Have you met Alex: friends to lovers romance

by Kenna Shaw Reed

  “I’ll have you know—” I started before having to resist an incredible urge to lean over and kiss the smirk off her face, “That I was in complete control of my balls and stick.”

  “Didn’t look like it to me.” Her eyes twinkled before getting serious, “I just wanted to thank you for what you did. Garry and Doris were like second parents to a lot of us. Always volunteering down at the surf club before she got sick. No one else might realize, but it was a nice thing you did back there.”

  “I wanted to play pool more than I wanted to win,” I looked around, making sure we couldn’t be overheard and ruin my reputation as a loser at the table before admitting the truth. Well, not the whole truth. I was willing to admit anything as long as it kept Simone here with me and talking. “There was a young apprentice electrician who’s worked almost three weeks straight. I could have smashed him in the first game, but what’s the point? It’s just as much fun making the game interesting and everyone walks away feeling like they played well.”

  “In all those games of touch football, I never picked you for Mr Nice Guy?”

  “Well,” I shrugged. “Not that it ever got me anywhere.”

  “The night is still young.” Simone turned full Mila with her soft honey eyes narrowing in a way that I wanted to believe. Did her eyes just change color? I’d heard about women whose eyes changed when they were horny and after they came. She leaned in, ever so slightly, across the table and I matched her. Inch for excruciating inch. Not that I thought she knew what she was doing. Not with the stroke of her pony tail—which I wished was something else—or when her tongue lightly flit over her lips. All her body language said yes but—

  Crap, there was no way I could treat this like a one night random and go back home and pretend like it didn’t happen. It would be one thing to spend the night chatting and harmlessly flirting. But to do something about it? Even if Simone thought it was her idea, I’d come here to get laid—not to complicate my life, or our lives, back home.

  Double crap. Simone had caught my eye from our first meeting. Who the hell could ignore her? From the moment she burst into town and wanted to get involved in the State Emergency Service and give back even before she’d taken from the community; to how effortlessly she became part of our football team—friendly with the girls who never welcomed outsiders, and joking with the guys. Most of my mates had tried to ask her out—and why not when her ass was made for the tiny shorts and her natural tan was the only make up she needed.

  Just about every one of my single mates had failed for even a single date, but here she sat, giving me all the signs that tonight needn’t be spent alone.

  No!

  Yes!

  No!

  Hell, I didn’t even know what question I was trying to answer—one night, a weekend or something to take back home?

  “Well, it was good to see you.” Fuck it, the Mr Nice Guy won. I couldn’t risk using Simone as my rebound. Maybe in a few months, if she was still interested and I’d had more time to be grateful that my ex called time and set us both free. As fucking gorgeous as she was, Simone deserved better.

  Before I could change my mind, I pushed out from the table and quickly got up to leave. Damn, I didn’t want to walk away. Next goal in life—put a leash on Mr. Nice Guy.

  “If you walk back in there, I promise that it will be the biggest mistake you make tonight,” she called before I could take more than a couple of steps and blend into the crowd. I shouldn’t have even been able to hear her over the pumping music and drunken conversations.

  “What makes you say that?” I took a step back to the table to ask. Intrigued and also that step was actually the retracing the five or six I’d taken away from her and temptation. Damn woman didn’t understand how much self-restraint it had taken attempting to walk away.

  “You’re a new guy in town, with the blonde hair and those cheek bones, wow,” Simone whistled in open appreciation that raised my cock from the dead. Again. The woman had witchcraft in her voice. “The local girls in there don’t even need to see the rest of your body. I promise they’ll want to get their hands all over you.”

  “What’s your point?” Because what she described sounded perfect and had been my plan up until about fifteen minutes ago.

  “If you end up with any of them, then you don’t end up with me.” Simone relaxed back in the chair, her raised eyebrow enough to tell me all I needed to know.

  One night or two, one weekend or more. This was gonna happen.

  “What the fuck do you want with me?” Again, words delivered more harshly than in my head. But in my defence, if we were going to have a fling, to be forgotten as soon as we got back home, we needed to avoid any misunderstandings. No hurt feelings and no false expectations.

  Stretching up like a graceful cat, Simone floated until stopping in front of me. Standing closer than friends but not quite close enough for her to feel my growing appreciation for her body, sass and potential for tonight. “How about we go inside, you buy me a drink and we play some pool.”

  My whole fucking body came alive at her light caress of my shirt. I didn’t need skin on skin contact to explode—what the hell would I do if she touched more than fabric.

  “Simone,” I tried to warn.

  “Then you’ll see what I can do with small balls.”

  To hell with the consequences. “I’m more interested in how you use a long stick.”

  Again, her smile was all the reward I needed. One night or one lifetime, I didn’t care. This. Was. Happening.

  This time when we walked inside, my hand started at the small of her back but with every step it fell lower along her summer dress until it accidently rested on the perfect softness of her cheek. I’d only dated one woman and couldn’t even remember that first date, but as far as firsts, this was pretty damn near a perfect start.

  We weaved through the bar room and Simone acknowledged but didn’t stop for the random “Hey, Simone, good to see you” greetings from people I didn’t know—obviously—and would never remember. This woman was an enigma and it would take more than one night to peel away her layers and know with certainty whether we could take whatever this chemistry or connection was, on the road.

  But, as I opened the door to the pool room for her, Simone turned, her eyes back to the mid brown and face tense as if I was about to change my mind. Unlikely—actually, fucking impossible. “One night, no regrets?” Was there hope or regret. Hell, I hadn’t even kissed her and she was already planning an exit strategy? Then again, what else did I expect. Two single people coming together away from home.

  One night. Yeah, I could work with that.

  “I came here to do some forgetting.” I nodded, brushing a dark strand out of her eyes, not quite touching her face, at least not yet.

  “Gee!” Her darkness immediately replaced by flirting banter, Simone twirled in my arms and almost waltzed into the pool room. “Here I was, hoping you’d give me a night to remember!” This time, her hand brushed my chest as lightly as her lips brushed my cheek. Within minutes, Simone had introduced me to half the pub and instead of being the lonely outsider, I found myself playing pool among friends.

  The strange thing was how the same guys who accepted me as an anonymous tourist playing pool, accepted me as Simone’s, more-than-friend.

  No one seemed to care how I ended up in their town or how we knew each other. Taking over one of the spare tables, I’d have to find my A game to hold off a determined Simone who spent as much effort blocking me as sinking her balls.

  Simone, played to the crowd and played me, to the roar of her appreciative audience, mind you. No guy-code supported me from the sidelines. Whether they knew her, or were just hoping for a chance to slide their hands up the navy blue skirt of her summer dress and find out whether she wore lace, lycra or cotton, it didn’t matter. Every single male in the room was rooting for her. Or wanted to root her. My three month exchange to the US reminded me of the interpretive difference. My Aussie maleness
only wanted one kind of rooting and that was one-on-one, in a bed or up against a wall. Preferably no audience and definitely no leaders table.

  “Wanna play doubles?” I asked after sinking the black from a near impossible position, my relief at walking away with at least two balls intact wasn’t appreciated by our crowd who immediately lost interest.

  “Do you really think anyone would take us on after that?” She squeezed in between my arms and the table. Popping up in front of me, our faces close enough to kiss, although that would only be the start of what I wanted to do to her.

  “You always were good for a hustle but I didn’t know you knew my nemesis?” The young electrician I’d played earlier pushed me aside to hug Simone who squealed with delight at the interruption. Had I just been cock-blocked by a guy who didn’t even know how to hold a cue, let alone know what to do with it? I wanted to shove him away and claim the woman, but Simone wasn’t the type to let someone go all alpha-male on her ass, and in any case, the hug wasn’t that of lovers.

  The guy spun her around until she squealed for him to stop. No one came to her aid, if anything they got more laughs and shrugs.

  “Alex, meet my brother Teddy Bear.” Simone gasped and caught her breath. Another hug for her brother, who was now more likely to walk out with all limbs and teeth intact, before she returned to my arms.

  “Only my big sister calls me that, everyone else calls me Eddie.”

  “Nice to be formally introduced,” I offered, one arm around Simone and the other offered in another firm handshake.

  “So, how do you know my sister?”

  “We played touch football together,” Simone shrugged easily. “Let’s go and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Eddie refused to budge, asking me with suspicion laced in a dark undertone, “Did you follow her here?”

  “No mate.” I tried to calm Eddie, not wanting to get involved in family drama. Still, there wouldn’t be any harm in teasing Simone just to see how she’d react, “I needed to get away and she followed me.”

  “Or I came home to see my family and this is just a coincidence!” Simone looked between us, before adding softly, for my benefit and her brother’s, “A happy and unexpected coincidence.” My arm tightened around her waist again.

  “Are you staying with this guy or at Mum and Dad’s?” Eddie continued the interrogation, but I watched a side conversation between brother and sister continue without words. Whatever was going on, Simone picking up a guy in a bar wasn’t the issue. I played the only hand with a winning chance—keeping quiet, but letting my fingers play with the thin outline of her panties. Subtle enough for her to know I wasn’t going anywhere, without drawing any unwanted attention or blowing up in her brother’s face.

  “Don’t worry about me.” Simone leaned across to peck her brother’s cheek before returning to me. “I’m still trying to work out which one I’ll regret the least.”

  With her dark eyes soft and inviting, Simone looked to me for some sort of confirmation or sign. For the first time in months, I had a primal and genuine need to explore another woman. A desperate desire to feel her touch and make her purr. All my no’s had become absolutely yes and I couldn’t wait to start. Baby brother permitting, of course.

  Ignoring her brother, my fingers dug into her flesh as I whispered, “All I have to offer you is a single sleeping bag inside a tent built for two. Do you think you’d be able to sleep in that?”

  “Let’s shoot some more pool.” Simone’s hips pressed firmly against mine. “If I want to sleep, I’ll go home and if I don’t—” Simone wasn’t the only one ignoring her brother.

  “Tent or hotel room?”

  “Depends on how loudly you’re gonna scream my name,” she teased.

  I didn’t mean to hesitate but this was happening too fast and too soon. I’d only decided to move on with my life and didn’t expect it to happen like this, “I want to, but—”

  Could I have sounded like a more stupid tool? Telling a gorgeous woman I wasn’t sure? Fuck me. I almost wanted to crash out of this pub and find another one—without any familiar faces this time.

  Instead of being offended or treating me like a joke—which I would have deserved—my face tingled at her touch as she battered away my nerves, “How about we take over that pool table while you think about it. I don’t want to be the only one waking up with regrets tomorrow.”

  From underplaying my game with the electrician and Garry, to putting it all out there with Simone to now not being able to bloody well sink the easiest shot if it was handed to me on a platter! I couldn’t focus on angles and top spin on the ball when—the only thing on my mind was Simone. She of the sexy curves, and hair now freed from the pony tail and tossed with sultry abandon over her shoulder as she stood, bent over the table with her legs spread apart as if to invite me there and then.

  Rolling against the table, challenging me to far more than pool with her eyes. She lined the shot up, looked back towards me and without breaking her glance, struck the ball. That the #3 ball didn’t have a choice but to land in the pocket only increased the pressure on my next shot.

  “Fuuuuuck,” I moaned as she handled the cue stick with the same long strokes I could imagine fondling my own wood.

  “Careful, that’s my sister you are checking out,” Eddie only half joked while his partner lined up to take a shot.

  “I think the lady can take care of herself.” Mental note to self, its fucking impossible to adjust shorts and hide an erection while being watched by the woman of my desire’s brother.

  “Probably, but you should probably know that I punch better than I play pool—and she can hit harder than me.”

  Eddie blocked my path to the table, making sure I got every message tucked into his words. This was supposed to be an easy week or two away from complications and messed up shit. I had driven hours away from anyone I knew to chill and get laid.

  Now, not only had my cock gotten the email tonight could be its lucky night, but I’d found a woman who was willing to take a ride. Only, she wasn’t the anonymous fuck I’d planned on.

  Damn-fucking-damn. I needed to get laid but my hard-on and morals disagreed about how and with whom.

  “I’m not forcing her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Me, coming back inside to hang out, it was her idea.” Why did I even care what this guy thought? I shouldn’t have to explain myself to him, or justify what Simone and I were or were not going to do tonight.

  “She deserves better than you.”

  “Probably, but it usually takes someone at least a day or two to figure it out.”

  “Don’t fuckin’ hurt her or you’ll have half this town on your case.”

  A scenario I didn’t need, especially when the closer Simone and I got, the more flirty and sexual innuendos we shared, it seemed every guy in the bar slowly turned on me. From easy going banter earlier in the night to now glaring at me every time Simone swayed her hips or blew kisses in my direction. Not one of them seemed the jealous type, so there had to be something else and they hadn’t cared until Eddie did.

  “What’s her story, I mean, I know her socially from back home, but—”

  “Her story to tell, not mine.”

  “Is everything okay?” We broke apart when Simone came up with a fresh round of drinks. “You didn’t have to wait for me before taking your go.”

  “Your brother was just about to recommend somewhere for me to take you to dinner.” I looked over to Eddie wanting to see how quick the boy was on his feet while taking the opportunity to walk around him and had my go without thinking. Luckily, Simone saved us both, and a sunk ball saved my dignity. Second shot didn’t sink anything but at least it gave me time to return to my girl.

  “Don’t worry about restaurants, I can’t think of anything better than eating fresh fish and chips on the beach; that is if you can handle a little sand with your salt.”

  Again, Simone had that cheeky tease and my hard-on gave up trying to behave.


  How long had it been since I wanted to laugh and joke with a woman instead of fight and sulk!

  If I wasn’t careful, this woman would creep into more than my bed. I’d only just allowed my heart to put up the position vacant sign, and Simone was doing everything to fill any and every position we wanted. Fuck she was perfect.

  “I think I can handle a little salt with my carbs, wanna join us?” I threw out the question hoping Eddie would take the hint.

  “Nah,” Eddie at least stopped glaring in my direction before turning to Simone, his concern still apparent, “I suppose I’m telling mum that you ran into an old friend and we’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “How about you mind your own business, for now.” Simone grabbed a handful of crushed ice from her drink and flicked it at her brother. Looking towards me, she caressed a large shard of ice until it melted between her fingers. My balls or my cock, or Simone rubbing ice down my chest; I didn’t care but we were going to have ice with more than our drinks.

  Simone smiled as I swallowed my groan, “So, Alex, are you ready to clean up this table with me or do you need a little conversation first?”

  “I haven’t been able to sink a bloody thing this game—what makes you think I can start now?”

  “Perhaps you just need something to get you in the mood.”

  If she’d given me any warning, I’d have stepped back, at least thought about what the hell it would mean to kiss another woman. After all, I’d been with my ex since the beginning of high school.

  Instead, Simone’s kiss caught me completely off guard. Unexpected, but definitely not unwanted.

  Taking my lips where my head didn’t dare lead. Oh, she felt different. Her mouth opening up mine, her tongue weaving an unfamiliar magic.

  She’d caught me by surprise. Her body pressed against mine as our lips continued the conversation. I grabbed a fistful of dress, feeling the string of her panties as our hips danced together.

  One beautiful kiss filled me with more than desire; hope, passion, tomorrow.