Frenemies

by Nicole Blanchard

  “What is it, Lay?” I asked when the silence great to be unbearable.

  Was she enjoying this?

  The smile that bloomed on her lips said she was. “I thought we should talk.”

  I relaxed into my chair, feigning a nonchalance I absolutely did not feel. “About what?”

  “Us,” she said simply, and rose from her chair to sit on the edge of my desk, bringing her close enough I could feel her soft heat.

  “What about us?”

  “After you brought me home, I thought a lot about everything that’s happened.” Was I imagining it, or did a shadow cross her expression? I tensed as she continued. “I think if we were to continue our relationship right now, it wouldn’t end happily. One of us would get hurt or we’d get caught.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up one slim finger and I shut it. “What we’re doing is risky and would have consequences for both of us if we were seen and someone reported it to your superior.” She was basically repeating the argument I’d given her a few days ago.

  Although I knew she was right, I couldn’t help but protest. “Then we’d be careful.”

  But she shook her head. “We were already taking a risk yesterday. All it would take is one person. Do you really want to spend the beginning of whatever this is constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering if we’re going to get caught?”

  What she was saying made sense, hell, I’d told myself the same on several occasions. That didn’t mean it didn’t suck to hear. Stop being a pussy. “I told you I wouldn’t push you into anything, and I won’t. Graduating means everything to you, and I understand that.”

  I sounded like one of her academic advisors.

  She nodded. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  I wanted to grab her, so I clenched my hands into fists. “Good. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  “No, that about covers it.”

  How was this so easy for her? I’d never had much of an explosive temper, but the frustration that rose inside of me at her casual tone made me want to rage.

  When I spoke, my voice was as rough as gravel. “Was that all?”

  Layla straightened, stepped closer. Christ. “So, we have an agreement?”

  I nodded jerkily. “Of course. I’ll keep my space. No one has to know what happened. Our relationship from this point on will be purely professional. I should apologize for crossing that line, but I’m not fucking sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. You’re not the only one at fault here.”

  I wished she’d give me some space. There was only a breath of room between us and with her standing in front of me; I was level with her chest, craning my neck to look up at her. “You’re my student. I pushed you and you know it.”

  “Then we’ll just have to wait until I’m no longer in your class. Then you won’t have any excuses.”

  My hands unclenched. “No, I was such a—wait, what?”

  She smiled. “Until class is over, we won’t see each other outside of the lecture hall. We’ll keep our relationship completely platonic—at least until the end of the semester.” She lifted a shoulder. “This way we can both cool off and decide if what happened was just hormones and lust, or if there’s something more there without the risk of putting our futures in jeopardy.”

  I swallowed and almost choked on my own tongue. “So you aren’t breaking things off?’

  “Well, sort of. At least until after the semester. No more of those come-fuck-me-looks, no more flirting, no more lingering in the hallway in front of my apartment, and definitely no more kissing.”

  “No more kissing?” The end of the semester was an eternity away. Four or five weeks at least, if not more. I couldn’t think straight. Could I last that long?

  She shook her head. “None.” Her confident tone and expression faltered. “W-what do you think?”

  I reached out, took her hand, and pulled her onto my lap. Her thighs spread over my legs and I was grateful my desk chair had no arms, allowing her to fit close to me.

  “I think if we’re going to spend the rest of the semester without any kissing, then I’d better get my fill now.”

  I covered her mouth with my own and she pressed her hands against my chest. When she broke apart, I buried my face in her throat.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, and it pleased me to find her breathless.

  “Paying you back for torturing me a second ago. I thought you were trying to tell me to get lost.”

  She made an impatient sound as my lips captured her earlobe. “I am, sort of. We shouldn’t be doing t-this here. That was the whole point.”

  “I locked the door. No one is getting in and my next class doesn’t start for an hour. If I can’t have you until next semester, then I need one last kiss to hold me over.” My mouth traversed a languid path back to hers. “We’d better make it a good one.”

  She melted over me in the way I liked so much, and her lips softened, opened, over mine. At the submission, my tongue delved into her sweetness, urging hers to battle. I rubbed mine against hers until her hands lifted to grip either side of my face. She took over the kiss, tinder to flame.

  “That’s enough,” I said and pulled away. Too much more and we’d have more reason for the locked door. “You should go now.”

  But her blue eyes had gone bright with hunger and she shifted restlessly on my lap.

  “Maybe you were right, about one more time,” she said thoughtfully. Her gaze followed her hand as she toyed with the collar of my shirt, her fingers fluttering over the exposed skin.

  “I said one more kiss.”

  “Are you asking me to stop?” Before I had a second to reply, she was lifting her shirt over her head. All of her carefully reasoned arguments evaporated as creamy flesh filled my vision. The thin bralette she wore underneath did little to hide the flushed rose of her nipples. My mouth watered and shifted to get her off my lap, but she bored down on me, grinding down against the growing hardness.

  “Layla,” I said between gritted teeth. “You should go.” My hands made me a liar as they gripped her hips to work her over my erection. The layers of fabric did nothing to disguise the paradise between her legs. Her heat burned through both our jeans and made my thoughts turn muddled.

  “I will,” she said and got to her feet. Dual edges of relief and despair had me reaching for her, then rubbing my eyes and wishing for a cold beer.

  When I dropped my hands, my spine stiffened. “Layla, what the hell are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer and didn’t need to. The sound of her jeans dropping to the floor was answer enough. I protested and then she tucked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and pushed them over her hips. The sight made it damn near impossible to breathe, let alone speak. In a few quick movements, the lacy bralette joined the pile of clothes and she was naked in front of me.

  A roaring filled my ears and I gave up trying to make her see reason and reached for her instead. I’d been crazy since the moment I saw her, what was wrong with succumbing to the madness a little longer?

  Her nimble fingers undid the catch on my jeans and lowered the zipper. All I could do was hold onto her hips. Somehow the student had become the teacher. Her hands found me aching and hard as steel. She bent her knees, but I stopped her.

  “No, c’mere.” I guided her onto my lap and hissed at the meeting of heated flesh. “This way.”

  Layla made a sound in the back of her throat as she threw her head back and began working herself onto my cock. She wasn’t completely wet, but the friction was glorious. Her thighs trembled as she lifted and seated herself until she engulfed me completely.

  “You feel so good inside me,” she whispered against the shell of my ear. “I just wanted to feel it one more time.”

  “Whatever you want,” I answered.

  Her hips already moved of their own accord. This was something past seduction, past attraction. All I wanted was to rear up and take her, make her
mine, but I gripped her hips and let her do the taking. The incredible pleasure in the submission.

  She folded her legs, hooking her feet on the seat behind me until she found an angle that made her cry out and her hips buck wildly. Once, the students in the hallway beyond my door shouted, making her pace stumble. At first, I thought it frightened her, and maybe it did, but it also made her slick around me.

  “Better be quiet, Layla. They may be able to hear you.” Her strangled breathing filled my ears and the fingers gripping my arms would undoubtedly leave bruises. “That lock isn’t strong. If someone wanted to get in here they could. It would only take one hard push.” She buried her face in my neck and her hips slowed as she tried to control herself. Not a chance. I gripped her hips and resumed the pace. She held onto me for dear life. “They’re right there on the other side of the door. Less than five feet away. We’re practically surrounded by people.”

  “Stop, someone might hear us.”

  “Do you really want me to? You feel so hot and wet around me, Lay. I want to feel you come on me one more time. I want to watch you when you do. Just make sure you don’t make a sound.” As though to punctuate my words, someone thudded against my office door and laughter burst out.

  It shocked Layla so thoroughly; she nearly shot right off my lap. “It’s okay,” I said in her ear. “They haven’t heard you yet. Come on me, Lay, or I’ll make you scream so loud the whole building will hear you.”

  “You’re crazy,” she panted, but her hips were dancing back and forth like mad. “We’re going to get caught.”

  I got to my feet with her in my lap and her legs twitched around me and she slapped at my chest. “What are you doing?” she whisper-screeched. “Dash, no.”

  I flicked off the lights so the most anyone would see through the frosted glass were the hint of shadows. Beyond, bodies moved in the hallway, illuminated by the fluorescent glare from the lights above. It gave the illusion that we were in a room full of people.

  “This is so wrong,” she said as I pinned her back against the glass. She threw her head back when I lifted her legs over my forearms, and then sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “So wrong.”

  Her hands gripped my shoulder as I moved in and out of her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but take it. Her eyes rolled back behind her lids and she bit her lip so hard it appeared to be bloodless.

  “So wrong, but it feels so good, doesn’t it?” I said against her throat.

  “I hate you,” she answered. “Harder.”

  “Can’t,” I responded. “Someone might hear. They’re so close if we make too much noise, they could hear you.”

  She sobbed against me, her hips arching to find the angle that would take her to completion, but I held her steady, kept my thrusts paced at the border of being agonizingly slow. She slapped at me until I pinned her arms, too.

  “You’re...such...a...jerk,” Layla said in between pants.

  As though to block me out, she turned her head to the side, which made me smile, though she couldn’t see it. She was too busy looking at the shadows of the people on the other side of the window. The walls of her pussy clamped around me, and I hissed out a breath.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Her back arched and I used my weight to press her more firmly against the unforgiving wood. “Better not make a sound,” I said again.

  “Oh, God, oh God, oh God.”

  There was nothing like watching her come. Nothing in the world that compared, but I was willing to repeat it a thousand times, a million, to prove myself wrong. It was like watching a storm. Her face clouded over with concentration, the build of the orgasm rumbling just beneath the surface. Then her body drew up tight, her nipples contracted in to hard points, and her mouth opened to a wide “O” of surprise. The calm. She would hold the sweet tension for a few moments suspended in time, then, like thunder and lighting all at once, she’d shake and explode over and around me. Then her muscles would melt, and her body would cover me like soft rain.

  Yeah, I could see her come a million times and I’d never get used to it.

  I’d always want to make her do it a million more.

  CHAPTER NINTEEN

  LAYLA

  CHARLIE WAS STUCK on a double shift, but made us promise to tell her everything the following day. I couldn’t wait for advice, so I invited Ember over to my apartment once the twins were down for the night. She came wearing a pair of yoga pants and a thin sweater over a camisole. In her hands she carried a baby monitor and a bottle of wine.

  “I should have an hour or two before one of them wakes up wanting something, and that should be enough time for us to kill this wine. Do you have any glasses?”

  I was already pulling glasses out of the cabinet. “Here.”

  She poured two healthy servings and handed me one. She lifted hers to mine and clinked. “To seeing the end in sight. Graduation can’t come soon enough.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” The white wine was cool and crisp and just what I needed. It had been a long couple of days.

  Ember pulled me to the couch, sat the baby monitor on the coffee table, and tucked her feet beneath her. “Do I have to pull it out of you, or are you going to tell me what’s been going on?”

  I cupped my wine glass in my palms and studied the liquid inside while I spilled the whole story about what had happened between Dash and me. Eyes bright, Ember listened intently, pausing me only to ask questions or emit shocked gasps. When I finished, she squealed and gripped my hand.

  “Lay, I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this a secret. Well, not a good one, because Charlie and I guessed something was going on between you two, I mean no one fights that much and doesn’t end up in bed.”

  I winced. “Well, I hope no one else figured it out. We’ve been trying to keep a low profile so neither of us gets hurt. But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Ember took a long sip from her wine and settled more deeply into the couch. “I shouldn’t be so excited, because you’ve clearly been through the wringer, but I’ve been hip deep in calls. Both the girls just got over the flu so I need the distraction of someone else’s life.”

  I pressed a hand to her knee. “Feel free to indulge in my drama. No judgment. Anyway, so after Dash took me out on the date, he dropped me off at home, and who do I run into but his grandmother.”

  “No.”

  Nodding emphatically, I said, “Yes. I invited her inside and she sat down on this couch, all regal like, and warned me away from Dash like this was some soap opera from a million years ago and they’re a royal family, which would make me the lowly peasant.”

  Ember drank deeply, wiped at her lips. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t have time to say much of anything. She left before I could even put up an argument, but I was fuming.”

  “I’ll bet you were. Did you tell Dash?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t. He loves his grandparents. He’d be devastated if I told him they were capable of doing something like this. Besides, it’d be my word against hers. He wouldn’t believe me.”

  Ember didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know. From what you’ve said, he seems to be pretty into you. I think you should tell him what’s going on, that way you can work through it together.”

  “Is that how you and Chris work through your problems?” I was still worried about her. She seemed pretty broken up about how he’d been treating her.

  She nodded, then stopped herself. “I mean, it used to be. When things were good we could talk through anything. That’s what makes a relationship work more than all of the other stuff. Communication. But this isn’t about me and Chris. What happened after you talked to his grandmother? The miserable old hag,” she added with another sip of wine.

  “Well, I thought about everything for a long time, even though I’d already made up my mind once she tried to convince me otherwise.”

  “You always have to think things to death,�
�� Ember commented.

  “I can’t help it. I want to make sure I’m making the right choice.”

  “What did you decide?” she asked. “What did you tell Dash?” There was an edge of impatience in her tone that made me smile.

  “I decided, it would be best if we didn’t see each other.”

  Ember deflated a little, composed herself before answering. “Oh, I guess I understand that. He is your T.A. and you fight like cats and dogs.”

  I held up a finger. “That’s not all. I decided it would be best if we didn’t see each other...until after the semester. That way neither of us gets in trouble. It’ll also give us time to think about things and make sure this is actually something we want to do.”

  “You can’t think yourself out of love,” Ember said, and that gave me pause.

  “I’m not,” but I drank deeply of my own wine, “I want us both to be sensible.”

  “There is no making sense of it. It happens when it happens. With the right person, there is no right timing.”

  Ignoring her, I said, “That’s my point. If it’s right, then it’ll work out—after the semester is over.”

  “So you’re going to let the old hag win?” Ember demanded.

  “I’m not letting her win. I don’t want her to have any ammo, that’s all. Once I’m not in his class anymore, she won’t have any leverage over me or him. The last thing I’d want to do is risk his career. That’s what’s most important to me.”

  “I do understand that, I just think you’re trying to control a situation that’s uncontrollable.”

  “I’m not trying to control it. Let’s call it stacking the deck in my favor,” I amended.

  Ember got up from the couch and retrieved the wine from the fridge. After topping off both of our glasses, she said, “Call it whatever you want, but it’s still the same thing.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What are you going to do about your mother?”