Just Friends

“For fuck’s sake, Eloise. That’s our son you’re talking about.”

“Do you believe for one second that they’re just friends? Our son has never been a good liar. He’s an infuriating charmer, but he’s a shit liar, like you, Isaiah. At best he’s using the poor girl who’s in way over her head with him. At worst, they’re getting married next week.”

“Please.” The elevator doors opened. Isaiah waited for a party of three to get off before leading his wife in. “Like he would upstage his brother’s proposal like that.”

They disappeared into the elevator without having seen their son. The party of three, meanwhile, smacked right into him on their way to the coat check.

“Pardon me. I dropped a contact.” Zack returned to the table, where Rachel absentmindedly scrolled through Facebook on her phone.

“All good?” she asked.

Zack didn’t sit down. “Let’s get out of here. Please.”

She put her phone away. “To go where, exactly?”

He wanted to say the marina, where they could sun on his yacht and make out like teenagers in bed. And more. God, I wanna do more right now. But he remembered how much Rachel detested the marina, and she wasn’t any good to him passing out in fear. “Let’s go to your place. I haven’t seen it yet.”

She bit her lip, but didn’t deny him an invitation.

Chapter 20

Rachel knew exactly what would happen the moment they stepped across her threshold.

No, she didn’t worry about Zack judging her living space, from how tiny it was, to the cheap furniture and dishware, and finally the strange smell that wafted up from the kitchen sink, rain or shine. No, what Rachel knew would happen was the kiss coming for her as if them making out after meeting his parents was the most natural course of action.

“Whoa, whoa.” Rachel gently shoved him off her before her door had the chance to close. “Hold on, tiger. We need to go over some ground rules.”

Zack kicked off his shoes after watching Rachel start the ritual. At least she could say her carpet stayed relatively clean. “What now? Did I misread this whole thing again?”

Rachel definitely wasn’t misreading it. One glance down told her about the bulge forming in his pants. Ignore the temptation, girl. Rachel dumped her purse on a dining chair before turning toward him with a hopeful huff in her throat.

“No going all the way,” she said with absolute authority. “If your dick comes within five inches of the No-Go Zone, we’re done. Got it?”

“Wow.” Zack rubbed the back of his head. If he thought he was slyly looking toward her queen-sized hand-me-down bed in the corner of the studio apartment, then he could rethink that thought. It was as clear as the ever hardening bulge in his pants. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. So you’re still keeping a part of your vow?”

“For now.” Rachel leaned against her square dining table, straight from IKEA during one of their big sales a year ago. Where was this guy when I was trying to put it together? The only reason she finished it was because Parvati took enough pity on her to come by at ten at night to help. “I told you that I wanted to take things slow, right?”

“I somewhat recall that.”

“I haven’t gone back on that. Oral sex is fine, but…”

“Please, for the love of God,” Zack planted his hands firmly on her shoulders. “You’ve gotta let me finger you.”

Rachel was taken aback. “You actually wanna do that?”

“What kind of guys have you been sleeping with who don’t wanna do that? They never heard of foreplay?”

No, not really. Most of the guys she had been with thought foreplay was dry humping and sucking her nipples. For hours, if she let some of them go that crazy. I know I have nice breasts, but come on. It gets ridiculous at some point.

Zack stood back with a contemplative look on his face. He’s coming across like he’s Sherlock Holmes deducing my sexual history! Where was the houndstooth and the pipe between his teeth? “When was the last time a man properly went down on you?”

“I…!”

“If you tell me never, I’m gonna choose that you’re lying, because I refuse to believe that not a single man has ever wanted to give you some of the best pleasure you could give him.”

“To be fair, I’m not that into it…” She was telling the truth. Rachel would take the awkward fingering and intense dry humping over a man’s oral foray any day.

“What? I can’t believe that. Maybe you’ve never had good oral sex.”

“Let’s take it one thing at a time, Zack.”

“Right, right. My bad.” He shook his hands out and placed them on his hips. That only brought more attention to the hard-on growing in his jeans. “So no homeruns today. I can work with that.”

“You can?”

“Of course! I mean, it’s sexually infuriating, but I’m a big boy who can deal.”

Rachel nodded, hopeful.

“Only on one condition, though.”

She stopped nodding. What now?

“You’ve gotta throw me a bone, Rachel.” They both looked at the tentpole sprouting in their campsite. “To my bone, as it were.”

It took her a moment to read the look in his eyes. There it was, the image of them sprawled out on her bed, her legs wide open as he thrust between them as if he would never have the chance to fuck a woman ever again. Oh my God. Don’t do this to yourself, Rachel.

“No coming on me,” Rachel said. “I’m not on birth control.”

“I don’t think it would…”

“Not the point. Your swimmers don’t come near me down there, and definitely not anywhere near my face.”

“What about in your face? Didn’t have a problem the other day.”

“I’m not…” she cleared her throat. “Opposed.”

“Thank God.” While her shriek echoed in her tiny apartment, Zack swept her up in his arms and strode toward her bed. “Can we please get down to business now? I know I’m not the only one who wants to!”

He threw her down on her bed. Before she had the chance to open her eyes, push herself up, or even give him a what-for verbal lashing from hormonal hell, Zack pushed her down and covered her mouth in one of those cataclysmic kisses that often ruined a woman’s life.

Bless them.

Yes, Rachel certainly wanted this. She wanted him in bed with her, kissing her, ripping off her shirt and diving into her cleavage like a famished sailor on shore leave. She wanted everything else that came with sex – especially sex with Zack – but she managed to still leverage some control in the situation. Fine. Control over my own desires! Way easier said than done.

“Do you like kissing me?”

Rachel had almost forgotten that they were even kissing, let alone making out like bandits in a pleasure house. One second Zack’s tongue was deep in her throat, and the next he was using it to ask her a question like that. “Yes,” she whispered. “Don’t you like kissing me?”

“Love it. Let’s do more of it.”

“Why did you ask me that? Feeling insecure?”

He pulled her down to the edge of her bed. “Never. Never insecure.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because I like it when the women I’m with express their enthusiasm. Crazy as it may sound, it’s hot and turns me on.”

“I…”

Rachel wasn’t allowed to talk much that day. Not when Zack was always ready to interrupt her, be it with his words or his kisses silencing her. Am I really silent? Nope! Those were definitely groans and moans coming from her throat and mingling with his.

Zack finagled his shirt off his body and encouraged Rachel to scrawl her nails down his hard chest. Oh my God. This man’s body is unreal! He wasn’t ripped like a bodybuilder – which was good, because Rachel wasn’t into those types – but he was athletically fit, as if he spent every other day in the gym doing nothing but contouring his body into something that would stop every woman walking down the street should this asshole decide to go shirtless for a day. Doing stuff on a boat really gets you fit, huh? Who knew!

For the briefest moment, it made her more insecure about her own body. Rachel wasn’t fit. She may not have been as overweight as she was during her most depressed years, but she had a soft stomach that easily bloated to twice its size and arms flabby enough to suffocate her cat, should she ever get one. Aging had also not been super kind to her breasts. Not that a woman with natural D-cups got far in life before gravity took over. Even so, Rachel was two years shy of thirty and already counting down the days until her nipples reached her navel.

She had little moles all over the bottom of her back. Her ass and thighs were covered in cellulite. Even her legs hadn’t been shaved in a week and a half. Normally, Rachel didn’t sweat this stuff when she was in bed with guys. Most of them were eager enough for sex that they kept their thoughts to themselves. If they did say anything, I could easily kick them out.

She couldn’t easily kick Zack out.

He didn’t say anything, however. Not when he pulled down the cups of her bra or yanked her nicest pair of jeans off her legs. I didn’t wear matching underwear… do I even have matching underwear? Her black bra and hot pink panties were better than some of her other possible combinations, she guessed. At least she hadn’t worn the neon yellow sports bra with the lime green Fruit of the Looms.