Friends to Lovers (Aisle Bound)

by Barth, Christi

  Funny how his words completely dried up her mouth—and moistened other parts of her so completely. “You don’t have to make this into a big deal, Gib.”

  “It already is.” He took her hand and pressed it to his crotch. “Don’t you know what you do to me?”

  Daphne didn’t. Not for sure. Not until five seconds ago. But now, with her fingers spread around the considerable proof of his arousal, it was clear. As was yet another reason why Gib was legendary throughout Chicago. Lastly, it was clear they’d crossed the big line. There was no going back to the way things were. Not after squeezing his glorious cock. “I’m getting the picture,” she said.

  “I hid from you—and from myself—the way you made me feel. But I always noticed. How beautiful you always are.” Gib combed his fingers through her hair after he removed the elastic. Pulled it over her shoulders to fan across her breasts. The backs of his knuckles grazed her skin. “Your hair’s like sunshine streaming down. Your lips taunt men with their fullness. I’d look into your eyes, and wish I could see them glazed with passion.”

  Mouth dry, Daphne said, “Maybe stripping my shirt off wasn’t obvious enough. I want to do this, Gib. I want to be with you. You don’t have to romance me.”

  “That’s why I want to. Why I have to. There’s no playbook between you and me. Not anymore. There’s just the woman I adore more than I ever thought possible. The woman I crave. Whose breasts,” from beneath he lifted, squeezed, “make me want to throw you down on the floor and jam myself into you.”

  “Sounds good to me.” She yanked his fleece over his head. Flattened her palms against his abs. God, they were as hard as the ribs above. Gib’s abs put underwear models to shame. In a mad scramble, she alternated between abs and pecs. It was just all so good, so muscled, so damn sexy. Daphne didn’t know where she wanted to touch the most. And then she remembered that despite their make-out sessions, she’d never touched his naked ass. That pinged to the top of her priority list. But she barely made it a knuckle south of his waistband before he stepped out of reach.

  “You can’t touch me,” he ordered.

  “What fun is that?” She heard him open a drawer. Drop his shoes to the floor. Then—joy—the noisy unzip of his pants. Too dark for her to see much but a tall shape. Oh, how she wanted to see his body. To not have to peek out of the corner of her eye, but to fully stare her fill.

  “Look, just because I can barely breathe with how bloody bad I want to fuck you doesn’t mean I will.” He’d practically snarled. Then immediately shoved her jeans to her ankles.

  Obeying his signal, she lifted each foot to allow him to strip her. “Throwing mixed signals here, Gib.”

  “This is our first time. Not a frenzied bar hookup. This is us. Finally.” Daphne jumped as he knelt, skimming the outside of her thighs. “I want to do it right. I want to take care with you. I want to take care of you. So you’ve got to stop driving me crazy with your hands and let me.”

  “Let you...” She trailed off. Despite his plea, she couldn’t resist tangling her fingers in his hair.

  “Let me touch you.” Another skim, this time down her calf. “Kiss you.” A kiss to the back of her kneecap that skittered licks of pleasure up her spine. “Lick you.” His tongue swiped a circle around her belly button. This time her knees did buckle a little, against the strong wall of his shoulders. “Show you how I hunger to be inside you. Fill you.” One hand cupped her through her panties. Pushed them to the floor.

  She tried to remember to breathe. His dark promises tangled her into a sticky web of lust. “If you insist.”

  “I do.” He picked her up. This time it felt different, with him naked and her almost, so many things touching in a new and exciting way. Daphne wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to last, either. The panties dropped off her feet. “Like I said before, I thought about how to make tonight special. Just for you.”

  The words she’d always wanted to hear. Joy speared through her. “You mean I didn’t have to strip in your living room? You planned this all along?”

  “I hoped. Thought I could bribe you into joining me in here with the ice cream. Nice to know you were just as eager, though.”

  “Right. The last thing you need is an ego boost in the bedroom.”

  “Don’t. No one else exists in here but you and me. There is no past. Only now, us, together.” He gently laid her diagonally across the bed.

  Softness enveloped her—and not just his six-hundred-thread-count sheets and pillow-top mattress. Spreading her fingers, Daphne felt...petals? Spread her legs, flexed her toes...the entire bed was covered with a thick blanket of rose petals. “You did this for me?”

  “Only for you.”

  She laughed in delight. Then sucked in a breath when he drew a petal down her abdomen. Stopped breathing entirely when he flicked open her bra with his teeth. Circled her nipple with the edge of a single petal.

  Daphne squirmed, reached for his back.

  “Uh-uh.” Clicking his tongue, Gib circled her wrists with one hand and pinned them above her at the edge of the bed. “Don’t make me tie you up. That’s something best saved for another night, too.”

  An entirely different, darker thrill ran through her. She’d fantasized. Had a hushed, 2:00 a.m., giggly conversation with Ivy in a hotel room about the different things they’d be willing to try. With the right guy. Hadn’t thought she’d ever find a guy she could trust so completely. To put herself completely at his mercy. And yet, Daphne knew now that she had. That she’d follow Gib down whatever pleasure path he took her. She trusted him. She trusted that he’d never hurt her.

  He pressed harder, smashing the softness against her. Swiping it back and forth, around and about. Its scent, and the scent of the rest, surrounded her. Enveloped her. Subsumed her. Gib picked up a fresh petal. Started anew on the other breast. Except this time, while he stroked, his mouth closed around the other nipple.

  Daphne shifted, restless, hungering, seeking. Gib moved on top of her. His weight pressed one side of her into velvety, flowery softness. The other side of her body leaped to attention at the rasp of hair on his athletic legs, against her legs. The line of dark hair down his belly had always drawn her attention. Now she discovered feeling it rubbing against her? Even better than seeing it. And pressed at her core was the biggest, thickest, hardest—she had no words. Literally. Daphne tried.

  She wanted to tell him how good it all felt. How good he made her feel. How each brush of the petal catapulted her into quivers. Each long pull of his mouth on her nipple catapulted her closer to the brink. But all she could do was gasp. Or moan, with a few sighs. The pleasure stripped her words, her thoughts away. Took her to a place where there was only sensation, only Gib.

  Finally he let go of her wrists. Sat back on his muscled haunches that she stroked with her own thighs. “Be good,” he warned.

  Oh, well, if he was going to keep ordering her around, she’d damn sure find her voice again. “You’d better be great,” she sassed back.

  “No worries.” Gib took handfuls of the petals, let them fall one by one onto her legs. Like some exquisite Chinese petal torture. Dropped a huge pile, light as a cloud, ever so slowly, at her hot center. Soon every inch of her body was overstimulated. Daphne thrashed her hips.

  “More,” she demanded. Begged. Sighed.

  “More petals?” Back to a single one, the world’s softest, smallest fan. He scraped its edge along the juncture of her legs. How could something so soft create so many sensations? So much, and yet not enough.

  “No. More you.”

  “So...this?” Delicacy abandoned, he wrapped his arms around her thighs. Lifted her ass up and buried his face between her legs. The moment his breath steamed against her overheated flesh, she jerked. That brought her to his lips just as he chuckled. Those vibrations buzzed against her with his first long lick.

&
nbsp; “God, yes,” she moaned. Her fingers dug into the petals as she tried with all her might not to grab him. Not to do anything that might make him stop. It all felt so wonderful. Gib tasted, explored her as thoroughly as the first time they’d kissed. Took the time to discover what she liked, where, how much. What tensed her muscles. What made her breath hitch. What made her arms sweep restlessly across the bed now redolent with the scent of summer and love.

  With one last kiss high on her thigh, he pulled back. Daphne heard the rip of a wrapper. The snap of rubber. And then the welcome weight of his hard body settled against her once more.

  “Are you ready?”

  She could barely stand the intensity of her feelings—both physical and emotional. So as always, Daphne resorted to snarkiness. “Are you going to shut up and get to it?”

  Gib answered by slanting his mouth across hers. Plunged deep within her in a single, slow stroke. Daphne clamped her hands on his ass—as tight and perfect as she’d imagined—locking him against her.

  “Hang on,” he warned. Gib must’ve sensed how close she was. Must’ve been just as crazed and desperate. Because he rode her. He made her his own. Thrust fast and hard, a steady rhythm that almost immediately arched her back and clenched her toes. “Only you,” he whispered. Then picked up the pace, arms holding her in an iron grip.

  Daphne felt like a live wire jittered up her spine. From her breasts out to her arms, down her legs. Gathering electricity, growing in amplification, sparking through her with jolt after jolt of pure pleasure. Pure Gib. And then it all coalesced, melted into a pool of spreading bliss. As she cried out, a guttural moan tore out of Gib. One final thrust that shimmered an extra ripple of sensation across the top of her pool, and then he stilled.

  They both just breathed—or tried to—for a few moments. With Gib collapsed on top of her, Daphne could barely fill half a lung. Didn’t matter. Gasping underneath Gib was sooo much better than breathing freely anywhere else. Although when he propped himself up on his elbows, she did grab at the opportunity to reoxygenate her brain.

  Once it was back at full capacity, Daphne realized it had been a while, and Gib still hadn’t said anything. Not a word. Just hovered above her. Breathing. Staring. Judging? Scoring? No. They were past that. Past her insecurities and his string of ex-lovers longer than the Great Wall of China. Right? God, would she really have to break the silence? Wasn’t there a page in the guy’s rule book stating they had to speak first after sex?

  Leading off with the fact it was the best sex of her life? Sounded too pat, too rote. Sex that made the room spin and the room disappear until Gib consumed her? Tell him that it was better than she’d ever dreamed—and she’d had her fair share of dreams about Gib. While it was all true, he’d probably heard it dozens of other times from every other woman lucky enough to be on the receiving end of his talent. And Daphne certainly couldn’t share what threatened to spill right out of her heart. How she’d always loved him as a friend. Tried to ignore being head over heels in lust with him as a man. How having him inside her tipped her over into undeniable, heart-thumping, soul-sharing, forever and ever love.

  If she asked what he was thinking, she’d be a cliché. The kind of girl that guys run from. But Daphne really, truly wanted to know. Before the whole relationship and sex thing, she would’ve known what to do. Whack his arm, tell him to stop breathing so hard like a panting perv, and go get her the ice cream he’d mentioned. Friends before lovers. Friends first and foremost.

  “That wasn’t weird at all,” she whispered.

  “Bite your tongue. It was sixteen shades of wonderful.”

  Whew. “Little weird now, though.”

  Gib reached over the edge of the bed, grabbed the comforter and covered them as he rolled them over. He nestled Daphne’s head onto his shoulder. Kept his legs intertwined with hers. “I disagree. Do you remember our first kiss?”

  “New Year’s Eve? Of course.” When she was eighty and gumming her applesauce she’d still remember that kiss.

  “I ran around like a crazy person for two days because it was the best kiss ever. Familiar and exciting and different all at once. As if the woman I’d kissed had been hand-tailored for me.”

  “In the space of a few hours I’ve gone from being a greasy hot dog to a diamond to one of your Savile Row suits. I think I’m backsliding.”

  “Hush.” He laid a heavy finger across her lips. “I’m trying to say something important. Daphne, you felt right to me from our first kiss. Being with you like this is the happiest I’ve ever been. It isn’t weird at all. It’s perfect. Best friend combined with best sex—oh, and a win at broomball? Equals the best night ever.”

  Daphne didn’t want to jinx anything by agreeing out loud. Perfection was a pretty high bar to set...and keep. But the fact he’d say all that to her unprompted filled her heart to bursting. He’d summed it up, well, perfectly. Their friendship was like a seven-scoop sundae, and sex was just the layer of hot fudge that pulled it all together into something magical. Daphne snuggled closer. “I take it back. Not weird. Should I go with amazing instead?”

  “That would be acceptable.” Gib lazily caressed her back. “For now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you, my beautiful girl, got me so worked up that I didn’t get a chance to get to know you.”

  “I’d say you know me pretty well.”

  “On the surface, perhaps. But you and I, we’re both sticklers for attention to detail.” He reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp. “I need to see you. To see and touch and taste every inch of you.”

  Daphne blinked against the suddenly bright light. Sheet clutched to her chin, she was about to protest. Until her eyes locked on to the trail of dark hair at his belly. That line she’d obsessed over since the first time he’d whipped off his shirt after a run. She realized how equally badly she wanted to see all of Gib. “What about the ice cream? Shouldn’t we refuel first?”

  One jet-black eyebrow shot up. “Excellent point.” He shifted her sideways. “I’ll start with a dollop here,” Gib traced the hollow of her collarbone, “a tiny scoop here,” he licked the valley between her breasts, “and then eat my fill here.” His hand settled, warm and heavy, between her legs. “We’ll both be sticky, so then we’ll move round three into the tub.”

  Daphne gulped. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat

  ~ Beverley Nichols

  Gib crossed his ankles, leaning against the metal door to the walk-in. The scent of roses filled the air in this back corner of Aisle Bound. It reminded him of what had happened two nights ago, in his bedroom. Which immediately raised his dick to half-mast. Not that he’d once been completely soft since being with Daphne. They’d knocked off the list doing it in the shower, the tub, in front of the fireplace and on the kitchen island before moving on to her apartment the next night.

  Actually, he’d stopped by her office to pick her up for dinner, and they’d moved on to a hot and heavy session on this very table. With her sitting on it, the height accommodated him standing perfectly. Their unquenchable need had been slaked enough to pick up a pizza and make it back to Daphne’s. Where the pizza sat by the front door, cold and untouched, for almost two hours.

  “That’s pretty,” he said, pointing at the bouquet she was assembling. Gib always loved to watch Daphne work. It looked like she started from sheer chaos, with the buckets and heaps of flowers around her. And then, with a few intricate twists of wire, she’d produce the most amazing bouquets. Pure works of art. Like watching a painter create a landscape with merely a brush and watercolors.

  “Of course it is.” Daphne never lacked for confidence when in her workroom. “See how the pitch-black centers of the ruffled white anemones pick up the black hyp
ericum berries? And they fluff out around the tight white roses?”

  There were a finite number of correct responses. Gib had hung out back here for years. He still hadn’t graduated much beyond thinking all the colors looked pretty together, but he took a shot. “It gives the bouquet depth?”

  “Exactly,” she said with a satisfied nod. “Tie the stems off with a wide black satin ribbon—” her actions mirrored her words, “—and you’ve got an elegant winter bouquet. White and black. White and red. White, white and more white.” Daphne scrambled the stems in front of her into a messy pile. “God, I’m sick of winter flowers already. Of course, in a few weeks I’ll be ranting about how it wouldn’t kill people to send something besides red flowers on Valentine’s Day.”

  “We’ve all got hot-button issues.”

  “Tell me yours,” she pleaded. “Distract me from this field of non-color.”

  “Gladly.” It was, after all, why he’d come over. To bitch about his day to a guaranteed sympathetic ear. To the one person in the world he knew would be able to, amazingly, right his mood in a matter of minutes. And, to be honest, in the hopes of more sex. Gib didn’t think it would take much to convince her. His girl matched him in the unflagging lust department. He adored her lack of restraint. The way she threw herself into lovemaking with a passion that both sapped and invigorated him. And how she laughed with him. It felt so good to not be performing, not be trying his damnedest to impress every time he reached for a condom. Instead, his motivation was first to make Daphne happy, and secondly to just have fun. So different, so natural, so easy. So fucking hot. “My day was crap.”

  “Really? I thought it started well,” she said with a sly smile.

  Ah, yes. Daphne had joined him in the shower. They’d gotten far dirtier before they eventually cleaned up. He’d been fifteen minutes late for his first meeting, but it was so worth it. “It did. But when you start the day so well, it’s rather bound to go downhill. I spoke to my replacement.”