Going for Broke: Oakland Hills Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy (Friends with Benefits) (16 page)

“
N
ice digs
,” Billie said, looking around the cavernous space. It was just like she’d imagined: high ceilings, walls of windows, ultramodern furnishings. What was it with men and black leather couches? He had three that she could see, as well as a black area rug over a slate-gray concrete floor. The walls were cream, which was better than black, but didn’t make the room any cozier.

Room. It was more like a factory floor, which it obviously had been not too long ago. What had they manufactured here? Canned vegetables? Airplanes?

“You hate it,” he said, coming up behind her and brushing the hair away from the back of her neck.

“Oh, no, of course not. It’s really roomy. You could throw great parties in here.”

“Which”—he kissed her neck—“of course”—he nibbled her cervical curve—“I never do.”

Shivering, she forgot about the paint factory they were standing in and closed her eyes to concentrate on the way his mouth felt against her skin. “Thanks again for the parking spot.”

“If I’d known you were so obsessed with parking spots, I’d have given it to you years ago.”

If she’d known she could almost have an orgasm from having her neck kissed, she would’ve worn fewer scarves.

“I know how you feel about your car,” she gasped.

“Fuck the car.” He suddenly grabbed the bottom hem of her sweater and pulled it up over her head, turned her in his arms, and pushed her against the wall, the only wall that wasn’t made of windows.

“Where do you sleep?” she asked, arching against him. There had to be a bed around here somewhere.

“Sleep?” He unfastened her pants and slid his hand under her underwear to squeeze her bottom and thighs as he shoved the fabric over her hips. His teeth dragged across her jawline, making her tremble. “You feel like taking a nap?” he murmured in her ear.

Oh, no, not so much. “Just… curious.” Her words came out broken, breathy. He was releasing her. He was unzipping his pants. He was kicking them off. He was tugging his own shirt over his head, then kicking off his boxers.

He was naked. Removing the shirt had messed up his hair. A dark strand hung over his eye, blocking her view of the vivid blue iris, and she reached up and brushed it away, wondering at the feel of it between her fingers, her right to touch him however she wanted.

“I need a haircut,” he said.

“I need you.” She kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of her pants completely, her breath coming in short bursts now, no longer wondering about his bed. There wasn’t time to find a bed.

His palms captured her breasts, squeezing them through her bra as he licked her earlobe and shoved a knee between hers, pushing her legs apart. “Billie, Billie,” he said. “God.”

The sound of her name on his lips made her legs weak. She’d never let herself imagine him talking to her like this. He was too forbidden. And now all of that self-denial rushed forward and swept her away in a tide of hot, sticky lust.

“Billie.” He removed her bra quickly, without any seductive bra-strap-in-the-teeth moves, and plunged his hand between her legs, stroking her apart. “You want me, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“I want you,” she whispered. Had she always? God help her. She had.

Her legs gave way, which allowed gravity to pull her weak, morally frail self down the wall a few inches.

His powerful arms came around her and lifted her up, bracing her against the wall at the same time he ducked his head and crushed his lips against hers. He was hard and thick and ready, pressing against her stomach. “Should I slow down?” he asked roughly. His tongue drove into her mouth, tangling with hers, filling her.

To answer, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around him, took a second to admire him as she wondered how he’d been so fast with the condom, and guided him lower. With an impressive grunt, he readjusted his grip on her ass and lifted her another few inches, bracing her against the wall, never breaking the kiss.

Clutching his shoulders, she hitched her knees higher, wrapped her ankles around his hips, and shifted her pelvis to just the right angle, frantic to have him inside her, not entirely confident he could hold her up much longer but willing to risk it, willing to risk anything—

He thrust up into her with a shout. She cried out, her voice mingling with his. He drew back and pushed again, his grip on her ass like iron, unmovable, and she rode up the wall another inch, then down, then up again, and again, and again. She stopped worrying about falling on the floor and started worrying about falling apart completely. He was pounding into her, impaling her, splitting her into pieces, and she loved it and wanted more, licking his cheek and jaw, digging her nails into his hard shoulders as she tried to take all of him.

He came with another shout. He drew back, pushed in again and held her, his entire body shuddering so violently she thought they’d knock a hole in the wall.

Then, many moments later, after he’d already stilled and was breathing slowly, when he must’ve been on the verge of collapsing to the ground and dropping her like a sack of grain,
then
she came.

It was a little embarrassing. She trembled in his arms, in his very tired arms, and tried not to be too obvious about the waves of ecstasy washing over her. “Mmm,” she said, pinning her lips together. She couldn’t stop her hips from bouncing a little.

Chuckling, he softened his grip on her bottom and dropped kisses on her forehead. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Sorry I beat you to it. I’ll make it up to you next time.”

Adding to his already impressive list of accomplishments, he guided her to the floor gently and without exclamations of physical strain. As if he had no problems lifting large women, as if she were as weightless as the evening fog outside.

The fog that she could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Just over there. Everywhere around them, in fact.

They were on the fourth floor, but they weren’t the tallest building on the block. She could see a guy playing the guitar in a loft across the street.

“Great place for putting on a show,” she said, laughing into his chest hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I should’ve waited. I meant to. I have a very nice bed around here somewhere.”

“I kind of liked this,” she said. “Although you’ll probably be sore tomorrow.”

“Fuck sore.”

“Exactly. Sore from fucking.” She moved away and put her arms around herself, not sure if she should get dressed or find that bed and invite him for a cuddle.

He kissed her hard and fast on the lips. “Be right back.”

Men were cute when they ran away with a condom dangling from their fingers. She’d always thought so. Something about the contrast between the before and after. The hard and aggressive before, the soft and sheepish after.

With a lazy sigh, she found her clothes and put them on, not bothering to duck behind one of the black sofas since the exhibition damage had already been done. Unless the neighbors were using binoculars, they couldn’t see her face from this distance. And thanks to the internet, watching strangers have sex was no big deal anymore and hardly tempting from a distance, through foggy windows. The graphics would be way better on a laptop.

When he returned, he was wearing a pair of shorts, which made her glad she’d gotten dressed instead of crawling into that bed, wherever it was, and expecting him to join her if that wasn’t what he was inclined to do next.

She had no idea what he was inclined to do next. This entire experience had been a surprise. Maybe not tonight, but the last few weeks with him.

“Are you hungry?” He bent over and picked up his T-shirt. “There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge.”

The austere space was beginning to feel even chillier than before. She hadn’t expected to be wined and dined or for this to be a real date. By asking him to meet her at Home Depot, she’d tried to prevent one. Maybe that’s why depression was starting to nip at the edges of her afterglow. She’d gotten what she wanted but wasn’t happy. That was the problem.

Why was she so quick to get naked? Was she incapable of being in a healthy relationship?

Was Jane right?

Thinking of Jane reminded her of… Jane, not surprisingly. Her sister would be home by now. The sooner Billie joined her, the less annoying she’d be.

“No, I grabbed a bite after work,” Billie said, smiling to soften the rejection. His hair was adorably mussed, and he hadn’t shaved in a while, giving him a sexy piratical look. But when he smiled back, his expression was all nice guy, not at all bad boy. Her heart squeezed.

Giving in to her urges yet again, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his warm chest, splaying her fingers wide and caressing the muscles of his back. He propped his chin on the top of her head and they stood there, the glass and concrete and leather surrounding them, not saying a word. She listened to his heartbeat as her mind began to turn through all the things that could go wrong if she got too used to this.

“Jane will guess where I am,” she said.

“I wish you hadn’t told her.”

That hurt. She actually flinched into his T-shirt. What he meant was that, whatever this was, it wasn’t the sort of thing you needed to tell other people about.

But that wasn’t really fair. Of course he didn’t want Jane to know they were sleeping together. The whole family would know now—her mother, his mother, his father, her younger sisters. Even Aunt Trixie and all her cousins. They’d be under pressure from the start that most couples wouldn’t experience for days, weeks, or months. Because their families were intertwined, their every move would be scrutinized.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a terrible liar. She would’ve figured it out.”

“Sure, I know. Of course.” He leaned back and looked down into her face. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Me?”

He nodded, a little smile on his lips.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling back, slightly exaggerating how happy she felt by rubbing against him. “Better than fine.”

“That’s my Billie.” He kissed her and pinched her butt.

For some reason, it didn’t make her feel better.

T
he next morning
, Billie opened the permit center a little early. Doc hadn’t even come in yet. It was ridiculous for her to stand there behind the counter waiting until eight thirty exactly to begin work. None of the people were going anywhere. Might as well get a head start.

She counted heads. The line for permits only reached the door and only folded back on itself once. Nobody was waiting in the hallway.

Yet. More would come.

“Can I help you?” she asked the man in front. He wore a baggy gray suit and paint-splattered work boots, probably a contractor on his way to meet a new client.

He approached the counter and flung down a stack of paperwork, his gaze never leaving her breasts. Hunching her shoulders, she began flipping through the stack, wishing she, too, was wearing an oversized jacket instead of a sweater that had shrunk in the wash. It was the only thing she’d had to wear. Grammy’s washing machine was disconnected for some reason, and with all the sex and DIY and whatnot, she hadn’t had time to go the laundromat.

In a hurry to get rid of the guy, she sorted his paperwork in record speed, got his money, and called for the next person.

Doc appeared at her side and tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll get this. Why don’t you go update the social media? I know you enjoy that.”

She’d been looking forward to throwing herself into customer service. It could take her mind off Ian for a while, or at least cool off some of the sexy daydreams. “No, I’m fine. I’ll update the blog during lunch.”

“No. Go.” He offered the woman waiting across the counter a fake smile. “I’m not the type of boss to make his people work through lunch.”

The phony sucking up was turning her stomach, so Billie mumbled her thanks, handed over the permit she was holding, and went into their private office.

She’d have time to think about Ian after all. Unfortunately, this didn’t make her happy. Quite the opposite.

Her mind kept returning to the moment after they’d had sex at his loft, when she’d looked up, seen all the windows, and known they’d been visible to anyone looking in. At that moment, it had made her laugh. Age of internet porn, her face unrecognizable, no big deal.

But later last night, when she was home alone in her child-sized bed, her eyes had filled with tears. Safe in the dark, she’d remembered each pane of glass, each flickering light outside, as a member of a jury, judging her for what she’d done.

It wasn’t about Jane. It was about her.

He’d gone to the kitchen to heat up leftover pizza. How many times had she been in that position, getting dressed after a quickie with a guy who didn’t love her, taking whatever leftovers he happened to have in his fridge as an afterthought? Maybe it was OK when she was eighteen, but now? She was too old for that. She was too good for that.

She’d chosen to meet him at Home Depot precisely because she wanted a neutral, non-sexy place to see him. So why had she given in so quickly and gone back to his place? She’d joked it was because she was a slut with no self-control, that she’d been too quick to seek pleasure and indulge herself.

But the truth was worse. Last night, sex hadn’t been to make herself happy; it had been to make
him
happy. She’d been afraid of him being annoyed or impatient or bored with her if she’d said no.

It was exactly what her sister had warned her about.

“Stand up to him,” Jane had said that morning at breakfast. “And if you can’t do that, avoid him.”

But I did stand up to him
, she’d wanted to say, remembering the wall.
I had to. There wasn’t a bed.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d told Jane. Sharing a house with her sister wasn’t as fun as she’d hoped, for two reasons. One, Jane was a morning person. And two, Jane was a morning person. It was like waking up to a mariachi band. Loud, energetic, determined, impossible to ignore.

“You need to ask him about what he’s thinking long-term. Watch him panic. That will make you realize what danger you’re in,” Jane had continued, freestyling the cream cheese again. She’d graduated to a tablespoon.

“I need to get to work.” Fleeing her sister and her questions, Billie had left her cereal unfinished and driven to the office early.

Now she sat behind her desk and pulled up the department’s Facebook page. Nobody coming to their Facebook page wanted stupid jokes or cat videos; they wanted to know what paperwork they needed, when they needed it, how much it cost, and who to vote for in the future to bring down the iron fist of tyranny that presently crushed them.

She began searching for a cat video.

Ask him about what he was thinking long-term? They’d only fooled around twice. He’d never asked her on a proper date, asked her where she saw herself in a few years, asked her to marry him and have a few blue-eyed, brown-haired babies and make him the happiest of men.

Her memory wasn’t very good, yet another reason she’d been such a bad student, but she’d remember if he’d asked that.

No, they were friends. Family friends, which was worse. The sex was a very recent accident that felt good. She had no standing to demand more. And asking for more…

Made her embarrassed. He didn’t want more. The best way to protect herself was to hide the growing reality that she, unfortunately, did.

“You’ve got a friend here to see you,” Doc said from the doorway. His voice held a hint of the familiar scorn it had before the peep show.

Before she could wonder about what she’d done, she saw Ian standing behind him. The blood drained out of her brain and flowed to her girl parts.

“Oh,” she said, standing up.

Ian grinned at her. “Got a minute?”

Doc’s lips screwed together so tightly she thought his face would turn inside out. “Sure she does,” he said tightly. “I’m manning the counter today.”

She didn’t like it when he used “man” as a verb, especially since working the counter was almost always her job. Shouldn’t he say he was “womaning” the counter, or at least “Billie-ing” it?

“Thanks, Doc,” she said, walking over to greet Ian and close the door to the outside office. Doc had a creepy smile on his face as he turned away.

“I hope it’s all right I came by.” Ian wore his usual T-shirt, cargo pants, and flip-flops. After glancing over his shoulder, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “Have lunch with me.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” she said, inhaling his smell. Cologne, not just laundry detergent or deodorant. Very nice.

“I’ll come back.” Eyes fixed on hers, he kissed her again.

“I’m not sure—”

“The sign says the office closes at noon,” he said, quickly stroking her bottom. “I’ll see you then.”

If you can’t stand up to him, avoid him.

“Ian,” she called out.

He’d already walked away and opened the door. He turned, one dark, sexy eyebrow lifted. “Yes?” Just one word in that voice sent hot shivers down her back.