Page 15 of Double Dirty

“I don’t care about that. You look like you could use a friend,” she protested. Lexi was trying to hug me. I was trying not to hug her back. The next thing I knew, I had my arms around her, crushing her to me like I was trying to hold onto everything that was still pure and good in the universe. I choked out a sob, “They were just sixteen,” I managed.

She was kissing my smoky hair, my filthy, blackened face. I turned my head, captured her mouth with mine. She didn’t pull away. She responded to me hungrily, taking my tongue in her mouth, opening for me, her hands greedy on my shoulders and neck. Her hands roamed down my chest, pulled my t-shirt out of my jeans and dragged it off of me, breaking the kiss only long enough to strip me bare.

“Why are you home?” I said against her soft, sweet lips.

“Waiting for you. I was going to make you breakfast and tuck you in before I went to the office, but when you were late, I called in for half a day. I thought you might need me.”

“I do need you,” I said roughly. “I need you in every way right now.”

“Then you can have me in every way, Leo,” she said. She smiled at me knowingly.

“You’re kidding,” I said stupidly.

“No, I’m not. I want to take the pain away, Leo. I want to make you feel like the hero you are. Show me how.”

“God, Lexi—you can’t mean that. Do you know how long I’ve wanted you?”

“About as long as I’ve wanted you. When I got hurt, and you held me and kissed my hair, you were rubbing the back of my neck real slow. It made me so wet, Leo. I was so embarrassed, because here the two of you were being the best friends I’d ever had and wanting to keep me safe and I was getting wet for you,” she sounded embarrassed.

I had my hands on her hips then, my lips seeking hers, brushing against them, clinging. My hands were inside her blouse, the buttons on the floor somewhere and only her hot smooth skin under my palms. I held her against me, backed her into my bedroom. I stripped the blouse off of her, then her bra. Before I could say a word, I was on my knees like I was ready to worship. Her hands were in my hair as my lips closed over one rosy nipple, drawing on it, making it tight and stiff. I gathered all of her in my arms, wanting to hold everything at once.

Lexi gasped, her hands on my face, guiding me up to her lips and kissing me again. She tasted me, the soft feel of her tongue in my mouth making me hungry for more. We tumbled back onto my bed, my hands and mouth full of her. This was Lexi, alive and vibrant, safe, and mine at last. I was going to make it good for her, so good she’d never forget. I needed her, needed to bury myself inside her, remember what it meant to feel alive, to connect with someone. I knew in her body I could find everything I needed. All thoughts of my conversation with Rafe the night before left my head.

I rolled her onto her back, her arms still around me. I kissed her lips again and again, then her neck and her collarbone.

As if she’d read my mind, she briefly broke the kiss. “Let me say it’s because you had a bad call, you couldn’t save the people in the car. Let me say it’s that I wanted to comfort you, and we got carried away,” she says breathlessly.

Before I could tell her that I’d take the blame with Rafe, she pressed her lips to mine again and I was lost. I rocked back on my side, taking her with me, cradling her against me, my mouth on her cheek, her jaw. Holding her was a luxury; something I’d wanted to do for so long.

“You stayed home for me, to wait for me,” I said, unable to tell her how much that meant to me, “to make sure I was okay.”

“You needed me. I think maybe I knew you would.”

“I don’t even care why you stayed,” I admitted, “I just care that you’re here now.”

“I’m here, Leo,” Lexi said, my name in her mouth as I kissed her again.

It was fast and blurry, a sweaty coupling on my rumpled bed. She had been right about how long we’d both wanted it, because there was no time for finesse, no time for a slow and tender awakening. My fingers trailed down her stomach into her damp nest of curls. She’d writhed against my hand, proving how ready she was from just a few kisses. I reached over her head to the bedside table, fumbled in the drawer for a condom. I had it open and rolled it on before I dipped my head to taste her nipple, to nip at it and tease her, making sure she was slick and ready. I opened her with my fingers, stroking her seam, and settled between her thighs. I kissed her neck, behind her ear and whispered how much I needed her. I pushed my cock inside her, felt her spreading and flaring around me. She was small and tight, a pulse of pleasure rolling through me already.

I caught my breath when she wrapped her legs around my hips, urging me on. I brushed back her hair, my mouth on hers. I took her gasps and moans into my mouth, tasting every sound that I stroked from her with my thrusts. She was delicious, responsive. I came fast and hard, lost in hersweet, hot flesh. As I withdrew, I put my fingers on her, petted her, stroked her until I felt her legs quiver, her back arch. Her teeth dug into her lower lip. I licked her ear, circled her sensitive nub with my thumb, dipping and rubbing until she came apart under my hand. I crushed her against me, letting her ragged breathing slow down and settle. She held on to me, my lips against her hair. She slept for an hour, naked and tangled up with me. I drew the sheet over us, reveled in the warmth of her soft body curled up against me, her hair tumbling over my shoulder and arm.

When she stirred, her arms went around me, hugging me to her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” I said, still basking in the afterglow.

“That was a mistake, Leo. It was supposed to make it better. But it’s made everything worse,” she met my eyes reluctantly, her bottom lip quivering.

“What do you mean? It didn’t feel like a mistake, Lexi, it felt like paradise.”

I shook my head in disbelief, not wanting to hear that she regretted being with me.

“That’s just it, Leo. I knew what I was doing, and I thought if we gave in to it, to this attraction, we could get it out of our system and move on as friends. That we could, I don’t know, scratch an itch and get past it. I was supposed to stop wanting you. I was supposed to be able to share this with you and decide we were better off as friends and roommates. But this made everything worse. Because I still want you. I want you even more now,” she said, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

I felt like my chest had been clawed open and light spilled into it. I crushed her in my arms. It felt so good to hold her, to know that she was shaken by the connection that I had sensed too. That she didn’t get me out of hersystem, that she still wanted me the way I wanted her. I was overjoyed. There was no other way to describe it. I fell to kissing her, my mouth on hers as natural as anything.

“You’re everything I want, Lexi,” I whispered against her ear, moving my mouth to kiss her neck.

She shook her head and pulled away, “I’m sorry. I can’t stay here. This was a horrible thing to do to you and to Rafe, to your friendship. You were the best friends I’ve ever had and look what I did to you. I’ve ruined everything,” she said, her expression twisting in an agony of self-blame.