Easy Ride (South Florida Riders Book 3)

by Breezie Bennett

  “You’re not officially my teammate until you and Whitney Cooper gang up on me.” He gives Matt’s lean shoulder a firm pat. “Congrats, bitch.”

  Matt and I laugh, and the three of us walk back to the table. I can smell Chase’s cologne, and I can feel his rock of a tricep brushing my arm. I want to hold and touch and taste every last inch of him. I telepathically beg him to grab my ass again.

  I slip back onto the barstool between Frankie and Chase, trying desperately to shake off my melty attraction and convince myself that it’s all just hormones and sex drive and has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve always had an enormous soft spot for my endearing asshole of a best friend.

  “Chase Kennedy, as I live and breathe,” a deep, sensual woman’s voice coos slowly.

  High heels click on the rooftop as a tall, lean figure floats up to the table. Shiny, stick-straight black hair frames a face that is so beautiful it almost hurts to look at it.

  “Is that Arabella Addams?” Frankie whispers.

  “Holy shit, it is,” Elliot responds with a chuckle from across the table.

  The world-famous movie star is even more striking in person than she is in her series of action thrillers, where she plays a smoking-hot badass FBI agent and runs around chasing bad guys in Louboutins. Naturally.

  “Damn. Go, Kennedy,” Jessica says with a lift of her shoulder. She turns to Elliot and nudges his arm. “Babe! It’s almost ten. Can you text the babysitter and make sure Ash goes to bed soon?”

  They’re all happy and cute with their kid at home, and Frankie and Leo are literally radiating love and perfection.

  I swirl my beer and watch the string bean of a woman run her pointy fingers along Chase’s arm, wondering how I—who’s longed for love and commitment and forever since high school—ended up as the only single person at a table full of rich, hot NFL players and their equally hot wives.

  “It’s been, what, two years? Way too long.” The actress’ sharp blue eyes are practically undressing him right in front of us.

  I swallow hard and feel my gut tighten. Would Six bail on our stupid little playdate to bang this tall drink of movie star water?

  Of course he would.

  He’s Chase freaking Kennedy, and she’s Aphrodite or whatever, and I’m just his childhood best friend. Who could blame him?

  They’ve stepped away from the table, and I can’t hear their conversation, but she’s touchier than a kid at a petting zoo, and together they make a disgustingly sexy pair of famous people.

  Just as I finish my beer, wrestling with the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and accept the way tonight is going to turn out, Chase walks away from her.

  He holds up a finger, and I can make out that he tells her to “Wait one sec,” and hurries back over to the table.

  Flashing me a classic Six grin that simultaneously makes my heart flip and my panties a little wet, he grabs Matt McKenzie’s shoulder and drags him over to Arabella.

  “Chase Kennedy doing God’s wingman work. No fucking way,” Leo says, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Jessica leans forward and gasps through a laugh, blond curls falling all over her pretty face. “He’s introducing her to the rookie.” Her voice heightens with surprise.

  “Is our little douchebag finally growing up? It’s unthinkable,” Elliot adds.

  I don’t even try to fight the wave of excitement that ribbons through me at the idea of Chase turning down a world-class hookup with the obviously interested Arabella Addams.

  For me?

  Matt and Arabella start chatting, and Chase turns away, sliding back onto the seat next to me.

  The table is oddly silent for an extra beat, almost as if no one can comprehend a version of Chase Kennedy who makes a move like that.

  “All right, I’ll say it.” Leo sets his glass on the table and narrows his eyes at Chase. “Who are you, and what did you do with our quarterback?”

  “Ha-ha.” Chase leans back in his seat and shrugs. “She gets around a lot, Arabella Addams.”

  “And?” Leo asks.

  “Yeah…” Elliot eyes Chase. “When has that ever stopped you?”

  “It’s not that.” Chase shakes his head.

  Oh shit. Is he about to tell them that we have plans for a platonic sex lesson tonight? I stop breathing for a second.

  “I’ve just heard she’s a terrible lay,” he says matter-of-factly with a sip of his beer.

  Relief floods me as the guys laugh and roll their eyes and take Chase’s obvious cue to stop the questioning.

  His leg is pressing against mine underneath the table, and it doesn’t have to be. There’s plenty of room. I don’t pull away.

  I feel ten times more attracted to Chase every second, and watching him say no to a Hollywood beauty icon really tugged at my heart strings.

  I slip my hand into the back pocket of my jeans and pull my phone out. I open up the Notes app and type something to subtly show Chase so I don’t have to say it out loud.

  Is that true? That’s really why you pushed away Arabella Addams?

  I nudge his thigh and hand the phone to him, keeping the exchange hidden underneath the table.

  Chase glances down and reads the question, laughing softly. He turns his head to face me, his gaze smoldering and his lips just a few desperate inches from mine. “No, Nit Whit. It’s not true.” His voice is low and raspy and borders on a whisper.

  I feel my heart skip a beat. “Six…” I frown and give him a look of confusion, consciously reminding myself to keep everything friendly and playful and simply platonic, just as it would have been before we started messing around in hot tubs and on balconies.

  He shrugs and faces forward, finishing his beer. “I have plans tonight.” The words slip out only loud enough for me to hear them, and a sexy, cocky smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

  I stare down into my lap while I attempt to gain control of the obvious grin spreading widely on my face and the soaring feeling in my chest.

  Suddenly, as I’m repeating over and over in my head Melody’s warnings about keeping things physical, I hear the tapping of silverware on a glass, as if someone’s about to make a toast or something.

  The conversation at our table dies down as Frankie and Leo stand up. They keep looking at each other like giddy middle schoolers, their eyes sparking with passion and love and their smiles both equally radiant.

  “So, guys…” Frankie sets her glass down, and I notice it’s filled with water. “We want you all to be the first to know…” She looks adoringly at her devilishly handsome husband.

  “There’s a little Sterling on the way!” Leo blurts out, wrapping his arms around his wife and kissing her with a visible overflow of affection.

  Frankie bubbles with laughter, and now I understand the vibrant glow.

  Elliot and Jessica jump out of their seats and rush over to hug Leo and Frankie. “Hell yes! More parents on the team!” they exclaim though excitement and laughter.

  I hug Frankie. “You two are gonna have the most beautiful and football-obsessed child the world has ever seen,” I say.

  Chase stands up and bro-hugs Leo. “A family man now.” He pats his shoulder hard. “You’ve come a long way, Sterling.”

  Leo nods toward Arabella the actress, who’s completely engaged in what appears to be a fascinating conversation with Matt McKenzie. “So have you, my man.”

  Chase affectionately puts an arm around Leo and the other around Elliot. “Now there’s three daddies in the group.”

  Elliot groans.

  “I take that back.” Leo ruffles Chase’s hair. “You’ll never get to this point. Chase Kennedy will be getting new ass every weekend well into his eighties.”

  Chase’s smile fades slowly, and his gaze meets mine. His expression fills with something new. A longing in his eyes I’ve never seen.

  I furrow my brow and tilt my head, able to tell in less than a second that something is bothering him, although it’s impossible to know
what it is.

  His face looks tender, and suddenly I see a flash of the six-year-old boy who fell off his bike. The eight-year-old boy who had to say goodbye to his beloved golden retriever. The thirteen-year-old boy who watched his mom pull out of the driveway with a suitcase and never come back.

  I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep it purely physical and fun tonight when every fiber of my body knows that he needs me as way more than a fuck buddy.

  I’ve always been there for Chase, and that will never change. I just have to remind myself that my feelings of affection for him are out of friendship, and everything else is separate. And temporary.

  So dreadfully temporary.

  Twenty-three

  Chase

  “I gotta say…” I nudge Whitney’s side playfully as we walk into my apartment. “I’ve never had to lay two decades of groundwork for a slam.”

  I force myself to think about the fun, sexy, sinfully dirty game of student-teacher that I’m supposed to play with my best friend tonight. But I can’t shake that damn nagging feeling in the back of my mind. It’s been bugging me since Frankie told everyone she’s got a little Leo bun in the oven and those guys said I’ll never get to that point.

  Because I don’t want to get to that point. Ever. I’m Chase Motherfucking Kennedy. I slay pussy, and I kick ass, and I have no intentions of tying myself down.

  When I was thirteen, I learned firsthand that marriage isn’t real. Commitment never lasts. There’s no such thing as “true love.”

  But why do they look so goddamn happy? Why does fooling around with Whitney have me questioning my entire existence? Why do I keep looking at her and thinking about her freckles on a tiny baby Chase?

  “I’m not a slam, asshole.” Her voice brings me back to reality.

  I shoot her a wink and decide to shake off my feely bullshit once and for all. “I don’t think you’re ready, Nit Whit. I really don’t.”

  I walk over to her and slide my hands around her waist, savoring every soft slope as her body leans into mine.

  She looks up at me with the most eager eyes I’ve ever seen. “I’m ready, Six.”

  I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear those words come out of Whitney Cooper’s mouth.

  Heat surges to my dick as I move my hands down her body and cup her perfectly round ass. I lean down and pick her up effortlessly. She weighs, like, nothing.

  Whit giggles and wraps her legs around me tightly as I carry her into the bedroom and drop playfully onto the California king and its silky sex sheets.

  I shift on top of Whitney and kiss her, once again cursing the stupid fucking thoughts that have been burning in my head since we left the Atlantic.

  I’m finally about to screw my painfully hot best friend, satisfying every last drop of teenage curiosity and years of silent attraction.

  But for some reason, I can’t push away these damn feelings about Frankie and Leo and my mom and fucked-up nagging bullshit.

  I would normally talk to Whitney about anything that bothers me. But now Whitney’s underneath me in my bed, and I so desperately want to bang her, but I also really need my best friend.

  “Six…” She pulls her lips off of mine and wiggles out from underneath me. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  Okay, how the fuck does she know? I’m making out with her. I’m hard as a rock—and I know she can feel it—but there she is. Being Whitney. With her brown eyes and her freckles and her uncanny ability to know what’s on my mind before I even do.

  I run a hand through my hair, giving her a quizzical look and trying hard to play it off. “What’s going on is that your clothes are still on, and I don’t know how your dumbass ex did things, but for me they come off.” I lean over and touch her lips softly. “That’s a pretty basic thing, but I guess we’re really starting from scratch here, aren’t we?”

  “What’s truly amazing, Kennedy…” She sits up on the bed and tucks her legs underneath her. “Is that after twenty-eight years of inseparably close friendship, you haven’t accepted that I can just about read your mind.”

  I breathe out a deep sigh and sit up to meet her eyes. Her soft, kind, understanding eyes that I’ve looked to for comfort since I was a kid. Our sex game hasn’t changed that, and I feel pretty relieved that it clearly hasn’t changed the way she looks at me. The way she feels about me.

  Everything between us just feels stronger, brighter, louder…friendship tangled up with passion and sex. I gotta say, I’m kind of digging it.

  “I don’t know, Whit. The guys just giving me shit tonight, I guess.”

  She gives me a get real look. “Come on, Six. The guys rip on you twenty-four hours a day. You live for the attention.”

  I half smile and reach for her hand without thinking. “That’s true. But, you know, all that crap about me never having…” I wave my hand, finding these thoughts particularly unpleasant to say out loud. “That Leo and Frankie…whatever.”

  She narrows her eyes and laces her fingers through mine so gently I could keep her hand there forever. “A baby?”

  “No. Well, yeah. I don’t know.”

  Whitney has always been the easiest person in the world for me to talk to, but these words catch and stick in my throat. I want her to know what I’m thinking and feeling, but how can I express it when I don’t even understand it myself?

  “Let’s say it together,” she says softly, scooting forward and giving my hand a squeeze with both of hers. “Com-mit-ment.”

  I roll my eyes and chuckle. “I’ve never wanted anything like that before. I never will. But then I see Leo and Elliot, and it’s like…fuck. It makes me feel…” I clench my jaw and dig for the word, focusing on the warmth in Whitney’s gaze, admitting silently that her brown eyes feel like home. “Empty, I guess.”

  Those eyes sparkle with something vibrant for a split second, and she bites her lip, looking away quickly and then back at me. “People can change. Maybe you actually want something you didn’t think you ever would.” Her voice rises with a note of enthusiasm.

  “Like what?”

  “Like love. Forever. A family. Something that has more depth and meaning than one-night stands.”

  I shut my eyes and hold my breath, seeing flashbacks of my mom’s Volvo whipping out of the driveway that rainy Tuesday morning fifteen years ago. My dad’s words echo in my head over and over again: Love isn’t real, Chase. Just have fun while you can.

  “No, Whit.” My voice sounds more stern than I intended. “I don’t want any of that. Maybe that kinda shit works for you, and Sterling, and Danes. But not me.” I hold up air quotes. “‘Love’ isn’t in my DNA.”

  “You think that because of the divorce? Is that why you’re…” She gestures vaguely up and down my body. “You? You’re not just a douchey playboy—”

  “Yes, I am. That’s exactly what I am.”

  “No.” She leans back and shakes her head slowly, looking at me like she’s peeling back a layer she hasn’t seen before.

  I can’t decide if I like it.

  “Your parents’ divorce ruined your faith in love. You don’t think you’re capable of it. It’s why you scoff at the concept of a relationship and don’t let anyone close enough to make you feel anything.”

  Except you, Whitney. And that’s fucking terrifying.

  I nudge her playfully, really wanting to get away from this heavy conversation. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Freud.”

  “I don’t have to, Six. Whose house did you go to every day after school for two months because you couldn’t bear to go home, knowing your mom wouldn’t be there? Who made you mac and cheese and watched Star Wars a thousand times because it made you forget about everything? I was there, Chase. I lived it with you. I just didn’t realize the impact it had.”

  I feel like my heart is beating too fast. “It’s not like that, Nit Whit. I don’t screw around with women because I have some crippling emotional baggage. I’m the way I am because I’m an NFL quarterback. Please
.” I sound like I’m trying to convince myself more than her. She can tell.

  Because it doesn’t matter what I say or how persuasive I am. Whitney Cooper reads me like a fucking chapter book and understands me more than I’ve ever understood myself.

  “Six.” Her voice is thick with empathy, every ounce of her exuding tangible love. In a friend way, of course. Best friend love. Like always.

  “You don’t trust women not to leave. You don’t trust anyone,” she whispers slowly.

  “I trust you,” I say without hesitating or thinking.

  We’re pulled to each other like magnets now, our lips just inches apart, her chest rising and falling as her eyes glimmer with emotion.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Because…” I lean close, feeling warm from the energy and beauty radiating from her. “Like you said. You were there. You’ve always been there.”

  I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re supposed to have sex tonight, or the way she sees me as so much more than just a fuckboy athlete, or maybe the realization that Whitney has never left my life and never will, but I have to kiss her. Again.

  So I do.

  She leans in and kisses me back, pressing passion and heat and electric sparks from her mouth to mine.

  The kiss is slow and hard and heavy, and I feel the depth of our relationship sealing our lips with a kind of fire I’ve never felt before.

  I guide her lips open with mine, sliding my hand onto her cheek, holding tightly her beautiful and delicate face while I taste the sweet sunshine of her on my tongue.

  The pace picks up as we start making out harder and faster and deeper, our hands recklessly exploring each other as if there’s not enough time in the night to touch everything we want to.

  Her body arches into mine, her flawless tits desperate for me. Somehow, we ended up lying down again.

  Blood courses through me and rages in my dick, and suddenly every muscle in my body is hot and tight and fucking begging for her. I want her right now more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything. I want her a thousand times.