“I hope I’ll see ya around, Emily,” was all Roger said before he slipped out the front door.
Once he was gone, Mom whispered. “I had no idea, Emily. I wouldn’t have invited him and made everyone so awkward.”
“Why would you even invite Roger?” I asked Mom a bit angrily. “You knew I broke up with him months ago.”
“She hoped to get the two of you back together,” Sarah hollered from the kitchen. She poked her head out. “I missed all the awkwardness.” Sarah’s eyes fell on Benjamin next to me. “Well, no wonder Emily went for the best friend… I think this is the first time we’re getting to meet other than me hearing about you.”
Some of the tension left Benjamin’s body at Sarah’s friendliness. “You must be Sarah, the girlfriend.” He let his charm roll off his cheeks.
She grinned. “I am.”
“Benjamin has always been a looker,” Mom told Sarah as she smiled at Benjamin. “I shouldn’t have meddled, Emily, I’m sorry.” She walked up to us and offered a hug to Benjamin. He hugged her back. “I didn’t think Emily would ever see you as anything other than a friend.”
“Mom,” I huffed.
“It took a while,” he agreed. “She seems to have finally fallen for my charm.”
Mom laughed. “Come on. Let’s go eat. Sarah’s a great cook.”
My phone dinged, and I pulled it out of my pocket.
Roger: Sorry.
I simply stared at his text message, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to reply, and I wouldn’t. I felt bad, but we were all caught off-guard. Even if Mom invited Roger, I had steadily been ignoring his phone calls and texts when he tried reaching out to me. He knew where my heart was.
I recalled the night I had ended things with him.
After the anger dissipated from Roger, he followed me to the bedroom as I packed my clothes to leave. I didn’t want to stay any longer. Not when my heart, body, and mind were always on my best friend instead of the man I was sleeping next to every night.
He called me out on it, and I hadn’t denied it. To be fair, I hadn’t realized how caught up I was on Benjamin until it was scary and consuming every part of me.
He dropped down to his knees in front of me. “Don’t go. Please. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you or me, Roger. It’s us. It’s what I feel, and it’s not toward you. I don’t want to keep you when I don’t even love you like you love me.”
I knew I broke his heart. I could see it in his eyes.
“Emily, please.”
I didn’t want to be this girl. It would have been easier if Roger hadn’t been a decent guy. He just wasn’t my guy. He wasn’t Benjamin. Not that I would ever have more of my best friend.
“You deserve to love someone that loves you back just as much…That’s what I want too.”
“So what? You’re just gonna go run to Benjamin now that you’ve realized your feelings?”
I shook my head. “He’s my best friend… And he doesn’t see me like that.”
I turned to grab more of my things and he wrapped his arms around me. “Please,” he mumbled again.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then I pried his arms away. “I’m sorry. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For showing me that there are more good guys out there other than Benjamin.”
Still, Benjamin was the good guy I couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Don’t reply,” Benjamin muttered, breaking my trance.
I lifted my head, studied the scowl on his face as he stared at my phone screen, but it was in his eyes that I saw his vulnerability.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Mom and Sarah had already disappeared back in the kitchen when he placed a muscled arm over my shoulders and tilted my chin up with his hand so that he could kiss me. Not just a peck. He delved his tongue into my mouth as if searching for my desire, my feelings, just anything he could take. And I gave him everything. I didn’t stop him. I let him pull me under a wave of smoke and desire until he was satisfied. Once he pulled away, something he saw must have pleased him because he rubbed his thumb across my chin and said. “My heart.” He used his free arm to grab one of my hands and placed it over his chest. “It needs you.”
“You have me,” I whispered.
“It doesn’t mean I’m not terrified of losing you.”
“Emily! Benjamin! Come, eat!” Mom called for us. I didn’t want to pull my gaze from Benjamin’s, but he broke it on his own and led us into the kitchen. There was a feast on the table.
“Wow, so much food,” I murmured.
“Do you like peach cobbler, Benjamin?” Sarah asked him.
“I do. Even more, if there’s ice cream involved.”
She grinned at his response. “I got you covered.”
“Great,” he replied.
Benjamin pulled out a seat for me and I sat down, then he joined me. Mom took notice and smiled. “So… How did this happen?” She was referring to me and him.
“Well, it just recently happened,” I mumbled, sneaking a peek at Benjamin who was watching me intently.
“Although we’re new together, my feelings for her are far from it,” Benjamin added, turning back to look at Mom. Even though he was smiling, Benjamin was on edge. I wondered if seeing Roger upset him a lot more than I realized. We were new and this with him was so terrifying because I didn’t want something to go wrong. He had to know Roger was nothing while he was everything, right?
“How’s your mom taking this?” I was surprised that Mom didn’t care to ask him that. Growing up next door to Benjamin, it wasn’t hard to learn how much Faith disliked me being Benjamin’s friend. She never told me to stop hanging out with him, but I was sure she tried to get him to stop hanging out with me. She’d just act and frown upon me and everything I did or said around her to the point that it was very clear that she disliked me.
“She helped me get with Emily,” he told her, fixing himself a plate of food.
“Really?” Mom looked at me.
“I guess that’s one way to put it.” I scooped me out some mashed potatoes on my plate. “The outcome was me ugly crying, and Benjamin getting to see what I had been trying to hide.”
“You shouldn’t have been hiding at all,” he whispered close to my ear.
I turned my head toward him. “Says the guy that claims to have wanted to be with me for a long time and kept his mouth shut.”
“I don’t blame him,” Mom piped in. “You were never fazed at all by him in high school. If he had made a move then, I don’t know…”
I scowled at her while Benjamin moved in his seat next to me. “Ah, this is somehow depressing. Even Deb realized my feelings and took notice that you never saw this hunk of a man next to you all these years.”
“I might not have noticed you in that way, but I did notice you, Benjamin. You were everything to me growing up just as you are now… Just now there’s a bonus.” I grinned, batting my eyes toward Benjamin who gave me a hooded look that made my toes curl.
“Emily, your mother is right here.” Mom informed me. Sarah laughed next to her.
“Besides, I thought your feelings for me were brotherly with the way you coddled me all the time,” I added.
Benjamin sighed. “How many times do I have to say I don’t coddle you, Emily? I fucking see red when it comes to you and your well-being—just everything about you—because I care.”
I grinned at his outburst. There was something so sexy and satisfying that the subject of me got him riled up so easily. I never took the time to notice how truly lucky I was to have someone in my life that cared so much about me.
He saw my smirk and swore. “Emily. Don’t get me started.”
Mom and Sarah were watching us with interest. “So, there’s a reason I invited you over, Emily.” Sarah pushed her plate to the side as she spoke. She stood up, turned toward Mom, and Mom and I both gasped becaus
e we realized what was happening as she dropped down in front of Mom.
“Yes!” Mom said before she even asked.
Sarah laughed. “You’ve got to let me ask you.”
Mom waved her hands around. “Okay, then ask.”
“Will you—”
“Yes!”
I laughed, full of happiness and a bit of sadness at the same time. I couldn’t explain how I felt. Somehow, I was still thinking of Dad all alone in his empty house with neither Mom nor me.
______
Benjamin
I was irritated when I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be one of those guys that got angry over past boyfriends. But the moment I saw Roger, all I felt was the urge to beat the shit out of the guy that looked just as surprised as Emily and I had been to see him at her mom’s. He had no idea we were together, Deb had no idea, and we had no idea Deb had invited him over. Not knowing about us either put us in a weird situation. I shouldn’t still be upset. Roger manned up and walked away when all I wanted to do was neuter him because he had been in a relationship with Emily for a long time. I had also wanted to throw her over my shoulder like Gorilla Ben did Rosie and disappear somewhere where no one could find us.
So who I always thought I was and who I was when it came to being with Emily were surprisingly different.
Which meant I was in over my head. Although I already knew Emily had a certain hold over me, it didn’t change the fact that a little over a week into this new relationship with her and I was teetering off an edge.
I wasn’t the only one in a mood when we left her mom’s place. Emily was quiet as I drove us back to the apartment. She had been since Sarah proposed to Deb. It was because of her sadness that I was able to ignore the bitterness in myself and focus on her. It was never hard to focus on her.
“Are you not happy for them?” I asked softly.
She never turned her head, she simply shook it with a sigh. “I am… I just… Can we go visit Dad?” She looked at me when she asked. “If you don’t want to go with me, I’ll go by myself when we get home.”
“Of course, I’ll go.” I looked at her like she was crazy, then I got lost in a word she said and smiled. “Home. That word sounds even better when it means that we are both going home to the same place.”
That earned me a smile. “We’ve been living together for months already.”
“Not like this.”
“I know,” she assured me. “It means so much more now.”
“Your dad’s happy, Emily,” I said what I thought she might be worrying about.
She frowned. “But he’s alone… Without Mom or me, somehow that makes me sad.”
I moved my hand from the gear shift and placed my arm across her shoulders while I spoke. “You might not live with him anymore, but he still has you.”
She nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“We’re still going to see him.”
She smiled, and I moved my arm again to change a gear. “About Roger…” she began.
“How long is he going to keep texting and trying to get back with you?” I couldn’t help but say.
“He’ll stop now that he knows we’re together,” she replied, but I extremely doubted that. Emily had no idea how charming she was. She didn’t try to be, it was just who she was as a person that attracted people, not just her beauty, which was mesmerizing itself.
“I’ll deal with him if he keeps it up,” I found myself muttering.
I felt her gaze on the side of my face as I focused on the road. “Benjamin, he didn’t know about us being together because I don’t talk to him anymore. Mom didn’t know because I rarely speak to her either.”
“He would have still come over when she asked in hopes of seeing you,” I told her. “I know because I would have if I had lost you. He’s the one that didn’t love or please you right, so it’s his own fault that he lost you.” I let my eyes do a quick scan over her body before refocusing on the road. “There’s no way I would have been able to sleep at night knowing I hadn’t gotten you off at least twice that night.”
“Will you stop being surly? He lost me because of you.” She never paused when she said, “I’m with you.”
“It was really because of me?” I asked her.
She nodded softly. “It was. I was obsessing over you, us, Gorilla Ben and Rosie to the point that he noticed and so did I. I couldn’t stay with someone that I wasn’t even attracted to anymore, if ever… Now that I’m with you,” she paused as her cheeks got red. “I don’t think I even knew what attraction and feelings even were until I started looking deeper into what I felt for you… And once I did, I couldn’t stop.”
I was as hard as a steel pipe just hearing her talk. I took a deep breath. We were going to her Dad’s…I could show her how much she affected me once we got home. Then I felt her hand slide into my lap where she slid her fingers down my dick. “When we get back from Dad’s…” She let me think of the rest.
“You’re killing me,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
_______
Stolen glances, sneaking in for touches, and a swift kiss on her lips every time she gave me the chance. That was how our visit to her Dad’s went. We sat around and played cards because that was all her dad seemed to like to do lately. It might have something to do with him needing a hobby or a habit that wasn’t drinking. He was still sober. He lost weight, and he honestly looked great. I loved spending time at his house because it was so plain to see how much Emily adored her dad, which was amazing. They had no relationship growing up. He hadn’t involved himself in her life at all when she was a kid or a teen, so it was always something strange for me to see how much he’d changed and their new relationship. I had despised her family a good portion of our childhood for the simple fact that they never cared what she did or said. Now, things were different. In the best way for her and him.
Now we were hurrying up the steps to the floor our apartment was on. Emily’s hands slid underneath my shirt as I kissed her jaw then her neck as I pulled her forward to move faster. I gripped one of her hips, letting her shirt rise as she wound her arms around my neck having to tiptoe to do so. The August night put chills across her stomach as I slid my thumb across those goose bumps before pushing her up against our apartment door so I could keep touching her while I unlocked the door.
She mewled in my ear and it was my defeat. The sounds she made were one of my favorite things. I threw open the door, and Emily’s hands were suddenly everywhere, all over me. But I already knew how I wanted her tonight. While she was frantic, I had already planned every one of her orgasms. I pulled her clumsy hands away from me and twisted her around, wrapping my arm around her stomach as I pressed her ass into my aching hard-on. She whimpered, and I walked us forward and turned on the light. Then I pressed her against the wall, placing my face in the back of her neck. “Right here?” I asked, just to make sure she was on board with the idea.
She whimpered, then nodded. My breathing was hot and heavy in her ear as I started working on her pants. Her gasping breaths greeted the wall as she arched her back and shimmied out of the jeans I forced down her legs. I drank in the sight of her ass and ran my fingers down her creamy flesh before sliding my fingers between her legs and pressing into her folds. “How long have you been ready for me?” I asked her.
She tilted her head back trying to look at me. “Since the drive to Dad’s,” she admitted. I rubbed my finger down her opening and pressed inside.
“Should I add another?” While I asked her, I pulled my index finger out and pressed back inside her with two.
Her back was nearly curved in half as she pressed her ass into me and tilted her head back against my chest. “God, Benjamin. That mouth.” She sighed half dreamy, but mostly lustily. “I still can’t wrap my head around how filthy it can be when…”
“When your pussy is wrapped around my dick?” I finished for her. “Spread your legs apart for me.” She complied quickly. I unzipped my pants and pulled th
em down enough so that I could free myself before I ran the tip along her ass. “See, babe, you might have gotten a lot right when you gave some of my traits to your Gorilla Ben, but unlike him, I know exactly what I want.”
“This.” She gasped as I slipped my hand underneath her shirt and squeezed one of her breasts roughly, pushing her bra up in the process. “This,” I cupped her pussy with my other hand while taking my other hand out of her shirt so that I could grab her chin and force her to tilt her head back so that her green eyes met my possessive intent. “All of you is mine. You’re all I want.”
I positioned myself until I was pressed against her opening, then I slammed into her all at once. I hissed as her heat welcomed me, and she cried out. There was something carnal and flat out possessive about the way I felt about Emily taking me into her body every single time without a condom. We hadn’t used one once. I had gone above and beyond with other women to make sure that I always used a condom even if they tried to talk me out of it, but the moment I knew I was going to get all up in my best friend, I had no intentions whatsoever. Because without a doubt, I knew there’d be no one else but her.
I worked her clit as I pounded into her. She wasn’t quiet, but with the way I pulverized her, she probably couldn’t be silenced. She tightened around me, and I bit into her neck. “Want me to slow down?” I was already close, and I didn’t want to send myself over the edge without taking her with me.
She shook her head. “Don’t. Oh, God!” And then she was coming around me. I recognized her body’s reaction, and the beautiful way her face scrunched up.
Roughly, I pulled her away from the wall and placed my palm on her back until her hands smacked the wall so that she bent over. She was so beautiful at every angle I could get her. I never stopped or slowed. I was overcome with a fever, and her body took my frenzy like she wanted to drown in it.
When I came inside her, she made sure to look back. Her eyes drank me in, and it only heightened my pleasure because with the way she watched me…made me feel like I hung the moon.
It took all my strength, but I caught Emily before she fell. Her body sagged against mine as she grabbed my face and forced her tongue down my throat despite the fact that our bodies were feeling like noodles. I carried her to my room and let her kiss me for as long as she wanted.
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