His Best Friend's Little Sister

by Vivian Wood

  That professor was right. All of this lambasting wasn’t doing her any good. Instead, she watched her fingers type in “Fac” as if they were operating on their own. The URL bar autofilled “Facebook” and, even though she’d disabled her account after the Sean fiasco, all it took was her signing in again to open a raging newsfeed.

  Facebook was covered with threats, too. Acquaintances from high school and childhood were sharing the same threatening stories to their pages. A few tagged her. “OMG, Ellie, did you see this???” “What’s going on?” She couldn’t escape it.

  Just as she was about to close the app, Facebook played its dirtiest hand. “Your memories on Facebook. Ellie, we care about you and the memories you share here. We thought you’d like to look back on this post from 1 year ago.” The suggested photo was of her and Sean last year on Valentine’s Day. She was clutching a brooch bouquet of peonies, her favorite flower, and smiling widely while Sean beamed at the camera with his arm wrapped around her. “Now you don’t have to wait until May for them to blossom,” he’d told her. Fuck you, Facebook.

  Leaving the app, she set down the phone and gazed out the window. What the hell is going to happen to me? She'd come to the cabin to escape and relax. To figure out life. And now? It was all temptation and confusion with Henry, seemingly nonstop embarrassment, and now apparently she was in need of presidential security from a stream of death threats. And for what? For catching her boyfriend fucking some stranger at graduation?

  With a sigh, she picked herself up and wandered into the kitchen. From the office, she could hear Henry quietly clacking away. Ellie dug through the cupboards, rifling through the brown paper bags Henry had tucked away. Pulling out organic cashew butter and a tin of locally sourced jam, she crafted a deluxe version of her favorite childhood comfort sandwich on artisanal crunchy bread. Pulling her legs beneath her on the padded kitchen chair, she started to devour her lunch just as Henry walked in.

  In silence, with barely a look in her direction, he got to work making his own lunch. Every bite she took sounded deafening in the quiet. The silence grew more awkward with every moment, each of them pretending the other didn’t exist.

  Finally, Henry cleared his throat, his back to Ellie. “What are you up to today?” he asked.

  Ellie scrunched her nose as she swallowed. “You don’t need to do that,” she told him.

  “Do what?”

  “Feel indebted to me. Or Eli. You’re only still here because you feel like you owe it to him. We both know that.” Shut up, Ellie. You’re such a fucking little girl. Stop making all these mistakes and dragging everyone else into it!

  Henry turned whip fast, a butter knife in one hand and a deep scowl etched into his rugged face. He’d given up the daily shaves. Now, that stubble made him look older. Dangerous, even. “That’s not true,” he told her. “I care about you.”

  “Yeah—but only as a friend. Right, Henry? Only as Eli’s little sister that you got roped into babysitting.”

  He set down his plate with a snap, but didn’t sit. Instead, he loomed over her, wolfing down his own sandwich while still standing. Two could play this game. Ellie continued her own meal, refusing to be the first to drop eye contact.

  “You know,” Henry began. “When I was a kid, a group of kids at school used to make fun of me for living with Aunt Mary.”

  “What?” This was an unexpected turn in the conversation. “Why… why are you telling me this?”

  “It was Eli who finally made them lay off me. He said something to them—to this day, I don’t know what. I’m sure he made some shit up about me being a badass or something. I don’t know. All I know is, after I saw Eli talking to them a couple of times, they left me alone.”

  “Oh,” Ellie said. “What, um, what were they doing to you? How were they bullying you?” She couldn’t imagine Henry ever being in a position to be picked on.

  “You know, usual kid stuff,” Henry said with a shrug. “Shoving in the hallways, a few gang beatings after school, at least until I learned to take the bus instead of walking, even though I lived just five blocks from the school. It’s a good thing Aunt Mary never found out. She was… pretty out of it at that point. I don’t think she even noticed the black eyes or bloody noses.”

  “Jesus, Henry—”

  “You know,” he said with a forced, strange laugh. “One time? They broke my nose. Full on broke my nose.”

  “What did you do?” She searched his seemingly perfect nose for a sign of an imperfection, but there was none.

  “Not much you can do in most cases,” he said. “I went to the coach, said it happened during a pick-up game and that we didn’t have insurance. That was a lie, but he said it was a pretty small, clean break and shoved the bones back in alignment.”

  “What the hell, Henry?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “But I think that, that incident, that’s what put Eli over the edge. He’s the first one who saw me after they busted my nose. It happened during lunch. They’d cornered me in the locker room after most everyone else had left.”

  “What did he say?” She couldn’t picture Eli as some kind of middle school savior. She only knew him as the solid, kind of quiet, determined and studious politician in the making.

  “He didn’t say anything. It was a look in his eye that he had. Like he’d made a decision to do something and there was no holding him back. Actually, I didn’t even tell him anything. He just saw me and he knew.”

  “Eli never told me anything about that…”

  “Well, yeah, you were a kid. Hell, at that time, you were just a baby.” Henry finished his last bite and brushed the crumbs from his hands.

  “So what?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “So that’s when I knew Eli was my best friend. Actually, it’s when I realized I really needed one. I’d—never had a real friend before. First I was the weird kid at school because my parents died. That freaks kids out, you know? Back then, small town and everything, barely anyone even had divorced parents, let alone… well, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Ellie agreed, grabbing her glass of water to give her hands something to do.

  “No, you don’t,” Henry said. “You don’t know.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “I don’t.” You can’t do anything right.

  “Ellie,” he said, lowering his voice. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve felt I owe Eli ever since that day. It has nothing to do with you. I’m doing my best to try and live up to my side of our friendship. You know? And this…” he trailed off as he gestured at her, at himself, and the space between them.

  Ellie chewed on her lip, then asked, “And I suppose that seducing his sister would violate that relationship?” She didn’t think she had it in her, especially not without a little lubrication from the wine. She felt naked and ashamed sitting here, in this sprawling kitchen in the bright of day, using words like “seducing.”

  But Henry only nodded slowly.

  Ellie let out a big breath. Henry was right, after all. There was so much about him—about Eli, even—that she didn’t know. What else did she expect? They were both nearly teenagers when she'd been born. They'd shared a short, but full life well ahead of her. “Alright,” she told him.

  “Alright?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” With a speed and determination she didn’t know she had, she swept out of the room. However, she wasn’t sulking anymore. What was the point? If Henry was devoted to fulfilling some deranged agreement with her brother that Eli probably wasn’t even aware of, so be it. She was done with all of this. Done.

  15

  “It’s coming down again.” His voice roused her from the book she was devouring on the couch.

  “Not again,” she said. “I hope we at least keep the cable and Wi-Fi this time.”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “It looks bad.” Ten minutes later, the power went out.

  “I know Eli has some candle
s and emergency supplies around somewhere,” she assured him, getting up to search through the closet. Already, Henry was on the move stepping into the chilly little garage that doubled as a storage unit. “Hurry,” he told her. “We’ve only got about an hour of daylight left.”

  The phone lines were out again, too. He tried reaching Meredith to ask about supplies, but got nothing but dead air. By nightfall, Ellie was balled up in blankets on the couch with candles scattered around. He could tell the cold was starting to get to her. He forced her into his own thick, warm pajamas, much to her complaints. “I feel like I’m playing dress-up with these sleeves hanging down. And these pants! I have to roll them up like five times.”

  “But you’re warmer, aren’t you?” he asked, and she nodded.

  “At least the fireplace and stove are gas,” he said as he crouched over the fireplace.

  “That’s not much comfort when the actual heat is electric,” she retorted.

  “It’s something.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Look, Ellie, it’s going to be way too cold upstairs, even with the down blankets. I think for tonight we should sleep down here by the fireplace.”

  The words had crept out before he could stop them. Sleep? Together? Was that a good idea? He knew the answer.

  “I’ll go grab the blankets from upstairs,” he said, picking up the flashlight. “You move the table over by the wall to give us some room. And don’t worry,” he said, pausing in the hallway and shining the light into the flickering room. “I’ll stay awake and keep an eye on things. So, you know…”

  He didn’t want to worry her that he’d have another PTSD sleep attack.

  He thought it would be impossible to sleep with her so close, but the flickering of the candlelight did him in. Just a few minutes, he promised himself.

  When he awakened, he knew instantly from the inky blackness outside that it must be the middle of the night. And he was roasting. The flannel pajamas, the heat from the fire—the warmth from her cheek radiating against his chest. Wait, what?

  Somehow, in their sleep, they’d reached toward each other. Now she was pressed into him, and his shirt was stripped off and tossed onto the couch. He didn’t remember doing that, but he wasn’t surprised. It was burning up in here.

  His entire body was alive. He felt her stomach touching his, the massive nightshirt that she’d borrowed entirely too big to keep her modest. In a shock, he realized that the bottoms she’d borrowed had also slipped down. He’d seen her tie the drawstring tight, gotten instantly hard when she did, but it must have come loose in the night.

  His arms were wrapped tightly around her, and he was too scared to move and wake her. But his cock was also pressing hard into her thigh. Ellie sighed contently in her sleep, nuzzling her face farther into his chest. If he moved, if he nudged her away, he would see everything. He could tell by the softness and fullness of her chest against his, that she wasn’t wearing anything under the too-big shirt of his.

  Slowly, carefully, with all the skills of stealth maneuvers he’d learned in the military, he tried to disentangle himself from her. “Where you goin’?” she asked groggily, half-asleep but full of seduction. Damn, she’s gorgeous. The amber lights from the fire highlighted every line of her face—and lit her hair fully ablaze.

  Hell. How bad could one more kiss be? Just one. That was all. Just the one. He ducked his head down to her, with just one finger under her chin to coax her lips toward him—it didn’t take much. Their lips met, hers instinctively sucking on his lower lip. The quietest of murmurs and little moans slipped out of her, and it was enough to push him over the edge.

  Grabbing her waist, embracing that warm soft skin, he hoisted her closer to him and higher, so he could kiss her neck with ease. She moved with him perfectly, like she anticipated every move. Henry breathed in her scent, the lingering aroma of her shampoo, and tasted the saltiness of her collarbone. It was a taste he’d always craved, yet never realized until now.

  There was no stopping it now. With a simple flick, he opened the only button still clasped and spread open her shirt, his shirt, like wings. The breasts he’d been fantasizing about ever since he got just a peek the first night he saw her here begged him to come closer. A rosy pink bud, the perfect crowning touch to her porcelain white skin. But not yet. He was a master at putting off the inevitable, of teasing himself and saving the best things for the last possible moment. “Please,” she whispered, her nipples hardening as if on command, demanding his attention. He kissed every last inch of her perfect breasts before finally, inevitably, flicking his tongue over one nipple and then the other. It wasn’t until she said, louder this time, “Please, Henry,” that he sucked her nipples, somehow even harder now, between his lips. Nibbled and pulled gently, feeling her hands weave into his hair as she involuntarily raised and ground into him.

  He pulled the loose bottoms she was wearing off quickly with just one hand, working his mouth down her stomach. Already, before he’d even taken in or touched her wetness, she was grinding rhythmically and slowly into him—first his stomach, then his chest, desperate for him to bury his face between her legs.

  A part of him wanted to ask her if she was sure. Another part of him already knew the answer. She spread her creamy thighs even wider, presenting herself to him as he teased her. He kissed across the mound, into the crevice of each thigh where her skin was softest of all. Her hands pressed more firmly across his head. The dim flickers of the fire light were just enough to let him get glimpses of what he’d ached for all this time.

  One strong flicker of light, and he could see her clit was already swollen. Another flicker, and he could see how unbelievably wet she already was, her juices dripping slowly down her inner thighs and heading to her ass. I can’t believe she’s a virgin. He kissed as close to her clit as possible without touching it, eliciting an animal moan of desire and frustration from her.

  “Please.” This time it wasn’t a request, and he couldn’t deny her anymore. He blew gently on her clit, shooting chills through her entire body at the unexpected coolness of it. Finally, he licked that swollen sweetness firmly yet gently, the sheer heat of it shocking him.

  He’d never tasted anything sweeter. As he worked her clit masterfully, with a strong, practiced tongue and shifting between soft nibbles, flicks and licks, she kept one hand on his head. It was all animal instinct from her, and as he toyed with her slick opening with one finger, he couldn’t tell anymore who was fucking who. She was on her back, arching it, and he could easily pin her legs down and control when, how, and how hard she came if he wanted to. Or could he? With one hand, she was guiding his head, controlling his mouth, fucking his face with her sweetness. With the other hand, when he tore his eyes away from her middle, he could see her playing with her breasts and squeezing her nipples.

  When he tested her entry, which was still slick with her wetness, her movements shifted. She was no longer pushing her clit onto his tongue with whatever rhythm suited her. Now she was also encouraging his finger into her. With his other hand, he slid up her stomach and along her ribcage. Her hand was on his, guiding it to her nipples. “Henry,” she whispered over and over again.

  Just his fingertip was inside her now, the velvety wetness like nothing he’d ever felt before. Even with one finger barely in her, he could tell how tight she was. “Fuck me, please,” she said in that new, low voice of hers. The one he’d never heard before. “Fuck me with your hand.” He couldn’t help but do as she said, sliding his finger deep into her, feeling himself be totally consumed as he continued to suck her clit and pinch her nipple. “Yeah,” she moaned, riding his hand and his mouth like she was made for him.

  For a moment, he lifted his head and watched her beautiful face. As he slid his finger inside her, curling it slightly to stroke her G-spot, his thumb took the place of his tongue and rubbed her clit. Her eyes opened slightly to hold his gaze, right as he moved from one stiff nipple to the other, tugging on them gently. “I want
you to come for me,” he told her.

  “I’m close,” she whispered. “Please,” she said again. She was propping herself up on her forearms, letting him have full reign of her entire body and giving herself more freedom to grind hard into his hand.

  “Please what?” he asked, bowing his head for as instant to kiss her clit.

  “Please don’t stop,” she said, her head rolling back slightly.

  “Don’t stop what?” he asked her between kisses.

  “Don’t stop fucking me,” she choked out.

  “Come for me.”

  “Now,” she told him. “Right now.” With a cry, she fell back and he lowered his head. With the softest of kisses on her clit, he could feel her coming against his finger buried deep inside her. Staying there, giving her something to push into with each wave, he tasted her juice flowing out of her and lapped up every last drop. His face, his hand, it was all covered with her arousal. It was intoxicating.

  Slipping his finger out, he gingerly cradled her ass and pulled her down to him. She was so delicate, so small in his hands. Even though she was still shaking, she reached down for his cock, but he pulled away. “It’s better this way,” he told her. It was the last thing he remembered before they fell asleep, her scent soaking into his skin.

  16

  When she woke up, he was gone. She knew before she even opened her eyes, could tell by the coldness his empty space had left. Last night—the things he'd made her feel? It was unforgettable, unlike anything she’d experienced before. She’d fooled around with guys before, but even with Sean she’d drawn a firm line. She had a lot of friends, especially in high school and even Sam for a bit in freshman year, who would do “anything but” and consider themselves still a technical virgin. That wasn’t for her. She was an all-or-nothing girl. Nobody, not even Sean, had so much as seen any intimate parts of her.