More than Friends: (A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance)

by Jillian Quinn

  For a second, I start to panic, the nervous energy shooting through my body. Theo and Tucker are sleeping on the other side of this wall. My brothers love Dean. They think of him as another member of the Baldwin clan. How will they react if they see us together, and in such a compromising position? Fuck.

  All because I had to act like a girl and wonder what it would be like to be with Dean. Again. We never have sex at his house—and for a good reason. It was as if I thought this last-ditch effort before graduation would be enough to keep him in my life. The truth is that Dean has no control over where he lives once he gets drafted into the NHL, and I have a job waiting for me back home in Chicago. So, why did I think this was the answer? If anything, I might have further ruined our friendship out of curiosity, maybe even out of fear.

  “Get back to bed, Kitten.” Dean’s voice sounds more gruff than normal. He pats the space on the mattress where I slept with one eye open and his face buried in the pillow.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, staring down at him, with my arms covering my chest. He rolls onto his back, flashing a set of chiseled abs and his perfect smile that distract me. So does his morning wood that tents the covers.

  As much as I want to admit last night was a mistake or that any of the times we had sex was a mistake, he makes it impossible. The moment Dean flashes one of his boyish grins at me, I melt all over again. I will never regret asking him to take my virginity. But what I do regret is not following through on our sexual feelings.

  He rubs my thigh with a seductive look in his eyes. “It’s still me, Kitten. Nothing has changed. Okay?”

  Dean always says the right thing, and at the exact time, I need to hear it. I was afraid he would distance himself from me after we had sex the first time. Oddly enough, I was the one who felt different. Every time we get closer, I withdraw. And I have no idea why. Sex with Dean was everything I’d ever imagined and more. He makes every time feel like a new experience. But he’s still my best friend.

  I smile over my shoulder at Dean, and he takes that as his cue to wrap his arms around me, lowering me onto the mattress. Dean’s sheets are so soft that I wrap myself in them and snuggle with him, same as always. This part of our relationship is no different from before.

  I roll over to face him, cocooning myself in the blankets. “Morning.”

  Dean leans back against the wooden headboard. “Morning, beautiful.” He pushes my hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear.

  “Do you want to get breakfast? We could go down to Broad Street Beans.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good. I could use some greasy food to soak up all the alcohol.”

  “You have such a weak stomach,” he jokes.

  “I can’t help it. I guess I’m not built for pounding shots like you.”

  He sits up and readjusts himself, propping his elbow up on the edge of my pillow so that we are sharing it. Our eyes meet, and the tension between us burns like a lit match. We never needed words to communicate. But being this close to Dean never had this effect on me before. Now, I am all too aware of his proximity and how my body responds to him.

  Every movement he makes causes me to react in some way. My heart beats a little faster when he pushes down the covers, exposing my bare breasts to the cold air. Dean watches me, as I suck in a deep breath that I have yet to let out, and pinches my nipple between his fingers. I close my eyes that he forces open once his hand travels down my stomach and between my legs.

  “Dean,” I mumble.

  He breathes heavily against the shell of my ear, picking up the pace, and whispers, “Come for me, Kitten.”

  I groan in response. My head spins from the pure pleasure that Dean delivers with each flick of his fingers. My orgasm is right there, on the verge of sending me over the edge, when a knock on the door causes Dean to stop moving and me to panic.

  He removes his fingers and hops off the bed to find his boxers on the floor. He steps into them, just as Theo pounds on the door again and yells, “Hey, asshole, are you in there?”

  The sound of my brother’s voice has me in full-blown freak out mode. I wrap the sheet around myself and slide off the mattress.

  I look at Dean, the adrenaline rushing through my body, and hold up my hands. “What should I do?”

  He scans the floor and lifts my clothes and shoes in a hurry, handing them over to me along with my purse. “Hang out in the bathroom for a few,” he says under his breath.

  I walk over to the bathroom, with my hands full and my body on fire from the fear, only to find the door locked. “Someone is in here,” I mouth to Dean.

  He tilts his head to the side and scratches his jaw as if thinking about our next move. Another bang on the door causes both of us to jump.

  “I know you’re in there, Dean,” Theo says. “Open up.”

  Unsure of what to do, Dean points toward the closet and motions with his head for me to get in. As if this situation isn’t awkward enough, I have to hide in a fucking closet that probably smells like ball sweat. Well, knowing Dean it’s not too bad since he’s a clean freak. Still, the entire situation is ridiculous.

  Without another thought, I hurry across the room and open the door to the closet. What choice do I have? After last night, I’m slightly paranoid about anyone seeing me in Dean’s room. We already have enough people on campus talking about our relationship. Rumors of us having sex are a complication we don’t need, not when I have enough attention from my famous family. All eyes are always on the Baldwins. People watch us like hawks, hoping to get some dirt on us they can sell to the media.

  I have enough room to duck under Dean’s clothes and sit on the floor. Sharing a space with a Brauer hockey bag that smells like a locker room wasn’t what I had in mind when I threw myself at Dean last night. I was hoping for something a little more romantic. The breakfast he promised me would have been a nice start.

  “About fucking time,” Theo says, barging into Dean’s room. “You’re alone?” He sounds confused. “What happened to the puck bunny you were banging? She was giving my girl a run for her money last night.”

  Oh. My. God. I could die in this closet from shame. My brother, of all people, heard me having sex with Dean. And Theo was in the other room with a girl who was trying to outdo me? Gross.

  “I kicked her ass to the curb hours ago,” Dean says in his usual cocky tone.

  Ugh, I hate when he acts like Dirty Dean. While his voice is sexy-as-fuck and music to my ears, his words hit me like a punch in the gut. Did he kick me to the curb? I guess you could say that. But would he do that to me? No. I don’t think so. Would he? I’ve become more than his best friend. Now, I’m one of Dean’s puck bunnies. Shit.

  Dean isn’t like my brothers. He doesn’t whore around with any girl who flashes him a smile and a nice pair of tits. Unlike the twins, he has standards, which is odd for someone as good looking as Dean.

  I know Dean better than anyone does, and because of that, I trust him. He has no reason to lie to me. I know Deans’ habits, the things he hates, how many girls he has been with, and just about every detail of his life. Now, I’m no different than a puck bunny, balled up on the floor with his fucking hockey bag.

  Another ten minutes pass, where Dean and Theo discuss my porn star moans and what their girls did with them in bed, my stomach turns from their conversation. While I know Dean is playing it off as if I were some random hockey hooker, I want to puke in his sneakers just for talking about me like that.

  What a dick.

  The door slams behind Theo, and a few seconds later, Dean comes to help me off the floor. He hooks his arm around my back, pulling me into his chest. I hadn’t realized I was crying until Dean wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

  “I’m sorry, Kitten. Please don’t cry. I had to lie and act like you were some girl I met at the party.”

  “This is why we never did this, Dean,” I choke out between sobs. “We can’t even be together in the traditional sense. Am I supposed to sneak around
with you until we graduate? I had to hide in a goddamn closet while you and Theo talked about me like I was a porn star you were auditioning last night.”

  “You were loud, babe.” The corners of his mouth turn up into a wicked grin. “If sports broadcasting doesn’t work out for you—”

  “Don’t even finish your stupid thought,” I say, interrupting his train of thought. “This is not the time to make jokes.”

  Starting with my forehead, he plants a kiss on my skin, making his way down to my cheeks. He kisses away my tears along with my anger. I melt into him, our bodies meshed together as one, as he edges his way down my jaw and to my lips.

  “I’m sorry, Kitten,” he whispers between kisses. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Once his tongue invades my mouth, I get lost in him, almost forgetting about the rage that had bubbled inside me only a few minutes before. But between those kisses, reality sets in for me. I still have to make my walk of shame out of this house.

  How the fuck am I getting out of here without Theo and Tucker seeing me? They will never believe that I stayed in the same room as Dean and a puck bunny. Plus, they know that Dean would never subject me to something so awful.

  If the twins see me crawling out of this room, after all the things Dean just said to Theo, I have no doubt it will start a fight. One I will have to break up. I can’t be the reason Dean loses his closest friends. He has so few people he can trust.

  Once our lips separate, I want more even though I know we have to stop. “Help me get out of here.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “You honestly think we can walk out of here and say hi to Theo and Tucker after the things you said about me?”

  “I didn’t say them about you. I would never talk about you like a puck bunny.”

  “Well, you did. But that’s not the point, Dean.”

  “Do you care what Tucker and Theo think of us?” He cups my face in his hands, pinning me down with his denim irises. “You are my best friend, Kitten. There’s nothing wrong with us being together.”

  “When you say together, what does that mean to you? Like we go out on dates?”

  He shrugs.

  “You are making my point for me. We don’t even know what this means to us. I’m not about to go tell my brothers that we are together.”

  “You mean everything to me.” He runs his calloused thumb along my jaw, causing my breath to hitch. “You should know that by now.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you want to be with me, as in hearts and flowers and all that romantic shit.”

  “I don’t do hearts and flowers.” He opens his mouth, as if he’s about to speak, and hesitates. “But I could do them for you. If that’s what you want.”

  “I don’t know what I want, Dean. As usual, you confuse the fuck out of me.”

  He looks away from me, slowly releasing his grip on my face. “We have to figure a way to sneak you out the back door.”

  The sudden change in his behavior terrifies me.

  What did I just do?

  I told him the truth, and it backfired. Things are complicated now, more so than I ever thought they could be. I wish I could turn back time and stop myself from ruining our friendship.

  Chapter 13

  Senior Year

  Dean

  Kat has been acting strange for the last two weeks. Ever since we had sex again, nothing has been the same. Something was off about her. She was never this emotional in the past. I was always the one who was more invested in our relationship. Now, she’s acting like a girl who had her heart broken. But I am the one with the broken heart.

  At first, Kat stopped meeting me at Broad Street Beans for coffee before class. Then, she had excuses for why she couldn’t come to the SAC to play air hockey with her brothers and me. It’s as if she has distanced herself from everyone. Kat should know me well enough to see that I am only giving her space.

  This is not permanent. I will not allow Kat to walk away from me. Sex always complicates things, which is why I’m picky when it comes to women. Kat knows that, too. She knows everything about me. I wouldn’t have slept with her if I thought it would ruin our friendship and any shot of us ever being together. Now, I don’t know what to do. I need her back in my life.

  Flanked by Theo and Tucker, I walk past the library, hoping to see Kat. She has a class across the street on the second floor of the business hall. Her class lets out around now, and I brought her brothers as ammunition. Even if she’s mad at me, she won’t turn away the twins. I hate that I have to use them to get to Kat, but she hasn’t left me a choice.

  Theo plops down on the concrete ledge out front of the library. Tucker and I follow suit.

  “What’s been up Kat’s ass lately?” Tucker says, twisting off the top from the Gatorade bottle in his hand. “I’m starting to feel like a stalker.”

  “It’s all Dean’s fault,” Theo says.

  “No, it’s not,” I spit back, defensive. “Unlike you assholes, Kat studies for her final exams.”

  Theo waves his hand to dismiss me. “Easy for you to say. You’re good at school. This shit comes naturally to you.”

  “I still have to study.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a brainiac like Kat,” Tucker says. “That’s why you two get along so well. She’s always like Dean is so smart, and Dean is so funny, and blah, blah, blah.”

  I roll my eyes at Tucker. “You make it sound like Kat has a crush on me.”

  Theo smirks at me. “She doesn’t talk about you the same way she talks about Becca.”

  “Why would she?”

  “Just saying.”

  We wait a few minutes in silence, which is a welcome relief after another awkward conversation with the twins about Kat. Regardless of my friendship with her brothers, I can’t tell them we hooked up. That would be grounds for a fight, and I would deserve any ass kicking I got from them.

  Not that they would win, but they would at least have the right to a few punches on me, considering I betrayed their trust. My relationship with the twins complicates everything. If they were my teammates and nothing more, it would be easier to open up to them. Instead, I have to keep all the pain and guilt I harbor over losing Kat inside.

  In one swift motion, Tucker jumps up on the ledge and brings his fingers to his mouth to whistle. “Hey, Kit-Kat, over here.”

  My gaze travels from Tucker to the other side of the street, where I find Kat with Becca and a few of her classmates. She pushes her blonde hair behind her ears and then holds her hand up to her forehead to block the sun from her eyes. All she gives us is a tiny wave that we return, the disappointment having a domino effect on all of us.

  “What the fuck is her problem?” Theo slides off the ledge. Without another word, he crosses the street and runs over to Kat.

  Of course, Tucker hops down and follows behind him, leaving me no choice but to join in. By the time I reach the group, Theo is already chatting up Kat and Becca.

  “Come to the SAC with us,” Theo says, tugging on Kat’s arm. “We’re hanging out with some of the guys.”

  “I have to study,” she mutters.

  “Just for an hour or two, and then you can go back to nerding out,” Tucker says, hopeful that she will come for once.

  Kat peeks up at me from beneath light brows, her blue eyes burning a hole through me. She’s gorgeous, without a single speck of makeup on her face, and her skin is naturally glowing. Why did I have to fuck things up? Why couldn’t I tell how I felt? That could have made the difference.

  Our experiment backfired, serving as nothing more than proof that Kat will never like me as more than a friend. The feelings were always there, only now, they have multiplied. My chest aches from the sadness in her eyes. She regrets what we did. I already knew that when she started to distance herself from me. It’s not like we haven’t had sex a handful of times. What has changed?

  I move Theo to the side and pull Kat away from the group. “Can we talk?”

 
; She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out, looking away from me. A tiny smile touches her lips, one she reserves for her brothers. Once our eyes meet again, she says, “I have to get ready for the exam tomorrow.”

  “Kitten, c’mon.” I tighten my grip on her hand because I am afraid that if I let go, I will lose her forever. “Please don’t do this.”

  “I’m not doing anything, Dean. I have to pass my classes. Unlike you, I don’t have a professional hockey career waiting for me. I have to work for a living, and if I want this internship, I have to keep my grades up.”

  “You’re in the top of our class. The chance of you failing a final exam is about as slim as the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup.”

  She laughs at my comment. “You had to bring hockey into it.”

  I shrug. “Why not? It seemed to fit.”

  Tilting her head to the side, she has a sexy look on her beautiful face that reminds me of the night we were together. I miss her so much my stomach hurts from the knife digging into it. Living without Kat has been awful. She’s my entire world. I just didn’t realize it until she wasn’t part of it anymore.

  “Please, Kitten,” I beg, squeezing her hand. “Come with us for one hour. I missed you. Your brothers have missed you, too.”

  “Okay. One hour and then I have to get back to work.”

  I want to kiss her so fucking bad. But I remind myself that Tucker and Theo are watching us, along with Becca, and I’m sure whoever is walking past us.

  “I will personally walk you back to your dorm in one hour.”

  One hour is all I need, but it will never be enough.

  Thirty minutes later, Kat is in the middle of a heated air hockey tournament with Theo. With the score tied at 6-6, the next person to score wins the game. One thing I learned about the Baldwins over the years is their competitive nature. None of them can handle losing, but at least Kat is a little more graceful about it than her brothers.