And so many other times. So many times, I stood at her house and put my hand just below the back of her neck while she cried. I pictured myself having to do this at her wedding, when her dad wouldn’t be there to walk her down the aisle.
But she looks down at me with a rosy glow in her cheeks that I can feel more than I can see. “Huck,” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Please.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice.
I sweep her down from the wall and carry her into the main room of the boathouse. If I’d thought this would ever happen, I’d have planned out the details a little better. The nautical theme isn’t the sexiest, and there’s no bed in here—it’s only meant as a stopping place for us to check people in and out and help them find life jackets. This is the smallest part of the building. We keep the boats in the main part, floating at their indoor docks, and that leaves me with one overstuffed sofa.
Katie drops her head to my neck while I cross the room and plants one kiss, then another, and then another down to the curve of my shoulder. If I thought I was rock hard from seeing her in that damn slip, I was seriously mistaken. There is no more blood left in my brain. There is no more blood left in my entire body. I’m working on animal instinct now, and that instinct leads me to lay her down on the sofa and kneel beside her.
Our hands both go for her shorts at the same time and I stifle the urge to say great minds like a complete dumbass. I stop her, moving her hands gently out of the way, because I want to do this. I want to do this more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything in my entire life.
I tug her shorts down over her hips, down over her legs, and experience a shattering clarity.
I have always wanted this.
I’ve always wanted this in a way that’s wedged itself behind my rib cage and stuck there forever. No amount of casual sex in college was enough to dislodge it. This might be the only way. But my breath stops at the sight of her panties resting delicately across her hips.
Lightning illuminates all the curves of her body—the Bliss Brothers t-shirt riding up over the soft curve of her belly, the shadow falling beneath the slope of her waist to her hip—and I can’t tear myself away from the black panties. I brush my fingertips over them—silky as fuck—and hook one finger underneath the waistband. Katie shifts underneath me, the shirt riding up a little more, and I look up at her for one last blessing.
“Take them off,” she groans. “Please, just take them off. God, Huck, I didn’t think I’d have to beg.”
Beg breaks something inside of me. The rest of my tentativeness shatters like a vase on concrete, and I use both hands to pull them away. As soon as they’re out of my hand, they’re out of my mind, and all that’s left is Katie.
She arches back on the sofa underneath me, biting her lip, and I can see in her eyes a desperate longing that’s like an arrow slipped neatly through my ribs. My shorts hit the floor. I have no memory of undoing my belt.
The storm throws raindrops against the metal roof of the boathouse, the noise ratcheting up another level, and I climb onto the sofa. It’s too narrow, really, but I wedge my knee between the back of the couch and Katie. Jesus, it’s fucking delicious. This is what it would have been like if we’d ever once kissed in high school. If we’d ever once parked somewhere and flung ourselves into the backseat of my car. Almost.
Katie’s hands scrabble at my shirt and she yanks me down for another kiss. She tastes like mint and hope and, somehow, absurdly, of home, and I want to drink in that taste all day.
My body has other ideas.
Her body has other ideas.
She spreads her legs for me, rocking her hips to get herself into the right position for my hardness to meet the slick, wet core of her.
I’m lost.
I have actually lost my body, all except my cock, which Katie takes in inch by inch by making her own rhythm. Except it’s not just her rhythm. It’s the boats, rocking out on the water. It’s the hull smashing against the dock outside in a thud thud thud that I can sense even if I can’t really hear it. It’s my kayak paddle on the surface. It’s relentless. It takes me all the way in an under, and I come up just long enough to see her face.
Bliss.
Bliss on a woman’s face, and there’s a good sex pun in there somewhere but I’m not in any position to make it. I can only get my hand underneath her so I can lift her up, opening her for me another fraction of an inch, and pump hard into a pleasure that might kill me. It might actually stop my heart and steal the breath from my lungs and kill me, it’s so intense and focused and mine, mine, mine.
“Oh, fuck,” she says into my ear as the storm reaches a fever pitch outside. “Oh, fuck. I’m—”
“Up. Up, up.” I pull out long enough to turn her over, to plant both of her hands on the arm of the sofa, and thrust back in. There’s no way she’s going to come underneath me with my hands anywhere but her clit. I snake my hand around her waist to the front, stroking her clit with two fingers, and she bucks back against me, the rhythm turning as wild as the lake outside. She tightens, clenches, moans—a sound that vibrates through her entire body and through mine, too. I slam back into my self in time for my balls to tighten. One last hitch of breath and then my orgasm crashes over me. I can’t ignore it, I can’t do anything but thrust hard into her and ride it to the end, every muscle engaged, every muscle screaming for more of her. But I’ll die, if I take anymore. I’ve already taken so much.
We’re frozen together like that, her ass pressed against my hips, for a long time.
The rain stops.
The world spins.
Eventually, Katie wriggles her hips from side to side, which has the effect of stealing even more blood from my brain and injecting it directly into my cock. I pull out before it gets awkward and sit down heavily on the sofa.
We’re going to have to clean the sofa now. Maybe even this afternoon. Can’t have guests in here, now that I’ve fucked my best friend in the boathouse. Right?
Katie tumbles backward into me and stretches out, her breath still fast and shallow. I wrap my arms around her from behind.
It feels so good, the aftermath.
It feels so good now.
I want to stay in this moment, right here, and never leave. I could easily commit to a lifetime at Bliss if this is what it’s going to be.
“So,” I say, the words coming completely unbidden. “Was that what you meant by hanging out?”
Katie laughs, the blades of her shoulders shaking against my chest. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“It really was.”
I pull her in closer, because I was wrong before. I thought the world was the same as it ever was, but now I can see that the entire planet has shifted on its axis. “Jesus, Lennon,” I say into her hair. “What am I going to do with you?”
8
Katie
The thing about having sex with your friend—your best friend, really—is that all the friendship in the world won’t save you from having to get up off the sofa afterward and put your clothes back on. Because you’re at work. You’re both at work, which means swiping your own panties off the floor and scampering off to the bathroom, because…
No condom.
A thousand yikes. Two thousand. Infinite yikes.
I run paper towels under cold water and make a makeshift wipe, but the water does nothing to calm the heat that’s still gathered between my legs. It radiates out from my hips, covering all of my skin, and every breath has a little hitch, hitch, hitch that I can’t control. Like drunk hiccups. It’s exactly like drunk hiccups.
Once I’m clean enough to put my panties back on and my shorts, I survey myself in the mirrors. Aside from my burning cheeks I look normal. That’s shocking. I always thought that if Huck and I slept together it would shatter me on a seismic level and put me back together in an entirely new configuration.
Just kidding. I never thought about sleeping with Huck. I avoided it at all cos
ts, except maybe in the middle of the night, in my dreams. I never actively allowed myself to think about it until Libby’s wedding night.
Until that damn toast.
I yank the elastic out of my hair and go through the motions of smoothing it out, gathering it up, and putting it back in a professional ponytail. I am the picture of a woman who has not just slept with her coworker and best friend in a boathouse. I am—
The door to the bathroom swings open a few inches and I whirl toward the noise, my pulse throbbing at my temples. “Who’s there?” I cry, because obviously I’m in a horror movie.
“Uh, it’s me,” Huck says, coming all the way into the bathroom. “There’s nobody else in here and I locked the door, so…”
He lets the door swing shut then leans against it, watching me with those eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Am I okay?
In one sense, yes, I am okay. In one sense, I have gotten what I wanted, and it’s that simple. There’s nothing else to say about it. I saw Huck, I wanted him, I got him. His hands were on my body. He was in my body. And it felt good. It felt so fucking good that I’m still reeling.
In another sense…
“I feel like a boat that’s about to float off of a buoy.”
The corner of his mouth curves up. “Yeah. That got away from us a little bit.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it getting away. More like…catching up.”
Huck covers his face with his hands, and when he takes them away again he’s wearing a huge goofy grin, eyes sparkling. “Jesus, Kate, I had no idea.”
“No idea?”
“No idea you even wanted—that you’d ever considered—”
I raise both hands in the air. You got me. “I didn’t ever consider it. That wasn’t on the table for me, back when we were in high school. There was always somebody else, and we—” I make a frantic criss-crossing motion in front of my chest, which I realize in the moment must accentuate the fact that you can see my nipples pressing at the fabric of my bra. Great. “Ships passing in the night.”
Huck’s expression turns thoughtful. “We met in the night once or twice, I’d say. Just not…for this.”
“No, obviously not.”
“Obviously.”
It makes me laugh. “We’re getting stuck in a loop.”
“No loops. Can’t do that. So…what do we do now?”
Once in high school my mom and I went on a vacation for two weeks during the summer where all we did was drive from theme park to theme park and ride roller coasters. I don’t remember why we did it—god knows I was terrible at riding roller coasters—but we did. My favorite part was all the stretches along the highway, riding with my feet up on the dashboard and talking to my mom about whatever came to mind. But right now, I don’t feel like I’m ensconced in a comfortable passenger seat. I feel like I’m waiting for the brakes to release on the coaster and let me plummet down to either total exhilaration or sudden death. Is the air thin up here, or what? I fan my face like Huck has heard this thought out loud, but he gives me a look.
“Seriously, are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m not sure where to go from here,” I burst out. “I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Okay,” Huck says slowly. “Maybe we think small for a minute. What do you want to do right now?”
“We should probably leave the women’s bathroom.”
“Oh, I’m definitely leaving the women’s bathroom.” He considers me, lips pursed. “I have to go to a meeting. Do you…want to come?”
“Come to a meeting with you?”
“Yeah. You could wait outside in the bullpen. I don’t know if Roman means for it to be confidential or what, but…” Huck lifts one shoulder and drops it back down. “That’s where I’m going. If you want to come…” His mouth twists. That’s the Huck I know—restraining himself from making a dirty joke. “Just come.”
* * *
The brothers gather in Roman’s office while I sit outside in the bullpen. I came here once before, for my job interview, and that was…pretty much it. It’s weird. I know it’s weird. I’m about to stand up and leave when the blonde woman I saw outside the other day sits down next to me and peers over at Roman’s closed door.
“Hi,” she says, after a beat. “I feel like an asshole because we haven’t met.”
“I—what? You’re not an asshole. Hi. I’m Katie, from the boathouse.” I stick out my hand for her to shake and wonder if that’s a stupid move. But she shakes it back.
“I’m Holiday,” she says with a broad smile that lights up every friendship center in my brain. “I’m with Driver.”
“Oh—oh.” The insane jealousy that had threatened to explode from somewhere behind my liver shrivels up and dies. “Holiday. Holly. Duh. Of course. Huck has mentioned you.”
She leans back against the sofa. “All good things, I hope.”
“Just that you’re with Driver.”
“Good man. He didn’t spill the beans.” She folds her hands in her lap and watches the door of the office. “I’m pregnant, by the way. Due in the spring. So I’ve pretty much been at home, writing or throwing up.”
“Oh, wow. Wow.” For one thing, my mind is blown at the thought of being pregnant. I am religious about taking my birth control and always have been, since the very first pack at age fourteen. But more than that, I have a strange floating feeling, like my chest has been detached from the rest of my torso and is floating somewhere up in the atmosphere where there’s less oxygen. It’s not a bad feeling, but it is making me giddy. “That’s a lot going on. What are you writing?”
“Oh, I write these novels,” she says, waving a hand in the air. “I’m way more interested in you. When did you and Huck get together?”
My heart lurches in one direction, then flops back in the other, and I’ve definitely plummeted off a high ledge because I am falling, falling, falling. Did she see us at the boathouse? Did she see—
“We—” I say in a strangled voice. “We got together just now, if that’s—if that’s what you’re talking about. It was a spur of the moment thing, but altogether it turned out for the best,” I babble. What the hell is happening? Is this how intimate people just are at this resort?
Her eyes go wide and a startled smile plays over her face. Gray, but nothing like Huck’s. “Girl. I meant, when did you two start dating?”
“We’re not dating,” I say, the breath coming out of me in a whoosh. “We’re totally not dating. We’ve been friends since middle school, that’s all.”
Holiday nods, looking completely unable to keep the smile off her face. “I figured, from the way he looked at you the other day, that you’re dating.”
“We just hooked up,” I blurt out, because clearly my capacity for rational thought has been sexed out of me. “We actually just hooked up. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I really wanted to. But I don’t want to ruin our friendship. What do you do after that?”
Just then, the brothers file out of Roman’s office. Holly puts a hand on my shoulder. “Take a breath. We’ll talk later. Another day. Whenever. If you want. Okay?”
“Okay.” My tenuous grip on reality firms up. “We should do that.”
Huck saunters over, hands in his pockets, taking in the two of us on the sofa.
“How’s everything?” he asks, another question in his eyes.
“It’s wonderful,” Holiday tells him, standing up. “Katie, it was great to meet you. And Huck, it’s time to take this girl on a date.”
9
Huck
“I was going to take you on a date. Clearly.”
Katie sits in the passenger seat of my car, wearing a sundress over a pair of skinny jeans and looking like she just walked off a runway somewhere. Or out of a hair and makeup appointment for a wedding. I don’t know. She looks fucking amazing, and then she grimaces.
“You don’t have to take me on a date date just because we…you know.”
�
�Because we totally boned in the boathouse.”
She lets out a belly laugh. “You can’t keep saying that. Somebody’s going to hear.”
“Hey, if they don’t like it, they can walk away.”
“We’re in the car.”
“Then why are you worried someone might hear?”
She wrinkles her nose. “God, I don’t know. Because I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened in the boathouse.”
“You tackled me, and we slept together.”
“I tackled you.” A mysterious smile flashes across Katie’s face. “I touched you, is all.”
“In the end, it doesn’t even matter.” She laughs, the sound filling me with a joy like a helium balloon. Thank god it won’t make me sound like a chipmunk.”
“But…where are we going, exactly?”
“To a hotel,” I answer her somberly. We’re officially off Bliss property and rolling into the outskirts of Ruby Bay. “It’s time to consummate…whatever this is…in a bed.”
“Huck, be serious.”
I glare at her out of the corner of my eye. “All I wanted you to know is that I was going to take you out on a date, even if Holly hadn’t said anything. Okay?”
She turns her body to look at me full on. “We’re not dating, though. This is…this can be our hang sesh.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like a dentist appointment.”
“But we’re not dating,” Katie insists. “That’s not what’s happening. We’re just…we’re hanging out. Because I missed you.”
“Not dating,” I confirm, though it stops the breath in my lungs and a slow trickle of disappointment cracks like an egg on the crown of my head and runs all the way down my spine. “We are definitely not dating.”
Love on You: A Bliss Brothers Novel Page 4
