by Nana Malone
She was still trembling when the warmth of his head between her legs disappeared, and he reappeared hovering above her, grinning. She managed a weak smile in return as he dropped his lips to hers for a kiss, his tongue finding hers so that she could taste herself.
There was warm pressure along her left side where he was gently grinding his erection against her hip, the bulge impossible to ignore. She tried to loop her leg around him to show she was ready for him to enter her, but she couldn’t get her leg to follow her direction. She couldn’t get any of her limbs to respond just yet.
“So that’s one,” Fox teased, pressing kisses along her jaw and playfully biting her earlobe.
“You…had more…in mind?” Sasha managed to say.
Fox rose to a kneeling position so he could unfasten the belt below Sasha’s breasts. “Every woman deserves multiple orgasms. And the other night doesn’t count. We slept in between, so I’m going to fix that.”
“Fox—”
“I have another road trip coming up next week. East coast, this time, so I’ll be gone a few days.” He slipped the belt from around her waist and dropped it onto the floor, then unsnapped Sasha’s blouse. “I was thinking it would be nice to have a few keepsakes that I can look at to keep me from getting too lonely.” He kissed the valley between her breasts, but Sasha slid her hands in his hair and then tipped his head back so she could meet his eye.
“You want to take pictures of me? You first. Wouldn’t porn do the trick?”
Fox put a gentle hand over her mouth to get her attention. She bit at the palm of his hand playfully, remembering that it was Fox she was dealing with, and not Ryan.
“You want to know why I want pictures of you, specifically?”
His hand was still over her mouth as she nodded but he removed it to take her hand and gently lift it off her blouse so he could push the fabric aside. “You might not think so, but I could pick your breasts out of a lineup,” he told her. Her skeptical expression made him laugh. “It’s true,” he insisted. His fingers skimmed the edge of one cup of her bra raising goose pimples on her skin.
“You’ve only seen them once. Not enough times to be able to do that,” she challenged.
He tugged aside the fabric. “You’ve got a little freckle right here.” He bent his head and kissed the spot. His tongue flashed out, making her breath hitch and her nipple tighten. “And there’s a scar just over here above the right one.” He kissed that mark, too.
“Chicken pox,” Sasha whispered.
Fox grinned as he exposed the appendectomy scar, then kissed that mark, as well.
He raised himself above her again, his weight on his forearms. “I want pictures of you because I know your body.” His voice was low and husky as his lips skimmed her collarbone, pausing over the spot where she’d broken it skating with him on the rink his parents set up behind their house when the two of them were nine. “I’ve fallen asleep on your breasts,” he reminded her. “I know exactly how far around me your arms stretch. I don’t want just anyone. I want you. The question is, do you want me?”
Sasha smiled as she released a long exhale, her hands tangling in his hair to bring him down for a lingering kiss.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But you have to pay for every photo you take. If you get to look at me, I want to look at you, too. Each shot will cost you an article of clothing.”
He laughed and began removing the jacket he’d worn, remembering to reach into the pocket to pull out his cell phone before letting it drop to the floor.
Sasha took a deep breath, flushing as she undid the rest of the buttons on her blouse. When she slipped her arms out of her bra, Fox licked his lips, watching her hungrily. She lay back on the bed and raised her arms over her head, shielding her eyes from the first flash.
With each piece of clothing he dropped, each flash of the camera, Sasha grew more comfortable, more playful. She posed more carefully, imitating old pin-up girl poses for a few shots, then moving on to her interpretations of some other iconic nude photo shoots she recalled. She posed with her hands over her breasts, helping push them up, arching her back with her knees drawn up and to the side so he could get a shot of her ass, and lying on her stomach with her feet in the air and her hair draped across her back.
As he dropped his boxers and stepped out of them, he moved toward the bed where Sasha was once again on her back. She was still damp between her legs from before, but the sight of him approaching her with his dick erect sent a flood of warmth through her body that settled low in her belly.
“Yes,” she said, opening her legs to him. “Please.”
“Last one,” he said, raising the phone, as the tip of his cock slid down her folds, parting her lips and pressing against her center.
Sasha threw her head back, closed her eyes, and stopped listening. All of her being was focused on the sensation as he pushed home, sliding with an easy steadiness that built the heat in her belly. There was a faint thud as he tossed the phone onto the bed beside her, and then his hands glided up and down her legs, catching under one knee, pressing it higher so he could deepen his thrusts.
Sasha raised her other leg into a similar position, and he grabbed hold of it, Fox’s hips occasionally jutting into the backs of her thighs as he increased his pace.
She drew her legs higher, panting for him to go faster and harder as he pounded, only losing her grip on her legs when she lost her grip on herself and her release shuddered through her. But Fox wasn’t done with her. He buried his face in her neck, tugged her hair so she was forced to arch back. His cock hit that sensitive spot inside over and over again, until she cried out once more. It was only then that Fox came deep inside her, his body shuddering on top of her, his head coming to rest in the valley between her breasts. His panting breath chilled her left nipple and caused her own breath to hitch before he lifted his mouth in search of hers and kissed her deeply.
“Jesus, Sash, you’re going to kill me.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, but what a way to go, right?”
He pulled her with him and rolled them to their sides before giving her a gentle peck. “What are we doing here, Sash? Because right now, I know it’s been torture not to touch you.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. This was supposed to be fun and easy. But now it’s intense and complicated.”
He was silent for a beat. “I know this was supposed to be a friends with benefits thing, but clearly, after what we just did, we’re not going to keep pretending this only happens once in a while. I want this to happen more than that. Everyday, twice a day. If I could stay inside you forever, I would.”
Sasha ducked her head. “Fox, I know how you get. You hit them and quit them. We’re friends. We don’t need this to be complicated.”
He kissed the end of her nose. “It’s not complicated. You just don’t know you belong in my bed yet.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. I plan to keep reminding you until you realize I’m for real. I don't want to be the interim guy. Rebound guy.”
She tipped her head up to meet his gaze. “You’re not. I’m the one who’s interim. I know that.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then the kiss he gave her was achingly soft and sweet. “You go to sleep for a few. When you wake up, I’ll show you again that you’re not interim to me. And I’ll just keep reminding you until you get it.”
Sasha didn't think she’d be able to sleep, but after three Fox-assisted orgasms, she was ready to collapse. And when she woke up, he did show her again.
Eventually, the real world intruded, and the sounds of the party started to diminish. They needed to go home.
Getting back into their clothes was less fun, but having crossed that line between friendship and physical intimacy again, she understood that Fox was right. They’d be doing this again. And again, and…well, she got the picture. The only question was how long before he got bored.
As Sasha located her discarded bra and slipped her arms back through the straps, Fo
x came up behind her to help re-clasp it, his fingers brushing across her shoulder blades in the process.
Sasha was in trouble. This was Fox. She loved everything about him. Always had. But she was going to get hurt. And there was no protecting her heart. Not from the boy she’d adored since she was six, and certainly not from the man he was now.
“Oh, whoops,” Fox said, as he put his jacket back on and reached for their phones on the nightstand. “I think I took those pictures on your phone instead of mine,” he told her.
Sasha finished adjusting the belt that held her skirt in place. It was a bit more wrinkled than it had been when they arrived at the party, and her blouse was looking a bit disheveled too. “Yup, that is my phone.”
“Here,” Fox said, “I’ll just send them to myself and delete them off here for you.”
“What? Don’t delete them,” she objected then blushed under his amused gaze. “I—I can delete them myself when I’m ready.”
He grinned as he finished typing his email address into her phone and hit the send button. He whispered in her ear as he slipped the phone back into her hand. “Next time, I can be the subject and we can see how you do as photographer.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her smile, but she turned to give him a real kiss before he could pull away again, his words sending a quiet thrill through her body—Next time.
Twelve
The morning after the party, Sasha woke to find several messages in her inbox. All of them had to do with the copy of the story she’d submitted for feedback. Her professor had loved it and had a few very minor notes for her to incorporate before submitting it for her final grade. It was encouraging, so maybe she’d gotten away with not using Fox.
After reading the next email, she realized she wasn’t so lucky. Her bosses at the station had taken a look at the story and were so pleased with it they wanted to run it, but with an edit. They were adding in Fox. And because of a problem with one of their other human-interest pieces, they wanted to run it today. She sat up in bed, the panic settling in.
It would play first during their midday coverage, having been teased during the early-morning local coverage, and would be available on their website for streaming after that. Plus, they were going to run it during each of the evening news cycles as well. They were hoping to get her to fill in more information for a bio on the website to go with her byline.
She jumped out of bed and ran to Fox’s room to see if he was still there. She still had a small chance of being able to tell him first. But he’d already left for practice. She frantically tried to call Ida to see if she would hold off on airing it until she could finish it properly with the help of her professor’s notes and suggestions. And to give her time to warn Fox. When Ida answered, Sasha breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh my God, thank God I reached you, Ida.”
She could hear the smile in her mentor’s voice. “If it isn’t our intrepid reporter. How does it feel to have your first big story out?”
“That’s why I’m calling. We can’t do this. It’s going to hurt Fox when he sees it. I didn’t think you were going to push the story out yet. It was never my intention to have him be front and center in the story.”
There was a long pause. “Look, I know you two have some kind of relationship, but let me be clear. You are an intern. You do not get to dictate what we do and do not air. We own your time and your work.” Ida’s voice softened. “Look, it really is a fantastic development for your career. Try and enjoy it.”
She hung up with Ida and ran her hands through her hair. To have the station air her piece even before she had completed her internship, before the assignment was technically due or finished, was a huge thing. Sasha prayed that Fox would understand, or at least forgive her, when he found out. She didn’t bother trying to convince herself that Fox wouldn’t realize he was the inspiration behind the piece. Especially now that they were editing it to include some footage of him. Fox wasn’t stupid.
He wouldn’t answer his cell phone during his practice, and she had no way to know for sure when he was done for the day. So unless she wanted to tell him in a voicemail and have her explanation recorded so that it could haunt her forever, she would just have to wait until later in the day to call him, or wait for him to call her. As soon as he heard about it and saw the story for himself, he would call.
She had her last fittings with Echo that morning, and there would be some photography involved, as well, in preparation for the formal photo shoot coming up.
Sasha arrived at Echo’s studio almost forty minutes early to find it locked. She sank to the floor in front of the door with her coffee in hand and started perusing the station’s website for references to her story. She was supposed to be excited about getting her story on air. She was supposed to be calling her friends to gush about it or her father to gloat about her success. And she wanted to be excited, but the person she could always count on to get excited about things like this was Fox.
By the time Echo arrived with Jen forty-five minutes later, the beginning of the midday news cycle had started, and the station had posted the video of the story to their website. Sasha had watched it on mute five times. Objectively, she was proud of how the piece itself had turned out. The interviews flowed well together, and she had plenty of research to back it up. She’d have to remember to send the list of linked sources to her boss so they could post it on the website for anyone interested. She’d watched and listened to herself many times in the process of editing the story together, but it was still surreal to watch it on her phone through the station’s site.
“What’re you watching?” Echo said as she moved to unlock the door to her studio.
Sasha sighed. Maybe Echo and Jen would be able to help her figure out how to deal with the blowback from Fox. “The station decided to run my piece. The one I was doing for the final project of my internship,” she told them as she pushed herself up from the floor.
“That’s fantastic!” Echo and Jen exclaimed, displaying the excitement Sasha wished she could muster.
“It is. It’s a huge deal for my prospects with the station after I graduate, and with other networks if I have to look elsewhere,” Sasha agreed, following them into the now-familiar studio.
“Are you hungover from celebrating, or something?” Jen asked. “’Cause you don’t sound all that enthusiastic about it.”
“Watch it. I bet you guys can guess why I’m a little unenthused,” she told them, trailing off as she handed over the phone and turned the sound back on. She wandered off while they watched it, not needing to look at it personally to know every single word and frame.
“That was wonderful,” Jen assured Sasha after it wrapped up. “The depth you were able to achieve in that amount of time…the interviews…”
Sasha looked to Echo, who was watching her with sympathy. “You’re worried about Fox, aren’t you,” she stated, rather than asked.
Sasha nodded. “It—he inspired it, but not in the way that I’m afraid he’ll take it. And they used footage of some of his earlier games. It’s just, for years, I’ve listened to him every time he gets his hopes up over an opportunity, only to fall at the last minute, and the way that he blames himself every time. And I know he gets into his head sometimes and panics so that he freezes, and every time it happens he gets worse the next time around. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t think he can do it and make it as far as he wants to. I know that he can, and this piece… I don’t know, maybe I was trying to see if there was some way that looking into it from this angle could help me understand how to help him snap out of whatever it is he does to himself that makes him choke all the time.” Sasha rambled, all of the fears and rationalization of working on the story for the last few weeks tumbling from her mind in a jumble.
“He’ll get over it,” Echo assured her.
Sasha wasn’t so sure. “It’s a betrayal. I betrayed him,” she insisted. “He’s not going to let that go. Nor should he.”
“Oh, no, he
won’t let it go, but that doesn’t mean he won’t get over it. He’s still riding you on mistakes you made when you were in grade school,” Echo reminded her. “And you still give him a hard time about the stupid things he’s done over the years. It’s part of how you guys are as friends.”
Sasha flushed and slid her glance away from Echo.
“Or is there more going on between you now?” Echo asked slowly.
“Are you two together?” Jen pressed.
“I—I don’t know,” Sasha admitted. “Things are changing between us, and they seem to be moving in that direction. But I wanted to tell him about the story, first. I wanted to tell him before anything happened between us because he’s my friend. But I just haven’t been able to figure out how to tell him.”
“Wait,” Jen interjected and leaned in closer, speaking quietly though there was no one else in the room. “What do you mean, before anything happened? You slept with Fox?”
Sasha didn’t respond, but Jen’s and Echo’s expressions recognized the confirmation in her silence.
“It all just sort of happened.” The story spilled out. “And now I feel like a horrible person for this mess, and I just don’t know what to do that could make it right.”
“First off, call him and talk to him about it. There’s a chance he hasn’t seen it yet, and if you can be the one to tell him, go for it,” Echo advised.
“And if you’re sleeping with him, then—” Jen started, but Echo interrupted.
“Don’t finish that thought. At least, not when I’m around.” Echo made a choking noise. “Just like he doesn’t want to hear about me and Cole, I don’t want the details. He’s my little brother and I know that he—you know. But it doesn’t mean I want to talk about. Anyway, Sasha, this is between you and Fox, so you’re going to have to talk to him about it. But you guys are friends, even if you are moving in that direction, and you guys will be fine.”
