Friends With Full Benefits (Friends With… Benefits Series (Book 2)) (12 page)

"I do appreciate the research you did and that e-mail," he said.

"You don't need to keep thanking me... I see you’re not drinking wine tonight."

He pointed to his groin. "You were right; he doesn’t work very well if I drink."

"Have you been taking that amino acid?"

"I have, and I think that, combined with the Kegel exercises, are really starting to make a difference. I’m eating healthier, not drinking, and relaxing more. It’s really turned things around for me."

"That is great news."

"Last night, when I..." He leaned close and whispered, "…masturbated, I lasted five minutes. I think I’d last even longer with a condom."

Twenty minutes later, they found out. They did it with John standing upright, to help with blood flow, as Victoria lay near the edge of the bed. It wasn’t exactly the best sex of her life, but she liked John and wanted to help him.

After a few minutes, she reassuringly said, "Don’t worry about me. Whenever you’re ready to cum, just let it go."

As he continued to pump quickly into her, she reached down and rubbed her clitoris. Less than thirty seconds later, he groaned loudly, slumped over, and began sucking on her nipples.

Slipping down to the floor, he rested on his knees, gazing at her appreciatively. "If I had met you a year ago, I might still be married."

She ran her fingers through his hair. "She left because of your problem?"

"That, and the mood that my problem put me in. I felt like less than a man, and I took it out on her."

Reaching between her legs, he touched her gently. "You didn’t have one yet, did you?" She shook her head no. He slipped down lower and slowly began licking her.

She tilted her head back in ecstasy as she thought,
He may not have a penis that works all that well, but he sure knows how to do this
.

After Brian moved his things to Miami, he and Jillian flew to Philadelphia to visit his parents. His brother, Jim, picked them up from the airport, which was twenty minutes from their home in Delaware. Jim was a slightly taller and thinner version of Brian. With a high aptitude in science, as opposed to Brian's skills in business and math, Jim had plans to become a doctor. He was also quite a bit shier around women than his older brother, hard as that is to imagine.

Jillian had met Brian’s parents in Atlanta at the Georgia State University graduation, but that was when she was simply his best friend’s mother, as far as they knew. Now that Mr. and Mrs. Nash knew Brian and Jillian were living together, their opinion of Rob's mother had changed quite a bit. Brian had told them back in June, and when they reacted badly, he knew informing them of their engagement before they had a chance to get to know Jillian a little better would be a mistake. He was hoping this trip would give them that opportunity, and they would fall in love with her, too. Envisioning that everyone would get along so well during the visit, he hoped they'd be able to share the good news before returning to Miami. He was trying to forget that his parents were pretty much crazy and that there was little chance that things would go as he planned.

He told his parents that Jillian had business in Philadelphia so they wouldn’t suspect he and Jillian were coming all the way from Florida just for a visit. He didn’t want them to assume things were more serious. Jillian told him she wasn't sure that keeping this from them was the right thing to do. They decided to keep Jim in the dark as well. Although he certainly would have been supportive, they didn’t want him to give their secret away.

Jillian was nervous, too. She had never really spoken to Beverly Nash and didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, Beverly was older than she was, but only by ten years. She tried to put herself in Beverly’s shoes. How would she react if Rob brought home a 40-year-old woman with a son almost as old as he was? Would she welcome the woman with open arms or want to strangle her? She knew the answer but didn't want to admit it to herself.

When they arrived at the Nash residence, Brian hugged his mother and shook hands with his father. He hadn't seen any of his family in weeks, because he'd been in training, and when he’d stopped at the house briefly to pick up his things a few days earlier, no one had been home.

Brian smiled proudly at Jillian. "Well, you guys remember Jillian from the graduation? Jillian, this is my mother, Beverly, and my father, Edward."

"Good to see you both again."

Mr. and Mrs. Nash said hello, then gave Jillian a quick and somewhat dismissive nod.

Edward asked, "So, how was the flight?"

"Good," Brian replied.

Jillian gave them an uncomfortable smile. "I appreciate you having us stay with you."

Lifting her head high, Beverly folded her arms. "Jillian, we fixed up the guest room for you. And Brian, of course, you’ll be in your room."

After nodding uneasily, Brian and Jillian shared a quick, knowing glance. He had warned her during the flight that they wouldn't be sharing a room. Otherwise, he held back telling her a lot of things about his quirky parents. He didn’t want to scare her off and was holding out hope that Ed and Bev would act almost like normal people during the visit.

As Jillian unpacked in the guest room, she heard voices from the next room. Discovering the source was a return air vent in the wall, she moved closer to it. She swore she heard her name mentioned, which caused her to slip down to the floor with her ear to the vent.

She listened as Beverly whispered, "I will not have an unmarried couple fornicating in my home."

Jillian giggled at the use of the word, "fornicating." Then she was convinced she heard Beverly say, "That whore better not be corrupting my son."

Brian pushed open the door, and Jillian popped up from the floor. He gave her an odd look. "What the hell are you doing?"

Grimacing, she motioned for him to close the door. He did, and she met him in the center of the room. "Your mother just called me a whore."

He scoffed. "What?"

"I can hear them in their room through that vent right there."

"Maybe you misheard."

"She said, 'That whore better not be corrupting my son.'"

"Maybe she said, 'that
girl,'
not 'that whore.'"

She looked at him, unconvinced. "Maybe... I swear that I heard her use the word, 'fornicating.'"

He said casually, "Oh, that does sound like her. They joined this wacky church about five years ago. 'Fornicating' is a big word around here. There is no fornicating of any kind allowed here."

"I don’t think she likes me."

"Oh, I think she does. They’re just nervous."

Beverly prepared a lovely dinner. In the dining room, Jillian felt the eyes of Brian's parents and his brother on her. She barely touched her food; instead, she quickly drank a glass of wine, then Brian poured her a refill before anyone said another word at the table.

Beverly broke the ice. "So, Jillian, can you still have children?"

Blindsided by the question, she nearly spit out her wine.

Brian glared, wide eyed, at his mother. "Mom!"

Jillian cleared her throat. "I’ll answer. No, I don’t think I can have any children. I had a miscarriage a few years after Rob was born, and the doctor thought my prospects for another pregnancy were not good."

Smiling, Beverly couldn't get her reply out quickly enough. "Brian loves children."

Brian fired back adamantly, "I do not."

With everyone at the table giving him a look, he explained, "I mean, I do like children. I’m not sure if I want to have any of my own." He frowned. "What’s with the interview questions? We're only dating."

After gazing uneasily at everyone at the table, Jillian took a big sip of wine. It was quickly going to her head.

"We’re just trying to get to know her, dear." Beverly smiled at him assuredly.

Brian's facial expression screamed he wasn't buying it.

Edward asked, "How is your son, Rob, dealing with this?"

"He was a little upset at first, but I think he’s accepted it."

"It’s got to be a little off-putting to have your mother dating a man who’s only a few years older than you are." Beverly looked her in the eye. "Oh, no offense dear."

"That's... okay." Jillian gave her an anxious smile.

After grunting, Brian changed the subject. "We should all go to the Hot Grill while we’re here."

Jim smiled. "Definitely."

Looking at Jillian, Brian explained, "It’s this great place to get hot dogs and fries. The best hot dog you’ll ever taste."

"And we should play some tennis," Jim said.

"Jillian is an amazing tennis player. We actually met on the court."

Beverly gave Jillian a fake smile. "I hear you write pornography?"

Brian stared at her, horrified. "She writes romance novels."

"Oh, sorry. I used the wrong word there."

"She’s a best-selling author," Brian added proudly.

"Wow, that’s wonderful. We don’t read a lot of fiction in this house," Edward said.

After polishing off the last of her wine, Jillian frowned as she looked down at her plate. "I’m not feeling very well." Slowly, she raised her eyes until they met Brian's. "I think I’m going to lie down for a few minutes." Jillian got up and left the room.

When she was out of earshot, Brian glared at his mother. "Mom, could you take it easy on her? Pornography! Come on."

"I simply misspoke. But any mention of premarital sex in a book automatically makes it pornographic in the eyes of our church."

Rising, Brian moved away from the table. He looked at his mother in disbelief. "It took a lot for her to come here. She’s trying to be friendly, and you're being awful."

"She’s just so much older than you, dear."

"She not that much older!"

"Fourteen years," Edward added.

"Thanks, Dad. We’re getting... We’re dating. Either you can accept that and spend some time with us or continue to act like little children, and we’ll leave."

After Bev and Ed shared a look, they took bites of their food and smiled happily at each other, completely ignoring their son. Scowling at them, Brian waited a moment for a reply. When none came, he left the room.

Inside the guest room, he found Jillian on the bed, but she didn’t seem to be that upset. After he closed the door, they shared a look that morphed into a smile. He sat on the bed next to her. She took his hand. "I understand how she feels."

"Yeah, okay, but she doesn’t need to be such a bitch about it."

"No, she doesn't. Can I tell you something? Being here and something about the way your mother is treating me is... is really making me horny. Is that horrible?" She gazed at him with a hopeful look.

"No, I feel the same way. We weren’t even allowed to masturbate in this house. They even took the locks off the doors to the bathroom and both our rooms."

"You poor baby."

"I've never even had a girl over before. And seeing you here... It's weird, but I've had, like, semi-wood since we got here."

She gave him a sorrowful, sexy look.

Brian whispered, "I'm convinced my parents haven't had sex in twenty years. I once overheard my mom talking on the phone, like, ten years ago. She was telling a friend that at work, they were talking about oral sex, for some reason. It was a whole group of women, and my mother said, ‘Why would you want to put something like that in your mouth?’"

Jillian scoffed. "I love putting that in my mouth."

"I know you do."

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she grinned. "We should try to do it every chance we get while we’re here."

"We should." He nodded enthusiastically, more-than-completely on board. "There’s a tree house out back in the woods. We can sneak back there if we get desperate. Oh, and my parents go out to play Bingo every Thursday night. We can really go nuts then. It’ll be weird, since I’ve never once had an orgasm in this house."

"Oh, my God." She frowned. "I think Rob has jerked off three times a day since he was fourteen. The noise coming out of that bathroom, uh..."

"That’s too much information." Brian paused, thinking. "Oh, I did have that wet dream once when I was thirteen, and I think they hit me with the belt."

"They didn’t." She stared at him in horror.

"It’s a wonder I can get an erection at all." She just looked at him, unsure what to say, and he added, "Just be nice to my mother—well, within reason anyway."

"Oh, I will. I’ll just keep thinking of the nasty things I’ll be doing to her firstborn son while I talk to her. That’s how I’ll smile."

"She’ll warm up to you eventually, I hope."