Don't Date Your Brother's Best Friend

A tear trickled from the corner of my right eye. I hoped he didn’t see it, but I knew Luke never missed a thing. He stilled himself with visible effort, kissed my cheek, “What’s wrong, love?” he said. God, when he called me that—he had called me that the summer I was sixteen. It still got to me, made me feel like I was the luckiest, most loved person on the planet. Like celebrities and princesses were probably jealous of me when he called me that. Keep your Oscars and your billions. I’d take Luke Maddox calling me love any day of the week.

“Just—please, don’t stop,” I said hastily.

“Are you ok?” he said, his voice low and hoarse from the strain.

“Yes, better than ok,” I said, “please, I need you.”

My words seemed to set him on fire. He kissed me, then levered himself up to spread me wider so I could take more of him. The intensity and desire sparked off of him, his every touch making me moan and writhe as he worked us into a rhythm that was irresistible. The long, deep plunge of his cock disappearing inside my body as I consumed him, the ebb and flow of that endless, climbing tide swept all thoughts from me. I felt like I was weightless, swirling somewhere among stars of purple and black in an endless sky.

Luke’s thrusts drove me higher and higher until he brushed that place inside me that felt so right. I moaned. He set his hand to me then, rubbing my clit relentlessly until I came hard and helpless in seconds. I clenched so hard around him, I thought I’d strangle him or force him out, but he took it, surging forward, going even harder until he roared his own climax on top of me.

He rolled off of me, scooped me into his arms and held me on his chest. “I don’t want it to be over. I wanted it to last forever,” he gasped out.

I giggled softly, shaky from my second climax and driven a little out of my mind by the shattering closeness of the act itself. He kissed my hair so sweetly, then kissed my temple and my cheek.

“Tell me why you were crying,” he said, tucking my head beneath his chin, not meeting my eyes that way.

“I felt like I was coming home, Luke,” I said. “It’s hard to explain. But after all these years, just seeing you that way, the same way I remembered looking up and meeting your eyes when you moved inside me, how that look was the most special thing I’d ever known. It still is. After all this time,” I managed to say.

He kissed me, just kissed me and kissed me until we both forgot to breathe and had to break apart, resentful that we couldn’t go without air to keep on kissing. The sweep of his tongue in my mouth ignited all this bliss in my exhausted body. I clung to him. After a few minutes, I pulled back. I stacked my hands on his chest and rested my chin on them, just enjoying the way he looked, his All-American boy next door face so at ease. He looked so satisfied, so replete that I felt proud of myself.

“What’re you thinking?” he said.

“You look good,” I said.

“That’s all?”

“Oh, that’s more than enough.”

“Did you feel it? When we were together?”

“Feel what?” I said, wondering if there was some kind of trademark move of his that I failed to notice. I didn’t want to seem unsophisticated or admit that he was easily the best of my few lovers.

“What was between us, just that connection. Does that sound stupid? Because it sounded romantic as hell in my head.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid, and yeah, I mean, I cried a little. There was a connection there for sure. It just—it isn’t always like that for me.”

“It’s never like that for me. Not that I’ve slept with that many people. This is awkward. I haven’t been a monk or anything, but I work a lot. Like a hell of a lot. Between the station and my parents’ bar, I’m busy a lot of the time. So I didn’t go out that much or meet a lot of people.”

“I’ve been working and going to school full time until recently. I haven’t spent much time on dating either,” I said, “but tonight. You know what I wished?”

“What?”

“That it had only been you. That all this time, I’d never let any other man touch me. If I’d known I could come home to this, I would’ve come home sooner. Even if I didn’t—if I’d ever thought this was possible, I would’ve held out for it.”

“I know,” he said, “but don’t you think it was, I don’t know, educational? Seeing what it’s like when it’s the wrong person?” he said.