Sink or Swim

by Bailey, Tessa

  Jiya pulled in a lungful of oxygen. “I don’t swim because of seaweed. That slimy feeling of it brushing my legs.” She shivered. “Is a seaweed-free ocean so much to ask?”

  His amusement shone. “There are parts of the beach with less of it. I’ll…maybe I’ll take you someday.”

  “Cool. When?”

  The amusement clouded over and his throat worked. “I don’t know. Someday.” Suddenly serious, he jerked his chin toward the distant bonfire. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll bring you back.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she said quietly, jolted by his off behavior. Fine, things had been a little strained since she embarked on adventures in dating, but Andrew was a rock. Were they never going to get back to that comfortable ground where they’d stood their whole lives? Jiya rose and started to turn, so she could climb backwards down to the sand—

  —but her foot slipped on the rung and tethered to nothing, she fell down, down—until Andrew caught her.

  Neither one of them moved for a stretch of seconds. Jiya sucked in breath after breath, her open mouth on Andrew’s shaking shoulder. His hands roamed over her body, all business. Searching for injuries?

  “Fuck,” he growled finally, wrapping his arms around her, plastering her front to his chest. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you climb up there when you’d been drinking. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

  “I’m okay,” she echoed, voice dull. “The drop just scared me a little.”

  He held her tighter, humming comfort against her temple. His heart pounded right up against hers, like dueling drums. So stupid, Jiya. It wasn’t that far of a fall. But the adrenaline surged in her, nonetheless, but instead of saving her like it was supposed to, the chemical that released in her blood only made her aware. Of Andrew. His smell, the firm musculature of his body and all the places where it corresponded to her softness. His hands on her back.

  The unmistakable thickness of his manhood trapped between their bodies.

  Andrew’s low expulsion of air held the touch of a moan and it created a sensual coil in her belly. One that twisted into tighter and tighter spirals the longer Andrew held her suspended above the ground. Before she could stop herself, her knees lifted and found purchase on his hips and he bit out a curse in her ear.

  “No. No.” Betraying his words, he wrapped an arm beneath her butt to keep her in place, tiling his hips up ever so slightly. “Don’t do that.”

  She gasped. “Are you talking to me or yourself?”

  A vibration traveled through him. “You have to stop me, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t think I can.” She touched her parted lips to his neck and absorbed his shudder. “I definitely can’t.”

  “Jiya, please.”

  “You’re…” She lifted her head and met eyes she’d never seen before. This wasn’t her best friend Andrew. It was a man in severe need. Of her. “You’re hard for me.”

  He shook his head. “That’s my problem. It can’t be your problem.”

  There were a million reasons she should drop her legs, walk away, chalk their lapse in judgment up to vodka come tomorrow morning. This was her best friend. She could ruin their relationship. She was supposed to be moving on and pursuing a relationship with someone else, Andrew knew it, and he wasn’t trying to stop her. So at best, having her legs wrapped around him in this uber-romantic setting was a terrible idea. But nothing—nothing—had ever made her feel more complete than teetering on this magical moment where possibilities lay between them. Kiss him. She could kiss him. “Can’t you make it my problem?” Jiya whispered finally, laying her lips against his and feeling electricity all the way down to her toes. “I have a problem that n-needs solving, too.”

  “Don’t do it,” he ground out against her mouth, teeth bared. “Don’t you dare tell me your pussy is wet.”

  She wheezed a breath over his language. “Just once, just tonight. I’m so w—”

  His mouth locked over hers—and a dragon might as well have swooped down from the night sky and engulfed her in a breath of fire. She was almost angry in that first split second of registering how achingly good Andrew’s mouth fit hers. He tasted like something she’d been craving her whole life without fully realizing how much. Ocean and male and raw hunger. His swelling chest invaded her space, crushing her breasts while his hands pulled her even closer, bruising and reverent and exploratory on her hips.

  Jiya wrapped her legs around his waist more securely, though they weakened and threatened to drop every time his mouth slanted a different direction. Every time the tips of their tongues brushed. The harsh sounds he made were like nothing she’d heard from Andrew before. He was admonishing himself even as he savored, licking into the furthest recesses of her mouth like he’d never tasted anything so sweet. Like a famished man set in front of a feast.

  Ohhhh. This was arousal. This was the whole in the heat of the moment thing people spoke about when explaining why they couldn’t stop to put on a condom. She would never judge those people again. Her thighs were trembling, the tips of her breasts were in painful points that she couldn’t help rubbing on his brick house of a chest. And then, oh then the fingertips of his left hand dragged up her bare thigh, hesitated for a beat, then clutched the cheek of her butt, kneading it as he groaned.

  I’m going to die. I can’t survive this.

  Her panties were soaked from needing relief. Needing him. She’d never even received relief from a man before, but her body was adamant it couldn’t come from anywhere else. Not even from her. “Andrew,” she moaned, breaking the kiss. “Please do something about this.”

  Tenderness shone very briefly in his expression but was quickly eclipsed once more by hunger. “Christ, you taste so fucking good, Jiya,” he rasped, staring at her mouth. “But this has already gone too far.”

  Stop? He’s going to stop. No. No no no. “Ask me the question.”

  His muscles tensed, but that hard part of his anatomy stretched and thickened between them. “Jiya, sweetheart, that’s not fair.”

  “Ask.”

  With a wayward muscle popping in his jaw, he leaned in oh-so-slowly and spoke directly against her lips. “Can I do anything for you?”

  How many times had he asked her that question and held his breath? The fact that Andrew always seemed so gratified when she gave him something, anything, to do on her behalf had never struck her as significant. That was just Andrew. Although…maybe there was more to it? Call it intuition borne of knowing someone almost their entire life, but Jiya sensed the dynamic that had always lain between them expanding. Changing. And it excited her.

  She sank her fingernails into the nape of his neck. “Make me come, Andrew,” she whispered and saw something darkly sexual flare to life inside of her best friend. There was a corresponding click inside of Jiya, unexpected and irreversible. “You like being told what to do.”

  Andrew shook his head slowly. “No. I like you telling me what to do.”

  “Show me how much you like it.”

  “Jiya…” He broke off with a guttural curse. “This can’t go further than tonight. I can’t give you what you want.”

  “No. I understand.” Her nails dug deeper into his neck and her anticipation surged. “But you can give me what I want right now.”

  Something a little dangerous and a lot hot flickered in his expression. “Goddamn right I can.” His hips started to move, slowly at first. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip, squeezed his eyes shut and started to pump his hips upward. It quickly became obvious the hem of her dress was caught between them, blocking the friction, and Jiya freed the material with anxious hands, crying out when her thin panties met the distended fly of his pants.

  Their mouths met again in quick, biting, breathless kisses that they couldn’t keep up because the pleasure of rubbing together, there in those secret places, was so intense.

  Andrew’s eyes glittered in the darkness, watching her, his reservations about touching her gone, carried away on the night breeze. Both of his hands s
lipped inside her panties and claimed ownership of her bottom, squeezing, rocking her in time with his thrusts—and there she was, being fucked standing up, through her clothes, her toes curling against the outsides of Andrew’s flexing thighs.

  “Don’t stop, Andrew. That feels so perfect.”

  “Again.” He licked the swells of her breasts, greedily. “Tell me that again.”

  Understanding dawned. “You’re so good at pleasing me.”

  He made a choked sound and his jaw went slack, his hips pumping faster. “That’s what I do. That’s all I want to fucking do.”

  She threaded her fingers into his hair, twisting the strands until he cursed. The pace quickened even more and Andrew’s low grunts seemed to egg on her orgasm, but she couldn’t seem to reach the peak. Every time she almost got there, a yearning inside her cried out for more, just a little more of an elusive something. “I-I need…I want to take off my—”

  “Panties?” He dropped to his knees in the sand, taking Jiya with him and continuing to ride her up and down on the ridge of his shaft. “You want me to take off your slinky little panties, the same way you took off your shirt for me the other night?”

  Her head fell back on a keening sound. “Yes. Yes.”

  “Do you want to see what you made me do?”

  She nodded eagerly.

  “Say it,” he rasped, stroking his tongue through the center of her cleavage, all the way to her neck. “Tell me to beat off for you.”

  Her sex clenched at the note of plaintiveness in his voice and it was a privilege to know Andrew’s deepest, most private wants. Needs. And it was an intoxicating surprise to discover she’d been built to deliver them. There was no time to be nervous or embarrassed by the way they were speaking to each other. She was too warm and eager and excited. “Unzip your pants and show me what you did.” She angled her mouth and razed his jaw with her teeth, glorying in the way his body jolted and shook. “Show me the dirty thing you did while thinking of me.”

  Andrew was panting as he set her down carefully in the sand, leaving Jiya facing him in a kneel, her dress still caught up around her waist. “Jesus Christ, look at you, Jiya. You’re going to kill me if you get any more beautiful.” He hissed as he lowered the zipper over his jutting erection. “Oh fuck, sweetheart, I’m not going to last one tug.”

  “You will,” she managed, battling a monstrous wave of lust. “You better.”

  His shoulders bunched and he heaved her name, taking out his generous arousal. Oh wow. Jiya ground her knees into the sand, hoping to counteract the new whip of hunger with a little pain. Looking at Andrew, watching him touch himself so intimately, was preparing her body to be filled. She wept between her thighs, leaving her slick and wanting. Of him. Of that part of him he started to stroke, his clenched fist tan from the sun, his shaft growing red at the crown. He lifted his shirt with the opposite hand so she could see all of him. The veined ridges of his stomach and how it flexed with each pump of his flesh.

  “This is what you d-did in your bedroom?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “Thinking of your sexy little tits.”

  Jiya swayed under the continual onslaught of heat. “That w-was so wrong of you, Andrew.”

  He stroked faster, teeth clenched. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

  “Make it up to me now.”

  “Come here.” Before she could comply, Andrew had wrapped an arm around her lower back and dragged her knees closer in the sand, leaving their mouths poised an inch apart. “You’ve got the one remaining shred of my decency protecting you from a messy bang right now, Jiya, but understand that I’d love to be buried so deep I could feel that place where your screams build.”

  Her thighs squeezed together automatically, a shocked gasp falling from her lips. But she wasn’t given the opportunity to reel it in the wake of his coarse words. No. Because Andrew kissed her. Differently than before. This was filthy and wet and it changed direction so quickly and so often that she was whimpering and scratching at his shoulders by the time they broke for air. “Please, Andrew.”

  “Don’t ask me.” He caught her lower lip between his teeth. “Order me.”

  A whip cracked inside of her and without thinking, she ripped his shirt down the middle, revealing the torso she’d spent more time thinking about than was appropriate.

  His big form vibrated in the moonlight. “Yes, Jiya.” He nudged her forehead with his own. Hard. Goading. “More.”

  Her hand whipped out, her palm cracking across his face. “Satisfy me,” she rasped.

  Andrew consumed her after that. He came alive in a way she didn’t know mere men were capable of, let alone her best friend. Rough hands shoved her thighs open and with his tongue, teeth and lips raking up and down her neck, her ear, he positioned his sex over her clit and started to rub. Rub hard. Side to side, up and back. She wanted to look down and watch his ministrations, but he was dominating her other senses too hard to throw sight into the mix.

  He tortured her neck, bathing it in hot breaths, thorough licks, stinging bites. Her body lit up, singing like a choir and shame had no presence in the moment. With frantic hands, she tugged down the bodice of her dress, pushing at her strapless bra until she could pinch her nipples—an action she’d never performed before but couldn’t help it now. They ached. They begged to be plucked and teased and sucked—

  As if she’d spoken out loud, Andrew used the band of his arm at her lower back to heft her higher and his lips closed around one of her peaked nipples, his hand never ceasing its relentless teasing of her clit.

  She was going to come.

  Oh, the orgasm of the century was coming.

  How could it not when she was looking at the way Andrew’s cheeks hollowed, his tongue dragging across her flesh to the opposite breast and devouring it with almost religious fervor? Jiya started to tremble, the bundle of nerves at the apex of her female flesh started to swell and tingle. The low muscles of her stomach seized up and she sobbed Andrew’s name, almost scared of the magnitude of pleasure that slammed into her like a giant’s fist.

  “There you go, sweetheart. Let it out all over my cock.” He kissed her roughly, catching her screams and scrambling her brain further. Oh shit. Oh shit. She couldn’t withstand the pleasure. Too much. And now his tongue? “Tell me I can come, too, Jiya.”

  “You can. You can.”

  “Tell me I can come on you wherever the fuck I want.”

  “Y-yes, Andrew!”

  He groaned his pleasure and the second her orgasm subsided, he stood, his shaft still in hand and tilted her chin up, stroking that tight fist up and down, up and down his erection. So powerful. So hot. And then he spent himself on her exposed breasts, growling as drop by drop left the purple head of his sex and created a pattern that would never be duplicated. “Wear my come. I worship you with it,” he pushed out through his teeth. “You beautiful fucking woman.”

  When Jiya woke up that morning, she’d known nothing. Nothing about men and women and lust and sex. She would have decreed any form of objectification a bad thing, but she was in heaven at that moment, as a possession. As the creator of his sexual urges. It was like being baptized and reborn and she’d laugh at herself later for making that comparison considering she had come dripping off her nipples, but right now, she wasn’t laughing. No way. She’d just been drop kicked onto a new planet and gravity was missing.

  Andrew dropped down on the sand beside her. He hung his head for a moment, his ribcage expanding and contracting, then he reached over and pulled Jiya into his lap. Going to him was so natural, her throat started to hurt. She’d been horribly short-sighted agreeing to make this a one-time thing. What had she been thinking? She was just supposed to live her whole life now, pretending he hadn’t conducted her thoughts and physicality like a maestro for the last twenty minutes? She was supposed to pretend like she didn’t want it to happen again?

  And again.

  Andrew used one side of his torn shirt to wipe away the fluid on her cleavag
e. Then he stroked a hand over her hair. “I shouldn’t have let that happen. I know it’s only going to make things harder, but I’ll never regret it.”

  Everyone was too drunk or preoccupied to notice Andrew returned to the party shirtless, his ripped button-down left tied to the stairs of the lifeguard chair, like a mile marker. Wordlessly, Jiya helped everyone call their Ubers, her and Andrew using handfuls of sand to extinguish the flames of the bonfire, before throwing empty bottles into trash bags and lugging them to the dumpsters adjacent to the boardwalk.

  Jiya was somehow both exhilarated and numb. Several times, she caught Andrew watching her with undiluted intensity from the corner of her eye, but the ease between them wasn’t just missing, they’d set it on fire. Would they ever get it back now?

  Or had they sacrificed their friendship on the altar of pleasure?

  It didn’t take long for Jiya to get pissed. Even though it wasn’t fair, even though he’d been upfront that he couldn’t offer her more, she wanted to punch him in the nose and demand to know why. Why was he standing by while she dated other people? How could he let her get away when they meant so much to each other—and had attraction to boot? If he didn’t love her as more than a friend now…wasn’t there a possibility he might start to love her in the future?

  They had friendship. Sexual chemistry. That was way more than so many people had.

  To top it off, she needed him to touch her again. Now. She wanted to be back in his arms and she wanted to stay there all night. Maybe forever. And she wasn’t sure how much longer she could be around him without demanding he put his hands on her. He’d comply, however, because he couldn’t say no to her, which made it wrong to ask again.

  When they’d tossed the bags of garbage into the dumpsters, she could sense Andrew searching for the right words to say to her. But she didn’t want to hear them, so she jogged ahead and caught up with one of the departing groups of guests, sliding into the cab after a winded request to sneak a ride home. A quick glance through the window told her Andrew was trying to catch up to her, calling her name, but she ignored him out of self-preservation and rattled off her address to the driver, only exhaling when the car started to move and she was free.