by Nyora René
“I can’t wait,” she murmured, leaning down and kissing him.
He let her have her way with his mouth for a few moments before he pulled back. “We’re supposed to be talking.”
“We talked last night, some more this morning, and we just had a whole ten-minute conversation. I’ve used up all the words I plan on saying today,” she said into his neck, her tongue tracing the curve until she had to shift to keep going on her downward path.
His stomach muscles tensed as her tongue traced his abs, and he drew his hands into tight fists. “I’m sure you have some more words you can say,” he said, toes curling as she unlaced the drawstring at his waist.
“Uh uhn,” she murmured, pulling him out of his shorts.
“Baby, I plan on making you scream my name and curse like a sailor because of how good I’m making you feel,” he said, shifting his hips so that she could pull his trunks down.
Her breath blowing on the tip of his dick made him shudder and close his eyes. He slipped his hands into her damp curls as her tongue traced the vein on his erection. When she engulfed him in the warm wetness of her mouth, his toes curled and cracked.
“Umm-hmm, but I have to make you scream mine first. Keep your eyes on me and watch me work.” She came up, then promptly plunged down again, making his back arch and his fist clench in her hair.
He shuddered. “Whatever you say, baby,” he moaned.
12
“Since you went ghost on us, can I assume that your date with Brendon went as planned?” Ruby asked at their next sisters’ lunch date. Instead of going to their usual bistro, they’d chosen to go to the new eatery that opened up near Brendon’s gym.
Crystal pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “I texted you to let you know that the date was a success.”
“Hmm, excuse me if I want to know more details about the date we helped you plan,” Ruby said, perusing the laminated menu.
“I’m with Ruby on this,” Amethyst said, leaning across the table toward Crystal.
“You always agree with Ruby, what else is new?” Jade said. This was one of the rare occasions that her schedule allowed her to be home. This visit was for two weeks, and after that she was off to Zanzibar for another photoshoot.
Ruby arched an eyebrow. “So you don’t want to know how the date went? You’re satisfied with a text that showed the okay emoji?”
Jade shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t say all of that, but we literally just got seated five minutes ago. I planned on grilling her after our food arrived so that we wouldn’t have any interruptions. For a lawyer, you sure don’t have any patience.”
“Can we not get off topic and make this the Ruby and Jade show?” Amethyst asked, huffing and leaning back in her seat.
All eyes flew to Amethyst. Rarely did she ever use snark when speaking to them. She was usually the sweet and mild peacemaker. Her latest comment was more like something Crystal would say.
“Pause on what happened with Brendon and me, what’s up with you?” Crystal asked Amethyst.
Amethyst ran a hand through her straightened dark locks. “Nothing, my boss is being his usual asshole self.”
“Whoa! Snark and a curse word? What have you done with my sister!” Jade teased, bumping her shoulder against Amethyst.
“Too bad you have to go back to work, you sound like you could use a shot or two,” Crystal said, reaching across the table to squeeze Amethyst’s hand where it lay on the glossy wooden table.
Amethyst hung her head for a moment, and Jade, Ruby, and Crystal looked at each other, concern in their eyes.
“I’ll be okay. I love my job, I do…it’s just that, he treats everyone else so much nicer than he treats me. He’s not outright rude, you know I wouldn’t put up with that. He compliments my work, but he’s so…dry. With everyone else he’s this warm guy, with me, it’s like an ice switch clicks on when he talks to me,” Amethyst said heatedly.
“Has he always been that way?” Crystal asked.
Amethyst glanced off, her brow furrowed. Turning back to them, she frowned. “Yeah, I think… I’ve been working at the firm since I finished my internship my junior year. I didn’t cross paths with him during that time. It’s been three years since I’ve worked directly for him, and in that time he’s always been…icy.”
“He sounds like big sister over here. He may have the same problem as Ruby, he needs to get laid,” Jade said, snickering when Ruby leveled a glare her way.
“I get laid, thank you very much,” Ruby said, still glaring at Jade, who shrugged her shoulders.
“Battery-operated boyfriends do not count as getting laid,” Jade told her.
“You guys, chill out. Amethyst was right, this is the Ruby and Jade show. Lately all you do is snipe at each other. It’s almost as bad as when we were kids. What’s wrong with you two?” Crystal crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes in Ruby’s direction first, and then Jade’s.
Uncharacteristically, neither of them said anything. Ruby fidgeted with her bracelet, and Jade twirled one of her auburn-streaked curls around her finger, looking at the table.
“I’m not saying anything about my date with Brendon until you two start talking about what’s going on between you,” Crystal gritted through clenched teeth.
“As much as I want to know what went down with Brendon and Crys, I’m in agreement with her. What’s going on?” Amethyst said, placing her hand on Jade’s shoulder and patting it.
Ruby blew out a long breath. “I may have overstepped and pushed Jade about Doug.”
Jade’s eyes ballooned. “May? You did, no may about it. You could be forgiven for sending me that article about him, but not for sending me his number and current address accompanied by pictures of him with his daughter and saying ‘get your shit together before he marries someone else, again, and has another child that should be yours.’ End quote.”
Crystal and Amethyst winced and looked at each other. When Jade first broke up with her ex-fiancé, they’d made a pact not to bring up anything about him since Jade would shut down whenever his name was mentioned. Apparently, Ruby broke that pact.
“I’m sorry, okay! I’d had one too many drinks after a long day in court. I was in my feelings about being alone, as usual, and came across the article online. I started thinking about how you’re choosing to be alone, when you could be with Doug, whom you clearly are still in love with. I overstepped, and I really am sorry.” Ruby reached across the table and grabbed Jade’s clenched fists.
Crystal held her breath. Jade’s pain was etched on her face, from her glassy, tear-filled eyes, to her pinched lips. She could hold a grudge longer than anyone Crystal knew. When Jade closed her eyes and swiped her free hand over her eyes and squeezed Ruby’s hand back, Crystal let out the breath she’d been holding.
“I forgive you, but don’t do it again. I get that you want to see me happy, but Doug and I…it’s not going to happen again. I need for you to accept that,” Jade said, voice hoarse from the tears she held back.
Ruby nodded her head. “I can do that.”
Jade sniffed and relaxed back into her seat. “Good, and you wouldn’t be lonely if you’d—”
“If you want me to lay off about Doug, you need to chill out on talking about me hooking up with my boss,” Ruby cut in, crossing her arms over her chest.
Jade smirked. “I wasn’t going to mention your boss. I was going to tell you to try online dating, but since you brought up your boss…”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Where’s the waitress? We’ve been sitting here for ten minutes, and I can’t be late getting back from lunch.”
Crystal caught the waitress’s eye and waved her over. Their waitress, Anabelle, apologized and took their food and drink orders, promising to have them out within five minutes. After she walked off, Amethyst looked at Crystal.
“We’ve brokered a peace treaty between Ruby and Jade and discussed my work problems. Now on to you. What happened with Brendon?” Amethyst bounced in her seat, hands cla
sped against her chest as she eagerly leaned forward.
Crystal closed her eyes and smiled as she remembered the last three days with Brendon. “Obviously, he agreed to the date. When he got there, he was shocked as hell, but before he could speak, I recited the first journal entry that I read. When I got to the end, he finished the last sentence for me.”
Jade and Amethyst were leaning against the table, and even Ruby had relaxed enough to prop her head on her hand and turn slightly towards her in the booth.
“And?” Jade prompted.
“We didn’t stay for dinner. We went straight to his house. He ordered us some food from my favorite West African restaurant and it got to his house shortly after we did. We ate and talked about how we felt about each other.”
Crystal stopped when the waitress returned with their salads and drinks.
“Girl, we don’t care about none of that. He knew you read the journal and so you knew how he felt before he verbalized it to you. We already know how you felt, so skip to the juicy part,” Jade said, drizzling thousand island dressing over her chicken salad.
Crystal took her time dressing her salad and blessing her food. She needed time to think about how much she wanted to reveal. “I’m not giving you horny heifers any details, but I will say this, Brendon knows how to lay pipe and knows how to make my body hum, and my voice hoarse.” She dug into her southwest salad.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Jade said, high-fiving Amethyst. Even Ruby nodded her hand and high-fived Jade.
“So are you two together or are you just fuck buddies?” Ruby asked, cutting the chicken on her Caesar salad.
Crystal finished chewing. “We’re together, in an exclusive relationship. He was adamant about us being in a relationship. He brought it up before I could, which let me know how serious he is.”
Amethyst smiled at her. “I’m so happy for you, sis. It’s about time you two got together. He already treats you like you’re his wife.”
Crystal reared back slightly. “No, he doesn’t.”
Jade shook her head but didn’t comment. Of course, Ruby had something to say. “Girl, when are you going to realize that man gave you wife privileges years ago? You have a bay in his garage that not even his girlfriends could park in.”
“That’s because he lets them park in his spot while he parks in the driveway.”
“Yeah…no, your parking spot stays empty. Him and his exes could have both parked inside. Moving on, you have a room in his house…a house that you personally decorated. He bought you a fully loaded, top-of-the-line, brand new Escalade for your birthday—”
“He would have had Ikea furniture in his home. Nothing wrong with Ikea, but he needed furniture to fit his body. Custom made was the way to go,” Crystal insisted as she cut off Ruby.
“Girl, why did you care what he laid his head on? You weren’t laying your head on it at that time,” Jade said, pursing her lips.
“As I was saying, he insisted that you meet with his financial planner when he did. You know his exact net worth, and you’re listed as the beneficiary on all of his important documents—wife status treatment, sis,” Ruby said. She then picked up her fork and resumed eating as if she hadn’t just laid out a whole court case for them.
“Facts on facts on facts, sis,” Amethyst said, shrugging and arching her eyebrows.
Her sisters had a point, but she and Brendon were best friends. She had been there for him at his lowest points, and he’d always been her biggest supporter, even when everyone else in her life disparaged her choices. When her parents died a year before his in a car accident the summer before she started college, he’d come back home and stayed with her until her sisters could get back into town from their various colleges. Of course, she’d also stayed with him when his mom died. They were each other’s backbone.
“I’ll admit that our friendship is a bit unorthodox…” she murmured, dwelling on the things Ruby said.
“You say unorthodox, we say wife treatment, in your case, it’s all the same,” Jade said, smiling at the waitress as she quietly placed their separate checks on the table.
“Think about it like this, would you date a guy who treated his female best friend how Brendon treats you? Even knowing that they were not romantically linked?” Amethyst asked her.
Crystal frowned, seeing her friendship in a whole new light. “No, I wouldn’t…I would always feel that her wants and needs came before mine, and you know I don’t do second place when it comes to any man I’m in a relationship with.”
“Exactly,” Ruby said, jabbing her fork in Crystal’s direction.
“I sort of feel bad for all of his exes now,” Crystal told them.
Jade waved off her words. “For what? You weren’t in a relationship with them, he was. I mean, you did try to step back, but that didn’t go over so well, remember?”
Crystal did remember. Ironically, this was when he was dating Eloise. One day Eloise had come to her house and pleaded with her to back out of their relationship so that her and Brendon could have a fighting chance. She’d felt like Crystal’s presence was too strong in Brendon’s life. At the time, her feelings had been hurt, but she could see Eloise’s point. The weekly hangout nights that they never canceled, no matter what was going on. She would sometimes pop up unannounced, and while neither Eloise nor Brendon ever made her feel like she was intruding, after talking to Eloise, she could see how intrusive her presence had been.
She agreed to take a couple steps back from her friendship with Brendon, enough to give his relationship with Eloise a chance to breathe. She’d hated her decision, her heart hurting, but she wanted Brendon to be happy. That lasted less than a week. When she cancelled their weekly hangout night, giving him some lame excuse, he’d driven to her house and hung out over there. The next day, when she’d canceled their plans to watch the Vipers play, he confronted her.
Brendon hadn’t been happy when she told him she was backing away to give him more time with his girlfriend.
“You are a part of my life. If she’s going to be a part of my life as well, she needs to get used to the fact that you aren’t going anywhere, got it?”
Jade snapped her fingers in Crystal’s face, bringing her back to the present. “What are you lost in thought about?”
“Thinking about that time I tried to pull back,” she admitted.
“It’s in the past now, sis, no point in dwelling on it now,” Ruby said, taking the last bite of her salad.
“Yeah, focus on the future,” Amethyst said, digging in her purse, and then placing a twenty-dollar bill on the table to cover her meal and the tip.
Everyone dropped their bills on the table, and Crystal picked them up and put them in the bill folder.
They all stood, gathered their purses, and then walked out of the restaurant.
“I have a meeting in about twenty minutes, so I need to go. This restaurant was so-so, I’m not in any rush to return,” Ruby said, plucking her keys out of her navy Hermès bag.
“Yeah, I agree. Let’s go back to our regular spot next week,” Amethyst said, hugging everyone.
Crystal and Jade watched as Amethyst and Ruby got into their cars and pulled off.
“What are you about to do?” Jade asked her.
“I have a blog post to write, a few pictures that need to be uploaded, and I need to call the builder Brendon and I selected for the tiny home community to hash out a few details. I’m meeting Brendon at the gym later tonight for our workout session. What about you?” She’d told her sisters about her and Brendon’s project when they first agreed to do it. Ruby was going to handle the contracts.
Jade pulled her black-rimmed cat eye shades out of her purse and set them on her face. “I have to return a few emails and have a video conference with the magazine I’m doing the Zanzibar photoshoot for to finalize a few details.”
“Want to hang out this weekend? We could have a sister sleepover at my place,” Crystal said, pressing the remote start button on her
key chain as they walked towards her car.
Jade owned an open and airy loft that was barely lived in since she traveled so much for work. She also drove a Lexus that had fewer than five thousand miles on it due to the infrequency of her trips back home.
Jade hugged her. “Nah, you spend this time with Brendon, soaking up all that new relationship love and sex. I remember how that was,” she said, a melancholy tone in her voice.
“You’ll have that again, you know.” Crystal hugged her back, and Jade squeezed her tightly in response.
“We’ll get together, without the staid and proper other two, before I leave. Have fun tonight,” Jade said, opening her car door.
“Love you,” Crystal said, smiling when her sister told her the same.
She climbed into her car and headed home. She had some work to do, but what she really wanted was to go to Brendon’s gym. Crystal had some naughty ideas of what they could do standing in front of the two-way mirror in his office.
13
Brendon was on cloud nine. Business was going great, he and Crystal’s tiny home project was shaping up nicely, and even better, he and Crystal were a couple. The sex was amazing, sure, no doubt about that, but the sex was just another layer to the chemistry they had that wasn’t sexual.
The relationship was like their friendship magnified times ten with hot sex thrown in. They ate dinner together every night, either at his place or hers, but more often than not at his place. Crystal claimed his furniture was more comfortable than hers. He didn’t care where they were as long as they were together.
It had been two weeks since the shift in their friendship, and there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by that he didn’t thank God that Crystal took the step to make their friendship a relationship.
“Hey, boss man, you have a visitor downstairs wanting to speak to you personally.” Erica, the receptionist who worked in the administrative offices, interrupted his thoughts about Crystal.