Right as Raine (Aster Valley 1)

“What? I’m not. No reason,” I stammered, turning to make a cup of coffee. If I busied myself with the coffee maker, maybe he wouldn’t see the blush steal across my face.

When he spoke, his voice was slow and precise. “I’m thinking… you had a man’s penis in your little virginal asshole.”

I blew out a breath like the air had been punched out of me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And that wasn’t a lie. He didn’t know jack shit about what Tiller and I had been up to. Over and over again.

I turned around to scowl at him. “How do you know I hadn’t had anal before?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t. But the particular use of past perfect tense in your question reveals I was correct. Who has the lucky penis?”

This wasn’t happening. Tiller was going to walk in and catch Sam interrogating me about anal sex. My face was on fire. I changed my mind about the coffee and went to the refrigerator to stick my face inside.

“Please tell me it wasn’t Colin Saris,” he said. “Because I never told you this, but he cornered one of the team interns in the bathroom at the Halloween party and asked him for a blow job. The guy’s a pompous ass.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he was still talking.

“The ball boy was cute, though,” Sam muttered. “Real enthusiastic.”

I turned and stared at him. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

His grin was rare, but when he flashed it, it made even my heart flitter wildly. I always assumed it was because he was a pretty stoic person most of the time, but maybe he just had an award-winning smile. “Yes, I’m kidding. Come on, Mikey. You know I would never take advantage of a situation like that.”

I rolled my eyes and inserted myself back into the fridge. It was true, though. Sam was the most protective person I knew. Our friendship had started when he’d decided to become my own personal bodyguard at school when there wasn’t another Vining around to do it.

“Do you think this is a good idea, Mikey?” His voice was serious this time, as if he knew exactly what was going on. I realized right away, he obviously did.

“No,” I said peevishly, slamming the fridge closed after yanking out the banana pudding I’d only made an hour ago. “Of course it’s not a good idea.”

I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and dug it into the bowl, pulling out the cool yellow pudding and shoving it in my mouth.

Sam stared at me. “Is that my dessert?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said around another big bite.

He stood up and reached for the glass bowl. “It is! That’s the dessert you made for me tonight. Asshole. Give it here.”

I yanked it out of his reach and cradled it. “I need it. Man can’t live on salad alone.”

Sam’s eyes were still wide in surprise. “You’re eating your feelings. You never eat your feelings. Something about the destructive psychological effects of conflating neural pathways blah blah blah, I don’t remember the psycho-nutritionist bullshit, but the bottom line is you don’t eat your feelings. Ever.”

I picked out a particularly squishy vanilla wafer and spooned it in my mouth. “It’s just really good pudding,” I mumbled pitifully.

“Which is why, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have some later. After I eat the required polite serving of mediterranean salad. The only fucking reason I eat that damned salad is because you make dessert on salad night.”

I gaped at him before I started laughing. “I thought you liked my homemade salad dressing.”

“I do. But not enough to cancel a date for. Now that pudding…? That’s enough to cancel a date for.”

I sighed and handed over the bowl. Instead of digging into it, Sam carefully snapped on the lid and returned it to the fridge for later.

“Tell me why the hell you finally slept with him after five fucking years?” he asked, returning to his seat at the island.

I glanced at the back hallway to make I didn’t hear anything from the direction of the garage door. “Because he’s so damned beautiful and sweet and kind and fit and sexy and gorgeous and so fucking sweet. And kind.” I stopped to inhale. “And… and I want him so badly. I can’t stop. I can’t stop wanting him. Help.”

Sam sighed. “Mike. I told you from the very beginning to go for it. He adores you. When you’re in the room, he can’t look anywhere else. It’s been that way for years.”

He’d said that before, but I’d always thought it was complete bullshit. And even if it wasn’t, I’d sworn off messing around with my dad’s players. Well, except for Colin because I didn’t much care if he ended up traded to Seattle and I’d been horny at the time.