Friends With Benefits

She’d had sex before, even been ordered around, but it was different with Carter. Everything he was doing was better, more considered. His shoulders were wide, keeping her legs pinned to the wall when she would have tried to take control of the situation. The brush of his thumb on her clit was practiced and precise, the angle calculated just right to touch her where she needed to be touched the most.

The rush of pleasure hit her hard, shoving her off the edge of the cliff with wild abandon.

Her cry of climax rent the still air of the stairwell. Carter soothed her gently, tonguing her lightly until she stopped shuddering and regained some measure of normalcy.

“That was really great work, Carter,” she joked, giving his shoulder a friendly pat to try to make it normal when she felt anything but. She had no idea what this meant for them, but it was too late to stop now. He’d knocked down the door and she didn’t have the tools to put it back up at the moment.

His blue eyes turning smoky, he rose and pulled her into him. She fought for the kiss this time, aggressively sucking his tongue into her mouth and running her hand over his straining erection. She wanted more of him, wanted the heavy weight pulsing under her hand inside her.

Unzipping his pants slowly, her eyes met Carter’s. It was officially the last gasp of their friendship, because there was no going back now.

She hesitated for just a split second, enjoying her new view but also to tamp down the terror that edged her buzz that Carter would want more than she could give if they went through with this. Adding sex to their friendship was basically putting them into relationship zone, which generally included those messy emotions she liked to keep in check.

She pushed the worry aside because she was sure Carter didn’t want anything serious, either. He was even leaving town, so they were safe. Switching their positions, she pushed him back against the wall and ran her hands over his chest.

She met his eyes as her hands moved lower and lower, and his flared as she came to his kelly-green boxer briefs. The color delighted her since she knew it was his favorite. She pulled them down and let his cock spring free.

Grinning at him and what she’d revealed, she murmured, “I just didn’t know what I was missing, did I?”

He kissed her hard, letting their desire rage out of control.

Her heart beating rapid-fire, she tore away from the kiss and nipped and licked her way down his chest and abdomen and finally ran her tongue up the length of his impressive cock. Thick, long and gorgeous, she wrapped her hands around him, feeling his hardness and heat as he throbbed against her hand in time to her own pulse.

Breaking eye contact, she leaned down and took the tip of him into her mouth, loving his growl of pleasure. She fell in, taking his length, tasting, sucking, caressing until his muscles tensed. Increasing the pressure, she slid up, almost letting him slide out of her mouth before taking him all the way in again. She loved the feel of him on her tongue, his skin, his musky smell. Her core squeezed in pleasure as the first salty drops of come greeted her tongue.

His big hands ran through her hair, pulling just a little. The time for slow was over; she was too turned on for finesse and she handled him easily, alternating between hard and soft pressure, fast and slow speed until his whole body froze against her.

“Alexa, stop, I’m there,” he growled, his voice raspy and strained.

She didn’t listen, sucking harder until he came apart in her mouth. It was the least a best friend could do. The pressure of his fingers on her skull intensified and she swallowed him down, licking around the tip to finish.

Lifting her head, she met his eyes, seeing a fierceness she’d never witnessed before in them.

Just then the door creaked open and her heart stopped. In an instant, Carter had himself zipped and her pushed behind him so the two uniformed Elysium employees didn’t see her face.

The two men exchanged greetings with Carter and her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. Christ, she’d had sex in weird places before, but never this public and never with Carter.

Once the two men had reached the second floor, Carter helped put on her shirt. He watched her, his deep blue gaze intent and focused on her face as he straightened out the hem of her camisole. They were both breathing hard.

“You okay?” he asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

She nodded and the moment of awkward silence seemed to stretch out for minutes instead of the actual seconds it was.

“Well, that’s a first for our friendship,” she tried, giving a forced laugh.

He shook his head at her lame attempt at humor. “My place or yours?”

The question jolted her back to reality. Sleeping with Carter would be the biggest mistake of her life if she lost him afterward. Her love life track record wasn’t exactly filled with functional long-term relationships. For Christ’s sake, her nickname in Vegas was literally the Disposal, because that’s where all her men ended up, thrown away and emotionally mangled beyond recognition.

She also had serious doubts about whether or not she could be in a real relationship. Her parents’ deaths had turned the entire trajectory of her life around. One minute she’d been a carefree sixteen-year-old, and the next she was the girl who everybody pitied because her parents died. It had taken her years to feel like Alexa again and not just a pity case. It made her extremely hesitant to enter into a relationship where not only would she have to deal with someone leaving her again, but that it would be Carter. He was her last link to what she would always think of as the happiest time of her life.

He took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t chicken out now.”

“Sleeping together would hurt our friendship,” she entreated, catching his gaze.

He drew her back into his arms and heat again, and it felt natural and right. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “I don’t like the way you fold your clothes in rolls. It would drive me nuts to be in a relationship with you.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t know your excuses could get any lamer. We’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe I could wear a wig or something.”

She felt his chest rumble against her as he chuckled. “What?”

“You know, like I’ll wear a wig and sneak into your house and have my way with you and then we’ll pretend I was a girl named Marci and never speak of it again. Then we’ll return to our regularly scheduled friendship.”

He nudged her chin up so she could see him. “Is this something you do with guys?”

“Yeah, it’s called role-playing and it happens, Carter.”

“Jesus, Alexa, you’re fucking killing me.” He took her mouth again, quick and rough.

Taking a deep breath, the familiar scent of his clean cologne hit her like a brick wall of need.

Then her phone rang. Pulling it out of her bag, she saw that it was Carter’s mom. The woman who’d, for all intents and purposes, filled in for her own mother after she died. Carter’s mom had been the one to buy Alexa the dress she’d worn for the funeral, the one who, along with her uncle, had held her hand during the service as the priest droned on and on about people he only barely knew. For an instant, Alexa thought about not answering, but it was the second call she’d missed from her today and she felt ashamed.

Carter saw who was calling and blew out an annoyed breath.

By the time the conversation was over and Carter’s mom had reminded her to bring her famous brownies to Sunday dinner, Alexa realized what a mistake she’d been about to make. Carter and his family were her family. If she and Carter didn’t work out—and all signs pointed to her not making an actual adult relationship work—she wouldn’t just be losing him.

She stepped out of his arms and out from under the stairwell.

Meeting his eyes, reading the disappointment already there, she said it anyway. “I’m sorry, Carter, but we can’t do this.”

CHAPTER FIVE (#u858095a9-30e7-57c1-8bd3-0d4fe0c73b74)

ALEXA WOKE UP with a pounding headache, knowing she’d totally fucked up. She grabbed at her phone on the pillow beside her, cringing at the eleven missed calls and ten urgent text messages from her uncle.

After her parents died, Uncle John had raised her with unconditional love and support and all she ever wanted was to make him proud. She’d been an okay student, but as soon as Uncle John told her she’d only have the casinos one day if she applied herself, she’d gotten her shit together and graduated at the top of her business class in college. He’d given her a purpose at a time in her life where she’d felt rudderless, and it was absolutely killing her that she was basically crapping all over the opportunities he’d given her.

His first text was a link to the local paper, so she tapped it with enough trepidation that a pit of dread opened up in her gut. Glaring at her in bright white light on the homepage of the Las Vegas Gazette was an enormous picture of her and Carter in Elysium’s stairwell. Her legs were wrapped around him and they were basically sucking each other’s faces off. In that light, the rest of her uncle’s text messages, which were some variation of FIX IT, made much more sense.

She groaned, a sound from deep in the bottom of her chest. And she’d thought yesterday had been a shitty day.

Calling her uncle, she prepared herself for his disappointment and the reiteration of his earlier directive to clean up her image. It was exactly what he delivered.

“I’m calling Carter, too,” her uncle expounded, fuming. “The Carter Hayes I know has more respect for women than to put them in compromising positions like that. He should be ashamed of himself.”