by Linda Kage
With a snort, I rolled my eyes. “What’re you trying to do? Ruin me for all future dates ever?”
His blue eyes glittered with intensity. “Maybe.”
My breath caught as he settled next to me and busied himself, throwing open the basket to draw out all the food he’d brought. It took everything inside me not to blurt out that he was the best thing to ever happen to me and that it didn’t matter if I never went on another date again because this was the only one I’d ever wanted to go on, anyway.
“Why are you so good to me?” I murmured, feeling this heaviness in my chest, as if containing all my feelings was becoming too much, too impossible to handle.
But he merely tossed out a flippant, “Because you’re special to me,” as he concentrated on pulling out the chicken, then a bottle of wine, grapes, cheese, and my favorite Club cracker minis he knew I loved. It was obvious he’d thought about me as he’d prepared all this, picking out what he knew I’d appreciate the most.
I knew—had known for a while—I was special to him.
“Why am I so special to you, though?” I persisted. I really didn’t understand what he saw, why he tried so hard to make me happy, why keeping me safe and protected was such a priority to him. There really wasn’t anything grand about me at all. I was just...me. Plain, boring, sexless Sarah.
Brandt paused and glanced up, realizing how important the question was. Studying me from thoughtful blue eyes, he squinted a moment before saying, “I guess you probably wouldn’t understand it, but...when I needed someone the most in my life, you were there. You’ve always been there for me. You are the most reliable, trustworthy person I know.”
I wrinkled my nose, glad such traits had gained his loyalty, but still, they sounded as boring as hell. “I feel like a freaking trained dog.”
Throwing back his head, he barked out a laugh. “And you always make me smile,” he added before removing plates, silverware, and glasses from the basket.
Remembering the day we’d met and how he’d known no one else in school but had waited in the hall, just outside the office, for me to rescue him, I drew in a breath, suddenly glad I hadn’t been too afraid to approach him that day. My one little act of bravery had turned out to be the smartest thing I’d ever done.
Brandt continued to be the attentive date as he filled both our plates, asking me how big of a portion I wanted for everything. And though he’d brought silverware, neither of us used them, eating everything with our fingers. He’d even had the forethought to steal a package of diaper wipes to keep our hands clean.
We talked easily through the meal, commenting on flavors, the weather, school, what we were going to do after graduation. I decided I wouldn’t have been able to relax and just enjoy a date this much with anyone else, because Brandt was comfortable and safe.
Plus, I could totally pig out without caring what he thought of me. In fact, we had a laughing fight over who was going to steal the last piece of cheese before he acquiesced and let me have it.
As I popped the last grape into my mouth and chewed, I groaned and cradled my stomach before relaxing backward until I was lying on the blanket and staring up at the cloud-filled sky. “Oh my God, I think I’m going to burst at the seams. That was so good.”
Brandt chuckled and plopped down beside me, angling his legs so his body went off in a different direction from mine but keeping his face close enough that some of his hair brushed my cheek. “The way you were chowing down, I was beginning to worry how I was going to cart your fat ass back out of here.”
I gasped. “Whatever.” Then I shoved at his shoulder. “Jerk.”
“Ouch.” He laughed and rubbed a hand over the spot I’d abused. “Assault.”
Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “As if that hurt. I barely nudged you.”
“As if I actually insulted you?” he charged right back. “You’re all of what, a size two?”
“Six,” I hissed back.
“Ooh.” He made a sarcastic shivering motion. “That must classify you a step above anorexic, then?
I shoved him again, but this time, I chased it with a laugh. “You really are a jerk.” Though, honestly, I appreciated how he treated me. He’d never been too gentle with my emotions, as if I were a piece of delicate glass that might shatter at the slightest teasing. That was one of the things I loved most about him. He never made me feel handicapped.
After a couple seconds of silence, he said, “The sunset’s pretty.”
I turned my head to look at the pinks and yellows and oranges. “Yeah.”
A comfortable silence washed over us as we watched the colors slowly blur and change with the gradual setting of the sun.
On the banks of the lake, a couple of guys started to toss around a football. “Why didn’t you play football in college?” I asked, suddenly curious. I knew he’d enjoyed it in high school, and he’d been good enough to probably get a scholarship. But he’d never even tried out and had just kind of shrugged it off when I’d asked him before.
But I had a feeling he’d be more honest now. In this quiet moment between us, things just felt a lot more open.
“I don’t know,” he said, tugging a piece of grass from the ground and running it between two fingers. “Football was always Noel’s thing. He was so determined to make it pro, I think it killed something in him when he broke his collarbone. I just...it wouldn’t have felt right if I’d ended up going farther with it than he had.”
I blinked, startled to learn this. “So...you just gave it up because of his feelings?”
When I twisted my head to see his face, he was shrugging. “It was never as important to me as it was to him.”
“You have to know he would’ve been nothing but proud of you if you’d ended up going pro.”
His blue-eyed gaze bored into mine. “But I didn’t want to go pro. I didn’t want to leave Ellamore. Everyone I love is here. This is home.”
The way he watched me, it was as if he was trying to tell me I was one of the reasons he’d stayed, because he hadn’t wanted to leave me.
My heart swelled with emotion. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to trace a finger over his jaw. His lashes wavered and the blue in his gaze darkened. “Any other questions?” he wondered softly.
My breath caught. Well...since he was asking.
“Just how full service of a date is this?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and my core crackled with heat. “What’d you have in mind?”
I smiled and batted my lashes. “A kiss?”
His return grin was slow and sexily hooded. “Think you could actually handle another one of those from me?”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
He chuckled. “Whatever you want, beautiful.”
Stretching toward me, his finger grazed my chin before his mouth settled softly against mine. A gentle brush of lips, and then he was rolling onto his stomach and pulling himself closer by his elbows so he could hover his face above mine. Then he was kissing me again, his lips parting my lips, his tongue sliding deep, and his warm palm cradling my cheek.
I gripped his wrist, kissing him back as flames of desire licked through my system.
This was really happening. My best friend was kissing me and seemed eager to kiss me longer. His hands turned greedy as they streaked into my hair, then gripped hard as his mouth grew demanding.
When one of the ball players on the shore yelled, “Get a room,” Brandt broke away, gasping. His eyes met mine before he lifted his face to scowl at our eavesdroppers and flip them all off.
Laughing, they went back to playing, and Brandt dropped his gaze back to mine. We said nothing, but the way he looked at me...it was as if he were seeing me for the first time.
There was just something about the moment, the softness in his gaze, his promise a few seconds earlier to give me whatever I wanted, the wetness between my legs...it all prompted me into saying, “Will you sleep with me?”
His eyebrows twitche
d briefly, flashing a quick expression of disappointment. But he said, “Of course.” Sitting up, he glanced at the picnic that still needed to be put away. “Are you ready to head back then? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were tired.”
My brow crinkled in confusion before it dawned on me; he thought I meant sleeping in the literal sense, that I just wanted him to stay the night and cuddle.
So I caught his wrist as soon as he put the wine bottle back into the basket.
“No...” I said, making him pause and look at me. “I meant...will you have sex with me?”
BRANDT
A rushing sound filled my ears as Sarah’s question exploded through my head. I shook it to clear the chaos, sure I’d misheard her. I had to have misheard her.
“I’m sorry, what?” I said slowly.
No way had she asked what I thought she’d just asked.
But her blue eyes pleaded. “Just one time,” she said in a small, almost uncertain voice. “That’s all I ask. And then I’ll never bother you with it again.”
My lips parted. “Just one...” I started to repeat before it struck me, damn it, she really had just asked me to fuck her.
Holy shit.
My system automatically went into hyper-alert, dick perking to attention, heart rate kicking into gear. My fingertips tingled, itching to touch, and my mouth watered, needing to taste. I swallowed down the urge to mount her right then and there.
“You...this isn’t...Jesus, Sarah. I’m just going to forget you said that, okay. It’s all right. No harm, no foul. We’ll just...we’ll pretend it didn’t happen.”
Grabbing our cleared but dirty plates, I shoved them haphazardly into the basket, not caring what kind of mess I had to be making inside Aspen’s favorite picnic carrier.
Sarah didn’t say anything the entire time I scurried to put everything away, and I mentally kicked myself in the nuts because I’d probably hurt her by my reaction. But fuck, it wasn’t as if I could really have sex with her, no matter how much I wanted to.
I didn’t dare look her way until I had everything cleaned up and ready to go, and when I did, her face was lowered with her hair covering her expression.
“Come on,” I murmured, touching her shoulder. “Let’s get you back to the truck.” But damn it, touching her felt electric. She was all soft, warm woman. I wanted to push her back down onto the blanket and just start stripping her.
She looked up, her eyes wide with pain. I cursed under my breath. Acid filled my stomach.
“Listen to me.” I cupped her face in my hands and pressed my forehead to hers. “You’re upset because of what that dick did to you. I get it. And that is perfectly understandable. But—”
“No.” She shoved away from me and glared.
My gaze searched hers, but she only ended up glancing away.
“Let’s just go,” she said, her voice tired and beaten.
I sighed but helped her climb onto my back. Her curves pressed into my spine, making it more difficult for me to walk because of the hard-on hogging my jean space.
We didn’t speak all the way back to my truck. I left her for a few minutes to retrieve the blanket and basket, but she was still silent when I climbed behind the wheel and started the engine.
We’d just left the campus and started down the road that headed to her house when she said, “Okay, fine. Yes, I hate what Seth did; it made me feel stupid and small and completely undesirable. But it didn’t stop me from wanting to experience life. If anything, my disaster with him has only shown me how much I need someone I trust unreservedly to walk me through it. Not just any guy will do. And you’re the only person I trust enough to ask.”
“Damn it,” I hissed, tightening my grip on the steering wheel.
“If the idea of penetration bothers you, then we can stick with strictly oral,” she added.
And fuck, just hearing her say penetration and oral had me so hard it wasn’t even funny.
“Sarah, don’t. Just...stop right there. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
She scowled. “I’m asking you to have sex with me. Once.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “No. You’re asking me to destroy our friendship.”
With an irritated bark of laughter, she demanded, “How would it destroy our friendship? I’m not asking you to date me. I’m not even asking for you not to sleep with other people, because I just want one time, one experience to check off my bucket list. And then we can go on as if it never happened.”
As if it never happened, huh? Right. Just fuck the girl of my dreams, the person I loved above all others, and then carry on and forget about it.
What the fuck ever.
“Well, excuse me,” I gritted out, “if I don’t feel like playing your fucking stud horse for rent!” I turned down her street. “You can’t just borrow my dick for a few hours for no other reason than you want to know what it feels like inside you. I’m your best fucking friend on earth. I don’t think I deserve to be used like that.”
Sucking in a breath, Sarah hugged herself. “I..I...you know I didn’t mean it that way.” But I was too mad to answer, so she shuddered out the lungful she’d just inhaled and turned to look out her window.
I probably should’ve apologized, but...what the hell? I’d been crazy about this girl for half my life, and she only wanted to bang me one time for curiosity’s sake? Fuck that. Why didn’t she just rip out my heart and spit on it while she was at it?
Seething, I ground my teeth as we pulled to the curb in front of her place. Killing the engine, I sat there, without moving, without speaking, yet not ready to finish this until I knew she was okay. No matter how much she’d hurt me, I didn’t want her going away tonight feeling bad. The whole purpose of this outing had been to boost her confidence, not dent it up some more.
“A simple no would’ve sufficed,” she said in a low voice. “You didn’t have to make me feel so shitty for asking a single question.”
Damn it. I knew I’d hurt her. “I didn’t mean to make you feel—”
“Well, you did! You made me feel as if I don’t even have a right to experience a little physical pleasure.”
“That is so not true,” I growled. “You—”
“You kissed me because I wanted to know what that felt like,” she ranted on. “You took me on a date because I wanted to experience one.”
With a harsh laugh, I ran my hand through my hair. “A date and a kiss are a hell of a lot different than fucking. You can’t get pregnant from a kiss. There’s no risk of STDs from a date. You have to strip naked and get all up in each other’s business when you have sex. So trust me, kissing is totally not as intimate and binding as me putting my cock inside you and making you come would be.”
Shoving her door open, she muttered, “You certainly don’t have any problems shoving it inside every other woman on the planet.”
Her snidely delivered comment pissed me the fuck off. I’d wanted her since I was sixteen. I’d fallen hard and would’ve given my soul for something deep and meaningful, but she was the one who hadn’t even noticed me in that way. The only reason I’d ever gone to other women was because I couldn’t have her. Oh, but now, all these years later, she thought she could just crook her finger and I’d instantly fall on my back, cock in the air, panting for her to climb on just because she wanted to get rid of her stupid fucking v-card? She didn’t even want me specifically; she just wanted a trusty dick she could rely on.
Well, fuck...her.
I slammed my way out of the truck and jerked her wheelchair a little more roughly from the bed of my truck than I probably should have.
“Easy!” she barked, earning an icy glare from me as I snapped the chair open for her and then stepped back, letting her attend to the rest.
I couldn’t watch as she eased down. And I only ground my teeth and jutted out my jaw when she snapped, “Don’t follow me this time.”
Standing there, tense and boiling, I stayed by my truck until she was safely in the
house with the front door shut. Then I slammed my fist into the side of my paint job and muttered, “Mother...fucker.”
Sliding to the ground, I gripped my head as I tried not to implode. The girl I wanted above all others finally wanted me back, and yet it was wrong. All wrong.
I could never fuck Sarah. I was too scared of losing her. In fact, if I didn’t need her in my life so damn much I might’ve just gotten in my truck right then and driven home or gone to Forbidden and gotten drunk. But I did need her, and though I didn’t particularly want to talk to her at the moment, I wasn’t going to lose our friendship over something I’d refused her in order to keep our friendship in the first place.
God, I had a headache.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled, slapping the tire of my truck before I pushed to my feet. Bypassing the walkway to the front of the door, I dodged around to the side of her house. Her light was on and shades were open. The crazy girl never closed them. I saw movement inside, shadows shifting along the wall, so I tapped on her window and jammed my hands into my pockets.
When her face appeared, I just stared at her, petulant.
Her shoulders heaved dramatically as she sighed. Then she barely cracked the window, enough to talk but not for me to climb inside.
Which killed me.
Killed me.
“I hope you know you ruined a completely amazing date.” My voice cracked. “I was having fun, damn it.”
Tears filled her eyes and her chin began to tremble. “I’m sorry, okay?” she lowered her face and hugged herself, making me want to apologize immediately. My chest compressed with pain. “I’m...I’m sorry. I never should’ve asked. It was stupid and thoughtless and selfish and...and...all you had to do was say no.”
“I did say no,” I muttered, my head warring with the need to make her feel better and yet still wanting to be pissed at her.
“Well...fine. Yes, you did. Why are you here, then?”
I sighed and scrubbed my face. “Because you’re crying.”
A muffled growling kind of laugh left her. “I didn’t start crying until you followed me and knocked on my window, damn it.”