Blurred Lines

by Lauren Layne

  “Be a gentleman, Olsen,” I say, even though I’m giggling.

  “Be a lady, Blanton.”

  We’re grinning at each other like fools, and I can’t figure out why I ever thought that this wouldn’t work. Sure, it had been weird for, like, a half second when he took my shirt off, but then it had been…good. No, it had been perfect.

  And, best of all, it had been fun, and wasn’t that the entire point of sex?

  He moves toward me and I take a step back, glancing behind me and realizing that there’s virtually no room between me and the tub.

  When there’s nowhere else for me to go, he stops and leans toward me, then a little bit more, and then…

  His hand snakes behind the curtain and he turns the water on.

  “Tell me you’re turning that on for me,” I say as he stands upright again.

  “Nope.” He jerks the shower curtain to one side. “I’m turning it on for us.”

  “What? Oh…oh,” I say as his hands find my waist, lifting me up and into the tub. He follows me in, closing the curtain so it’s just us in our nakedness and steam.

  “Clever,” I say, my voice catching a little as his hands move up over my sides.

  “Yeah?” he leans down, his teeth softly tugging at my earlobe. “I thought this had a nice win-win appeal to it.”

  His mouth moves down my neck and my eyes flutter closed. I’ve always been a sucker for neck kisses, and Ben seems to have figured this out in record time.

  He scoots closer and my eyes fly open once more.

  “How are you ready again?” I ask.

  I feel him smile against the skin of my neck. “I’m twenty-four. At my sexual peak, baby.”

  Lance is twenty-four, too, but he was more of a one-time-then-nap sort of lover. Or, toward the end, a one-time-then-back-to-the-books lover. But even after two rounds of very enthusiastic sex, there’s no questioning that Ben’s lower anatomy is ready for round three.

  And, to my surprise, I’m ready, too. Two minutes ago, I was pretty damn sure all I wanted was a long, hot shower and maybe the proverbial cigarette to celebrate the end of my celibacy, but with his mouth doing that thing under my ear…

  My hands roam over his rather perfect upper body, my fingertips taking particular interest in the lines of his abs. Then I remember my vision from earlier. The one where I lick every inch of his delicious stomach.

  I push at Ben’s shoulders and he pulls back. I’m oddly gratified to see that his eyes are hazy with desire just from kissing my neck. Wonder what he’ll do if I do this…

  I lean forward, pressing my lips softly to his shoulder, then taking a not-so-soft bite out of the hard flesh.

  He hisses, and I smile as my lips travel downward until I get to that glorious six-pack. Or is it an eight-pack?

  I let my lips and tongue find out as I trace the firm plains of his muscled abs. His fingers tangle roughly in my wet hair, and the still-hot water pounds against my back as I explore.

  My lips drift ever lower, and I hear his breathing grow more ragged.

  Wicked, dirty thoughts enter my mind as I grin against his stomach and lower to my knees.

  I glance up and lick my lips and Ben groans.

  I set my mouth against his cock and he swears. I smile in victory. I’ve never been quite this brazen, but somehow with Ben, I don’t feel embarrassed or tentative. I feel bold and exploratory, and a little bit dirty.

  And then I get a lot dirty.

  Five minutes later a gasping Ben pulls me to my feet and I smile smugly.

  His eyes narrow. “Feeling proud of ourself, are we?”

  “I’m just sayin’, I’ve never heard you say my name quite like that before. Also, the water’s turning cold—”

  He spins me around, reversing our positions. “You’re going to forget all about the temperature of the water in a minute.”

  “No, I really won’t—”

  But then he drops to his knees, and it’s his turn to look up at me wickedly. “Ben—”

  He leans forward, his tongue finding me, and damn it, he’s right. I forget all about the cold water.

  Several minutes later, he stands, and once I stop gasping I hit his shoulder. “Now who’s looking smug?”

  We hurriedly soap up and rinse in the now-freezing water before fighting over, you guessed it, the towel.

  “It’s my towel, Ben. This is why we have different colors.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the one I used this morning,” he says, pointing at it.

  “I knew it! I knew you were lying.”

  He takes advantage of my outrage to grab it from me. “Don’t think just because we’re fuck buddies means I’m going to start acting differently.”

  “What, you mean like human?” I mutter as I reach under the sink to where I keep a spare towel.

  He pauses in the process of drying himself. “How did I not know there were clean towels under there?”

  “Simple,” I say. “I keep the cleaning supplies under here as well, which means this particular cupboard physically repels you.”

  “Huh.” He nudges me aside, opening up the medicine cabinet to get at his deodorant.

  I do the same, and it hits me then how truly good our situation is. There’s no embarrassed aftermath, no awkward sneaking out of bed, no regrets.

  “Wanna watch a movie?” he asks, tying the towel in a knot at his waist and opening the bathroom door.

  “Sure. I get to pick.”

  “Nope. Your taste in movies sucks.”

  My hand snakes out and undoes the knot he’s just tied so that the towel falls to his feet just as he starts to walk, causing him to stumble a little.

  “Oops,” I say sweetly, scooting past him toward my bedroom.

  “Just because we’re hooking up doesn’t mean you can demand nonstop naked time—”

  I let my own towel drop, giving him an unobstructed view of my butt as I walk away.

  “Okay, maybe nonstop naked time is fine!” he calls after me as I shut the door to my bedroom.

  I’m still smiling as I put on my PJs, wind my wet hair into a bun, and then head downstairs to where Ben’s already on the couch, remote in hand.

  I glance at the open DVD box on the coffee table. “The Proposal?” I ask excitedly. “Really?”

  He gives a weary sigh. “Call it gratitude for the blow job.”

  I grin as I plop down beside him, feeling ridiculously content. No, more than content. Happy.

  We definitely should have started doing this a long time ago.

  Chapter 14

  Ben

  Parker’s right on karaoke schedule. Two glasses of sparkling wine, and bam. She’s up onstage.

  It’s not even her turn, but I guess that’s one of the benefits of being a hot girl with a hot friend. It took Lori and Parker all of eight seconds and two pretty smiles (with the help of Lori’s low-cut shirt, I’d guess) to convince the group of guys who were next in the queue to let them cut in line.

  “Your girl’s good,” Jason says from where he sits next to me, nursing a whiskey.

  I tense for a half second at Jason’s reference to Parker as my girl, but have to remind myself that he said it a million times before Parker and I started hooking up, and he just means it in the way that she’s, well…my girl. But not my girl.

  Anyway.

  Parker’s good. Really good. She and Lori have chosen some Destiny’s Child song from way back when—one of those ones where I find I seem to know all the words although I couldn’t tell you the name of the song if you held a gun to my head.

  The bar’s freaking loving them.

  Rare is the karaoke singer who’s got the looks and the voice, but Parker does.

  Lori’s voice isn’t quite as good, and she’s mostly sticking to backup, but she’s far from tone-deaf. Plus she’s more than making up for mediocre vocal talent with sexy dance moves.

  The girls wrap up their song to a standing ovation before making their way back toward our table, lau
ghing.

  Parker grabs my drink and takes a long sip. “God, that’s good.”

  “The beer or the stage?” I ask.

  “Both.” She slumps back against the booth with a smile. “I think we need more champagne.”

  “You always think we need more champagne,” Lori says. “But this time I’m in agreement.”

  Jason flags down a frazzled-looking server and we order another round, as Lori and Parker start plotting their next song.

  “Let’s just go put our name in,” Lori says. “Although someone else is bound to let us cut in after we killed it up there with that last song.”

  “Uh-uh. I need another drink first,” Parker says. “Liquid courage.”

  “ ’Kay,” Lori says agreeably. Then she transfers her blue gaze to me. “Sing a duet with me, Olsen.”

  I pause in drinking the last of my beer, and I see Parker give Lori a surprised look before she, too, looks at me.

  I shake my head. “No way. Make Jason go up there.”

  “Hell, no,” Jason says. “I don’t sing.”

  “I thought karaoke was your idea,” Parker says, tilting her head.

  “Because I like watching other people make fools of themselves,” he says, pointing to the stage, where, sure enough, a group of drunken women are slurring their way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

  “Come on,” Lori pleads, kicking me softly under the table. “It’ll be fun.”

  I shift my gaze to Parker, who shrugs. “Go for it. Your voice is better than most of the people getting up there.”

  What she doesn’t say is that it’s usually the two of us doing the duets. We used to do karaoke most weekends in college, and we covered everything from old country ballads to Top 40 stuff. It’s kind of our thing. Or at least, it used to be.

  Still, she doesn’t look even remotely put out by the thought that my first song of the night will be with Lori instead of her, and why would she be?

  Parker gives me a little wink, and I shrug at Lori. “All right. Cool. Let’s do it.”

  Lori’s smile is just a bit more excited than it should be, and the way she grabs my hand the second I stand is completely unnecessary, but oh well.

  Her confidence that she’ll be able to cut in line was well-founded, and a few moments later, a microphone’s in my hand and Lori and I are singing “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, and the crowd seems to like us nearly as much as they liked Parker and Lori.

  I’m definitely getting more than a few interested looks from the ladies in the crowd as I play up the strutting John Travolta thing.

  I wink at a particularly interesting prospect at a table in the back. A black-haired woman in a killer red dress. At least until my eye catches our nearly empty table.

  Jason is still there.

  Parker is not.

  Luckily I know this annoying song by heart, thanks to our college karaoke career, so I can sing on autopilot without having to look at the lyric board. My eyes scan the room for my best friend.

  There she is, talking to a guy.

  And she actually looks interested.

  Huh.

  Lori grabs my hand and pulls me into some dorky fifties dance move that fits the song before we end with a rather spectacular finish, if I do say so myself.

  Everyone is whooping and cheering.

  Everyone except Parker, who barely looks away from the blond guy she’s chatting up at the bar.

  I’m happy for her.

  Maybe she’s finally getting the hang of this whole flirting/pickup scene.

  Hell, maybe all she needed was some rather excellent sex—not bragging, just stating facts—to loosen her up.

  And sex with Parker truly is excellent. It was excellent last Monday when we first broke each other in, so to speak. It was even better on Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday. And it was excellent earlier tonight when we did it in the kitchen, just minutes before we headed out to meet Lori and Jason.

  Not that I’ll be getting any gratitude from the blond guy in the white button-down. He has no idea who he has to thank for Parker’s newfound sexual confidence.

  Me.

  I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to assess the Parker situation that I don’t immediately realize that Lori didn’t let go of my hand after we got off the stage.

  It’s not until we get back to our table that I manage to maneuver my fingers from hers under the guise of reaching for my beer as we sit down.

  “Where’s Parker?” she asks Jason, who’s looking increasingly inebriated and is being even less subtle than usual about checking out Lori’s chest.

  Jason jerks his head backward toward the bar, and Lori cranes her neck until she spots her friend.

  “Ooh! Cute guy. And she actually looks happy.”

  She holds up her hand to me. “High five. I think all of our lessons finally paid off. Our girl’s found her groove!”

  I slap her hand, probably with more force than necessary, and then take another sip of beer to stop myself from pointing out that I’m the one who found Parker’s groove. Several times.

  I’m saved from having to say anything when Parker comes all but strutting back to our table, shooing Lori over so that her friend now has an excuse to press her thigh against mine. I shoot Parker a warning look, but she doesn’t notice.

  She’s too busy flaunting a cocktail napkin with a phone number. “Look what I got!”

  “You go, girl!” Lori says, and now it’s Parker’s time to get a high five.

  Note to self: Drunken Lori is big on high fives.

  “Right?” Parker shakes her hair back, grinning happily.

  “The way he was leaning into you, I thought for sure he’d be taking you home,” Lori says.

  “Oh, the offer was definitely on the table,” Parker says smugly, taking a sip of her bubbly wine.

  “And you didn’t hit that?” Lori asked. “He was hot from where I was sitting.”

  “Yeah, but I’m with you guys,” Parker says, her nose scrunching. “I wouldn’t ditch.”

  I feel a weird stab of guilt, remembering exactly how many times I’d been out with Parker and ditched her for a hookup. After checking to make sure she had a ride home, of course.

  Parker drains her drink and then scoots back out of our booth. “Gotta pee.”

  Lori looks like she’s about to follow, but then an unnaturally tanned guy appears in front of her. “You were really good up there.”

  Lori’s smile is slow and sexy, and I breathe a sigh of relief that she has someone to distract her from touching my leg.

  “Yeah?” she says, and I see her settle into her seat to receive more compliments.

  “Hey, let me out,” I say, elbowing a mostly zoned-out Jason, since it’s easier to move him than a flirty Lori.

  He sighs but scoots out of the circular booth so I can get out. He wobbles only slightly once on his feet.

  “Maybe slow down on the whiskey there, champ,” I say.

  He gives me the bird and then half-walks/half-stumbles toward the bar, and I say a silent prayer on behalf of whatever woman’s about to be subjected to his leering. Definitely might be time to rethink my “friendship” with the guy. Parker’s right. He’s kind of an ass.

  But right now, Jason is the least of my worries.

  I ask an irritable waitress about the direction of the bathrooms, then find myself in a dimly lit corridor.

  There’s a couple making out, another couple arguing, but no sign of Parker.

  I lean against the wall across from the women’s restroom and survey the area while I wait.

  When Parker emerges a few moments later, she pauses in surprise. “Hey.”

  In response, I grab her hand, pulling her toward one of the side exit doors. It’s unseasonably warm, so I’m counting on her not fussing about what I’m about to do.

  “Ben, what are you—”

  I push her up against the brick wall of the building and kiss her. Hard.

  Her respon
se is immediate, her tongue tangling with mine as her hands slide around to my back, her nails digging through the fabric of my shirt.

  I bite her lip, and she makes a sexy little growling noise. “So this is what you do when you disappear when we’re out,” she says, pulling back and giving me a speculative glance.

  “You like?” I say, nibbling her throat.

  “It’s very—” she gasps, as my palm finds her breast. “Naughty.”

  I smile, because Parker hasn’t even seen my naughty side yet.

  Still, I’m not about to take her against a wall in a not-so-private alleyway, so I settle for making out for several more minutes before I rub my hands over her increasingly chilly arms.

  “Let’s get you inside.”

  She makes a pouty face, and I run a thumb over her lip. “Unless you wanna get out of here?”

  “I do, but…” she says slowly, and I freeze, hoping that she’s not about to tell me she’s going to go home with the other guy.

  I brace as she looks up at me.

  “A duet?” she asks.

  My breath rushes out in relief. Not that I’d begrudge her a chance to get her groove on with some other dude. It’s part of our deal. But considering my cock’s hard enough to cut glass after nothing but a few hot kisses, I’m not sure my ego could quite deal with the rejection.

  “All right,” I say. “One song.”

  “One song, and then what?” she asks coyly.

  I tilt my hips forward against her. Her eyes widen, then flutter closed. “On second thought, we can do a duet some other time…. ”

  I’m already moving toward the front of the bar. “I’ll get us a cab. You tell Lori and Jason we’re heading out. I don’t think Jason will notice, and Lori’s got herself an admirer.”

  Five minutes later, we’re on our way home.

  Turns out, Parker’s never made out in the back of a taxi.

  We fixed that.

  Chapter 15

  Parker

  The Thursday after our karaoke adventure, I make the unpleasant realization that I’ll need to work late. Really late.

  It’s been one of those days where back-to-back meetings equals zero desk time, and zero desk time means that I haven’t had a chance to address those “urgent” emails, nor pull together my weekly report for tomorrow’s meeting with my boss.