LustandOtherDrugs

by Saranna Dewylde

  “Go away. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “I think not. Remember the Ozzy concert? ‘I’ll be right out’ turned into three hours. Not a chance.”

  “What, are you going to watch me dress?”

  “Maybe I will,” Seth threatened.

  “You have to at least buy me dinner if you wanna get that show,” she grumbled.

  “That’s why it’s called dinner theater.”

  “Those were Justin’s tickets. You didn’t buy anything.”

  Anne realized that their banter was much like hers and Chase’s. Too bad Gin couldn’t see it. “I promise she’ll be in to get ready in five minutes.”

  “So that means we’ll actually be able to leave in six hours.” Seth looked at his watch. “Right on time.” He turned and went back in the house.

  “Why does everyone give me grief because I want to look nice?” Gin groused.

  “Because you’re kind of a space cadet and you get distracted. Seth and Chase both hate to be late anywhere.”

  “It’s not like I set out to be late.”

  “I know.” She quickly hugged Gin. “Now, get out. You have to get ready.”

  “Are you going to tell me what you guys were talking about?”

  “No. I think you’ll have more fun figuring it out for yourself.”

  “I don’t like that wicked gleam in your eyes, wench,” Gin said.

  “Then stop looking at it. Your knight with the shining speculum awaits.”

  Gin spat her last gulp of wine out into the yard. “Did you really go there?”

  “I think I did.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No, I only had two glasses.”

  “That was a whole bottle.”

  “You’re the one who brought three,” Anne teased. “No, really. I’m not tipsy in the least. All the grease and pizza sucked it up like a sponge.”

  “I’m not interested in Seth,” Gin clarified.

  “Okay.”

  “Really.”

  “Really, okay.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Who are you trying convince? Me or yourself?” Anne asked.

  “Shut up.”

  “Then get your butt in gear before he comes out here again.”

  “I don’t know why he’s here so early. We have six hours.”

  “Maybe he wants to take you to eat first.” Anne grinned.

  “It’s dinner theater.”

  “The food probably sucks.”

  “Or he thinks he’s going to get laid,” Gin mused.

  “Come on, you know Seth isn’t like that.”

  “Well, why isn’t he? Fucking is simple. That makes sense to me,” Gin said with a pout. “I don’t understand him.”

  “Why are you trying to understand him? I thought you didn’t like him.”

  “Shut. Up.” Gin splashed her and climbed out of the tub.

  Anne just laughed as Gin padded into the house.

  When Anne was sure she’d heard the telltale sound of Seth’s car pulling out of the driveway sometime later, she ripped her bathing suit off and flung it onto the deck.

  She turned the jets on high and relaxed with another soul-deep sigh. She reached for more pizza and refilled her glass of Rosa Regale. All was as right as it could be at the moment.

  If she didn’t take into account she’d left her towel in the kitchen.

  Chapter Six

  A naked and dripping Anne was doing exactly shit for his resolve to forget what had happened between them.

  Not that he could actually forget living out his fantasy in the kitchen or forget it had been better than anything he’d dreamed of, but for the sake of their friendship, Chase had decided he had to put it out of his head. He’d been around the block more than once. He’d had friends with benefits, but Anne deserved better than that from anyone she was with.

  He hadn’t been able to think, all the blood that should have been powering his brain diverted to keeping his cock hard. And today, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, remembering the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her breasts and the way her sweet cunt had clenched around him as she’d whispered for him to fuck her. Something he’d only ever heard in his wildest fantasies. Those words could have been dirty and crude, but they weren’t. On her lips, they were intimate and soft, only for him.

  Now she stood before him, the ends of her dark hair clinging in damp ringlets around her shoulders, a stark contrast against her skin, which was pink from the heat of the Jacuzzi. Droplets of water sluiced between the valley of her perfect breasts, over the flat plane of her belly and down the long length of those legs that had been so recently wrapped around his waist.

  Her full lips parted in a tiny gasp and she blushed but didn’t try to hide her nakedness. Chase struggled to draw his eyes up to her face, but he couldn’t. He’d been looking into the depths of her eyes for years and this was a vision he’d never get enough of. Chase memorized the curve of her hips, the delicate, dark triangle at the apex of her thighs, the dark-rose nipples that were tight and hard, begging for his mouth. This was more beautiful and more sensual than he’d ever imagined her.

  Chase knew he should speak, or look away, but his mouth was dry and words had failed him.

  “I forgot my towel,” she offered in a hoarse voice. “Sorry I’m getting the floor wet.” Anne put a hand out, bracing herself on the kitchen island.

  The place where he’d had her on her back, tasted between her thighs and spilled inside her. He ached, wanted her again more than anything. All his careful resolve crumbled to dust.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  She took a tentative step toward him but he was still frozen. Anne seemed unsure of what to do herself. Perhaps the previous night had only been because of the supplement and she didn’t want him?

  He even half hoped that was the case. Because this need that blazed between them, it changed everything.

  That thought sobered him enough to draw his stare up to her face and the shy look in her eyes. She swept her lashes down suddenly, as if she were afraid to meet his gaze, and she took another careful step toward him.

  “Really?” she asked as she bit her lip.

  Of their own volition, his fingers ghosted down her arm. “Stop fishing for compliments.” Normally his remark would be some slick beginning of banter, but he sounded as if the words choked him.

  “Then stop being stingy with them,” she teased.

  “Anne, I think we have to talk about what happened.”

  “Why?” The moment was broken and she pushed past him to grab her towel.

  “Because we’re friends. We’re roommates.”

  “Meaning?” She wrapped the towel around herself like a cocoon. It had become her armor, hardening that inviting softness previously on display.

  “I don’t want to lose our friendship, Anne.”

  “How about we forget it happened? That’s what you said after our dance. It wasn’t a big deal. So don’t make it one.”

  “Because I know you’re not a person who can do that. I know you have to analyze every little thing that happened and then you have to beat each thing to death and then some. That’s just how you’re wired.” He took her hand. “I don’t want to be the guy on the other end of that. I don’t want to be the one you’re calling Gin about because I’m your best friend. I’m good at being your best friend.”

  Chase didn’t say the other thing that was on the tip of his tongue. Yes, he was good at being her best friend, but what he wasn’t good at was being in a relationship. The only thing that could be a priority was medical school, and no woman wanted to be second to anything.

  “I’m not calling Gin up and sniveling over what happened.”

  “That’s not what I meant. See, things have already changed.”

  “Chase…” She paused. “Nothing has changed. We’re still friends. You’re still my best friend. I just happened to like looking at you naked. I’m not seeing anyone right n
ow and the site fills a need. I thought women were the ones who were supposed to have trouble compartmentalizing?” She made a quick exit to her room, intending to have the last word.

  But those particular words hit him in the gut. They reminded him that she used the site—and she’d just told him she wasn’t going to stop. Now he had an image of her bringing herself off, and thinking of him while she did it.

  His cock was already painfully hard, but now he was losing brain function because all he could think about was following her into her room and taking her at her word. Bending her over the bed and filling her every way she could possibly imagine.

  Chase found himself in her bedroom doorway before he could stop himself. “What are you proposing?”

  She dropped her towel and stepped into a pair of purple, lacy boy shorts. He was hypnotized by the bounce of her breasts with every motion, her nipples tight and hard.

  “I’m not proposing anything, Chase. If nothing has changed, why would I?” She smiled softly, the same smile she gave him when she knew she’d won a point.

  He’d said he didn’t want them to change, but they already had. “So, you can look at me every day and not remember what happened in the kitchen?”

  “I don’t want to forget, but I’m not going to pick at it. Are you?”

  “No.” But he would, because he was picking at it now.

  “Look, I meant what I said earlier. What’s a little fucking between friends? It’s just making each other feel good, right?” She was using his own words, but somehow they sounded accusatory out of her mouth. “Shouldn’t friends want each other to feel good?” Anne grinned this time.

  “All this bullshit aside, nothing is worth losing you. Not even living out my fantasies,” he confessed.

  She still hadn’t dressed. “Your mouth says one thing, Chase. But your eyes and your cock say something else. If I told you right now that it could never happen again, what would you do?”

  “Besides know that you’re right?”

  “A real answer, Chase. Or can’t you give me one because you’re too busy looking at my tits?”

  “It’s not fair to expect anyone to form a coherent thought with tits like those in their face.”

  She smiled. “They never bothered you before.”

  “Jesus, Anne. Then I’m a better actor than I thought. I saved my lunch money for a week to give to Jennifer Eisler so she’d call our names together for Seven in Heaven.”

  She made no move to cover herself. “So what happened, Chase?”

  “You told me you’d never had a boyfriend. No one’s first is ever their last.” He’d as much as confessed he’d wanted to be her last. Shit. He couldn’t say things like that. Not now. “Then it passed. We were friends. Best friends.”

  “And now you have medical school and I have my career.”

  It both thrilled and dismayed him that she understood. He’d had this picture of her pining for him, and if he was honest with himself, he kind of wanted it to be true. And finding out it wasn’t…

  “I want things to be as they were,” Anne said.

  Then why, for fuck’s sake, wouldn’t she put on a shirt? He was standing in the doorway practically slavering over her, and she was talking about things being as they were.

  “But I want to keep fucking you too.”

  If his cock got any harder, it was going to splinter in half.

  “Chase,” she moved closer to grab his hand, “I don’t want to lose our friendship either. But I think we will if we don’t explore this. It happened. There’s no turning back. We can go forward and choose the parameters of our friendship and if that ends up being the closeness we’ve always had, where we laugh about that ‘experimental’ time after college, so be it. But this isn’t going to go away.”

  Now that he had permission, Chase made no attempt to stop his gaze from raking down her body, and he was pleased to see the same hunger in her eyes. Maybe she was right?

  He reached out to touch her face, his palm cupping her cheek and his thumb sliding over the fullness of her lips. Chase meant it to be an affectionate caress, but the contact with her skin burned away all of his good intentions, few though they were to begin with, and he drew his hand down the slim column of her throat to the valley between her breasts.

  “Think about it, Chase.”

  “I am,” he confessed.

  She laughed and slapped his hand away. “No, really think about it. So we don’t have any regrets. We can talk after Justin’s party.”

  “I thought he had that dinner theater thing?”

  “He does, but his frat is having a party after. It’s high-school themed.” Anne shook her head. “We spent years trying to forget it and now they want us to relive it. I think it’s just for the sex games.”

  “What?” Chase didn’t think he was hearing her correctly.

  “You know, Spin the Bottle? Seven in Heaven? Truth or Dare?”

  “And we’re going to this? I could be studying and you could be painting, but instead we’re going to hang out with a bunch of drunken frat boys?”

  “Don’t you want to see what it will be like to be stuck in a closet with me now?” She sat down on the bed.

  “We have perfectly good closets here.” As a grown man, he didn’t see the appeal.

  She rolled her eyes but since she was still topless, it didn’t have the same effect. “You don’t have to go. But I think it will be fun. Remember that last game of Truth or Dare on the senior trip?”

  “When we snuck into Ms. Jeffrey’s room and found her vibrators?”

  Anne laughed. “Yeah, that one thing was like a moped. I swear to God, it had to run on rocket fuel. And Doug and Aaron had a sword fight with them?”

  “Poor woman. Remember when she caught them? She just walked past them like she didn’t even see what they were doing, but told us we’d all better be in bed in ten minutes.”

  “I can’t imagine how embarrassed she was. I’d die. Or pray for death. We were little shits.”

  “And you want to go relive this?”

  “Sure. Why not? And Justin asked me to go.”

  “You just want to get Gin and Seth in a closet together.”

  “That too.” Anne nodded. “So, if you don’t want to go in the closet, maybe we’ll go into the Truth or Dare room and I’ll dare you to do something, like kiss Justin.”

  Chase raised a brow. The idea didn’t appeal to him, but making Anne blush did. So did turning her on. One mouth was much the same as another. If it would make Anne hot, he’d kiss anyone she told him to. “Would you like that?”

  “Maybe.” She bit her lip and her cheeks colored, as he knew they would.

  Yeah, she liked that a lot. “There’ve been hundreds of requests on Dreamed Desire for some man-on-man action. Were you one of those? Who do you want to see me with?” He sat down on the bed and leaned into her, brushing his lips across the pulse in her throat. “Tell me your fantasy.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and arched against his mouth. “I thought you were going to think about things?”

  “I have been thinking about them, Anne.” He stroked his knuckles down the curve of her breast. “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

  Anne turned on the bed to straddle him and braced her palms on his shoulders. “Maybe you should be telling me your fantasy, Chase?”

  “You gave me my fantasy last night.”

  She moaned softly and her nails scored his back as she clung tighter. “We should stop so I have time to get ready.” But she made no move to push him away.

  “Fuck that. Stay here with me.”

  “Why?” Anne pressed her lips against his neck, returning his caress.

  “Because I asked.”

  “As my best friend or my lover?” She rolled her hips, grinding against him.

  “Both.”

  Chapter Seven

  How he expected things not to change was beyond Anne.

  Already he was asking to be treated differently tha
n her other friends. She’d promised she’d go to the party and Chase wanted her to ditch it to spend time with him. He wanted her to choose him over their other friends. How was she supposed to know where the line was? It was hard to make the right decisions when his hands were scorching her skin.

  “If we’re just friends, why do you get priority over a promise I made?” Her question was serious, but her tone was light, teasing.

  He dipped his head to her breast, his mouth hot and hungry on her nipple. “I want what I want, when I want it, Anne. And so do you,” he murmured around the tightened bud, completely unrepentant.

  Anne pushed her fingers through his hair to tug him away from her breast. “Chase, as good as this is, I mean it. I want to fuck you, but we have to set some ground rules.”

  “Only if we talk about it in the hot tub.”

  “Only if you keep your hands to yourself.”

  “That’s not fair.” He laughed as he lowered his mouth toward her breast again.

  “Life rarely is.” Anne knew they loved each other, but they weren’t in love. And she wanted the physical part of a relationship and knew Chase did too, but that’s where the waters got muddy. If they didn’t want the rest of the trappings of a relationship, where were the lines?

  She knew he had to keep filming for Dreamed Desire, but there were shoots of him with other women. Could she handle knowing that her sex partner wasn’t just hers? Or would it matter because they’d always been best friends? Anne hadn’t been jealous watching him on the site, but did that change when he was fucking her too? Did she have the right to say she didn’t want to share him?

  Anne wished she had definitive answers for those questions but she didn’t, and she was very aware that while some things sounded perfectly reasonable on paper, they weren’t always applicable in real life.

  “I was in the hot tub for way too long earlier. I’m going to be all scaly if you make me get in again.”

  “Dr. Donovan prescribes another leisurely soak and a full-body rubdown with the lotion of your choice.”

  Anne watched the easy smile light his face and it struck something inside her. Something she didn’t want to acknowledge. Her fingers were still twisting in the dark locks of hair that hung over his collar.