Tainted Butterfly

by Terri Anne Browning

  Her legs were starting to stiffen, her body trembling, and I knew she was close. The scent of her arousal was filling the room, intoxicating me, but I fought the urge to ease her to her back and push into her. It was something I would have done with any other girl, but not with Kassa. She deserved more than to be pulled from sleep by me forcing my dick into her tight heat. Fuck, she deserved more than anything I could offer her.

  But I wanted her to have this, even if she only thought it was a wet dream.

  Maybe she was dreaming of someone else.

  That thought had my hand flexing on her hip, jealousy eating at me like a disease trying to consume my sanity. But, even in my sudden insanity, I knew not to hurt her and eased my grip. I rubbed away the small pain I might have caused and her ass arched into my palm, seeking a firmer contact. Lifting my head, I watched as I gripped her again, but not nearly as hard.

  “Gray,” she moaned in a voice that was so full of need and lust that I nearly blew my load then and there. She had said my name—mine. Not some faceless douchebag’s. I was who she was thinking about, who she was dreaming of, and it only made me harder. “More,” she panted.

  I watched her face for a minute, but she was still asleep. Her lashes didn’t flutter once, and she was rubbing that sweet little pussy over me like I belonged to her. Right then, I wasn’t sure she was wrong. I wanted to belong to her, wanted her to be mine.

  That couldn’t happen; it shouldn’t happen. But I still gave her what she wanted. I lowered my other hand from her back to her ass and gripped both ass cheeks in my hands, just hard enough to make her whimper in pleasure. The hand she had traced her little doodles with on my skin the night before was biting into my bare back now, her short nails scratching deep, red lines over my skin.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, trying to hold on to what little restraint I still had on myself. But her thigh was brushing over my cock, pressing it into my inner thigh and driving me crazy.

  My hands moved lower until one was cupping her pussy from behind. I teased her opening with my middle finger while pressing her down hard on my thigh. Her heat burned me, making it impossible to make the right decisions that needed to be made then and there.

  I released her carefully so as not to wake her and carefully climbed out of bed. She moaned but rolled onto her stomach in her sleep, sighing in a half frustrated, half pained kind of way that didn’t make it any easier to leave her. I left her room, knowing that, if I stayed even a second longer, I was going to do something stupid, something that could ruin everything we had. I couldn’t fuck that up, not when she was everything to me.

  I went to my room, which was only next door, and took a long, ice-cold shower. When I was freezing and my balls felt like they had shriveled up from all the cold water I had tortured them with, I threw some old sweats on and grabbed my gym bag. I needed a workout, and because the kind I really wanted wasn’t ever going to happen, I would have to go to AJ’s Gym.

  The parking lot at the gym was empty except for AJ’s old hot rod, which was his baby. He had spent years restoring that damned thing, and the time and TLC he had put into it showed. The paint work was sweet, and the power under the hood had some scary muscle to it.

  As soon as I walked through the door, AJ’s head lifted from behind the computer screen. He narrowed his eyes, suspicious of anyone who wanted to work out so early the day after Christmas, but he never should have unlocked the door if he didn’t think anyone was going to use the gym.

  When he recognized me, his suspicious expression broke into a welcoming grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. Never thought I would see you again, punk.”

  I gave him a weaker smile, still mentally at odds with myself after what had happened in Kassa’s bed. “I think my membership has expired, but can I work out? It will only be for the day. I fly back to Cali in the morning.”

  “Fuck, boy, you know you don’t have to pay to work out in my gym. You’re a damn celebrity now.” He was watching me closely, as if trying to read me, but he couldn’t see what was going through my mind. “I bet Alicia and Kassa were happy to see you. Kas didn’t mention you coming home though, and I think I see that poor girl more than anyone else does.”

  Guilt churned through me at the thought of how alone Kassa had been over the last seven months. I talked to her every day, but a phone call didn’t make up for physical presence. Kas was the kind of person who needed to be around people to thrive, and lately, she had only herself for company.

  “I thought I would surprise them because they couldn’t fly out to be with me and Jace,” I explained and pulled my protein shake bottle from my bag before going over to the shake station, where AJ kept an assortment of different shake mixes in various flavors. My favorite was the peanut butter and banana, and I mixed the two together in the blender with two scoops of peanut butter and a whole banana. When it was smooth, I poured the contents into my bottle and cleaned my mess up. Years of living with Kassa and Alicia had taught me how to clean up after myself. Not to mention that AJ would have beaten my ass if I had left him to clean my mess up.

  “You find you a good gym out in Cali?” AJ asked, following me to the cardio equipment.

  I shrugged. “Good enough. Place is open twenty-four-seven, so that’s a bonus. I can get a workout any time I need one, but it’s not here. This place is like home for me. Always has been.”

  AJ’s was where I had found myself. Before the music had become my passion, it had been the gym. I had started working out to help temper the anger eating away at my brain, making it impossible to focus and nearly erupting a few times. Then I had started working out—running at first, and then weight training. It had helped me channel my rages into something healthier, something I could control. Working out, and Kassa, had saved me in the end.

  Thinking of Kassa, I clenched my shake bottle. She probably wasn’t awake yet, and I wanted to get my workout in and be home before she woke up.

  “You okay, Gray?”

  I lifted my head to find AJ still watching me. Between thinking of Kassa and what had happened earlier, I had completely forgotten that the big man was still standing there.

  “Just a lot on my mind, AJ,” I told him honestly, but I didn’t want to get into it. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and I didn’t want to talk about it. Not then, maybe not ever.

  Some of the hard lines on his face eased. “I get it, boy. But you ever need to talk, you know where I’m at.”

  “Yeah, man. Thanks.”

  With a nod, he left me to my workout. I turned my brain off and focused on burning calories.

  I couldn’t have Kassa. I couldn’t. She would be better off without me to complicate her life.

  I couldn’t let her go, either. She was my best friend. Not Sin. Not Kale. No one but Kassa understood me completely.

  But I didn’t think she could have understood what was happening to me right then. How could she, when I didn’t understand it, either?

  TWELVE

  Kassa

  I woke up feeling out of sorts. I’d had a weird dream but couldn’t remember what it had been about other than that Gray had been in it. My body felt tense—achy, almost. I was worried I was coming down with the flu, despite having gotten my flu shot. Other than the ache, however, I didn’t feel sick.

  Gray wasn’t beside me when I opened my eyes, but I could hear him laughing downstairs. A few minutes later, the garage opened and I figured that Alicia was feeling up to going to work. Not that it would have mattered if she was feeling better or not, she usually went to work regardless of a headache. She said that it helped her, but I didn’t understand how adding more stress from work could help a headache as painful as the ones she got.

  I went into the bathroom to take a shower. As I undressed, I found myself lightly brushing my fingers over my hips. They ached more than the rest of my body and I didn’t understand why, but when I brushed my fingertips over them, I couldn’t help but moan. It felt good to touch myself there. Even more so wh
en I let my hands glide around my sides to my stomach and I skimmed the fingertips of my right hand over my pussy.

  “Oh shit,” I whispered at how good it felt, and I wondered if my dream had been sexual and if that was why I was so … achy.

  Pink filled my cheeks as more thoughts filled my head. Had it really been sexual, and more importantly, had I done something I shouldn’t have while I’d been asleep? Oh no. Oh fuck! Had I touched Gray in my sleep? Did he know how much I liked and wanted him in that way?

  “No, no, no!” I whispered, tears burning my eyes.

  The way I felt about Gray was my secret. No one else knew that I loved him as more than a best friend because there was nothing I could do about it. He didn’t want me, couldn’t possibly want me, the way I wanted him. He would never in a million years see me as anything more than a friend.

  Even if it was the one thing I wanted most in the world, I could never let him know my feelings.

  Embarrassed, I hurried through a shower and then went downstairs. I found Gray at the kitchen table, eating an omelet, and drinking coffee. When he lifted his head as I entered the room, he didn’t immediately smile his usual smile in welcome, which made me pause. But then he grinned and stood, pulling out the chair across from his before reaching for the plate of scrambled eggs and lightly buttered toast and a glass of orange juice from the counter by the fridge.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  My cheeks hurt from burning so badly, but I moved to the table and took the seat he had pulled out for me. As I sat, he put the plate and the glass of juice in front of me.

  “There’s fruit in the fridge too. I’ve already washed it and chopped it up for you.”

  “Did you go grocery shopping?” Because I had eaten all the fruit in the house two days before and hadn’t had a chance to buy more yet.

  He shrugged as he retook his seat and sipped his coffee. “I went to AJ’s for a workout and then stopped to get a few things I noticed we were out of.”

  “Oh. Um, thanks.” I picked my fork up and took a small bite of the eggs. They tasted delicious, and I realized he had made them exactly the way I liked: with milk and a little cheese.

  We drifted into a tense silence, but I kept my eyes on my plate, mostly pushing the food around with my fork, unable to eat when I wasn’t sure if I had something to apologize for or not.

  “What’s wrong, Kas?” he muttered when the tension began to become too much for either of us. “Don’t you like your breakfast?”

  “No, no, it’s great. Thank you for making it for me.” I bit my lip and tried to gather my courage, afraid to ask the question I needed to, but knowing I had to do it. “I just… I—”

  His eyebrows lifted, but I could see without his having to say a word that he was holding himself back. He was edgy, but there was something in his eyes when he looked at me that made my heart beat harder. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “I’m sorry if I did anything in my sleep that I shouldn’t have,” I rushed out. “If I did or said anything that…that...” The pink burning my cheeks could have caused a forest fire. “I’m sorry,” I finally mumbled and looked back down at my plate.

  I wasn’t looking at him, not when his fork clattered as it hit his plate, not when he scooted his chair back in a rush. I couldn’t look at him, not when everything I was fighting would be so clear in my eyes. I heard his footsteps as he came around the table, and then he was crouching in front of me. He pulled my chair back so easily that it was like I wasn’t really sitting there and then turned it so that I was facing him.

  His thumb and his forefinger grasped my chin and lifted it just enough so I had to look at him. “You have nothing to be sorry about, little caterpillar. Nothing. I get it. It was just a dream. A really hot dream, but just a dream nonetheless.”

  “What did I do?” I demanded, my voice choked. “What did I say?”

  He shook his head at me. “Nothing that matters, so please stop worrying about it. Please?”

  “So…we’re okay?”

  His fingers moved from my cheek and cupped my jaw so tenderly that I nearly whimpered at how good it felt. “We will always be okay. No matter what, you and me, we will always be okay.”

  “Gray!” I reached out to hug him, but he had been about to move at the same time, and we crashed to the kitchen floor, with me on top of him, our bodies practically entwined. “Crap. Sorry.”

  He chuckled, but it seemed strained, and when I started to move off him, I felt why. Holy shit! Was that really his erection? Had I made him hard?

  Curiosity got the better of me before I could rein it in and I shifted my pelvis against him while watching his face. I saw his reaction before he could try to hide it, the way his eyes darkened and dilated. Lower, I felt him flex against my tummy and knew then and there that I had been wrong.

  Gray could feel for me what I felt for him. He did feel it. He was just too honorable to act on it.

  And holy God, he was massive. I could feel the outline of both his length and his thickness and couldn’t even imagine how something that big could fit inside anyone, let alone me. I had tried to picture what Gray’s cock would look like in the last year or so, had fantasized about it and touched myself. I had suspected he would have a nice-sized cock, but what I was feeling was beyond my wildest dreams.

  “Kassa, please,” he groaned when I shifted my hips and his nostrils flared. “I’m only so strong, baby.”

  “Why do you have to be strong?” I whispered, my embarrassment about what might or might not have happened while I had been asleep almost gone. I could feel and see exactly how much he wanted me, so there was no need to be embarrassed anymore.

  One hand lifted to push my hair back from my face, his fingers lingering for only a moment longer before falling to his side again. “Because this is wrong. We grew up together, under the same roof, with the same woman raising us. We’re like family.”

  “There isn’t a single drop of blood shared between us, Gray,” I reminded him.

  “No, but Alicia would think it’s wrong. She’s my aunt and legally your mother.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Alicia has never wanted to be called mom. She’s never made a point to remind any of us that legally we are family. Never. If you cared about me and I cared about you, then she would be happy for us.”

  His eyes took on that shuttered look, and I knew he was blocking out all the good arguments I had. “It’s still not right, Kassa. I’m no good for you. You know that. I’ve showed you that. Fuck, I’m just thankful you still want to be my friend after all the shit I’ve done over the years.”

  “I will always be your friend, dummy. But … I love you as more than just a friend,” I confessed on a whisper, knowing I was opening a door that should have always stayed shut and kept tightly bolted, but with this guy, I had to be completely open with him.

  He needed to know that I loved him before he could accept that what we felt for each other wasn’t dirty and wrong. His lashes flickered, but his eyes didn’t lose that shuttered look to them.

  “I have for years now. Despite your flaws. Despite all the shit you think makes you unlovable. I still love you. Completely. Forever.”

  “No, Kassa. You can’t. It’s … We can’t.”

  “Why?” I demanded, my heart aching. “Give me one good reason why we can’t.”

  He blew out a harsh breath and glared up at me. “Because I don’t do relationships. I just fuck and then I move on to the next chick. And you’re not the kind of girl I could do that with. If any other guy tried it with you, I would kill him. Do you honestly think I would allow myself to turn you into that kind of girl? That I want to hurt you like that?”

  I stroked my thumb over his cheek, my heart cracking wide open. But I couldn’t hate him for it. He was right; that was exactly what he did. He was a one-and-done kind of guy. In all the years I had known he was sexually active, I had never seen him with the same chick twice. Hell, once, I had heard him joking around wit
h Kale and Sin about having more than one girl during the same night after a party when they had all been seniors in high school. Gray would never be the kind of guy to settle down and be faithful.

  At least not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe not.

  “Kas?”

  I swallowed hard and then carefully lifted myself off him, trying to be strong after having handed him my heart and he basically told me that he didn’t want it. “I get it.”

  “I love you, Kassa.”

  Those words broke my heart a little more.

  He sat up but didn’t stand. Instead, he just sat there on the floor, looking up at me as I dropped back down into my chair. “I just … I don’t think I could ever be in love with anyone.”

  “Maybe you think that,” I murmured, holding my tears back so he wouldn’t see how ruined I was. “But, one day, you’ll find a girl who means everything and change your mind.”

  But she wouldn’t be me.

  I would have to live with that though. Have to move on and find a way to cope when he did find his “one” and I would be forced to watch him with her for the rest of our lives. Because I couldn’t give him up. If it was the only way I could have him, then I couldn’t let go of our friendship.

  “Kassa, I don’t want this to change things. I don’t … I can’t lose you.”

  The desperation in his voice sliced me open. I offered him my hand and he didn’t hesitate to take it. His long, thick fingers cupped mine, holding on like I was his last lifeline. I had known that this would happen; deep down, I had known that it would be just like this. And, the stupid idiot I was, I had let myself hope for more.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” I promised him with a small, sad smile. “You won’t lose me, Gray. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.”