by Emma Bryson
I swallowed. My dick was stiff, and the urge to rouse her with kisses and fuck her again was all too real, but before I could stretch my sleep-laden limbs and turn to pull her against my chest, a deep cloud of dread filled me once more.
I should never have done this. I was only going to keep an eye on Liv, and maybe take a little time to enjoy the view...not fuck her into a deep sleep coma.
I turned over restlessly, yawning into my hand. By the intense glimpse of sunlight peeking out from a gap in the curtains, it was already late.
I flicked on my watch and my face dropped. 2 p.m. Not all that surprising, seeing as the sun was rising by the time we’d fallen asleep, but my skin prickled, fiery with anxiety. I was meant to spend at least a couple of hours at the gym today. Organize my schedule for the next week. Make some urgent calls. Finish up an assignment for business school. Check in with Chase to make sure he hadn’t throttled anyone from his old team. Kick his ass if he had.
I looked at Olivia again and remembered the sweet noises she had made as I had fucked her throat, pushing the length of my dick further inside her mouth than I’d ever gone with anyone before. I’d trusted her. She’d trusted me. And I’d just about lost my damned mind in the process.
Again, my mind tumbled to how fucking amazing she had looked holding that vibrator to her clit in front of her webcam, and how much of a turn-on it was to know that at that moment, other people were seeing her the same way I was seeing her.
Sweet Jesus. I’d never be able to get shit done if I was going to be thinking about Olivia every five damned minutes.
I bit the inside of my cheek. If I was going to get my head back in the game, I needed to put as much distance between myself and Liv as possible...starting with getting the hell up out of her bed.
Pulling myself gently out from under the covers, I retreated to Chlo’s room and closed the door. I took a few deep breaths and bent to blast out some push-ups to calm my raging hard-on. No. There was no way Liv and I could be a thing—no matter how amazing I knew we’d both felt last night when we’d come together.
Fucking my little sister’s best friend wasn’t something I could do.
I sighed. At least not twice.
And even if Chloe was somehow okay with me dating her best friend instead of being just one-time fuck buddies, there was no way I could do this now. I had Chase’s career to mend. Not only that but I had to get him back in NBA-worthy shape, too. I had my sister Lisa’s second-semester college fees to help with, and Mom to keep an eye on.
I couldn’t afford to waste time on a woman...even one as amazing as Liv.
I had to move back into the role and the routine I knew I could handle, keep my eye on the prize. And that started with showering, putting some fucking clothes on, and making some goddamn eggs.
* * *
Searing my body under brutally hot water blotched my skin with red welts, pulling me out of my head, away from Liv and the way she sounded when she came. I removed every detail from my mind, locking it down, storing what I could bear to without losing my shit.
I turned the water to full cold. It was time to let the machine take over.
Boxers. Branded track pants. A close-fitted, gym-branded white shirt. Hair waxed and thrown back into tousled peaks. Clothed and groomed, I was back to being me.
Save for that viselike constriction on my chest.
Sighing, I made my way to the kitchen to find the groceries I’d brought back with dinner last night. My pulse started to calm. If there was one thing that Dad taught me how to do well, it was make breakfast.
Pulling bacon, eggs, bell peppers and pancake batter from the fridge, I seamlessly started preparing some breakfast, turning the oven and a couple of burners on to preheat. I found a comfortable rhythm. I’d done this so many times, I could work on autopilot.
* * *
Liv rose just as the smell of bacon started to permeate the air, my mouth starting to water in response to the delicious aroma.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Liv moved towards me, but I headed her off with a hot pan.
“Careful, hot stuff coming through.”
Liv chuckled. “You’re telling me.”
I tried to ignore the sexy rasp of her voice. I cleared my throat. “Breakfast is ready. Do you want one flower or two?”
Liv’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “You made flowers for breakfast?”
“Yeah. Pepper poppies. They’re just bell pepper rounds with eggs fried in them. My dad used to make me get up early to cook them with him when the girls were little. It was kind of a Sunday morning ritual...but I don’t think he’d mind if I broke the tradition and served them on a Saturday.” I dished up a couple of eggs for Liv.
“That’s so cool, that you and your dad would do that,” she replied, fishing cutlery out of a nearby drawer.
My eyes flicked up to meet hers briefly. “Yeah, I mean, I guess. Dad would get up early and sneak into my room and wake me up. We’d go and start preparing breakfast for the girls, watch sport reruns on TV, talk about stuff...it was the perfect man time.”
The corners of Liv’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “Making eggs into flowers?”
We sat down on the couch next to each other, plates on our laps. I looked out the window, thinking for a moment. “If I could pick out the one thing my dad taught me, it’d be that the manliest thing you can do is provide for someone else and make them happy. That’s what he did all the time.” I bit into a piece of toast. “And after he died, I couldn’t let a Sunday go by without holding on to that tradition.”
Liv looked to me. I was so used to seeing pity in people’s eyes when I talked about my dad that it was almost surprising to see that she was happy and comfortable sharing this memory with me. My heart leapt in my chest.
“So, I decided that if there was anything I was going to do with my life, it’d be to try to make my family as happy as they would have been if he’d been around.”
Liv’s eyes pierced mine. Cool, and calm.
Damn, I’d never told anyone that shit...and now I’m telling Liv? Something about her made my floodgates open—and I couldn’t get it to stop.
Liv cut carefully into her pepper poppy. “It sounds like you took a lot on yourself after your dad died.” She looked up at me and popped the morsel into her mouth.
I shrugged, starting to feel defensive. “I just did what I had to do. After he died, Mom was a mess. She had to get psychiatric treatment for a while and us kids had to stay with our grandparents. I realized that the only thing that could bring her back was us...if we carried on, maybe she could, too. So, I did everything I could to keep us working together as a family.” I took another bite of toast.
“And it worked.” I cleared my throat. “But even years after, Mom would swear she’d see him sometimes... Sitting in the back row of Maggie’s ballet recitals, on the sideline at Lisa’s hockey tournaments, talking to Chloe and hugging her after her graduation—she even thought she saw him sitting at their favorite restaurant on their wedding anniversary.”
Liv’s gaze settled on mine. She didn’t look like she was pitying me, just listening.
“Even as a kid, though, I knew—the person who would be there for them would be me, or it would be no one. Because as much as we all wanted it to be different, he was gone. And I had to take care of his girls—and,” I added, “Sometimes that includes taking care of their friends, too.”
My phone buzzed on the coffee table and I ruffled Liv’s hair as I stepped out of the room to answer it.
“Chase! Dude! What’s up with the future star of the NBA?”
My heart flooded with relief. Thank God for Chase, always calling at exactly the right times. Sometimes I swore that we had a weird, brotherly telepathic link.
Olivia
I bristled as he picked up the phone.
What the fuck was that
all about?
One minute Nate was telling me about his dad and his childhood...and the next, he had sister-zoned me—and why? Because of some perverted sense of duty to his dead father? Because he still felt he had to look after his sisters—even though they were now all grown? Sure, I could understand that he wanted to keep his family close. To be honest, it was one of the things I liked most about him, but to throw me ass-first into the friend zone after the night we’d just had because, what? He was scared that it somehow might piss off his adult sister?
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
Whoa back. Anything more than one night wasn’t a part of the deal. You knew that from the start. And it’s obvious he’s wound up to breaking point with work right now.
But to think that I—of all people—needed looking after. If anything, it was me who should be looking after him. My head reeled with a clusterfuck of emotion.
Part of me ached for the little boy hiding behind that tank-sized wall, scared but willing to fight, tooth and fist, to make sure his family didn’t implode. It was damned incredible, the person he’d worked so hard to become, despite the burdens placed on him.
But to deny himself pleasure, and perhaps the chance of something more...all because he threw himself into work to avoid taking a chance? That was something I couldn’t just sit around and watch.
And if I was being honest, after last night there was a rapidly expanding part of myself that didn’t want to let Nate go.
Nate ran his fingers through his hair, pausing before pacing up the hallway again. I knew exactly who was on the other end of the phone. Chase—Nate’s best friend and the basketball star Chloe had been fawning over since before she hit puberty.
I sighed. I had been reading Chloe’s Chase fantasies for longer than I cared to remember. I’d even seen the secret fan fiction she wrote on Sportfic—between them, those two Wallis siblings were repressed enough to make me seriously concerned for their sexual health.
My heart sank a little as I thought about my best friend.
I missed her. And as much as I knew the idea of me and Nate dating weirded her out, I didn’t believe she’d ever stand in the way of Nate’s happiness. Nate finished up his call and stepped back into the lounge.
“I gotta be heading out.” He pulled on a sports jacket and threw his backpack over his shoulder. My heart sank a little, but I tried to plaster a smile on my face.
“Do you have to go?” I looked to him, hoping he’d take the chance and stay so I could work out how to talk to him.
Nate scratched the back of his head and looked away. “Yeah. I have to sort out some stuff for Chase. I’ve got a few extra things to sort out at the gym, too.”
“Sure.” I smiled around stuffing my face with breakfast. Nothing like bacon to numb the pain.
Nate turned to leave. “I’ll be back later. Around eight. Want me to bring back pizza?”
“Sure, I have a show again tonight, but pizza sounds great.”
My stomach fluttered with silent butterflies. If he was planning on coming back and not running a thousand miles away like I’d expected, maybe there was still hope yet.
Chapter Seven
Olivia
I yawned, pushing the last of my eggs around my plate as the apartment door slammed closed. As it did, my stomach lurched. I couldn’t let Nate go like this...because my best guess was that he’d come back sporting an impenetrable, self-imposed chastity belt. He had come so close to truly letting his guard down with me—if he came back with his guard up, I’d probably never see that side of Nate again.
I could see it in his eyes when he’d picked up the phone. Talking about his dad like that had shocked even himself, and now he was going to pull out of this as fast as he damn well could.
I sighed, my heart so filled with Nate it ached. But what could I do? I couldn’t just force him to stop bottling up his emotions, his deepest pains festering away while he threw himself into work. Hell, I couldn’t even stop him from leaving my apartment. It seemed like he’d do anything to avoid having a proper conversation.
But I could always go to him.
A smile spread across my face like beard burn on a hipster’s girlfriend. There was no reason I couldn’t fit in a workout today. I just had to find the keys.
I thought back to when Chloe had moved in and we had gone on a New Year’s health kick. Chloe had scored keys to Nate’s gym, so we could work out without having to worry about their opening hours. The health kick hadn’t lasted more than a month, but the keys were still here somewhere.
I dumped my plate in the sink and headed for the junk drawer in the hall—anything that might potentially come in handy “someday” made it into these drawers. Batteries, important letters, hair ties, coupons. And gym keys. I smiled, victorious.
Scurrying off to my bedroom, I looked around for something that might still pass as workout clothes. My heart leapt at the idea of surprising Nate. Sure, he might be used to repressing his emotions, but if last night had taught me anything, it was that if Nate and I were in close proximity? Something had to give...or else shit was bound to explode.
I found an old top and a pair of yoga pants that, after their initial one-month workout, had been repurposed into laze-around-the-house pants. I threw them into a gym bag along with a reasonably dry towel off the floor. I grabbed my trusty old sneakers from the bottom of my closet.
Then, an idea came to mind. I ditched the yoga pants and dashed into my cam room and raided the closet.
I smirked. Nate had no idea what was about to hit him.
Nate
I ran my fingers through my hair, spinning on my desk chair. “I know the order came through a day later than usual, but our account manager assured me it would be fine. We needed that shipment yesterday.”
It seemed like all I did now was fight fires. If it wasn’t something with the day-to-day running of the gym, it was a client emergency, a booking issue, or changes with our health supplement suppliers. The operator on the other end of the phone barely managed to hide her snark. “I understand that you believe one of our representatives confirmed delivery, but from what I can see that simply isn’t the case...”
I slammed my head against the desk as she droned on.
Of all the places I’d like to be right now, being here tied for last place with rubbing my nutsack against a cheese grater.
I rolled the tension out of my neck. “Bethany, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” Bethany said, pointedly.
“Listen. It’s clear we’re not going to get anywhere with this. Could you please give our regular account manager a message to call me back as soon as possible? Thanks. I really appreciate it. Bye.” I hung up the phone quickly before stick-up-butt Bethany could fire back a rebuttal.
One more call down, and only another 22 emails to answer before I could start my business school work. I dragged my sorry ass out of my desk chair and paced my office. What I wouldn’t give to let off a little steam on a rower or a bench press right now.
Or bury myself between Liv’s legs.
My heart lunged with a pang of longing so hard it almost knocked me on my ass. Goddamn it. I had no idea how I was going to face her again tonight without ripping her clothes off.
I rolled my shoulders and turned back to my desk, my heart almost jumping out of my chest as the clink of equipment echoed in from the gym.
What the fuck? On Saturdays, it was unusual for anyone to be in the gym. We had only a small, elite membership—mainly personal training clients or Jacob’s physiotherapy patients—and of those clients, only a select few had keys.
I palmed an umbrella, the only weapon I could find, and snuck through to the gym as my pulse started to scatter.
Even with her back to me, Olivia was unmistakable. In the corner by the leg machines was the sculpted ass I had become all too familiar with
just last night—the ass that had driven me into a frenzy when she’d wiggled it in my hands.
“What the hell? Liv?” I dropped the umbrella. Though my galloping pulse and the sudden flush of heat to my groin were unmistakable, I tried to smother my desire by acting pissed off.
Liv turned, her cheeks flushed a subtle shade of pink. She was wearing a faded t-shirt with the word Bae-utiful scrawled in curly writing and some kind of weird, pleated shorts that at first glance seemed a stupid choice for working out.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Liv’s mouth quirked into a smile as she feigned innocence. “I just thought I’d squeeze a workout in. My schedule’s pretty busy, but, you know, gotta get those gains.”
My eyes narrowed. I remembered my vow this morning, the one I’d made as I had retreated from her bed. No more sexytimes. No matter how fuckable she was. I growled, my anger starting to boil over. “You really don’t take no for an answer, do you?”
Liv pointed her nose in the air, speaking in an English accent. “May I insist upon knowing your meaning, sir?”
I smirked. “Pride and Prejudice, right?”
“Oh my god, how did you know?” Liv frowned.
I shrugged, trying to hide my flush of pleasure with nonchalance. “The BBC version was Maddy’s go-to every time she was sick. It’s one of her favorites.”
“Right. Sisters.”
I stared at Liv for a moment, losing myself in the deep emerald of her eyes. When she nibbled at the side of her lower lip and looked to the side, I almost forgot the reason I was angry.
I cleared my throat.
“You know, that’s not how you use this machine.” I nodded to the adductor/abductor machine Liz was sitting on.
For a moment Liv’s confidence faltered and her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. “Really? Well, how about you take a break from work and show me then, hot stuff?”
I grunted, unsure about whether to take her comment as a compliment or a jibe. Knowing Liv, it was both. Fuck, I really had to move this conversation back to safer territory. “This is a hip adductor/abductor, it’s for working a relatively small group of muscles in the groin and hips.”
