Lo sucks in a breath, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling, clearly losing patience. She pulls out her phone and taps at the screen for a minute before addressing me.
“Oh,” she says, a shocked expression on her face.
“What?”
“Jess is out to dinner…with Henry.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask, unable to read her reaction.
“It’s really good.” She taps out another text. “He also has no idea Eric’s in town. He would’ve been blowing my phone up.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking, before continuing, “I’m not going to bother him with this tonight. Jess hates him. He’d just worry if he knew, and he has enough on his plate.”
“So, you’ll come home with me tonight.”
“What did you tell Eric? How did you guys get him to leave?” Lo ignores my statement.
“Nothing.” I shrug. “He realized it was a fight he couldn’t win.” With a few friendly words and a not-so-friendly send-off from Matty, but I leave that part out.
“I don’t have a ride home,” Lo admits, as if suddenly remembering. “Jess has the car.”
“So it’s settled. You’re staying at my place. Friends, remember?”
The second half of my shift seemed to drag on longer than the goddamn Cold War. I don’t know what I was thinking…insisting she stay over when I can’t touch her. Just friends. Just this once, we’d said.
Now she’s here, on my couch, in my space. It’s completely foreign, having her here, yet something about it just fits.
“Do you want me to wash your clothes?” I ask, gesturing to her work shirt. She never ended up changing like she usually does after her shift at Blackbear.
“God, yes. I smell like grease.”
She doesn’t, but I don’t argue. Instead, I tell her to wait there while I change into a pair of gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt before grabbing extras for her.
She stands when I approach, holding out the clothes for her to take. “Bathroom’s—” I start, but Lo strips off her shirt, letting it fall the floor. Next is her bra. It’s simple and white, and I can see the outline of her pink nipples through the thin material.
“What are you doing?” I ask, swallowing hard as she turns her back to me, then reaches behind to unclasp the band.
“Getting dressed,” she says simply, holding her hand out in my direction. I toss her the shirt, and she pulls it over her head. She turns back around, my shirt hitting mid-thigh, then pulls down her pants and underwear together in one move. I hand her the sweatpants and she unfolds them, holding them in front of her hips before tossing them at my chest.
“Too big,” she explains, and my mind is instantly in the gutter. Lo scoops up her discarded clothes. “Where’s your washer?”
“I’ll take them.” Lo hesitates but hands them over and sits down on my couch cross-legged, her shirt riding up to her thighs but still managing to cover her bare pussy. I clench my teeth together and turn for the laundry room to keep myself from spreading those thighs open and burying my face between them. I look down at the pile of clothes in my hands, a scrap of white material sticking out of her jeans, and I mutter a curse under my breath before tossing them into the washer.
“You don’t have a TV?” Lo asks when I return. It’s always everyone’s first question.
“Nope. You hungry?” I open the fridge, looking for something to offer her, even though I basically only have beer, water, and eggs.
“Not really. I’ll take a beer, though, after this day.”
Relieved that I don’t have to try to throw something together, I grab two and hand her one as I sit next to her.
“Move in recently?” Lo asks after taking a swig, scanning the bare interior.
“Nah. I’ve lived here for years, actually. I just haven’t made it home yet.” I used to have a pool table to take up some of the open space, but I took it to the shop for the waiting room. I spent years renovating the place, making it my own…but when it was finished, it still didn’t feel like mine. If I bothered to psychoanalyze it, I’m sure it would boil down to constantly jumping from foster family to foster family, never really having a place to call home.
Lo yawns, stretching her arms over her head. Her nipples strain against the fabric of the shirt that inches farther up her thighs with the movement, so close to showing what’s between them. She’s taunting me, again. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
“About last night…” she changes the subject, addressing the elephant in the room. One of them, at least. “You said being with me was a mistake.”
“It was,” I say truthfully, and she swallows hard, keeping her expression neutral to mask the sting from my words. Always trying to play it cool, this girl. “But not in the way you’re thinking.” Her eyes meet mine, and I decide to lay it out there. We’ve already crossed the line. “It was a mistake to hire you because now I have to see you without having you every day. It was a mistake to sleep with you because I want to do it again.”
“Why can’t we?” Lo asks in that seductively sweet voice, her lips settling in a pout. I want to feel that mouth wrapped around me, sucking me, while she looks up at me from her knees.
“We said just friends,” I remind her, my voice coming out huskier than I intended. Lo rises to her knees and lifts a knee to straddle me, giving me a flash of pink before seating herself on my lap.
“I’m a shitty friend.” She’s grinding into me, only my sweatpants between us. “Besides,” she whispers, her lips ghosting along the shell of my ear, “sometimes, friends fuck.”
Lo’s hands reach for the band on my sweats before her warm hand circles my cock. I should stop her. She’s been harassed and manhandled, and here I am, fighting my desire to throw her down and make her mine.
Mine. What the fuck?
She isn’t mine. Not even close.
Lo pulls me out of my pants, and all thoughts of stopping this die as she shifts forward, sliding my dick between her lips. My hands land on the tops of her thighs, gripping hard.
“Fuck, Lo.”
Her eyes close and her hands brace against my shoulders as she rocks against me, cradling my cock in the warmest, wettest fucking heaven. It would be so easy to shift my hips and thrust inside her. One little move is all it would take.
“Do friends do this?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I growl, smoothing my hands up to squeeze her ass, pulling her into me.
“What about…best friends?” she asks, breathless.
“If they do, I’ll be you best fucking friend forever.”
Lo giggles, and the sound makes my dick twitch. I push her shirt up, and she lifts her arms for me. Pale tits are decorated with purple marks from last night and the sight shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. I flatten my hands against her back, pulling her closer, then softly kissing and licking each mark. Lo sucks in a breath, hands sliding through my hair to keep me close. I suck on her, leaving my mark on her shoulder, collarbone, and underneath her ear while her breathing becomes ragged.
“Don’t make me beg.” Lo’s so wet that my sweats are a darker shade of gray beneath her. I fist her hair in my hands, scraping my teeth along the side of her neck.