Friends with Benefits

by Margot Radcliffe

  “Agreed.” As if he had another choice anyway, but at least this way he’d get a little action, even if it was PG.

  “The last thing is, I think you should move in with me. Or I should move in with you if you don’t want to leave your place. It would look weird if we don’t do that, being friends for so long. And people do that before they get married now.”

  “Nope.”

  Without thinking, he shoved a whole stalk of broccoli in his mouth. So when she said, “You know I’m right,” his only response was to double down with an emphatic head shake.

  “Carter,” she pleaded. “You know it makes sense. This really needs to be believable if I’m going to change my reputation. Do you know today I signed up for a knitting class? Knitting! You can’t even wear sweaters in Vegas!”

  He swallowed. “I don’t care. That’s way more than I agreed to.”

  “Come on, we’ll have separate bedrooms and we’re on totally different work schedules. We won’t even know the other is there.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes drifted down over her delicate bare neck and exposed cleavage. “I will know.”

  She sighed, a wispy piece of hair blowing to the side of her face. He wondered if she’d worn this particular dress on dates before with the same hairstyle. Had getting ready for their date tonight been any different for her or was it just another bullet point on her work to-do list?

  In college, she’d had two different date dresses, one that she wore for dates she was excited about and one for the dates she was dreading. He’d been a dorky kid so in love with a dreamed-up version of his best friend and wanted to be the one she was on a date with. Watching her get ready had been painful and awesome all at once, and now here he was, finally on the other end with the exception that they were so much further from any kind of real romantic relationship than ever.

  Her red lips pursed in an impressive pout. “You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?”

  “You can beg all you like. It’s not happening.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, challenge twinkling in her eyes. “I’ll give you one hundred grand to move in with me.”

  He choked on his whiskey. He didn’t need the money, but shit. “Alexa, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I am deadly serious.”

  “You know I don’t need money.”

  She shrugged. “Neither of us needs money, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like more of it. Besides, you said you wanted something out of this arrangement. I can deliver cash.”

  A hundred grand was certainly a tidy sum, especially for something he would have done two days ago for free, and gladly.

  “I’m going to pass on the money. What else you got in the way of bribery?”

  She grinned, loving the game. “Dates to all future weddings and work functions.”

  “And?”

  “Sex.”

  His ears perked up.

  “One time and one time only. You pick when and where.”

  It was tempting, but once wouldn’t be enough. “Pass.”

  A flicker of surprise crossed her face before she covered it up. He had to admit, fucking with Alexa was cathartic. He’d spent far too much of their friendship waiting for scraps of the affection she gave so freely to other guys, and now she needed to actually accept that he wasn’t the taciturn and awkward friend she could keep at a distance.

  “Listen,” he said, putting an end to her campaign to assuage her nonexistent guilt, “when I think of how you can pay me back for this favor, I’ll let you know, but the thank-you for a favor this immense doesn’t exist yet.”

  She raised a dark eyebrow. “Is it because of the celibacy thing?” she asked. “Because I said you could sleep with other people as long as you’re discreet.”

  The back of his neck heated in anger. It was the second time she’d made the proposal and it was just one more piece of evidence that she wasn’t at all affected by it. After what had happened between them in the stairwell and his kitchen, it pissed him the fuck off.

  “I’m not going to sleep with anyone. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “You don’t have to do that for me, Carter. I don’t want to interfere with your life that much. Besides, I might get the urge as well.”

  “If you sleep with someone else, this is over,” he bit off, furious with the fact that she would sleep with other people while engaged to him. Yes, he knew it was fake and it wasn’t as if his reputation would take a hit if she made him look stupid. This was just good old-fashioned jealousy and he wasn’t stubborn enough to think otherwise.

  “That wasn’t—”

  “These are my terms. You’ve already made yours very clear.”

  “Carter—” she began again.

  “You’ll move into my house tomorrow.”

  Her mouth dropped. “You just said—”

  “I changed my mind,” he clipped. “I’m allowed to change it. That’s part of the favor you owe me.”

  Her bare arms crossed over her chest. “Anything else you want to throw in?”

  He pinned her with a look dead in her eyes. “Not right now, no.”

  Then he took the last bite of his steak.

  She fished out a chunk of lobster from her risotto, chewing on it listlessly. Eventually, the waiter came and removed his empty plate and her half-eaten dinner.

  “Is that all your rules or was there something else you had in mind to restrict my general freedoms as a human being?”

  She laughed. “Come on, now that’s too far!”

  He leaned into the middle of the table again, keeping his voice hushed. “For an entire month, I can’t date, can’t fuck, can’t sleep alone in my own house, have to go to your insipid casino functions and make small talk with slimy owners, have to lie to my own family, company heads and coworkers, and in exchange you’ve offered me one night of sex, some money and dates. And I’m your best friend. I hope this isn’t how you negotiate at your job.”

  She looked stricken, her hazel eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Carter. I just kind of thought it was a chance for us to hang out more. Like we used to before our jobs took over our lives.”

  “It is like that, but it’s also all those other things, too.”

  “Two times for sex?” she offered with a cheeky grin. “Would that make up for it? I’m really good at it. Like, the best you’ve ever had kind of good.”

  The waiter arrived with their check. When she grabbed for it, he got there first.

  He signed over an enormous tip and helped her out of the booth, murmuring in her ear, “You might be good, but I’m better.”

  “That’s what all guys say,” she told him, leading him through the restaurant.

  He caught up with her, laying a hand on the small of her back, which happened to be mostly bare. Her skin was warm and soft, but the textured cloth of the booth had made gentle impressions in her smooth skin. He ran a thumb over the raised bumps as he guided her to the exit.

  He held the front door open, following her past the valet station and into a small courtyard with a ten-foot-tall privacy hedge. Pruned with ruthless precision, it blocked them from the busy street beyond.

  “I don’t suppose you want to go to Encore?” Alexa asked. “It is Friday night. I’m not usually home yet.”

  “You want to go to a casino again?” Considering that was how he’d gotten into this predicament, he wasn’t super eager to return to one.

  She shrugged. “This is a date. What do you usually do on dates? Go to dinner and that’s it?”

  He had no response to that.

  “You go straight from dinner to sex?” she presumed with a disbelieving laugh.

  He shrugged. It was often what he did.

  “What if you have a heavy meal, like cheese or something?”

 
“Stop it,” he warned, heading toward the entrance to Encore, the casino Sinatra was attached to.

  “You just ate sixteen ounces of steak. You seriously think you could deliver the best sex of my life right now? I highly doubt it,” she kept on badgering.

  This was why friends didn’t have sex. Because there were no boundaries.

  It goaded him into asking the question he didn’t want the answer to. “What do you normally do on dates? You just ate a bowl full of carbs and cheese.”

  “You’re the only person I eat carbs and cheese with.”

  “How did I get so lucky?” he muttered as they followed the wide marble pathway to the casino entrance.

  Low-hanging trees laced with twinkling lights and delicate red-and-white paper lanterns arched over them, creating a small haven of intimacy.

  “If I’m on a date,” she answered, “we usually do something after dinner, like a show or something. Remember when that guy flew me to Rio? That was amazing. I definitely did not eat risotto then. Because, you know...”

  “Okay, I get it,” he told her, ducking so his head didn’t hit one of the lanterns. “Tell me again, did you give that guy a second date?”

  “Yeah, but then he got serious too fast and I had to break things off.”

  “You didn’t pick up on that when he flew you to Brazil on your first date?”

  “I bet you’ve done something like that before. You gave Maggie an Hermès scarf after one date. That’s the cost of a first-class plane ticket somewhere.”

  His eyes slid away from hers for a moment. “I’ve never flown a date to another country. Nor do I own a jet.”

  “Maybe that’s why you can’t get a girlfriend,” she teased.

  He took her hand in his as a noisy group of people rounded the corner.

  “You think I can’t get a girlfriend?” he asked, pulling her off the main path and deeper into the garden.

  “No,” she said carefully. “I never said that.”

  He backed her up into the corner where two hedges met, their view of the path cut off so that it felt isolated and private. “I can get a girlfriend if I want one.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know exactly what you meant.”

  He pulled her hard against him and found her mouth. If he could only touch her in public, he might as well make it count.

  Her lips were soft and lush and she smelled like she always did, like smoky vanilla and green apples. She’d been wearing the same perfume forever; he imagined he smelled it when he got off with her on his mind.

  Her arms wrapped around his neck and he went deeper, tasting her mouth and giving it the attention they hadn’t bothered with last night in the stairwell or in his kitchen this morning. Their tongues stroked each other, testing and teasing and learning.

  She sighed against his mouth and he tightened his grip, hiking up her leg around his waist so his perpetual hard-on could find a measure of relief. His hand found the side of a bare breast and he thanked some generous deity for the miracle of naked skin. Sliding a thumb over a silken nipple, he growled and tightened his hold on her hair, deepening the kiss until their teeth knocked against each other.

  He thought he heard something but ignored it, but when what might have been throat-clearing happened again he finally looked up and saw John Lawson standing just off the main path with a group of well-dressed businessmen.

  “Shit,” Alexa whispered, stepping quickly away from him when she saw what had caught his attention.

  “Long time, no see, John,” Carter said, taking Alexa’s hand and leading her back onto the main walkway.

  John shook his hand, a big grin on his face. “My boy, it’s been too long. My vacation was excellent, but I had to come back and wish my two favorite kids congratulations on their engagement!”

  “You must have hopped on a plane right after we spoke this morning,” Alexa observed.

  John pulled her into a hug, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “I did, indeed, when I heard the good news.” John held out a hand to his friends, who must be investors since Alexa’s uncle was putting on such a show for them. “This is Carter Hayes, the man who is single-handedly reforming my niece.”

  Carter could only imagine how incensed that comment made Alexa.

  However, the men did suddenly look interested in him, their assessing gazes swinging from Alexa’s cleavage to him. With their Tony Soprano suits and greasy hair, every single one of them looked like a smarmy asshole, but Carter kept this mouth shut and played the part he’d been assigned.

  When her uncle invited them to have drinks with the group, he opened his mouth to refuse, but Alexa had other ideas.

  He’d forgotten for a moment that this was all about business to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALEXA WATCHED, ARMS CROSSED in irritation, as the two uniformed men carried her hastily packed suitcases from her house to the moving van Carter had sent over. While frugal was not a term that could ever apply to her when it came to clothing, she didn’t think a monthlong slumber party at his house warranted an entire moving van.

  But then the point was to irritate her, and he’d succeeded.

  She stood in her living room wondering what else she could possibly take with her. Was she meant to take her couch? She’d already packed up her home office, which was just her laptop and a box of books she never found the time to read. Tackling the kitchen, she struggled to even fill a freezer bag, only locating some protein bars, the rest of her bowl of fruit, two bags of salad and a couple of yogurt cups. After she filled up a second box of shoes and packed her toiletry case, that was pretty much all she needed.

  Giving her bedroom a last once-over, she turned off the light with a sigh. Today was the day that she became a fake fiancée and Carter’s roommate. Never would have thought to write that in their high school yearbook. Thanks for the memories, can’t wait to be adult roommates with you in a semi-platonic semi-sexual fake engagement. Keep in touch!

  Even though she’d suggested it, and with good reason, she hadn’t been prepared for what moving in together actually meant apparently, because she was feeling jittery and anxious. Now that she was packed up and leaving her home, reality was setting in. Every moment of her life was basically going to be spent with Carter. As if the lines delineating their friendship and public ruse weren’t blurry enough, now she would have nowhere to hide.

  One of the ways she and Carter had been able to stay friends all these years without sex getting involved was knowing when to give the other distance. Now there would be no distance, no space, no way to pretend that the only thing between them was friendship.

  She followed the movers outside, watching with a certain amount of trepidation as they pulled away from the curb with her stuff.

  By the time she got to Carter’s house, still dressed in faded yoga pants and an old sweatshirt, because when one had a slightly percussive hangover that was what one did on Saturdays, she’d worked up a good rant. He had no right to, well, make this move easier on her, actually. But still, his behavior was high-handed and presumptuous. She’d move into his house when she was damned good and ready.

  The garage door was open when she pulled into his driveway and his cars had been rearranged to leave her an open spot in the front. Some of her irritation evaporated. This was Carter, and regardless of how sexually frustrating and confusing this next month was going to be, she needed to remember that. They took care of each other. Sometimes that was smothering, and yet other times, it was lovely.

  She parked in the spot and grabbed the coffees and bag of bagels she’d picked up before heading out onto the front walkway where the movers were already carrying the boxes into the house.

  Carter stood in the foyer, looking very much himself in a pair of khakis and a black hoodie, a lightly scruffy beard forming on his face. Secretly, she liked to think of this as his
Mark Zuckerberg look, but he’d hate it if she told him that. Mostly because of vanity, but also because he hated Facebook and the very idea of interacting with other humans. Despite his reputation with women, he wasn’t a people person.

  She waved to him as he directed the men up the stairs and to the left.

  “I put you in your regular room,” he informed her, referring to the second master suite on the opposite side of the house from his. She’d claimed it on their first official sleepover when he’d bought the house and his only furniture had been an old leather recliner from his parents’ basement and a computer desk and chair. “If you want a different one, just tell the guys.”

  “The usual is fine,” she said. “How did you even get movers to do this on such short notice?”

  He looked at her as if she’d literally been born yesterday. “Money.”

  “Okay, smart-ass,” she returned. “How much was it, so I can pay you back? It’s the least I can do.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll just lump this in with the other favors you owe me.”

  She pursed her lips. Someone was in a mood this morning. Holding out his coffee for him, he took it without a word and only looked mildly interested in the bagels she offered. Her guilt about this fake engagement had really settled deep in her gut last night while they sat through round after round of drinks with her uncle’s sleazy investor friends. Even her social limits had been tested, so she couldn’t imagine how awful it had been for Carter, who prided himself on perfecting the Irish goodbye.

  Unfortunately, it was about to get worse for the both of them.

  “There’s an Autism Awareness charity gala tonight,” Alexa told Carter. “I already bought tickets so I need be there.” She’d also had another date lined up, but she’d obviously canceled that.

  “And that means I have to be there, too,” Carter guessed.

  When she nodded, he winced but looked resigned. She didn’t blame him. She’d rather snort cocaine with her mouth taped to a tailpipe than go to what amounted to an expensive school dance for grown-ups. Especially since she’d be playing the girl on Carter’s arm, gushing about their engagement like a woman desperately in love. If she did too good a job, she didn’t want Carter to get confused about what it meant. If she did too good a job, she didn’t want her own self to get confused, either.