Frenemies

by Nicole Blanchard

  Ember lifted a shoulder. “I want him to be happy. I don’t know. Things have felt off for a while. I guess I haven’t wanted to see it.”

  “What are you going to tell him?” I asked, my heart aching for my friend.

  She downed her drink. “I want to tell him if he’s that uncertain about me and our relationship, then he can pound sand.”

  Charlie and I clinked our glasses. “I agree,” Charlie said. “You want someone who wants to be with you, not someone you have to convince.”

  I studied the liquid in my glass. Charlie had a good point and I couldn’t help but think about her words as they applied to Dash.

  Was Dash with me because he wanted to be? Or was it because of the thrill or the challenge? It was something I should definitely figure out before things went too far. We were already flirting with the line. I needed to figure out what he wanted from me, but also what I wanted from him. The attention was nice, the way he made me feel was undeniable…worth the risk? I wasn’t sure.

  “I know. I know,” Ember continued, pulling me from my thoughts. “Intellectually, I realize you’re right.” She thumped her chest with her fist. “It’s my heart that needs to catch up.”

  I knew that struggle well enough. My heart was telling me to go for it…but my head was saying not so fast.

  “We only want you to be happy,” I told her.

  Charlie nibbled on a pretzel. “Are you?” she asked Ember.

  “Am I what? Happy?” She paused after Charlie’s nod. “Well, in general…I guess not. I mean, I want to finish school to become a paramedic. I’d like to have time to be a regular college student instead of parents to my kid sisters, and I’d really love it if my parents would stop being such drunks. With Chris? No. Definitely not. I guess that’s my answer, huh?”

  Feeling the need to lighten the mood, I said, “I guess now you can let Tripp land one.”

  Charlie snorted, then choked. She tried and failed to stifle her laughter behind one hand.

  Ember blushed prettily and shook her head. “Tripp doesn’t see me like that. We’re just friends.”

  “Just friends,” Charlie said with a knowing smirk. “That’s what I used to say about Liam and now look at us.”

  “Didn’t he try to ask you out a couple years ago?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t serious,” Ember insisted. “Besides, he was a huge player back then, going after all the preppy types. We really are just friends now. Besides, I thought we were talking about Layla and Dash.”

  I gulped down the huge swallow I’d taken, nearly choking myself. “There’s nothing to talk about,” I replied.

  “Sure, you keep telling yourself that,” Ember said.

  GIRLS’ night always left me feeling replenished, if not more than a little tipsy and lacking some of my usual inhibitions. Which is why, as I stumbled out of the elevator, I screeched to a halt short of my door when I came face-to-face with Dash.

  God, he looked good enough to eat.

  He hadn’t noticed me getting off the elevator as his eyes were glued to his phone. I didn’t mind. It gave me time to ogle him before we began our usual battle of wills. Pausing at the entrance to the hall, I did just that.

  It wasn’t fair that someone so frustrating could be so damn handsome.

  It gave me a heavy feeling in my stomach that increased with each step. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I could admit to myself and certainly more than I’d be willing to admit to him. I’d been so certain I was going to tell him to back off, to go back to the way things were, and then I saw him, and rational thought evaporated.

  He looked up as I came to a stop in front of him, the dark slash of his hair across his brow. “Hey,” he said, but there was a heaviness in his expression that didn’t match his carefree smile.

  I tried to concentrate through the flush of alcohol. “Hey, were you waiting for me?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be or not.

  “Yeah, I was. Can we talk?”

  “If we do it at your place?”

  His eyes crinkled in a real smile. “Mine? Why?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Because you’ve been in mine. Don’t pretend you haven’t snooped. If we’re going to talk, I figure it would only be fair if you let me snoop around yours.”

  He shrugged and a flash of skin winked at his midsection. I tried not to stare. “Yeah, all right. But I’m warning you, it’s probably a mess compared to yours.”

  “I don’t care.”

  In fact, I didn’t think I cared about anything less. He jerked his chin back to the elevator and we rode the short trip to his floor in charged silence. With each passing second, I knew the likelihood I’d come out of this—whatever it was—unscathed, diminished more and more. Maybe taking a chance on Dash wasn’t worth the risk, but what was life without a little risk? I’d been playing it safe for so long, maybe it was time for me to crash and burn.

  “You and the girls have fun?” he asked to fill the void.

  I thought back to our conversation, or inquisition, rather. “Normally, it is, but we all have a lot going on at the moment. It’s nice to have them to talk to, though.”

  He nodded, then dug a hand in his pocket for his keys, which jingled merrily as he fit them in the lock. My heart pounded in my ears and I swore the combination of alcohol and anticipation had the temperature around me rising like maintenance had decided to bump up the heat to sauna level. To distract myself from the nerves, I peered over Dash’s shoulder and into the depths of his apartment.

  Would it be like the guys’ dorms I’d ventured into to work on projects? Cluttered with yesterday’s takeout containers and last week’s gym shorts. Or would it be barren, somehow lacking personality and empty? The quintessential bachelor’s pad. I’d been in his apartment before, dozens of times when it was Charlie’s, but I didn’t think he’d be into the cozy, chick vibe she tended to go for.

  “Want something to drink?” he asked as he ushered me inside. “Beer or I can make you a drink, whatever you want.”

  “Beer is fine, whatever you have.” More alcohol didn’t sound like a good idea, but I needed something, anything, to wet my suddenly desert-dry tongue.

  He moved to the kitchen, which gave me time to study his space. The last time I’d seen it, we’d been packing for Charlie to move out. It had been a husk of a place with boxes and the gaping mouths of bare cabinets. In the time since he moved in, he certainly put his mark on it.

  Our complex featured a lot of exposed brick and really great hardwood floors, but that’s where the similarities between our two places ended. The accent wall in the living room had been painted a slate gray to complement the darker tones of the sectional. A flannel blanket was draped over the foot of the chaise end with a closed MacBook on top. Framed, matted artwork hung behind it. I slipped off my shoes and stepped onto the deep, plush rug in a dark burgundy and wondered if I’d see his bedroom tonight. So far, his apartment was nothing like I’d expected, if I were being honest. The kid who used to tease me in class had grown-up. What else was there about Dash that had changed I didn’t know about?

  He brought me a beer and I drank thirstily, the cool liquid soothing my dry throat. “Thank you. Nice place you have here.” I gestured with my beer bottle to the console table he used for his TV. It was the same dark burgundy as his rug. He was more color-coordinated than I was. “Want to put something on?”

  Lifting a shoulder, he said, “I don’t have to, but we can if you want.”

  “I just need something for background noise.”

  At that, his eyes crinkled. “Feeling nervous, Lay?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked instead of answering.

  Dash settled on some sort of competitive cooking show, but kept the volume low for background noise. He pulled me to the sectional and ran his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know exactly how to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.”

  Oh, God he was going to break it off
. Not that there was anything to break off, but I guess if I needed a sign to tell me how I felt, then I got it. I liked Dash. The thought of him breaking it off made my throat sting. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it, but then he was speaking again, and I was frozen to the spot, the beer turning to acid on my tongue.

  “We’re playing a dangerous game here, Lay. As your T.A., it’s wrong of me to think the things I do, to want the things I want. I could lose my job. You could fail the class. I know how hard you’ve worked, and it was selfish of me to put that in jeopardy. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, no matter what you may think of me.” He said the last statement looking into my eyes. If this was some sort of trick, it was working.

  “What are you saying?” I asked once I could unstick my tongue.

  “I’m saying…” He trailed off to take a bolstering swallow from his beer, his gaze darting off. He cleared his throat and looked back at me. “I’m saying, we can either keep going as we are and risk it, or we need to end it. I can handle the moral and ethical ramifications. I don’t plan on showing you any favor, if anything I’m tougher on you than most, but I don’t want to put you in that position. I can handle them, but I don’t want you to if you can’t.”

  Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “I could drop the class.”

  Dash lifted a hand, trailed the back of his hand over my cheek, then traced his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want you, Layla. But I won’t let you risk your education for me. You’ve worked too hard.”

  “You’re talking about risking your job for me,” I pointed out. “There’s no use arguing. No matter which way you slice it, furthering our relationship while you’re my teacher is wrong.”

  He nodded, though his expression fell. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right.”

  I took his beer in my hand and set it along with mine on the side table. In the process, I scooted closer, put my other hand on his thigh. “Maybe sometimes it’s good to be wrong,” I said, though it was barely a whisper.

  His protests, if there were any, were drowned out by my lips. He let me kiss him for one moment, two, then his hands were at my biceps, pushing me away. “Layla, sweetheart, we can’t.”

  To hell with caution, with overthinking. For once, I was going to leap, to fly. “I want to. Just once. If it’s too much, we can call it off. But I want to know, at least one time.”

  His eyes widened with comprehension and he choked out, “Are you sure?” Then he shook his head, lifted a hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. I don’t want you to change your mind. That was the only noble moment you’ll probably get from me.”

  I smiled impishly. “Good, then I know you’ve gone back to normal.”

  “Quiet,” he ordered and coaxed me forward with a hand on my waist. “C’mere.” His lips were cool from the ice-cold beer, but his touch was warm, and his heart thudded underneath my palm where it lay on his chest.

  When I pulled back it was to try and catch my breath. My cheeks ached from smiling. If this was what it meant to feel bad, then it didn’t feel bad at all. It felt sinful, wicked.

  Addictive.

  “Show me your room,” I said with a voice that sounded nothing like my own.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DASH

  ONE OF US WAS A VIRGIN, and it wasn’t me. As I led her down the hallway to my room, I sure as hell felt as nervous as one.

  My bed was unmade from that morning. I had clothes strewn all over the floor. If I’d known she’d see it, I would have straightened up my room before inviting her over. I’d planned on warning her, explaining why the two of us were a bad idea, not inviting her to bed.

  She deserved so much better than me.

  Layla turned and sat on the edge of my bed, not seeming to notice the surrounding mess at all, despite my worries. She only had eyes for me.

  Overcome, I stepped forward between her legs and brought her lips up to mine. She was sweet, so sweet. Once I tasted my fill, I said, “You are so beautiful.” The words were more serious than I intended. I meant to seduce her, to charm her, but she charmed me.

  “I think I remember you saying I looked like a boy in his sister’s dress once,” she said with a laugh that crinkled the corners of her eyes. Unable to resist, I kissed her there, too. On my gravestone it would say, ‘Here lies Dashiel Hampton. He could not resist her.’

  “That’s only because you’d beaten me at the chess tournament and I was bitter. I got distracted that day because that dress was see-through. I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

  She slapped at my chest. “It was not!”

  I nipped at her lips again and inched her backward. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t, bur I was staring so hard because I hoped it would be.”

  She stretched out on my bed, as languid and relaxed as a feline, and I crawled in next to her. “If you hadn’t been such a dick all this time, maybe this would have happened before.”

  “No, I’m glad it didn’t. I wouldn’t have appreciated you then.”

  “And you appreciate me now?” she asked, her blue eyes twinkling up at me.

  Tucking her hair behind her ear, I said, “Why don’t I show you?”

  Her pupils dilated, and she licked her lips. “Why don’t you?”

  I meant to go slow, draw it out and make it good for her the way she deserved, but the wildcat underneath me had zero patience. The girl who’d been so cautious in every other aspect of her life was a woman with no patience in bed. Her hips bucked underneath me and her kiss had an edge of hunger that enticed me to satiate.

  Taking her hands, I grinned. “Don’t rush me, Ms. Tate.”

  She threw her head back. “I’m not rushing you,” she said. Then, she wrapped her arms around me, tightening her legs around my hips.

  I was lost to her. A better man would have told her this wasn’t the perfect moment. Then again, a better man wouldn’t have pursued her in the first place, wouldn’t have driven her to madness, wouldn’t have bullied and teased her. A better man would deserve her, but there was no way in hell I’d give anyone else the chance to try.

  Maybe that’s why I liked to toy with her so much. She was always so damn perfect, so put-together and sure of herself. That’s one thing I wasn’t. I might act like I had my shit together, like I knew what I was doing, but I had no fucking clue. Then I’d see her, and it was like I was being pulled in her direction. I had to make her look at me, notice me. I’d been willing to do whatever it took to get her attention. Now that I had it, I was afraid the wrong move would make her change her mind.

  I wouldn’t give her the chance.

  She’d had plenty of time to walk away, to come to her senses.

  Now, she was mine.

  I let her pull me down to her, let her wrap me as tight as she wanted. It was almost as though she was afraid I would leave, but she didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Her ferocity took me by surprise. She was in the submissive position, but she was the one kissing me. I took a moment to catch up, but then I was with her, battling her like we’d been doing for years. I welcomed her assault, letting her taste and her hands explore. The places where she touched tingled in her wake, although they were perfectly innocuous. Places like the back of my neck where my hair brushed the collar of my shirt. The inside curve of my elbow. The skin exposed by the neck of my button-up shirt.

  Our bodies tangled together, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend another moment any other way. I lifted one of her legs around my hip, the other entwined around my calf. We fought against each other to get closer. The seam of her jeans caught against my belt buckle and I heard her breath catch. It inspired the same effect as if she’d touched me.

  Beneath me, she shuddered and gasped, her hips rising to meet me as though from instinct. As I teased her with nips and strokes, she grew restless. I tried to keep my head clear, tried to take my time, but she would dip her fingers beneath my shirt or claw at my belt buckle and I’d lose myself, m
y head swimming with thoughts of sex, of her naked. God, I wanted her naked beneath me.

  I didn’t know if I said the words out loud. I may had, considering feeling her below me was driving me so out of my mind I couldn’t think straight. Either way, she shrugged out of her shirt, then undid the clasp of her bra.

  Whatever marginal leash I had on my control snapped at the sight of her, bare before me. Her hands tangled in my hair as I dove forward. If I thought I’d lost control before, it was nothing compared to the wildness that came over me as I tasted her skin.

  Layla’s sighs turned to moans as I teased her and all too soon the little seduction scene I had planned devolved. I panted against her skin and her head twisted back and forth against the pillow. Her hands tugged at my shirt, but I wasn’t in a hurry to stop what I was doing.

  “Please,” she whispered. And that was all it took for me to realize there was an ambrosia more alluring than her sounds of pleasure. Hearing her beg became my new favorite pastime.

  I let her peel off my shirt and toss it aside, but only because her pleading took on a frantic edge. Her hands painted designs on my back, carving her desires with her fingernails. I hissed out a breath against her skin as I tried to wrangle back control.

  With impossible care, I dragged her jeans down from her hips, revealing inch by inch of passion-pink flesh. I shed my own, but left on my briefs because feeling her completely bare beneath me was a sure-fire way for this to end before it even began.

  “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, as I was filling my hands with her soft, feminine curves.

  “What’s that?” I asked. Her scent was driving me to distraction.

  “I’m sorry—you know—for not being as…experienced.” She didn’t meet my eyes when I lay down beside her. The vulnerability that emanated from her urged a primal instinct inside of me to stroke her, to pet her until she relaxed underneath my hands.