“I better be coming. Only reason I show up.”
Gran snickered. Gray twists swinging over her shoulders and down her back.
“Junie,” I said.
She took a sip of wine. A deep rosé. Looked good. I poured glasses for me and Gran.
“You mean was it premeditated and shit?” Junie stared into her wine. “Nah. Spontaneous. It’s easier that way.”
My mouth was open. Mind filled with questions. Gran shook her head. I swallowed them back.
“It’s like anything else in life. The better the energy is, the better the experience is. I’m just doing the early work to make sure my energy, my home’s energy, is right.”
“For Cahir?”
I shrugged. “And for me.”
“I’ve never wanted to do all this for a man,” Junie settled deeper into my sofa.
“Most of them don’t deserve it,” Gran said. “But when it’s a friend…”
“I’ve been saying they should get to fucking for a while now,” Junie said.
Gran hooted.
“But now that it’s happening it’s a little weird. Like a little. Cause they’re friends.”
I stopped sorting through the clutter on my tv console. “Isn’t it better when you’re friends? That first time is always so awkward and weird. But this is someone that knows you. That likes you for just you and has shown you over and over. You’ve given them secrets and memories. They give you the same. There’s already intimacy. Why not a bit more?”
“Is that what you’re hoping to get? A bit more?”
I slid a glance to Junie. “Sister-friend, I’m planning on getting a whole lot more.”
She snorted into her wine.
Cassidy
His eyes ran over me, what was illuminated by the candle light. “So we’re not watching a movie tonight. For sure.”
I laughed and pulled him into my apartment. I skimmed a hand over the sheer robe that covered the bra that barely covered anything with its mesh panel and appliqué and the panties that served no other purpose than to match my bra.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
I felt it. Gran braided my hair into a crown after she oiled it. I put flower petals and gently scented oils into my bath. I lit my candles and danced through my own shadows. I felt beautiful. And strong.
And he looked like a man. Casual and easy. Relaxed and open. Ready. Whenever I was.
“Do you want wine?”
He smiled. The same smile from the Lonely Third. My body had the same reaction.
“I haven’t been thinking about wine all day, Cash.”
“No?”
Our feet moved down the hall through the living room. His clothes were quieter than whispers when they drifted to the floor. Or perhaps it was that the beating of my heart was so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. Was that what anticipation was? The tingling of fingers and toes? The adrenaline that raced through the body? The bending of time so each step felt like an eternity and nothing all at once?
Dozens of candles lit the bedroom. Warmed it. They smelled like my favorite plants, flowers, herbs, and woods. Woods. It smelled like I was about to lay down in the forest and let Cahir make love to me.
I turned to face him. Tears almost sprang to my eyes. His naked body was…
Perfection.
His steps were slow. As if I would grow wings and fly away.
“I won’t run,” I said. “I want to be close too.”
He smiled. One of the smiles I knew before our time on the couch. “You always know.”
“I’m your friend.”
His hands cupped my cheeks. “My best one.”
Then he kissed me. And we didn’t fit. A meeting of lips and minds that should have made perfect sense. But the timing. I was fast when he was slow. He was insistent when I retreated. I was rough when he was gentle. We pulled away. I wasn’t disappointed. Surprised maybe. After the other day, I just knew. I was so sure.
“Did you like it when you did it your way?” There was another of the grins I didn’t know. I had never heard his voice so raw.
I shook my head.
“My turn?”
I shrugged. We could laugh about it. No matter what we would be friends and we could laugh about it. He would still hold my hand and play in my hair.
“Okay.”
One of his hands hooked behind my neck and pulled. Oh. Another lay flat on my stomach and pushed. I would have tripped into him if he weren’t so sure.
He didn’t kiss me so much as sip from me as those hands ran wild over my body. Little tugs and pecks. Brief explorations as his hands set me on fire.
I gasped.
I felt and heard how that pleased him.
He dove. He pulled me under with him.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was drowning and falling from the highest place. It was nausea and dizziness and craving. Craving more. If it ended I would die.
He pushed the flimsy robe off my shoulders. My panties and bra fell away. There were just his hands.
I had hands. Yes. I ran them over him. I let them fall into the ridges his abs made and into the lines that cut across his thighs and promised he would be able to give me what I wanted most. I dipped into the place where muscles gave way to his spine.
And I thought I would spend an eternity dying. He made me feel like there was no time. There was just what we did. What he did. I could only hang onto him. Reach for him and find him when it felt like too much.
I whimpered into his mouth, and he laid us on my bed. The sheets were softer than I imagined. The bed larger and smaller. I smelled everything. Him. Had I ever smelled anything before him?
I buried my nose in his neck then ran it down his body. Mine. He smelled like mine. And that was fine for the moment. I would let that feeling live in the moment. There would be time to think about the past and the future later.
But there was one thing, a memory from the not so distant past that stayed with me. I wanted to see.
I pulled him up from the bed. He kissed me and I let him. I gave myself to it. Until my head began to swim and I almost forgot. Then I fell to my knees. I tilted my head back. And I opened my mouth.
“My God.” He touched my cheeks. “You’re going to kill me.”
He tasted like fall. Crisp and a little warm and unfamiliar after a long summer of heated breezes. He was loud like the wind when it picked up all of a tree’s leaves. Fierce as the strong winds that brought tears to your eyes.
And he did bring tears to my eyes. There was so much of him. My mouth burned as it stretched around him. And it was so good. So right. My hands were as busy as my mouth. They ran over me. Sank into me. Made me dizzy and motivated.
I came when he did and marveled at the symmetry. At the way he stayed hard in my mouth.
“Did you swallow it all?”
His tongue was in my mouth before I could answer. Disgusting. He was absolutely disgusting, and I couldn’t wait for him to give me more. Show me how much deeper into the filth and societally unacceptable he could go.
Back on the bed. My knees kissing my ears. I smiled at him. Maybe my smile was new because he froze, blinked.
“Fucking hell.” And he was on me.
I didn’t have bones. It was the only way my back could arch like that. No spine. No ribs. I could shrink, arch, collapse, and melt. I was new.
I was in the dark. A room full of candles and he gave me a pleasure that made me blind. Oh.
Fuck.
The first orgasm put cramps in my feet. My calves. The second ripped my voice out of my body. The third made me cry. The fourth made me forget. Like he said it would. And like he said, his name dripped from my lips and slid down my body to his ears, to the mouth that moaned over the taste of me.
Somehow I knew better than to push him away. Knew it would be better if I just endured.
The fifth orgasm made my body flutter. Like a butterfly. Soft little undulations that didn’t stop when he crawled up my body and kissed me unti
l everything tasted and smelled like me.
“We’re not done,” he whispered in my ear.
Fourteen
Cahir
I thought all I would ever want to do in my life was drown. Then Cassidy. Cash. I touched her and knew what it was to fly home. Everything about her was familiar and wanted. I yearned for it. Reached further for it.
I didn’t know what made me open my mouth that day on the couch. I projected bravado and choked on my fear. Shit. It was right there. But she let me pick up the possibility and see where it led.
Her body was magic. Like the rest of her. There was no surprise in that. Just caution. To do it all right. To give her what she deserved.
Had my name ever sounded so good? Had a woman ever tasted-And when she got on her knees…
I’d had women lose their good sense for me. Ready to twist themselves into whatever odd shape they thought a rich man wanted. Whatever shape would make me call them again. I never called. They were all the same.
Cash was burned on my brain. Burned through my lungs. Lit my appetite. I gorged on her and still there wasn’t enough. Still, I felt so free. Every second I spent touching her was a second I felt more like myself. The self I wanted to be but didn’t think I would ever get to. It was right there. The map to my best self was etched into her skin. I only had to please her to get it.
I said I wouldn’t worship a woman again. It was dangerous. I wouldn’t survive. But I hadn’t had Cash. I hadn’t had a woman that would worship me back. Every time she said my name it was both a prayer and a hallelujah. And it spurred me.
I liked the way her body broke for me. I liked that when it was broken it still felt indestructible. I liked the feeling of power in my hands. I knew how easily she could take it away.
I kissed her. Kissed her until we both tasted the same and then I slid my fingers back inside her.
Slow, slow. Easy. I wanted my fingers to play like her imagination did. I wanted to see her lose her mind.
The flush creeped up her body. The tears fell down. Her chest rose high with each breath.
“Gorgeous,” I said.
Every part of her body pressed and shuddered against mine when she came. Soft as spring.
Her eyes were wide. Not with surprise. The part of me that was sometimes too close to being a caveman swelled with pride at that. That she knew. She knew what I would be. What I could do.
She jerked her chin to her nightstand. I reached in the drawer. Condoms. I sat up. Held them. Stared at them. Hated myself for bringing memories of her into the room with Cash and I.
“I bought them today. And I didn’t open the box. The receipt’s in the drawer too.” Her voice was quiet. Understanding. Too compassionate for what I deserved.
The box was still shrink-wrapped. Safe. I looked down at her. My friend. My best one. The one that knew and just wanted me to feel safe.
She failed.
I didn’t feel safe. I felt dangerous. I wanted to tear her apart.
The onslaught began slowly. A slow push of my body into hers. She was wet. So wet. And still there resistance. So I put my mouth on her and made her scream my name. And while she buzzed from what my mouth made her feel, I slid into her again. Halfway. She panted. Tightened and released around me.
“There’s more.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. I could be.” I pressed deeper into her.
She pulled her legs back.
My eyes rolled until everything was dark. For a moment. Just a moment. I sank deeper into her. I didn’t want her to end.
But I found the end of her. She wrapped her arms around my neck. I kissed her. The long kisses that told her to relax. She would want to relax. She did. And I pushed deeper inside her.
I liked her gasp. The shock in it. The dirtiness in it. There were so many ways I could make her dirty.
Just hips. To begin I used just my hips to grind into her. Until she rocked to meet me. Then more. A bit more until she opened her eyes wide and fell open. Open like the flowers she loved. Body loose.
Hand under her ass. I gripped her. I fucked her. I made love to her.
I found a piece of myself I didn’t know I needed.
I told her to come and she obeyed me. I fell into her. I exploded. Imploded. Simply ceased to exist.
Cash.
Cassidy.
Witch.
I didn’t check the condom for holes when I took it off. I only wanted it off. I only wanted to put on another and be inside her again.
Fifteen
Cahir
She was there in the morning. Body sprawled over mine. Mouth everywhere. Everywhere. I moaned before I opened my eyes. I moaned when I opened them.
Want looked like a satin bonnet dangerously close to falling off. Like limbs reaching long to find the place that had been hidden before. Want looked like mouth on skin. Pulling skin. Biting and soothing at once. Want was bright, brown eyes on mine. Want was the smile in them. The concentration.
I gave into it. Gave into her.
I opened the condom. She rolled it on. Then she was there. And God. Oh, God. Fucking God. Fucking hell.
If she would just. For a moment. Just-Not slower. Not-no. I wouldn’t deny myself that kind of-Shit. Fingers dug into flesh. Hers into mine. Mine into hers. Maybe I hurt her. Maybe she hurt me. Maybe we bled into her sheets or maybe everything was okay.
How could anything be okay when she could make her body do that to mine?
She smiled. She smiled when she rode me. Bit her lip. In the moments I could keep my eyes open, I saw that.
Head by mine. Hair everywhere. It smelled like lavender and made me want her more. I would explode. Her mouth by my ear. Open. Not to give me words. To let me hear what her pleasure sounded like.
And control. I knew control. Held it in my hands. Owned it. With everyone. Everyone but her.
I gave her what she wanted, and she smiled at me in the light of the early morning sun. Reds and pinks and a touch of orange.
The sound of wet condom when it hits the floor and then her mouth-All the way back. To the back of her throat it felt like. And I found I had more to give.
We showered together. We found other uses for her kitchen counter. Her wall. My secretary called about the meeting I was a little too close to being late for. I couldn’t answer her. My mouth was busy with…other things.
And found those things again at lunch. In my office.
At dinner in her home.
The next day in mine.
And so the pattern became new again. But the same. Because at the center was Cash. Always at the center. And there, in the moments we gave each other to breathe, to tremble, to laugh, incredulous, at the universe for our good fortune, was my friend. My best one.
Cassidy
“Let’s go,” he said.
He wore the smile I’d known longer and liked better since seeing the other smiles he had, the faces that passion made him make. And I didn’t recognize myself. But I said what we both knew I would.
“Yes.”
I packed a bag and met him at the airfield where the private jet he rented idled on the tarmac. He took my hand. When the plane reached cruising altitude, he took my body. Again and again.
We spent the weekend in Philly in dinky buildings that housed beautiful restaurants. At a music festival where I snapped photo after photo not of the artists but of their fans and the outfits they wore. In a private cigar bar with more whiskey than I’d ever seen.
We walked and held hands and kissed wherever we felt like because we hadn’t told anyone there that we were just friends.
Not that we were anything besides friends.
He took me shopping. I didn’t mean for him to. I walked into an interesting looking boutique and touched things, liked some things, and fell in love with others.
He rolled his eyes at the register when his credit card came out before mine, when I protested. “Shut up, Cash.”
He sounded so much like my friend, just my frie
nd, that I did.
We went to a farmer’s market because we both admitted the weekend didn’t feel like the weekend without it. We ate fruit from our perch on the sidewalk until the juices of it ran down our arms.
We went back to the hotel room and cleaned each other off.
And then we were back on the plane. Sweat-slicked bodies pressed close together, the after swells of the magic we made every time we touched made our fingers, arms, feet, toes, touch. Made us smile.
And “us” became something new. A thing that I couldn’t put my finger on or give a name to. “Us” swelled and filled and turned and twisted into shapes I never saw before. The places it filled were unfamiliar to me. Places that I didn’t know were lacking. Places that I didn’t know were waiting for him.
I rested my head on his shoulder. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Except that he was just my friend. My best one.
Cahir
I didn’t hold her hand when we were back in the City and didn’t know why. No. That wasn’t entirely true. I still held her hand. But I didn’t kiss her fingers. I didn’t pull her close to make kissing her lips easier. My hand didn’t flirt with her waist or slip into her back pocket. It didn’t wrap around the back of her neck to feel her shiver.
Sometimes she moved closer to me. A sway of the body. Raised eyes full of an expectation I didn’t think she realized she carried. A smile she didn’t realize curved her lips. Sometimes she reached for me. Sometimes the fingers that were raised to lips were mine. Sometimes the words died on her lips and then her clothes were gone.
I wished I could say dramatic things like my body burned for her. Or that I’d been struck by lightening. But no. What I felt for Cash was a low, quiet hunger. The hunger that comes when you know that you have exactly what you want to eat within arms reach. The kind of hunger that you want to enjoy before you sate it because it reminds you of exactly how alive you are.
Better as Friends Page 7
