Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend (Her Billionaire #1)

Chapter SEVENTEEN

(Matthew)

I held my breath while the phone rang. I shouldn’t have been nervous to call one of my oldest friends, but we’d never gone this long without at least talking over Discord. I’d been skipping out on World of Warcraft, claiming my pain meds were making me too woozy.

Maybe Scott had been skipping out on raids, too.

The call rang several times, so I was braced for voicemail when it connected. I wasn’t braced to hear Scott’s grim, “Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” I asked, chuckling. “I’m the one who ghosted you right after the worst day of your life.”

“I’m trying not to think of it as the worst day of my life,” Scott said, but in our two decades of friendship, I’d never heard him so beaten down. “And you didn’t ghost me. You were attacked by a bear. Because of me.”

“I was attacked by a bear because of me,” I corrected him. “It was my bright idea to fly the damn thing in.”

“It was Lauren’s idea. She’s the one who pushed for it.”

“Then this is clearly Lauren’s fault.” Glad to have that out of the way. “How are you doing? Have you spoken to her?”

“She sent me an email.” Scott scoffed. “Like we were ending a business transaction. If you printed this thing, it would have been pages—”

“You didn’t’ print it, did you?” I interrupted. I wasn’t sure I could help my friend if he was so far gone that he was printing emails like an eighty-year-old.

“No, I didn’t.” He wasn’t very convincing. “But it was all bullshit about how she’d known for a long time that we weren’t going to work out and then she got swept away in the responsibilities of planning the wedding… There were so many opportunities for her to step off the bus. We had long conversations about communication being the most important thing in a relationship and wow, she threw those back in my face.”

I’d never liked Lauren, but now was not the time to mention it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. And I’m sorry about the way it all went down.”

“Like I said, you were in bad shape. I was worried we were going to lose you, when I heard you were back in surgery.” Scott sounded choked up by the idea.

“Hey, I wasn’t worried. Because I’m never going to die.”

Scott laughed.

“You don’t understand,” I went on, the tightness in my chest easing. “I have access to rich people medicine. We have the technology. My right hand is biomechanical like Luke Skywalker.”

“Must be handy for jacking off.” He snickered at his own pun.

“Left-handed, bro,” I reminded him. “Besides, I don’t trust my dick to robot hands. It’s a hard line.”

“Seems like a good way to get it ripped off,” he agreed.

And then silence.

And then, inevitably, “Dude. My sister, though?”

“Yeah… about that.” Don’t apologize. That’s what Charlotte had said, and that’s what I would stick to. “I need you to know that I didn’t run off and seduce her on purpose. It wasn’t a prank or something. We met by accident and to utilize an apt cliche, sparks flew.”

“I warned you about that. She’s charming as fuck, dude.” Scott made a grumbling, grudging sigh. “You’re both adults. You fooled around. It’s water under the bridge, as far as I’m concerned.”

And this was the part where I could either lie to my best friend, albeit, by omission, or I could own up, be a man, and tell him straight out that I was still going to be having sex with his sister.

On the other hand, cowardice is sometimes a survival trait.

Sack up, Charlotte’s words echoed in my head.

“You probably should stop referring to the subject in the past tense,” I said, wincing and bracing for Scott’s reaction.

“What do you m—” He stopped, and I could imagine the expression of dawning horror on his face. “Are you dating my sister?”

“No. I am not dating your sister. I am having a long-distance sexual relationship with your sister.”

My answer either baffled him or plunged him into rage. Possibly both. “Long distance sexual… How does that even work?”

Did he really want to know? “Well, there’s Faceti—”

“I know how it works!” he snapped. “I was thrown for a loop, okay?”

“Okay! Jeez. I’m responding to your question, for fuck’s sake. Does it make you feel any better to know that we haven’t been doing that? It’s been mostly flirty texts and asking about my recovery. One’s libido is affected by things like getting one’s leg ripped open like a god damn Christmas present.”

“So, you’re dating.” It was an accusation.

“No. She’s not interested in that and neither am I. We like each other.” Which was the perfect relationship. Liking someone enough to want to spend time with them and fuck them, but not wanting to alter my life or theirs.

“You’re going to propose to her within a year and she’s going to crush you.” Scott paused. “Actually, I’d be fine with that, at this point. It would teach you a lesson about ignoring my good advice.”

“Scott, I have never learned that lesson before. There is no reason to assume this will be the time it sticks.” I added, “Besides, I can see myself being friends with her, even after the sex stuff is over.”

“I’m going to tell you ‘I told you so’ so hard.”

It would be a small price to pay. “So, we’re talking again?”

“I was never not talking to you. I felt really, really bad about the bear,” he said.

“Let’s agree to blame the bear on Lauren, blame our lack of communication on my recovery and your broken heart, blame me sleeping with your sister on her—because you apparently view her as some kind of succubus—and walk away from this whole conversation with a comfortable denial of responsibility for the whole thing,” I suggested cheerfully.

He agreed with, “If you can’t be emotionally unhealthy with your friends, who can you be emotionally unhealthy with?”

“To denial.” I raised my free hand in a toast he couldn’t see, but which didn’t matter because I wasn’t drinking anything, anyway.

“I gotta go. Work let me take grief leave but now I’m behind in everything.”

Grief leave? He must have been destroyed. And I hadn’t been there for him.

“We’re doing Sepulcher of the First Ones on WoW tonight,” Scott went on. “I’ll see you there?”

“Oh man, from season four?” My fingers itched at the thought. Then, I remembered what I had waiting for me as a reward for this call. And while I felt like a shit for not getting back to raiding with my friends… Charlotte and her cornucopia of panties awaited. “Nah, I’m not up to fighting shape. Still riding the painkiller train every night.”

“Get better, man. That’s an order.” He added, “And give some real thought to not fucking my little sister anymore.”

“I will not do that.” It was no good making a promise I didn’t intend to keep.

“Whatever. When you’ve recovered, let’s take a trip, okay? Send me to one of your sex resorts so I can get laid,” Scott suggested. “Okay, going now. Bye.”

“Bye.” I hit the button. Maybe I could use a trip, myself. Not to one of the public Ascend properties. I needed to go to Red.

And there was only one person I wanted to take there.

* * * *

(Charlotte)

Matt video called me a few hours after our initial conversation. This time, when I answered, he was naked.

Well, I assumed he was naked. I could only see him from the shoulders up. “Are you naked or just shirtless and I’m horny?”

“I’m shirtless, so I guess it’s my lucky day.” He chuckled and adjusted himself on the pillows he reclined on. “I talked to Scott. He knows about us.”

“Us?” We hadn’t agreed to any such terminology.

“Oh please, don’t get all guy-in-a-sitcom about it. It’s a word. It’s an accurate description.” His jaw clenched in obvious annoyance. “Expect a call from him, if you haven’t gotten one.”

“We’ve already discussed things. More than once.” And we’d made very little headway toward a resolution. “He doesn’t get a say in what two consenting adults do over the internet.”

“What if someday it’s not over the internet?” Matt asked.

The memory of having him in the flesh, in my flesh, tightened my nipples and sent flutters to my clit. “I think the two consenting adults thing still applies.”

“I’m not joking. Come see me.” His tone was different now, more serious than I would have liked. “Think it over, okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it. But you know. Job.” Of course, I’d quit jobs for flimsier reasons than “I want to get laid.” I’d happened to find a place I liked working. “Also, you should come visit me. We have legal weed.”

“Noted. Now, about those panties… which ones did you choose?” he asked as I moved to lock my front door and close the blinds.

I tilted the phone downwards and lifted my skirt to give him a quick peek at the panties I wasn’t wearing. “I was waiting to resume our consultation.”

He audibly sucked in a breath, and I tilted the screen back up to my face.

“Have you been running around like that all day?”

I shook my head. “Just around the house. I spent a lovely, lazy day without any panties on. I could reach down any time I wanted…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

“I did,” I admitted. “But I didn’t come. I was waiting for you.”

“Then I’m glad I called.”

“Me, too. Because I need to come so bad.” It wasn’t a flirty lie. It felt like ages since we’d done anything more than trade sexually charged banter via text.

“If you want to come, you have to follow instructions,” he warned.

“Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.” And I would. In a heartbeat. I’d made a bargain with myself that I wouldn’t let myself have an orgasm until he called me back, but that if he didn’t call by seven, my time, I would go ahead without him.

It was five now, and I’d been edging all day.

“Let’s see that drawer again.”

I went to my underwear drawer and showed him the wares.

“The pink ones there… I think there’s a bow on them?” he said, pointing to the screen as if I would be able to determine the direction.

I found the pair he was talking about. “There is a bow. Sharp eyes.”

“When the subject is interesting enough. Are those cotton?”

“They are.” I flipped the camera back around. “What is it with men and cotton panties. It’s so gross and infantilizing.”

“It has nothing to do with infantilizing you. I want you to wear them because I want to see the wet spot on them when you’re fingering yourself for me.” He said it so confidently, like there was no reason in the world that it wouldn’t happen.

And he was sort of right. A meteor would have to strike my house to interrupt this.

I propped the phone on the open drawer and peeled my skirt slowly up my thighs.

“Can I screen record this?” he asked.

If he were anyone else, I would have said “hell, no.” But he wasn’t going to use revenge porn against me. “Sure. But it’s only for you.”

He nodded vigorously. “Of course. I would never show it to anyone else without your permission. Like I assume you would never show anyone video of me without my permission.”

“Ooh, am I going to get video of you?” I would fully enjoy a clip of him jerking off. I shivered at the memory of watching him in the shower. The way the veins in his arm stood out…

I stepped into my panties and leaned down to pull them up, giving my hips a little wiggle. “How’s the view?”

“Inspiring.”

“How inspiring?” I asked. He flipped his camera and gave me a peek at his erection straining against a pair of navy-blue silk pajama pants. I whistled. “Wow. Purple mountains’ majesty inspiring.”

“It’s not purple!” He pulled the waistband down, freeing his dick to pop out and slap against his stomach.

I snorted. “This is so sexy.”

“This is reality.” He switched the camera back. “If you want fantasy, you have to come with me to my club. Now, strip down to those panties.”

“One of your sex resorts?” I asked, pulling my shirt over my head.

“No, my kink club. It’s private, with strict membership criteria.” He groaned softly and said, “God, I miss your tits.”

“What would we do at this kink club?” I asked, shimmying my skirt down and kicking it aside.

He sucked in a breath, considering. “Ideally, I’d want to have you as a full-time, round-the-clock, twenty-four-seven sub. But I don’t even know if you’re into dominance and submission, and full-time isn’t something you could do right away. The first time, we would explore all of your options.”

It was a good plan; anything I knew about doms and subs came straight from Wattpad. I probably needed to do a little more research into the subject to figure out if it was something I wanted to do, or something I just enjoyed reading about. I batted my eyelashes and put on a breathy voice. “I am interested in that stuff. But I need a tutor. Will you teach me, please?”

“You’re killing me.” His voice dropped into an oddly commanding, seductive pitch. “I’ll teach you anything you want.”

“Because you can make all my fantasies come true, right?”

“Princess, I’ll make fantasies you didn’t even know you had come true.”

I whimpered. “Will you please tell me about them, Mister M?”

“Ooh, Mister M. I like that.” He looked like he was blushing. “Tell you what. Let’s get you into a position where I have a great view of your hand in those panties, and I’ll tell you a naughty story.”

It took a few tries and some sheepish laughter, but with the help of the pillows, I got the phone set up right between my legs while I leaned against my headboard.

“Perfect. I can see everything,” he confirmed. “Your pretty face. Your gorgeous body.”

“Everything but the main event?” I asked, rubbing my fingers over the cotton crotch of my panties.

“That’s the point. It’s a tease. For both of us.” He switched the phone to his other hand and put his arm behind his head, getting comfortable.

“Settling in for a long one?” I teased him, hoping that’s exactly what he was doing.

“I said I was going to tell you a story,” he reminded me. “So let me tell you one. And let’s make it interactive.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s say this is our first session. To get your feet wet.”

“Not just my feet, I hope.”

He laughed. “Not just your feet. I want you to get to know me as a dom, at least a little bit. You might not like my expectations. And that’s fine. I am still happy to fuck you and watch you get fucked by other people, even if it’s not because I’ve ordered you to fuck them.”

The thought sent chills of longing over my skin, and I realized that right now, we’d reached something important. A precipice and a great fall that I might not return from. When my curiosity was satiated, would my sexual self still belong to me? Or, would I gladly surrender myself to Matt’s sexual whims and never look back?

There was only one way to find out, and it started with, “Once upon a time.”