Don't You Dare (Reckless Games #1)

by C.E. Ricci

To the lifelong friends that are more like family. To the few who’ve stuck by my side through it all. This one’s for you.

True love exists in moments stumbled upon by accident… — Atticus

The first brush of contact is electric, coiling my intestines in knots. I’m surprised by how soft his lips are and how gently they move against mine. I wouldn’t think Aspen capable of being able to kiss like this. Sweet and sensual. Tender.

capable of shattering in his hands, and right now, I think it’s very possible I could. It’s the strangest feeling in the world.

hand reaches up, cupping the side of his jaw to tilt his head right where I want it. A tiny part of me has the urge to deepen the kiss, maybe slip my tongue out just to fuck with him, but I rein myself in enough to keep it a simple press of our lips.

His tongue brushes against my bottom lip, and my entire body lights up like an inferno. My pulse kicks up into overdrive, and that electric feeling from earlier intensifies. And as my cock twitches behind my zipper, starting to thicken, I realize what it is.

“Oh, fuck off,” Pen mutters, releasing me entirely as he clears his throat too. “It’s not like it meant anything. Just fulfilling another stupid dare.” “Yeah.” I swallow. “Just a stupid dare.”

But the way my heart’s hammering against my ribs, far harder than it should be, tells me it was so much more than that.

No matter how many friends he has or how popular he gets as the years pass, I’m still his number one. Just like he’s mine. We might’ve been basically family since we were born, but we still choose each other. Always have, always will. And damn if that doesn’t make me feel like a million bucks.

He turns his face toward me, a small smirk tilting his lips. “Dude, that was only two. On fire is three. How drunk are you?” Pretty drunk, apparently. And with him this close, his mouth only inches from mine…the feeling of intoxication only gets worse.

“Well, Waters. Don’t you dare?” The feeling gets stronger, spiking my heart rate. “Just get on with it, baby girl. We’ve got another game to win after this.”

She bites her lip for a second, a clear sign of indecision. But then she says, “I dare you to make out with Aspen.” Just like that, I’m hit with a bucket of cold water. In fact, I’ve gone from drunk to stone-cold sober as her words register in my brain.

I know for a fact she wasn’t there the one and only other time Pen and I kissed, since it was after she and Frankie had broken up.

“Fucking done,” Pen mutters, turning to me and grabbing the back of my neck.

An aching want fills my veins at the same time panic seizes me. Because this time, it wouldn’t just be a dare. It didn’t even end up being just a dare last time, and it certainly wouldn’t be just kissing between two straight best friends.

I open my mouth to say it. To tell him everything. That, even though he’s the only guy I’ve kissed, ever since that night, I can’t stop thinking about wanting to just grab him by the shirt and haul his mouth to mine again. That I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, either, besides being completely scared shitless that he can somehow read my mind and know what I’m thinking whenever he looks at me.

“It wasn’t anything.” He shakes his head and steps closer, pointing an index finger at me. “I don’t believe that for a second, Keene. I know you too well. If it was nothing, then why wouldn’t you kiss me?”

This is about to be the most ridiculous argument ever between two guys who are supposedly straight.

“I’m not anyone; I’m your best friend. Who does whatever you want, by the way. Whenever you pull me into your shit and ask me to do things with you that I hate, I still go. I try. Because that’s what we do for each other.”

“Aspen, the saint. Always putting everyone before himself, right?” I snap right back. I know it’s the wrong thing to say almost immediately. In fact, I’m about ready to yeet myself out this fifth-floor window for being such a dick. But if I’m gonna dig a damn grave by continuing to lie to him, I might as well bury myself in it too.

“Jesus Christ, Pen. Just drop it.” His nostrils flare, and he steps closer. And I can tell. That this is just the beginning. He’s locked in on this now, like a hound on the scent, and there’s no way he’s giving up that easily. We’re not the type to keep shit from each other, after all. Not the small stupid shit, and definitely not something as life-altering as this, no matter the catalyst of it all.

“Bullshit, Kee. I call fucking bullshit,” he snarls, his arm cutting through the air. “You can’t lie to me, remember? I know when you do.” Except I have been. For over a year, and you’re only just now catching on.

“I didn’t want to kiss you because I didn’t want it to mess me up all over again, okay?”

His brows furrow and he blinks, taking a step away from me. Like my tone was enough to physically move him. Or maybe it was the words themselves to garner the reaction. My stomach rolls again when he whispers, “What are you talking about?”

How the hell am I supposed to do this? Admit that, ever since that stupid dare...I’ve looked at him a little differently. In a way that’s more aching want than friendship, because the sound and taste and feel of him from the night we kissed have all been seared into my brain with a white-hot brand ever since. Swirling around there rent-free when I should’ve done the sm...

But instead, I kept thinking about it. Letting it fester in my mind like a disease, infecting every viable part of my brain until it’s become impossible t...

“Mess you up, how?” Of course, my phone takes that opportunity to go off again, and his eyes move to it on the table between us. I watch as the gears turn in his head. Thinking. Calculating. Debating. Then he takes action.

He snags my phone from the coffee table and steps back out of my reach, making me barrel over the table to grab it from him and shove it back in my jeans. But the damage is already done. He saw the screen and the notifications waiting there for me. I’m sure there’s plenty of them. Why did I leave it out for him to see, like a damn idiot? His hand is still held out, though my phone’s safely in my pocket now. The expression on his face is blank, devoid of all emotion as he blinks. Then blinks again before he looks up at me.

I think I’m gonna be sick. Really, truly puke as he stares at me in wonder. Because I see the questions in his eyes. Can feel them filling the room in wave after suffocating wave, worse than his anger was earlier. Still, it doesn’t prepare me for the first one that leaves his lips. The same lips responsible for this whole fucking mess. “What are you doing on Toppr?” I remain silent, willing myself to keep from opening my big fat mouth about why I’m on the gay version of Tinder.

He’s always been my crutch, my helping hand or whatever, but this is something I need him to stay far away from. It’ll only make things more difficult in the end.

Pen steps closer to me, closing the few feet between us, and I take a step back on instinct. Hurt and anger flash in his eyes when I do, but he doesn’t make another move toward me. “Keene. Why do you have that app?” There’s a sharpness in his tone, and I can’t really blame him for it.

“You…” He sighs. “Kee.” His tone, the softness in it…guts me. I can’t tell if it’s pity or something else, but right now, I don’t wanna know. I sure as fuck don’t wanna do this while I’m still half drunk. So like the coward I am, I avoid it. I run. I bolt. I flee the scene of the crime in favor of the safety of my room and lock the door behind me. Good thing too, because he’s there moments later, rattling the handle a couple times.

“Keene,” he murmurs from the other side of the door. His forehead connects with the wood, a soft thud echoing through my room. “Please, let me in.”

The irony, the double meaning of his words, isn’t lost on me. And though I know I should listen, get up, and unlock the door…I d...

It might’ve been hurtful, shutting him out like this when he clearly doesn’t want that. Hell, what I said before probably was too. But at least it was honest, which is more than what I’ve ...

Kissing him, it flipped my life upside down. Opened up a whole new curiosity I never knew I had. One I still haven’t figured out, and I’ve been struggling on my own to understand what it means. And it’s something I’m scared shitles...

And I’ll admit, I have the urge to see more than what he’s shown me. I think I’d even be cool with getting nice and sweaty with him, because I definitely like what I see…but it’s still just off. Something I can’t quite put my finger on, but our interactions all feel weird to me. The flirting is too forced, maybe? And he’s kind of…clingy. He’s always wanting to talk. Blowing up my phone like crazy, especially when I was at the party. Of course, at one point when I gave into temptation and checked the DMs when I was pissing, I realized why.

Me: I dare you to send me a dick pic.

Ahhhhhh

He wants a dick pic no one has seen. He wants me to get hard...right now...and send him a picture.

Me: Same to you, then. Even the stakes. Pen: Done. Five minutes.

In all the years we’ve been friends, seeing each other’s penises has never entered the equation. Well, scratch that. I’m sure I’ve seen it, considering our mothers bathed us together as kids, but it’s not like I remember what it looks like. And well...I’m sure it’s a lot bigger now.

Not one to waste time, I quickly slip my shorts down to my knees and wrap a fist around my length. Barely two strokes have made me rock solid since I was nearly there before I even touched it, and I don’t think it takes more than ten for me to be ready to explode. But not before I line up a shot for Pen, snap it, and send it off before I think better of it.

I picture Pen in the room beside me, lying across his bed just like I am, fucking his fist. Does he cradle his balls? Knead them in his palm while he jacks his length? Does he like fast, short strokes, or long and torturously slow ones?

Pen: Stroke it. I type back one-handed, the other doing exactly what he said. Me: I already am. Pen: Prove it.

I shake my head and laugh, letting the idea marinate for a second. Thinking about how weird this is and how many lines we’re crossing by sending dick pics alone. But for me to send him a video of me jacking off has to cross so many more. Ones I probably don’t even know exist. It’s not like I let it stop me, though.

I’m so hard for him. Only for him, and this incessant want I have for him is making me crazy. Irrational. That can be the only reason I hit record as I let my fist slide up and down the length, rolling it over the head on the upstroke.

“This what you want, Pen?” I whisper, my voice graveled as I continue to work my cock for him and the camera. “You want to see my hand wrapped around my cock? See how hard I get just thinking about the pic you’re about to send me?”

“I can hear you through the wall, you know that?” Pen’s voice spills from the speaker, floating over my skin in his smooth cadence. “Every pant and sigh while you’re getting off to thoughts of me, I can hear. And that’s what you’re doing, right? Jacking yourself while picturing me?”

My cock throbs in my palm, pre-cum dripping and leaking all over my stomach and hand as I stroke faster to the sound of his voice. “What filthy things are we doing together in that head of yours? Am I sucking you? Swirling my tongue around your cock? Teasing you before taking you deep? Or are you the one with a cock down your throat while I fuck your face until you can’t breathe?” He’s trying to kill me. And he might just succeed.

“Fuck your fist, Kee. Fast and hard. Let me hear how much you want me.” His voice is raspier than normal, and far less composed. “Get there for me, baby.”