by Maisey Yates
“What?”
“I did not take you for a lace panties kind of girl, Kaylee Capshaw.”
Pleasure bloomed over her skin. She didn’t know why, but it made her smile. Maybe it was just the idea that Bennett had an opinion on what kind of panties she might wear.
“What kind of panties did you think I wore, Bennett?”
His fingers edged down slightly lower, flirting with the waistband on their current topic of conversation.
“Cotton.” The word sounded like it had scraped all along his throat on the way out.
“Sometimes I wear cotton.”
“But tonight you wore lace.” He looked up at her, his eyes meeting hers. “Did you wear them for me?”
She had. All of this was for him. She could pretend that it hadn’t been. That she hadn’t been imagining this moment. That she hadn’t been committed to trying this.
But she would be lying.
The moment she’d picked that miniskirt up in the store today, she had a feeling she’d been thinking of this.
“Of course it’s for you,” she whispered, barely able to force the words out.
He growled, the sound so unfamiliar coming from this man she had known all of her life that it made her heart stutter.
He was dangerous, her Bennett. So much more intense, more masculine, than she had even allowed herself to see.
But then, this was the essence of what made him a man. And of what made her a woman. This need. This desire between them.
The way that his body was hard and only got harder, that hers was soft in so many ways, and prepared itself to yield to all that strength.
They were business partners. They were friends. Equals in their daily life.
Having that shift, rip, so profoundly was heady and intense and terrifying all at once. She wanted more of it, as much as she wanted to hide from it.
But she couldn’t hide from it.
He pushed his hand down farther, his fingertip grazing her center. It was like the strike of a match. She couldn’t hold back the sound of pleasure that built in her throat and escaped on a whimper.
He breathed a curse as he delved deeper and found her slick and hot for him.
“Yes,” she whispered, arching her hips against him, meeting each of his movements with one of her own.
“Kiss me,” she whimpered. He wrapped his arm around her, drew her bare breasts up against his chest, holding her tight and forcing her lips apart, thrusting his tongue in deep, mirroring the rhythm of his finger. Then he pressed it between her slick folds, rubbing her slowly, methodically. Before pushing inside of her completely.
She broke. And he swallowed her cry of pleasure as her internal muscles pulsed around his fingers, as she gave in to the deepest, most intense orgasm she had ever had in her entire life. The only one she had ever had in front of another person.
And it was Bennett. Bennett was the one who had seen it. Bennett was the one who had caused it.
It was Bennett who had been the first one to taste that pleasure on her lips, to feel her lose her control.
Of course it was Bennett. It was always going to be Bennett.
She could try to care about other people. She could try to want them.
But it had always only ever been him.
She drew in a shaky breath, blinking back an onslaught of tears, trying her best to hold it together when she had already fallen apart. Then, he slipped her panties down her legs, and on autopilot she let him pull them off completely as she shifted so she was sitting on her bottom.
She scooted forward, her legs parted, Bennett kneeling up between them. Then, she placed her hands on his belt, slowly working it through the loops of his jeans, undoing the button and drawing his zipper down slowly. His breath hissed through his teeth as her knuckles brushed up against his hardness.
She was going to see Bennett’s naked penis.
She was about to hold it in her hands.
She could barely handle that. But then, he had just had his fingers inside of her when she’d come. So, this seemed fair enough.
She wanted it. So desperately. But she was afraid of it too.
With shaking fingers, she pushed his jeans down, and he helped her get them off him. And then she scooted closer, pressed a kiss to his taut stomach, just above the waistband of his underwear.
“Kaylee,” he said, grabbing hold of her chin and tilted her face up. “You don’t have to...”
And that right there confirmed exactly what she was going to do next. She moved her hand to the front of his underwear, black and tight and sexy as hell. Then she tested the length of him, the thickness, through that fabric.
He was definitely a lot more man than she’d ever had before. It felt like her reward. Her just deserts for waiting so long for him. That he would be the most impressive. That he would be the sexiest damned man she had ever touched.
In her opinion, saying size didn’t matter was a lot like saying one scoop of ice cream was just as good as two. You might only need one, but you always wanted two.
Bennett was two scoops and then some.
Slowly, she pulled his underwear down, leaving them in the middle of his thighs as she turned her focus to his body. She pressed her palms against his legs and leaned in, pausing for a moment to take in the musky, masculine scent of him. She shivered, all the way to her core. She would have said there was no way she could have another orgasm, not yet. But oh, she was about to. Just from looking at him. Just from being this close.
The light from the truck was weak, and it didn’t allow her to see him as much she wanted. She wrapped her fingers around that hard, hot length and she groaned.
“Wow,” she said, testing his length, his strength, imagining that thick, glorious arousal surging inside of her. But first. First there was something she needed to do.
She leaned in, flicking her tongue across the swollen head of him, parting her lips and taking him in slowly, inch by inch.
Bennett swore, reaching up to grip her hair, holding himself steady, using her as his anchor. She didn’t mind. She wanted to be his anchor.
His everything.
He bucked his hips, pushing himself deeper into her mouth, groaning as he did. She was afraid that he would be tentative, that because he had said she didn’t have to, he would feel uncomfortable with it. But clearly, whatever reservations he’d had were long gone now.
And she was glad. She didn’t want him to hold back. This was her moment. The culmination of years of fantasies. She didn’t want restraint. She didn’t want him to be careful. If they were going to burn everything down, if they were going to blow it all up, then it needed to be completely destroyed. There was no point going halfway. At the point when they had acknowledged that they both wanted this, that they wanted each other, it had already been too late.
Hell was hell. Whether you were standing at the door or deep in the pit of it.
When it came to this, there was only all the way.
Maybe it was the way through. Or maybe not. But right now it didn’t matter.
She worked his glorious body in and out of her mouth, and he moved his hips along with her. The taste of him, the strength, all of it, it made it a bigger turn-on for her than it might even be for him. Because she was sure that Bennett Dodge had not ever fantasized about her giving him a blow job. But she had certainly fantasized about giving him one.
Bennett. Her Bennett. Finally. Under her hands, in her mouth. It was all she had wanted. All she needed.
“Kaylee,” he gasped. “I can’t... I can’t last.”
She could only make a muffled sound.
And then he pulled himself away from her.
“Bennett,” she breathed, “it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he rasped, reaching for his jeans and grabbing his wallet. He had a condom, which didn’t re
ally surprise her, considering which particular conversation had led them here. She’d had one too, but hers was still in the cab of the truck, so she was happy to let him take the wheel on this. “It’s really not okay.”
He discarded his underwear, and slowly tore open the packet, taking out the latex and rolling it over his length.
Suddenly, it all became very real. And suddenly, it became very scary.
Because it was all fine and good to think of touching as being the same as wanting. But actually contending with having him inside of her. With being with him like this...it was different. It was more.
She wanted it. But it terrified her. She was not a casual sex kind of girl and she hadn’t been with very many people. Always after careful consideration. After they had spent a long time dating.
But actually, if this were casual sex, it would’ve been less scary. It wasn’t casual sex. It was sex with Bennett. And that was the opposite of casual. That was something a hell of a lot more terrifying.
But then on a groan, he kissed her again. So deep and dirty and all-consuming that it made her forget her moment of trepidation. She pushed her panties down her legs, desperate to be completely bare up against him. And then she was. That hot erection burning against her stomach, his chest hair rough against her breasts. His thighs pressed against hers, one large hand moving down to cup her butt. He squeezed her tight, then pushed his fingers between her legs from behind, stroking her slick channel.
Then he pushed her down, flat on her back, settling between her legs. She didn’t want to stop, not anymore. She angled her hips up, offering herself to him as he positioned the blunt head of his arousal up against her. He wrapped his hand around himself, pushing his length through her folds once, twice, again, sending sparks raining down on her before he brought himself against her entrance again.
He pushed forward a fraction of an inch, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. To keep from crying. As Bennett, her best friend, filled her completely.
She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, trying to hold back the onslaught of emotion that was threatening to crash over her. She didn’t want that. She just wanted this. She just wanted to feel. Feel all that hardness stretching her, feel him pulsing inside of her. That was what she wanted. To feel the weight of his body pressed down on hers, his heart beating against her chest.
His breath was hot on her neck, his hands roaming down her back, moving down beneath her ass as he lifted her up and thrust hard into her. He let out a short, fractured sound that hollowed out her stomach, made her feel like she was on the edge again.
She knew his voice. But not like this. She knew his touch, but not like this. She knew him. He had been part of her life for so many years. They had gone to school together. They worked together. They drank together. He had been in her home, in her world, for all of this time, but he had never been inside of her.
It was almost too much. Too real. And she was thankful for the pleasure that began to blot out reality. That made the stars overhead blur and made everything feel just a little bit fuzzy.
He shifted, gripping her hips, jerking her down against him as he thrust forward, the sound of skin meeting skin the only sound in the silence of the forest. Except when he said her name. Short, sharp, pained. But he knew that it was her. He wasn’t pretending it wasn’t.
She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips, pressing one hand against his chest, the other gripping his shoulder as she rocked against him, desperate for more. Desperate for everything.
This wasn’t like any sex she had ever had. It wasn’t clumsy or tentative. It wasn’t two people stumbling through, trying to figure out what the other wanted.
It was selfish. Harsh and hard. In that way it was perfect. Because they were both taking exactly what they wanted. She was taking pleasure in his body, and he was taking it in hers. And that...that brought all the satisfaction she could ask for.
She wasn’t worried about whether or not he wanted it. Whether or not he enjoyed it. She knew he did. It was in the frantic way he moved, in the way he said her name, the way he groaned against her neck, his breath hot on her skin.
She was unraveling again. Bit by bit, beneath his touch. With him all around her, filling her, destroying her. Making her new.
She didn’t know what would be left of them when it was over. She didn’t know if they would be able to come back from this. To piece themselves together, piece their friendship together. But right now there was this.
It was everything.
A moment in time that so many of her feelings, so many of her desires, so many of her long-held dreams had been leading to. That no matter what happened in the end she couldn’t regret it. Because for her this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. For her this had nothing to do with a dry spell or simply being lonely. For her, this was about Bennett.
Whatever it was about to him, she knew what it was to her.
And it mattered enough that it could be everything. For her. For now.
He gripped her thighs, drawing her knees up farther, positioning her so that he went deeper. Impossibly. Beautifully. She gasped, her orgasm breaking over her suddenly, like a sneaker wave on the beach. She had spent her whole life working so hard to find release, she hadn’t known it could be so easy. But then, with him it had always been just beneath the surface. With him, of course it was easy. Because it had almost been harder to hold it back.
He followed her closely, his harsh groan loud in her ear as he froze against her, pulsing deep inside of her.
And then it was over. He pressed his forehead against hers, sharing the same breath. He kissed her. And then he pulled away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BENNETT COULDN’T BREATHE. His chest was burning like he had just driven a herd of cattle across a field on foot and Kaylee was lying there in the back of his truck, completely naked, her small, perfect breasts rising and falling with her own labored breathing. He couldn’t make out much detail on her bare body, just the vague impression of pale skin, long slender limbs and slight curves in the mixture of white moonlight and the yellow glow coming from the truck.
But even if it wasn’t sharp and clear, the fact remained that he was looking at his best friend’s naked body. His best friend, who he had just had sex with.
Dammit.
Except, as he knelt there in the truck, he felt...not a whole lot of regret, even if he should. He felt good. He felt better than he had in a long time. Yes, he was a man, so he was pretty basic, but he hadn’t realized he was quite that basic. That even with his life flung into turmoil, even with this adding a strange new dimension to his most important nonfamilial relationship, he felt good.
Because he’d just had an orgasm.
One that was so strong, so powerful it was still ringing in his head like he’d gone shooting without ear protection.
“You’re going to get cold,” he said, his voice rough.
He didn’t know why that was the first thing that came to mind. Except she was so slim, so vulnerable-looking. He had a feeling the night air would have her shivering in just a few minutes. Of all the things to be concerned about, that was a strange one.
“I’m not cold,” she mumbled, but she mobilized, beginning to collect her clothing, which was strewed around the bed of the truck.
He imagined that he should do the same. He was trying to get his brain functioning again. His jeans and underwear hadn’t gone far. He found them and pulled them on. His T-shirt was another matter. He hunted around for that for a while, and finally discovered it buried in the blankets.
He shrugged it over his head and by the time he was finished, Kaylee was completely dressed, wiggling herself out of the truck and back onto the ground. He followed suit, but by the time his boots hit the gravel Kaylee was already in the truck, the door closed firmly behind her.
He took a deep breath, looking around a
t the darkened forest behind the truck. He had a brief thought that life might be simpler if he just walked into it and kept on walking.
But he couldn’t do that. He had a business with ranchers and animals that depended on him. There was a teenager waiting for him at home. His teenager. His son.
And probably, Kaylee wouldn’t appreciate him disappearing into the darkness either.
If he felt strange, she must feel even stranger. Hell, strange was an understatement. He felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin.
Kaylee was pretty. He’d known that for a long time. He wasn’t blind. And yes, recently, there had been a sexual edge to that acknowledgment. But this was different than a sexual edge. This had been an explosion. It had blown what he had thought about their relationship sky-high. It had to be the same for her too.
They had never thought of each other that way. Not really. There was a difference between acknowledging the other was an attractive person that maybe somebody else would enjoy having sex with, and actually having sex with each other.
He took a deep breath, gave one last longing look to the inviting, dark forest and got into the driver’s side of the truck. His keys were still in the ignition.
He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything as he started up the engine and began to drive back down the mountain.
“You can just take me back to my truck,” Kaylee said.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind driving you home.” It seemed wrong to have sex with a woman in the back of his truck and not even drive her home.
He felt weird about leaving her at all, but he had to. He couldn’t go back to her place. And he couldn’t have her spend the night at his. His stomach twisted, sharp and hard at the thought. Kaylee spending the night. All night in bed together.
That made him hard again in an instant and he shifted, feeling like a jerk. Because he hadn’t thought of one useful thing to say and he was sitting next to her getting aroused all over again.
No. He wasn’t going to spend all night in bed with her. Even if circumstances permitted...