More than Friends - Monica Murphy

by Monica Murphy

  “And…what?” He almost looks amused. “You fell for her trick? Who am I with right now? Isn’t that the most important thing?”

  I ignore his question. “I got—mad.” And jealous. I have no photos of Jordan and me together. None. And in this social media driven world we live in, if there’s no photographic proof, then it didn’t happen.

  “I danced with her because I had to. The homecoming king and queen always have to dance together after they’re crowned. It’s tradition. The second the song was done, I was out,” he explains.

  “Until you showed up at Yo Town with her.”

  “It was a group of us getting frozen yogurt. I just went along with it.” He shrugs. Jordan Tuttle is not one to go “along with it”. So why did he?

  “Did you know I was working at Yo Town when you went there?”

  He looks the slightest bit contrite. “Maybe.”

  “Oh. My. God!” I shove at his chest, wishing I could pull him in closer to me. But I’m still mad at him.

  Sort of.

  “You were spying on me,” I say when he remains quiet. And he still remains quiet, which makes me uneasy. “Were you trying to make me jealous?”

  “Never. I just.” He hesitates, his gaze locking on mine. “I just wanted to see you.”

  Now it’s my turn to remain quiet. He’s stunned me silent. He has this way of making me feel special with just a look, a few choice words. And we’re having this crazy conversation-slash-argument in his giant closet, with me still wearing only his jersey and my dress clutched in my hand. I just need to get dressed and get out of here.

  But where would I go? Who would drive me? I guess Jordan could take me home, but then I’d have to explain why I wasn’t spending the night at Liv’s. I could go back to Liv’s house, but I don’t think she’s home. She’s still with Ryan most likely. And no way am I going to Ryan’s house. They’re probably banging at this very moment.

  The pang of envy deep inside me doesn’t go unnoticed.

  “So Amanda.” Jordan’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and I meet his gaze once more.

  “Yeah?”

  “Got anything else on under my jersey?” he asks.

  Oh. I lift my chin, hoping for confident. Probably failing miserably. What’s the point of arguing when we’re just going to end up tangled together anyway? That’s what I want. I think he wants it too.

  “Maybe you should do a little exploring and find out for yourself.”

  His expression turns thunderous and he grabs hold of my waist just as I try to get away from him. He pulls me in, his hands immediately diving beneath the hem of his jersey and grabbing hold of my butt.

  “Still got your panties on,” he murmurs as those big hands grab hold of both cheeks and gives them a squeeze. A shuddery sigh escapes me, and when he slips his hands underneath my panties and touches bare skin, I close my eyes. Press my lips together to contain the moan that wants to spill out.

  “Jordan,” I whisper, but he kisses me silent. It’s an aggressive kiss, full of tongue and heat and we’re only a few seconds in before he breaks away from my eager lips and hauls me over his shoulder, carrying me caveman-style out of his closet and straight for his bed.

  Now I’m yelling his name in protest. Pounding on his back with my fists. He ignores me, his hand coming up to smack me lightly on the butt, and I hiss out a breath, nearly fainting at the way he gently caresses my backside right after he slapped it.

  This is getting weird.

  He tosses me on the bed and follows me down, so he’s hovering above me, his face in mine, my back flat on the mattress. “You’re loud,” he tells me. “My mom might hear you.”

  My eyes go wide. I would die if she barged in here to see what was going on. Just…die. “I-I’m sorry.”

  “Gonna have keep your mouth covered if you can’t keep quiet,” he says with a smirk, those expert hands of his tunneling up the inside of the jersey, touching me in all the right places.

  I close my eyes, a little moan escaping me when he traces my lacy bra, and he lightly clamps his hand across my mouth, silencing me. My eyes flash open to find him watching me carefully.

  “Shhh,” he whispers, his thumb gently stroking my cheek. “Quiet, baby.”

  I melt at him calling me baby. This entire situation is weird yet hot. He’s using a little force on me—just enough to scare me, but not enough to make me run screaming from his room. I try my best to calm my breathing, my racing heart, our gazes never straying from each other’s. When he slowly lifts his hand away from my face, he leans in and kisses me. Surprisingly, it’s gentle. A mere brushing of lips on lips, and I feel that simple kiss all the way to my curled toes.

  He keeps kissing me, and it’s nice, more than nice. But I want more. I become restless. I lift my hips against his knee and he shifts away, breaking the kiss to slowly shake his head. “No grinding on my knee tonight. I want to touch you.”

  My insides tremble. I want him to touch me too. Jordan shifts away from me and takes off the jersey I’m wearing, his fingers sliding over my stomach, between my breasts, along my collarbone. When he undoes the front clasp of my bra, he takes it off, sliding the scrap of lace down my arms and tossing it on the floor. And then he’s kissing my chest, cupping my breasts, stroking and sucking and doing all sorts of wondrous things that make me want to scream.

  I must get close to screaming because his hand is back on my mouth, keeping me mute. I let him keep it there, closing my eyes when his other hand drifts down, caressing my stomach, smoothing over one hipbone, then the other, just before he dives his fingers down the front of my panties.

  And that’s almost all it takes. He touches me there, so carefully at first, so tentatively that I almost want to shout at him more. But I remain quiet, his hand still loosely covering the lower half of my face, his other hand in my panties. I squirm against his touch, spreading my thighs, inviting him in, and he takes the invitation. Stroking me, testing me, slipping one thick finger inside me…

  “Oh God.” The words are muffled behind his hand and he removes it, kissing me again, before he slides his lips down to my throat, behind my ear. I wince when his fingers fumble, a distressed noise leaving me, and he pauses. Goes completely still.

  “Did I hurt you?” He sounds worried.

  I shake my head. Shift my hips. “Not really.”

  His mouth is at my ear. “Tell me what you like.”

  I absolutely cannot answer that. Please. I am way too new at this sex thing and he is Jordan Tuttle, the sex god.

  “Tell me, Mandy.” He kisses my ear. Nibbles it. Makes me squirm again. “I want to know what you like.”

  “I don’t know,” I finally tell him, mumbling so low I hope he doesn’t hear me. Which is dumb, but I’m feeling so inept. So inexperienced compared to him. He’s been with so many girls. A countless list of girls I don’t want to think about. They’ve been with him like this, wrapped up in his arms like this, his mouth on theirs, his hands…everywhere.

  I hate to think about it. So I push all of those negative thoughts out of my head and focus on right now.

  Jordan is persistent. He touches me in different spots, asking if I like it. And when he touches one spot in particular that makes me see a few sparkly stars in my peripheral vision, I tell him don’t stop. I might’ve even begged him. He increases his pace and, with his other hand, tugs my panties down past my hips, to my thighs, until I’m helping him and kicking them off myself. I am completely naked with Jordan in his bed, his fingers between my thighs, and I am so close to exploding I’m afraid I might fall completely apart.

  I’ve never felt so alive.

  Amanda clings to me, her long legs tangled with mine, her arms wrapped around my neck as she breathes hard. My head rests on her chest and the wild thump, thump of her beating heart calms me. Reminds me that this moment is happening. That what I just did to her is one hundred percent real.

  Being with her is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and it’s…
terrifying. That quick encounter with my father tonight reminded me that spending time with her is wrong. Stringing her along, stringing myself along. Pretending I believe in relationships and that what Amanda and I could have could ever be healthy and strong. It’s all lies.

  We won’t work out. Something—me—will screw it up. I am my father’s son. And I am my mother’s son too. That conversation with my mother earlier had been downright painful. She’d been drinking, and after popping a few anti-anxiety pills, that combination always sends her into near hysterics.

  She ranted on and on about her cheating husband. How I should turn my heart to stone to prevent it from ever being broken. She claimed I have a more sensitive heart, that I’m more like her than my father, who’s cold and calculating and flat out heartless.

  Maybe she’s right after all. I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise for years. I’m not sensitive. I don’t care about anyone. I don’t have real friends and I definitely don’t need a relationship. Girls are nothing but trouble.

  Amanda changed everything. Even when I was twelve, she scared me. And not in a bad way—more like in a good way. It scared the shit out of me how much I actually liked her. And the more time I spent watching her, listening to her, seeing her every day in various classes over the years, the more I liked her.

  The more I eventually knew I had to make her mine.

  And now here she is. Lying in my arms completely naked. I just made her come and damn, she is beautiful when that happens. I don’t think I could ever get tired of making her come again and again.

  “I want to touch you,” she murmurs into my neck. She shifts closer to me, her naked body brushing against mine, and I smooth my hand along her hip, trying to keep myself under control.

  “You’re tired.”

  “Not too tired to keep this going.” She kisses my jaw once. Twice. Three times. Sweet little kisses that bring her lips closer and closer to mine. “It’s your turn.”

  I turn my head and kiss her fully, effectively shutting her up. When I pull away she’s watching me with flushed cheeks and stars in her eyes. “This is ridiculous. I’m completely naked and you’re completely clothed.”

  “I like you this way.” I squeeze her ass because it’s perfect and I can’t stop touching it. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I want to worry about you.” She reaches for the front of my shirt and starts unbuttoning it. “This moment rates high in my fantasies.”

  “You have fantasies? About me?” That’s intriguing. Wonder if she’ll tell me them someday. I have a few I could share with her too.

  She bats at my chest. “Stripping you of your clothes is a pretty fine fantasy to have, don’t you think?”

  “As long as I’m the one benefitting from this fantasy, then hell yes.”

  Her fingers brush against my skin with every button she slips undone, and then my shirt is open and she’s spreading the fabric away from my chest, trying her best to tug it completely off. I sit up and get rid of it, tossing the shirt on the floor before I rejoin her.

  “Not good enough.” She’s reaching for the fly of my jeans and it’s my turn to bat her hands away. She accidentally brushes her fingers against my dick, and I’m done for. I’ll probably come in my jeans and that would be all sorts of messed up.

  “It’s either we do this or talk about your dad,” she tells me, sincerity glowing in her pretty brown eyes.

  And there goes my erection.

  I fall onto the mattress right next to her, exhaling loudly. “You want to talk about my dad right now?”

  She shrugs and pulls the comforter over us, then snuggles in close to me. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. I know that what happened at the restaurant wasn’t—pleasant for you.”

  The mildest way she could’ve put it. I’d barely looked at the man and became enraged. My behavior was completely over the top.

  But my family is pretty fucking ridiculous, so…

  “I’m here for you, Jordan, if you ever need to talk. Or even if you don’t want to talk, you know?” She hugs me. Kisses my chest with those lush, beautiful lips.

  I say nothing. How can I answer her? I love that she wants to be there for me, but I can’t rely on her. I can’t rely on anyone.

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she whispers against my chest before she lifts her gaze to mine. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

  “Mess what up?”

  She shifts so she’s now kissing my stomach. Again and again, her lips soft and damp and making me shiver. Her fingers fumble over the front of my jeans and she hesitates.

  “Do you want this?”

  Fuck yes, I want to shout, but I remain calm. Neutral. I don’t need to act like a crazy man when I’m with her.

  But Amanda makes me want to lose my mind.

  She starts undoing the front of my jeans and I help until I’m as naked as her. Her slender fingers slip around my erection and I close my eyes. Grit my teeth. Tell myself I need to keep my shit together.

  “Tell me what you like,” she whispers, a direct copy of what I asked her earlier. “I want to make you feel good, Jordan. Tell me. Show me.”

  So I tell her. I show her. And she’s hesitant at first. A little puzzled yet fascinated, and it’s the fascination that gets me. She just wants to make me happy. She’s not using me for my money or my status. Amanda likes me. And I don’t get why.

  I don’t.

  When she puts her mouth on me, it’s nothing like those other times. With those other girls, girls whose names I forget, girls who meant nothing to me. It’s so much better with Amanda. Everything’s better as long as she’s part of it.

  And that’s the scariest part of all.

  “We need to talk.”

  The four worst words in the English language, spoken by my father. My day couldn’t get any shittier than this and it’s only just begun. I’m in bed, it’s—I look at my phone—almost ten o’clock in the morning and here he is, bringing me down. Ruining everything.

  Like usual.

  “What about?” I snap as I sit up in bed, then run a hand through my hair. My respect for him went out the window a long time ago. I can’t hardly look at him. After what happened at the restaurant between us last night, I’m done. Yet here he is, strutting into my bedroom on a Sunday morning like he has every right.

  I guess he does, since this is his house. But it’s like he’s a stranger. An imposter. A man that doesn’t belong here—and who isn’t wanted here. His showing up like this has ruined my good mood. Being with Amanda last night soothed me. She’s good for me.

  Too good for me.

  “Your mother and I have been talking.” He looms near the door, as if prepared to leave if he needs to. The way I’m glaring, I guess I can’t blame him. “You need to get serious about college.”

  “How am I not serious about college?” I ask incredulously. “I play football. I’m in honors classes. I get good grades. I’m doing everything I can here to make this shit happen.”

  He ignores everything I say. “I want to take you to Oregon this afternoon. I’ve already arranged for a plane, and I’ve scheduled some appointments first thing Monday morning.”

  “With who?” This is my opportunity to tell him I don’t want to go to the University of Oregon. That’s his dream for me, not my dream. I don’t want to leave this state. There are better colleges here. I don’t understand his fixation.

  But he doesn’t care what I want. It only matters what he wants.

  “With the dean of students, and with the head coach and his staff. I know we’ve toured the facility before, but this time it’s serious. We’re serious. No more distractions allowed. The parties need to stop. The girls need to stop, especially that one your mother just met. You don’t need to break any hearts this year, Jordan. You need to focus.” The stern look my father sends me makes most men cower in defeat. Not me though.

  I learned from a master. I stare back, not saying a word.

  “Tak
e a shower and pack an overnight bag. We leave in a few hours.” And with that, he’s gone. With that, I’m dismissed.

  Grabbing my phone, I roll over on my side and scroll through my notifications. There’s a Snapchat from Amanda that came about thirty minutes ago and I open it to find a photo of her in bed, her eyes sleepy, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, her smile soft.

  And so fucking sweet, it kills me to look at her like that. Pretty and open and vulnerable and all mine. The caption tears me apart.

  Last night was amazing. I miss you.

  She added a few heart emojis and just seeing them totally slays me. I drove her home early this morning, dropping her off down the street from her house before eight. She was worried about my parents finding her in my bed. And if I would’ve had my way, it could’ve happened. I wouldn’t have cared either.

  But she would’ve. I don’t want to disrespect her. I care about her too damn much.

  Frustration slides through me and I want to punch something. It’s ridiculous. My feelings for her are ridiculous. But they’re also real. So incredibly real, she’s all I can think about. She consumes me.

  Yet I can’t have her.

  Inhaling deeply, I let it all out and close my eyes. Press my hands over them. I can’t do this. I can’t keep this up. What Amanda and I have will eventually end. Hell, I can already see the end. I need to let her down gently. I don’t want to hurt her, though it’ll happen. I know it will. I’ll hurt myself too because I can’t resist her. Why would I want to?

  I don’t send her a reply. I don’t text her. I don’t call her. If I’m going to do this, I need to quit cold turkey. If this is what my dad wants, I need to do it. He’ll cut me off. He’ll screw me over. Damn it, I need him. I’m not even eighteen yet. He calls all the shots. I have to do what he says.