My hand slid into her hair, holding her to me as a wave of tenderness unlike anything else I’d experienced barreled over me. My other arm came around her back, anchoring her. I was both ready and not ready for this, for Navy.
I could be content just holding her like this for as long as she would let me. It was a revelation. My fingers glided up and down her spine, in a lazy kind of massage.
“Mmmm,” she murmured against my mouth and then nuzzled my neck. “That feels so good.”
But I wanted more. I slipped my hand between her legs and felt for her opening, teasing her lips with my fingers until the legs straddling my hips spread wider, giving me more access.
Fuck, she was warm and open and everything. I started off teasing her opening, and when she had just begun to relax against my hand, I slipped two fingers inside and pumped roughly once.
She made a noise in her throat and tossed her head back, empowering me to continue the rough thrusts, over and over until her body began to tremble. I curled my fingers and pressed my thumb to her clit, loving the way she ground down on my hand. She was illuminated. And it was such a fucking privilege to get to witness her undoing.
She threw the condom she’d held in a death grip at my chest. “Put it on, I’m close,” she said between heavy pants.
Which only encouraged me to keep it up, to follow her trembling until she was completely shaking—her whole body taut like a tensed rope.
“Keane.” She laughed.
“That’s my name,” I said, amused and enthralled.
“Keane,” she repeated, more breathy. Her voice was ragged, her nails dug into my shoulders and then her mouth opened to cry out as she fell forward, her face buried in my neck. Her moan muffled by my skin, but the vibration of it made everything in me strain for a similar release. Quickly, I pulled the condom on and rolled her onto her back.
She opened her legs for me like we’d done this a dozen times and without giving her a second to breathe, I was inside of her.
I didn’t think there were words for what it’s like to be inside of a woman for the first time. But I knew for a fucking fact that weren’t words for being inside of a woman you deeply cared about. It was some full circle kind of thing, like finding a piece to a puzzle you’d known your whole life, a puzzle piece you didn’t know you were missing.
She bloomed under me, her eyes all sleepy with pleasure and her mouth open as I thrust over and over again.
I’d never get this image—her chest pink from my mouth and beard, her lips pursed in pleasure and her eyes locked with mine in the dark—out of my mind.
I wanted her to come again, but my own climax was already steps ahead before I’d ever slid the condom on. As I came, I pumped harder, faster, going and going as my arms ached until her back arched off the bed and her eyes closed tightly, that incredible little moan purring from her throat once again.
I fell to the side of the bed, my head swimming from the alcohol and her. Rolling out of the bed, I pulled the condom off and went into the bathroom to dispose of it in the trash.
When I climbed back into the bed, I grabbed the covers and covered us both. Her eyes were closed, but she made a sound of agreement once her naked body was covered in my sheets.
She rolled to her side against me, pressing her lips to my shoulder and within what felt like only a minute, I could hear the deep, even cadence of her breaths as she’d fallen asleep.
And it didn’t take long until I followed her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
8
NAVY
“Oh,” I said, pressing a hand to my forehead. Blurry images of too many shots and too much skin battled in my mind. My forehead felt clammy to the touch, and I looked around the blindingly bright room for a semblance of understanding.
“Damn it,” I whispered, realizing I’d fallen asleep with my contacts in. One of them was MIA while the other had folded itself under my eyelids. I tapped gently along my eyelid, straightening out the one contact I had until I could see the room at least through one eye.
Keane’s room. That was clear. But as I stared at the dark mass beside the bed, underwear I clearly recognized as my own hung on a laundry basket. Following the trail from there to where I currently sat up in a bed, I took in the shirt that was mine and the other shirt that was not mine but I still recognized. Quickly, I lifted the blanket covering me, only to see myself as naked as the day I was born.
“No,” I whispered, my hand sliding to cover my lips. “No, no, no.” My eyes slid shut as my whispers echoed the horror I felt to the bone. “We didn’t.”
“We did.”
One of my eyes—the one that could see clearly—popped open, meeting Keane who leaned against the bathroom door, taking me in as I took him in. His voice was scratchy, deep, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. I didn’t know what to think myself.
I closed my eyes. I had no idea what to say. The scratch of the cheap sheets under my very bare bottom made it very clear what had gone down last night.
Going down. A flash of Keane’s mouth going down on my body flitted behind my lids and I felt my hands tremble where they gripped the sheets.
“I’m guessing this is as surprising to you as it is to me.”
Realization smacked me like a brick to the side of my head. “Megan.” It nearly took my breath away. “You…”
“We’re not together anymore.”
My brows furrowed. “Since when? Last night, or this morning?”
“Does it matter?”
I leveled him with my gaze. “It does to me.”
“A few days ago.”
The crease between my brows deepened. “You didn’t tell me.” Keane was supposed to be my best friend. I mean, yes, we’d crossed the line the night before but if he had broken up with his pretty serious girlfriend days ago and I was just now hearing about it—what did that mean about us being best friends?
“Are you really surprised?”
I paused. “Yes, I am, but what surprises me more is the fact that we are in this predicament.” I gauged his face, waiting for a reaction. It wasn’t every day that you woke up naked in your strictly platonic best friend’s bed.
“Let’s unpack this for a minute.” He sat at the very end of the bed, and it was automatic for me to pull my outstretched legs closer to the rest of my body. I subtly created distance as I tried to understand what had just happened between us. I shoved the comforter deeper into my armpits to more securely hold it to my chest. “You’re surprised that my relationship is over?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t tell me it was over.”
A lick of a smile teased one side of his mouth. “Oh, that.” He patted the bed. “I suppose it’s not surprising that she dumped my ass.” He was acting so blasé about it, like ending his first long-term relationship was nothing.
“Was it your fault?”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Why are you asking me?” If I leaned over, I could scoop up my t-shirt lickity-split. But doing so would compromise the blanket’s concealment of my very naked torso. What I couldn’t stop wondering in the midst of this very best-friend-toned conversation was which one of us had first crossed the line the night before. I couldn’t remember much—it was as hazy as the morning fog off of Amber Lake in the fall.
“It was a mistake.”
I shifted my gaze to his. “Right,” I said automatically, the word coming out faster than I’d processed it. “No, you’re right.” If I said it enough, I’d be able to play this like it was just a mistake.
“Wait…”
Without worry of indecency—I mean, he’d already seen me naked—I reached over and tugged the shirt on. Somehow, being naked didn’t make me feel vulnerable anymore; I already was as vulnerable as I could get. He didn’t turn away; instead he stood up and came around to me.
“Navy.”
“Keane,” I said, forcing humor into my voice. “I haven’t forgotten what you told me forever ago.” I snagged my unde
rwear and dragged it up my legs before giving him a smile I didn’t completely feel.
“What did I say?”
“Oh,” I said, flapping a hand at him as I grabbed my jeans and hopped into them. “Back when I had that crush on you in high school, and you said…” I rubbed a hand over my eyes, as if my fingers could draw the memory from my brain forward like a magnet. “I can’t remember what you said verbatim. Something about how we’re best friends and we don’t want to screw it up?” He’d been right. And he was right now. What we had done was a mistake, one I hoped we could fix. “It’s just a big mistake, right?”
He frowned, which made him look impossibly beautiful so early in the morning, his hair flopped over his forehead, his lush dark lashes framing his eyes. “I was talking about Megan, not you. You’re not a mistake, Navy.”
I secured the button of my jeans and shoved my bra into the back pocket of them. “I didn’t think you were calling me a mistake, Keane.” I motioned toward the bed as I haphazardly searched for my phone. “I mean, I think we can both admit that last night was one, though, right?” Because really, deep down—I knew it was a mistake. Sex made things messy; convoluted. Especially when it was sex with your best friend.
“We did have some booze.”
Relief mixed with embarrassment cascaded through me. “Exactly. Too many shots.”
“The climax was your choice. All of them.”
“What?” I straightened like my spine had snapped me upright.
Keane laughed. “Climax—that was the shot you picked.”
“Oh.” I nodded, like I remembered the freaking shots we’d taken. After finally finding my phone under his t-shirt, I checked for the missed texts from Hollis—because I knew they’d be there. Though I was staying at my aunt’s while she was gone, Hollis still checked in with me every night. I felt at home at my aunt’s house—after all, I’d grown up within these walls. But when I thought of home, I thought of the apartment I shared with Hollis.
I typed out a quick, I’m alive. I think message and paused so I could look at Keane. The rush of lifting my head so fast when I was so clearly dehydrated made him blur into two people. I put a hand over the eye without a contact lens. “A lot of booze,” I amended. “I really hope you paid for those drinks, Daddy Warbucks.”
“Whoa, calling me Daddy?”
I cringed. “God, that’s gross.” I waved his shirt at him before tossing it to him. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I’m no Daddy Warbucks anyway.”
“You’re richer than me.” I pulled my messy hair into a bun on top of my head—completely focused on making this the most chill conversation we’d ever had. If I pretended long enough, it would soon feel natural.
“I’m land-rich. Not money rich.”
“You have to take me out to it sometime.”
“Maybe Tuesday? Isn’t that what we talked about? I’m going to start painting.”
I could do this, play it easy breezy. “Ah, so you want some free labor.” I shoved a foot into one of my shoes. “Is there even power out there for that?”
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle, handing me the other shoe. “I’ll take you out there. It’s just an old hunting cabin, Gramps used it mostly for the elk hunt in the fall.”
“And Asa doesn’t want the cabin?”
“No, he wants the other half. It gets better sunlight. It’s more uphill from the hunting cabin, so in the event of a flood, my side will get ruined first.” Keane laughed.
“Good ol’ sibling order at work.” I stepped into Keane’s bathroom he shared with Asa and checked my reflection. Mascara smudged down my cheeks, my lips red and swollen, my eyelids puffy from sleeping with makeup on. Good luck. “Speaking of siblings, I’ve got to check on the twins. If they want to come home today, I’ll have to pick them up.”
“The Adorables?” Keane asked. “I was going to ask when they’re going to get their licenses, but it’s probably a good thing for the rest of the world that they still rely on you to get them around.”
“Me, and my aunt.” I splashed water on my heated face, grateful that our conversation had dipped into the usual for us. This was our normal. This was good. Everything was going to be okay. I squirted some lotion on my hands and inhaled it before rubbing it along my arms. I had to not smell like sex if I was going to see my sisters in a little bit. “This is some nice stuff,” I told him.
“My mom has great taste,” Keane said on a laugh.
“You’re such a momma’s boy.” I rubbed the remnants of the lotion into my cheeks and down my neck. “You ever going to move out of your parents’ house?”
“I get free food and all the freedom I want. Who would want to leave?”
I stared at my fingers, slowly rubbing the lotion along my cuticles. Keane didn’t know how good he had it sometimes. I supposed anyone with present and caring parents took those things for granted, though. I knew I took the fact that I had an aunt as dedicated as she was to her nieces for granted sometimes. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s a sweet deal.”
“I’ll move out after the cabin is finished. I’ll rent it out and hopefully find something in town. So I’m still near my parents.”
“That’s good.” My nipples were standing at attention in the mirror. I might have played it loose and fast with fashion, but I couldn’t pick up my sisters like this. “Hold on a sec.” I closed his bathroom door, locked the door on the other side of the bathroom that went into Asa’s room, and slipped the bra over my shoulders before tugging the shirt back on and opening the door.
Keane ran a hand over the back of his head. The movement was wracked with unease—and this, this right here was exactly why Keane had been right when he’d gently let me down years before. Because our friendship was more important than a maybe—and a maybe was all this would ever amount to on the romantic end of things. “Are you good, Navy?”
What a loaded question.
“I’m good.” I gave a smile that I actually felt this time. Whatever initial misplaced feelings I’d had about us crossing the line had evaporated. It really was just a mistake. We didn’t need to talk about it and make things even more awkward than they already were. If I repeated this to myself enough, it would stick. I knew it. “Thanks for last night. The pizza, I mean. And the drinks.” Not thanks for the sex. Not that I’m mad about it. Because, what I could remember about it was nice. Nice? It was more than nice.
Hell, I had to get the hell out of here.
I ruffled his hair. “You want me to trim your hair on Sunday?”
He looked momentarily confused but his eyes cleared as he dragged a hand through the mess on top of his head. “Do I need one?”
“It depends on if you’re going for bird’s nest or wild but momentarily tamed.”
“Those are my only two options?”
“As I see it.” I held his hair up as high as it would go. “You could lose an inch and that’d help the whole nest thing you’re currently rocking.”
“I guess if it’s that bad…”
“Good.” I squeezed his shoulder as I gazed up at him. I wanted so, so badly to behave as if this was normal between us, and that nothing had rocked our fifteen-year friendship. To go back to the Navy and Keane that we were the night before. But there was something in Keane’s eyes—a question he couldn’t or wouldn’t ask. I’d lost too much in my life to take a risk like this. Friends like Keane came along once in a blue moon and weren’t worth taking a gamble. Not that I was assuming he even wanted to. Keane went through women like water through a net. So while he could be a great—a fantastic friend—he was decidedly not the type of boyfriend I was looking for.
Again. Not like he even wanted to be my boyfriend. I was too much of a dreamer sometimes, thinking about fictional, hypothetical paths I’d never choose in reality. Funnily enough, I often told myself fiction just to get through reality. Like the fact that I would be able to move on from this moment unscathed.
“It’s my turn,” he reminded me as
I let go of his shoulder. “To pick the movie.”
“Are you going to pick something bloody?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I want you to choose whatever you want.” I was trying to duck out as casually and quickly as possible.
“Even if that means something dumb, like my choices usually are?”
“If that’s what you want. Don’t worry, I’ll torture you with something sickeningly sweet next time.”
He placed his palms on my shoulders, stopping me from slipping out of his bedroom door. “Lay that syrup on thick, Navy. If that’s what you want.” He squeezed me gently. “Besides, I’ll surely make you suffer through another movie after we recover from your toothache-y movie.”
“Not Spartacus again,” I said. I rarely bemoaned his movie choices—wait, ‘rarely’ wasn’t completely true. He had an affinity for movies that didn’t even rank as B movies, but lately he chose movies like the 1960 Spartacus movie—which wouldn’t be so horrible if it wasn’t over three hours long.
“You could always just fall asleep, like you usually do.”
“Oh, so that’s your goal? To bore me to sleep?”
“Of course.” He let go of me and I made my way toward the door. “Wait,” he said, causing me to pause at the threshold. “You’re just gonna walk out there?”
I eyed him like he was confused about just who exactly was in his house. “Yes, that was my plan.”
“My mom’s probably out there.”
“Right…” I looked at him funny. “What’s your point?”
“She’s going to think something happened.” He glanced quickly at the bed.
“Well, she wouldn’t be wrong then, would she?” I tried to be nonchalant about it, but each time it was mentioned I wanted to shrink in on myself. Keane winced. “But it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve had a girl over.”
“Never overnight, never alone in my room.”
One Big Mistake: a friends to lovers rom-com Page 8
