Without You: A Friends-to-Lovers Small Town Romance

by Jennifer Van Wyk

“We could change plans,” she says, breathless. Her lips are doing some serious damage to my self-control and that change of plans is sounding better and better. “Doesn’t that sound like fun, B? We could chill out here and get more… comfortable?” Her tongue snakes out and grazes my neck, sending tingles down my spine.

  Growling, I spin her around and pin her against the door. “You’re a little tease, you know that?”

  She moans when I don’t let her answer me and instead kiss her hard, twirling my tongue inside her mouth and pressing my body into her, letting her feel exactly what she’s doing to me.

  I grab one of her thighs and lift her leg, wrapping it around my waist. She cries out and grips the back of my shirt, tightening her leg and lifting up on her toes with the other.

  Her soft moans and mewls are such a turn-on. Our mouths fit together so perfectly. It’s easily the best kiss I’ve ever had, aside from the last time she and I kissed. But even compared to then…

  There’s something about this kiss. Before, we’ve both held back. This time? We’re devouring one another. We’re all in. We’re falling fast and hard and there’s no end. Damn, I hope she’s feeling that, too.

  If I don’t back off, we’ll never go out and while that alternative sounds incredible, I don’t want our first time to be me attacking her against her door.

  “Fuck, I don’t want to stop,” I admit on a groan, proving my point by diving back in again.

  Katie shakes her head but her lips don’t leave mine. “Then don’t,” she mumbles.

  “I’m trying to do the right thing here and you’re making it very hard,” I groan.

  “Yes. I feel that.” She does a little shimmy with her hips and grinds against me.

  “Katie,” I warn.

  She kisses me once more then reaches up higher to whisper in my ear, “You win. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She flounces away and I reach to grab her to pull her back to me, my body alive with desire for her but she slips away, giggling.

  After locking up her apartment, I follow her down the stairs to my truck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just that it seems a lot easier if we just skip to the fun part of the evening,” she says as I open the passenger door.

  Safely inside, I shut the door and walk around the front of the truck and climb into the driver’s seat.

  “Who’s to say dinner won’t be fun?”

  She gives me a look and I chuckle. “Okay, maybe not that fun.”

  The drive to the restaurant will take us about forty-five minutes which is both fortunate and unfortunate because Katie turned from a regular minx to a tantalizing, teasing, and spicy little minx. Her fingers have forgotten the invisible perimeter that is set up around my body to help me keep my eyes on the road. How am I supposed to drive and pay attention when her fingers are messing with my hair or resting on my leg? Her perfume — or whatever it is she wears, maybe it’s just nothing and it’s just her — makes me forget how to function like a normal human being, causing my breathing to go crazy. We won’t even discuss how my pants seem to be growing tighter around a certain area.

  “Something the matter?” she asks, all coy-like as her finger does a tiptoe over my thigh, causing me to adjust in my seat. I clear my throat and make a non-committal grunt.

  “No. I’m good.”

  “Sure?” Her hand rests on my thigh mere inches away from my crotch.

  I swallow hard. Nod. Grip her hand and give her a stern look.

  “If you want to get to the restaurant safe, you’d better give me a break because this is incredibly distracting.”

  “Oh, really?”

  I bark out a laugh. “Like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing to me.”

  She giggles and starts to extract her hand but I keep it in mine. I like holding her hand. Having the connection. Being with her.

  Silence falls in the cab of my truck, but it’s far from uncomfortable. It’s a sense of peace and calm that I wasn’t feeling earlier with everything that went on through the day. After I left my mother’s, I was irritated and had to make a conscious effort to put the day out of my mind and focus on her.

  There’s something about Katie that brings me peace. And if I think back, it was that way back in the day, too. In high school, there was something about her that helped calm me down.

  I remember a moment so long ago when I got to school mad at the world. My mother had been caught stealing, again, the night before. She blamed me, saying that if I didn’t have so many needs, she wouldn’t need to steal. What she was implying was that I was a pain in the ass and they really couldn’t afford me. It wasn’t true. She just liked to throw blame on anyone other than herself. I was on edge at school and didn’t want to be there. I was sure that everyone knew about my mother and it pissed me off.

  By the time lunch came around, I was contemplating ditching the rest of the day because I didn’t want to be around anyone. The only thing that stopped me was that Katie walked up to me while I was standing at my locker. She must have noticed I was in a shit mood but she didn’t back off. She took me by the arm, dragged me through the lunch line, told me to follow her, and we ate lunch together on the bleachers in the football stadium. She didn’t ask me any questions about why I was so angry. She simply sat with me. Neither of us spoke a word the entire time we sat out there. I chalked it up then to the fresh air and nice weather but now I know it wasn’t that.

  “Nothing’s changed,” I murmur, glancing over at her, giving her fingers a little squeeze.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing’s changed. Back when we barely knew each other, there was something about you that helped me feel relaxed and calm. And it’s still that way.”

  I go on to tell her about going to my mother’s and by the time I’m through venting to her, she looks so angry I’m surprised smoke isn’t billowing out of her ears.

  “See I don’t have the same effect on you.” I chuckle, pulling into the restaurant parking lot.

  “You do. But right now, not so much.” Katie shoots a glare in my direction. “That woman sounds awful. I don’t think I like your mother all that much,” she grumbles, now crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Yeah. She’s not necessarily a ray of sunshine.”

  “And Hannah? What the heck is she doing having lunch with your ma? She has her own mother and her own mother-in-law to have lunch with!”

  Ahh. Is she a little jealous? I kind of hope so. That’d be great if she was. I’m a smart man, though, and I keep that little thought to myself. “That I have no answer for. I told Ma to quit it but who knows.” I turn in my seat to face her. “They don’t matter. Tonight is about us, okay? I want to have fun and show you off and go back to my place and… play with Sabrina.”

  “Play with Sabrina, huh?”

  “Or whatever else we come up with,” I say, my eyebrows wiggling.

  Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. “I like that idea.”

  I get out of the truck and round the front. She’s already climbing out by the time I get to her so I shut her door behind her and hold her hand.

  “This okay?” I motion to the restaurant.

  “Ooh, yeah. I haven’t had Hibachi in a long time! Plus, it’s like dinner and a show. It’s like we’ve got our entertainment portion out of the way.”

  Chuckling, I usher her inside, my hand on the small of her back. “In a hurry to get through the date?”

  She wraps her arm around my waist so we’re walking side by side, leaning into me. “Absolutely.”

  Yeah. Me, too.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Katie

  Our lips don’t separate as we fumble into his once-ugly-now-in-the-middle-of-being-renovating-kitchen. Dinner was excellent and the company even better. But the drive back to Benton? Torture.

  T-O-R-T-U-R-E

  Worse than when he had me pinned against the door and I wanted nothing more than for him to rip our clothes off and ravage me.


  It was a good thing that Brody had planned for there to be something to keep us occupied during dinner because as it was, every chance we got, we were touching. Our hands were tangled or rubbing thighs, lips were lightly grazing cheeks or temples, whispers of what we wanted to do to each other were spoken next to ears. It was back and forth torture between the two of us and I loved every minute. I’ve never been with a guy who was so affectionate before, especially in public.

  I didn’t think I was one for public displays of affection, but when he caught me outside of the restroom before we headed home, shuffled me back against the wall and kissed the living daylights out of me, I wouldn’t have minded if the entire restaurant sat and watched.

  The drive home was worse yet. I begged and begged Brody to pull over and “just do me in the back seat”, but he held firm to wanting to wait until we got home. I couldn’t believe the words had escaped my mouth, but they did. Right there in front of him, I begged him to do me. I should be mortified over my zealousness but it truly isn’t even in me to care. I’ve wanted him since I was sixteen years old. Sixteen years of longing and wanting all boiled down to this moment.

  He slams the door shut behind us and stumbles forward a bit, bringing me with him. We laugh against each other’s mouths as we shove coats off shoulders and continue toward his bedroom, letting them drop.

  He whips his shirt off and my breath stalls when I look down at his chest.

  There’s only one explanation on how Brody’s body can look this way.

  It’s a thought definitely worth repeating. God himself chiseled out Brody’s abs. I wouldn’t want to offend God and not stare at his handiwork, right?

  “You realize that your body is insane, right?”

  He’s busy kissing his way down my neck as he walks backward, pulling me along with him. “Huh?”

  “Your… body…” I suck in a breath because holy hell, whatever he’s doing to me right now is probably sinful and I should no longer be bringing God into it. Though, I’m likely to be yelling out his name pretty soon.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s… oh my gosh, don’t stop doing that,” I moan and stretch my neck, pushing him to move quicker. How freaking long is this hallway, anyway? I feel like we’ve been walking to his room for ages. His lips are attacking the sensitive spot below my ear and I’m losing the ability to think straight. My stomach coils tight and I try to rub my legs together as we shuffle along to alleviate the ache building there.

  His fingers graze the smooth skin of my stomach and my hair flies out around me as my shirt goes over my head. And I’m being lifted by strong arms that are flexing with biceps that aren’t bulging too much but enough that I see definition and power and strength.

  My legs don’t even have a chance to get the memo that we’re being carried before I’m turned around, tossed onto the bed, and covered with the most attractive male body I’ve ever seen. And it’s only partly because of his outward appearance.

  That whole beauty is only skin deep thing?

  It doesn’t apply to Brody Redding.

  His beauty runs deep into his soul.

  Not only is he letting me rent the apartment for next to nothing, I know he also rented it to someone else before me for seriously cheap just to help him get on his feet.

  He helps his mother even though I know it hurts him to do it, especially when she is always trying to take advantage of him. But he loves her despite her flaws.

  Sabrina, his cat, was a stray that he found beside the dumpster of his tire shop. He brought her home, nursed her back to life, and now she’s his.

  Chad wouldn’t have a successful construction business if it weren’t for Brody, either. He had fallen to the been gaining traction in Benton as a reputable business to work with then he was injured on the job. Not just cutting off the tip of his finger injured, either. It was a severe cut to his leg that he thought would heal without going to the emergency room.

  The cut had gotten infected, causing him to lose the lower half of his left leg. Between the time he’d spent in the hospital and recovering after, his business was crashing. Rather than letting it happen, Brody stepped in and covered for him, managing his tire shop and Chad’s construction company at the same time. He made sure jobs were booked and his workers were doing their jobs. If there was a place that needed filled in, Brody and his dad did it.

  Of course, aside from him telling me about his mother, I wouldn’t know any of this if I hadn’t bumped into Johnny at the sub shop one day. I had planned on taking my sandwich to go but he asked me to join him. Over sub sandwiches, chips, and pickles, we reminisced about high school, talked about the fourteen years that had passed us by since then, and he filled me in on what a catch I’d landed with Brody. Not that I didn’t know it already, but hearing it from one of his best friends was different.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, looking down at me.

  I lift a hand and cup his cheek. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

  “Men aren’t supposed to be beautiful. We’re handsome,” he mumbles against my neck then rises up on his fists. His smile is beaming. “Or I’d accept sexy, too.”

  I choke out a laugh. “Oh, you would, huh?”

  “Maybe sex God? How does that sound?”

  “I don’t know if it applies to you or not. We haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “Let’s remedy that, shall we? Starting with…” His lips are hot against my skin as they make a trail down my neck, giving my collarbone the attention it deserves, and over the swell of my breasts. With the tip of his nose, he nuzzles into my breasts then pulls the cup of my black lace bra down, exposing my entire breast to him. He sucks in a breath and I preen from where I lie, stretched out beneath him. He likes what he sees.

  His tongue swirls around my hardened nipple, around and around. His hot breath surrounds it, his teeth nip at the tip, and he does the same to the other. I’m squirming beneath him, wanting more and less and needing more and less.

  “Oh!” I cry out when he brings my nipple into his mouth and sucks hard, massaging my other breast and tweaking the tip. My fingers pull on his hair and I thrash my head back and forth, surprised that I feel the beginnings of an orgasm already approaching and all he’s done is played with my breasts. “Holy crap,” I breathe out and wish I hadn’t because I need all the air in my lungs that I can get right now. I’m having a seriously hard time breathing normally.

  “Sensitive,” he says, not leaving his assignment of Give Katie the biggest orgasm in her life and get her to the point where she will no doubt scream so loudly only dogs will hear her. He’s going to get an A+. I just know it. He might even earn some extra credit on this assignment.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Very,” I moan.

  “Mmm,” he hums.

  “Oh! Oh. Do that again.”

  “What did I do?”

  “When you hummed against my skin, it sent a tingling vibration.”

  “Hmm. Wonder if it works in other places?” he asks, lifting his head to look up at me.

  I look down and lick my lips. His eyes are twinkling, his lips are swollen from the excellent work he’s doing on me, but what gets me the most is how incredibly turned on he looks.

  “I suppose we’ll have to spend time doing some extensive research.”

  “Works for me. Maybe we should turn our phones off so we don’t get interrupted?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  I giggle. “That has seemed to be our MO, huh?”

  “For sure.”

  He grabs his phone from his pants pocket and turns it off, tossing it on his nightstand. “Mine is still in my purse which was dropped somewhere in the kitchen, I think, and the ringer is turned off so I’m not even going to worry about it. There’s no way I’m getting out of your bed for at least… twenty-four hours.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Screw all our responsibilities, right?”

  “Screw something…”

/>   “Ohhh…” I moan when he wraps his arm around my back, unhooks my bra, and throws it over his shoulder.

  Before he rises up on his knees to work on my pants, he takes in his undressing abilities and gives my breasts more attention now that the pesky bra isn’t in the way. I arch my back, pressing myself deeper into his mouth, and he groans.

  Reaching between us, we both get to work on buttons and zippers and jeans that are way too tight (mine) for them to come off easily but we make it work. Now in only our underwear, he pulls me to sit up then plants our feet on the floor next to the bed.

  “Stand up.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I want to see you. All of you. Top to bottom.”

  I laugh nervously. “Are you being serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” he asks.

  No. No, he doesn’t.

  I stand up on shaky legs with my arms wrapped around my stomach. He’s brought me to the brink of orgasm twice now and I’m unsteady on my feet and feeling self-conscious of how I look. I’m not ashamed of my appearance, but I also haven’t had a life-long dedication to eating healthy and working out. I go in spurts of watching what I eat and making sure I get thirty minutes of exercise daily to binge watching Netflix for six hours and watching the chips and pizza disappear into my mouth.

  “Don’t hide from me,” he says in a husky voice. “You’re beautiful.”

  “To you,” I amend, clarifying.

  Brody shakes his head. “Not just to me, especially to me. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, and you’re mine. My beautiful.”

  Oh, well, in that case… I drop my arms and muster up all the courage inside of me and hook my thumbs around the top of my underwear, take a deep breath when I see his eyes follow my movements, his breath stalls in his lungs, and his tongue snakes out to lick his bottom lip.

  Inching the lace panties down over my hips, I bend at the waist, push them down my thighs, and then let them drop to the floor. Foot by foot, I step out of them. “Your turn.”

  Where I removed the tiny scrap of material slowly and teasingly, he removes his with gusto. It takes no time for him to be completely naked in front of me, standing at attention proudly, boxers flung across the room and forgotten.