Don't You Dare (Reckless Games #1)

by C.E. Ricci

I might pass out without cleaning up first. In fact, that’s exactly what happens. Which is why it’s not until the next morning, when I wake up covered in dry cum and lube, that I realize something. He never actually sent a pic back.

No, my confusion stems from how in the ever-loving fuck sending one, single dick pic turned into a masturbation video, filthy voice notes, and me listening to him through the wall while he fucked his fist.

I just never intended for shit to get so out of hand. But when I could hear him, right there on the other side of the wall, my body took over. Took notice. No matter how hard I tried to push it out of my mind, it wanted release. It wanted…him.

All this shit between us has managed to do is stir up memories I’d completely forgotten about. Like the night when we kissed at the end of high school. A kiss that I haven’t thought about in almost two fucking years, which now seems to be dancing in my brain like it’s the star of the show.

It didn’t freak me out that he’s a guy and we kissed back then. Just like it wouldn’t have if we’d kissed again at the party the other night.

After all, I’m a firm believer in love being love, and I’ve never batted an eye seeing couples in the LGBTQ community out in public, loud and proud of finding a partner to love. Actually, I find it pretty awesome, especially when it’s a testament of just how far we’ve come as a society. To accept people for being true to who the...

I’ve never been one to overthink something as trivial as sex. It’s always been fun and enjoyable to me, but I’ve never put a whole lot of stock into it the way Keene has. The way it forms deeper attachments to the person you’re banging, which ends up turning into some sort of romantic relationship. Yeah, I understand the sentiment just fine, and maybe even why someone would want that kind of partnership with another person. It’s just never been appealing to me before, never been a part of the life I’ve pictured for myself. Which is one of the millions of reasons why what happened with him last night should never happen again. The last thing I need to happen is for him to want something I can’t give him.

Unfortunately for me, my mind and my dick are on two very opposing teams when it comes to this. Meaning, as much as the idea of messing around with Keene freaks me out because of all the issues it could cause, it also turns me on. A fucking lot.

Soon, pants and moans echo through my memory loud enough to drown out the music pounding in my ears. And they’re not just his. They’re mine too. The ones I bit back as I jacked myself until I came with his name on my lips.

And I also recall finding him smiling at his phone earlier today when I got home from my architecture studio, no doubt texting one of those guys from Toppr. Just the memory of that smirk has me seeing red

“The hell? Did you lose a bet I don’t know about?” I scowl, fastening the last button before raking my fingers through my already styled hair for the hundredth time. “Bite me, asshat.” His brow arches, a devious grin forming. “If that’s all you wanted, you could’ve just asked for it. No need to get all dressed up only for me to have to strip you back down.” I feel the tips of my ears heat,

“Call me curious, seeing as I have a hard enough time getting it to happen, and I’m supposed to be your best friend. Though it doesn’t really feel like it the past few days with the way you’ve been avoiding me.” He crosses his arms. “So, please. I’d love to know who outranks me these days.” The low blow hits its mark, guilt surging through me like a tidal wave.

“Bristol,” I say softly, not meeting his eyes. But I don’t need to see him to hear his scoff. “Guess you’ve finally decided she’s worth more than just a lay, yeah?” “It’s never been like that,” I say, but it comes out way too defensive to be anything close to the truth. He snorts. “Who are you trying to convince here, Pen? Me or yourself?” Not bothering to stick around for an answer we both know already, he turns and leaves for the living room.

“Hey, Pen. Don’t you dare?” Though I know I shouldn’t, especially with how things turned out last time he asked me that question, I turn around and arch a brow. But I’m not prepared for the shit about to come out of his mouth.

A deadly smirk sits on his lips when he says, “I dare you to think of me when you fuck her tonight.”

Ate 😭

I should’ve known this was a bad idea the second it crossed through my brain. Hell, I did know it was a bad idea. But here I am, still doing it anyway, out of sheer pettiness and spite toward Keene.

he’s been getting under my skin ever since last weekend. I think part of the issue stems from knowing someone for two decades. They know every little thing that makes you tick. How to coax whatever emotion they want out of you at the drop of a hat, and they make it look damn easy when they do.

I should’ve just canceled. But hell if I was gonna sit there all night with Keene while we don’t talk to each other and let the weirdness happening between us just stew and simmer uncomfortably. “Stop thinking about him,” I mutter to myself as I fiddle with a fork on the table. “That’s what he wants you to be doing right now.”

Keene knew exactly what he was doing by saying that shit to me before I left the dorm. He was doing his best to get in my head. And sure as shit, those words have only kept my mind circling around the bastard since the minute I left. No more than five goddamn minutes pass without him in my brain.

The paranoid, slightly manic part of my brain is ridiculously fixated on the idea of him talking to another guy on his stupid hook-up app. But I’m sure that’s what he’s still doing right now. Maybe even sexting him, if the confidence he gained from what happened with me is anything to go by. It shouldn’t matter if he is. I shouldn’t even care,

because if Keene’s happy, that’s all that matters. Yet all I feel is this overwhelming sense of…jealousy. It’s not just from someone else taking his attention, either. I’ve learned to share him a long time ago in that regard, especially because he’s always been the more outgoing one of us.

I just don’t want to share that piece of him. The piece that started questioning his sexuality because of me. And in the fucked-up logic of my mind, because it’s me that he figured it out with, i...

What are you doing to me, Kee? Why can’t I get you outta my head?

Bristol lets out a low moan when she bites into her carbonara, and the sound brings me back to another moan that’s been stuck in the back of my mind ever since I heard it. My cock twitches in my pants as I zero in on the memory. Rewinding and replaying it, as I envision the video of Keene stroking his cock for me in view of the camera. Then my mind takes it a step further, pairing it with how soft I know his lips feel pressed to mine, or how the slight stubble of his jaw feels cupped in my palm from when we kissed all that time ago.

“I think it’s better for you to put the focus on yourself. But just know, I’m happy to help however I can. I’m sure you’ve got Keene to help you too.” That sends my mood nosediving further. He’d be a lot of help, if only he weren’t the entire fucking reason for this little crisis I’m having in the first place. Then shit could just go back to normal, and I’d be getting laid tonight without worrying he’d pop into my head when I’m about to come.

“Turn that shit off in my baby,” he mutters from the passenger seat.

I send up a prayer to whatever God exists that I don’t murder my best friend tonight before I roll my eyes and turn up the sound of Post Malone. Ignoring him might be childish, but he’s just looking to pick a fight with me, and hell if I’ll let him. Plus, he lost his right to have an opinion on my music selection when he decided to be a dumbass by getting shit-faced with no way home.

disgruntled sigh and starts digging in his jacket pocket. I know what he’s doing the moment he starts to roll down the window, but the second his cigarettes are pulled free from his jacket, I slap them out of his hand. “Not when I’m in the car,” I snap, knowing full we...

Instead of following suit, and once again, showing his stubborn side, he rips his arm from my grip and glares at me for a solid ten seconds. No words, just glares. Whoa. My blood boils when he brushes past me like I’m not even there, and that’s all it takes for me to let my control over my temper snap completely. “What the hell is your issue?” I snap,

“Fine.” I sigh, moving over to slump down on the opposite end of the couch. “You can go to bed. I don’t need a babysitter.” Yeah, you really proved that tonight. “I’m fine right here. Just pick something.”

His eyes float between mine, studying me like it’s the first time he’s ever looked at me. It’s not, obviously, since we’ve known each other for years. But I absolutely believe this is the first time he’s looked at me and actually managed to see me.

I’m not as straight as I thought I was. Especially when it comes to Aspen Kohl. He might be like a brother to me, but this goes way beyond that. Past friendship, and right into desire. Because I want this. I want him. I’ve never been more sure of anything. I just have no idea what it means for our friendship.

“You want my fingers sinking inside you? That it, Kee?” I pant as I thrust up again. He groans, and the sound does something to me, and I grind out, “God, you’re gonna kill me.”

“I want your fingers inside me. Your cock rubbing against mine until I come,” he murmurs against my throat before he takes my mouth again. His tongue slips between my lips to keep me from answering. Not that I’d want to when his tongue rolls against mine in time with his hips.

But it’s the sight of his hand wrapped around his cock that undoes me entirely. Cum jets out of me, filling my underwear in a way that, if this wasn’t Keene, I’d be really embarrassed about. Part of me still is, but the filthy smirk that crosses his face when he must feel the warm liquid seeping through our clothes quickly turns embarrassment right back into lust. “Goddamn,” he marvels, still smirking as he works himself over. “Wrecked is a good look on you. Wrecked just for me.” He’s not wrong, though I doubt I looked nearly as wrecked as I feel inside.

It only takes him a couple more quick jacks of his cock while he stares down at me before his release shoots from him too, coating my stomach in thick ropes. This time, it’s my turn to smile at the sight of him losing control for me. He’s quick to kiss it right off my lips as he collapses against me when the last of his cum is milked from his body.

I’m literally wrapped up in him. Cocooned by his body. And that feeling I had earlier of being at home? It’s all-consuming now. And all of me knows just how dangerous it is, because it’s something that’d be all too easy to get used to.

might be fucking stupid for admitting this,” he mutters against my mouth, placing one last peck on my swollen lips. “But I really hope you’re sober enough to remember this tomorrow.” My heart is still hammering in my chest at double time, and I manage to rasp out a soft, “Why?” His lips and teeth leave a searing path on my skin as he kisses and nips his way to my ear. “Because we’ve barely stopped, and I already wanna do that all over again. And again. And again.”

groan slips from me before I’m turning my head to lick a path up his throat to his ear. Partly because I love the taste of the salt on his skin, but also to keep myself from saying those two words dying to slip from my mouth in response. Me too. Or worse, the words that sure as hell have no business coming out of my mouth until I’m comfortable...well, coming out. If not to the world, at least to myself. I want you.

But he deserves more than just my lust. More than a heated kiss or a half-drunken dry-fuck fest. And there’s a massive piece of me that wants to give him everything he could ever want or ask for.

It’s like Bristol said, I’m not the type to date. Fuck buddies are the only thing I know, the only way sex doesn’t become a messy complication that impacts my life on a daily basis. And Keene could...

It would be the quickest way of screwing up the relationship we already have, and ruining us is the last thing in the world I’d ever want. So instead of responding, instead of saying anything that this...

“You gotta get up.” His body goes rigid over mine, and I immediately know it was the wrong thing to say. Too late to change it or take it back now though, so I double down by patting his ass as a signal to move. “Right,” he whispers, lifting off me.

A tense cloud falls over us, thickening the air to uncomfortable levels as he looks down at me, looking as destroyed as I feel. He fixes himself up, tucking his half-hard dick back in his sweats, but I can still see the wet patch on the gray material from my cum seeping through my jeans.

I didn’t mean to make it a rejection of any kind by asking him to get off me. I just needed space. No contact of his body against me until I know what to do or say or think.

“I’m gonna clean up.” His tone is as detached as he can manage, but his eyes give away his hurt. Even in this dim lighting from the television.

My eyes stay locked on the ceiling as I listen to him run the faucet and rummage around in the bathroom. Self-loathing and regret begin churning inside me, not for what happened, but for the way I just reacted to it being over. I push it down best I can, but it doesn’t do much good.

In fact, it only grows when, five minutes later, he exits our shared bathroom and slips into his own room without a word or a glance in my direction. Shit.

His taste still lingers on my tongue. Branded there in a way I won’t soon forget. And the kicker of it? Everything inside me wishes this would’ve been our first kiss.

Keene ignores me for the two days following the night he picked me up from the bar and brought me home. Also known as the night we made out like two lust-drunken idiots and came all over each other. Well, he came on me, and I came in my pants. To-ma-to, to-mah-to, at this point.