Blurred Lines (9 page)

“Like I’d let you touch my laundry.”

“Fine, then first dibs on the shower for a week,” I counter. “And I won’t even complain if there’s no hot water left.”

Her eyes light with interest. Parker does like herself a long hot shower. “How about a month?”

“Done.” I say. “But if you like the kiss…even a little…I get control of the remote for a month. No
Bachelor
unless I approve it. No watching that boring home-makeover show, and no damn cooking shows.”

She bites her lip, and I know she’s nervous, because this girl could happily spend
hours
watching people on TV make cupcakes.

The stakes are high.

But she must be pretty damn confident that kissing me will be a disaster, because she finally shrugs. “All right. I guess if you’re
really
sure you won’t mind the ice-cold showers for a month.”

I cross my arms. “You’re that sure I’m a bad kisser.”

“No, I’m sure you’re fine,” she says, with a little wave of her hand. “It’s just that I can’t…I don’t think I’ll like it. You’re too much like a brother.”

Brother?

Brother?

What. The. Fuck.

Yes, Parker and I are platonic, and, yes, I love her as if she were— No. No. I can’t even put the word
Parker
and
sister
in the same sentence.

Right now my cock’s all too aware that she’s
not
my sister, and that she’s insulted my kissing skills.

Time to set the record straight. I haven’t spent years cultivating my seduction techniques for nothing.

I pluck the beer bottle out of her hands and put it aside, moving to stand in front of her.

For the first time since the start of this insane conversation, the laughter fades from her eyes and she looks nervous. But she recovers immediately, giving me a mocking grin.

“Just tell me at what point I’m supposed to start swooning,” she says sweetly.

“Oh, you’ll know,” I say.

I take a step toward her and she steps back. I frown. “This isn’t going to work if you back away.”

“Sorry,” she says, holding up her hands, then dropping them. “It’s just that this is weird.”

It is weird. Horribly so. And yet I’m determined to make it happen. Because I’ll admit it: I really want control of that remote. The thought of no ditzy reality TV, the possibility of unlimited sports, all the time…

I move toward her again and I reach out my hands, suddenly feeling a little unsure of where to put them. Waist? Face? Hips?

Don’t overthink it.

I settle for resting them gently on her upper arms, since this is only going to be a quick, prove-my-point kind of kiss. And, yes, I can prove my point with a brief kiss. I’m that good.

Her hands stay where they are, although she licks her lips nervously, and my eyes follow the motion of her small pink tongue.

“You have to be honest,” I say, my voice lower than it was before. “If it’s good you have to say it’s good.”

She nods, and I trust her. The girl’s honest to a fault, at least with me.

My head moves forward a fraction of an inch, and then I pause as reality hits me. I’m about to kiss Parker. I’m about to kiss my best friend in the entire world, the most important person I’ve ever—

I push the thought aside. For right now she’s not Parker. Not
my
Parker. She’s just a gorgeous girl looking for a kiss.

I move closer, my eyes locked on her mouth and then…

She giggles.

“Parker!”

She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry! I’m sorry, truly. Okay, do your thing.”

I grit my teeth, confidence shaken, and now I’m even more determined to prove her wrong. Make her regret the laughter. Make her—

My lips settle against hers just barely, and I hear her sharp intake of breath.

Feel it to my very soul. I take advantage of her surprise and move closer.

Her eyes are still open, as are mine, and the close-up eye contact is too weird, so I close mine as I try to deepen the kiss. My lips move against hers in careful friction.

My brain is spinning out of control, both with the unfamiliar yet familiar taste of her, as well as with what feels like a montage of every kissing trick I’ve ever learned.

Not too much slobber, not too much pressure. Don’t drool, don’t breathe too hard, don’t chafe, don’t rush…

So busy is my brain, so desperate is my attempt to be not
gross,
that it takes me far too long to realize that I’m the only one doing the kissing.

Parker isn’t responding. Isn’t kissing me back.
Certainly
isn’t moaning in helpless pleasure.

Slowly, I pull back, my eyes opening, only to realize that hers have never closed.

To her credit, she doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t mock. But when she takes a step back, her expression is just the tiniest bit smug, and I can’t blame her.

“Sucks about the month of cold showers you have ahead of you,” she says in a sugary voice. “I, for one, won’t be needing a cold shower, because that kiss was hardly—”

I advance on her, using my bigger frame to back her into the wall behind her, giving her about five seconds to realize what’s about to happen before my hands clamp on her wrists. I lift her hands above her head, pinning her arms to the wall.

I have the briefest moment of satisfaction at the pure shock and lust on her face, before my body presses against her soft curves, before my mouth claims hers.

And this time, I kiss her for real.

I’ve made a mistake. A horribly foolish tactical error:

I’ve underestimated Ben.

I should have known better. I know him better than anyone. Know him better than I know myself. I know how competitive he is, and should have known that those competitive urges would apply to his sexual prowess.

And holy
crap,
the guy has a hell of a lot of that.

The first kiss had been tepid at best. He’d been trying too hard, yes, but it wasn’t all on him. Because
I’d
been trying pretty damn hard myself not to feel a damn thing. To not register that his lips felt just right and that he smelled really damn good. But there’d been too much brain at work, on both of our parts.

But this kiss—the second one—I don’t even know where my brain is located.

There are only hands and lips and the feel of an aroused Ben against me. I should be running for the hills, and when this is over, I likely will.

But for now…

I kiss him back.

I’ve never been kissed like this. Never been pinned against the wall, my hands held out of commission by strong fingers and even stronger arms. Never had my mouth devoured like it was the best kind of dessert as a firm male body reminded me exactly how female I am.

I try to remember that this is Ben.

I do.

And then his tongue finds my upper lip, flicking twice until I gasp, and his tongue slides inside my mouth, tangling with mine, and I forget that I’m Parker, and he’s Ben, and remember only that he is man and I am woman and that
this
is what we were meant to do.

I wiggle my fingers, twisting my wrists until he finally releases me, and my hands immediately go to his head, my fingers winding around his neck to keep his mouth close. His hands go to my waist, pinning me even more firmly to the wall as his hips tilt forward in a perfect reminder of what happens next.

And ohmigod, do I want what happens next.

I meant it when I backed off my crazy idea—because his rational explanation that we’d ruin a good thing made sense.

But I’m not caring even a little bit about sense right now.

Not when his mouth has moved to my neck, pressing hot, wet kisses beneath my ear, not when his hands have slid around to my back, moving over me in possessive strokes.

I want…him.

No, that’s not right. I don’t want Ben. I just want sex. Ben is merely the tool.

Right?

Right?

My brain doesn’t confirm this for me, and it sends me into a panic.

My hands find his shoulders and push back, slightly at first, then more urgently.

He pulls back, slowly, reluctantly, and I brace myself for his look of smug victory, but surprisingly he doesn’t look triumphant. He looks…confused.

Much like I feel.

I force myself to smile, suddenly desperate to take us back to where we’ve always been. Easy. Casual.
Friends.

“Looks like you’ll have to watch
The Bachelor
reruns on Hulu for a while, huh?” he says.

His grin is just a little bit slower to emerge than usual, but when it makes an appearance, I breathe a sigh of relief.

“So?” he asks. “Still think it was gross?”

“It was
okay.
”

His palms are against the wall on either side of my head, and he slowly pushes back, putting space between us, and I’m both relieved and disappointed. “Okay?” he says.

“Okay, so you were right,” I concede quickly. “But so was I.”

“How do you figure?”

I flick a finger against his shoulder. “I told you that
this
could be better if you liked the other person.”

He lifts an eyebrow and goes to retrieve our beers. “What makes you think it was better?”

It’s my turn for a stung ego now. “You’re telling me that all of your kisses are like that?”

Please say no.

He retrieves his beer. Takes a sip as he considers my question. “No. Not all kisses are like that.”

My stomach leaps in relief.

“Okay, so you may have been on to something,” he grumbles. “Maybe this friends-with-benefits thing could be…beneficial.”

My belly flips. Not so much with the satisfaction of being proven right, but with a quick stab of panic at what he’s saying. Of what we might be on the verge of doing.

“Maybe we should rethink it,” I say.

He gives me a look. “You’re not going to try and tell me it was gross, are you?”

Quite the opposite.

“No, I just…maybe you were right. About things getting too complicated.” I take a sip of the beer he’s handed me. It’s totally warm, which makes me wonder exactly how long that kiss lasted.

“Well, that’s the beauty of being adults, Parks. We get to decide what we make complicated, and what we let be pure, uncomplicated fun.”

I’m tempted.
Oh, how I’m tempted.

“So how would this work?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s
your
idea. Didn’t you work out any of the details while you were stewing on it the entire drive home from your parents’?”

Damn. Sometimes it’s like the guy’s inside my head.

“Well,” I say, licking my lips, “I was thinking that the first rule is that there are no rules.”

He laughs. “I bet your head just exploded. You love rules.”

“I know, which is why this needs to be different.” I rush to explain. “There’s no limit on how many times we can…hook up. No timeline. We stop when it stops being fun.”

“Is this an exclusive thing?”

My turn to laugh. “Now it’s your head that’s exploding. Do you even know what
exclusive
means?”

“I’ve heard of it,” he grumbles. “I’m just wondering…are you going to flip your shit when I bring another girl home?”

“Okay, here’s where I’m at with that,” I say. “As long as we’re doing this—whatever this is—it’s just us. But the moment you decide you want to go back to your different-girl-every-night routine, just say the words, and we call this off, no hard feelings.”

Ben squints. “What about you? Same rules apply?”

“Yup.”

Not that I envision myself having a constant stream of bed partners like Ben, but I’m hoping that hooking up with someone I trust is exactly what I need to unlock my constant overthinking.

Maybe get me to just live instead of
thinking
so much about living.

“Okay,” he says simply. “When do we start?”

Again with the stomach flips.

“One more thing.” I hold up a finger. “I think we need some sort of safe word.”

Ben chokes on his beer. “What kind of things are you into, Parks?”

I roll my eyes. “Not
that
kind of safe word. I mean like if one of us wants out of the arrangement, for any reason, they can just say the word, and we end it, no questions asked, never to be mentioned again. And we go back to how we were.”

“But I thought we just agreed we weren’t going to let it be complicated.”

“We’re not,” I say quickly. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared. A fail-safe.”

He shrugs. “Fine. What’s the word?”

“Something random,” I say. “Something that we won’t say in regular conversation.”

“
Monogamy
?” he asks with a cocky grin.

“I was thinking more like…
kumquat,
or something.”

Ben busts up laughing. “Your safe word is one that contains
cum,
and a syllable that rhymes with
twat
?”

I blush. “
You
think of one, then!”

“How about
cello,
” he says.

“Like the musical instrument that nobody outside of a high school plays?”

“Exactly,” he says. “You barely know what it is. I
definitely
don’t know what it is. It’s for sure not going to come up in regular conversation.”

“All right,” I say, considering. “Works for me.”

“Okay, then. So…when do we start?”

His eyes drift over my body, and I laugh. “You are such a guy.”

“That kiss was
hot,
Parks. It’s not weird that I say that, right?”

“No,” I muse. “Oddly, it’s not. And yes, it was. Hot, I mean.”

Understatement
.

“So what are we waiting for? My bed or yours?”

“Oh, that’s another thing,” I say. “You’ve got to keep your sheets clean. That or it’s always going to be my bed.”

“Overthinking it,” he says with a shake of his head. “Trust me, when we get into it, you won’t be caring whether or not the sheets are clean.”

“I’ll care.”

Except I’m not sure that I will. Not if he does other things as well as he kisses.

Ben finishes off his beer and drops the bottle into the recycling bin. Portland is rubbing off on him. When he first moved to Oregon he used to throw away recyclable products like it was no big deal. I’ve trained him well.

He turns to face me. “Okay, obviously your overactive mind needs time to process this, so I’m going to go watch TV and relish my complete control over the remote. You let me know whenever you want to kick this off.”

“Tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” I say, before I lose my nerve.

He pauses in the process of reaching for another beer. “Oh, hell no. We’re
scheduling
this shit?”

I lift my chin. “That’s how I work. Take it or leave it.”

And then, just to be a little evil, I let my tongue toy with my bottom lip. Slowly. Deliberately.

He notices.

“Fine.” His voice is gruff. “Eight tomorrow.”

Ten minutes later, we’re both sprawled on the couch. I’ve lucked out, and there’s no sports that he cares about on TV, so he’s settled on some suspense-thriller movie neither of us have seen.

His legs are outstretched in front of him on the coffee table. Mine are stretched across his lap so I can lie on my side while watching the movie.

It’s just like always. Nothing feels different; nothing feels weird.

Except one thing is a
little
different.

I find that I can’t wait until eight o’clock tomorrow night.