Kissing My Best Friend: A Friends to Lovers Romance

by Sullivan, Piper

  “I don’t, just wanted to make sure you weren’t losing your famous appetite.”

  “Never,” she assured me and then brought the big steaming blue dish to the stove. “And here’s my very own Texas coq au vin just to prove my point.”

  I stood and walked around the table to pull out Bo’s chair because I was a damn gentleman. “Smells good. You know, Bo, some people might think that all this effort means you really like me.”

  “Of course I like you, Jase. You think I’d wear a thong for anyone?”

  I choked on my scotch and Bo laughed, flipping the lid off the casserole dish and letting the sweet smell of chicken and wine fill the air. I raised my glass in the air with a playful grin. “Here’s to hoping I get a glimpse of that thong before the night is over.”

  Bo

  “What is a solstice, anyway?” Jase turned to me with that little crinkle between his thick black brows, asking another inane question. He wouldn’t stop talking. No, not talking. Chattering. Jase was chattering. “Do you know? Does anyone know?”

  After spending ten full minutes talking, in excruciating detail, about how much he liked dinner, loved dinner, I was sure he would get around to making a move. I was wrong. But then we talked about the upcoming football preseason for another ten minutes and I thought maybe now I’d been imagining the hot looks and skin scorching kisses. Sadly it took another fifteen minutes of this odd trivia game he insisted on playing to the point of being annoying.

  Really. Damn. Annoying.

  “It’s the longest day of the year, when we get the most daylight because the sun is at its highest point.” That seemed to stop his chattering.

  For a moment, anyway. “How did you know that? You looked it up, didn’t you? I remember you always did that in school and then pretend as if you always knew it.” He was being a gentleman and I appreciated it. Really, I did. There weren’t enough gentleman in the world, not even down here in the land of the cowboy.

  But more than him being a gentleman, I had a wildly feminine appreciation for the look in his eyes, knowing I’d made a good decision with the denim dress Mikki had convinced me to buy. I un-crossed my legs and crossed them again, feeling goosebumps nearly jump off my skin at the way his green eyes glazed over. “Jase, shut up.”

  He blinked, using every ounce of willpower he had to yank his gaze from my legs. Eventually he made it to my face, and my panties were only completely damp by the time our gazes collided. “What?”

  “You’re talking too damn much,” I told him and stood, walking a couple feet forward before I turned to him and crossed my arms. Damn but he really was a good looking man. All boy next door innocence with the body only a sinful mind could conjure up.

  “Talking too much? You can’t be serious.”

  Oh I was as serious as a heart attack, and as much as I appreciated what he was trying to do, I was over it. My body was on fire and all it wanted was Jase. “Talking time is over,” I told him and slid onto his lap, flinging my arms over his shoulders until the ridge of his arousal was pressed to the damp heat between my legs. “Yes. So. Over.” Then my mouth was on his, devouring him like I hadn’t eaten for a thousand days, enjoying the taste of the chocolate cake and dark beer we pretended to eat for dessert. We were both too nervous, too distracted thinking about exactly what we were doing now.

  Jase’s hands went to my ass and he let out a low, purely masculine growl that sent shivers through me. Which, of course, made him laugh. He kneaded and squeezed my ass, pulling my down so he could feel how hot and how wet I was for him, even through his pants. “Fuck, Bo. Are you sure?”

  “I’ll let you know when I’m not sure.” I flashed a smile and turned my attention to thick vein that ran down the right side of his throat, licking it slowly enough that I could feel the pulse pumping there. Letting my teeth sink into that slightly salty, sandalwood scented strip of flesh, he rewarded me with another growl.

  “Bo.” That was it, just my name. It was low and gravelly, like he was holding himself back because he wanted me too much. Me.

  I licked that strip of skin again and again, and each time he rewarded me with a rumbly growl and a tightening of his grip. “Jase. I want this. I want you.” I pulled back and looked him in his eyes so he could see I meant what I said.

  “Thank fuck,” he growled one final time before capturing my mouth in a kiss that stole my breath and sent a river of lava flowing through my veins. He lifted me up and laid me across the sofa, kneeling between my thighs so he could look down on me, look through me. “This dress had me hard all through dinner.”

  “And I thought it was my cooking.”

  He laughed and traced his fingertips up and down the inside of my thighs. “That helped, but it wasn’t dinner that had me wondering what was under this damn dress.” He pushed my thighs apart with a little bit of force that shouldn’t have made me clench with need, but it did. “Green silk.”

  “Same color as your eyes,” I told him and I was rewarded with another of those lazy cock-eyed smiles and the hungriest stare I’d ever been on the other side of.

  “Stop talking, Bo.”

  I frowned. “Don’t think that just becau-…oh!” His wide shoulders pushed my legs apart and he put his mouth right where I needed him. Using the friction of the silk to help drive me crazy, Jase sucked me and the fabric, hard and intense until he pulled an orgasm from me. “Wow. Okay. No more talking.”

  He laughed and looked up at me, face shiny from just how turned on I was by all of this. By him. “As long as its things like ‘oh Jase. Yes Jase.’ Then we’re good.”

  I wanted to call him a jerk, to tell him to shut his face hole, but then he yanked those green panties off and shoved my dress up even higher, pushing my legs so far apart I almost felt self-conscious. Almost. But the feel of his soft lips, his little bit of stubble that had already come back even though he probably shaved a few hours ago, the feel of that friction on my skin was too much. It was everything. It was better than I imagined in the few weak moments when I allowed myself to think about it. “Oh, Jase.” Dammit, that’s exactly what he wanted me to say.

  He chuckled and the vibrations sent my legs tightening around his head, my hips bucked up against him and Jase did it again. He moaned as he licked me, sucked me, flicked my clit with his tongue until I was wrapped around him like a spider monkey, unable to get away from the source of such intense pleasure.

  “Fuck, Jase! Yes!” I was beyond caring about anything except the orgasm that was barreling down on my with the force of an avalanche. I didn’t even care that it was Jase, my best friend, to get me two orgasms faster than I’d ever been able to have one with a partner. I let go and let the pleasure flow over me, tangling my fingers in his thick black hair while I ground out the last of my pleasure. “Okay, that was fantastic. You can brag about it.”

  “I’ll start bragging as soon as the sound of you screaming my name while you fuck my face wears off. So in about ten thousand years,” he said and punctuated his words with a smacking kiss right to my clit. “And it’ll probably take twice that long before I forget the way you taste.”

  “Feel free to come back anytime for another taste.” Speaking of taste, my gaze flicked down to the bulge behind his zipper and Jase stood.

  “You stay there. If you touch me now, this will be over too soon.” I wanted to test that theory, badly, but not as bad as I wanted to feel Jase thrusting into me, to feel that connected with the person who mattered most to me.

  “That sounds kind of hot, actually.” I reached for him and took a step back. “I’ll just help you undress. Promise.” I hooked my pinky in the air and his gaze narrowed before he stepped forward.

  “If you break that promise, I will torture you.”

  That didn’t sound so bad so I took my time, peeling his clothes from his body and making sure my hands danced over every inch of skin I revealed. His cock jutted out, big and thick and beautiful. One little bead glistening at the head and I reached out and swiped
my tongue to clean it up.

  “Bo.”

  “You were undressed,” I argued when he gripped one of my thighs and pulled me closer, erotic intent clear in his green eyes.

  “You. Are. Bad.” He grinned as he began torturing me, running the blunt head of his cock all around where I was wet and pulsing for him but not slipping inside. “So bad,” he said again, his voice straining under the pressure of trying to resist what we both wanted.

  “You think so?” I reached between us and wrapped a hand around his cock, it was warm and silky and hard. And then he was sinking inside of me, growling at my surprise move.

  “Now I know so.” His jaw was clenched so tight I thought he might crack a tooth. His arms vibrated and I lifted my legs and tilted my hips, taking as much of him as gravity would give me, then helping it along with my heels. “Oh, fuck. Bo.”

  “I’m right here, Jase. Waiting for you to give me what we both need. Please, Jase. Make me come.” I wrapped my legs around his waist, urging him on and finally, the boy next door disappeared and the big sexy firefighter appeared, taking over and taking me just how I needed. Just how I imagined it would be. Hard and fast and so raw that it brought genuine tears to my eyes.

  He thrust hard and deep, an intensity in his eyes that reached right into my chest and squeezed a fist around my heart. I’d give anything for that look to be real, well to be real and lasting. Because no matter how good it was, as orgasm number three started to bead my skin with sweat, it was only temporary. “Oh fuck, Bo.”

  It was a warning that was completely unnecessary because my body seized and clenched around him. “Jase!” His name fell from my lips over and over, in every pitch and tone imaginable until my body was completely and totally spent. “Damn, Jase.”

  He didn’t hear me, his body was in the blackout stage of orgasm where he could hear or see nothing but the bursts of pleasure as they shot out of his body, bunching his muscles and twisting his eyes shut as hot bursts of pleasure filled my body. Then he collapsed on top of me, dotting my neck and collarbone with kisses. “Holy fuck, Bo. Holy. Fuck.”

  That was pretty much how I felt in that moment. Holy fuck and scared as hell because the best sex of my life, sex so good it made me cry, had just happened with the man who was my only real family. At least when I mess up, I mess up big. Must be a family trait.

  “I accept that in the spirit in which it was given.”

  He laughed and sucked oxygen into his lungs before he rolled off the sofa and brought me down on top of him. “Take it as the highest form of compliment because I’m still not sure my brain is working.”

  “No kidding.” My mind and heart were in the middle of a great big ol’ disconnect and my body had taken advantage of the lack of leadership, pushing me up to straddle Jase’s hips. “Does that mean you’re not up for round two?” I flashed a fake pout and stood, shimmying out of my dress and the green bra, tossing it to him before I turned to walk away.

  Before panic could set in, the sound of Jase’s bare footsteps behind me, had me smiling. And running up the stairs and to my bedroom.

  For round two.

  With Jase!

  Twenty ~ Two

  “So you and Bo are an official thing now, or what?” That was what passed for a concerned inquiry in Nate’s world and I learned a long time ago not to take it personally. The fact that he was asking meant he gave a damn.

  I just wish I had a more definitive answer to give. “Hell if I know.” It didn’t inspire much confidence, but it was all I had. Since the most amazing night of sex of my life, and with my closest friend in the world, we had been pretty inseparable. It felt like we were together. We had dinner together every night for the past week, she’d even brought up a meal for the whole station just to get a few minutes alone with me. We spent the day hiking up one of the most difficult trails in the area and I hated almost every minute of it, at least until she pulled me into a cave, lit a small fire and rocked my whole damn world. “I’d say yes.” It was the best I could come up with.

  “But Bo would say different?” Nate arched a thick bushy red brow and shook his head. “She is a tough nut to crack, that’s for sure. She’s tough as hell without a doubt, but when it comes to relationships, the girl is running scared.”

  I shook my head, ready to defend Bo against his well meaning accusations, but the look on Nate’s face said not to bother.

  “Think about it, little brother. She’s good looking and fit as hell, but she doesn’t date. Not locally. Why? I’ll tell you why, her parents screwed her up royally. They all left and she wouldn’t know what a normal relationship looked like if it bit her in the ass.”

  “You’re wrong about that. We have an excellent relationship.” In my opinion it had only gotten better.

  Nate snorted out a derisive laugh. “You two are normal in that you’ve been sniffing around each other since high school, both of you too oblivious to the other’s feelings that it took a damn kissing booth to make you see what the rest of us have known for years.”

  His words registered and I frowned. “You’ve been talking about us?”

  “Not me. The town. Been taking bets since you came back to Tulip. Pot’s pretty huge right now,” he said, gears turning in his head and a mischievous smile on his face.

  “You think Bo and I are doomed?” It was disheartening but I wouldn’t let it distract me because I disagreed.

  “Hell no. Your friendship is strong enough that I imagine sex will only make it better. You two are as perfect for each other as two people can be so your odds are better than good.” That was about as positive as Nate got and I couldn’t blame him. Our real dad split before I could commit his face to memory but Nate remembered him. And what his leaving did to our mom. “I also think you might wanna talk between naked sessions.”

  “But our naked sessions are so much fun,” I said in a sing-song voice that made him smile. It also happened to be the truth. Bo was fit and flexible, willing to try just about anything and giving as hell. So, so giving.”

  “But she’s your best friend too, or so you keep saying.”

  Dammit. He was right. Again. “All right, I’ll talk to her.”

  Later that night after Bo and I caught a few fish to fry, Nate’s words came back to me and I decided it was now or never. “We never talked about it, but when was your last relationship?” It was something we hardly ever talked about, which now seemed kind of strange.

  “Why would we talk about it? No one serious. I’m not really a relationship kind of girl,” she said without turning but I noticed she cleaned with fish with a bit more force than necessary. “Where is this coming from?”

  “I’m just curious, Bo. How long was your most serious relationship?”

  She slammed the knife down and turned to me. “What difference does that make? Is this some kind of test?”

  “What? No! I’m just curious.”

  She looked up at me a blinked. Then, she laughed. “You want to know my number?”

  “No, I’m not.” Why in the hell was I the one feeling defensive? “That’s not what I was getting at.”

  “I don’t do relationships.” She said the words slowly and deliberately, like maybe I was hard of hearing. “Got it?”

  Hell no I didn’t get it, but if I pissed her off she’d kick me off and I’d have to start over. Instead, we finished prepping dinner in silence. She took care of the fish while I put together the rest of the food and when Bo was done, she stomped off in silence, returning a few minutes later in a pair of loose shorts and a fitted tank that had me cursing Nate and his reminder that we had to do more than make sweet hot love.

  “You gonna be mad at me all night?” I stood right behind her as she gazed out the window while the fryer heated up.

  “Who says I’m mad?”

  “I do,” I told her and kissed her neck, smiling against her skin when she tilted her head back to give me better access. “Forgive me?”

  “Maybe.”

  Not g
ood enough. “I just want to know what the other idiots did wrong so I don’t make the same mistake.”

  She froze and turned in my arms, big blue eyes filled with a swirl of emotions I couldn’t identify. “It’ll just be a different mistake, Jase.” The words felt like an accusation but they were so bland, so emotionless I couldn’t be upset. Could I?

  “What does that mean?”

  She shrugged. “Everyone leaves, Jase. Eventually everyone leaves.”

  “Bo,” I said but her lips were on mine and her fingers speared through my hair as she climbed my body, certain I would lift her up, support her as necessary. She kissed me with a fiery passion I didn’t know she was capable of, tasting me and teasing me until I thought I would explode right there in the kitchen. “Bo, we have to talk about this.” My man card might get revoked later, but this was more important. She was more important.

  “We are talking,” she said breathlessly. “See? This is me telling you how I feel right now.” She dropped to her knees right in front of me, freed my cock and then disappeared him between a pair of sweet pink lips that made me go cross-eyed. If I was a stronger man, one who didn’t want her so much, who couldn’t resist her, I might have tried a little harder.

  Instead I spent the rest of the night exactly where I wanted to be, buried deep inside of Bo while she moaned and cried my name.

  Later, we could talk.

  Bo

  I felt like an imposter. Sitting beside Jase wearing the sexiest off the shoulder sapphire blue dress I had ever seen with my dark hair pulled up into some complicated hairdo that Mikki insisted would ‘complete the look’ with a few tendrils falling around my face, and a full face of makeup and teardrop diamonds in my ears, I felt like the world’s biggest imposter.