2. An accidental friction
Chapter 2
An accidental friction
Hank had told her she was tight in such a slow, quiet voice. It conjured a pint of dark chocolate stout, thick and sweet, at the end of the night.
Of course, she knew he meant her back muscles. The benefits that came with their friendship were laughter and food and, well, friendship, and not capital-B benefits like intimate touching or anything that remotely encompassed the word tight. But none of those truths stopped her imagination from providing a startlingly clear image of Hank’s big shoulders and broad chest above her, wearing one of his workout tanks that showed his arms—she was today years old when she realized she could look at his arms and imagine them bracketing her body—and then he’d mutter exactly that phrase, you’re tight , and absolutely mean her pussy. His cock would be as big as the rest of him.
That knowledge wasn’t based upon a guess, because if her overstimulated brain could add a footnote to this fever, it would cite the fact that the man always wore workout clothes. Occasionally, not frequently, because that would be creepy, but definitely a nonzero number of times, a woman could intuit the general dimensions of the penis presence from under the loose black mesh. And once or twice, she’d seen him in much more fitted black running tights, after which she could have drawn a technical rendering of it . If, that is, she’d wanted. To draw. It. Him.
His hands kept going, but that didn’t assuage the tension that had spread from her back to deeper in her core. She could almost feel his bulk pinning her legs, almost, but it was the damn couch in front of her. Her thighs were so clenched from the effort to hold herself together that she’d probably gained a half-inch in height. And she knew without looking down that her nipples must be visible through her bra and thin shirt. They felt like the giant headlights on a long-ago era’s swank cars, glaring out in front of her body, and why not even add a cartoon horn blaring into the mix with a classic ahh-OOOO-ga, baby-fuck-Ah , to draw Hank’s attention right here.
She wobbled. If she offered to lie on her stomach and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted, to her spine or otherwise, what would happen?
He reached from behind her and banded his right forearm across her collarbone to hold her upper body, so she wasn’t hinged half over the couch while he worked her back. Then his left hand straddled her spine, fingers on one side, thumb on the other. At least that’s what she thought happened, because presumably, he didn’t have three hands.
She felt dizzy with the realization that her fantasy of moments ago, Hank’s arms around her, had manifested itself in the real world. She couldn’t calculate how long it had been since she’d fooled around with a guy, and here was Hank, her Hank, her best friend, touching her like this .
Surrounding her, moving his hand up and down, pushing into her tight muscles, over and over.
Her shirt fabric slid as he rubbed, mesmerizing her with a motion she couldn’t see, but could sense in every nerve. She wanted the shirt to disappear so she could feel the sticky touch of bare skin in a heat wave, but fabric blocked his hand.
How could this moment be so relaxing and, at the same time, so very not-relaxing?
Hank. That was the answer. Right now, right here, he was all hers, and she was definitely his, even though he didn’t know it. Yet.
His scent wrapped around her as solidly as his forearm. Parting her lips and panting didn’t give her enough oxygen, but it filled her with his essence, warm and spicy, with a tiny bit of good sweat, and confused her with all the deodorant advertising slogans, even salty and ocean fresh. It reminded her of a really fun kayak trip, if that had a smell, and a campfire after, and why the fuck was she thinking about sharing a sleeping bag with him when it was ninety degrees out?
Her brain felt like an espresso machine with a head of steam that needed someone to push a release button, but her neck was too soft to hold up her head. Her chin fell forward to rest on his forearm. She needed to get out of her thoughts and get grounded, get back to the now.
“Have you seen the movie Moana ?” Another classic Emma-brain free-association fail, riffing on ocean fresh and kayaking to end at Disney.
His sigh ruffled the hair behind her right ear, adding to the heat pooling between her legs.
“Once with you, remember? Junior year.”
Of course she remembered that, but she’d been filling empty air. She was a really big, really humongous, five-foot-tall idiot.
“Three times with my nieces.” His hand kept moving. She exhaled and slumped forward again into his supporting arm, letting her eyes close. Her lips were inches from his skin, but she couldn’t actually touch her mouth to him because he had her pinned too firmly. A treacherously self-destructive part of her would, however, if she could reach him.
“They said I didn’t have enough tattoos, so I let them draw on my biceps.”
Fuck you, Hank Kahue. Just fuck you and fuck me and fuck your godlike arms.
“Relax.” His voice had become quieter, deeper, and his hand strokes glided from high up her back all the way down past the starting curve of her butt, again and again. “We’re good.”
We’re always good. She let go of the couch back and curled her hands around his forearm. We’re more than good. She squeezed, and his skin barely seemed to dent under her fingertips. We’re so fucking good. Her knees felt like syrup, and nervousness roiled her until all she wanted to do was cling and let him Hank-handle her like she was another piece of furniture. She would happily let his hands move her body, let him roll her like a paintbrush, let him squeeze her.
The hand on her back and his forearm across her chest had become her world. She pictured the hand that was softening her muscles, softening her knees, softening her spine, pictured those long, thick fingers and the big knuckles. For the first time, she wondered what it would feel like if one of Hank’s fingers went inside her. Or two. His hands were fucking huge.
His feet shifted farther apart, and his body heat came closer to her back as he fixed her in place and pushed at the same time. The pressure nudged her faster and harder against the couch. Or maybe she was the one moving faster, maybe she was pushing herself back into his hand, bumping forward with the release, almost humping the couch. Maybe it was her.
She was wet.
The realization of exactly how wet she’d become should shock her, but it didn’t. The roughness of his breathing in her ear should shock her, but it didn’t. The way his hands dug deeper into her muscles, which thrust her pelvis and hips harder against the couch, should shock her, but it didn’t. And how she had to push back into him to stay on her feet and how she yearned to turn around and climb him? That absolutely should shock her, but it really, really didn’t.
She yanked at his arm, trying to make it slide lower on her chest so she could feel it mash her breasts. She needed him to touch her breasts more than she’d ever needed anything from a man. She stood on her toes to reposition herself so that she could get that friction, even an accidental friction, across her nipples.
“Emma.”
He’d never said her name like that. Like it was everything. Like he was asking her something, but without a question, because he was telling her something too.
They were bending forward now, Hank closer to her, and the couch digging into her pelvis where she was thrusting on it, or he was thrusting her onto it, she didn’t know exactly, but it was hot and fast and kind of noisy, all creaking furniture and floorboards under their feet, punctuated by her moans and his panting. If she wiggled herself backward, maybe she could hitch herself up his leg, get his knee between her thighs, but he kept thwarting her. His hand rubbing her lower back forced her away, when she really needed him to slide that hand around to her hip and hold her so she could ride his thigh.
In the darkness behind her closed eyelids, a whole fucking movie wrote itself. In her mind, he would slide that hand over her hip and down to her mound and let her feel those fingers where she really needed them. He would also put a hand under her shirt and unhook her bra and palm her breasts and his mouth would be on her neck and then his other hand, because in her dream he had many, many hands, would—
His foot slid farther between hers at the same moment she pushed back toward him, and their bodies converged fully.
Holy shit. Hank had an erection. Firm and confirmed, no doubt about it.
Behind her, he froze.
She didn’t move either. The pressure nuzzling between her buttocks didn’t hint at a twitchy half-mast autopilot thing, but a full-on blazing erection that was trying to raise her to her tiptoes all by itself. A fucking old-growth cedar had sprouted behind her, and she was totally ready to nest on that.
The moment had to change; of course, it had to, even if she didn’t want either of them to move until she’d had more time nearly suspended on his beam.
He dropped his arm and retreated, leaving her with her hands in the air and teetering enough that she had to once again grab the back of the couch.
Shit. She’d ruined their friendship and was here with her butt poking out into the empty space behind her. She was so fucking stupid.
“Better?” Inconceivably, his voice wavered while he crouched to scoop up her empty bottle and his can.
Worse.
Because she didn’t trust her voice, she nodded. She wasn’t sure her mouth was fully closed, wasn’t sure she could breathe through her nose or even move her legs, so she nodded again, but he remained huddled near the floor and probably couldn’t see her agreement.
She could have reached out to stroke his hair. It looked so velvety. She wanted to run her open hand over it and change the direction and see if the ends tickled her palm. She wanted to feel that hair on her skin, specifically on her inner thighs. There was so much of Hank she wanted to touch and feel.
He straightened and was heading for the stairs before she managed to croak out a question. “Umm, you want the usual tonight?” Her voice cracked because she sure as hell could think of a few things she wanted tonight that weren’t the onion-peppers-sausage combo and Caesar salad.
He kept walking. “Have to go.”
This was her fault that he was embarrassed, all her fault.
“Sure.” She followed him. “Another time, then.” She felt even stupider about what had happened a few minutes ago and knew her shoulders were inching back toward her ears, and she couldn’t seem to stand straight.
He looked over his shoulder from the landing. “I’m modeling.”
“Oh, right.” Not a date, just taking everything off and standing still to let a dozen people study him and draw pictures of naked Hank. “You’re doing that again?”
He shrugged and disappeared around the corner. “It’s like yoga, at least for me.”
“Naked yoga.” She said it quietly, so hopefully, he hadn’t heard.
By the time she made it down, he’d disappeared into the kitchen with the empties, so she lingered by the front door until he came back. She was in danger of looking like the dejected puppy she felt like if she didn’t get herself together.
He returned with his backpack over one shoulder. “So.”
“Yeah.” She dropped her gaze from his face to where he tugged at the neckband of his shirt. His neck was like a tree trunk. Kind of like his cock, but she really couldn’t–shouldn’t–wouldn’t think about that. For a moment, she imagined a tree that looked like Hank planted in her garden, towering over the rhododendrons and lace-leaved Japanese maples, giving her shade and sheltering adorable squirrels and birds, nurturing her home exactly the way he always came over to lend her a hand. She wanted to draw him. It had been years since she’d picked up her charcoals or even a dark 6B drawing pencil. Her art practice had been one of many losses.
“I used to enjoy sketching. Maybe when the bed and breakfast is running smoothly, I’ll take the class you model for.”
“No!” There was no way to misinterpret his raised eyebrows and darting gaze. Panic, pure panic, flared off big old cinnamon roll Hank. “Don’t—I mean, I don’t think—I don’t think you’d enjoy—”
She forced out a noise that at least sounded like a laugh in her imagination. Half the middle-aged white-lady hobby artists in this city must have seen him pose, seen those thighs and arms, and Hank was happy to do it for them, but apparently, not for her. Never for her. So be it.
She wiped her hands on her shorts. “I’m sorry, by the way. I shouldn’t have…” Shit.
There was no way she could really say what she was sorry for out loud, but she had to try. “It was an accident, the touching. I didn’t mean to…”
Liar. She was such a fucking liar, and he must know it too. She’d wanted to plaster herself all over him. Even if he might not have realized, she couldn’t forget that she’d lost herself enough to try tugging his arm toward her breasts.
“It’s fine. I mean, I’m sorry too because I—that thing happened—I couldn’t help—”
He waved a hand vaguely in the air between them, and she focused on the movement so she didn’t have to look at his blushing sweet face and feel like crap because she’d tried to take advantage of him. He was a man, and no apology was going to change the fact that sometimes things happened to their cocks. Big things.
Yeah, it was a real big thing, that damn voice said before she could shut it up.
“I should go.” He sounded as reluctant and weird as she felt. When he reached for the door handle, he couldn’t seem to remember how to depress the lever on the top and pull at the same time, even though he must have opened the mechanism a hundred times.
“Of course.” If she moved closer to help him escape, she might throw herself on him, smash her lips onto his, and beg him to stay. While they might be able to fabricate excuses and wall off what had happened upstairs, putting her mouth on his lips wouldn’t be an accident.
She stayed five feet away, but she could still feel him pressing behind her, even though her eyes saw him in front of her. She could even, she thought, catch the scent of that heated deodorant and Hank-ness that was going to haunt her evening as soon as he left.
“Goodbye, Emma.”
“Bye, Hank.”
After she’d closed the door behind him, she realized neither of them had said see you later.