by Neve Wilder
Eric cocked his head to one side, and the smile he tempered said he was restraining himself from calling me out on it. He wanted it, too. The needlepoint tickle in my gut became a warm tingle. “Sounds good. Now?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed for his hand again when he started to roll upright and yanked him back down, bracing myself over him. His eyes met mine in a warm green haze that went blurry as I dipped down and kissed him. Just a soft stroke of my lips against his because if I did anything more than that it’d be hard for me to tear myself away. “I’m crazy about you. You get that, right?”
His eyes danced with amusement and crinkled up at the corners like he was about to make some quip, but he only arched his neck up to nip my lower lip before shoving me backward. “Yeah, but you start talking like that right now and it’ll throw a wrench in our plans for the rest of the night because I’ll start getting ideas in my head about hearing you say it when I’m on my knees with your dick in my mouth and then we won’t be leaving this room until that happens.”
I straddled him, ground my hips against him hard enough to draw a sharp grunt from him, then slid off the end of the bed to stand with a grin as I adjusted myself. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” He grabbed the hand I extended and yanked himself upright. “But I’m good at delayed gratification.”
“Yeah, no shit. Too good.”
His laughter echoed behind me as I opened the bedroom door, already thinking about the moment when I’d close it behind me again and let him strip me down in multiple ways. My clothes first, and then that wicked magic he did on my inhibitions. Hmm, maybe going out on actual dates was overrated.
6
Keep Me
“What?” I asked. The weight of Eric’s stare was like a third person sitting between us in the car.
“You want a hand job?”
I glanced over. He appeared dead serious. That hunter’s gleam was darkening his eyes, and all that was missing was a smirk or tilt of his head. “While I’m driving?”
There it was—not a smirk or head tilt this time, but a subtle lift of his chin in casually seductive invitation. “Yes.”
“Do you want to die?” Fun fact: I’d discovered a motherlode of hand-job-while-driving porn some weeks back and had imagined this scenario going down between Eric and me at least fifty times. And that was probably where the fantasy should remain, because I was 100 percent a flail risk when Eric was anywhere near my dick. Even now I started shifting around in the driver’s seat trying to covertly adjust myself.
“Blowjob, then?” His lips quirked as he glanced down at my crotch.
“How’s that better?”
“Because at least then I’d go with a dick in my mouth.”
I blinked at him in disbelief, then cracked up. Totally fucking lost it. “You ain’t right.”
“We already know that.”
I wasn’t willing to test my mettle against the Grim Reaper. Or Eric’s hand job skills in a motorized vehicle. Instead, I reached over the console and took his hand in mine. He turned a slow look in my direction, a trace of a humored smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “What’s this?”
“I hear it’s a sign of affection or something.” I stole a play from his book and arched a brow. “I’m test-driving it, since I’m a babe in the woods with all of this. Or whatever the saying is.”
“You seemed pretty well versed in the woods the other night.” The smile that’d been hovering at the corners of his lips tipped into sly territory, and I bit back my own grin, focusing on the road again. Eric didn’t pull his hand away, though, and a few moments later he asked, “So what’s the verdict?”
I made a face. “Not sure I’m a fan.” Handholding had never been my favorite thing, regardless of who it was with. It inevitably reminded me of being a kid crossing a street, or wandering the aisles of department stores with my mom.
“No?” Eric angled in the corner of his seat, propping his elbow on the windowsill and resting his temple against his fist. With his other hand, he turned mine palm up and laced his fingers so slowly between mine that I swore I felt every nerve ending in that small surface area waking up at the drag of his warm skin across it. The tips of his fingers closed over my knuckles with a firm press, and my cock twitched in my boxers as he ran his thumb along the side of my palm. I sat there dumbfounded yet again at how he could make even the most mundane thing sensual and appealing. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of crosswalks, or my mom’s rings pressing into my chubby little hands, but of Eric’s sweat-slick grip slamming my hand against a wall, a mattress, a desk, as he plunged into me.
“How about now?” he asked.
“That’s not handholding. That’s like…hand fucking. Or hand seduction. Your hand is seducing mine, and my hand has zero game. It’s just gonna hop in the bed with yours without even dinner or a drink first. Maybe I need to give it a lecture about standards.”
Eric threw his head back and laughed. “All right, maybe, yeah, your hand is a total slut. But do you like it better?”
I cut another look over at him. His dark hair was tousled. Not even artfully, just messy and haphazard bed head since he hadn’t taken a shower this morning. And somehow sexy as hell in conjunction with the thick stubble along his jaw. “Maybe.” And though I was sure he was teasing me, the open curiosity I read in his expression had me smiling instead of cracking another joke. “Yeah,” I relented, because it did feel fucking good. At least his version of it.
Eric gave my palm another firm squeeze, then let his fingers travel up the length of my arm to wrap around the nape of my neck, rubbing the tendons until a satisfied rumble left my chest. “That’s the winner right there, though,” I told him.
We’d gotten halfway back to campus before Eric brought up something that’d been on my mind all morning.
“Mark still pissed at you?”
I hadn’t thought of Mark at all over the break, but since we’d gotten in the car—my hiatus from university and frat life over—the prospect of returning to the chill that’d settled between our friendship loomed. We’d been tight since becoming pledge brothers as freshmen. He’d had my back any number of times over the last few years, had saved my ass on a few occasions when we were hazed during hell week, or when the occasional fight broke out, and beyond. I’d done the same for him without question.
I sighed, fiddling with a thread that’d come loose on the steering wheel stitching. “Yeah, I think so. I’m not sure how to make it right yet, though. I mean…” I stopped, thinking for a moment about how we’d left things. “Or maybe I do, but I’m just not ready to yet.”
Eric shrugged and shifted in the passenger seat, doing his best to stretch his long legs out. “It’s no skin off my back. Dude doesn’t even like me. But I know you’ve always been close.”
“Why do you think he doesn’t like you?” I racked my brain for any instance where Mark had been antagonistic toward Eric but came up empty.
Eric eyed me for a moment, then dismissed the question with a shake of his head. “Just a vibe I get from him. No concrete evidence.”
So of course Mark was the first one we encountered when we got back to the house. Kicked back on the couch with a slice of pizza in his hand, he scrolled through TV channels as Eric and I came through the front door. He glanced over and then did a muted double take when he spotted Eric behind me.
“Eric came home with me,” I said redundantly. “His Thanksgiving plans fell through.” It was sort of true.
Mark gave me a slow nod, his expression unreadable and detached as he looked between me and Eric. “Cool. Good times?”
I dropped my duffle by the stairs and ran a hand through my hair as Eric gave Mark a short upnod for a greeting and headed for the kitchen. “Yeah. We had fun. You?”
He shrugged. “It was all right. Lots of family, you know? Mostly chaos.” He clapped his thumb and fingers together to simulate a bunch of chattering, then stuffed the rest of a pizza crust in his mouth and d
usted off his hands.
“There any of that pizza left?”
“Nope,” he said succinctly and started messing with the remote again.
“Okay.” I stood there for a second, and the silence that settled between us made me oddly aware of how I was standing there uselessly with one knee kind of bent out and my arms hanging at my sides like two loaves of bread. Like I didn’t know what to do with myself. “I’m gonna go unpack.”
Mark tipped me an absent wave as I shouldered my bag and headed up the stairs.
Once in my bedroom, I unzipped the duffle and the scent of fresh detergent wafted up. Why did clothes smell so much better when someone else washed them? I hung up my shirts and was in the process of stuffing my jeans back in a drawer, still mulling the whole Mark situation, when I got a prickle over the back of my neck, signaling I was being watched. I turned around to shoot a teasing accusation at Eric but found myself trying to hide a smile, instead. He leaned up against my doorframe, arms folded over his chest, and I thought that for probably as long as we lived here, I’d associate that stance with the first time we’d hooked up. I guess it wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world, but it still made my heart do a flip in my chest. A goofy smile broke free for a span of seconds, matched by Eric’s quirked lips, until the thought of Mark sobered me again. I shut the drawer. “So yeah, it’s weird, and I’m gonna have to fix it,” I said quietly, glancing out into the hall as I picked up the thread of conversation from the car ride.
Eric shouldered off the doorframe and wandered deeper inside. “You’ll figure it out.”
I bit my lip and nodded, locking eyes with him as he stopped in front of me and cuffed the back of my neck. I was suddenly nervous that Eric wouldn’t be patient with me, that he hadn’t meant what he’d said. It’d been easy while we were off campus, but now we’d be back to sneaking around. Of course, I thought the sneaking around held its own allure for Eric. And me, if I was being honest. The illicit thrill quotient was high and we were both suckers for it, which set off another wave anxiety inside me. What if once everything was out in the open, the mind-rattling, ball-tightening sense of urgency between us evaporated?
“Wow,” Eric chuckled on an exhale.
“Wow?”
He cocked his head at me. “I can almost make out the shape of your thoughts as they whirl through your mind.” His finger rose to trace a nonsensical pattern on my forehead, the touch cool and light.
“So what was that one?”
“Ambiguous worry, I think.”
I snorted as he dropped his hand away. His expression was patient and open and waiting, and I licked my lips—an instinctive reflex I seemed to have when I was close to him, like they’d suddenly gone dry. “Are you sure you’re in this? Maybe for a haul?”
Eric let go of the back of my neck with another sweep of his fingertips and dropped to the edge of my bed, shoving aside a stack of T-shirts. “Yep. You?” His green eyes searched mine as if he was trying to assemble a larger picture from my jumbled thoughts.
“A hundred percent.”
“You’re glaring again.”
“I wanted to make sure you knew I meant it.”
Eric tapped the skin between his brows. “I’ve mentally catalogued it now. Glares equal emphasis.”
“Good. Now quit wrinkling my tees.”
“As if you folded them yourself.” He smirked as he stood and made like he was going to ruffle my hair, but I caught him by the wrist as he snagged the ends curling over my temple and a staredown commenced, his forest greens pitted against my complete and utter helplessness. My dick declared no contest, but I maintained my grip, held his gaze, and let a smirk of my own uncoil that made his eyes go hot and dark in challenge. I really should’ve taken him up on that offer back in the car, because now I was restless and looking to blow, and as Eric’s eyes trawled up and down my body, I could tell he registered the desire coming off me because his smirk detoured into a satisfied curve. Then the fucker growled, sharp and short as he stepped in and nipped the side of my throat before wrenching his hand away and turning for the door. “You already know I don’t lock my door at night.” He tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder and then disappeared into the hall.
I tugged at the ends of my hair in frustration, then swiped my hand across my mouth and reached for the shirts on my bed.
We’d talked on the car ride back about how this would play out, that really to all public appearances nothing would change, and that’d all sounded fine coming off of four solid days together. Four solid days in which we’d fucked and sucked each other at will in my bedroom at my parents’, in my car parked in front of the garage, in the woods behind Shana’s again the second time we’d hung out with my friends—as if we’d needed to make sure the first time hadn’t been a fluke inflamed by our own pent-up frustration with each other. Nope, it hadn’t been. It’d been just as intense as before. I’d never been so consistently, rampantly horny and so satisfied at the same time. Not that there wasn’t downtime, some quieter moments when it was the two of us hanging out watching a game with my dad, or sprawled on my bed next to each other, me snaking a leg between Eric’s as we both dicked around on our phones. One afternoon, I’d scrolled through Facebook and clicked on his profile, and when I’d asked about the dearth of photos, he shrugged and handed over his phone, letting me dive into his photo albums, patiently elaborating anytime I glanced over at him with an inquiring expression.
“So do you still have that mankini?” he’d asked, a mischievous expression crossing his face as I handed back his phone.
“You have stalked my Facebook.”
He cocked his head and gave me an unabashed grin. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
I’d been surprised actually, and told him as much, and then he’d repeated the question about the mankini.
“Maybe, but if I do, it’s only coming out if you’re putting it on and we’ll give you some fresh photos for your page.”
“Pass. I wouldn’t do it justice.”
“No one does a mankini justice except maybe Chris Hemsworth. He could.”
“You come pretty close.” Eric flashed me an electric smile. “I don’t want any fresh photos for my page. Who gives a shit? Tell you what I would take, though?” He waited until I rolled my wrist impatiently for him to get on with it. “You on your knees, that sexy-ass mouth wrapped around my cock while I record it. That’s worth capturing for posterity.”
I barked out a laugh even as I scoffed. “There are a hundred different ways that could go wrong. And why does it have to be me on my knees? How about you?”
He eyed me up and down just long enough to get me good and worked up. “I’m game. If you think you could hold the phone steady while I went to town on you, yeah, I’m all for it.”
We both knew the answer to that.
The craziest thing was, I’d liked just lying there and hanging out as much as fucking around with him. And now after that solid chunk of time together, I was pretty sure that going back to the way we’d been before was going to be easier in theory than in practice, regardless of how hot the sneaking around was. Because now the secrecy felt almost like a burden.
The next morning, I sat at my usual place on the kitchen counter, thumping my heel idly against the cabinet as I ate cereal in an exhausted daze. The night before, Mark and some of the other brothers had gone out, and I’d felt compelled to go along to try and be more socially active or something. We’d ended up late nighting it at our house, and even though I’d bailed early and left them downstairs, I’d still fallen asleep before they left. So I hadn’t made it into Eric’s room after all.
I’d discovered Mark passed out on the couch this morning, and Ansel had had a good time waking him up with a cup of ice water as payback for being so loud.
Eric slouched in the chair he favored at the table across the kitchen, a couple of pieces of toast pushed off to one side, his forehead against his fist as he slowly scrolled through his phone, reading. I c
ouldn’t remember which class he had first today, and when he glanced up at me and arched a brow, eyes dancing, I forgot my own schedule. Sunblind. Lost. Stupid for him.
“Do. You. Want. Eggs?”
I wrenched my gaze away to find Jesse staring at me from over the door of the fridge, a carton of eggs in his hand, which he rattled aggressively in my direction.
“Sure. Jesus.”
“I asked, like, three times.”
“You asked twice and the first time was nonspecific.” I’d heard him, albeit distantly, and wasn’t sure he was even addressing me since Ansel had wandered in, too.
“It was three times,” Eric confirmed with a grin and then winked at me like a fucking know-it-all. “You look tired.”
“Your hair’s a wreck,” Jesse tagged on.
Ansel twisted around from where he stood in front of the cabinet with a box of cereal in hand to eye me. “Your face looks like a ballsac.”
“All of you can suck my dick,” I grumbled.
“I can only imagine what it looks like, considering your face.” Eric, that asswipe, fluttered his lashes at me and gave me a sweet smile, except he didn’t do sweet very well and it ended up looking more like a leer. Which was of course enough to make my dick perk up and answer the morning roll call.
“Open up and you can find out.” I slid from the counter and rinsed my bowl, leaving it in the sink.
My phone started buzzing before I even got off the front porch, and my lips pulled up in a preemptive smile.
Eric: Think you’re clever don’t you
Nate: Think I’m hard. Got my own damn self worked up. Sucks walking with a boner.