I felt like I was melting all over. I pressed myself eagerly against him, clawed at his shoulders to keep him close to me. My legs wrapped completely around his waist and I could feel his cock starting to swell against me, making me shiver. I felt hot all over, and the comparison of that with the cool water was driving me crazy.
Without even thinking about it, I started to roll my hips, grinding against him. I could feel myself getting hot and slick between my legs, and even though the water was definitely all around me, I knew that wasn’t what was really making me so wet. I was clenching over and over, as if my body was already imagining his cock inside of me, already hungry and desperate for it. I felt so empty inside in a way that it usually took me forever to get when I was alone in bed or in the shower, touching myself. I wanted to be filled, I wanted to be stretched wide. I wanted Parker inside of me.
“Fuck.” Parker tore his mouth away from me. I kissed along his jaw and his neck, tasting the cool water from his skin. He was so warm, so handsome. I had never wanted anyone this badly. It felt like my body was slowly being set on fire from the inside out.
“Emma.” Parker tugged at my hair, guiding me away from his neck and forcing me to look into his eyes. “Really. We shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not?” I asked. I tried not to sound petulant. I genuinely wanted to hear his arguments and point out what nonsense they were. “I’m legal. I know what I want and what I’m asking for. I’ve had a crush on you for years, Parker. This isn’t just some… random thing because of the heat or whatever. I’ve been imagining something like this for years.”
Guess I was really laying it all out there, huh. So much for any dignity I’d planned on keeping by the time this was over.
Parker looked absolutely floored. I think if I’d punched him he would’ve been less surprised than he looked right now. “This--this whole time?”
I nodded. I supposed it was a bit of a comfort to know that I’d hidden it so well? Van had listened to me moan a hundred times that I was painfully obvious and that everyone in our entire town, including Parker, had to know about my embarrassing crush on him. But it seemed that Parker, at least, hadn’t known.
Parker still looked floored, but also a little pleased. He gentled his touch on my hair, pushing strands of it back out of my face. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I am. I want this, please, Parker. I’ve been thinking about it forever.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice, it was so breathy and thick with longing. “I want you so badly. I think about you whenever I touch myself.”
Parker swore again. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he promised, and then he was heading for the bank, hauling me out of the water.
I shrieked in surprise as he carried me, easy as anything, up out of the pond until he could lay me down in the grass. Damn. I knew Parker was strong from all the lifting he did, helping out Logan and Dad with the carpentry, but it was one thing to lift a curvy, heavy girl like me in the water and another to do it on dry land. I couldn’t help but imagine him lifting me to fuck me against a wall, and heat shot straight through me. Parker hovered over me, bracing his hands on either side of my head.
“Have you done this with anyone else?”
I shook my head. “No one.”
Parker’s gaze slid down my body, the lingerie clinging to my skin, doing nothing to hide my nipples pert with arousal or my dripping wet pussy. I felt so hot all over, I just knew that my skin was flushed, and I wondered if Parker could tell, even in the darkness. His eyes looked completely black, his chest heaving, and I felt a bolt of pride. I was making him like that. I was driving him that crazy.
“Explains why you’re so eager,” Parker teased me. He reached up, cupping my face, his thumb swiping back and forth over my cheek. “Have some patience.”
I whined. Parker just chuckled again. He seemed amused by this--and turned on. “Do you like it that I’ve never been with anyone?” I asked. “Does it make you hard to know that you’re my first?”
Parker gaped at me, then swallowed hard. “You’ve got a real naughty side, Em.”
Van was the only one who usually called me Em. It sounded warm and affectionate coming from her. Parker made it sound dark and delicious, like a tiny bite of dark chocolate. I loved it.
“Want to find out just how naughty it is?” I asked him, wiggling my hips.
Parker shook his head, and my heart sank like a stone thrown into the swimming hole--until he got a sly grin on his face. “We gotta walk before we can run.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean? You want to just makeout?” Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it if that was what he wanted, just kissing. Of course, I wanted more. I wanted all of him. But if Parker wasn’t willing to rush into that, then I would be okay with waiting. He knew now that I wanted him and he didn’t seem unhappy with the whole idea. So we could work up to it.
Parker shook his head again. “You’ll see,” he said.
Then he hooked his fingers into my underwear and dragged it down my legs.
I gasped as the warm air rushed between my legs, as I was fully exposed. Parker must’ve seen how I was glistening there, how wet and aroused I was for him, because he swore again, loudly, before spreading my legs.
My heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. I was panting with need as Parker licked his lips. Thank God we were out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody at Johnson’s farm would be able to hear us out here, and at this time of night, nobody would be walking by. Parker looked like a wolf ready to devour me, and oh, how I wanted to be devoured.
Parker lowered his mouth between my legs and licked a long stripe up through my folds with his tongue. I moaned, my hips jerking, my whole body seizing up like I’d been struck by lightning. I’d never felt anything like this before. This was nothing like my own fingers. It felt unbelievably good, and I couldn’t keep the noises in. I was good at keeping quiet when I was touching myself, but I hadn’t been prepared for how wildly different it would feel when it was someone else touching me. I hadn’t been prepared for how it would feel when it was someone’s mouth.
Parker ate me out like he was dying for it, like he was going to starve if he didn’t, his tongue twisting inside of me and curling up until I was digging my nails into the grass and crying out. It felt like every word I’d ever known had fled from me and all I could remember was his name. Oh, God, I was being consumed by pleasure, fire building up inside of me, turning my body to liquid. I felt like I was melting. The warm air around me was no longer because of the heat from the weather but because of my own body. I was burning up and I never wanted it to stop.
“God, fuck, yes!” I sobbed. “Parker, please, God, it feels so good…”
“Oh, baby,” Parker promised me, his voice dark and thick, “You ain’t felt nothin’ yet.”
Then he sealed his mouth over my clit and pleasure shot through me, all-consuming, and I screamed out his name as I came.
1
Parker
I followed Ash around the apartment as he finished packing his bags. “C’mon, man, you don’t really need to go on this trip.”
Ash just laughed. “You’re going to be fine.”
“No, I’m not. I’m going to die without you. I won’t eat a single vegetable. Or fruit. I’ll get scurvy. All my teeth will fall out, and I’ll die, and you’ll regret leaving me.”
“Way to make yourself sound like an abandoned lover. If you were pining after me all this time, man, you should’ve said so.”
“Very funny.”
Ash packed his toiletries into a bag. “Parker, you’re going to do great. You’re twenty-five years old, you can go out and meet people! You don’t need your roommate there all the time.”
“You’re going to get eaten by a komodo dragon. Those fuckers are nasty, have you seen the nature documentaries?”
“Dude, you went to Southeast Asia years ago and you were fine! I’m going to be fine!” Ash stood up and turned to face me, his arms folded. “Seriously. You
r next roommate will be even better than I was. You won’t even miss me.”
“Of course, I’m going to miss you. I might get a new roommate, but I won’t be getting a new best friend.”
“Aww.” Ash hugged me. “You’re the best. But it’s not like medieval times where you don’t know if you’re ever going to see me again. We can text and Skype and all the rest. It’s going to be okay.”
I nodded, but it sure didn’t feel like it was going to be okay. Yeah, I was exaggerating a bit and being over-dramatic because I knew it would make Ash laugh, but I was seriously going to miss him. He had been there for me, my new best friend, my roommate, and the only real person in my life after my mom died and I’d left the only other place I’d ever called home.
It had been a long five years. And I was tired of being alone.
Ash finished packing up. “And that’s my ride,” he added as his phone chimed.
“You packed last minute, you’re going to forget important things. What if you forget your medical paperwork and you have an allergic reaction or something and the doctors accidentally kill you because they don’t have your paperwork?”
“I have everything, Parker. You worry more than my mom does.” Ash hugged me again. “Be good while I’m gone.”
“You’re the one who’s always getting into trouble. I’m always good. Which is why you should stay.”
Ash laughed. “I’ll let you know that I’ve landed safely,” he said, and then he was out the door with all of his bags.
Shit.
I’d come to New York City to make friends. It was the center of life, it was where everything was happening, and I had nobody in my life. I was tired of moving around and traveling. It had been fun, sure, and I didn’t regret it. Five years of traveling the world had been amazing. I’d seen everywhere, been everywhere. But now I wanted to be in just one place and feel like I had friends who were my family again. The way that it had been in Rehoboth.
Maybe I should… reach out to Lucas? That was probably a bad idea. I hadn’t reached out to him when I’d first left. I’d been too busy dealing with Mom, and drowning in grief, globetrotting and trying to process it all. And then it had been near-impossible to communicate with people half the time while I was traveling. Now it had been five years. Would he really want to hear from the former best friend who’d basically ditched him? Probably not.
“Don’t wallow,” I told myself. Speaking to myself out loud was a habit that I’d started to develop while I was traveling, after Mom had passed, to try and combat the loneliness. It had worked pretty well. “Find yourself a new damn roommate and pick yourself up.”
I had found Ash this way, and he’d been a great roommate. My one good friend. I could find someone else--and in the meantime maybe I would find a way to make some other friends so that next time a roommate moved out I wouldn’t be so freaked out and upset.
Last time, I’d put out an advertisement, so I did the same thing this time. I even used the exact same words. I still had the document for it on my computer somewhere, although it took a while of searching.
Wanted: Roommate who will enjoy debating which Star Trek captain is the best and will clean their dishes instead of always leaving them in the sink. Must be neat and quiet. No loud parties unless I’m invited. Serial killers and people who eat other people’s leftovers need not apply.
Ash had said it was funny and made him laugh, so that’s why he’d responded to it. Hopefully this would get another great person like Ash to want to be my roommate. And I liked to think I charged a reasonable price for living in New York City. I owned the place outright thanks to my inheritance from my Mom, but I’d quickly learned that if you asked someone to live with you for free, you got a lot of crazy people, so asking for someone to pay rent helped them to be more respectful of the apartment and kept the crazies away.
Maybe I could find someone who was even better than Ash. Someone who was like Lucas. He’d been so warm and welcoming when I’d moved into town. He’d been the brother I’d never had. Sometimes, I felt like I never should’ve left Rehoboth behind. Sure, traveling around the world had been great, but I could’ve stretched that out over time. Maybe done the traveling with someone, with Lucas, or maybe a lover, instead of just being on my own constantly.
Mom had felt so bad about taking me away from the only place that’d been my home. It had torn my heart out to see her like that. She was sick and dying and she was worrying about what was best for me? I hoped, when I had kids, that I could be that kind of selfless parent for them someday. That I would earn their love the way my mom had earned mine.
Not like Dad. The bastard.
Not that he was—when I talked about my dad, which wasn’t often, people assumed he’d been some drunk guy who’d hit me. Something outwardly, obviously abusive. And he hadn’t been like that at all. But he’d been very distant and cold, and he’d had his ideas and he wouldn’t consider anyone else’s feelings about them. He’d been the one to insist on going back to Europe, on buying this crumbling castle estate in the middle of nowhere with my Mom, and he’d been the one to refuse to move closer to a hospital or put her in a care facility that would’ve been better for her health.
I could never prove it, of course. You couldn’t show someone every possible universe to prove those kinds of things. But I knew, I fucking knew in my bones, that Dad had helped speed up Mom’s death. She would’ve lasted a lot longer if she’d been living somewhere closer to doctors, or where she could’ve gotten proper in-home care.
I missed Rehoboth. I missed Lucas. I missed everyone. But you couldn’t go back and change the past. Ash was right, it was time for me to move on and get new friends, more friends. I put the ad up on various online sites and then printed it out to submit it to the newspaper. Maybe a new roommate would end up being exactly what I needed.
2
Emma
Hands on my hips, I took a final look around my bedroom. Mostly everything was already packed away in boxes, stacked neatly in the hall. The last few things would fit into a suitcase or a smaller box. At least, I was pretty sure. I’d just put my clothes in a suitcase, maybe I could stick some smaller, more fragile items in between the clothes so that they’d stay safe and protected during travel…
“You don’t actually have to pack everything, you know,” Lucas noted as he entered. “Emma, c’mon, you’re going to New York. You won’t find an apartment that has enough room for all your stuff, not with your budget.”
I was fully prepared to live in a shoebox. But I also couldn’t just give up on having all of my things with me. I wasn’t a hoarder who just collected things for no reason. All of my stuff had a specific meaning and purpose.
“You’re being far too negative,” Van said, following in behind Lucas. I swear, it felt like half the time one of them had activated a homing beacon just so they’d be aware of when the other one said something so they could run in and disagree with it.
Lucas and Van had never gotten along. Not once. I met Van in kindergarten, when Lucas was in second grade, and the very first thing Van had done was smear mud on his pants. The very first thing Lucas had done was dump sand in her hair. They’d been at odds ever since.
Mom always used to say that they’d learn to respect each other’s points of view eventually. They were both just stubborn. And that it was good for me to hear their opposing thoughts, because I had two different kinds of advice that balanced each other out.
Dad had always just said that they needed to date and get it over with.
I’d always roll my eyes at the time, embarrassed and annoyed at the idea of my best friend and my brother hooking up, but now, I smiled at the memory. I wished like anything that Mom and Dad were still around. It was a small consolation that they’d gotten to meet their granddaughter before they died, but… it was still so unfair to me. The idea that these people who were loved and needed and still fairly young could be taken from the world in the time it took you to snap your fingers.
“If anyone could find the one apartment in NYC that has space for all of her things,” Van went on, “it’s Em.”
“You say that like I have a lucky streak.” Far from it. Couldn’t go to my dream Ivy League school, lost my parents, having to raise my daughter on my own…
“I say that because you’re due for a miracle,” Van replied stubbornly. She’d always been so optimistic about everything. She’d been so sure that Parker would call, that things would work out, that he’d come back and visit. So sure that my parents would be okay, that the car crash would be minor and it would all be fine. Honestly, I wished I had her optimism. But I just couldn’t, not after everything.
Lucas grumbled something unintelligible, rolling his eyes.
Van saw my face and clucked her tongue, smiling sympathetically. “Oh, honey, don’t give me that face.” She walked over and gave me a tight hug. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”
“I’ll miss you, so much.” I’d had Van in my life for almost as long as I could remember. Now I wouldn’t have her or Lucas nearby. It would just be Ally and me.
Speaking of Ally, actually…
“Hey, Van?” I pulled back. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Oh!” Van’s mouth dropped open in surprise and then she dashed for the door. “Sorry, sorry!”
Lucas rolled his eyes again. “Wasn’t she supposed to be helping Ally get packed?”
“It’s fine.”
“Fine? Van would forget her head if it wasn’t attached.”
“Well then you can thank me for leaving her behind with you then.” I winked at him. “You two will never be bored, at least.”
Van could be a bit scatterbrained but she adored Ally and Ally adored her. I trusted Van with my daughter completely.
It was going to be hard, being the only one. Lucas and Van had been Ally’s other parents, honestly, and I wasn’t sure how well Ally was going to handle being away from them. Would she be okay?
Roomies with Brother's Best Friend Page 2
