Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty — Skye

by Rhyll Biest

  But instead of answering he swallowed hard, and kept staring at her.

  Almost as if seeing her for the first time.

  She had to fight the wild urge to look away, to pretend she hadn’t seen a certain brooding heat in his gaze. Because what did it mean if Bret was looking at her in a certain way? As if she wasn’t just his buddy but something more.

  ‘Bloody hell, Skye, you scared me. Are you sure you’re okay?’

  See. There it was, he was just worried, concerned, and her stupid overactive imagination had simply bolted, faster than Abilene had, in the direction that it had wanted to go in, towards that imaginary place where she and Bret did real, actual couple things, like hold hands and get married and have four billion children. ‘It’s okay, I’m alright.’ When he didn’t seem to register the words, she patted his arm, the well-intentioned gesture quickly turned on its head by the solid feel of his rigid biceps under her hand.

  Rigid. Like for once he was the one sitting on a time bomb, instead of her. As if he were scared of something more than just her theoretical injuries.

  ‘Bret, I—’

  He cut her off, his arms encircling her, gently at first, almost tentatively, as if exorbitant care was required not to startle her, as if she were something fragile and beautiful rather than a farm-raised veterinarian not wholly unacquainted with the rougher side of life.

  Her body responded instantly, nipples tightening and a heaviness settling in her breasts and belly; her brain took longer to catch up. As soon as it did, she pulled back from him, as much as his grip allowed. He didn’t understand how dangerous it was for him to touch her that way, leaving her so heavy with want that she could implode and become a black hole, her horrendous, lustful gravity dragging unwilling victims like him deep into her imaginary depravity.

  Instead she patted the air somewhere above his back to soothe him. Only the air because she couldn’t trust her evil hands with actual flesh. ‘Hey, don’t worry, everything is—’

  The tightening of his embrace sucked the rest of her sentence away, as did the gentle hand that cradled her head and pushed her face into his neck as his fingers clenched her hair. Face pressed against the warmth of his neck, she breathed in his freshly soaped skin as warmth pricked her scalp.

  Dear lord, was that his lips? On her head?

  Like a man might kiss a woman instead of his best friend?

  She almost groaned with the weight of temptation placed on her. The urge to wrap herself around him like a wanton pole dancer felt like a thousand-pound stone that threatened to grind her flat if she tried to resist it. How was this even happening? How? Was this Bret kissing her or some alien occupying his body?

  He shuddered against her, his breathing unsteady as he set her back from him, his eyes muddy with emotion. ‘Skye, that was too close.’

  Was this overreaction due to the anniversary of his mother’s death coming up? Perhaps he just needed more reassurance, though she wasn’t really capable of doing anything more than clinging to him like a worshipful sloth. But maybe that was all he needed. If so, she could cling some more. They stood locked together for so long that her feet grew numb and she was about to say something when the hand in her hair tightened and she felt a hardness, firm and insistent, against her belly.

  Was that what she thought it was?

  No, it couldn’t be.

  One way or the other, she was wholly incapable of glancing down to verify.

  And even if it was an erection it had to be the accidental sort, the sort guys got while riding the bus or when the queen awarded them a medal. Involuntary, that was the word.

  But it was impossible to deny that it was there, it was so huge, so present, that it was practically a third person between them, a person it would be rude to ignore.

  Though did friends point out friends’ involuntary erections? Probably not. She certainly wouldn’t want her boner pointed out if she had one involuntarily.

  She would just wait, wait until it went away, and perhaps a few years later, or maybe a few decades later, they would laugh about his crazy involuntary erection and try to work out why it had happened.

  Keeping very still, so as not to distract him while he was concentrating very hard on deflating his unwanted boner, she counted his heartbeats and debated whether or not her breathing might disturb him. Already her brain had sprung ahead to cover all the things she could talk about to pretend the unintentional hard-on had never happened—once it was actually gone.

  ‘Skye?’

  ‘Mm-hmm?’

  ‘Can you look at me?’

  ‘Probably.’ But why? There was something smoky and seductive and terrifying about his voice. She raised her eyes and stiffened.

  It was impossible. That needy and intent gazed fixed on her lips.

  And yet the uproar in her chest said otherwise. Love and desire, which had followed her around like lost dogs all this time, had now formed a pack, and all those lost, hungry hounds were baying and barking inside her, clamouring to be fed.

  ‘Do you feel something between us?’

  Was that a trick question about the unwanted erection that was definitely not there?

  ‘Skye, do you feel the same way I do?’

  She doubted it, because she felt as if her pulse was going to escape her fingers and take a trip on its own to a foreign city—probably Paris—without her, that’s how hard it was pounding.

  But it was absolutely, categorically, impossible to ignore when he took one of her hands and rested it right in the centre of his big, thick chest. Though even then, for the space of a couple of solid male heartbeats, she thought he might have been politely asking her to take his pulse, right before she recognised that for the almost supernaturally stupid thought that it was. He wanted her to touch him. The thought slammed into her with twice the force of Abilene’s rump.

  He wanted her hands on him.

  He was actually encouraging her to touch him.

  A part of her expected the ground to open up and swallow her as she dealt with that seismic shift.

  She tried to say something but vowels and consonants and syllables were beyond her, because all she could think about was his hand over hers, urging—no, inviting—her to touch him, as bizarre and wonderful and crazy all at once as that was.

  His head lowered, his intention clear. ‘I’m going to kiss you.’ His lips brushed her hairline, asking permission, at the same time as his whole body tensed as though he was bracing himself for rejection, a thought so ridiculous it made no sense to her, just as the weird soup of exhilaration and trepidation filling her belly made zero sense.

  She’d fantasised about this so why the snarl of emotion tangling both her insides and her tongue? Words. She’d known how to make them once. She really needed to use them around about now to let the poor man know what she wanted.

  His smouldering blue, green and grey eyes searched hers. ‘If you don’t want to, we can stop right now and go back to just being friends and we’ll never talk about this again.’

  A weird, embarrassing squeak of protest escaped her. ‘No!’ He couldn’t just steal it back from her like that, the promise of kissing her and much, much more.

  From what seemed like a thousand miles away Abilene blew a long, loud snort, as though amused by them both.

  Bret’s hand tightened over hers, a tiny movement, but it struck her with all the Wagnerian force of Excalibur’s pounding, symphonic ending, signalling as it did that he’d heard her and would now proceed—with the kissing thing.

  And at that moment, she needed the kissing thing more than she needed to breathe.

  The first pass of his lips over hers registered lighter than a whisper, a mere graze of flesh in a hesitant preamble. But the unhurried drag of his thumb over her nipple at the same time blew it all out of proportion, so that her heart gave such a brutal kick it threatened to bust her ribs. And, good lord, she was going to drown in the taste of him, the taste of coffee and things she’d been denied for too many year
s.

  While she was still struggling to deal with the coffee-flavoured preamble and nipple rubbing, his lips coaxed hers open, making her forget all about the possible escape of her heart through her chest, and most other things, as his mouth flirted with her own, nibbling and teasing, as if her lips were some kind of delicacy he wanted to savour.

  All of it kind of shunting aside the power of lucid thought.

  But just as she relaxed, was sort of just floating around in the kiss like an otter in the sea, it deepened and shifted, turned bottomless and more dangerous than an abandoned mine shaft, the firm drag of his lips against hers hollowing her bones out. How could she have known that the wicked tongue skimming her lips and teeth in exploration was so evil? His lips had all the relaxed confidence of a mouth sure of its purpose—to drive her crazy. Just who in unholy hell had taught him to kiss like this?

  The dark question barrelled through her without warning, ugly, heated and unanswerable. But she forgot it the second he tilted his head and his kiss became more forceful.

  No more asking, now he was taking.

  And she liked it.

  It allowed her to give into need for once instead of tamping it down, to give in and open up to him by letting the time bomb implode. And it went with a bang, in the form of her running her hands all over him, stroking, caressing, kneading, until an odd sound escaped him—a low, muffled moan of helpless desire—which echoed through her all the way down to her belly and between her thighs, producing a slick warmth that mirrored the wet heat of their kisses.

  Head spinning, she grudgingly came up for air and they both pulled back at the same time to stare at one another.

  ‘Holy fuck.’ His versicolour eyes, wide and stunned, mirrored her awe, but she barely had time to grin before his mouth crashed down on hers again.

  Beyond the tangle of tongues and lips, she wondered at his hands—so big and rough with calluses and yet so gentle—kneading, stroking and squeezing, as some sixth sense told him exactly how to touch her and where, even though he was exploring the hollows and swells of her body for the first time. She didn’t need him to tell her what he thought of her body, the ways his hands ran all over her like a braille reader searching a dictionary told her he couldn’t get enough of her, as did the shallow, eager noises escaping him, groans, sighs and choked off words, each delivered in a hot breath against her fevered skin.

  She closed her eyes, tried to capture the moment—in case the whole thing turned into a disaster of epic proportions—tried to memorise the feel of Bret’s firm hand splayed over her buttocks, the other restlessly stroking her back in urgent invitation.

  His fingers on her backside—so close to other parts that needed them much, much more—crumbled her resolve to record the moment, had her instead jumping into it headfirst, arching against him, her hands sliding over his sun-warmed ribs and smooth latissimus dorsi, curious about all of him, from the jut of his shoulder blades to the gully of his spine, as her body sought to wheedle more from his fingers.

  His lips, just as wheedling, trailed her jawline, traced her throat and clavicle in a tortuous dance just above the humming impatience of her breasts, but he made a sound of impatience when the neckline of her t-shirt blocked his sensuous path.

  She blinked as he wrenched his lips from her skin. No-o-o-o-o-o!

  ‘You want more, don’t you?’ He waited, his heavy-lidded stare patient despite his restless, needy hand clutching at her back. A pause as he caught his ragged breath. ‘This doesn’t have to stop at kissing, does it?’

  Christ, what was he asking? Permission or whether she had protection? How could a kiss turn into wild, push-you-up-against-a-wall sex so quickly? Or was that just them and their years of suppressed something?

  ‘I’m not on the pill or anything.’ That was an important thing to say, right? The sensible, honest thing to do, to declare one’s sexual health status and talk contraception. So why did admitting she had no readily available means of protection make her so frustrated she could cry?

  Eyes dark with desire met hers. ‘It’s okay. Do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was the only person she trusted.

  A brief flash of triumph in his multi-hued eyes before he gently pushed her back a step, coaxed her to rest back against the warm, smooth hardwood railings that had battered her body just minutes before. The air grew thinner as his fingers tugged at the bow-tie of her wraparound skirt, unravelling the knot before peeling the skirt off her, excitement written in every line of his face, like she was some sweet, tropical fruit he’d been craving for months and had just unwrapped.

  And that was how she felt—raw, fully exposed—when his dark, tanned hand splayed across her exposed belly, and he stared down at it, his eyes—all hot and possessive—further unpeeling her. Thank goodness there was no possible way he could tell, just by looking at her, how moist and ready that stare got her, turned her insides pulpy and the space between her legs into wetlands.

  But her surety suffered a fatal blow when he hooked one long finger into the waist of her bikini briefs, not to tug them off, but to go searching for that wet readiness she’d thought was such a big secret. Some secret; before his fingers even slipped between her lips they were skidding across her slippery mound, her flesh one big, slick runway of excitement.

  And for just one second she thought she might die of shame at her own eagerness, because who got that wet just from kissing? Nobody, that was who. Nobody normal, anyway. Now he would think she was some desperate, dirty slut who creamed herself the second a guy touched her.

  Primed for humiliation, she barely understood at first the strange sound he made. Like a whisper, no, a hiss. A dark, pained hiss of appreciation. And then, even more amazing, his actual words.

  ‘If I’d had any idea how amazing you would feel, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off you all these years.’

  Almost as if he had wanted more, had been harbouring thoughts as dirty as her own all these years. That, and the way his eyes closed—his face the very picture of need—as he kept running his fingers, first one and then two, through her slick, slippery seam, set up a painful longing that tugged and clawed at her mid-section, not to mention pulling her deep into a spiralling fog that had her pulse pounding.

  A fog that thickened as he abruptly yanked her underpants down—as though they were suffocating him—and the fabric slipped away, along with her sanity.

  Though a fuzzy, insistent voice kept nagging at her that she should be pulling her sexual weight, should be tearing at his jeans and getting him hard—though he certainly felt hard enough pressed against her belly—perhaps sucking him off, since from what she’d read in women’s magazines that’s what all guys wanted.

  But when she fumbled sloppily at the button of his jeans, his big hand stayed hers, and lips brushed her forehead. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Don’t you want me to?’ And god how she hated how stupid and inexpert and unsure she sounded, probably the very opposite of what he hoped to hear.

  Understanding flickered through his heated gaze. ‘I want everything with you, but there’s no rush.’ He bent just a fraction at the knees and slid his hands—one sticky with her own juices—lower to push her thighs wider apart, his long body, impossibly strong and hot, pressing into her front, the hardwood pressing against her back.

  He wanted everything, that was good, because she wanted him to do everything to her so she could do it all back to him in return. She’d read about a million dirty, delightful things lovers could do with one another and wanted to try them all. Perhaps not right now, not with only hard dirt and wood railings to cushion her body, but later.

  Her lids fluttered closed and she swallowed hard as his body slid down the length of hers, denim and cotton grazing her bare belly, until he kneeled before her.

  Yes, later she would devour him too, take his cock in her mouth and drive him crazy the way the feel of his mouth did right now, so close to but not quite near enough the throbbing, messy ache be
tween her legs.

  Oh, goodness, she knew what was going to happen now. She’d never actually had it done before, but in theory she knew what came next, like she knew the Earth was round and that the planets circled the solar system. He was going to bury his face in her cunt and eat her out.

  The rude words, the very dizzying thought of it, made her shudder.

  But if she’d expected him to dive straight in, she was wrong.

  ‘Show me,’ he whispered, and took her hand to slip it between her legs. ‘Show me how you touch yourself.’

  Her face flushed. Did he know? Know that she had to have masturbated about him about eight million times as she lay in her university dorm bed, on her single size mattress that was perfectly adequate because she’d never shared it with anyone else?

  Hands trembling, jerky with need, she glided two fingers over her swollen clit, almost came on the spot at the way his throat worked and his fingers dug into her spread thighs. A deep shiver shook her despite the heat of the sun above. It was wondrous, both shocking and wondrous, to see her good, safe friend turned into something darker, a virtual stranger crouching before her like a handsome gargoyle intent on sex as he watched her work her own flesh with fevered fingers.

  Somehow he’d stripped everything away, her clothes, her pretence, her modesty, and yet she felt safe.

  After watching his fill, he gave a low grunt that could have been satisfaction, approval or impatience before batting her hand away to slide his fingers through her heat, his touch so very different from her own, his blunt fingers twice the size of hers, the skin thicker and rougher, his touch firmer.

  Slowly back and forth they ran through her slickness, stealing her breath and eroding her sanity. What would happen when she couldn’t get any more wet and aroused? What if his fingers set her off before they could get to the really good part, the thing she’d never tried before?

  The fingers stopped and her eyes flew open. Unless they were being attacked by killer bees, she could think of no good reason for him to stop.