“Where are your condoms?”
Fuck. Where were they? I didn’t bring girls back home, so they weren’t conveniently in the nightstand.
“In the bathroom,” I said after a moment, lifting her off my hips. She stopped me by placing her hands on my chest.
“I’ll get them.”
“Under my sink, in the back behind the giant box of bandages.”
She tiptoed to the bathroom and crouched, shuffling things around until she found what she was looking for.
As she closed the door, I got a good look at her. My God, everything about her was just stunning. I think I’d always known that, always admired how beautiful she was. But the opportunity to openly stare was more than I could really fathom. I wanted to tell her how incredible she was, how beautiful she looked. But seconds after she’d closed the door to the bathroom, she was back at the bed, covering my body with hers and kissing me once again.
My hand slid into her hair, holding her to me as a wave of tenderness unlike anything else I’d experienced barreled over me. My other arm came around her back, anchoring her. I was both ready and not ready for this, for Navy.
I could be content just holding her like this for as long as she would let me. It was a revelation. My fingers glided up and down her spine, in a lazy kind of massage.
“Mmmm,” she murmured against my mouth and then nuzzled my neck. “That feels so good.”
But I wanted more. I slipped my hand between her legs and felt for her opening, teasing her lips with my fingers until the legs straddling my hips spread wider, giving me more access.
Fuck, she was warm and open and everything. I started off teasing her opening, and when she had just begun to relax against my hand, I slipped two fingers inside and pumped roughly once.
She made a noise in her throat and tossed her head back, empowering me to continue the rough thrusts, over and over until her body began to tremble. I curled my fingers and pressed my thumb to her clit, loving the way she ground down on my hand. She was illuminated. And it was such a fucking privilege to get to witness her undoing.
She threw the condom she’d held in a death grip at my chest. “Put it on, I’m close,” she said between heavy pants.
Which only encouraged me to keep it up, to follow her trembling until she was completely shaking—her whole body taut like a tensed rope.
“Keane.” She laughed.
“That’s my name,” I said, amused and enthralled.
“Keane,” she repeated, more breathy. Her voice was ragged, her nails dug into my shoulders and then her mouth opened to cry out as she fell forward, her face buried in my neck. Her moan muffled by my skin, but the vibration of it made everything in me strain for a similar release. Quickly, I pulled the condom on and rolled her onto her back.
She opened her legs for me like we’d done this a dozen times and without giving her a second to breathe, I was inside of her.
I didn’t think there were words for what it’s like to be inside of a woman for the first time. But I knew for a fucking fact that weren’t words for being inside of a woman you deeply cared about. It was some full circle kind of thing, like finding a piece to a puzzle you’d known your whole life, a puzzle piece you didn’t know you were missing.
She bloomed under me, her eyes all sleepy with pleasure and her mouth open as I thrust over and over again.
I’d never get this image—her chest pink from my mouth and beard, her lips pursed in pleasure and her eyes locked with mine in the dark—out of my mind.
I wanted her to come again, but my own climax was already steps ahead before I’d ever slid the condom on. As I came, I pumped harder, faster, going and going as my arms ached until her back arched off the bed and her eyes closed tightly, that incredible little moan purring from her throat once again.
I fell to the side of the bed, my head swimming from the alcohol and her. Rolling out of the bed, I pulled the condom off and went into the bathroom to dispose of it in the trash.
When I climbed back into the bed, I grabbed the covers and covered us both. Her eyes were closed, but she made a sound of agreement once her naked body was covered in my sheets.
She rolled to her side against me, pressing her lips to my shoulder and within what felt like only a minute, I could hear the deep, even cadence of her breaths as she’d fallen asleep.
And it didn’t take long until I followed her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
8
NAVY
“Oh,” I said, pressing a hand to my forehead. Blurry images of too many shots and too much skin battled in my mind. My forehead felt clammy to the touch, and I looked around the blindingly bright room for a semblance of understanding.
“Damn it,” I whispered, realizing I’d fallen asleep with my contacts in. One of them was MIA while the other had folded itself under my eyelids. I tapped gently along my eyelid, straightening out the one contact I had until I could see the room at least through one eye.
Keane’s room. That was clear. But as I stared at the dark mass beside the bed, underwear I clearly recognized as my own hung on a laundry basket. Following the trail from there to where I currently sat up in a bed, I took in the shirt that was mine and the other shirt that was not mine but I still recognized. Quickly, I lifted the blanket covering me, only to see myself as naked as the day I was born.
“No,” I whispered, my hand sliding to cover my lips. “No, no, no.” My eyes slid shut as my whispers echoed the horror I felt to the bone. “We didn’t.”
“We did.”
One of my eyes—the one that could see clearly—popped open, meeting Keane who leaned against the bathroom door, taking me in as I took him in. His voice was scratchy, deep, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. I didn’t know what to think myself.
I closed my eyes. I had no idea what to say. The scratch of the cheap sheets under my very bare bottom made it very clear what had gone down last night.
Going down. A flash of Keane’s mouth going down on my body flitted behind my lids and I felt my hands tremble where they gripped the sheets.
“I’m guessing this is as surprising to you as it is to me.”
Realization smacked me like a brick to the side of my head. “Megan.” It nearly took my breath away. “You…”
“We’re not together anymore.”
My brows furrowed. “Since when? Last night, or this morning?”
“Does it matter?”
I leveled him with my gaze. “It does to me.”
“A few days ago.”
The crease between my brows deepened. “You didn’t tell me.” Keane was supposed to be my best friend. I mean, yes, we’d crossed the line the night before but if he had broken up with his pretty serious girlfriend days ago and I was just now hearing about it—what did that mean about us being best friends?
“Are you really surprised?”
I paused. “Yes, I am, but what surprises me more is the fact that we are in this predicament.” I gauged his face, waiting for a reaction. It wasn’t every day that you woke up naked in your strictly platonic best friend’s bed.
“Let’s unpack this for a minute.” He sat at the very end of the bed, and it was automatic for me to pull my outstretched legs closer to the rest of my body. I subtly created distance as I tried to understand what had just happened between us. I shoved the comforter deeper into my armpits to more securely hold it to my chest. “You’re surprised that my relationship is over?”