The Friend Zone (Game On 2)

“Don’t forget my big dick.” Please don’t forget about him. He’s lonely. And needy.

“You’re only allowed two dick brags a night, Grayson,” she deadpans before wrapping her plump lips around her straw and sucking.

My own lips part as I watch her work that thick vanilla shake up into her mouth. Fuck me standing, she’s killing me. I’m so hard now, I throb, my mind imagining how good it would feel if she’d lean over and take the tip of me into her mouth. Just suck it a little. Her tongue would be cold from the ice cream, soothing my heat. And then…

I clear my throat again, but my voice is rough. “So I’m cut off?”

“Yup.” She doesn’t even look my way, too entranced by the movie.

And I lean back, squeezing my eyes shut. “Cruel, Mac. Just cruel.”

“Drama queen.” She snorts, not even noticing I’m slowly unraveling next to her, and elbows my side. “Watch the movie, Mr. Big Stuff.”

Somehow I manage it. But then the movie is over. Mac turns off the TV, plunging us into darkness. And I slam into hyper-awareness. My skin is humming, tuned to Ivy’s every move. The syncopated rhythm of our breathing is overloud in the silence.

And then Mac shifts. My body tenses, expectation rushing through me. But she doesn’t turn my way. She’s wriggling around, her elbow hitting me in the chin.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and I realize that she’s taking off her bra from under her tank. Hell. Visions of her soft breasts swaying beneath thin cotton fill my head. My palms practically feel their firm weight filling them up.

I lie stiff as plank and try to regulate my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Fuck.

Ivy settles down into the bed once more and turns away from me. Moonlight ghosts over her slim shoulders, highlighting her skin and turning it silver. My fingers curl into the covers so I don’t reach out and touch her. My entire body throbs with a please, please, please.

What the fuck am I doing here? Like some masochist, killing myself slowly. I shouldn’t be here. But the idea of leaving is as impossible as asking me to catch a pass and just stand still. Not happening.

Sometimes I think she might want me too. When her gaze glazes over and focuses on my lips for a brief, breathless moment. But then she’s treating me as old buddy Gray, and I don’t know. Maybe I’m just guilty of wishful thinking. But the want isn’t going away. It’s growing, drowning out reason.

Biting my bottom lip, I stare at her in the darkness, and contemplate the best way to broach the subject of wanting to lick my way down her body and not kill our friendship in the process.

“Gray?” Her soft voice wrenches me out of my haze, and my gut tightens.

“Yeah?” I rasp.

“Is it weird that I’m glad you’re here?”

My heartbeat slams against my chest. Please, please, please.

“No. I’m glad I’m here too.”

“It kind reminds me of when I was a kid, and I’d have sleepovers with my best friend. I never wanted it to end because it was so fun. You know?”

Hope crashes in my chest, so potent I almost hear the shards of it clatter against my ribs. “Yeah.” Fun. This is fun. Rolling onto my back, I press my fists against my eyes. Sleep. Just go to fucking sleep and this torture will end.

But Mac rolls onto her back too, her warm, bare shoulder touching my arm. And all the nerves in my body engage, focusing on that small stretch of skin-to-skin contact. I breath slowly in and out through my nose.

Mac’s voice is soft and thoughtful in the dark. “Our family has always been so private. I don’t have many true friends. I know a lot of people, and I like talking to them. But none of them really know me.”

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I finally answer her. “You don’t trust easily.” I know this because I don’t either. Everyone knows a version of me, but the whole person? Not really.

“I don’t.”

The sheets rustle and I know Mac has turned toward me. In the dark, her doe-shaped eyes gleam like onyx beneath the line of her bangs. Aside from my mother, no one has ever looked at me that way, like I’m special. It’s like a surprise tackle, knocking me off feet and onto my head. My head spins. But I hold her gaze.

Mac’s smile is soft, almost shy. “But I trust you, Gray.”

She’s giving me a gift, I know this. And it fills me with warmth even as it punches through my heart. Because I’m even more lost now. It takes me a moment to answer, and my voice is as unsteady as my thoughts. “I trust you too, Ivy.”

Sixteen

Ivy

I don’t remember falling asleep. But I wake slowly, my senses coming back online in stages. It must be dawn because pale light stretches through the windows, and everything is slightly hazy, as if the world can’t decide between night or day. I’m not an early riser, so I don’t know why I’m awake now.

Especially since I’m so comfortable and so very warm, tucked into the protective curve of Gray’s body, with his arm securely around my waist. We’re locked together, his legs curled under mine, his nose burrowed in my hair. I can’t help closing my eyes again and letting my weight fall back onto him. The rhythm of his breathing and the rise and fall of his broad chest lull me. He feels too good. Perfect.

But a new set of realizations hits me. That my tank top has ridden up in my sleep and is now twisted high on my torso, exposing the underside of my breasts. That Gray’s huge hand is on my bare belly, and with every slow breath I take, the tip of his pinky finger grazes my hip bone. That slight tickle grabs all my attention, and has my body slowly tensing with awareness. I lay as still as I can, staring at the wall, muted gray in the dawn. Like the uncoiling of a string, my senses move outward to Gray’s body against mine and the fact that he too has gone unnaturally still.