Page 10

James

‘ W e’ll see’ turns into me not protesting when Evan takes me by the hand and leads me into my own bedroom. Even though we’re alone in the house, he closes and locks my bedroom door.

He knows me so well.

Something about having the door locked, even an in an empty house, helps to set me at ease. It feels more private, more final , and the fact that it was him making that choice without me having to say anything just reassures me that he wants this. He really wants this.

Whatever ‘this’ is .

Friends with benefits is what he called it. Best friends helping each other out so we don’t accidentally ruin the whole ‘fake relationship’ scam we’ve got going.

Scam.

I don’t like that word .

It feels wrong. We’re not scamming anything out of anyone. Not really. I mean, yeah, we’re not being entirely truthful, but I’m paying the insanely high tuition fees for Mia to attend the damn school. It’s not like pretending to be in a same sex relationship has gotten us a free-ride or anything. I wouldn’t have agreed to my daughter’s crazy scheme if that had been the case. I have some morals.

“ Hey ,” Ev’s voice is low and soothing, and I lean into his touch as he rubs his palms over my biceps. “It’s okay. There’s no pressure here, Jay. If you want to back out—”

My hands fly up to grab his forearms, holding him in place in case he even thinks about pulling away. “No!” My cheeks burn at how loud my protest sounds in the silence of my darkened bedroom. “No,” I repeat, quieter. “I…I’m on board.” My hardening dick makes a valiant attempt to push his way out of my jeans, tenting the material but ultimately getting nowhere. I duck my chin, embarrassed by the fact that I’m already so hard, for the simple fact that we’re in my bedroom together and that his hands are on me. “More than on board.”

Ev lets go of my arms and, before I can lament the loss of his touch, grabs my hips, pulling me forward until my denim-clad erection is bumping against his. “Me too,” he says, as if that wasn’t obvious. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night at camp.”

My breath catches and my traitorous cock twitches. “Me either.”

I watch as his lust-blown gaze flickers to my lips, and my heart hammers. “Can I kiss you again?”

My tongue darts out, and I pretend to hesitate even though I’ve wanted little else than a repeat of everything that happened that night a few weeks ago. He seems to loom in closer and how have I never noticed that he’s just that tiny bit taller than me?

Focus, James.

“Y-yeah,” I breathe my answer when there’s barely a sliver of space separating our mouths. “Please.”

With how close he was, I’m surprised that the meeting of our lips is so tentative and gentle. I was expecting him to slam his mouth on mine, like he did in that uncomfortable bed, and press me up against the wall.

I think I might have liked that.

But I like this, too.

This careful, gentle touch of skin on skin. It feels reverent, somehow. Like he’s taking his time memorising the feel and shape of my mouth. He hasn’t even licked his tongue out against the seam of my lips yet, just…kissing me sweetly, breathing me in the same way I’m trying to do with him.

But…that can’t be right. ‘Friends with benefits’ is just about shared orgasms, isn’t it? Not feelings .

Maybe I’m over thinking this. Maybe he’s just trying to get used to kissing a man without the haze of a rapidly impending orgasm fuelling his actions.

Not that mine isn’t rapidly impending, mind you. It’s kind of pathetic that I already feel like I’m teetering on the edge, with only the slow rub of his fully clothed bulge against my own, and a kiss so G-rated it could be televised to pre-schoolers.

Maybe if your erections are rubbing together it’s not really that G-rated, a snide voice in my head sneers. And it’s probably creepy to think about pre-schoolers right now, too.

What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with me?

All thoughts cease as Evan’s hand cradles the back of my head, tilting me backwards as his tongue gently parts my lips.

Someone whimpers.

I have a sneaking suspicion it’s me, especially when he makes a sexy as fuck growling sound and then the kiss fires up into the harder, more demanding one I was expecting from the start. A gasp is wrenched from my throat as I’m pushed against the door, fulfilling the fantasy I had only a few minutes ago, and Evan grinds into me, closing every single millimetre of space between our bodies.

At some point, Ev’s lips leave mine, but my sound of complaint morphs into a moan as he mouths over my jawline, then —oh, my God— nibbles on my earlobe.

“You’re so responsive,” he whispers, and his voice sounds so husky and strained, I want to record the sound and replay it over and over. “ God , Jay, you have no idea how hot you are, do you?”

I’m surprised my heart has enough blood to race as fast as it is, considering how painfully hard I am right now. “ Ev… ” I clutch at his arse, shamelessly rutting against him, wanting to beg but for what, I’m not sure.

“I don’t think we’ll even make it to your bed at this point,” he continues in that far-too-seductive voice, moving his kisses along from the shell of my ear to my neck. He sucks lightly on my Adam’s apple and — Christ — when did I throw my head back to give him the access? “I’m gonna jizz in my pants like we’re fourteen again.”

“Ev, I—” I start, then come to my senses, halting the confession that almost bubbled out of me in the heat of the moment.

Thankfully, the words that escaped me are innocuous enough that he just assumes I’m agreeing with him. Or on the cusp of pleading again. Or something.

The hand which was at my hip slides around and to the button of my jeans. “Can I—?” he asks.

I nod quickly. “ Yes .”

Whatever disappointment I feel from the loss of his body against mine is replaced by nervous anticipation as he pops my button and unzips my fly. My cock takes full advantage of the movement, pushing out into the newly opened space, forcing the precum-dampened front of my boxer briefs to bulge obscenely out of my pants.

Then my heart skips at least three beats as Evan sinks to his knees on the carpet in front of me, tugging my jeans and underwear down to my thighs.

“ Holy fuck ,” I breathe, looking down at him and the tableau he presents. My hand trembles as I reach for him, smoothing my palm over his hairless head. “Ev…” my voice comes out strangled and tight. I clear my throat. It doesn’t help. “Y-you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he’s quick to cut me off, gazing up at me with a hunger that quite literally takes my breath away. “Let me, baby. Please?”

Baby .

I’ve never really been one for pet names. I rarely use them, and nobody has ever called me anything but my name.

Except for Ev.

And when he calls me baby, I can’t quite describe the reaction it sets off inside me. It’s like fireworks and butterflies all at once. It makes my heart squeeze and race at the same time. It makes my palms sweat and my cock twitch and dribble.

He’s very aware of the latter. The dark pools of his irises shift from my face to my cock, and my skin burns from the intensity of his stare. When he looks back up at me again, repeating “Please?”, I manage a tiny nod.

I watch with rapt attention as he slides his hands up my fuzzy thighs, bracing himself with one while taking the other to my throbbing erection. He wastes no time from there, grasping me with confidence and thumbing the sticky, weeping tip, gathering up a smear of precum before sliding his thumb between his pink, kiss-swollen lips.

When he hums, as though pleased by the taste, my brain short-circuits.

“ Fuck ,” I whimper, my balls drawing up tight when he smirks up at me, looking very smug and very satisfied.

“Soon,” he winks. Then, before my brain can properly process what that means, his mouth closes around my weeping head and I moan loudly, the sound echoing through the stillness in my bedroom.

It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I last received a blow job. Ev obviously isn’t experienced in giving them, but the warm, wet suction and the twisting of his tongue feels so fucking good. Then there’s the fact that it’s Evan sucking me off, someone I love (as a best friend, but still) and that adds a whole new dimension which I’ve never really known before.

He grips the base of my cock and, using his spit for lube, squeezes and strokes what he can’t take inside his mouth. The sounds he’s making are like something out of a porno, all slurpy and messy and with the occasional gagging noise as he tries to take me further down his throat. In amongst all that, he’s moaning and there’s a distinctive fap-fap-fap sound underneath it all which, I realise, is him jerking himself off as he sucks me.

I don’t know when he let go of my thigh, or when he unzipped his own jeans, and I don’t care.

“ Oh my God ,” I moan and force my eyes open, also not quite sure as to when I shut them, and look down, trying to see everything. “E-Ev. Fuck. Ev. I don’t…I’m close. But I don’t…I don’t want…” He opens his own eyes and stares up at me, my cock still moving in and out of those plump, wet lips. There’s a sheen of moisture in his eyes, probably from all that gagging, and a delicious pink flush to his golden-coloured skin.

He’s fucking gorgeous , I think, not stopping to consider just how very not ‘friends with benefits’-like the thought is.

“ Ev ,” I plead urgently, “I don’t want to come yet. I don’t—” The arsehole that he is, he hollows his cheeks and sucks harder, then moans . “ Nnngh .”

I grit my teeth and try to stave off the inevitable. When he lets go of my shaft and fondles my balls, it’s all over. What little control I had evaporates and my orgasm thunders through me, forcing an incomprehensible shout from my lips as I erupt into his mouth.

I’m dimly aware of him swallowing .

“Jesus fuck,” I mutter, slumping against the wall, my legs feeling like jelly while my heart practically bounces around my chest cavity like it’s a ball in a pinball machine. I open bleary eyes to watch Ev lean back, still kneeling at my feet, jerking his cock in earnest.

That night at the camp, I didn’t dare chance a look down at him, but now I take my fill. He’s had my cock in his mouth, for fuck’s sake, so it should be okay for me to look at his, right?

He’s so hot , I think as I watch his hand shuttle up and down his length. His dick is what’s probably considered an average size, but I’ve only got my own and porn to compare it to. Not that I care about his size. I’ve held it in my hand and jerked it to orgasm, and it felt absolutely perfect then, just like it felt perfect rubbing against mine through layers of cotton and denim.

It’s darker than the rest of him, and an almost angry shade of purple at the head. I have the unexpected urge to know what it tastes like —what it feels like on my tongue— and I convince myself it’s only because he just sucked mine until I came.

We’ve always been a little competitive, in a friendly way.

Still, I don’t make a move to follow through on the random impulse, swallowing it back and watching as Ev pushes himself closer and closer to the edge. I can tell when he’s getting close. His chest heaves and his breathing gets ragged and raspy. He’s got a dark flush creeping into the collar of his shirt, and his eyes are turning glassy.

“Fuck,” the awed murmur escapes me as his hips still, “Ev…”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him how unbelievably sexy his little show is, but the words fade away into a gasp as he groans and spills over his fist, rivulets of creamy liquid dripping over his flawless skin.

I lick my lips, my heart thumping almost as hard as if I just came again. “That was…”

His eyes are hooded as he slumps backwards, a lazy, pleased smile on his face. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It was.”

***

It keeps happening. Some nights, I tell Mia that I’m grabbing a beer with Ev and then we wind up exchanging hand jobs in his car, or we get each other off in his apartment. Others, when she’s sleeping over a friend’s place, he comes over to mine and we barely even make it to the bedroom.

I haven’t ever had this much sex in my life, not even when I was at uni.

I feel like a teenager — constantly horny and ready to go at the drop of a hat, or zipper as it were.

And, as strange as it might sound, this whole friends with benefits thing seems to be making our friendship stronger. Ev and I hang out a lot more than we used to. We watch movies, talk about work, exchange orgasms, then fall into conversation about his indoor soccer team or plans for Mia’s school holidays. It’s effortless and fulfilling in ways I never imagined the arrangement could be.

Hell, if I could have a relationship like this, life would be perfect.

I mean a real relationship. Not a friendship with sex.

How is that different to a real relationship?

Thoughts like that one are dangerous and I push it aside, then attempt to bury it in the same place where I bury the rest of my ‘Do Not Touch’ memories.

“Penny for ’em?” Andi, one of my colleagues —the kind I consider a friend, though perhaps not a super close friend— asks as she drops down into the empty chair beside my desk. She spins around in it like a child, her red hair flying around her face with the motion. Her blue eyes sparkle at me as she prods, “Your thoughts. Penny for your thoughts?”

Understanding dawns over me as my brain sluggishly pulls out of the Evan-induced fog it has been in for weeks now. Months, even.

Years, if you’ll be honest with yourself.

That thought gets buried, too.

“Just…thinking about Mia and her school stuff,” I answer, and the lie comes so easily now that I wonder who I’m becoming.

Andi nods, her face lining with empathy. “They’re really putting you through the ringer, huh? All that time you have to take off…”

“Thankfully, Collin is really good about letting me do that,” I acknowledge.

“Yeah, well, you can do a lot of your job remotely,” Andi shrugs. “We all can. Why they insist on making us work in this office is beyond me. Well,” her tone turns a little snide, “aside from justifying the overpriced lease. I reckon commercial industries could topple the real estate market, given half a chance.”

“It’s one big conspiracy theory,” I agree placatingly, nodding my head. “I know.”

The thing is, she’s not wrong. I can do the bulk of my job from anywhere. I’m in marketing, and I can plan campaigns and analyse data without being in the office. We can even hold virtual meetings with clients and potential clients — something we do have to do more often than not, given that a lot of our clients are based interstate or overseas nowadays.

Nevertheless, I quite enjoy my job, and I consider myself lucky to have a boss who is happy to be as flexible with my hours as he is. I’m not going to rock the boat and complain about company policy when he can’t do much to change it, either. Andi has no such qualms.

“Anyway,” I cut her off before she can really get going on her usual rant, “It’s been, what, six months? Only another eighteen to go and then Mia will be graduating.”

“Less than eighteen months,” Andi nods. “Especially when you count school holidays.”

“Shit,” I look at the calendar, “June holidays are coming up soon.”

“Mia’s sixteen, she can fend for herself at home for a couple of weeks,” Andi waves my panic aside, her pink nail polish glittering in the light from the fluorescent bulbs above our heads. “It’s not like she’s a little kid who needs to be enrolled in vacation care.”

“I know, but I was hoping to spend some of the holidays with her,” I admit, feeling a bit crestfallen that, with all the time I’ve had to take off to deal with the school’s demands, I completely forgot to organise some actual time off work. “She already prefers hanging out with her friends over me. Once she graduates and is officially an adult…” I trail off, upset at how fast my kid is growing up.

Andi leans over and rubs my bicep. “There’s always the Chrissie hols.”

In another six months, and far harder to get time off because every man and his dog want time off over Christmas. Still, I nod. “And September, too.”

“That’s the spirit,” she cheers, oblivious to the flatness in my tone.

I whip my phone from my pocket to make a note to investigate the dates and blink at the text notification from Ev and about a hundred (okay, four ) missed calls from the school. My heartrate increases as I wonder what’s gone wrong.

“What’s up?” Andi leans over, craning her neck to peer at my phone screen.

Furrowing my brow, I tilt it away from her view. I don’t need her seeing anything racy from Ev and getting the wrong idea.

What , asks the voice in my head with droll amusement , like the silly idea that you’re fucking your best mate?

I ignore my inner monologue in preference of reading Ev’s text.

‘Mia’s sick. Picking her up cos school called me. Couldn’t get a hold of you.’

“Damn it,” I hiss, rapidly typing my response that I’ll meet him at my place before ramming my phone in my pocket. “Mia’s sick,” I explain as I shut my laptop and start gathering my things. “Ev’s picked her up, but I’ll tell Col that I’m working from home this afternoon.”

Andi’s expression droops, but then morphs into one of sympathy. “Poor thing,” she coos, pouting up at me once my laptop bag is packed and I’m pushing to my feet. “Hopefully it’s just a twenty-four-hour bug.”

I nod, grimacing. “I suppose that’s one benefit to having an almost-adult kid. I don’t need to chase her around the house with a vomit bucket and a towel.”

Scrunching her nose, Andi shakes her head. “I’m kind of glad I don’t have kids yet.”

“They’re not for the faint of heart.” I pat down my pockets, checking for my phone, wallet, and keys.

Andi sighs and gets up, out of the seat at the spare desk. She gives me a lop-sided smile. “Maybe I need to find a guy who has already done all the hard work for me, and then I can be a cool stepmum to a nice, easy, independent teenager.”

I chuckle, thinking about how much work it has been chaperoning other peoples’ teens, and I shake my head. “Teenagers are harder work than toddlers, I reckon.” I crane my neck around her, attempting to peer into Collin’s office. His door is open and, thankfully, he’s at his desk. “I’ve gotta run,” I say, easing around her and heading in my boss’s direction. Over my shoulder, I add, “ I’ll be logged into Teams in about an hour.”

Andi lets out what sounds like a frustrated sigh, but I can’t help that my kid is sick. Even though Ev is perfectly capable of keeping an eye on her for a few hours, she’s still my responsibility and I want to make sure she’s okay.