Always Been You

by Beverley Kendall

  ALWAYS BEEN YOU

  Beverley Kendall

  Copyright © Beverley Kendall 2015

  Published by Season Publishing LLC

  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 completely coincidental.

  www.beverleykendall.com

  Cover Design © The Killion Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The best way to ruin a perfectly wonderful friendship?

  Have sex with your BFF.

  A mistake.

  That’s what Troy calls what was easily the single best sexual experience of my life. He claims our “slip” was due to too much alcohol. I respond the only way I know how, which is by burying the entire experience under a six-foot mound of denial and regret. Lesson learned.

  When I’m finally in a place emotionally where I can move on with someone else, Troy does a complete about face. Now he wants me. And he wants more.

  That should have been the end, right? I’m getting what I’ve wanted since I was sixteen. But devastating news turns Troy’s life upside down and soon becomes my cross to bear. And the only way I can get back everything I lost is to bare it all. Literally.

  Now my boyfriend may be a progressive, twenty-first century kind of guy, but when it comes to his girlfriend posing nude for Playboy?

  He’s 100% Neanderthal.

  DEDICATION

  To the love of my life, Ryan.

  Always

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my editor, Grace Bradley, whose awesomeness knows no bounds. And to Linda and Landra, whose feedback was absolutely invaluable. And last but not least, to my sister Dawn, who gave me two kid-free weeks to write this summer by entertaining my son in sunny FL. Ladies, I'm fortunate to have you in my life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The night that changed everything

  On an inebriation scale of one to ten, Troy is about a four—five tops. The short walk to the car makes it clear he’s sober enough to walk a straight line, but I wouldn’t lay bets on him passing a Breathalyzer if put to the test.

  “Buckle up,” I remind him and give my seatbelt strap a sharp tug, bringing it over my shoulder and around my waist.

  He complies with an audible sigh, and then closes his eyes as he slumps into the passenger seat beside me. “What the fuck is wrong with people?” His voice grumbles with irritation.

  I shoot him a quick glance before I reverse my white Mustang V6 out of the parking spot in front of the frat house. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean guys are hitting on you when I’m standing right there. What am I, fuckin’ invisible?” While his speech isn’t slurred, it’s definitely alcohol-impaired, the cadence slower and his words more carefully enunciated.

  I don’t even bother to roll my eyes. “Troy, we’re not together.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t know that.” He sounds like a petulant child, all misplaced righteous indignation and sulk.

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure most of them do know that.” I’m not sure what he’s telling people, but I’ve made it very clear to anyone who’s asked that things between us are strictly platonic. How else are guys going to know I’m available?

  I slide another glance at him from the corner of my eye. Boyfriends and dates help keep inappropriate thoughts of him at bay.

  Most of the time.

  Troy wearily rubs his eyes and tips his head back against the headrest. It’s two in the morning, and although the party we just left is still going strong, downtown of our college town is pretty quiet. It’ll be a whole other scene in a half hour when the bars close for the night and drunken college students spill out onto the lamp-lined streets.

  “Bullshit,” he mutters under his breath.

  Yeah, he’s in one of those moods tonight. Cranky and Grumpy, meet your offspring. It’s a boy.

  “What’s with you tonight?” He’s been off all day. Definitely not his usual self, which leans toward wry and witty. I’ve asked him a dozen times what’s wrong but he keeps shutting me down with a trite and evasive “It’s nothing” response.

  “Nothing.”

  I give an impatient huff. Do you see what I’m dealing with?

  “You barely left my side all night.” I’m not complaining. It’s more an observation that I wonder if he’s aware of. I mean, I love hanging out with Troy—because nothing says masochist like feeding unrequited love, right?—but at parties, we usually do our own thing for the simple reason that people do tend to think we’re a couple if every time they see us we’re attached at the hip.

  “And when has that ever been a problem?”

  My lips tighten at the amusement in his voice.

  Since I realized we’re only ever going to be friends. Idiot.

  Of course I don’t say that aloud. There are just some things best kept to yourself. This I keep in a Fort Knox vault of things never to be shared with Troy.

  “Well if you’re going to stick to me like glue all night, then you can’t get all hot under the collar when guys start talking to me or ask me to dance.”

  Troy snorts derisively. “Don’t fool yourself. There might have been music, but no one was dancing. Dancing was just the excuse they were using so they could dry hump you in public.”

  I let out wry laugh. “Oh I think some of them might have wanted to do a little more than that.” Dwayne and Chad have been trying to get into my pants for months. They wanted me to go back to their place with them. Separate, not for a ménage à trois. “Anyway, if I don’t have a problem with it, neither should you.” Actually, there wasn’t anyone at the party I would’ve even considered letting get that close to me. But that’s another thing Troy doesn’t need to know.

  He growls something under his breath the same way he started doing every time a guy approached me. That’s when I’d known it was time to call it a night. For both of us.

  I turn down the street that leads to his apartment building. “You’re kind of a grumpy drunk tonight. Does somebody need to get laid?” I ask playfully.

  This is the closest I’ll ever come to outright flirting with him. I’m cautious like that. And I’ve stopped holding my breath that he’ll ever come back with “Okay, let’s go,” or “Only if you’re volunteering.” He usually smirks and agrees with me. Then I’m sure he goes and bangs whichever girl he’s dating. Ugh.

  This time my facetiousness is met with silence. In the dark interior of the car, his face is in dark-gray shadows but I can feel his stare burning my profile.

  “It’s just fuckin’ rude and disrespectful,” he finally utters.

  You want to know what Troy’s real problem is? He’s too overprotective of me. Don’t get excited, it’s not in a she’s-my-woman way, because that I wouldn’t mind. No, it’s in an overbearing brotherly way and probably because he only has an older brother and no sisters to smother.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been in love
with him since sophomore year of high school. My accepting that we’ll never be more than friends is a fairly recent occurrence. I held out hope for three long years to no avail. So I have to settle for being his best friend. And tonight, that means it’s my duty to get his too-drunk-to-drive, very fine ass home safe.

  Not too complicated, right? The getting him home part.

  I’ve only had to do this two times since he started drinking. And not only do I need to make sure he gets home in one piece, but that he actually makes it to his bed. Can’t have him sleeping on the floor outside his bedroom again. That happened the night our high school football team won the state championship. His two touchdowns had meant he’d overindulged when it came to the free-flowing alcohol at the after party. The next day he’d been hung over. Obviously. But who had he blamed for the crimp in his neck? That’s right, me.

  I know, the nerve.

  So this whole thing isn’t exactly unfamiliar territory, me personally escorting him home.

  But it isn’t until we’re in his apartment walking down the hall that leads to his bedroom, that I begin to think he must be a whole lot drunker than I originally thought.

  Why? Well that requires a quick wrap-up of the entirety of our fourteen-year friendship.

  You see Troy and I used to live in each other’s pockets when we were young. I’m talking countless sleepovers—sleepovers that were outlawed by our mothers when we were eight. (That’s what happens when you make the mistake of asking your mom why boys’ private parts don’t look like girls’.) One of us was at the other’s house almost every day until we hit puberty. We attended the same high school and now the same university because we couldn’t fathom our college experience without the other.

  And not only are Troy and I best friends, so are our parents. In fact, it was his parents who introduced my stepfather to my mom. Two years later they became godparents to my eight-year-old half sister, Amanda. How’s that for matchmaking?

  So in a nutshell, Troy is not only the best friend I’ve ever had, he’s probably the best one I’ll ever have. We’ve seen each other at our worst, and stood by each other through the good times and bad times.

  Snort. Yeah, we’re a regular Hallmark card.

  However, never in all the years I’ve known him has he ever tried anything with me. He’s always been pretty affectionate—a toucher like me—but the sexual line between us has never been crossed.

  Until now.

  I think.

  Not sure whether or not I’m imagining things, I glance warily back at him, which provokes wistful yearning and a silent, besotted sigh.

  God, he’s gorgeous.

  Everyone says he looks like a young Eddie Cibrian. I’ll concede to a slight resemblance because of the dark hair, the crater-deep dimples, and the perpetual five o’clock shadow. Personally I think Troy trumps him in the looks department. But that’s only if you’re partial to guys with thick, long lashes and pretty gray eyes who are ridiculously hot.

  At first I think the brush of his hand on my ass is accidental, so inconsequential I wouldn’t have given it another thought if I wasn’t so acutely aware of him. But as he’s scorching me with his panty-dampening smile, his touch becomes a man-sized hand lightly palming my right butt cheek.

  The saliva that pooled in my mouth goes down with a hard gulp and I sternly instruct myself to calm the hell down. He’s drunk and horny, a combination that’s doesn’t exactly intimate clear thinking. Everyone knows drunk groping can’t be taken seriously.

  I inhale a shaky breath. I’m going to give him two—no five seconds to remove his hand from my ass. Don’t ask me what I’ll do if he doesn’t. It’s not every day—as in never—that my best friend makes a move on me. Talk about not being prepared.

  My next breath leaves my mouth in a startled whoosh of air when he gives the butt cheek in question a meaningful squeeze.

  Pleasure jolts my body to military attention, zigzagging its way through me before taking up a throbbing presence between my thighs. I literally have to bite down on my bottom lip to suppress a gasp then the moan following close in its wake, as both try to push their way past the tight seal of my lips.

  Arousal must affect my ability to control my legs because I manage to stumble without moving a muscle. My knees have apparently given out on me, which is when I know I’m in trouble.

  “Whoa. Careful now.” Troy’s breath is warm and moist in my ear as his arm circles my waist. In the same motion, he pulls me until my back is flush with his hard chest.

  Good gawd.

  It’s like being rear-ended. In the best possible way.

  At five-nine in my bare feet, it isn’t often a guy can make me feel small when I’m wearing three-inch heels. Troy does that with his six-foot-three, muscled frame.

  Snug in his arms, the lingering scent of his aftershave—a delicious earthy musk—fills my nostrils as the rigid length of his erection presses against my lower back. My sex contracts in a silent chorus of hallelujahs.

  Despite my near collapse, his other hand remains on my ass, slowly rubbing and shaping it like a blind man learning Braille. Troy isn’t joking around. He means serious, sexy business.

  And it’s about damn time.

  It feels like I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for this day to come.

  “Can’t have you falling,” he murmurs, his voice all silken seduction.

  God. If he only knew how long ago I’d fallen. And how hard.

  “C’mon, you can put me to bed.” His voice is teasing just like the hand he pushes under the hem of my top to stroke the flat of my stomach. The muscle beneath tightens as his fingers drift down and breaches the bikini-line zone where my skin is a hundred times more sensitive.

  Lust literally has me by the throat, rendering me unable to get a single word out or put up any resistance as he guides me down the semi-dark hall and into his bedroom. Call me weak or a glutton for punishment, my only excuse is that it’s impossible to think clearly with his hands on me, lighting me up and turning the flicker of hope inside me up to a blaze.

  The click of the door closing and the light illuminating the room clears a little of that Troy-induced fog from my brain. My gaze flickers over the navy-blue comforter covering his sloppily made bed. As much as I want this—want him—what I don’t want is for our first time to be an alcohol-fueled sexfest.

  “Troy, what are we doing?” Apprehension causes the slight break in my voice. One of us has to think this through. Sex to me has never been simply about physical gratification, and sex with Troy has the potential to be a tangled mess of…of stuff. Plus, he only broke up with Courtney a month ago, and if there’s one moniker I don’t want to wear is that of Rebound Girl.

  It’s obvious that Troy doesn’t share my reservations, his mouth curving into a sensual smile that threatens to stamp out the good sense God gave me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about what it would be like if we got together like this?”

  Thought about it? The image his question elicits and the husky timbre of his voice causes the involuntary clenching of my sex. More like dreamed and fantasized about it and gotten off on it more times than I can count.

  As if taking my silence for an answer in the affirmative, he takes both my hands in his and leads me to the dark wood-framed bed next to the window. Once seated on the edge of the mattress, he draws me between his knees.

  My silence doesn’t last long. All I needed was a moment to absorb the life-changing impact of his question before I breathlessly come back with one of my own. “Does that mean you have…thought about us?”

  God, if my friends could see me now they’d see the playful flirt who’d never been hot and bothered over a guy so hot and bothered I’m practically panting. It’s almost embarrassing. Honestly, even I’m surprised at just how dizzying it is standing this close to him, his hands clasping my hips.

  His eyes go dark with hunger as he takes a leisurely tour down my body. It’s only on the journey back up to my face does he respon
d. “Fuck, yeah.”

  Everything in me reacts positively to those two words and the fervent growl of his tone. In a hushed voice, I ask, “For how long?” To be clear, I’m okay with alcohol pushing aside some of those pesky inhibitions that sometimes need pushing aside, but I need to know this isn’t only the alcohol talking.

  His response is to pull me down onto his thigh and run his hand slowly down my back, over the indent of my waist and the curve of my ass.

  He definitely has a thing for my ass.

  “It seems like forever,” he says huskily. “But definitely since you grew these.” The latter part of his statement coincides with him sliding his hand up under my top and over my breast.

  I inhale sharply, my hands automatically going to the solid width of his shoulders to steady myself. I fight valiantly to beat back the encroaching fog of desire that’s playing havoc with my sound decision-making abilities.

  He pulls me closer and runs the flat of his thumb over my distended nipple covered by the wisp of material that is my bra. “You’re incredible.”

  The awe in his voice sends tingles of pleasure up and down my rapidly dissolving spine. Suddenly everything feels like it’s happening in slow motion, Troy reclining onto his back and pulling me down on top of him.

  My legs instinctively part at the feel of his erection jabbing me with his need. For a moment, it feels so good I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m a kid in a candy store who doesn’t know which sweet to try first.

  No scratch that. I know exactly what I want. I straddle him so his hard-on is snug against my core, wringing a pleasured groan from Troy. He responds by plowing his hand through my long curls, palming the back of my head and guiding my mouth down to his. The instant our lips make contact, all thinking stops. I just feel.