Pleasured By You

by Steph Nuss

  I looked up at him, but the person who caught my attention was the guy standing next to him.

  Fletcher Fucking Haney.

  Seriously?

  “Hey, Rook,” Vail said, in a sweet voice.

  “I didn’t know you were in the program,” he said, never taking his eyes off her.

  “I could say the same about you,” she giggled nervously. She looked over at me and waved her hand at me. “Rook, this is my Big, Bayler. Bayler, this is Rook. We go to school together.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling.

  He nodded and then introduced us to his Big, Fletcher.

  I mentally shook my head at Fletcher’s presence. If he paid some sweet kid to be his Little just to get my attention, I was going to kill him. That was beyond low.

  “Would you like to go get some ice cream?” Rook offered.

  “Sure,” Vail said, standing up from her seat. She turned to Fletcher and me and smiled. “We can bring you guys something back. What kind do you want?”

  “Vanilla and chocolate twist, please,” I said.

  “Just vanilla for me,” Fletcher said, sliding onto the bench next to me.

  We silently watched them walk toward the line for ice cream, and then I turned toward Fletcher and frowned. “Please tell me you didn’t hire some kid to be your Little just so you could come talk to me.”

  “If I want to talk to you, I’ll talk to you. I don’t need some kid’s help,” he sneered.

  “Well, if one more person introduces you to me,” I stated, glaring at him, “I’m going to strangle you just so the madness stops.”

  He laughed, smiling mischievously. “Oh, come on. You love it.”

  “Yeah,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “I just love how you seem to show up wherever I am.”

  “I thought Grams talked to you about Big Brothers Big Sisters?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

  I thought back to my interview with Teddy. She had mentioned her grandson was involved with the program, but I’d forgotten. I was too pissed off about Fletcher owning a bakery to remember he was a Big.

  “Rook’s been my Little since he was eight years old,” Fletcher confessed, studying my face. “He lives in the same building as my grams. After his dad died while being deployed in Iraq, Rook started acting out. His mom entered him in the program since she knew Grams had done the same with me after my parents died. I knew what he was going through then, how pissed off he was, how unfair life felt. He’s a good kid, always has been. He just needed someone who understood how he felt. He’s like a real little brother to me.”

  I smiled, realizing I was in awe of him. Even though he annoyed the hell out of me by popping back into my life, he still made me swoon with the way he cared for Rook.

  “He also has a serious hard-on for your Little,” he added, laughing.

  “Fletcher!” I scowled, hitting him in the chest. There went all my swooning.

  “What?” he asked with a shrug. “It’s true. You should’ve seen him before we came over here. What. A. Mess.”

  Laughing, I followed his line of sight and found Vail and Rook. They’d moved up in line, but they were still a ways back. Vail had just said something that made Rook laugh. Good, I thought. Guys love girls who can make them laugh.

  “I think it’s cute that they have a crush on each other,” I commented, smiling over at Fletcher. “Vail told me he’s really good at football.”

  “He is,” Fletcher said, nodding. “His dream is to go pro someday. I hope he makes it.”

  He was so proud of Rook, which made me understand why girls like Vail and me liked boys like Rook and Fletcher. They had goals and they set out to achieve them. “I hope so, too.”

  Fletcher’s hand grazed my knee under the table, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, I heard you got the job.”

  “I did,” I stated with conviction. The sexy gleam in his eyes drove my insides crazy with need. One look from him, one touch of his hand, and I turned into a hot puddle of lust on a picnic bench. He didn’t care that I’d gotten the job. He wanted to know if I’d made a decision regarding his deal.

  And I had. Right then and there, I’d made my decision. I still didn’t know whether it was the right one or not, but at this point I didn’t really care anymore. I just knew I wanted him again.

  “Yes,” I answered softly, looking down at his arm.

  “Yes, what?” he asked playfully.

  “I’ll give you benefits,” I said. “On two conditions.”

  “Of course, there are conditions,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Name ‘em.”

  “First, they don’t ever find out.” I nodded toward Vail and Rook. “No fuck-me looks, no touching, no sexual innuendos, nothing around them. Got it?”

  “Got it. Next?”

  “Nobody else needs to know, especially my siblings, your grams, and our friends. You want to talk about how great I am in bed, you talk to me about it. Okay?”

  “Same goes to you, sweetheart,” he countered, running his eyes over my body. His eyes finally found mine again and then he smirked. “Now that that’s settled, I need your help. I promised Rook that we’d get Vail’s number by the time we left here.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m not giving you her number to give to him,” I replied. “She already has a dad who doesn’t want to see her. She doesn’t need a boy who won’t call her when he says he will.”

  “I wasn’t asking you to give me her number.” He sighed, running his hand through his beautiful golden locks. “I just thought maybe we could help them out. You know, maybe they could spend more time together?”

  “Keep going . . .”

  “What if the four of us do something together? Like go to the movies or hang out at my house in the Hamptons? Does Vail like the beach?”

  “You have a house in the Hamptons?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, it’s right on the beach.”

  Seriously? Why did he have to have everything I liked? I liked baking; he had a bakery. I liked the beach; he had a beach house. I liked sex; he had a package he knew how to use.

  “So what do you think?” he asked, looking over at the line for ice cream. “They’re headed back this way.”

  “I think that sounds great, but I don’t know how we’re going to get him to ask for her number.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got it all planned out,” Fletcher said, tapping his finger to his temple.

  Rook and Vail joined us at the table, placing our cups of ice cream in front of us. The three of us had the chocolate and vanilla twist while Fletcher just had plain vanilla. What was his deal with plain-Jane desserts?

  “So, what have you guys been talking about?” Rook asked, scooping a bite of ice cream into his mouth.

  Fletcher and I both looked at each other, trying to figure out how to answer him.

  “Um, Fletcher was just telling me about his house in the Hamptons,” I said, twirling my spoon around in my cup.

  “That’s cool,” Vail said, smiling at Fletcher. “Is it near the beach?”

  “It’s actually on the beach,” Rook answered, excitedly. “It’s huge.”

  “You guys should come out with us some time,” Fletcher said, eying me triumphantly.

  “Yeah, you should,” Rook said, smiling at Vail.

  “That sounds like fun,” Vail said hopefully, her big blue eyes begging me to agree with them.

  “Definitely,” I said, smiling at the three of them. Fletcher had set him up perfectly. What a great wingman.

  “Maybe we can get your guys’ numbers and plan to hang out some time next week?” Fletcher asked.

  “Yeah,” Rook said, nudging Vail playfully. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “What’s your number?”

  He plugged her number in and then texted her so she had his. Her phone chimed with an incoming text, and she looked so smitten as she saved his number. Rook started showing her the apps he had on his phone, and Vail listened to every word he said as if s
he were hypnotized by each one. God, I couldn’t even remember being that mesmerized by a boy back when I was a teenager. Feeling my own phone vibrate in my shorts, I grabbed it and checked the screen.

  Text Message . . . from a number not in my contacts.

  I peered up at Fletcher and he was wearing his signature smirk, confirming my thoughts: the message was from him.

  Fletcher: Hey, fuck buddy. Here’s my number.

  Me: How did you get my number?

  Fletcher: Your resume.

  Me: Do not call me your duck buddy.

  Fletcher: Ha, your what?

  Me: Fuck. Do not call me your fuck buddy!

  Fletcher: We’re breaking the rules, remember?

  ***

  Later that night, Vail and I were hanging out at her place watching Pretty Little Liars. She owned all of the seasons on DVD, and insisted we start from the beginning so that I could catch up on her favorite show. I really didn’t mind; it was actually pretty good for an ABC Family show. I’d noticed her checking her phone a lot while we watched, hoping for a text from Rook. As season one ended and she was putting in the first disc for season two, her phone finally chimed with a text and she lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw who it was from.

  Thank you, Rook, I thought. If I had to explain to her what assholes high school boys could be, I was going to tie Fletcher’s dick into a knot.

  “It’s Rook,” she said, smiling brightly.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked rhetorically.

  “He’s playing video games with Fletcher,” she commented, as she typed a message back to him. She pressed play on the remote and season two started up. Her phone chimed again and she happily read his reply and then typed out another message to him.

  She looked like she wanted to hug her phone, and that daydreamy look on her face made me like Rook so much more for putting it there. She deserved to have a boy like her and treat her well. Her father wasn’t a good example of what a man should be, but Vail didn’t play the daddy issues card. I appreciated that about her. She had self-respect just like her mother.

  “Rook wants to know if we’d like to go to a movie with them tomorrow,” Vail said, her blue eyes shimmering with giddiness. “What do you think?”

  “I think you really want to go to a movie with him,” I teased, tossing a throw pillow at her.

  She knocked it away and laughed. “I really do.”

  “Really?” I joked, as she typed a message back to him.

  “Yes!” she giggled, covering her cheeks with her hands. “I like Rook Ballard! There, I said it!”

  I laughed at how relieved she appeared after getting those words off her chest. “Do you feel better?”

  “I do actually,” she confessed, removing her hands from her face. I had a feeling Vail didn’t talk about boys with her friends, or if she did, it was only about the boys they liked. “And I think he likes me back. Boys don’t ask you to the movies unless they like you, right?”

  “Right.”

  Chapter Eight

  The following night, we met the boys at the movie theater. Rook and Vail were in the concession line waiting to buy their popcorn, while Fletcher and I stood in the back waiting for them. Rook let Vail pick what movie we were going to see, and at first, I thought she was going to make us watch the tear-jerker movie about kids with cancer. Thankfully, she picked a Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt sci-fi action film we all might like. Although, I hadn’t really liked Tom Cruise in anything since Jerry Maguire.

  Vail had asked me before we left her house if she and Rook could sit alone during the movie. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t want to sit alone with Fletcher, so I told her that they could. Now I was stuck sitting in a dark theater alone with Fletcher on a Saturday afternoon, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t look and smell like an Armani ad. His signature woodsy scent followed him around like a heavenly cloud. He was dressed down from his usual business attire, wearing faded jeans that delectably hung from his hips and a simple white tee that hugged his ripped biceps.

  “Do you want to go ahead and find our seats?” he asked, nodding toward the theater doors.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Following him into the theater, he picked the middle of the very back row for us. “This okay?”

  “Yeah.” I took my seat next to him and watched as the kids stood in the aisle and debated on where to sit.

  “You should’ve smelled how much cologne he had on when I got to his place. I made him take a shower. That’s how bad it was,” Fletcher said, smiling.

  Remembering the piles of clothes Vail had thrown all over her room, I laughed. “Vail changed her outfit twice.”

  He laughed, and we continued watching as they finally picked a place to sit. They were in the middle section many rows ahead of us, but we could still easily see them from where we were sitting. The lights went down, and once the previews were over, Rook lifted his arms like he was stretching.

  “No,” Fletcher whispered curtly, shaking his head. “Do not do the fake stretch move.”

  I laughed quietly next to him and he glared over at me. “Maybe he really is just stretching.”

  “God, I fucking hope so,” he said, watching more closely now. Rook lowered his arms, making Fletcher relax a little bit. He gazed back over at me and smiled. “If he wants to put his arm around her, he should just do it. Don’t pussyfoot around it.”

  Then he put his arm around my shoulders and relaxed back into his seat. The heat from his body mixing with his manly scent instantly stirred up a desperate need inside of me, making me regret wearing a short skirt that made me extremely accessible to him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his breath hot against my ear, only intensifying my craving even more.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, shaking my head.

  “You’re tense.” His hand started rubbing my shoulder, causing goose bumps to rise along my skin. His touch only encouraged the throb between my legs, but I kept reminding myself that the theater, with our very impressionable Littles just rows ahead of us, was not the place to let things happen.

  “I’m fine,” I said, mentally commanding myself not to look into his eyes. I could feel them burning into me as he stared, watching me instead of the movie. But I couldn’t help it. I turned and gazed into those beautiful bright eyes of his that continuously weakened every bit of my self-control.

  “You’re not fine,” he growled, as a sexy smirk pulled at his perfect lips. I remembered how soft they felt against mine the first time we kissed. “You’re turned on.”

  “Fletcher, not in front of Vail and Rook,” I warned discreetly, trying to gain some control over my body.

  “Well, technically, we’re behind them.”

  I tilted my head at him, glaring.

  “You look even sexier when you’re frustrated,” he whispered, running his other hand up my leg. “Uncross your legs.”

  I shook my head adamantly. “No.”

  “You can be quiet,” Fletcher encouraged, his fingers tracing the hem of my skirt.

  “What if one of them turns around and sees us?” I asked.

  “They’re so starry-eyed for each other, they don’t even remember we’re here.”

  I sighed, leaning my head back against his arm. He took this opportunity to lean in and press a kiss to my neck, almost making me moan as he slid his masterful tongue up to my ear. His hand gripped my thigh hard as he continued his onslaught of pleasure against my neck, sucking and teasing and pushing me further toward the line we shouldn’t cross right now.

  “Come on,” he begged, placing another kiss below my earlobe. “You know you want to.”

  “We can’t,” I said faintly, removing his arm from my shoulders. I praised myself for keeping what little self-control I had still in check, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was depriving both of us. He put his arms back on the armrests and faced forward, staring blankly at the movie screen.

  “Tonight,” I whispered, grabbing h
is attention again. “I’ll come over to your place tonight.”

  “You better not be screwing with me,” he replied in a low voice, his eyes searching mine.

  “Trust me,” I said, taking a deep, frustrated breath. “I’m not.”

  “I knew you were turned on.” He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. Bewildered, I stared at our entangled hands. My hand looked so dainty and small inside his larger one. I’d told him no touching in front of Vail and Rook. The gesture felt foreign, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember the last time a guy held my hand. I felt like I was turning into Vail, analyzing crap that didn’t need to be analyzed.

  “Just shut up and let me touch you.”

  “I didn’t even say anything,” I sassed quietly, still feeling slightly confused. “But do friends-with-benefits hold hands?”

  “You were thinking something,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “And I don’t know, but if I can’t touch you where I want to touch you, I’m holding your hand.”

  I’d rather have him touching my who-ha than holding my hand.

  ***

  Minutes after leaving Vail’s home, Fletcher texted me demanding that I come over. With a knot in my belly, I hailed the nearest taxi and gave the driver his address. I usually wasn’t the one being summoned. Normally, I summoned men, and they came running, readily available to do whatever I wanted. Fletcher wasn’t like them though. No, he was used to having women fall to their knees for him, ready to please the fuck out of him. The longer I rode in the taxi, the more anxious I felt about having sex with him again. I didn’t want to become one of those women who willingly gave herself to him whenever he wanted.

  But I already knew how phenomenal he was during sex. It would be mind-numbing, bone-melting, beyond comprehensible sex. Sex I’d spent months reliving, fantasizing about while I lay alone in my bed touching myself. Who the hell would turn down that kind of sex?

  Nobody.

  Especially not me.

  Once I stepped into his building, I rode the elevator up to his floor. The minute the doors slid open, I walked out on trembling legs and easily found his apartment. I knocked once, and he immediately opened the door. One look at him barefoot in his worn jeans and plain white tee caused the knot in my stomach to unravel.