Chapter 12
Twelve
Keene
My eyes snap open.
“What?” I ask in complete disbelief.
“You heard me.”
No. No, I don’t think I did. I think I’m in a dream and my brain is working up some wild shit to keep it interesting. Or maybe I’ve been thrust into an alternate reality. Either way, there’s no fucking way Aspen just dared me to blow him.
Yet from the look on his face as he’s staring at me, waiting—albeit, impatiently—for me to respond, tells me this is really happening.
“You’re serious,” I say slowly. “Like, deadass serious?”
He nods. “You wanna know if you like dick for real, so what better way than to start with a blowie?”
Maybe, but…Jesus.
Everything inside me tells me to bolt, yet the way my dick decides to thicken in my compression shorts gives me away. He’s quick to notice and nods toward my crotch.
“It’s clear just from the tent you’re pitching you want it, Kee. So don’t pull a me by starting to overthink this.”
Okay, now this is literal insanity. Have we pulled some Freaky Friday shit, switching bodies, and I haven’t noticed until now? Aspen doesn’t do shit without thinking—that’s my MO, not this worrying bullshit. The worrying is all him.
But God, can he really blame me for overthinking? This is a recipe for disaster if I’ve ever heard one. Sex between friends is always a bad idea.
Yet I don’t object when he starts making his points, working out yet another one of his plans for us to tackle this together.
“We’ll make some rules to follow, mess around a bit, and when you feel comfortable with knowing, we’ll end it. It doesn’t have to be more than that, Kee. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
I nod in agreement, but an unsettled feeling still sits in my stomach. “How aren’t you completely freaked about this?”
He sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I was before. I mean, maybe I still am. I was definitely confused by how turned on I got with the whole…sexting thing.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Is that why you took Bristol out on a date?”
The tips of his ears pink slightly. “The thing about overthinking is that sometimes it’s easy to convince yourself something is a good idea, even when it isn’t.”
In a way, I can see it. Understand what he was trying to accomplish. Hell, I’ve tried a ton of shit over the last year and a half to get my dick to walk on the straight and narrow.
None of it worked, obviously, and that’s why we’re here.
“But if the other night taught me anything, it’s that it felt really good to be touched by you, even if it did freak me out a bit. So…I’m not gonna be one to get hung up on it.”
“Which goes entirely against the way you’re programmed,” I note, dryly.
He shrugs. “It’s sex, Kee. And if sex with you feels as good as it does with any other partner I’ve had, then…” He trails off and shrugs again. “Then that’s all I really need to know about it.”
I wish I could be as cavalier as he is about sex and hookups, but I’ve never been able to separate my emotions when it comes to intimacy.
I can count the number of one-night stands I’ve had on one finger, and it only happened because I was in desperate need to get out of my head about this whole attraction-to-men thing by making sure I still got it up for women too.
“So…you mentioned rules?”
“We only do what we’re both comfortable with should be the big one,” he says, leaning back in the chair. “And we’re not fucking around with other people while this is going on.”
My ears perk up at the exclusivity clause, and I’m glad he’s all for it. I don’t know why I thought he wouldn’t be to begin with. Pen might have a major detachment when it comes to sex, but it’s not like he goes around screwing anything that moves.
And that’s also why it doesn’t surprise me when he brings up his next point.
“Our friendship is the most important thing. Maintaining it at all costs. We have to be honest with each other when it comes to what we like, how we’re feeling, everything.
Especially on the big things, like anal.
” The red on his ears deepens and his cheeks turn pink, but this time, I can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or something else.
Maybe even lust. “Who would top, if it ever came to that, being the main thing.”
My blood might as well be boiling in my veins. “I can tell you one thing: the way I’ve pictured this going puts you on top ninety percent of the time.”
“So you’ve pictured it.”
Yes.
I lick my lips. “Maybe.”
Any question I had about it being lust or embarrassment is immediately answered by the heat in his gaze at my answer. And though it makes me feel so much better, knowing this turns him on as much as it does me…I’m still worried.
I can’t shake the feeling, which is why I shine the light on the elephant in the room.
“You know this could fuck up everything, right?”
“I know.” His smile is soft and reassuring.
“Believe me, I know it could. But I also know I’m not gonna let you figure it out with anyone else but me.
Call it possessiveness or jealousy, I don’t care.
But it’s not happening with anyone else, so you might as well get on your knees right now before I walk out the door and make you come begging for it. ”
While that’s meant to be a threat, my cock definitely takes it as more of a promise. In fact, ever since anal was brought up, I’ve been rock hard and ready to get this show on the road.
But I’m nervous. Really nervous, actually. Which is something I’m not used to feeling when it comes to sex or being around Aspen. I can’t help it though, when I want this to be good. I want him to like this, the same way he liked what happened on the couch the other night.
He’s the one person I’ve always been able to be vulnerable with about anything—and if we aren’t letting these hookups change the way our friendship’s been for the past twenty years—then I shouldn’t have any issue letting him know my insecurities.
“You’ll tell me what you like? Or if I’m bad at it?” I murmur while sliding off the mattress and to my knees between his thighs.
The desire in his gaze is still scalding, but his eyes soften around the edges as he looks down at me. “You’re always stupidly good at everything you do. I doubt this will be any different, Kee.”
His reassurance sends a surge of confidence through me. One I didn’t realize I needed to feel twenty times more at ease with where this is going.
Somehow, Pen always knows exactly what I need to hear, no matter the situation.
“Then take your shirt off,” I find myself whispering as my hands come to rest on his thighs. They’re warm beneath my touch, practically searing through the fabric of his sweats.
Arching one brow slightly, he does as I ask. My eyes latch on the smooth expanse of his abs as the cotton lifts away from his skin.
Pen’s always been fit, despite not being an athlete like me.
His daily runs and our hiking trips take care of keeping him lean, along with the few days he goes to the gym to keep his muscles toned and sculpted.
And his pale skin makes him look like a marble statue of some sinfully beautiful god.
With the dark hair, bad-boy aura, and wicked gleam in his eyes, I wouldn’t say anyone but Hades.
And I’m more than happy to let him drag me to Hell.
Gripping the waistband of his sweats, I start to pull them and his boxers down. His hips lift, allowing me to slide them past his ass easily. The second his cock springs free of the fabric, my heart jackhammers against my ribs hard enough to crack them.
“Shit,” I whisper.
It’s long and thick, a deep blue vein running up the bottom that I can’t wait to run my tongue over. An angry, red tip stares back at me, a drop of pre-cum seeping from the slit already.
Part of me is so glad I didn’t get the picture from him the night we were sexting, because seeing it for the first time in person is so much better.
When I say it might be an actual work of art, I’m not kidding.
And even thinking it tells me, while I might not know if I like all dicks, I most definitely like his.
“If you keep looking at it like that, I’m gonna come before you even get your mouth on me.”
My eyes snap to his face, and the unmistakable lust written in his expression eases any tension left in my stomach.
Smirking, I wrap my fist around his shaft and angle the tip toward me. “Someone a little quick on the trigger, Pen?”
I swipe the flat of my tongue across the tip before he can answer, lapping at the bit of pre-cum. It’s a burst of salty flavor on my tastebuds, heady and not what I was expecting. Even more unexpected…I don’t hate it. At all.
A sharp inhale causes me to look up, and when I do, I swear I could come just from looking at him. His eyes are two balls of blue fire, burning with an intensity that sears right into my soul.
“Not a fucking chance,” he mutters. “Now, suck.”
My balls seize at his command and the rasp in his voice. I’ve never let myself think something like his voice is sexy before, but his tone is so seductive, I’d do whatever he’d ask of me just to hear him keep talking.
I stroke him a few times, getting used to the weight in my palm before taking the tip in my mouth. Giving it a gentle suck, I flick my tongue across the head and am granted with more pre-cum leaking on my tongue.
I’m already addicted to the flavor of his lust.
His hands latch onto the chair’s arms, something like desperation written on his face when he looks down at me.
Up until this point, right now, I’ve questioned it.
If this is really just something he’s doing for me as a favor and as a friend.
Or if, maybe, this is something that feels as right to him as it does to me.
But with the desire in his eyes and the way he’s straining to hold himself back, I know.
He wants this as much as I do.