and fast, but he knew how dangerous that was. If he felt like this after one kiss, how would he feel after making love to her? And fuck, God help him, he wanted to.

  But he would take her lead. See if she wanted him, or all of him.

  She swallowed and he inched closer. “Say the words.” He pressed his cheek to hers, his voice hungry.

  “I-I want,” she stammered. “I want you to fuck me.” She slid her hand over his suddenly insanely hard cock.

  Question answered. She wanted a fuck. What did he expect? He hadn’t given her a ring—he’d made her breakfast, and he’d told her a secret. While both felt sweet and special to him, neither one was enough to warrant what he couldn’t believe his heart seemed to be asking for.

  “Then that’s what you’ll get, Dirty Girl.” He lifted her from the stool and led her into the adjoining living room, depositing her on the white leather sectional. Instead of kissing her again, he stepped back. Turning his mind off and his body on, he was going to give her what she’d asked for.

  “Take off your clothes. I want you naked against leather.”

  She hesitated.

  “You want me to fuck you. I want you naked, now.” His eyes did not leave hers. “Seems an even exchange.”

  She lowered her head, but he could tell she was going to acquiesce. She removed her shirt first, her hair tousled in its wake, then her shorts. She stood in front of him in a navy bikini top and matching bottom. The color on her pale skin was like blue dynamite.

  “We were supposed to swim at the lake later.” She smiled her explanation.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m glad I got to see you in this before anyone else did.” He stepped closer. “I’m fucking thrilled I get to see you out of it.” His fingers swept along her bare stomach. “Hurry.”

  She brushed her hair up and unfastened the bikini top. Her tits popped free, perky and perfect in the morning light.

  “I will never get over your tits.” He sighed as his eyes took their fill. “Your fucking exquisite body. Show me more. Show me everything.”

  She slid her fingers down the taut skin of her waist, slipping her bikini bottom down and off her right foot in one quick motion.

  His eyes ravaged her, thankful for the chance to look for as long as he liked. His gaze darted from her creamy shoulders, to her luscious tits, to the manicured patch of hair he couldn’t wait to run his fingers through, to the sweet, wet pussy it accentuated. He was tempted to tell her to turn around so he could stare at her ass uninterrupted, but he knew his hands all over it would be even better.

  “V—” he started, but caught himself. Though he wanted to whisper her name, her real name while she stood naked and willing in front of him, that was a line he would never be able to uncross. “Dirty Girl, you are spectacular.”

  Her skin flushed the softest pink. “It feels weird to have you studying me.”

  “Just me?” He twirled a tendril of her hair around his finger. “Or any man?”

  Her mouth lifted in invitation.

  “You deserve to be studied.” He shifted even closer. “Admired, worshipped,” he continued, his hands finally connecting with her skin. It was hot, hotter than he’d expected, but goose bumps multiplied below his fingers as they journeyed from her clavicle to her tits. He fingered her nipples, and her back arched.

  “You look so hot when you do that,” he whispered. “When you show me how bad you want it.”

  She blinked, her mouth tightening.

  “Remember, Dirty Girl, you can tell me anything.”

  “I’m craving more than that,” she admitted, her skin going pinker.

  A bell tolled in his gut. Oh damn, so was he. “Lay back,” he instructed.

  …

  She dropped to the couch and waited, so ready for him. He stood above her and wrestled out of his jeans. The pronounced muscles of his abdomen gleamed with a sheen of sweat and his tattoos seemed to sparkle in the sunshine. Her mind was buzzing and her body was annihilated before his first thrust. They’d done all that sober. She’d done and said all that sober.

  But it was because of what Alec was doing to her. Lust might have started the fire between them, but everything he’d shared at breakfast and their first sweet, tentative kiss had ignited a coal burning low in her heart. Warmth burrowed deep into the one place where she wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

  Her rules, created to keep her safe, seemed as flimsy as the bikini Alec had gotten her out of. They were no match for him and no match for the woman she became when she was with him.

  With him. The words scared her for how familiar they were starting to sound.

  “No bathing suit for you?” she asked, indicating the pin-striped boxers left in the wake of his jeans.

  He slipped them off. “I don’t swim, I skinny dip.”

  He moved to the couch and lay on top of her, her softness drowning in his hardness. His body lashed against hers as he attacked with deep, numbing kisses. With every stroke of their lips, need knotted tighter and tighter, a rope twisting and pulling her insides tauter, until she was afraid they might break. The ember of warmth glowing in her heart slid all the way down to her toes.

  She was thankful she didn’t have to say the words lodged in her throat. She could kiss her feelings into him, lie with him against leather and not say what she should not at all be feeling.

  “That was a stupid rule,” he admitted with a gasp. He kissed her again, more intensely, showing her just how stupid. His lips claimed hers, kissing ten years into ten seconds.

  The room went blurry and her focus became savage. She pressed herself into his thigh, desperate for any attention. She needed something to keep her from saying the words that filled her like smoke when his lips touched hers: I want this, I want you, for more than this second, for more than this weekend.

  “I’m neglecting you, aren’t I?” he purred, sliding his hand to the spot she’d been angling for. His finger circled her and she moaned. “That won’t happen again.”

  She spread her legs wider, opening herself to him. It was what she wanted, what she needed, to be so full of him her only attention would be on the satisfaction he could provide.

  “Do you want me to fuck you now, Dirty Girl?”

  She had to root herself in the words, because without them she would get lost in him. Maybe she already had. “Yes, fuck me now,” she breathed.

  “Your shiny, wet pussy is telling me it can’t wait to take me deep.” He riffled around on the floor for his pants and produced a condom. He ripped at the wrapper and set his gaze back on her.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed. An idea sparked. To be in control of her uncontrollable thoughts, perhaps she needed to be in control of him. “I want you naked against leather.”

  “Dirty Girl…” His smile curved to meet the suggestive angle of her body.

  “Sit,” she commanded, indicating the other end of the couch with her chin. Shivers fluttered on top of her goose bumps as she waited for his response.

  His smile melted as he accepted her command and sat on the buttery leather completely naked, condom still in his hand.

  She managed to keep her trembling in check as she sauntered down the length of the couch, grabbe
d the condom wrapper, opened it, and rolled it over the length of him. He was so hard, it made her shudder.

  She clasped his shoulder and spread her fingers like the feathers of his wing tattoo. She straddled him. She was ready to fly higher and higher, further away from her mind and deeper into the realm of her body. The one place that was safe, the one place she could show him how much she wanted him. She ran her breasts along the skin of his face and her core against what was hard and ready for her. A fever thundered through every nerve ending.

  “You’re teasing me,” he whispered into her hair as she continued to taunt him. “I need to be inside you,” he murmured, his breath sizzling against her nipple, “now.”

  “You want to fuck me?” Her question rocked the purr between her legs into a hungry tiger. It was the only place that could scream for him, that could admit what her mind had finally come to. She wanted to be with Alec. With the one man she knew could not be kept. “Say the word.”

  “I want you to fuck me.” His breath was tight and his body was completely under her command. “I want you to ride me like the dirty girl you are.”

  …

  He was ready to enter her with the force of an earthquake, leaving her body shattered and ruined, a fracture of passion with his name in its wake. Finally, mercifully, she lowered onto his lap and eased him inside. She was tight and slick and slowly she found her rhythm, their rhythm. He was close to coming—discharging his whole being into her waiting pussy—this morning becoming too much. He forced himself to hold back, to wait for her, his Dirty Girl, his Val.

  She rode him harder, deeper, his hands holding onto her ass for dear life, his mouth finding one of her nipples and sliding his tongue in insistent circles. Her breathing increased, her sighs soared into moans.

  “I can’t barely last five minutes with you when you’re hungry like this. Come all over my cock, Dirty Girl, while I squeeze your sweet ass.”

  Unexpectedly, her lips went for his, supplying devouring kisses that matched the power of her thrusts. Her mouth lit him on fire almost as much as pounding her pussy. She jerked, her body convulsing around him as he knew her wave was about to burst. He tumbled down with her, let his orgasm start its burning, searing, orchestral rise. His cock punched deeper, deeper as the syrupy relief washed over him in a core-smashing surge.