Chapter Four

Kayla

A few weeks ago, I caught Lana making out with one of the bartenders in the backroom. We have a policy at the bar that forbids staff from hooking up to avoid drama, but when I found them, I was as horrified as I was fascinated. Before then I'd never witnessed anything so explicit, and for a few seconds, I stood frozen, fascinated by what I was seeing.

From the little sounds she made when he backed her up against the wall to the way they tore at each other clothes, I was there all for three seconds when I knew I'd seen enough to corrupt my innocent eyes. Before that fateful night, the two had been eyeing each other all week, exchanging flirtatious glances here and there. Lana would unbutton her shirt to reveal her cleavage, and the man would eat it up, messing up orders as he watched her all night.

"Guys like it when you tease them," she'd told me when I questioned the cat-and-mouse game she had with the bartender. "They like it when you expose bits of yourself, tease them slowly, and get them all hot and bothered, so it's more satisfying when they finally pounce on you."

At the time, I hadn't paid much mind to her words, figuring I didn't have to worry about ever seducing a guy, but now . . . so close to Cash, it's all I want.

I want to show him that I have no intention of running away from these feelings that are developing, and if I am to share myself with anyone, then I want it be him.

Letting out a nervous sigh, I push back from him and rise to my feet, forcing Cash to sit up as well. My fingers are shaky, but I quickly grab my sweater and draw it over my shoulders before I can second guess myself. My cheeks flare with heat, but I don't even think Cash notices as his handsome features tighten when his eyes drop to my chest. He sucks in a sharp breath when I unfasten my bra, biting nervously into my lip as I let it fall. His hot gaze scours my body, and I fight the urge to shuffle nervously on my feet.

Don't be nervous. Cash is safe. He's my best friend, the man who saved me.

I let out a shaky breath when I notice the massive bulge at the front of his pants seems to have doubled in size. My stomach flutters with both nerves and excitement as I stare at his erection, and for a second, I question the wisdom of carrying on with this.

No, I've come too far to stop.

Besides, a part of me revels in watching this normally stoic man lose his cool, and that fuels me to undo my jeans and shove them down my thighs. I step out of my pants, leaving me in nothing but my panties, which according to Lana's guide to seduction, is all I need to do.

I bite my lip and stand naked in front of my best friend, fighting a combination of shyness and awkwardness. I can practically read the heat in his eyes as he runs them over my body, drinking me up and sending an ache to my core.

"I . . . I . . ." I clear my voice when it comes out a little shaky. "I've never done this before, in case, um, you were wondering."

"I was wondering. You're so good at it," Cash says gruffly, his nostrils flaring as he lifts his gaze to lock with mine, and I flush at the intensity I read in his eyes. He adjusts the bulge in his pants before leaning back on the sofa. "Take it off, Freckles."

His rough, bossy voice causes my sex to throb, and the flush on my face deepens. I must look no different from a ripe tomato at this point.

"Y-you mean the panties?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I mean the panties."

"Okay," I whisper shyly, tucking my fingertips into the waistband of my pink panties before sliding them down. I gasp when I realize how sodden they are. I didn't think it was even possible for me to get this way, and yet, the evidence of my arousal is plain for my best friend to see.

My God, can he tell that I am desperate for him? That I have been from the second I watched him walk into the bar earlier in the evening?

His eyes darken as I slide the panties off, leaving me completely in bare and more vulnerable than I have ever felt in my life, but . . . this is my best friend.

Cash is the one man I trust the most in the world.

It's okay to vulnerable with him.

"Fuck me, Freckles. I can see just how wet you are all the way from here," he grinds out hoarsely. "I bet my finger would come back slick with your warmth if I stroked between your legs."

"Yes," I gasp, a hot shiver racking my body and my nipples pebbling from the hungry way he looks at them.

"Come here," he commands, and I move at lightning speed, helpless to do anything else. He grabs my hand when I reach him and pulls me onto his lap, his hands going to my waist as I straddle his thick thighs. "You have no idea how long I have wanted this." His fingers trace up my body, and a broken sound slips from my lips when he cups my beaded nipples with his calloused hands. I ache . . .

I ache with not just the need to feel his touch grace the rest of my body but with the need to touch him as well, so I give in to the need, running my hands up the muscles of his forearms, reveling in the firmness of his body and hating the shirt that keeps me from touching his skin.

"This is your last chance to stop this, Kayla," he rasps deeply, leaning in and brushing his lips hotly over mine. "After this, there will be no stopping until I am balls deep inside of you."

"Oh, God," I whimper when he pinches a nipple between his knuckles and tugs hard, sending a flutter of heat through my belly and down to my sex. I feel myself growing wetter by the second, no doubt staining his jeans.

"Freckles, I'm serious," he says, but how exactly does he expect me to think when he's teasing my body the way he is? Every touch erasing any and all sensible thoughts from my brain.

I claw his chest blindly as a shudder racks my body, tearing the fabric of his shirt in the process, but I can't bring myself to care. I just want to feel his skin against mine. I tug the shirt off him, my eyes dropping to his tattooed chest and shoulders, and good Lord, he is perfect. His muscles are well defined and with delicious ridges on his stomach that cause my pulse to race.

"I don't want to stop," I respond to his previous warning. A rippling current races over my body when our eyes connect, and I let him read the words I can't voice. After tonight, I don't think we can go back to being just friends.

I scoot forward, rocking on his covered erection, and we both groan at the move. His reaction gives me a little courage to lean down and do what I've been thinking about all night. I bury my face in his neck, inhaling deeply his intoxicating scent and feeling the hard beating of his pulse against my lips. "Don't stop," I whisper again, brushing my lips over his skin, feeling him shudder beneath me, his reaction slowly killing the nerves of being intimate with my best friend, or perhaps it's the opposite. Maybe I'm able to be this way with him because he's my best friend.

Cash has a soft spot for me, I am not completely oblivious to that fact, though I try not to take advantage of it, especially at work.

"I've warned you, Freckles. I'm nothing like those young wannabe prospects that visit the bar and try to hit on you," Cash says roughly before burying his long fingers in my hair and tugging hard, forcing me to meet his gaze.

"Didn't you already warn everyone off me?" I ask, locking my gaze with his and expecting him to negate my words and prove what Lana said was false, but Cash doesn't bother denying the rumors.

"Damn right, I did," he growls, spinning us on the couch in a single move, so I am under him. My eyes flutter to a close when he drops his head to kiss my neck, trailing his lips down my body, and when his mouth closes hotly over my nipple, I buck under his touch. My back arches, and I cry out as pressure build between my legs. "No one is allowed to touch you," he says between licks, his voice deep and dangerous. "These perfect, luscious tits belong to me." I writhe needily under him when he pulls at my sensitive bud with hot suction, burying my fingers into his hair as he teases my body.

"Oh . . . Cash . . . Oh my God," I cry out when he shifts his attention to the other nipple, a shudder rippling through my body when his teeth softly graze the sensitive bead.

I feel his heated gaze on my face when he starts licking a path down my body. I am panting heavily by the time he settles himself between my legs, giving me little warning before he brings my left foot to his shoulder, buries his face into my sex, and sends starts bursting behind my eyelids.

There is no teasing, no caressing or easing me into it, just a ravenous man who warned me of his insatiable hunger.

I don't even get the chance to feel embarrassed by the vulnerable position I'm in or how much of myself I am exposing to a man who, up until this moment, has never even kissed me, and now, he's nuzzling my sex, licking at my arousal.

He groans deeply at the first brush of his tongue over my trembling sex, the sound sending a rush of warmth flooding my already wet core.

"You're fucking drenched, baby," he tells me, his eyes locking with mine as he leans down and drags his wet tongue between my folds, collecting my arousal into his mouth, and my breathing grows choppy, both from what he is doing to me and the way he watches me as he does so. His stormy gray eyes are so heated, they threaten to suck me into their dark abyss, and heaven knows, I am weak to resist him. "I'm going to rut you hard and bare, flood this hot pussy with my cum, and mark you inside and out."

My cheeks flush at his words, but soon, I don't have the capacity for that emotion either with the way he rakes his hands up my thighs as he laps at my pussy, the hot slide of his tongue on my sex sending a shudder racking my body and pressure building up in my abdomen.

I moan hoarsely and thrash under him when he flicks his tongue over my clit and bathes the sensitive nub in fast strokes. My thighs jerk around his head, and I move restlessly, pumping my hips against his teasing tongue and chasing the delicious feeling that builds with such intensity. My body starts to shake with the need for release, and he must feel how close to losing it I am as he closes his hungry lips around my clit and lightly suctions the sensitive bud, and that is all it takes for my entire world to explode.

"Cash," I sob as pleasure shoots through me from the roots of my hair down to the tips of my toes, causing me to thrash about wildly and see whole galaxies behind my eyelids even as his unrelenting tongue continues to work me, drawing out my orgasm.

I don't know how long it lasts. Two minutes? Ten? Maybe even an hour, but it feels like an eternity before my body slowly descends from the highest point I have ever been. To think that my best friend did this—

I call out to him; this time, my voice is soft and needy. With dark, predatory eyes, he climbs up my body. I shudder at the feel of his naked body pressed against mine. He must have undressed when I was lost in my pleasure, but I don't stop to ask when his delicious weight presses down on me. It's something I never knew I needed. The hard press of his erection against my thigh should terrify me, but all it does is send excitement rocking through my chest.

"Mine. You're mine, Kayla" he growls a second before his lips part over mine in a kiss that has my toes curling in pleasure. My lips part in response, and I moan deeply when I taste myself on his tongue. His kiss is hot and desperate, our shallow breathing mingling hotly as he slants his mouth hungrily over mine. A needy pulse starts to build up in my sex when he drags a fingertip over my nipple, molding his calloused palm roughly over my breast.

"Cash," I whimper into the kiss when I feel his erection nudge my wet folds, and a sliver of doubt filters in for the first time. "I don't think . . . Will it fit?"

"It will," he promises, brushing his lips gently over mine as he pushes the head of his shaft into my tight channel, and I gasp at the unfamiliar stretch. "This cock was made for you, baby." I clasp onto his shoulders and brace for the pain I've heard about, but it doesn't come. "I promise it'll only hurt a little, but I'll make it better for you."

His body is drawn taut, and I can hear the pain in his voice as he holds himself back, which makes me fall for him a little more. This man has always looked out for me, taken care of me like it's job, and has gotten nothing in return . . . I want to give him this.

I want to make my best friend feel the happiness he gives me. Bring him the same pleasure he has so selflessly brought to me up until this point.

To him, I will give the only thing I have. Myself.

So I lift my hand to his jaw, looking into my gentle giant's eyes and letting him see that I will only ever belong to him. "Want it," I whisper, my eyes locked with his stormy ones. "Want you."

Cash lets a strangled roar before thrusting his cock fully inside of me, and I bury my face in his neck as pain shoots through my core. I dig my fingers into his back as I try to make sense of what exactly I am feeling. There is pain, but it's fading fast, and taking its place is something . . .

Overwhelming.

"Lord above, baby, you're so fucking wet and tight," Cash grinds out, voice tense. "I could fucking come just from your tightness alone without moving a muscle." My heart clenches when he brushes his lips over my ear. "Talk to me, Kayla."

"I'm okay," I respond, my voice coming out breathy. I shift my hips, try to adjust to the fullness his massive cock has me feeling.

"I want you so fucking bad, baby, but the thought of hurting you pains me. I can stop if too much—"

"No," I cry, dropping my hands to his lower back and pulling him tight against me. "Don't stop. You promised you wouldn't."

"Fuck, the things you do to me." He studies my face as his hips start to move, pumping his cock slowly into me, and I can feel the strain he's putting on himself with the way he's holding back, but I don't want him to hold back with me. Never with me.

I want all of him. "Take me," I whisper, dragging my fingers up his muscular back. "Don't hold back. Want you to—"

My mouth parts on a soundless scream when he slams into me with such intensity, it cuts me off. My eyes roll back at the pleasure that shoots up my spine, and I can tell something in him has shifted.

Cash pushes back to lock eyes with me before he starts really fucking me. He doesn't hold back as he wraps his arm under my thigh, sending him impossibly deeper into my sex, and all sense of gentleness slips from his eyes.

"Mine," he growls deeply, his hips lifting and slapping down hard on mine, burying his thickness into me and wrecking me. I cry out when his thumb dips between us, and he strums his middle finger over my sensitive nub, the hot friction sending me back to a point of heightened pleasure that threatens to explode, and this time, I'm not sure I'll survive it.

"Too much," I sob as the pleasure continues to build with every hard thrust. I claw at his back desperately. "Oh, I . . . Too much. Cash!"

He quickens the movement of his thick digit on my clit as he hammers his shaft faster and harder into me until I am begging for the sweet release, and when it comes, it's unlike anything I could have ever expected.

A raw scream tears from my throat as I thrash under Cash, my orgasm taking me on a whole new journey with how it rips through me.. My sex spasms around him, and that seems to send him over the edge with me. He buries his face in my neck as he pumps his hot seed into my core, driving his cock harder into me until I have milked him of every drop before he finally collapses on top of me.

I run a soothing hand down his back, basking in the feeling of his weight on top of me. I have no idea how long we lie there without exchanging a word, but it's perhaps the safest I've ever felt. It's quiet, filled only with the sounds of our labored breathing, but it's also peaceful.

I just had sex with my best friend.

I wait for regret, fear, shame, or whatever other emotion that could ruin this moment to filter in, but . . . nothing.

The moment is perfect. If given the chance, I would do it over and over again. I would let Cash be my first every single time if I was stuck in a loop.

"Our dinner's probably cold now," I whisper, breaking the silence. "I should go and warm it up for us."

Cash lifts his head to stare down at me, and I read the concern on his face. For a second, I muse over the fact that I am one of the few people he's shown this side of him.

"Kayla, are you okay?"

"I like it better when you call me Freckles," I say in response. "You know, growing up, I really hated my freckles. I was told they would disappear after puberty, but they stayed, and I got teased about them a lot. When you say it, your words don't carry any malice."

His brows draw as he stares down at me. "I'm serious, Freckles," he says, his dark eyes stirring something in me. I'm afraid to look too deeply into it, but I have a feeling that I have fallen in love with my best friend. Perhaps it's something had happened a long time ago, and I'm just coming to terms with it now. "I need to know that you're okay. I was a little rough with you, and I would never forgive myself if I hurt you in any way."

No, I'm certain I am in love with my best friend.

I open my lips to assure him of how magical and precious this was, but my throat closes up when I try to get the words out, so I wrap my arms around his massive shoulders and bury my face in his neck. "I'm okay."

Okay doesn't even cover half of it, but it'll have to do for now.