Chapter 16 Need
Need
Shaking with need, I staggered on trembling knees to the attached bathroom and locked myself in. With the shower set to five degrees north of volcanic, I snaked my hand down between my thighs and parted the slick lips of my sex with my middle finger, gasping at the first touch.
“Oh my,” I breathed.
If just the thought of him was this good, I couldn’t begin to imagine the reality.
Biting my bottom lip, one hand braced against the chilly tiled wall, I closed my eyes and set my mind free.
Kian’s lean hips wedged between my thighs, the muscles of his ass flexing as he rhythmically drove into me.
Kian’s strong arms braced on either side of my head, his chest hovering over mine.
Kian’s torso clenching as he rolled his hips.
Kian’s face tight with passion, Kian’s hazel eyes sparking with desire, Kian’s forehead beaded with sweat, Kian—
My body convulsed, shudders violently wracking my frame as I pressed against my clit, my orgasm barreling through me. A low groan at the back of my throat had me shoving my palm into my mouth to stem the sound.
Limbs liquid, I arched my neck back and closed my eyes as the hot water saturated my curls and plastered them to my back. I washed my hair slowly, massaging my scalp, more relaxed than I’d been in as long as I could remember.
Conditioned, dried, and moisturized, I wrapped my hair in a towel, then pulled on a clean bra and panties as well as my light summer pajamas before leaving the bedroom in search of my poor friend.
Friend, Bridge.
It wasn’t difficult to find him, the cottage was miniscule. Standing at the counter in the kitchen, he took two mugs down from the cupboard.
I made my way across the kitchen. “Hey.”
He angled his head toward me, eyes narrowed. “You look relaxed.”
I froze in my tracks, a denial on the tip of my tongue, before tipping my chin up and smiling slyly. “That shower, hm. Very nice.” Continuing toward the fridge, I dragged my hand across his back. “You should…try it.”
He snorted. “I’ve been ‘trying it’ for weeks now. One day you’re going to go too far, Bridget. You need to make up your mind,” he snapped, good humor dissipating.
My jaw dropped. Not only had Kian snapped at me, but he inferred I was the one holding this up? “Make up my mind?”
“Yeah,” he turned toward me. “Either you’re willing to try with me or you’re not.”
I stuttered, “I thought you didn’t want to get involved?”
He dipped his chin down and leveled me with his gaze. “Really, Bridge? We’re not involved?”
I swallowed. “Well, yes, but not romantically.”
He huffed impatiently. Hm. A horny Kian was a huffy Kian. “We’re not fucking. Yet. That’s all.”
I plopped down into the kitchen chair behind me. “Huh.”
Voice tight, he continued, “It’s all fun and games until somebody—”
“Gets a boner,” I finished.
His chest began to shake. “Okay, yeah. We’ll go with that.” Laughing, he strolled over and pulled me up out of the chair and into his arms.
I tucked my nose into his neck, my body trembling with sudden cold.
Wrapping my arms around his lean waist, I clung to him. I’d been playing with fire, safe in the assumption I could stretch my sexual wings with no repercussions.
His big hands ran up and down my back as he gently pressed me closer, murmuring, “We’ll sleep on it. But before we head back to Sage Ridge, you need to come to a decision. And if you decide you only want to be friends, all this teasing you’re so damn good at has to stop.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I pictured all the ways this could go wrong. “And if I decide I don’t want to stop teasing you?”
He rubbed his stubbled cheek against my temple. “Then you willingly accept the consequences.”
“Which are?”
His hands stilled as he pulled me in closer. “You and me making a go of this.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “It’s going to hurt.”
Between the two of us, we carried a lot of baggage. Navigating each other’s triggers would require a degree in cartography.
“Yeah.” He dropped a sweet kiss to my forehead. “But is there anything worth having that doesn’t?”
I nodded against his wide chest.
A chest this wide, did it house a heart big enough to hold me as well? Me and Isaiah and all my fears as well as our future? Wasn’t that too much to ask?
And what happens if it doesn’t work out? Am I supposed to walk away?
That’s exactly what you’ll have to do.
What if I can’t make a living in Sage Ridge? As much fun as I’m having at Susie Q’s, it’s not enough.
Or is it?
What if Kian’s not enough?
Oh, God! What if Isaiah’s not enough?
What if Isaiah comes to depend on me and Kian whips him away, or worse, I leave?
If it comes down to choosing between my career and a family? I chose family once before, raising Jakey as my own, and family let me down.
The chaos of my thoughts and fears boiled down to the one thing I felt I could share. “Kian,” I murmured then huffed out a laugh. “You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you.” I paused. “And I don’t want to lose Isaiah, either.”
“Your best friend that you like to tease, flirt with, and fantasize about while you rub one out in the shower leaving him to suffer in the kitchen?”
“Yeah,” I laughed shamelessly, my sadistic little heart delighted with that tasty tidbit. “That best friend.”
He sighed. “I wish to God I could give you some kind of guarantee, but we both know there’s no such thing.”
I leaned into him harder, giving him more of my weight.
The muscles in his chest and arms flexed as he shifted to support me.
I guess the question was, just how much would he accommodate me?
Pressing a kiss to the top of my head, he rubbed his hands up and down my arms then released me. “Hungry?”
Seamlessly slipping back into our accustomed roles as best friends, the next few hours passed with the usual banter.
And an underlying tension that could not be denied.
Though I tried.
At bedtime, making light of my nerves, I jumped into the bed and spread-eagled. “Ah, this is a great bed!”
“Give me some room, woman.”
My jaw dropped as he edged in on his side. “Please don’t tell me you’re not a cuddler. That’s a deal-breaker, Kian Matthews.”
He grinned, reached out one muscled arm, and hauled me across to his side of the bed. “I’m a great cuddler.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
One minute I was talking quietly in bed with my head on Kian’s chest like an old married couple, the next I lay stretched out on the beach on some tropical island, the sand warm against my back.
“Feels so good,” I muttered, the heat turning my body to liquid.
I wiggled back into the sand, but in the way of dreams, it slipped away and turned into a hot man plastered to my back in a bed floating on the water, his hard, hair-covered thighs brushing against the backs of mine.
His low groan in my ear sent a message directly to my clit.
Arching back, I pushed my ass into his groin, the growing hardness there my reward.
My heart thrilled, I hummed, planning to tease him within an inch of his life.
Leave him begging on his knees, his cock dripping on the floor between us.
“Aw, fuck, Bridge,” he muttered.
Kian.
My heart leapt. It was Kian with me!
Finally! Just as it should be. I laughed out loud, the sound tugging at the edges of my consciousness.
I arched my back, pressed my hips back to grind against the hard cocked pressed against my ass.
The stars winked out in the night sky above us.
The water beneath the bed dried.
His lips continued to move in my hair as I grew slick between my thighs.
My need was too great, I’d have to tease him another day.
Shamelessly, I rubbed my ass up and down the hard length of his cock, nestling him in between my cheeks in a race against the sky.
Caught up in the clutches of a sinfully erotic dream about my best friend, I failed to realize the hard cock pressed against my ass in my dream was in fact pressed against my ass.
I came fully awake to my name on his lips.
“Bridget,” Kian rasped, his voice pained. “I’m too much of a gentleman to touch you but fuck me if I’m not gentleman enough to move away.”
He sounded hungry.
For me.
I gasped, arching my back to nestle my ass further into the cradle of his groin.
How long had it been since I’d felt wanted?
My body.
My smart mouth.
“I wish I could help you.” I dropped my chin to my chest, my body quivering with suppressed need. “Kian,” I mewled.
“Let me touch you,” he breathed raggedly in my ear. “Please let me touch you.”
It was a bad idea, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember why. Instead, I reached behind me for his hip to give me leverage as I rocked against him. “Yes. Please.”
His lips hit my neck as his hand swooped down over the curve of my stomach. Plunging into my panties, he cupped my mons eliciting a surprised, unladylike grunt from my lips.
“Put your thigh over mine, Bridget.”
A breathy ‘oh’ escaped my throat. At the sound of that tone in his voice, I readily complied.
No teasing, within seconds Kian zeroed in on his target and gently circled, his touch soft and light, just the way I liked it.
“Tell me if you want it harder or softer, Bridget. Don’t be shy to tell me what you need.”
“You got it right the first time,” I rasped, my hips shifting back and forth, rocking between his fingers and his hard cock.
Finally, his hips flexed.
“Yes,” I praised.
He did it again. “You want this?”
I nodded, my exhale shaky, pelvis tilted back to give him my ass.
“Aw, fuck,” he exclaimed, easing away. “I’m going to come if we keep this up.”
“Kian,” I exclaimed in shock. He was going to leave me like this?
Hauling off the covers, he rolled me onto my back and knelt between my legs, his hair an unruly mess of curls. With both hands at the waistband of my little shorts, he raised his eyebrows. Voice gritty, he challenged, “If you want this, lift your hips.”
Digging my heels into the mattress, I lifted my hips, and my shorts were history.
Dropping flat to the mattress, he shoved his wide shoulders under my thighs and licked a wide swath through my pussy from core to clit, humming low in his throat.
I pressed my thighs wider, throwing my arm over my face at the sound of his soft chuckle.
Inhaling deeply, he pressed a gentle kiss to my clit then circled it with his tongue before nuzzling his face into my pussy.
My eyes widened at the realization he was coating his chin and cheeks in my juices.
Reaching down I tunneled my fingers through his hair and held his face still for my circling hips.
“Yes, baby. Yes, sweetheart,” he praised, his lips moving against my flesh. “Get yourself off.”
As if I hadn’t done just that only a few hours before, my body combusted, my back arching off the bed as I cried out his name.
Tongue thrusting inside me and circling my clit by turns, he wrung every last tremor from my body.
When I lay limp and sated, he climbed up the bed and stretched out beside me with his hand splayed possessively over my stomach.
I gazed at him with something akin to hero-worship in my eyes. “I just need a minute, and then I’ll take care of you.”
He shook his head sharply. “I’m okay. This is not a one-off for me. You either want this with me or you don’t, and I’m so fucking grateful you gave this to me, Bridget, but I need you all in before I completely lose myself in you.”
Leaning closer, he rubbed the tip of his nose against mine, that pretty mouth mere inches away.
He looked at me like I was his last breath. Never in my life had a man looked at me like that. “Are you going to kiss me?” I breathed.
He moved back and swallowed hard. “If I kiss you, I’m toast.”
I smiled into his eyes. “But what we did is okay?” I teased. “What’s a little cunnilingus between friends?”
Rolling on top of me he pressed first one wrist then the other above my head. Staring down at me, he enunciated, “We. Are. Not. Friends.”
I looked up at him from beneath my lashes. “Best friends?”
Serious hazel eyes looked into mine. “Do this with me, Bridget. I swear I won’t hurt you.”
All traces of humour faded. It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes, to take that mouth soaked in my come, and throw all caution to the wind.
Instead, he pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “Sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning.”