Friends with Benefits

by Amy Brent

  He chuckled at mom’s words and tilted his head to the side. At the same time, my hands involuntarily clenched at their closeness.

  “Although I have no idea what cleaning people—which I do have, by the way—have to do with anything, I’m happy you’ve decided to enjoy this place. It’s your house now too,” he said in a casual tone. Then, with a smile that was more polite and friendly than sexy and flirty, he added, “And the only lovely thing here are the two of you.”

  I blushed bright red at his compliment and nearly gasped when instead of waiting for my mother to introduce us, Ben turned his eyes to me and extended a hand. “You must be Jessica. Your mother has told me a lot about you.”

  Trying my best to contain the wrong, lustful thoughts I was having towards him, I reached my hand to touch his. As our skins collided, a chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure if the feeling was a warning for trouble or a prelude to something great; all I knew was that I had to get my skin away from his as soon as possible.

  “She’s told me a lot about you as well,” I informed with a sweet smile as I abruptly pulled my hand back from his. A light crease formed between his brows at my rudeness. Hoping to soften the blow, I playfully said, “I’m thrilled to finally meet you…daddy.”

  Mom chuckled, and Ben’s lips curled up into a smirk at that last word. For anyone watching, his expression was just a display of mirth over my joke, but I could see right through it. The way his lips pulled harder on one side and his eyes narrowed as he held my gaze told me that there wasn’t even a hint of amusement in his expression.

  “So am I, baby girl.” Those words hung heavier than they should between us, but Ben quickly turned his attention back to my mother and said, “Okay, if you girls are ready, we should head on over to City Hall. I’ve asked my chef to prepare us a special meal for when we come back.”

  Eager to get this whole thing over with, Mom agreed, and we both followed Ben out of the house. As we drove to City Hall, I sat on the back seat of Ben’s Bentley and tried to ignore the little glances he threw my way through the rearview mirror.

  Fake marriage or not, Ben Walker was about to marry my mother, and I was too busy building a future for myself to be jealous of her—no matter how hot and bothered her future husband made me feel.

  Chapter 9 – Ben

  The weeks following the wedding went according to plan. I introduced Pam to the board as my wife and, just as I had imagined, they loved her. She was pretty, smart, polite and, most importantly, of a proper age for their square asses, and with her by my side securing my place as CEO and chairman of the board was a piece of cake.

  At home, however, things were a bit more complicated. Although Pam and I got along better than I had anticipated, Jessica was a problem. A huge fucking problem.

  From the moment, I laid eyes on her I knew that I was utterly and completely screwed. Considering that Pam was a beautiful woman, I had always imagined that her daughter would be pretty as well.

  However, never in my wildest dreams had I considered the possibility of my step-daughter being the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my life, but that was the only description I had for her.

  Her oval face was delicate and soft like an angel’s, and her shoulder length hair framed her face like a golden halo. She had large and round green eyes that held equal amounts of innocence and mischief whenever they met mine, and her lips were full and pouty like sin itself. If her face wasn’t enough to shake me off my game, her curvy, long-legged body certainly did the trick.

  For the duration of my wedding and every day that followed, all I could think about were her long legs wrapped around my waist as my mouth feasted on her large tits and my cock pushed in and out of her pussy. I imagined her calling me daddy again, but this time while I filled her with my seed. Though it was just a fantasy, it was also sexier than most of the sex I had had in my life.

  But it was wrong, and I knew it.

  She was my wife’s daughter, and though I didn’t give a shit about my wedding vows, I cared—a lot—about not giving Pam a reason to divorce me before our year was through. As much as I wanted Jessica, my company was more important, and I had to think about it first. For that reason, I kept our interactions to a minimum and tried as hard as I could to keep my distance from her—especially on the days Pam wasn’t home, and the temptation to approach her and make her mine was stronger. Since I hardly ever saw Jessica around the house, I imagined she was doing the same.

  However, about two weeks into my marriage, I arrived home from work at around ten at night and saw Jessica seated on the living room floor with a mess of papers and a beer bottle on my seven-thousand-dollar antique coffee table and an open pizza box on my ten-thousand-dollar Persian rug. I looked around the house for Pam or a member of my staff, but the rest of the house was dark, and no one was around.

  Immediately, I saw three options. The first—and smartest—was to walk away and continue to ignore Jessica as I should. The second—less prudent, but still effective in keeping my distance—was to walk up to her and give her a piece of my mind for putting my valuable furniture in jeopardy. However, since I was too tired to fight against the magnetism that pulled me toward the one girl I couldn’t have, I chose the third option and pushed all thoughts of prudence, bottle rings, and grease stains away from my mind and just approached her like a normal person.

  Jessica was so engrossed in the book propped over her thighs she only noticed my approach when I spoke. “Hi,” I said.

  Visibly startled, she peeled her eyes from the page she was reading and looked up at me. There wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her beautiful face, and she was wearing a pair of short shorts and a spaghetti strap top that I assumed were pajamas. Involuntarily, my gaze dropped to her cleavage and my tongue ran across my lips with a visceral need to taste her soft, creamy skin.

  “Oh, hi. Did you just get home?” she asked after a few seconds, commanding my gaze to bounce back to her gorgeous face. The blush on her cheeks was a clear sign that she had caught me staring at her tits, but to my delight—and worry—she made no move to further cover herself.

  I nodded. “Yeah, we’re closing a big deal this week, and I had to look at some numbers and projections.”

  “Sounds boring,” she said in a teasing tone that made me chuckle. “Want some pizza?”

  I glanced at the greasy treat beside her and smiled. “Actually, I would love some. Haven’t had a slice in forever.”

  Trying to act casually, I loosened my tie and walked around the couch to sit on the floor beside her.

  “Shut up,” she blurted out with wide eyes as she passed the box over to me. “How can you live without pizza?”

  I shrugged and picked up a slice. “I have a personal chef.”

  “I know that. I’ve had his food. It’s delicious, but pizza . . .”

  Despite how hard I was controlling myself to keep some distance between us, I couldn’t help but laugh and scoot a bit closer to her. Holding her gaze, I took a bite, and a soft, pleased moan escaped my lips making me quickly agree with her. Joe’s food was great and all, but pizza . . .

  “I had forgotten how good this is,” I told her as I chewed.

  A sideways smirk curled on her lips as she reached for her beer and passed it over to me. “Try with a swing of this and you’ll understand why they are my two major food groups.”

  Holding her gaze, I swallowed and took a gulp of her cheap ass beer. It tasted like piss to my well-trained palate, but it paired surprisingly well with the pizza.

  I rested my back against the couch and asked, “What are you doing down here?”

  “Studying. I have a major exam tomorrow, and it’s not on my favorite subject.”

  I asked her what was her favorite subject and finished my slice of pizza while she told me about her passion for biology and pediatric surgery—a subject she was still years away from studying but already knew to be her ultimate professional goal. Her enthusiasm was captivating and made me strangely hap
py to be paying for her loans and tuition.

  Once she was done, I complimented her on her passion and then asked, “But what are you doing here? On the living room floor?”

  Jessica’s cheeks turned a cute shade of red, but her voice was very matter-of-fact when she explained, “I like to study on the living room floor when I’m home alone.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged and chuckled. “I don’t know. Makes me feel less alone, I guess.”

  Genuinely curious, I pressed, “Again, why?”

  “After mom finished her flight attendant course, she got a job as a trainee at a small airline,” she started with a hint of a smile on her plump lips. “It paid shit, but it was enough to finally get us out of my grandma’s house and into our first apartment. The place was a one bedroom shoebox that cost a fortune, but mom wanted to stay in my school district so I wouldn’t have to change schools.”

  I nodded to assure her she had my undivided attention and went in for a second slice as she continued. “Because my mother is the greatest, she let me have the room so I would have my own space like all the other little girls in my class and spent six years sleeping on a pull-out couch in the living room. Whenever she wasn’t home and I missed her, I would sit there on the floor of what I considered her room and study as I waited for her. I guess the behavior stuck.”

  The expression on Jessica’s face was warm and resembled longing. It was strange to me—especially considering that she was talking about a time where they were clearly struggling—but it was a good and refreshing type of strange. Despite her modest upbringing, she seemed happy about the life they had, and it made me respect her.

  I had met many women in life who were after nothing more than money and fame. They were never satisfied with what life offered and were always after more. Jessica, however, seemed perfectly content with her life and though she was living in my mansion and driving the fancy Cadillac SUV I had bought her, she was still eating on the floor as she had her entire life. In addition to that, she wasn’t waiting around for the millions I had promised her mother, she was studying to make a life for herself.

  Although I was never one to be attracted—or even pay attention—to a girl’s personality, I was drawn to hers, and that was yet another problem to my already fucked self.

  Hoping to steer this moment into safer directions, I brought her mother—my wife—into the conversation. “You and Pam are very close, aren’t you?”

  Her smile doubled in size, and she nodded. “Yeah. My deadbeat dad bailed when I was a baby, and my grandma died when I was eight. We’re all we have in the world, so we stick together.”

  “You guys have me now,” I said without thinking and for reasons I don’t fully understand.

  Jessica gave me a small, shy smile but didn’t reply to my comment. Instead, she said, “What about you? Were you close to your dad?”

  “Yeah,” I started. “But we weren’t like you and Pam. We were close at the office and friendly for the most part, but our views of life and happiness were a lot different. As a result, we argued quite a bit.”

  “Like the marriage thing?” she demanded in a very matter-of-fact tone.

  Uncomfortable about discussing my marriage with her—why, I had no idea since she obviously knew everything about it—I fidgeted in my seat but nodded nonetheless. “Yes, like the marriage thing. Dad was a hopeless romantic—”

  “And you’re not?” she interrupted.

  If she were any other woman, I would have been pissed at her rudeness, but for some reason, I didn’t care. Talking to her was more comfortable and enjoyable than I had ever imagined talking could be. I liked being around her and hearing her thoughts. I liked her interest in me and the way she bobbed her head while thinking. And, realizing those things made me even more sure that sitting here with her, at night and while her mother wasn’t home was a mistake. I should have kept my distance, but I didn’t, and now it was too late.

  Hoping to salvage the situation, I cleared my throat and kept my voice casual as I replied. “I made marriage a business deal, so no. I’m not a romantic.”

  “What are you then?”

  The question took me by surprise as did the intense look in her eyes. I wasn’t entirely sure how to reply, so I said the first thing that came to mind—which turned out to be absolutely true. “I’m a man who gets what he wants.”

  She nodded and then leaned a bit forward. “And what is it that you want, Ben?”

  My heart skipped a beat, and my cock twitched at the innuendo in her words. Inside my mind, a voice replied, “To fuck you. To bury myself in you until you wake the whole house calling me daddy.” But I knew I could never say that. She was my wife’s daughter and, therefore, totally and completely off limits to me. I just had to find a way not to forget it.

  Pulling a deep breath through my nose, I shifted in my seat and drank the last of the beer before replying.

  “Depends on the moment,” I started in a very casual tone.

  For a couple of seconds, the only noise between us was the sound of our breaths. Then, with her eyes locked with mine and a slight tremor on her bottom lip, Jessica reached her hand to touch my bicep and asked, “What about now? What do you want?”

  Despite the layers of my shirt and suit jacket, I could feel the heat and electricity of her skin seeping into mine. Combined with her brazen question, it made my body come alive. In the space of a heartbeat, my cock hardened and all the fantasies I had had over the last few weeks filled my mind.

  As I looked into her eyes and felt the warmth of her skin in mine, I imagined myself ripping her clothes off and making her mine. The image was so intense that it melted away my resolve to stay away and moved my hand to touch the naked flesh of her thigh.

  Jessica gasped at my touch, and I leaned a bit more towards her, so my mouth was just inches away from hers. Her eyes fluttered closed as I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I wanted, but before a word came out, the front door rattled and the distinct sound of high heels entering echoed through the foyer over to us.

  Instantly, we pulled away from each other, but I kept my eyes focused on Jessica whose face turned red with I could only assume to be panic. Honestly, I hated seeing that expression on her. We were both adults who had shared a moment after talking and getting to know one another. There was nothing shameful about that. Or at least there wouldn’t be if I wasn’t her mother’s fucking husband.

  Fuckballs and shit! Hoping to comfort her, I reached my hand forward to touch her again, but she slapped it away and got up.

  “Hey, mom,” Jessica greeted.

  The clicking of heels stopped and then returned as Pam took a sharp turn from the foyer and came walking towards us. Her eyes narrowed in what I hoped was just confusion as she saw me seated at her daughter’s feet.

  “Hey, honey. Ben,” she greeted back. With eyes fixed on me, she addressed her daughter. “I didn’t think you’d still be up. Don’t you have a big test tomorrow?”

  Jessica nodded and bent over to collect her things from the coffee table. “Yeah, but I’m just gathering my stuff to go to sleep. I was studying when Ben came home. He told me he hadn’t had a slice of pizza in ages, so I had to give him some. Must have lost track of time.”

  “That can happen,” Pam replied with a nod and a firm look in my direction.

  After she was finished gathering her things, Jessica looked at me, thanked me for the company and then walked away toward her mother. Pam gave her a quick peck on the cheek and Jessica left, promising to have lunch with Pam the next day and leaving my wife and me alone in the living room.

  “Did you enjoy your pizza, Ben?” Pam asked in a serious and judgmental tone I had never heard before.

  Despite my annoyance at her tone, I kept a smile on my face and a casual tone as I got up from the floor and walked toward her. “The pizza was delicious and Jessica was sweet to offer. You’ve raised a great girl, Pam. You should be proud.”

  “I am,” Pam said in t
hat same dry tone. “She’s sweet, smart and the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ll do anything to protect her.”

  The warning was clear in her voice, but I just stared at her with a straight face and kept walking until I was standing right in front of her. Holding her gaze, I said, “You can count on me to help. Fake or not, we’re family.” After a nod from Pam, I added, “I have an early day tomorrow, so I’m going up as well. Itis good to have you home again.”

  I placed a kiss on her cheek and walked away without another word. I could feel Pam’s suspicious eyes burning a hole in my back, but I paid no attention to it. Our marriage was fake, Jessica was an adult and, despite our little moment, nothing had happened. That was the truth, and I was sticking to it.

  Chapter 10 – Pam

  A sickening feeling filled my gut as I watched my fake husband walk away.

  Despite their innocent explanation about study and pizza, I wasn’t stupid and knew something had happened. What that something was, I wasn’t sure, but the bulge in Ben’s pants and Jessica’s hurry to get out of the room filled my head with terrifying ideas. Since Jess hadn’t been angry or upset and I had no actual proof of anything, I controlled my temper and acted as if everything was well in the Walker household. But that didn’t mean I would let this go.

  No, my daughter was too sweet and innocent, and my husband was too old, too experienced and too married to be anywhere near her. I was determined to find out what he wanted from her and put an end to it before it even started.