More Than Friends

by Celeste Anwar

  The uniform mahogany of her skin only added to her allure. He’d never known another woman quite like her.

  He felt like a caveman ogling a prize.

  “Hey,” he said, breaking his stupor and walking up to help her. “It’s a scorcher today, ain’t it?”

  She spared him a glance. “Yeah. Not too bad now that it’s getting on in the evening. I like to work out here around this time the best.”

  Jake peeled off his shirt and wiped his forehead and chest off. She noticed and stopped to stare at him a brief moment before continuing on with her task. He smiled. Brent wasn’t the only one who could take off his shirt.

  He grabbed the water hose and started watering the beans along the fence. He pulled the hose, watching her from different angles as she squatted and tended the garden. A fine sheen of perspiration coated her warm, brown skin, making her gleam in the sunlight.

  Impulsively, he squirted water at her, splashing her chest to watch droplets rivulet down the valley of her breasts.

  “Stop that!” she said. “I’m not ready for a bath yet.”

  “Why? You look hot,” he said, squirting her legs when she stood up to glare at him with her beautifully framed brown eyes.

  “I’m gonna kill you. That’s freezing.”

  He laughed. “All right. I’ll quit. I’ve about got everything watered anyway.”

  “You missed these over here,” she said, motioning to the row she was working on.

  “Well, I tried to get them, but you’re in the way.”

  “Believe me, I’ll move,” she said with a smile, leaning on the fence to watch him water the last row.

  He swiped a hand across his forehead and looked at her. “Me and Brent were talking about a game we used to play with you when we were kids.”

  “We played a lot of games. Which one?”

  “Catch and kiss. Do you remember it?”

  Lizzy laughed. “Yeah. Y’all never did get me. You were both too slow.”

  Jake finished and turned off the water, rolling up the hose. “I’m not that slow anymore. I’m sure I could outrun you now.”

  “Hmph. I’d like to see you try,” she said, smiling. “I’m still pretty fast. I run every morning. I haven’t seen you getting out of bed early to exercise.”

  He looked insulted and frowned at her. “All right then. Tell you what, I’ll even let you get a twenty second head start instead of ten.”

  Lizzy shook her head. “I don’t need it. I’m confident you won’t catch me. You never could and never will.”

  “Get ready then, ‘cause it’s on!”

  Lizzy yelped and took off, dashing through the fence and heading down the beach. Jake counted to ten then went after her. He might not work out around their home, but he did almost every day on the school track. Just because they were on summer break didn’t mean he’d suddenly fallen out of shape.

  From behind, he could see the play of her dark skin over her muscles, entrancing him, the sway of her hips as she ran, her ass jump as her feet hit the sandy beach. He was determined to win this time.

  He was taller than her, and his legs ate the ground at a faster pace. After a few seconds, he’d caught up with her and snatched an arm around her waist, taking her to the sand and rolling on top of her.

  She giggled and panted when he landed above her. Her chest heaved from the exertion. She smiled up at him, her brown eyes twinkling beneath thick black lashes. “First time ever you managed to get me. I guess I couldn’t hold my record forever. I forgot you were a runningback in high school.”

  “Yeah, you did. Now, for that kiss.”

  She grinned then puckered her lips and gave him a peck on the mouth.

  He looked down at her, his eyes as serious as he felt. “That’s not the kind of kiss I wanted.”

  Chapter Three

  Lizzy met his green-eyed gaze, stunned into silence. She opened her mouth on an inhalation of surprise, and he closed the gap between them.

  She had dreamed many times of kissing Jake and Brent. From the moment puberty had hit them, her before the boys; she’d noticed how cute they were but completely off limits. They’d never acted like she was anything other than a friend. It hadn’t stopped her from dreaming and fantasizing about what they’d do together, how each would kiss, how each would be different. The fantasies had gone on for years without any of them ever showing the slightest interest in her, until finally all her imaginings had finally dried up when faced with the reality that nothing was ever going to happen.

  She wondered what had suddenly changed and why.

  The moment his lips met hers, she felt lost. The heat of his chest, slick from the run crushed down on her breasts, making breathing difficult, frantic as her nostrils flared with the effort to breathe. She felt light-headed, drunk and dizzy.

  She whimpered into his mouth, feeling his lust shimmer between them like a palpable thing. She jerked against him when his tongue surged suddenly into her mouth, swirling inside like ravaging invader. This was nothing like the sweet, gentle fantasies of her youth. Nothing like the fumbling, sloppy kisses her one and only boyfriend had bestowed on her years ago.

  His mouth slanted over hers. His tongue, hot and voracious, swept through her mouth to tangle with her tongue and suck the tip into his own mouth. He groaned into her lips, pressing her body into the sand.

  Something hard moved against her leg, and she realized it was his erection pressing against the front of her hip. He stroked her tongue as though he would eat her, savoring the taste of her mouth like a fine wine.

  A warm hand, rough and calloused, moved up her bare waist to cup her breast. The moment his hand closed over her tit, she felt a warm gush of liquid desire rush to her center. His leg crossed over hers, moving between her thighs to rub against her jean-clad slit. The fabric did nothing to curb the sensation of that hard ridge of muscle nudging her hot, swollen folds.

  Distantly, she realized she should put a stop to this, but she’d lost all sense of herself, all her reservations. Her mind was blank as he sucked her tongue and cupped her breasts, pinched her nipple until the bud hardened under his fingertips. His other hand trailed down her arm and waist, moving to her hip to edge the waist of her jeans, leaving a trail of achy need that centered in her suddenly pulsing pussy.

  He tugged at the button of her shorts, attempting entry and bringing her back to reality. She tore her mouth from his with a gasp, looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and passion.

  “I think that’s enough of that,” she said on a shaky breath. “Let me get up.”

  He rolled off her without a word, and she stood on wobbly legs, heading back to the house to get cleaned up. She wasn’t sure what had just happened. And she wasn’t sure she liked it or not, even if her body did, that didn’t mean she could just go with it and hope that nothing bad happened and that she didn’t get hurt.

  She’d always had the sense that Jake was somewhat of a player. He’d never paraded girls around her, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had plenty of conquests. She wasn’t about to be one more notch on his bedpost just because he hadn’t had a girlfriend in a while.

  They only had one bathroom in the house, one bedroom. It’d never been a problem before. She felt a little awkward right now, and attributed it entirely to Jake’s actions. Despite what he said, she still had the feeling he was up to something.

  They usually split up the chores in the house, each taking a section and rotating it weekly. They’d never managed to have the entire house clean in one day.

  She didn’t like it or trust it one little bit.

  When she reached the bathroom, she heard the shower going. She considered not going in, but she really needed to pee. The shower could wait. She walked inside and used the toilet, flushing and listening to Brent yelp when the water got suddenly hot.

  He poked his head out and saw her pulling up her shorts. “Funny,” he growled and ducked back inside to wash the soap out of his hair.

  Lizzy gri
nned and went to wash her hands. When she looked up at the mirror, her hair was a terror from rolling in the sand. She scrubbed her hands on her scalp, shaking sand into the sink. Movement caught her eye, dragging it toward the reflection of the shower in the mirror.

  Brent had left an opening in the shower curtain and she could see everything from her vantage point. Steam wafted through the opening, making the mirror fog. She wiped it off, watching as he moved in the water and rinsed soap out of his hair and off his body. His big hands moved over his slick skin, drawing her eyes down his sculpted back and firm, muscled ass. He turned and dipped his face in the water with his eyes shut.

  Her eyes bulged at the sight of his flaccid member nestled in a dark thatch of hair. On soft, it looked huge. She wondered what it’d look like hard. What it would feel like, taste like…

  The water suddenly shut off and the curtain opened. Brent stopped in the shower door, gaping at her. “I thought you were gone,” he said, grabbing a towel to dry himself off with, as if it wasn’t anything in the world to stand naked in front of her.

  Something was definitely going on with the guys.

  “Uhhh.” She swallowed, hard. Trying not to watch the towel catch water droplets as it moved across his wet body. “Not yet.”

  Brent grinned knowingly, toweling his hair dry and standing in front of her in all his manly glory. From this position, she could see he was definitely well-endowed.

  “Caught you looking.”

  She flushed. “You did not!”

  He cocked a crooked smile at her and draped the towel around his waist, finally giving her enough opportunity to gain some sense back. It was hard concentrating on talking when faced with a buck naked man.

  “Then why are you still in here?”

  Lizzy chose to ignore the fact that she’d been ogling his nakedness like it wasn’t even an issue. She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I’m waiting my turn in the shower, of course.”

  “Ah. Okay. Go ahead. I’ve still got to shave.” He turned away from her and moved to the sink.

  Hell, two could play that game. If they had some kind of running bet between them, she’d kill them. She knew how they were, how competitive they made each other. She wasn’t an idiot. She had the feeling they were both just toying with her and she’d had enough. She could torture them just as easily as they could her. Probably better, too. Lizzy turned her back to him

  “Could you untie my top? The knot tightened up and I can’t get it undone,” she said, feigning innocence.

  She heard him swallow audibly behind her. She smiled, feeling mischievous. This was fun.

  His warm hands brushed against her back as he worked on the knot for the back of her swimsuit. He got the one around her neck untied easily, making her breasts drop as they suddenly lost support.

  “Oops!” she said, catching them with her arm. “And the other one?”

  He should know perfectly well she could get it open herself, but he did it for her anyway, his fingers lingering on her bare skin as if he longed to stroke her back. When he got the last knot untied, she looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes slanted low.

  “Thanks, Brent. You’re a lifesaver. You can go back to shaving now.”

  He moved back to the sink and she shimmied out of her shorts, dropping them on the floor. She stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed before removing her panties and dropping them over the bar holding the curtain up. The curtain she left as open as he had, giving him a view of her from his vantage at the mirror.

  The moment the water streamed over her skin, she soaped her scrubby and drew the suds over her chest, swirling them around her breasts while she pretended to not notice him watching her from the bathroom mirror. Her nipples pebbled under the stream of water, jutting out and begging for a mouth to suck on them. How many times had she imagined doing something like that with Brent or Jake? It was no wonder she’d never had another boyfriend when she’d never met anyone that could outmatch them in looks and personality. She just always figured she’d be relegated as a friend and nothing more.

  That they’d both seemed to notice her hadn’t escaped her attention, and she found the process of toying with Brent’s emotions to be delightfully enjoyable.

  Slowly, she moved the scrubby around and around her breasts, paying particular attention to her nipples before moving on. She knew perfectly well he could see what she was doing, if the open-mouthed gape she caught him doing from his position was any indication. She thought the contrast of the white bubbles with her skin and dark nipples should be eye-catchingly erotic.

  She didn’t consider herself conceited, but she kept herself in shape for good reason, and she knew she had a nice figure and sexy tits. Just because she didn’t go around showing her shit off didn’t mean she didn’t know she had it.

  Resisting the urge to smile, she continued rubbing the soap down her waist, over her manicured pussy hair which shot down to her cleft in a thin line, then down her muscular, curvy legs and around her back. She turned her back to him and washed and conditioned her hair, then rinsed off and wrung out her hair.

  “Are you still out there, Brent?”

  “Huh. Oh, yeah. What you need?”

  “Could you hand me a towel?” she asked, pulling the curtain open to poke her head through.

  “No problem.” He pulled a towel from the linen closet and handed it to her through the shower curtain.

  “I thought you’d be done by now,” she said innocently.

  He absentmindedly rubbed his face with remained stubbly with hair. “I was working on the rest of my regimen.”

  “Mmmhmm.” Lizzy took the towel and wrapped it around herself, then stepped out onto the bathroom mat and proceeded to lotion her arms and face. She turned around, giving him her back as she dropped the towel on the back of the toilet seat and put one foot on the lid. She stroked and rubbed lotion up and down one leg before moving to the other. When she was finished, she draped the towel back around her chest and moved to leave.

  Brent was blocking the doorway with his big body. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to brush past.

  He swallowed, looking like he wanted to try something with her. She’d given him the opportunity to make a move if he’d wanted to, but he seemed stunned into inaction and just watched her go. She’d always wondered how each would kiss. Jake had been exciting and passionate, completely unexpected. It seemed she was destined to continue wondering about Brent, but she knew now she could probably change that if she wanted to.

  Lizzy went to the bedroom to get dressed in jeans and a t-shirt before going back to the bathroom to fix her hair, passing Brent in the hallway as he headed to the bedroom closet to get his own clothes on.

  She couldn’t help but be a little disappointed, but they had all the time in the world to reveal why the sudden change in their behavior. She thought she’d proven pretty well that she was good at being patient and waiting for events to unfold.

  In the meantime, she would just enjoy their antics as they fought for her attention.

  Chapter Four

  Lizzy usually fixed the meals in the house, while the guys cleaned up behind her. She preferred it that way, since neither one of them could boil water or make toast without burning it. She didn’t know how men made it through life without learning how to cook, and it wasn’t something she’d let any of her kids get away with without picking up.

  She’d often suspected it was a general sense of laziness that kept them from learning, or that they did know how, they were just too lazy to give it a go because then they’d be called upon occasionally to perform the task. She knew how men’s minds worked. She was no dummy.

  After fixing and eating a dinner of spaghetti with meatballs and a fresh, spicy Italian salad, they settled in the living room on the big couch to watch a movie before bed.

  Lizzy picked out a horror from the DVR list that she’d had recorded on the player since Halloween had passed. Neither Brent nor Jake was i
nto horror and suspense like she was, and she was looking forward to watching them squirm as zombies took over the world.

  “Y’all don’t mind, do you? I thought it’d be nice to get some of these older recordings off so we can make room for new shows. I know y’all have some coming up,” she said, glancing at them as she settled between them on the couch with a bottle of water.

  Jake smiled, revealing a dimple on one cheek that she’d always wanted to nibble at. “Naw. It’ll be nice to watch a good movie.”

  “You know we don’t mind horror,” Brent said, agreeing and leaning back to prop his feet on the big ottoman that sat in front of the huge couch.

  Lizzy snickered and crossed her legs, sitting Indian-style in the middle of them. “I can’t promise it’s going to be good. You know how these sci-fi movies can be hit or miss.”

  As the movie began, it was obvious that the zombie formula was having an effect on all of them. Zombies were the one movie element that got on her nerves one hundred percent of the time. She started to chew at a nail then stopped herself. She wanted to get a manicure to repair the damage she’d done to herself digging in the garden. She didn’t want to add to the problem.

  When the zombies began chasing and chewing everyone up into little pieces, she grabbed Jake’s and Brent’s knees instead, digging her short nails into them. Brent jumped, making her secretly grin. Jake wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she enjoyed the warmth and comfort of having her guys around her.

  The movie ended, leaving them all tense from the suspense, so they eased themselves for bed with a couple shots of tequila. Lizzy winced with the tartness of the lemon combined with the breath-taking shot of Patron.