Chapter 20
KENSEY
The store was quiet in a way it never was during business hours. Everyone had gone home. The lights had been dimmed to their overnight setting. The chandeliers were dark, which made the whole space feel like a different place entirely. Softer. Private. Intimate.
I was not thinking about that.
I was thinking about vendors. That’s why we were still here at eight thirty long after everyone had gone home.
“Okay,” I said, pulling the laptop closer across the table in Drew’s office. “The flower vendor confirmed the umbrella installation timeline. They can have everything set up by six a.m. the morning of the event.”
“Good.” Drew was leaning back in his chair on the other side of the table.
His shirt had been unbuttoned three down.
Sleeves rolled up. Shirt untucked. We were one step away from sitting around in our underwear.
We were both tired and it wasn’t hot in the building, but being on the second floor after a long, hot day, we were ready to loosen our collars.
“What about the scatter seating? Did you hear back from the rental company?” he asked with a yawn.
“Still waiting.” I typed a note to follow up first thing in the morning. “They said end of day but it is last minute.”
“Chase them at eight a.m.”
“Already on the list.”
I rolled my neck to the side. I felt like a bodybuilder.
The guys that had no neck and all muscles.
My shoulders felt like they were up to my ears.
I did it the other direction and winced.
I pressed my fingers against the base of my skull and rubbed.
I wasn’t used to sitting and staring at a screen for ten hours.
Teaching meant I was up and moving. I was looking up at a projector screen sometimes but not like this.
“You okay?” Drew asked.
“Fine. Just tight.”
He set his phone down. “Come here,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“Kensey.”
I pushed back my chair and walked around to where he was sitting. He spread his legs and pointed at the floor in front of him. This was completely normal. He’d done this before. He rubbed my shoulders. I rubbed his.
I pushed the table back and sat down on the floor, legs stretched out in front of me. I forced myself to ignore the fact I was sitting between his legs.
His hands settled on my shoulders. I closed my eyes.
He worked slowly at first, his strong hands rubbing at my shoulders before adding pressure from his thumbs. I groaned and dropped my head forward. The tension released in slow degrees. My shoulders dropped a little at a time. I exhaled through my nose.
“God,” I murmured.
“That bad?”
“I’m so stiff. I’m not used to all the sitting and screen time.”
“You should have said something.”
“It’s fine. Just a little stiff.”
“Very stiff.”
I turned my head to look at him. He winked.
I was used to the double entendres. We did that. We flirted but we never acted on it.
His thumbs moved up toward the base of my neck and I felt my chin drop forward once again.
He pressed in circles. I reminded myself this was a completely platonic shoulder rub between two friends.
We had agreed that the thing that happened between us had been a one-time event born of champagne and a romantic setting.
Nothing else.
He was Drew. My best friend. No kissing. No touching. And definitely no fucking.
His hands moved to my upper arms and then back up. He worked the muscle at the top of my shoulder. I couldn’t stop the moan that escaped my throat. It was too good.
His hands stilled. I didn’t move. He didn’t move.
“Kensey,” he said, his voice was husky. “I can’t do this.”
“You’re doing fine. I think you got the worst of it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I turned and realized I was eye to eye with that bit of him I’d had my mouth on very recently.
And it was staring right back at me. He was hard and straining against his slacks.
I licked my lips without thinking about it, unable to stop myself.
He groaned, reached between his legs, and shifted the cock demanding to be let out to play.
And dammit, I wanted to play.
“I’ve been trying to forget what happened between us,” he said. “I did the coffee date because everyone said it would help. I sat across from a perfectly nice woman and I couldn’t tell you a single thing she said after the first five minutes because all I could think about was you.”
“Drew, we can’t.”
“I’m not done.” He wasn’t unkind about it. Just firm. “I came back here after that and I told you it was a bad date and you smiled and told me I should give it a fair shot, and I wanted to put my head through the wall.”
I pressed my lips together. “I was trying to be a supportive friend.”
“I can’t keep pretending I don’t want you, Kensey. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. You do. We both do. Why are we denying ourselves?”
With what I really wanted within reach, I was having a difficult time remembering why we stopped. We were friends. We could still be friends after.
“You won’t think differently of me in the morning?” I asked with a small laugh.
“I could never think differently of you. I respect you, Kens. Always have and I always will. I’ve wanted this for a long time. It’s not something that just popped up.”
I couldn’t help it. My eyes dropped back to the thing that had just popped up.
“Me either,” I said.
He reached for me. I got to my knees, my arms resting on his thighs. He leaned forward, his hand cupping my jaw. I stared into his eyes and hesitated for just a second before I closed the distance.
His mouth met mine with a hunger that stole my breath.
His fingers slid into my hair and he pulled me closer.
I straddled him on the couch and pressed against him, feeling the hard length of him against my stomach through our clothes.
The kiss deepened, tongues tangling, and every reason we’d held back dissolved in the heat of it.
I wanted him—had wanted him for years—and tonight, in this quiet office, I wasn’t going to stop.
Drew groaned low in his throat. His fingers tore at the buttons of my blouse. I helped, yanking it open and shrugging it off. Then I reached for his shirt.
We stripped with urgent, clumsy movements.
My hands went directly to his chest, touching the muscles I had dreamed about an embarrassing number of times.
He lifted me and carried me to his desk.
Then he plopped me down on top of a stack of invoices we’d gone over earlier.
I quickly pushed them off, letting them scatter to the floor. I’d deal with them later.
He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants. Then his hands were on me again, unhooking my bra, mouth tracing down my neck to capture a nipple. I arched into him, gasping at the wet heat of his tongue. “Drew,” I whispered.
I had thought about this with him more times than I cared to count. Our near miss the other night haunted my very erotic wet dreams. His mouth moved over my neck before his teeth tugged at my earlobe. My hands ran over his back, thrilled with the rippling muscles.
“I would love to kiss you for hours, but, woman, I’m so hard it hurts,” he said. “I haven’t been not hard since that night.”
I understood. There was a desire to make the moment last forever, but we had both been edged for days. There was no waiting. It had to happen now or we might both spontaneously combust.
I hopped off the desk and let him take off my pants and then I was stepping out of my panties. Completely naked in front of my best friend. His hand splayed wide and ran down the front of my body and between my legs.
I moaned and dropped my head back as his fingers slid through my wetness. He kissed me, still teasing me between my legs, dipping into my folds and swirling his fingers around my clit. His touch was heaven. My legs shook so badly I was barely able to stay upright.
“Let go, Kensey,” he whispered in my ear. “You don’t have to hold back anymore.”
His thumb put a little extra pressure on that sensitive bundle of nerves and I nearly screamed. I couldn’t have held back the sound if I wanted to. His arm wrapped around my waist and kept me on my feet while I trembled against him.
“Do you have a condom?” I asked breathily.
He stepped away, walking to the other side of the desk and jerking open a drawer. I watched him reach in, fumble around, and pull out a foil packet. He put it between his teeth and peeled off his briefs. Heat flooded through me at the sight of him.
He stalked back toward me, naked and wanting. He tore open the package with his teeth and rolled the condom on quickly, eyes locked on mine the whole time. The air between us crackled, charged with everything we’d been trying to deny.
He grabbed me once again and set my bare ass on the desk, spreading my thighs as he stepped between them.
He entered me in one smooth thrust, filling me completely.
I cried out, clutching his shoulders. The stretch and burn gave way to pure pleasure.
He moved slowly at first, then harder, deeper, the desk creaking under us with each thrust.
My legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer.
The friction built fast. His hand slipped between us to rub my clit in tight circles, with just the right amount of pressure to send me into outer space.
I was going to die of pleasure. Another orgasm was barreling toward me on a collision course.
And then he pulled out. I was dizzy and confused and pissed that he stopped. He grinned at me and turned me around. His mouth was against my ear. “Bend over,” he growled.
I bent over the desk without hesitation, gripping the edge.
His strong hands slid over my hips, positioning me exactly how he wanted.
He entered me again from behind in one deep thrust that stole the breath from my lungs.
I braced myself, pushing back to meet him.
The angle was perfect, hitting spots that made stars burst behind my eyes with every stroke.
His grip tightened, one hand splaying across my lower back while the other gripped my hip.
“God, yes,” I gasped, the words tumbling out as he pounded into me.
Pleasure built fast and sharp, coiling tighter with each thrust until I shattered again, clenching around him. The cry that escaped my throat came from deep within. He followed right after, hips jerking, a low groan rumbling from his chest as he came, burying himself deep.
I collapsed on the desk with his chest pressed against my back. Then he eased out gently, turning me around to pull me into his arms. I rested my head against his shoulder, the reality of what we’d done settling between us. There was no going back now, and I didn’t want to.
He gathered me up afterward, both of us moving like we were in a daze.
Somehow we ended up on the couch instead of bothering with clothes right away.
He pulled a throw blanket off the back and wrapped it around us both before settling back with me tucked against his side. My head rested against his chest.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment. I listened to his heartbeat slow down under my ear.
“I don’t know what this is,” I said finally, because somebody had to say something and it might as well be me.
“Yeah.” His voice rumbled under my cheek. “Me either.”
“But I like it,” I admitted. There was no point lying about it now. Not after what we’d just done on his desk.
“I like it too.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Honestly, right now? There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I closed my eyes and let myself believe that for a second. I could still taste him. I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine. It was unfamiliar and strange, but it also felt like the most natural thing in the world.
For years I had told myself the crush was foolish.
A leftover feeling from being a lonely scholarship kid who latched onto the one person who was kind to her and never quite let go.
I told myself it didn’t matter because nothing could ever come of it.
He wasn’t built for forever. I’d watched him prove that over and over.
And I wasn’t like him. I didn’t fit into his world.
When it was just the two of us, sure. We got along, but I could never do the galas and vacation in St. Tropez and do all the things the elite did.
But he felt different now. Steadier. He almost made me believe we could actually have something real.
Hope was a dangerous thing to let in. Maybe this wasn’t just a mistake we were going to apologize for.
Make speeches that it would never happen again.
Maybe it was supposed to happen exactly like this, messy and inevitable, two people who’d loved each other for years finally catching up to what that love was always supposed to be.
And that terrified me more than anything else that had happened tonight. Because if I let myself hope and it fell apart, I wouldn’t just lose a boyfriend. I would lose Drew. My Drew. The person I called at two in the morning. The person who knew every version of me there had ever been.
I pressed my face harder into his chest so he couldn’t see me freaking out.
“You okay?” he asked, feeling me go quiet.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
I hesitated. “About how much I don’t want to mess this up.”
His arms tightened around me. “Then let’s not mess it up.”
Like it was that simple. Like two people who’d spent ten years perfecting the art of not being together could just decide to be something else entirely.
I wanted to believe it could be that simple but nothing ever was.