16. Quick-Draw Maeve

16

QUICK-DRAW MAEVE

Asher

Not gonna lie—I feel like a king.

But a very confused king since I’m sitting here on the couch, brow scrunched, dick deflating, wondering what the hell just happened. Besides the obvious—Maeve used my hard-on as a fast-acting sex toy, and that was outrageously awesome.

But…what’s next?

I glance around the room, searching for answers in our open suitcases, or maybe in the empty champagne bottle from earlier. I peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the lights streaking by below, the city still buzzing at—what time is it? I check my watch. Holy shit. It’s three. A yawn hits me, along with the reminder that I’ve got a game on Sunday night back home. I need to head to San Francisco in several hours, then gear up to crush our opponents a day later. Which means it’s time for some shut-eye, but my brain’s too busy cycling through shouldn’ts.

I shouldn’t have kissed her.

I shouldn’t have played roulette.

I shouldn’t have…married her.

But strangely, I don’t feel regret for any of those. I don’t feel as frustrated as I did when we left the chapel. I feel good.

Of course you do, asshole. You gave the woman a screaming orgasm in world record time.

Well, great nights often end with orgasms.

Trouble is now I’m left sorting through the mess of my emotions. Part of me feels like I’ve won something, some secret, fleeting victory. But there’s also that nagging voice reminding me I’ve crossed a line I swore I wouldn’t.

But what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? She wanted to kiss, and we did. Now it’s time to move on.

I push up from the couch as the sound of the shower patters in the background. I tug off my Henley, strip out of my jeans, and run a hand through my hair. I plug my phone into the nightstand and drop onto the bed. A yawn threatens to pull me under, but I resist. I need to be awake when she comes out. We need to talk, clear the air, and maybe, just maybe, figure out where to go from here.

Hey Maeve, you cool with coming like a teenager on my denim-clad dick?

Because I was. And…do you want to ride my dick like a wild cowgirl again?

“Fuck,” I mutter, because I don’t know what the hell to do next. But the water shuts off, so I’ll have to figure it out, stat.

A few minutes later, Maeve emerges from the bathroom, looking flustered and undeniably sexy in a cami and sleep shorts, her makeup scrubbed off, her skin dewy, and her hair tugged back in a pink fluffy headband.

She winces. “You were supposed to be asleep.”

Well, that probably won’t happen anytime soon. I shove my messy emotions aside as I sit up in bed. “Why did you want me to be asleep?”

She blinks, then waves a hand at my boxer briefs. They’re white and covered in pink birds. “You’re just in your flamingo underwear,” she says, her voice breathy.

“Do my flamingos tempt you?” I ask jokingly, when what I really want to ask is do I tempt you, even though the evidence seems clear—see Exhibit O . But it’s such a foreign thought that she might feel the same way I do, especially when I’ve been wrestling with my own temptations on and off for the last two years.

She holds out her hands in surrender. “Clearly.”

“Would you like me to get a paper bag and wear that instead?”

“No. It’s just I feel…awkward,” she admits, coming over to the bed and flopping down. “This never happens,” she mumbles.

“Sharing a bed?”

“Yes, no, maybe. But also…” she groans, dragging a hand down her face, before muttering, “Coming quickly.”

Oh. Oh. Once again, I am king, and may I reign over the land of Maeve’s pleasure. “Why is that a problem?” I ask, fighting off a smug smile.

Her lips are twisted with anxiety. “It’s a problem because you’re my friend. You’re my brother’s friend. I sat on you and then… boom . It’s ridiculous and normally takes me, like, five supersize vibrators.”

That’s the highest praise in the universe. “You do know that’s a compliment? ”

“But I said we needed rules,” she says, and her voice gets higher and higher as she berates herself. “I said we should set all these boundaries. I said only kissing, and then I sat on your lap, and one minute later, I was screaming in pleasure.”

And I’d like to reign over multiple orgasm kingdoms. “Maeve, that’s not true,” I say, gently correcting her.

“What part is a lie?” She sounds worried.

“It was only thirty seconds,” I say. And right now, giving in to the roulette wheel of red wasn’t a bad idea. It was a brilliant one.

She pulls a pillow over her eyes, mumbling, “I can never show my face again.”

“Why?”

“Because I will forever be Quick-Draw Maeve.”

“Can we make a T-shirt that says that? That would be great.”

She swats me with the pillow.

Somehow, that’s the best friendship sign ever—the swat. It’s a sign we can move past this…unexpected friendship benefit. Since we have to move on. Oh hell, do we have to. So I grab the pillow, set it down, and get out of bed, but before I reach the bathroom she calls out, “Um, do you want me to return the favor?”

With my hand on the doorknob, I snort-laugh. “Are you asking me to rut against you in my clothes and come in my pants?”

That earns me another pillow, this one thrown.

Deservedly so.

I toss it back to the bed and pad into the bathroom. But after I brush my teeth, wash my face, and return to bed, turning down the lights, I’m not thinking friendly thoughts at all. Not one bit .

I’m thinking how she felt when her body melted against me. I’m thinking about the way she moved like water when I ran my hands up her legs. I’m thinking about the soft, sweet shape of her mouth and the gasps she makes when I kiss her.

And I’m hearing her sounds in my head all over again.

I’m wide awake, lying next to her in bed, with enough space between us to fit a trunkful of complicated emotions and ten years of connections. I have no idea what to do with the fact that I’m a little wild for Maeve. That I’m a lot more into her than I’d realized. Sure, I’ve always known she was pretty. But for a long time, I was aware of that only on a logical level. Then at her brother’s wedding, logic slammed into me on the dance floor and waved a big cardboard sign saying, You’re into your best friend and it’s way more than logical, you idiot . But when the dance ended, I ignored that sign. Ignored the feelings, too, maybe hoping they’d go away. News flash: Looks like they didn’t leave. I’m not even sure they went dormant. I just let myself think they were gone. But now they’re back, stronger than before.

Trouble is, it’d still be a bad idea to act on these feelings. Or, really, to act on them again . Once can be excused. But twice is flirting with danger. And I don’t want to rock the boat. That is not my style. I hate problems that aren’t on the ice. I can’t stand trouble. I don’t need to invite it in my life. Even though my gut twists over the next words, I say them anyway, knowing it’s best to avoid danger: “I guess we should get annulled.”

She pauses, maybe giving it some thought. After a few seconds, she nods. “Yeah,” she says, a little wistful. But then she turns to me, chin resting on her hands. “But wouldn’t it be funny if we played a joke on my brother? ”

Ah, hell. I can’t resist that temptation either. “Tell him we got married for real?”

Mischief dances in her hazel eyes. “Yes. Let’s wind him up. Besides, we’re getting annulled when we return to San Francisco since we don’t have to do it here,” she says on a yawn.

“It’s a plan,” I say, and it feels like a return to the way we were. That’s fine. Really, it’s fine. It’s the smoothest path back to friendship, and that’s what we both want and need, clearly.

As she settles under the sheets, Maeve adds, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“My dick is so extraordinary you came in thirty seconds? Yes, I believe your actions already told me that.”

“Your ego is so big.”

“That’s not the only thing.”

“I know!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment too.”

“You would,” she says.

“It was a compliment,” I say, preening. Fucking preening.

She’s quiet for a beat, sighs, then says, “It wasn’t just your dick. It was your kissing, if you must know.”

King Asher rules the world. I park my hands behind my head and don’t bother fighting off a grin. “My lips and my dick are both extraordinary, you’re saying?”

“Oh shut up.”

“But you like my mouth,” I tease.

“You’re the worst.”

“That’s not what you said fifteen minutes ago.”

“What did I say then?” she asks.

I meet her eyes. “It was sort of like… oh, oh, oh . ”

“You’re mocking me for having an orgasm? Real nice, Asher.”

“You can climb on me and have another,” I say.

“That won’t be awkward at all.”

I drop the teasing, then return to what she said earlier. “What were you going to tell me before? You said you had something to tell me.” I pause, since I’ve got a feeling what it is, and maybe I want to beat her to it. The words taste like sand, but they need to be said. “Were you going to say that it can’t happen again?”

She grimaces. “No, that wasn’t what I was going to say. But that probably shouldn’t happen again.”

My chest aches, like I’ve been punched. She’s right, and I can’t stand that she’s right, even though I was the one who suggested that the moment on the couch is best not repeated. “It shouldn’t,” I say.

“I don’t want to screw things up with us. Our friendship. My brother. It would be too messy,” she says, her tone sad.

“It would,” I say evenly. “It definitely would.”

“Sex and stuff complicate everything,” she adds, like she needs to sell me on the one-time only aspect of tonight.

I don’t want her to think I’m anything but on board. “Sex is the most complicated. Well, not if you’re dry-humping me,” I deadpan.

She swats me again, and I want—oh, how I fucking want—to grab that hand and press kisses all over it. To draw her close. To run my hands through those waves of blonde-brown hair. But I don’t. There will be no encore. “Look, I know it’ll be hard for you to resist me, but I have faith in you,” I say.

She smiles softly, yawning again. “I’ll do my best. Also, what I was going to say is I’m Quick-Draw Maeve at a lot of things,” she says, then ten seconds later, she’s fast asleep.

And I’m wide awake. Like I am most nights for a while. I usually read myself to sleep, but tonight, my thoughts are keeping me company.

I’m thinking about how she felt in my arms. At the beginning and during the middle, and then, yeah, at the end. I turn and watch my wife as she slides deeper into slumber while the lights of Vegas flicker in the distance. Something tugs on my heart, and I wish I could stop time and just experience this moment with her again and again.

Which is a whole new problem entirely, and much more complicated than a box of condoms.