I didn’t kiss her like I was waiting for something else. This was already more than I ever thought I wanted.
As I shifted my weight to more fully cover her, the springs sounded out another hearty squeal.
“Fuck,” I said right into her mouth. “If we’re not quiet, we’ll end up with an audience here soon.”
Her arms tightened around my body for a quick second. “Let’s go to your room then.”
All the blood in my body drained to flood my dick. Did she… did that mean…
Maybe I shouldn’t ask.
“You’re ready to go inside?” I asked instead, sending a warning to my erection to stand down.
“Yeah,” she said softly. Fuck, that was hot.
In an effort to not stab her with the pointy thing in my pants, I moved gingerly off of her body. She began to pick up the ice cream mess and I waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it in the morning.”
“But it’ll melt.”
“I finished the second one already,” I said with a grin as I moved to standing and reached a hand down to lift her up.
Navy didn’t take my hand. “You’ll pick it up tomorrow?”
“I promise.” I held out my pinky.
She hooked her pinky with mine and after grabbing her forearm with my other hand, I pulled her to standing. The trampoline shifted under our feet, making us bounce for a second.
Navy giggled. “I’m still pretty buzzed. Maybe even a stidge drunk.”
“Stidge? Yeah, you probably are a stidge drunk.” Our hands clasped, our fingers interlocking.
“I was thinking tidge and smidge,” she said, “I combined them.”
“Impressive,” I said, and felt myself wobble. I squeezed her hands in an effort to ground myself. “I think I’m a stidge drunk too.” I led her to the opening in the net and jumped down, landing gracefully on my feet despite the imbalance in my head. The trampoline squeaked violently, sending Navy into a fit of laughter. In the near silent night around us, it was not exactly an inconspicuous sound.
“How are we going to get to your bedroom without making a ruckus?”
“We probably won’t,” I told her. “But here, I’ll carry you. Then only one set of footsteps will stumble about the place.”
I held my arms open to her, and she crouched down, scooted toward the edge of the trampoline and wrapped her legs around my waist and arms around my neck as my hands held her ass.
There was exactly zero percent chance that she wouldn’t feel my raging boner in this position.
I’d carried Navy dozens of times, but usually she was behind me as I gave her piggy backs. This forward carry was immensely distracting, and I knew without a doubt that I’d fall into walls and furniture and it wouldn’t be thanks to alcohol alone.
The door to the garage was closest, so we went in that way after I entered a code onto the keypad.
“Remember prom?” I asked her once we were safely enclosed in the garage.
“When we got locked out, and I had to crawl through the doggy door to let us in, all decked out in my prom dress?”
“So, you do remember.”
“How could I forget you shoving miles of tulle in after me?”
“The fabric?”
“Yes,” she said as we moved toward the door that went into the house. “The fabric. It was tulle. And it ripped on the frame of the doggy door as you all but booted me inside.” She laughed and I braced her against the door and pressed my finger to her lips.
“Forget my stumbling, your mouth is gonna wake up the whole house.” I removed my finger and didn’t turn the handle right away. “Besides, aren’t prom dresses kind of like wedding dresses? You’re never going to wear it again, right?”
“Well, no, I’m not going to wear it again. But it was the fact that I had to look terrible when we went to the diner after we grabbed your keys, in my ripped and dirty gown.”
“Terrible? You didn’t look terrible.” She’d worn a navy-blue dress with a long tulle skirt and strappy top with a deep v-neck. I remembered it well and not just because I had the prom photo in my wallet, but because she’d looked… “Gorgeous. You were gorgeous. Navy is your color.”
“It’s also my name.” She giggled. “And thanks,” she said, almost shyly. “Are we going to go inside, or…?”
I shrugged, still holding her braced against the door. “Thought we’d just stand here until my legs gave out if that’s okay with you.” It earned me a laugh, but also, I’d meant it. Holding her was no effort, and I wasn’t eager to let her back down anytime soon.
But then something dawned on me. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure the door is locked.”
“Keane…”
I grimaced. “I know.”
“I am not climbing through the dog door again.”
That was fair. “I’ll try to reach. Hold on.” I set her on her feet, regrettably, and dropped to my knees on the cool concrete stoop in front of the door. It’d been a while since we had a dog, but we hadn’t replaced the door with the old doggy door installed in it. Which was a good thing, because I locked myself out of the house entirely too often. I angled my body so that one arm went through the dog door and then I maneuvered my head through the door as well until I saw the lock. After a moment of grunts, I managed to unlock the knob and slid back under the dog door. “We’re in,” I said, and swooped her up into my arms once more.
Navy laughed into my shoulder. “Let me down. I’ll walk, it’s okay.”
“You’re clumsier than I am, so that’s a no. I’ll let you down when we get into my room,” I promised, entering the house and tightening my hold on her as I crept down the hallway, past my parents’ and Asa’s doors until we reached mine. I opened the door and let us in, waiting until we were safely behind the door to exhale. “We did it,” I whispered on a laugh. I’d promised to let her down when we reached my room, but I still held her. And she didn’t make any moves to loosen her legs around me.
God, she smelled so good. I’d always appreciated how she smelled, but in the context of what had happened tonight, the way she smelled was fucking hot as hell.
“Navy,” I said, not realizing how hoarse my voice would sound. I swallowed.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
My arms tensed under her. “We’ve been drinking,” I said, doing everything in my power to list the reasons going any further was a bad idea. Though we hadn’t explicitly talked about sex, we were now in my bedroom. Which… had a bed. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
“Not as much as you.”
“Oh, so there are levels? You measured?”
“Well, no…” I made a move to let her down, but she only tightened her hold around my hips, bringing my lips right to the skin of her neck. I closed my eyes, willing all my strength. What was I saying before? “We shouldn’t do this.”
“Don’t give me the same speech you gave me back in high school,” Navy said, and I heard the hurt in her voice. “I won’t believe you don’t want me this time.” As if to illustrate her point, she wiggled, bringing her directly in contact with my erection.
“Whoa.” I winced. Fuck. “I’ve never not wanted you, Navy. That’s not what it’s about.”
“Then educate me. What is it about?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen after this.”
She tapped my forehead. “Because you’re not a mind-reader. And neither am I. But we both know that if we don’t do this, we’re always going to think about it.”
I did know that. In many ways, the fact that we were in this situation proved that we’d already crossed some arbitrary line between friends and more than friends. “So it’s a decision of choosing to go forward and let the chips fall where they may,” I said, and Navy held up one hand like it was a scale, “or always wondering what could have been.”
She held up her other hand, lifting either one back and forth as we weighed our opti
ons.
“And you’d choose…” I began.
“Well, I’m not letting go of you. So that should tell you.” Despite the influence of alcohol, she looked me very clearly in the eyes and tightened her hold on me.
“Do you mean that?”
“Are you going to ask me every time I say something if I mean it or not?”
I ran a hand through my hair, hardly believing this was happening. “I don’t think so. I just… this is new. I don’t know how to act.”
“Well…” She brushed a hand through my hair, her nails dragging over my scalp in the most delicious way. She knew how much I loved that, as she’d done it a dozen times before. But this time, we were talking about sex, which made it feel like a tiny, little torture. “Then treat me like you would if I weren’t me.”
“I can’t treat you like that.” This was Navy. She was special; someone I cared deeply for, in complicated ways. I could never treat her like I didn’t care, or like she was someone I wasn’t invested in.
“Then just do what comes natural for you.”
I didn’t think it was possible to be more aroused, but the thing that felt most natural to me in that moment was to carry her to the bed and lay her across it. So I did.
The moonlight that poured in through my window bathed her body in white light, illuminating her dark hair and making it look silver. Shit. As many girls as I’d dated, the only one I’d ever had in this bed was Navy. She was special. I’d have to make sure she felt that, too.
I started at her feet, removing her shoes with quick precision, and then my own before I climbed over her so that I braced myself above her.
We’d cuddled probably a hundred times in this bed—hell, we’d even spooned—but I’d never looked at her this way. I hadn’t allowed it. Knowing I could now meant my head swam with possibilities. Flooded by them, I hesitated over her.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to ask me if I’m sure again,” she said.
I shook my head. “That’s not what I was thinking. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
I appreciated that she had so much confidence in me, but I didn’t share it. “How do you know?”
“I won’t let you.” She said it so simply, with so much certainty, that it was hard to doubt her trust in me.
“Pinky promise?” I asked, holding mine out.
She looped hers around mine. “You won’t hurt me Keane.”
The permission she gave me in that promise erased whatever doubts mingled in my thoughts, making this a million times easier—like there was something in my chest inhibiting my breathing. I leaned forward, wanting to kiss her. Just keep kissing me. We’ll figure it out.
I intended to do exactly that. In the silence of the house, all I could hear was our soft breathing, the sounds of our lips meeting. And as my lips traveled down her neck, her breaths were faster, echoing the pace of mine. God, she smelled fucking phenomenal everywhere. I dug my hands under her head, into her hair, and pulled gently as if to anchor myself. All my senses were heightened, and we both still had all our clothes on. But I felt everything so sharply, as if I was experiencing all of this for the first time. I guess, in some ways, it was the first time.
When I lifted my head, her brown eyes seemed even darker and the rosy tint of her lips seemed deeper, too. And when they curved, the flash of white from her teeth brought me back to earth. She was so sure, so solid. I wanted to be the same for her.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered above her lips. She was. She always had been. But it was important for me to tell her. I gave her a kiss when she opened her lips, and kept kissing her until she was breathless. I’d missed out on so much, not kissing her. I only had a handful of years to make up for.
Navy moved so that she was sitting up and dragged her top up and over her head.
God. Miles and miles of tanned skin, just for me. A navy-blue bra that supported her perfectly.
She grasped the hem of my shirt and without her assistance, I pulled it up and off. I’d seen her without her shirt before when we’d gone swimming, but there was something so much more intimate about this—her bra didn’t cover any less than her bikini had, but it was the fact that it was her bra—something she didn’t wear publicly, that made my pulse hammer like a gong—resonant and echoing.
I played with the edge of her thin strap, appreciating the its color. It was a great color for her, and it reminded me of the night we’d sat in our formal wear, eating pancakes at four in the morning. After she’d dragged herself through my dog door.
She stood up, forcing me to stand with her, and unbuttoned her pants. She shoved them fall to her ankles. Where her bra was more conservative, her panties most certainly were… not. I had to look away, down at my own pants, to keep from staring. Fuck, I felt like a fool, like my hands didn’t know what to do. She’d told me to behave as if this was natural for me, but everything was so much more confusing, more layered. This wasn’t simple, this was more.
“Let me help,” she said, coming closer, so we were chest to chest. The warmth of her body was so fucking welcome, like the heat emanated off of her. When her warm fingers dipped between my pants and my stomach, I nearly jerked in response. With a quick flick, she had the button of my jeans unsnapped and was lowering my zipper. As soon as she shoved the pants down, my cock sprung free—proud and happy, but still hidden beneath my boxer briefs. She lifted her eyes, meeting mine, and her hand slid up my chest to my neck. She was warming me all over, inside and out, and I didn’t know what to fucking do with myself. I was never this slow, never this out of my depth. I needed guidance, needed her to set the pace, for me to know what to do.
I felt like a fumbling kid, like I was losing my virginity or something. Is this what it would have been like in high school? But if we’d dated, would we be where we were today? I supposed wondering was pointless, we couldn’t go back and see. We’d just have to wait until tomorrow.
She lifted onto her tiptoes to kiss me full on the mouth, and my arm came around her, pulling her impossibly closer. The feel of her chest to chest with me, her hands on my neck, lit up a part in me that took over.
I turned her so her back faced me and slowly eased each strap over the curve of her shoulder and down. Pressing a kiss to the imprint those straps had left behind, I undid the hooks on her bra strap and the entire thing fell to the ground. She turned around before I was ready, before I could ever be ready.
The dusky pink of her nipples was the same goddamn color as her lips. I swept her up into my arms and laid her back on my bed, and in doing so I discovered a secret Navy had kept from me.
I grazed my thumb over the tiny crescent moon under one of her breasts before gliding up over the curve above it that was too tempting to not touch, flicking over one taut nipple. I’d have to tuck the tattoo in the back of my brain, to bring up another time.
I kissed up the space between her breasts and hooked my thumbs into her underwear, tugging them down, until she was completely naked. I had never entertained thoughts of seeing Navy like this in my bed, but now that I could take my time exploring her miles and miles of skin, I knew my imagination would have only let me down.
Navy writhed on the bed when my lips landed on her delicate ankle bone. I continued my path back up the inner side of her leg, over and in between her thighs.
Her fingers curled in my hair, tugging me upward just as I’d pressed my lips to her sensitive skin. “I’m impatient,” she whispered in my ear, sending a spike of heat through me.
Her fingers slipped in my boxers and pushed them over my ass, as far as she could reach and slid back up my ass and my chest, her nails scratching me gently until they landed on my shoulders.
She pushed me and, in a flash, I was on my back with her hovering above me.
We moved fast, but everything happened in slow motion. My hands slid up the curves of her body. Her legs straddled my waist. Her long, silky hair tickled my chest as she leaned forward and lightly bit the
cleft of my chin and continued that biting down the column of my neck. We were all skin and hands and mouths, a cacophony of exhales and sighs and sheets rustling.
Her mouth rapidly slid down my chest until it encircled my cock.
Fuuuuuck.
She was all warm and wet and it took every fucking ounce of my power to hold myself back. I’d been aching for hours, and I didn’t want to blow it—literally—in five seconds.
“I thought you were impatient,” I said on a choked laugh as she licked the underside of my dick, rendering me fucking helpless.
“I am.” She grinned up at me but didn’t stop.
“Fuck, Navy,” I said on a laugh.
“That’s the plan.”
I laughed again. Had sex ever been this fun? This was what I’d been missing—not just the feel of her mouth on me, but the laughter, the teasing. It was so comfortable being with her like this. I still felt like a virgin, but like a confident one—finding my footing alongside someone I trusted.
But if she didn’t stop soon, I’d bring a crushing halt to this and I wasn’t ready to embarrass myself just yet. I scooped her up under her arms, pulling her back up the length of my body. “I’m impatient too.”
“Where are your condoms?”
Fuck. Where were they? I didn’t bring girls back home, so they weren’t conveniently in the nightstand.
“In the bathroom,” I said after a moment, lifting her off my hips. She stopped me by placing her hands on my chest.
“I’ll get them.”
“Under my sink, in the back behind the giant box of bandages.”
She tiptoed to the bathroom and crouched, shuffling things around until she found what she was looking for.
As she closed the door, I got a good look at her. My God, everything about her was just stunning. I think I’d always known that, always admired how beautiful she was. But the opportunity to openly stare was more than I could really fathom. I wanted to tell her how incredible she was, how beautiful she looked. But seconds after she’d closed the door to the bathroom, she was back at the bed, covering my body with hers and kissing me once again.
One Big Mistake: a friends to lovers rom-com Page 7