Be with Me (Strickland Sisters Book 3)

by Alexandria House

  The Strickland Sisters Series: Book 3

  Alexandria House

  Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

  Arkansas, USA

  Copyright © 2017 by Alexandria House

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing 2017

  Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC

  pinkcashmerepub@gmail.com

  http://pinkcashmerepublishing.webs.com/

  Be with Me

  Former career student, Nicole Strickland, is smart, spoiled, loud, irreverent, and flagrantly promiscuous. Her greatest desire is to live a life of leisure, and Attorney Travis McClure is just the man to make her dreams come true.

  Entrepreneur Damon Davis is Nicole's best friend, has been since they crossed paths in second grade, and has loved her for as long as he’s known her. And the truth of the matter is, Nicole cares for him, too. There's not much Damon doesn't know about Nicole and he accepts her, all of her, as is. The only thing keeping these two apart is a past hurt Nicole can't seem to let go of. Oh, and her engagement to Travis.

  Damon wants his rightful place in her heart.

  Nicole wants to protect her heart from the only man with the power to break it.

  In the end, will Nicole give Damon what he's craved his whole life, the chance to be with her?

  For all the friends who should’ve been lovers.

  1

  I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, then stepped inside to find him sitting on the sofa, laptop balanced on his thighs. He glanced up at me and smiled, muttered, “Hey, how was work?”

  “Tiring. Had a long day. Sooo glad it’s Friday,” I said, as I plopped down beside him. “How was yours?”

  “Tiring, had a long day. Still working,” he mumbled, his eyes glued to his laptop.

  “Hmm…” I hopped up and headed to the kitchen, found one of my wine coolers near the back of the fridge, dug in a kitchen drawer for a bottle opener, and was guzzling it down when I felt his big hands on my hips and his lips on my neck. I grinned and brought the bottle back to my lips, finishing the cooler as he moved his hands to my breasts and squeezed them through my blouse.

  “I need to throw this away, baby,” I murmured, as he slid his mouth from the side of my neck to the back of it.

  He responded by moving one of his hands from my breast and taking the bottle from me, making use of his long arms to pitch it in the trash can. Then he wrapped his arms around my waist and led me to a counter. I leaned over it as he pulled my pencil skirt up around my waist. He pushed my blouse up my back and over my head, dragging his tongue from just above my ass to my neck before moving my panties to the side and gliding inside of me.

  I released a low moan as I clawed at the countertop, glanced over my shoulder at him as he slid out of my wetness and back inside with his eyes closed.

  “Ooooo, baby!” I whined, as he delivered slow, languorous thrusts, rubbing one hand up and down my back, while gripping my hip at the same time.

  “Shit…” he replied.

  I closed my eyes, leaning forward and pushing my ass out at him, knowing that would make him deliver harder, deeper thrusts. Soon, he was driving into me so hard that the kitchen was filled with the sounds of our moans, our labored breathing, and the glorious squishy sound of his shaft sliding in and out of my wetness. Faster and faster he thrusted, causing throngs of pressure to gather inside of me, making me drag my nails over the countertop as an incendiary orgasm ignited deep within my core. My knees buckled, and he slid out of me, turned me around, and lifted me from the floor, wrapping my legs around him and swiftly entering me again. His mouth found mine, and our tongues tangled as we kissed each other greedily. Gripping my ass, he pushed my pelvis into his, thrusting so deeply that I yelped into his mouth. It hurt in the most delicious way, and I was soon on the edge of another orgasm. I gripped his shoulders tightly as he circled the flesh of my neck with his tongue, and moments later, we were both roaring as we climaxed together.

  *****

  We were in bed now, having enjoyed another round of sex and both fallen asleep. I was lying on my back while he slept with his head on my chest and his hand between my legs, his fingers inside of me. I didn’t want to move, but I had to pee and I needed to shower because I smelled like sweat and his cologne, both scents that, along with the awareness of his fingers inside of me, made me want more of him. Nevertheless, I eased from under him and tip-toed to the bathroom. I’d barely stepped into the shower when he joined me.

  He backed me up against the shower wall, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to clean up? I would’ve done it for you.”

  I smiled as he dropped to his knees, lifted my leg, and covered my yoni with his mouth, licking and sucking until my legs quivered, then once again, he lifted me, this time using the wall as leverage as he thrusted inside me.

  Finally, an hour later, I slipped out of Damon’s apartment, locking the door behind myself. It was time to go home to Travis.

  2

  This thing between me and Damon Davis, whatever it was, started eons ago in junior high school after we’d spent years as a couple of geeky, video game and anime-loving best friends. I was the one who brought up sex.

  We were both fourteen, both virgins, and since we’d been friends forever, our parents trusted us enough to leave us alone quite often, all the time, really. I was tired of reading all those sex articles in my mother’s Cosmo magazines and not really knowing what they were talking about. Damon, who was painfully thin and gangly and didn’t possess even a remote amount of swag or charm when it came to girls—he’d never even had a girlfriend when I had a new boyfriend every month, although I didn’t deem any of them worthy of taking my virginity—was sure he’d never find someone to have sex with. So my idea for us to take each other’s virginity was a sound one.

  We fumbled through it the first time, and it hurt me so bad I started crying. So did Damon, who apologized every day for a solid week afterwards. And there was the bleeding. Not regular period bleeding, but extended two-week bleeding that concerned me to the point that I told my sister, Angie, about it, afraid I’d never stop bleeding. By then, she and her boyfriend, Benny, had done it tons of times, and she assured me the bleeding would eventually stop, schooled me on using protection, which Damon and I already knew to do, and that was it. She didn’t ask me who it was, and I never told her. I never told anyone.

  A week after the bleeding stopped, we tried again...and again...and again, until the pain was replaced with pleasure and we went from fumbling to experimenting. And over the years, our sex transformed from slow and unsure to urgent and raw and downright nasty. Eventually, sex became a regular part of our routine—doing homework at Damon’s house, then sex. Dinner at my house, then up to my room to do homework, then sex. A game of Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto in Damon’s basement, then sex. As the years passed, we’d had so much sex and knew each other’s bodies so well, being with Damon in that way became something I craved all the time. I never stopped having boyfriends, and he eventually started having girlfriends, but our sex continued and just got better and better. Believe it or not, Damon was the only boy I gave myself to until after he left for the Navy, because I knew
no one else would satisfy me like he did.

  The beautiful thing about it all is that the sex didn’t put a dent in the strength of our friendship, and as twisted as it sounds, I still held this brotherly love for him as long as we were out in public or at school or around other people. But when we were alone? Something would come over me. I almost always initiated and he was always a willing participant, but toward the end of our senior year, that all came to a grinding halt. I don’t like to think about that. It makes me cry and if I abhor anything, it’s crying.

  So anyway, I slept with lots of guys after he went off to the Navy and we lost touch, but none of them felt like he felt. There was something about sex with Damon that I never found again, a sort of innocent passion that only we shared, and we just knew each other so well. I knew what he liked; he knew what made me scream. We were the very definition of being in tune with each other. And when he came home for that short visit three years ago, it didn’t matter that he had a live-in girlfriend in South Korea, or that I was seeing several people, or that we had parted on bad terms all those years before. It didn’t even matter that it was never my intention to go down that road with him ever again. As soon as we were alone, it was on, and it was on every day that week until he left.

  And it was wonderful.

  Now, he was in Romey to stay, and our situation was what it was. I lived with Travis McClure, wore his ring, shared his bed at night, but had a key to Damon’s apartment, came and went as I pleased, and no matter the time—day or night—if I wanted him, I could have him. He never refused me.

  And I always wanted him.

  *****

  “Babe, your hair is wet,” Travis said, as he pulled me into a hug. I’d just made it home and already wished I was back at Damon’s place.

  “Yeah…I took a shower at the gym. Didn’t wanna come home to you all sweaty. I’ll fix it later. How was your day, sweetie?”

  He smiled and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Rough, that voter suppression case I’m working on…”

  As per usual, I tuned him out, nodding and widening my eyes when it felt appropriate, giving him the illusion of me giving half a fuck about what he was saying when I honestly didn’t. Travis was tall and handsome in a Michael Ealy sort of way, a pretty boy with a slight edge to his looks. Super intelligent, articulate, a lawyer from a family of lawyers, judges, and politicians, and had a gorgeously veined penis that curved upward. That would’ve been an asset on most men, but Travis had no clue how to work it. Sex with him was completely and utterly frustrating. But he loved me; that, I was almost sure of. And he was kind and patient, virtually to a fault. He’d proposed nearly a year ago and didn’t push the whole setting-a-date thing that I was avoiding like an STD. I cared about him, and the idea of marrying him pleased me. I just wished he was someone else.

  Damon, maybe?

  No, that wasn’t it. I could never marry Damon. That ship had sailed long ago.

  “…a wedding planner.”

  Shit, what was he saying?

  “What?” I said, as I walked into the kitchen to find he’d ordered us dinner from Naba, a fusion place with the best curry fried chicken in the world.

  “I said, my mom has made us an appointment with a wedding planner.”

  I frowned. “But we don’t even have a date set.”

  He took my hand and led me out of the kitchen to the living room, sat down on the sofa, and pulled me into his lap.

  I sighed.

  “Don’t be like that,” he said. “We need to set a date. Right now. No more playing around, Nicky. I mean, you do wanna marry me, right?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Then we’ve got to pick a date. I’d love a fall wedding. How about September?”

  “Um…but that’s so soon. It’s July now and I have my job, and—”

  “You can quit your job. You don’t need it.”

  Ding! Ding! Ding!

  He said the magic words. Finally!

  About. Damn. Time! Took his ass long enough!

  “Really, babe?” I asked, with wide eyes.

  “Yeah, Nicky. Really. I’ll take care of you. I want to take care of you.”

  I grinned, bit my bottom lip, and laid a kiss on him that had him gasping for air. “Okay, when in September?”

  “Uh…the sixteenth? That’s a Saturday.”

  “Sounds perfect!”

  3

  Nicky Strickland was an addiction for me. Her pussy would call to me on the night wind at like three in the morning and I’d find myself waking up in cold sweats and shit. I didn’t want to be this person, this guy who sat around and waited for her to show up, was happy for the stolen moments, didn’t mind being the side dude, but I was this guy. Because, shit, I couldn’t help it.

  I knew every inch of her body, had memorized it back in junior high—all five feet, five inches, one hundred and thirty pounds of her, from that jet-black hair that she always kept straightened, parted on the side, and hanging just below her shoulders, to those little feet. I knew where to touch her, how to touch her, when to be gentle, when to pile-drive her ass (her preferred method of sex and mine, too) and when to just hold her and let her cry. She could walk through the door and the look on her face would tell me whether she was happy, sad, horny, or bored, all reasons for her to visit, and I knew what to do for every occasion. Because I knew Nicky Strickland like you know a video game you’ve played since you were a kid. She was Super Mario Brothers to me. I knew all her levels. Had all the cheats, and the crazy thing is: she knew all of that about me, too. She knew me probably better than my own mother. We spent so much time together, years as friends before we became lovers. We knew everything about each other. Everything. And the sex? Once we knew what we were doing, the sex just brought us closer together, added a layer to our relationship neither of us knew how to peel off.

  I loved Nicole Strickland, loved her before we ever made love. Loved her before I understood what it meant to be in love. Loved her despite the fact that she didn’t love me the way I wanted her to. And Travis, her fiancé? He was inconsequential to me just like all those boys she dated in high school. She could wear his ring, sleep in his bed, have sex with him, but they’d never be us. She knew that, and so did I. I also knew she’d never marry him, not as long as I was in town. That was one of the reasons I moved back. Well, that and the fact that my ex-girlfriend threw me out some months after I returned to South Korea from Romey since I’d basically stopped sleeping with her. All because of Nicky Strickland.

  No, Nicky couldn’t marry him, wouldn’t marry him, because he wasn’t me. I was sure of that. So I would just remain available, give her what she needed, what only I knew how to give her, and wait patiently for her to leave him and come to me, because one thing I knew about her was that she didn’t like being pushed. If I pushed, I would push her away, and I definitely didn’t want that.

  *****

  Thanks to the Navy, I no longer possessed the body of a stick figure. I had bulk to go along with my height. I got over my fear of touching my eyes and started wearing contacts about five years ago, lost the afro and still maintained a low haircut, shed the self-consciousness that was signature of me throughout my childhood and adolescence, and acquired a slick potty mouth while in the service. When I returned to Romey to visit three years ago, I was a different man. If it wasn’t for the fact that I still lived in jeans, t-shirts, and Chucks, I might’ve been unrecognizable even to Nicky when I showed up at her mother’s house. During that visit, she clung to me like a wet shirt, something she did in the past anyway, but this time, we were adults with money for hotel rooms, the freedom to do whatever the fuck we wanted, and a cognizance of that freedom. I had a girlfriend waiting for me in South Korea, but I screwed Nicky in every way imaginable that week with no feelings of guilt or remorse, because if I was honest about things, Missy, my girlfriend at the time, was just a temporary replacement for Nicky.

  Missy was a gorgeous half-Haitian, half-Columbian woman who was r
aised in Florida. She was running a successful YouTube channel centered around South Korean pop music and culture when she decided to move there to live. Missy Mae was her YouTube name. Her real name was Fabiola Rodriguez, and I met her at a market in Daegu City, South Korea, after I moved there to teach English following my time in the service. At the time, I was trying to stay as far away from Romey and Nicky as I could, and with good reason. It wasn’t even my intention to hook up with her when I came home to visit; it was just what always happened when we got together. Sex between us was almost involuntary, automatic, and so damn good.

  As I sat in my apartment, working as usual, my body reacted to the thought of her. I checked the time—1:00 AM. I smiled as I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture for her. Since I knew she kept her phone on lockdown, I wasn’t worried about her man seeing the pic. Shit, I wasn’t worried about that anyway.

  After that, I closed my laptop, deciding to put my workaholic tendencies to rest and take a quick shower. I’d just dried off and slipped on some underwear when I heard the key turn in the door. She was in my bedroom in a second flat, hair tied up in a scarf, wearing jogging pants and a tank top.

  “Hey,” I said, with a grin. “What you doing out this late?”

  She gave me a smirk as she pulled her pants off, letting them drop to the floor. She wasn’t wearing any panties. “Someone sent me a dick pic.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “And…”

  She pulled her tank top over her head. No bra. “And I assumed it was an invitation for me to come get some of said dick.” Stepping into my personal space, she rubbed her hand over my chest. “Dame, you are so motherfucking fine.”