“Okay,” I say, my curiosity overriding my hesitance to forever alter our relationship. There’s no going back from this, but I want to give Ollie something he loves. Ollie obviously loves sex. I’m done with my period, so that’s no longer a valid excuse. “Let’s practice.”
His entire expression lights up. He kisses my lips. Closed mouth, of course. “This makes me very happy, Liv. Very happy. Come on.” He takes my hand and leads me upstairs, pausing only to shut off the lights. “Normally, sexual desire and a flood of neurochemicals would progress quickly from this point, but I request that you perform your nighttime rituals first so that you will be as comfortable and relaxed as possible. This will be a practice run, but we need to keep things as close to the way they will be when it matters if we are to make the necessary adjustments.”
I wince through the stabbing pain in my chest at his comparison to all the other times he’s led a woman upstairs. It’s only a small relief that his goal was never to make a baby with any of them. “Are you going to perform your nighttime rituals, too?”
“Yes,” he responds simply, ushering me into the bedroom we’ll share for a few months. “You may have the bathroom first. I will prepare things here in the meantime. Please do not skip any steps in your normal routine, but I must also ask that you refrain from using any overly scented products.”
I grin at him. “So, no primping for you?”
His expression is serious. “Absolutely not. It is unnecessary for you to alter yourself in any way for this to be successful. I have always been attracted to you. Becoming aroused enough to penetrate you will not be one of the issues we may need to address.”
His words stop me in my tracks.
I place a hand over his heart that’s beating wildly beneath my fingers.
He covers it with his own and stares at me like he’s waiting impatiently to answer more questions.
“You’ve always been attracted to me?”
“You are beautiful,” he says firmly. “Why should this be a surprise?”
“You never told me,” I whisper.
He frowns. “Our best friends relationship did not allow for me to confess my attraction to you.”
“Have you never come across the term friends with benefits?” It’s a horrible question and so much less than I’ve ever wanted from Ollie. With his proclivity for sex though, I can’t believe he didn’t at least broach the possibility.
He nods, but his frown deepens. “I am familiar with the term. I am also familiar with the way that arrangement typically ends. To be clear, it is not good. We are still best friends because we never entered into that sort of doomed from the start agreement with each other. If anything, it would have made far more sense to draw up plans for marrying each other if we did not find a more suitable life partner before our thirtieth birthday.”
I gape at him. “We aren’t thirty yet. Would you like to draw up those plans? Your mother would be thrilled.”
“That,” he whispers, his eyes darting between mine. “Is a very big reward, which should warrant the requisite amount of hard work to achieve. I am afraid two months would not be long enough to convince you. My mother’s wishes should not be a factor in your consideration of choosing me as your life partner.”
“It wouldn’t take much convincing,” I mutter. “How is a baby not also a very big reward which requires hard work?”
His brow furrows as he thinks about how to answer. “Making a baby will not necessarily feel like work. For me. More so for you. Many people conceive children with no thought at all. Raising a child would be a lifetime commitment. Allowing me to have a meaningful role in our child’s life would be something else for me to earn. Though I would have nine months to prove my worth in that regard.”
“You’re worthy, Oliver. You have nothing to prove to me,” I insist.
“It is the only way I know,” he says, closing his eyes then resting his head against mine. “I have never attempted such life-altering feats before. Please do not minimize their magnitude by asking me to act thoughtlessly and selfishly.”
I wrap my arms around him and whisper against his chest, “We don’t have to do this, Oliver. You’re the best friend in the world to commit yourself to giving me something you know I want so badly, but it has to be what you want, too. Please don’t saddle me with the guilt of burdening you with responsibilities you’re not ready for. I can’t bear that.”
He pulls away, then lifts my chin with his hand. His gaze is steady. “I am ready, Liv. I never believed I would be given this chance. Thank you for giving it to me.”
How can I possibly say no to that? We’ll deal with the consequences later.
10
Oliver
There is always a certain undercurrent of potential distractions and anxieties that threaten my focus at any given time. I’ve learned how to harness them and use them to my advantage. The annoyance of a ticking clock on the wall at my office becomes the steady pace at which I write code when I might otherwise rush too quickly and make careless errors. The honking of other car horns during rush hour prevents me from spacing out and writing more code in my mind when I should be concentrating on the road in front of me. An annoying tag at the back of my shirt that feels like knives repeatedly stabbing my neck keeps me engaged in a conversation that I might otherwise try to avoid. Even language is not as painful as some of those awful tags.
Forgoing my own pleasure until the woman reached orgasm was not difficult to achieve because the woman standing naked in my bedroom was never Olivia.
To be clear, Olivia is standing naked in my bedroom.
I have been poring over every miniscule detail of her nude body for twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds. Far beyond what is socially acceptable. Worse yet, I have not uttered a single word. How can I? Words have no meaning. The most contrived compliment in the world could never do justice to her full, pear-shaped breasts, the pale pink nipples that are hardened into stiff peaks—she is visibly aroused by the sight of my naked body, too—or the way her torso resembles an hourglass with a narrow waist and hips that flare out again and promise that she is a very fertile woman, indeed.
Her obvious fecundity will make my job easier. And infinitely harder. Much like my erection. This could be the first problem to address.
I am feeling greedy, gluttonous, covetous, ravenous, insatiable…selfish.
I want nothing more than to dive at her, bury myself so far into her that I will never be able to escape, and empty every part of me into every part of her so that we will be bound as one long after death.
That is not how any of this works.
“Ollie,” she whispers.
My name on her tongue almost breaks me. This is not any woman. This is my Liv.
“Lie on the bed,” I bark a little too harshly. If I do not get some control over myself, this will be a wasted practice run. There are certain conditions which must be met that I am in grave danger of overruling in favor of my own animalistic desires.
She glances at the mattress that is carefully laid out with helpful tools to increase our chances. “Where?”
I point to the wedge-shaped pillow aligned with the center of the bed. “This is to increase the angle of your hips relative to the mattress to allow for deeper penetration. You need to adjust yourself so that it can do its job.”