by Selena Scott
She sniffed. “I should have played it cool.”
“What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have called you and asked you all those questions. Now you know just how pathetically lonely I am.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s what you’re embarrassed about? Inviting me over?”
He took her by the shoulders and held her six inches away from him, looking down at her. He loved how much shorter she was without her heels. It felt like his little secret. Like her heels and her fancy work clothes were war paint of some kind and he was the only one who got to see her all sweet and fuzzy and warm.
She closed the distance between them and hid her face again with a little embarrassed groan.
“Diana, you are not pathetically lonely. You could never, ever be pathetic. You kick ass. Seriously. You kick serious ass. You’re allowed to get lonely. I know I’m lonely a lot of the time. And I live with my siblings. Figure that one out.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Inviting me over is a good thing. A wonderful thing. Something I’ve dreamed about you doing for so long.” He paused. Did he protect himself in this moment? Or did he protect her? Frankly, it was no question. Not even a choice. He’d always protect Diana. “I almost didn’t come though.”
“Really?” She tipped her head back, her eyes a little pink around the rim but otherwise looking just as put together as usual. “Why?”
He let out a long breath. “I didn’t know if it was a trap or not.”
She laughed in surprise. “A trap?”
“Yeah.” He looked away from her. “You wanted to know why I’ve been cutting all our dinners short? Well, that night, after the glasses shop, I just got this feeling. I was pretty sure you were going to tell me that we were moving in a direction you weren’t sure about. I thought you’d tell me we had to go back to the way things had been. Before. When we weren’t spending time together.”
The expression on her face was all the confirmation that he needed that he’d been right. “Maybe I was going to do that,” she admitted.
“Why?” he asked softly.
“Because you’re the most confusing friend I’ve ever had. And just waiting-and-seeing how things turn out has never really been my style.”
He nodded, understanding. She wanted to control the situation. Even if it didn’t give her the outcome she wanted, she was more comfortable if she’d made it turn out one way or another. Because he knew now, with a bone-deep certainty, that she wanted him close. Her hands locked around his ribs were just about all the evidence he needed. She might have tried to push him away, but she wanted him close. He could work with that.
“You’re the most confusing friend I’ve ever had too,” he admitted. “But that’s not saying much because besides my siblings, you’re pretty much, like, my third friend.”
She laughed for a second and then sobered. “I’m sorry I tried to push you away.”
“I’m glad it didn’t work.”
“Me too.”
They stared at one another, him with his face tipped down, her with her face tipped up. They were balancing on the edge of something, they’d talked it all out except for one, very major, detail.
The fact that they weren’t really friends. They weren’t really friends at all.
They were two people who were trying very hard not to get naked and rub all their feelings out on one another.
If Diana hadn’t blinked, he might have taken his opening, told her exactly how badly he wanted to sleep in a bed with her every night. How much he wanted to see her with wet hair, wet skin, wet between her legs. How much he wanted her to tell him, every night, how her whole day had gone. How much he wanted to make her a sandwich she could take with her for lunch at work. He just wanted to tell her how much he wanted.
But she did blink. She broke the intense stare between them and looked down, her eyes dropping to his neck, then to his chest.
She took a step back and he let her, his arms falling to his sides. “Book?” he suggested, in what he hoped was a light tone of voice.
She nodded, turning on her heel and inviting him to the living room. He followed her.
***
Games between a man and a women had always been categorized in Diana’s mind as being characterized by a certain amount of deception. The whole he’s-just-not-that-into-you game. Or how-to-get-a-man-to-call-you-back game. Or how-many-dates-are-you-allowed-to-let-him-take-you-on-before-you-come-clean-that-you-are-never-going-to-sleep-with-him game. All games she’d found herself playing with various men in her life.
But whatever this was with Orion, it was not deceptive in the least. In fact, weirdly enough, this game was categorized by honesty. Go figure.
They curled up on the couch with the book and, though they hadn’t addressed their obvious feelings for one another, didn’t make any sort of pretense about where they might sit. They smashed their bodies together on the couch, curling into one another. Her knees tipped over onto his legs, his arm around her shoulders. And, as she read, his nose found its way into her hair and briefly up the long line of her neck.
After twenty or so minutes, she shifted to get more comfortable and Orion dragged her legs completely over his lap, one of his strong hands circling her ankle, rubbing a pattern into the side of her foot.
This time, they didn’t feel the need to read until they fell asleep. This time, Diana set the book aside, her eyes steady on his. “I’m tired,” she told him.
“Me too.” His voice was low, his eyes searching.
She rose up and tipped her head back, toward the part of the house he hadn’t seen before. She led him to her bedroom. He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute and when he came back out, his face was damp and he smelled like her toothpaste. She sat on the bed, her knees up to her chin, and watched him as he toed off one boot and then the other. She gulped when he yanked his T shirt over his head, setting it on the chair next to her bed, and then his jeans on top of that.
He wore athletic boxers, the stretchy kind, and they pinned something thick and long to his left leg. Diana stared between his legs for a long second before she pulled the covers back even further.
He clicked off the bedside lamp, plunging them into darkness and then she held her breath. The bed dipped under his weight and she heard the sinuous sound of him slipping under the covers. Still curled up in a ball with her chin on her knees, she wasn’t altogether surprised when his strong, sure hand looped around her back and pulled her toward him.
She folded like a bad hand of cards and let him stretch her out against him, her leg slipping over his thighs, her head finding the crook of his shoulder. He took her hand and laid it flat against his chest, his heart pounding underneath her fingertips.
It was that steady beat that lulled her to sleep. So strong, so dependable. So Orion.
***
Diana often made him feel like he was being tortured in heaven. Or pleasured in hell. He could never decide. The following morning was no different.
Because he woke up with most of her weight spread over top of him, her hair tumbled over his face. He could feel that her small, loose shirt had ridden most of the way up in the night and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Both of his hands were pressed flat against her bare back and her soft breasts were smashed against his chest hair. Torture in heaven. Diana’s body heavy against his with absolutely nothing to do about it. He’d never been this hard in his life. He could feel his boner trying to lift his very tight underwear away from his body.
He was dizzy and having trouble getting enough oxygen to his brain. Her breaths were long and even as she slept through the rising sun.
Something was different though than it had been the night before.
A memory swam up from the middle of the night. She’d been rustling around on the bed.
“You all right?” he’d asked her.
“I’m hot,” she’d mumbled. “You’re like a heating blanket.”
She’d rustled
around some more, he’d heard the sound of something hitting the ground, and then she’d come back to him, nestling in.
He peered to the side, in the direction where he’d heard the thing hit the ground and his eyes widened. She’d thrown her swishy pants onto the ground in the night. Which meant— yup. He moved his legs a centimeter to either side and felt the smooth lengths of her legs pressed naked against his.
And that’s when he knew he wasn’t imagining the searing heat of her pussy against his morning wood.
When he’d first awoken, he’d told himself that it was ridiculous. There was no way that he could actually feel her wet heat through her underwear, her pajama pants, and his underwear. But could he feel it through just her underwear and his? Yeah. Maybe.
He shifted his hips just the tiniest bit, needing to adjust himself but not wanting to jostle her at all. But even that tiny bit of movement was enough to have his waistband sliding down his dick as it filled itself with even more heat and pressure.
Because now his very bare dick was pressed hard against the seam of her very wet panties. Shit, that was not what he’d meant to make happen. She wasn’t awake. This wasn’t right. He moved his hands down to her hips, about to move her away from him when her fingers tightened against his ribs, where she’d been holding him.
His own fingers tightened in response, gripping her smooth skin, taut across her hips. And then her fingers tightened again. Twice this time. Sending him a signal? Telling him she was awake?
He tightened his fingers twice in response.
Her breath faltered and she made a little noise in her throat.
He suddenly understood the game. They were playing a little game that went something along the lines of I’m awake but don’t want to be responsible for my actions quite yet. It was tempting. So tempting to play. So hot. But it wasn’t Orion’s style. He didn’t want to misunderstand her. He didn’t want to take anything she wasn’t expressly giving.
He started to duck his hips away from her, tip her to one side, when she moved her head, her eyes wide and open, alert, and she used her weight to push him back down.
He let out a long breath, their eyes trapped on one another as she wiggled, just a little bit. Her movement was a morning stretch more than anything. But it slid her heat an inch or two down his shaft. She was so wet that he almost forgot there was a strip of cloth between them. He gasped and forced himself to keep his hips completely still. He didn’t want to do absolutely anything that could break this spell. He barely let breath escape his lips.
She stretched again and rubbed against him in the other direction. His hands on her back mimicked the motion of her pussy against his dick. Up and down. Real slow.
She was so wet she might as well have been bare against him. He could feel thick beads of precome starting to slide down his shaft.
He huffed air and kept his hips still, the only part of himself he allowed to move was his hands along her back.
He wondered, for a moment, what the end-game was here. She seemed to be lazily playing against him, teasing him in the morning light. But any more of this and he was going to come all over her leg. Maybe he should mention that?
Just then, they both jolted when her alarm went off on the opposite side of the bed. They both froze, feeling as if some cosmic adult had come along and flipped the lights on while they’d been fooling around. Diana laughed and shook her head, going up on all fours over top of him to reach the alarm. Her shirt, which Orion had liked so much last night because of the skin it showed on her belly, fell immediately into place and blocked his view of her chest.
Now he had very mixed feelings about the shirt.
She groaned and stretched and rolled away from him. “Mmm. Gotta get going or I’ll be late for work.”
She stretched one more time and then was up, off the bed and sauntering down the hall toward her bathroom. He could merely watch her go. He did not mind the view of her backside in her black, cotton underwear one bit. Her endless legs and tiny shirt that he was back to loving.
But honestly, he was so muddled and stunned by what had just happened that he couldn’t even properly ogle her as she made her way down the hall.
He looked down at his dick. It was shiny with her arousal.
“I’m not crazy, right?” he asked his dumbly hopeful bodypart. It had apparently not gotten the memo that Diana was getting ready for work and happy time was over. “That really happened?”
His dick provided no adequate answer to him. So Orion merely got up, got dressed, and met her in the kitchen for coffee before work.
CHAPTER TEN
The next night they didn’t even have plans but he found himself standing on her front porch, knocking anyways. He’d eaten dinner at work, shooting the shit with some of the guys once they’d finally finished a move that had taken forever. The boxes hadn’t been heavy. But they’d been endless. How could one couple possibly have that much crap? He’d wanted to come find Diana right away, but for the first time ever, Rick had asked if Orion wanted some pizza. Orion didn’t want to pass up on the offer. He had them order a cheeseless pizza -and this was Portland, so that was hardly weird- and ate with his coworkers in the back of the moving van, the doors and windows open wide to the night air.
But now, work was done, he’d gone home and showered, and here he was on Diana’s porch.
She looked surprised to see him. Already in a big pajama shirt that went to her knees, her hair spilling around her shoulders, she wordlessly let him in.
He poured himself a glass of water in her kitchen, drank it down, and turned to her.
“Want a popsicle?” she asked, digging through her freezer. Turned out, he did. The two of them sat on her kitchen counter, ate popsicles, and talked about their day.
“Wanna read?” Diana asked him, her nerves in her eyes.
He nodded.
She went to the living room and got the book.
Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes. His inner voice chanted as he watched her make her way down the hall toward her room.
He gave her a minute and then went and washed up in the bathroom, joining her in her bedroom. Just like the other night, she sat on her side of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chin, watching him like an owl might watch a wolf walking past in the dead of the night.
He shucked off his shirt and pants, lined everything up neatly and then joined her on the bed. He had a choice here. He could keep relying on the book to give them the excuse to lay together, or he could cut the shit and turn off the light.
Not a huge fan of middlemen, Orion turned off the light and tugged her toward him. When they woke up the next morning, it was much the same way as it had been the morning before. Him on his back, their bodies tangled, his dick pressed firmly against her underwear.
Only this time, he was certain she was awake. He could feel her eyelashes brushing open and closed against his bicep. This time she didn’t rub against him. She just held, held, held there, her breaths harsh and jagged against his skin.
She was getting wetter and wetter, slowly soaking through her underwear and his. This time, when the alarm went off, it was Orion who was slapping the damn clock off the nightstand. Again, she laughed, stretched and went to get ready for work. She fed him vegan waffles, orange juice, and coffee, sending him on his way without even the briefest of mentions at whatever the hell was happening between them.
The next night was a warm spring night, muggy with recent rain and the air thick with mosquitoes that had hatched a few weeks earlier than normal.
Orion swatted them away as he stood on Diana’s porch.
He was sweaty from the move from hell. The woman they’d moved had had a -literal- collection of anvils. Some of them the size of his hand and some of them as tall as his knees. It had taken four of them and a handtruck to move some of them.
He wasn’t normally easily irritable, but it had been such a hot, trying day, and he was so completely confused by what was going on with Diana that he hadn’t even bothered to
go home before he went to Diana’s.
He showed up on her doorstep having sweated through his shirt and jeans, mosquitoes squashed on his arms, a scowl on his face.
He was going to ask her. No. Better yet, he was going to demand that she tell him what the hell was going on.
But then she answered her door in a pair of underwear and that halvsie shirt, a popsicle in her mouth and one foot resting on top of the other, her hair falling in sheets over her shoulders.
And all of his irritation just melted away. He suddenly found himself willing to be confused for the rest of his life if it meant he got to be this close to her.
She frowned at the sweaty mess he was and beckoned him inside. Shutting the door behind him, she pushed the other half of her popsicle into his mouth and walked, hips swaying, into her bathroom. She turned on the shower, pointed to the guest towels and left the room.
So. He was showering. And then he was staying. That much was clear. He wasn’t getting into her bed a sweaty, bug bitten mess, but he was getting into her bed. He took extra care washing himself, partially because her soap smelled so good and partially because he felt like his dick would go off like a gun if he so much as breathed on it and jizzing in her shower felt like a low-class move.
Eventually, he toweled off and frowned at his gross, damp clothes in a pile on the floor. Damn. He’d really not thought this through enough. With the towel around his waist doing very little to hide his monumental erection, he walked back to Diana’s bedroom. He’d expected her to be in that same, knees-to-her-chin position, but instead, she was stretched out on her stomach, her eyes closed and her gorgeous ass barely covered by her underwear. She’d kicked the sheets down to her knees.
“Diana,” he murmured.
“Mmm?” her eyes fluttered open and then closed.
“I don’t have anything to change into.”
Her eyes came open then, saw his towel, and she nodded sleepily. “Thas okay,” she slurred, obviously partly in dreamland. “It’s too hot for clothes anyways.”
