Chapter 18
Bennett
Last night wasn’t just one of my fantasies.
No, Zoe is lying in my bed. She’s on her side, the blanket pulled up to her neck. Her hair is a messy halo around her head, and her hands are pressed together under her cheek.
I turn off my alarm—it’s set for a few minutes from now—and flick on the bedside light.
“Zoe,” I whisper, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Hm?” She doesn’t open her eyes.
“It’s morning.”
Since we went to bed so late, we got less than four hours of sleep, but I still feel refreshed.
“Oh. Hey.” She starts to sit up. The blanket slips down, baring her breasts.
That’s enough to get my cock’s attention. I’m not used to having a woman in my bed first thing in the morning. I’m not used to having a woman in my bed at all.
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
“Pretty well.” She smiles at me, and instinctively, I dip my head. My lips nearly brush hers before I realize what I’m doing. Strange that felt natural when it’s been so long since I did it. I draw back.
Zoe, however, pulls me close and drops her hand to my burgeoning erection. When I hiss, she pushes aside the blankets and takes me in her mouth. Fuck. Normally, I’d be working out right now, but this is better. Last night was amazing, and my body is ready for more.
I’m very glad I agreed to her proposition.
She sucks me deep, and I almost lose my mind. I slip my cock out of her mouth, and she raises her head. She has an irresistible smile on her lips. And she’s naked in my bed and I just want to kiss her senseless.
“Roll over,” I command.
She does, putting her ass in the air.
That’s better. I can’t kiss her lips, but I can fuck her.
I give her pussy one long, slow lick, then slide two fingers inside. She moans and presses her ass back. I love touching her. She’s so responsive. I play with her for a minute to get her ready for me, then roll on a condom and bury myself inside her.
“Bennett,” she gasps.
I take her faster and rougher this time, my hips jerking against hers. When I push her hair out of the way to kiss her neck, I notice a hickey. I hadn’t intended to mark her last night, but seeing her bruised skin now? It unleashes something within me.
I thrust into her again and again as I kiss almost everywhere I can. Not just her neck, but her shoulders, her collarbone, her cheek. I squeeze her breasts and pluck her nipple. I want her drowning in sensation; I want to overwhelm her the way she’s overwhelming me.
She turns her head back to look at me, her pretty lips parted, her eyes glazed over. I don’t want to stop looking at her, touching her, fucking her.
Her inner muscles squeeze my dick, and that’s it. I’m a goner. I come inside her, and her own orgasm hits a second later. I’m consumed by the moment, by how damn good it feels to find my release inside her body.
Once I pull out, she collapses on the bed and giggles.
“That’s a great way to start the day,” she says.
When I arrive at the office—fifteen minutes behind schedule, but I don’t have any meetings until nine—I realize I’m smiling.
What the hell. That won’t do. I school my features into a serious expression so it doesn’t look like I had sex before work for the first time in years.
Against my better judgment, I tell Gil that I’m sleeping with Zoe, and he slaps his knee and laughs.
“I guess your brother has good taste in women after all,” he says.
I give him a murderous look.
“Can I meet her?” he asks.
That earns him another murderous look. “Absolutely not.”
Which is why, once again, we’re at his apartment rather than my house. Zoe is having dinner with her brother, but she won’t be out late, and I know Gil would make a point of staying until she returned, just so he could introduce himself to her.
I down more of my whiskey and lean back on the couch.
“Please?” he says.
I glare at him.
“Can you at least show me a picture? Preferably one where you’re a werewolf?”
“I wasn’t dressed as a werewolf. Just a…you know what, never mind.” Against my better judgment, once again, I show him a photo—Zoe sent me one that we took on her phone.
“Is that a tail?” Gil chuckles. “I can’t believe you entered a costume competition.”
“I can’t believe it, either.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before. You’re so gone for this woman.”
That ridiculous comment doesn’t merit an answer. I toss back more of my liquor.
“Does she know about Ginny?” he asks, serious now.
“No. Why would I have told her?” I don’t mention that I showed her Ginny’s sewing machine and supplies, although I didn’t say where they came from.
A long time ago—before I met Gil—I had a fiancée.
He shrugs. “Maybe your brother did.”
“Somehow, I doubt it.”
And I’m not in love with Zoe, as Gil seems to think. I haven’t been interested in love in over a decade.
I like Zoe. I didn’t when I met her, but I do now.
We’re friends, I guess. Friends who sleep together.
It’s nothing deeper. It felt complicated before because I wasn’t used to this level of physical desire and she used to date Clifton.
But now that I’ve given into it, things have changed.
Sure, I don’t like thinking about how this will eventually come to an end, but that’s just because I’m enjoying all the sex.
Nothing more.