Nodding, she sets down the glass. She throws her arms around me, and tugs me into bed. She tries to pull me next to her.
“I have to go.”
“Stay with me. Please,” she says, patting the soft, comfy bed. “Just sleep next to me. That’s all I want.”
Sleep next to her? With this boner? With her wild hands crawling all over my body? No way. I’m not that strong. I’m not that good.
“I need to go. I’ve got to feed my cat.” It sounds like the lamest excuse in the world, but it’s actually true.
There’s a flash of hurt in her eyes. Maybe even disappointment. Then it passes, and she smiles faintly. “Good night, Captain Fiancé. Give the pussy a kiss for me.”
Oh, how I would absolutely love to.
Her head hits the pillow, and in seconds she’s snoring. It’s so fucking cute, the little sounds she makes. I scratch my head—how is it possible that her snores are adorable? But they are. I stand and look at her in the dark, the moonlight streaking across her covers, cutting a crisscross pattern through the blinds. Her blonde hair is spread over her white pillow, her blouse slinks down her shoulder, revealing a cherry red bra, and the skirt of her dress rides up her thighs. I could undress her like they do in the movies, or I could leave her in her clothes.
Undressing her feels like a violation. Instead, I do what I told her I would. I fill her glass of water and leave it on the nightstand. I open her medicine cabinet, grab two aspirin, just in case, and place them next to the glass. I hunt for some paper, and I find a Post-It notepad in her kitchen and a pen in the utensil drawer.
I write: Two aspirin in the morning, and call me when you get up. I need to take you out for the final hangover prevention step.
I leave, and I should earn a commendation for self-restraint. I’m going to contact the Guys’ Committee and let them know what I accomplished tonight in the resistance category. I’ll fully expect a gold medal in the morning and, frankly, an awards ceremony, considering the level of difficulty.
A cab blows past me on Lexington, but I don’t shoot my arm into the air to flag it down. Instead, I turn south and walk home, even though I’m many, many blocks away. I need the time and the space and the distance from those five minutes in the cab when I wanted to fuck my best friend’s brains out.
This city should take my mind off Charlotte, so I soak it in—the bodegas peddling fruit and flowers, the Chinese restaurants offering greasy noodles, the twenty-four-hour pharmacies selling anything and everything. I cut across town, surrounded by throngs of people, so many still out late at night.
But when I unlock my door at one a.m., I’m still turned on. The walk didn’t work. I’m horny as hell. I feel like I’ve taken Charlotte Viagra, and this hard-on is a cruel and unusual punishment for lusting so badly after my best friend.
Fido meows, then stretches up to greet me, his paws on my leg.
“Hungry?”
His tail twitches. I head to the kitchen, open his bag, and scoop out some cat food. It’s this all-natural, organic, eat-like-your-ancestors food. Harper got it for him when I took him in, telling me that store-bought food wouldn’t cut it. My man is addicted to it; maybe it makes him feel like a tiger.
I set the bowl down, and he purrs as he eats. The dude is so satisfied from a bowl of dry kibble, and a knot of jealousy tightens in my belly. Great. Now I’m envious of my cat because his life is simpler than mine. Note to self: Go to the store tomorrow and order up some perspective, because you’re losing yours.
I head to the bathroom. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and try to put the evening behind me. Look, it’s not hard to turn down a drunk girl, because that’s just wrong. But it was hard, for some unknown fucking reason, to turn down her. Those things she was saying. Those wicked, dirty words falling from her red lips. They torched a path up my body. They stirred something inside me. Some wish. Some want.
That kiss on the street was one thing.
The session on her couch was entirely another.
But the cab was a whole new wrinkle. She just combusted, like a rocket of lust, firing off in every direction, jumping me, climbing me, grinding on me.
I wanted it all.
I wanted her.
I still do.
I undress and toss my clothes into the hamper in my closet. Naked, I get into bed, turn off the lights, and park both hands behind my head. Faint sounds of late Saturday night in New York filter through the window, even from six stories high. Shoes clicking on cobblestoned streets, friends laughing, cabs stopping and letting out customers, then picking up other fares.
Even after zoning in on all that, I’m still insanely aroused.
What the fuck am I supposed to do with this erection? Hammer some nails? Bang some wood? This is like a punishment erection. It’s got its own blood supply.
I shut my eyes, squeeze them tight, and press my palms into the back of my skull, resisting.
Because I can’t go there.
Can’t jack off to her. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Won’t ruin the friendship by going that far. We’ve already done more than we should, and if we go further, we’ll lose everything she was saying was good at the bar tonight. She’s my steady, reliable, fantastic friend. She gives me hell, and she makes me laugh, and I can’t risk losing her by fucking her.
Or even thinking of fucking her.
But I am dying here. My skin is on fire, and my brain is stuck on repeat—sex, sex, sex.
I’ve got to do something about this persistent hard-on that has been working overtime today, like it signed up for a twenty-four-hour shift. I pad out to the living room, grab my laptop, and return to my bed, flipping open the screen.
Women. Lots of women. Hot lesbian porn. That’s what I need. Something totally removed from the last two days of torrential lust. Like, two hot chicks in stockings banging each other. No Tumblr gifs for me, please. I need video, and I know where to find it.
In seconds, a gorgeous redhead in black stockings and garters walks into a dimly lit living room. Perfect. Parking the laptop on the covers, I stretch out my naked body on my bed, my head propped up on a couple of pillows so I can enjoy the front-row seat.
A smoking hot brunette joins her, wearing only white thigh-highs and heels. This will do the trick, thank you very much. I take my dick in my hand and stroke. Moving my palm down my shaft, I skim lightly at first, down to my balls, which are heavy and aching.
Just what the doctor ordered. I’m going to enjoy every single second of this jerk. I tighten my grip. My dick is throbbing in my palm, but I’m thrilled to be on the road to imminent relief as the women move to their couch and get it on.
This is perfect, because neither looks like Charlotte. They kiss, and my skin grows hotter all over as I watch these naked beauties. Their mouths devour each other, and the redhead cups the brunette’s full, round tits in her hands. The brunette moans and slides her fingers between the redhead’s pussy lips. My shaft grows thicker as I watch the brunette’s finger flick across all that wetness.
My breath hitches, and I groan.
Loudly.
Imagining how hot and wet her pussy is.
All nice and slick and coated in arousal.
How she’d feel on my fingers.
I shift my hips, pumping faster. My other hand moves up my stomach. My fingertips brush against my own flat nipple, and I’m getting into this so much that the rest of the world is gone. It’s just me, and my body, and the women on the screen, and I’m fucking my fist.
Soon the redhead is down on her knees, spreading open her partner’s legs. The brunette leans back on the couch, her mouth falling open in a moan as the redhead licks her. Nice, long, delicious strokes.
“Yeah,” I say on a grunt, my eyes locked to the screen. I am in helping hand heaven thanks to these babes. My dick is out for a joyride, and I’m so fucking happy to be on the fast-track to coming.
I picture myself sliding between the two chicks, servicing them both, eating one, fucking the ot
her. Nothing is better than this.
Until it gets astronomically hotter when a third one enters the scene.
She has blonde hair and brown eyes, and she’s divine. I have blinders on, erasing the others, because she’s all I see. Sexy, strong, and completely captivating. I can’t look away. Soon, she’s not her anymore…she’s my girl…she’s Charlotte, and she’s naked in front of me, and I don’t see the other women. They’ve disappeared from my night, as I close my eyes and jerk harder and faster, and I can’t fucking fight it anymore.
I’m losing this battle because it’s Charlotte I see.
It’s not Charlotte from yesterday afternoon, or even Charlotte from this evening. This Charlotte is new, and she’s naked, climbing up on my bed, crawling to me on her hands and knees—her sexy, pouty lips, her soft, sweet belly, her strong legs, and her beautiful, hot, wet pussy.
Wet for me.
Aching for me.
She sinks down on my shaft, and that’s it.
My balls tighten, my spine ignites, and I squeeze my eyes shut as shudders wrack through me, and with an epic groan, I come so goddamn hard inside Charlotte. An orgasm that just sucks me dry.
I’m panting.
When I open my eyes, Fido is at the foot of my bed, licking his paw. He drags it over his furry face, then behind his ear. He stops his post-meal bath to stare at me, a disdainful look in his beady yellow eyes.
This is the end to my Saturday night. My cat has watched me whack off to a vision of my best friend.
“Don’t say a word,” I hiss.
He looks away, lifting his chin haughtily.
But he’ll keep my secret.
I’ll keep his, too, the fucking little voyeur.
14
Let’s pretend I didn’t do that.
Imagine I have amazing self-control and didn’t masturbate to the thought of my business partner last night.
As she orders scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast, and black coffee at Wendy’s Diner the next morning, I can’t help but wonder if she knows she starred in my fantasies, riding me like a cowgirl.
Then reverse cowgirl in the middle of the night, her hair spilling down her spine, my hands on her ass.
In the shower this morning, too. I went down on her then, and she tasted absolutely heavenly coming on my tongue. So, yeah. That’s the thing about slippery slopes. Take that first step, and the next thing you know, you’ve completed a jerk-off hat trick to your bestie.
But I’m on the wagon now. Straight and narrow. Those three times worked like a charm, and I’ve got her out of my system. One hundred percent. Scout’s honor.
She wears a short gray skirt, a purple T-shirt, and her hair is knotted in a loose ponytail. I have no clue what’s on underneath, and I’m not even thinking about her bra and panties. See? I’m cured.
“And for you?” the waitress asks me.
“I’ll have the same. But well-cooked, bordering on burnt for the eggs,” I tell her, and she nods and walks away, past the open kitchen.
The guy at the table next to us turns the page in the New York Post. A prep cook slaps butter on the griddle and it sizzles. The lights shine brightly, revealing every scratch on the faded mint-green Formica table and every nick on the beige tiled floor.
This is the morning after, and as the door opens with a jingle, a quartet of dudes a few years younger than me walk in. They partied too long, and are wildly hungover—it’s obvious in their eyes.
Wendy’s is a stark contrast to Gin Joint’s nighttime enchantment. The diner air is thick with the scent of regret. I don’t know if it’s coming from others, or from Charlotte.
She fiddles with her napkin.
“Head still hurt?” I ask, since she’s quiet today.
She shakes her head. “Totally fine.”
“Water helped?”
She nods. “Always does.”
“Good. But just to be safe, we need the full hangover prevention pack,” I say, since that’s why I took her here. “Nothing rebounds you better after a night of drinking than diner food. It’s a medically proven fact.”
She manages a faint smile, and the waitress returns quickly with the coffee pot, pouring two cups. Charlotte wraps her hands around hers. “Is it now? Even though I didn’t have much to drink.” Her tone is lackluster.
I don’t let it deter me. The more I talk, the more we banter, the better the chance we can get back to who we were before. “There was a study just last week in the Journal—”
“About last night,” she begins, and the wheels of the conversation screech to a halt with those three dreaded words.
But I’m nimble. I know how to dart and dodge. I hold up a hand like a stop sign, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“No, buts. Everything is fine.”
“What I’m trying to say is—”
“Charlotte, we both had some cocktails, and hey, I get it. I look better to you when you’re wearing beer goggles.” I wink, going for self-deprecating humor because I don’t want her to feel bad in the least for what almost happened.
The corner of her lips quirks up, but that’s all. She’s not wearing lipstick this morning. She hardly has on any makeup. She still looks pretty. She always does, night or day, rain or shine.
“They were gin goggles, but even without them—”
I reach for her hand, wrap mine around it, and squeeze it in a nice friendly gesture. I need to reassure her. “We’re friends. Nothing can change that. Nothing is ever going to get in the way of us being friends. Well, unless you marry a total douche someday. So don’t do that,” I say, flashing my trademark grin and trying desperately to steer this conversation away from us, lest she figure out what my hand has done three times in the last twelve hours.
“Don’t you marry a total bitch,” she says with narrowed eyes, and that’s my Charlotte. She’s back, and she’s just like me. She’s not going to let last night’s weirdness in the cab derail the best relationship either one of us has ever had. Though weirdness might not be the right word. More like hardness, wetness, and hotness. Which are exactly the words I shouldn’t be using as I think about her. “But the thing I wanted to say about last night is about us being friends.”
“Me too!” I say, with far too much enthusiasm, but she’s just uttered the magic words. Friends. Us. I have to latch onto them so we don’t lose sight of what we are. “Our friendship is the most important thing to me, so let’s just keep being friends.”
Her features freeze, as if a mask has slid into place. She fiddles with her ring, and the strangest thing is, my heart seems to beat faster as I watch her play with it. She doesn’t have to be wearing it now, but she is.
“Yes. Friends. That’s the most important thing,” she says in a monotone.
“Like we talked about last night, right?” I say, reminding her in case her gin goggles performed a blackout trick on her brain. “Binge watching TV shows, eating gummy bears or lemonheads, and drinking tequila or wine.”
She nods. “Right. Absolutely,” she says, and flashes me a smile that doesn’t feel real.
“We should do that again. Since we can,” I say, like a card player sliding chips into the pot to bet I can just be friends with her.
“Sure.”
“How about tonight?” I say, upping the ante again. I am going to blow my own mind at how good I am at just being friends.
“Okay.”
“My house?” Doubling down. Big time.
“Really?” She arches an eyebrow. “You really want to just hang out?”
“Of course. We were saying last night that we should.”
She shakes her head, and I’m not sure if it’s amusement or some sort of resignation. She takes a breath, adjusts her ponytail, and shrugs. “Fine,” she says. “Friends don’t let friends eat gummy bears alone. I’ll bring the bears.”
“I’ll eat the green ones for you.”
She shudders. “Hate the green ones.”
; “And I’ll get the wine. If memory serves, you prefer a chardonnay with your bears?”
“I do, but maybe virgin margaritas tonight instead?”
I toss my napkin onto the table with a flourish. “Touched for the very first time,” I say, and again, maybe I should have thought first before those words came out.
Mercifully, the waitress arrives.
“Here are your eggs,” the waitress says, setting down the plates. “Well-cooked. Just like you asked for.”
Those last words echo loudly as I realize what I’ve just done. What I’ve asked for with my cocky mouth. My big ideas. My I-can-pull-anything-off attitude.
I just invited Charlotte into my house tonight. There aren’t enough sweaty basketball players in the universe for me to deal with the danger in that decision.
We spend the rest of the meal planning for the week ahead at The Lucky Spot. Neither one of us breathes another word about tonight, or last night, or our fake relationship. When we stop by The Lucky Spot and spend a few hours working before Jenny handles the Sunday afternoon shift—and before we head to the museum—we manage the slide back into being friends and business partners so smoothly, it’s as if last night never happened.
But once we set foot in the museum, something changes.
Handsy Charlotte has left the building. Sure, she’s still playing my fiancée, but she’s not as committed to the role as she was last night. I have no clue if my mom or Mrs. Offerman can tell, but as we stare at an Edward Hopper painting, I do my damnedest to make sure no one knows.
“The painting is beautiful,” Mrs. Offerman says.
“Yes, it is,” I chime in.
I wrap an arm tightly around my fake fiancée, plant a quick kiss on her cheek, and say, “Like you. By the way, have I told you how pretty you look today?”
Charlotte tenses, but manages a thanks.
My mother glances at us and smiles.
Emily does not. Emily seems to have zero interest in the artwork, even though this is her intended major.
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