Best Friends With Benefits (Most Likely To) (10 page)

He took a long breath, kneaded his fingers into his temple, anticipating the pounding pain he knew would come. Valerie would have had this conversation over with already. Might even have had his mom moved in and settled by now.

Communication: one of the other things his family wasn’t big on.

“I’m going to see the house tomorrow. I wanted to make sure your garden is being taken care of.” His fingers moved up to his forehead, the disgustingly familiar throb building in intensity. It hadn’t been what he wanted to say. What he wanted to say was,
It is time for you to finally move into the home I bought you. It is time for you to finally leave him. It is time for you to be able to do what I was able to do.

I am doing for you what you could never do for me.

His mother’s garden was her one sanctuary. Dad could yell and push and squeeze her arms until there were worm-like welts on them behind the shielded walls of the house, but in the garden she was free. They both had been. As free as he’d felt in the band room or in Val’s bedroom.

As free as he’d felt inside Val that day.

“Alec.” She sighed. “It’s not my garden, it’s yours.”

They’d had this fight, this passive aggressive fight, what seemed like hundreds of times now. Something about this time was supposed to be different if Fate were truly on his side.

Wouldn’t his mom finally see? Wouldn’t she finally say,
yes I’m ready. Get me away from this monster
.

Unfortunately, she also loved that monster in her own sick way. That monster was her husband, his father. He paced the floor trying to think of a response, but there wasn’t one. There was only what he wanted and what she was not willing to do.

Instead of doing what he’d asked, what he’d begged her to do, she chose to stay with the man who’d made his life hell for eighteen years.

“I’m going to have to sell it if you don’t move in,” he said. It was a new addition to their conversation, but she had to suspect it was coming.

Besides, he needed her to know this wasn’t going to be her somewhere over the rainbow forever. If she didn’t take it now, it would be gone.

“Honey.” Her voice went low. “I appreciate it, Lord knows I appreciate it more than I can even say, but you know I can’t.”

“You can,” he said simply. “You deserve to be happy.” What he didn’t add was
you deserve to be free—like me.

Even in his thoughts, though, he was a hypocrite. He could believe he was free all he wanted, but the pounding in his head told a different story.

He heard her breath on the line as she took a sip of what he knew was peppermint tea, and there were crickets behind her. She was on the porch, or in her new garden touching one of the petals on the rose bushes she was so proud of. It made him think of Val, the smell of her perfume.

“You know I appreciate whatever strength I was able to give you that got you away from him, but I’m not you. I chose this life, and divorce is not an option.”

Her excuse, her forever excuse: the church wouldn’t let her leave.

“He cheats on you.” It was the freshest offense in his mind.

“Not anymore,” she said. “You know he doesn’t do any of the things he did anymore. He’s changed, Alec. I wish you’d come here and see.”

“Right,” he managed. It didn’t seem coincidental that things got better for his mom once he was gone. Maybe he’d bought her the house just so he could have a home where he could feel welcome again.

This was where the conversation always dripped down to. That his father had changed. Gone to God—the God who wouldn’t let his mother divorce him—and had all the dickhead sucked out. For his mother’s sake, he hoped it was true. He hadn’t seen his father in ten years, since he took off for New York City.

He’d hated leaving his mom that day. This had been his way to finally make up for it. He knew one day he would save her.

Why won’t she let me?

His mother might have been the only woman in the world he couldn’t get to do what he wanted. The irony was not lost on him.

“How can you forgive him?” he finally said. It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask:
How could you have stayed?
If you knew how messed up I would be now, would you have stayed for eighteen years when he didn’t have a God at all? When that same God didn’t save you?

“Forgiving him is all I have,” she said.

“Bye, Mom.” He needed to end this conversation.

“Bye, bye, honey, and don’t forget to tell Val I said hi.”

Alec clicked off his phone and shoved it in his pocket.
Val
. Alec took a long drink of his beer. She’d been the only thing in his life that made sense. He kept scolding himself for fucking up the calm sailboat of their relationship, but damn the rocking had been fun—the capsizing into the water, the splashing around. So much so that he’d forgotten about the house again until that stupid moment with Randy Tines.

A little more rocking might be just what he needed to put this crap out of his mind for a while. Unfortunately he’d come to the end of that road. Val had made that clear. He really thought she might take him into her mouth—well, the Val she used to be never would, but there was a side to her he’d never known. A side he realized now, he might never get out of his system.

Chapter Eleven

When she didn’t find Alec at the bar, the bartender pointed Valerie in the direction of the pinball room at the back of the arcade.

He played at a machine directly across the room from the open door. Neon light and computerized music splashed against the wood-paneled walls as he pushed the flipper buttons. It provided the perfect cover to stare at him without interruption. His strong arms gripped the sides of the machine. The back of his head was a sexy mess of brown hair. Valerie knew his eyes were filled with the determined stare they got when he was concentrating, that his jaw was taut and sure. He seemed to pump against it as he kept the ball zipping and pinging, his ass clenched as he…

“If you want a show,” Alec said, not turning around, “all you have to do is ask, Val.”

Busted. Her face boiled; her stomach became a hard knot. She was not nearly sly enough to tango with the likes of Alec. She tamped down her silly humiliation. There was absolutely nothing wrong with appreciating a man’s fine ass. But this wasn’t just any man, this was Alec.

“I’m not interested in the kind of show you’re used to giving.” Her voice was light, but her heart was at the apex of her throat.

“I know,” he said quietly. “We’re all done with that.”

Logically she knew they should be. So why could she not stop thinking about finishing what she’d started earlier? What he’d told her he wanted. Maybe that really was all she needed to do to be over him. Maybe things felt weird because she’d had two orgasms and he’d only had one. They were imbalanced. Once they were even she could let the desire go.

What the hell am I doing?
Having a sexual trial in my mind?
One thing was for sure, they were both innocent and both ferociously guilty.

“You weren’t at the bar.” She made her way across the floor. The click of her heels against the smooth wood laminate fought against the machines pinging around her.

“Yeah, the local news was at the window, so they let me come back here.”

“Who called them?” Her focus switched to Alec’s comment. Chronic Disharmony might be on hiatus, but the media never was.

“Who knows?” His voice was stiff. “This was the one place I thought I could trust people. I should know there are assholes everywhere.”

She was surprised Alec was willing to trust anyone. He’d never told her that he couldn’t, exactly, but she knew that wariness was from where so many of his choices stemmed. Not knowing what the word
trust
really meant.

It was why he couldn’t be the guy who cuddled and murmured into her hair, why he’d never be the man waiting for her in a tuxedo at the end of an aisle, but for the moment maybe he didn’t have to be. He thought she gave a
fucking amazing blowjob
. His words still sizzled in her brain.

“Hopefully they didn’t ruin your night,” she said, the sexual timbre of her voice surprising her.

“I have a private pinball room. My night couldn’t be going too much better.” He pulled the lever and sent another ball flying.

“It couldn’t?”

Seriously, what are you doing?

“Oh, it could,” he replied, “but the rest of this weekend will be filled with PG fun only. Dr. Barkin’s orders. Want to play?”

Was that what she really wanted, PG fun only?

She peeked at his ass again, pictured it braced against the machine as her mouth and tongue pleasured him beyond his imagination. Her resolve rose with her desire. Before she could stop it, a whimper escaped her throat and a drip defied her between her legs.

“My very own pinball room,” he mused. “Who knew it would take getting famous to live the dream I had when I was fifteen?”

There was no doubt she wanted him. But could she really be the hunter? And now that she had her prey cornered, what was she supposed to do? She wasn’t used to making the first move, and she definitely wasn’t used to it with someone who had seen every first move ever invented.

“Valerie, do you want to play?”

Maybe he hadn’t meant his words as innuendo, but in that moment, she couldn’t take them any other way.

She stepped closer to him. Her stomach was a whisper away, her breasts a sigh away. So close. Surges of heat fired at her from his back. He could probably hear her heart thrumming as she reached out her hand, her finger paused a gasp away from his waist.

She inhaled and closed her eyes. They had done this already. It was not difficult:
trace your fingers along his shoulder, murmur into his ear, spin him around, kneel down in front of him, unbuckle his belt, and take him into your eager mouth.

Easy.

Simple.

Her stomach was a seesaw winging up and down.

She needed to stop thinking. She needed to do. She’d spent most of her life on pause. Except for her music, she never went after what she wanted. She never demanded it. That was changing this very minute.

She snaked her hand around his side, fingertips leading the way. “Was that the only dream you had at fifteen?” She slid her hand onto his rock-hard stomach.
Crap, does he mine diamonds in there?

He tensed, then relaxed as her fingers splayed along his abdominal muscles. Her pinky grazed his belt buckle. It was ice cold from the air conditioning.

“Definitely not.” His breath was a heavy moan when he turned to face her. He slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her to him in one quick motion, his eyes filled with hunger.

She inhaled sharply. She couldn’t ignore the shock wave when his hardest parts banked up against her softest ones. But this was her seduction, and while she wanted whatever he was about to offer her, she wanted to give him what she’d planned all the more.

She stepped back and rolled her fingers down his chest, the tips of them studying every rock, every crevasse. She breathed out and gathered more courage. “Was one of them getting your dick sucked in an arcade?”

Those words would have usually stayed in her mind flipping somersaults. She stopped breathing until Alec’s eyes went dark, and his erection pulsed against her thigh.

“At fifteen my dreams didn’t go that far,” he admitted. “This very minute, though…” He took a finger and slid it along her lips. “It’s at the top of my list.”

She took his finger in her mouth, worked it in and out. Her tongue slicked around it, giving him a preview of what she was planning. She was woozy for what was under that belt buckle.

His breath caught. He dipped her chin back, forcing her to let go, even as their heartbeats fought against the arcade’s sounds.

“Val.” His eyes darted like pinballs as they grazed over her face. “What about your rules?”

Crap, maybe she couldn’t just do. Maybe all her thinking and pausing earlier would make just doing impossible.

“Do you want me to stop?” She deposited her hand where it had been, palm open, wrist tight against his waistband, her pinky sliding underneath to hot skin.

“Fuck no,” he breathed. “You can feel how hard I am for you. I just want to make sure this is okay.”

She moved slowly toward the door to close it, hoping to increase his ache with each swing of her hips. “That’s how sure I am,” she said, more seriously than she’d intended as she made her way back over to him, “but right now I don’t need you to be a gentleman. I need you to pull my hair while I take you into my mouth, and I need you to come at the back of my throat.” Her heart was beating like the midnight cheep of a cuckoo clock, but she kept her words steady. “Do you think you can do that?”

She’d never spoken to a man this way, and the words excited her. Lust flowered in her abdomen and tumbled lower. Alec appraised her again. Each sweep of his gaze garnered an additional heartbeat and an additional thrum of need.

“Dirty Girl,” he finally said, straddling the legs of his jeans wide, “none of that is going to be a problem.”

She eased her hand into his waistband. He was so hard already, his skin smooth and hot.

No more thinking.

She lowered his pants and boxers, angling him so his ass butted against the front of the pinball machine. She dropped to her knees, her lips a tongue’s length away from him. She breathed in his scent, his heat. Her eyes feasted on his panty-scorching length. He was thick and long, smooth and pulsing.

She laid small kisses along his hip bones, and he answered her with a sigh. She licked at the inside of his thighs, at the base of him, putting her mouth everywhere but where she’d promised.

His breath exploded like a boiling tea kettle. “Fuck, I need to be inside that mouth.”

She snaked her hands up and darted them down the front of his thighs. “I know how much you enjoy teasing.” She gave him a wry smile. She knew her lips were wet and swollen from her preview. Knew he was coveting them, craving them.

His fingers urged at the base of her skull. “I’m going to regret that, aren’t I?”

“You have no idea.” She fisted him at the base and slicked her hand over him so slowly that he’d feel each ridge of her fingertips. She brought her mouth closer and hot breath banked back on her chin. Her lower lip teased against the softest, most sensitive part of him and he groaned. She opened her mouth a click, giving him a taste of what was in store, and he growled.

He jerked back. “Get those elegant flute-player lips around my cock before I come all over your face, before it’s dripping down your chin and neck.”

“Patience.” She sighed, an army of goose bumps marching beneath the heat of her breath.

His voice originated from a low hiss. “I fucking love your sexy voice almost as much as I love your blowjobs, but right now I only want that mouth working on one thing—my cock.”

“I know exactly what you want.” She reveled in the power. Alec was completely under her spell. When she was with him like this, she was the sexy, confident woman he believed she was. When she was about to give him pleasure, she could accept all his compliments. The control made her hotter than any touch, wetter than any lick. Damp fever seeped from the summit of her thighs.

Could she orgasm from giving
him
a blowjob?

She dove back in, looping her tongue around his tip but keeping the whole of her mouth back, pumping him with her hand.

“Seriously”—he gasped—“me fucking your mouth, now.”

She obliged, slowly gliding him between her lips, slicking the top of his shaft with her tongue. She’d learned earlier he was too large to take in all at once.

He moaned his approval. “Fuck, Dirty Girl, you suck that cock like you’ve been playing it all your life.”

His words forced her to take him deeper, deeper, so he strained the back of her throat. She sucked and slicked and slid her hand over him for a good two minutes before she had to pause.

“One breath, and then I want that swallow you promised. I want to come hot and thick into that wicked mouth.”

She inhaled like she was going under water and slicked her lips faster around his length. He rocked and jerked into her mouth. His pursuit of pleasure made her moan and hum into his skin.

“Fuck,” he gasped. He braced himself, and she tasted the first hint of salt. He was about to come. She opened her throat, swallowing around him as his orgasm boiled out. He shrieked with pleasure as she accepted every last bit of him.

She wiped her mouth. His breathing was heavy, his pupils pinpricks. The look in his eyes was as unrelenting as an erupting volcano as he reached his hand out and lifted her to her feet.

He pulled her into his chest. “I think you’ve ruined me.”

She smiled against his shoulder.

His lips hovered on her forehead, his stubble grating her skin. “No,” he murmured. “I know you have.”

“I’ll ruin you anytime.” She welcomed his arms and lips and sank deeper, until her mind flipped on and she stepped back. He seemed confused, before the reminder must have hit him, too.
This is just sex. We are just sex.

“Here.” He coughed, handing her his beer.

She took a long drink, but the taste of him was still on her lips. They stood next to each other, catching their breath and probably their thoughts. The ones she was running after:
Why am I still thinking about him?
That was supposed to have cured us both.

Valerie’s face, her whole body, was on fire; she squeezed her legs together but the friction just stoked the flames. She wanted Alec again, on her, in her. She’d thought that would get him out of her system. She’d been wrong. If they stayed this close she was going to jump him.

I’ll ruin you anytime
. Those words were not in line with her rules.

She made her way to the closest pinball machine in playing distance. Something called
Shaq Attack
. Basketball and arcade games, two of her least favorite things, but anything was better than losing herself in Alec again.

“You got a quarter?” she asked.

“That game sucks.”

She bit her lip and managed a tight laugh.

“Crap, you know what I mean,” he said as he handed her a coin.

She tried to play, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Alec—couldn’t stop seeing his strained face as he orgasmed in the flashing lights, his dick in the flippers at the bottom of the machine. She needed to change the subject. But her mind was blank. Even when he was talking about a dumb pinball game, she’d equated it to their latest sexual encounter.

All their sexual encounters had turned this man beside her from Alec into a man who made her senseless with want. He was her best friend in name only.

Reece’s annoying screech traveled in from the hallway behind the closed door.

Valerie’s body tensed. The ball fell in a perfect line down the length of the machine and into the hole between the flippers. “I cannot take any more of her tonight.”

Alec rushed to the closed door and locked it. “She might have a voice that can break glass, but she’s not getting in here without a key.”

Recce’s nails-against-a-chalkboard tone continued to strike above the sound of the pinball machines. Valerie shook her head in disapproval. “Can you imagine when she has kids?”

“Oh…” Alec touched his chin. “My mom says hi.”