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“Shouldn’t we just get it out of our systems?” I pull her face to mine until my forehead’s gently meeting hers. “Probably.” Her voice sucks me in like a black hole. “But it would be really bad for us to go there.” Her hand travels down the V of my stomach and onto the suffocating fabric of my pants. My pulse spikes. She’s inches away from the throbbing erection already jutting against her hip bone. “Bad can be so, so good, though.”
The kiss avalanches into a subconscious goal to erase any previous lips that may have wandered here. Not sure why the fuck I care about who’s kissed Lily Rodin prior to this moment. I never once thought I’d want to drink every drop of her, but I’m on a mission to make this the only kiss Lily remembers.
I fight to leave pieces of me here in the imprint of my fingers on her ass. Pieces of me there in the bite marks across her neck. In her hair, between the lines of her palms, in her mouth’s succulent warmth. The spiraling need to claim every square inch of her builds with each passing second. Fucking hell. This can’t be real. She can’t be real.
I kissed Nico Navarro. I kissed my best friend’s new brother.
No more tequila for me. Not a single other drink will touch my lips. This body is a temple. A horny, stressed-out, occasionally achy temple, but it’s mine, nonetheless.
The entire moment could’ve been scripted for a film. Falling stars and perfect words. He wanted to kiss me, and I let him because it felt almost romantic. I can’t recall the last time I had a first kiss that good.
Unlike a movie, however, Nico and I will not get a happy ending, just a few awkward moments pretending the drunken mistake didn’t happen. Plus, he’s traveling this summer, and I’m going back to New York. This was a blip in our friendship, and we’...
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Little do they know I could make thousands selling pictures of these nicely pedicured toes online. You’re all getting a free show, and I’ll need a tetanus shot when I get home.
“Lily. Fucking. Rodin.” “Nico.” She smiles, as though this were a regular Monday morning, and she isn’t in the process of boarding my flight to Brazil.
“Believe me, Nico, I’m not so easily swayed by a nice kiss that I’d drop my entire life to chase after it.” Nice? Nice isn’t the word I’d use to define the chemistry we had last night. Maybe phenomenal, exceptional, unforgettable.
The only things I want to be friends with right now are her lips, her skin, and the taste of her. Apart from that, friends is quickly becoming my least-favorite word. It’s the exact nonsense my brother kept repeating last night after he interrupted our kiss on the cliff.
It was impossible to resist changing my original flight. But she’s here, so I’ll gladly suffer a few hours in these sardine-can seats to be next to her.
“They supply duct tape on international flights? Maybe I can borrow some to keep you from chatting my ear off.” I lean toward her and hand her my unwrapped blanket. “I’d let you gag me if you didn’t like listening to me talk so much.” “For sixteen hours?”
“I’m not making a huge mistake, right?” she whispers, her voice low with worry. A shrapnel of vulnerability I’ve never seen from her before. “I’d never let you do that,” I promise.
After our platonic agreement on the plane, it seems we’re back to our familiar friendly banter. Any raised heartbeats can be chalked up to exhaustion.
Just friends. Friends who flirt for fun. Friends who show up with tea in the morning. Friends who won’t be locking lips beneath the stars ever again. I’m not fooling myself, am I?
If Nico got the slightest hint of a crack in the door between us, he’d crash right through it. Frankly, I’d probably welcome the collision.
“I live for waking up in different beds, in different cities, never having to live through the same day over and over.”
“Of course I’m single, Nico.” “Not of course. You’re like a modern-day Morticia Addams mixed with Brigitte Bardot.” The comparisons do her effortless sex appeal absolutely no justice. Lily Rodin is in a league of her own.
I want to kiss her again so fucking badly. Just to see what would happen if there weren’t any interruptions.
I don’t blame my brother for trying to keep us apart for the last two years because there’s definitely something between Lily and me. Likely a buildup of sexual tension that we both need to release, but regardless of what this might be, I need to explore it. Explore her.
We’re both adults who like to have casual sex. We could manage a no-strings-attached situation. But if the kiss between us is any indicator of how we’d be in bed, then I’m not sure ...
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“Memorizing my tea, and now my birthday. You got a crush on me, Navarro?” Something like that. “We’ve been friends for two years. It would be weird if I didn’t remember those things.”
The golden sunlight kisses her features, bathing her skin in an iridescent orange glow. It’s beautiful out there, but there’s a whole other wonder right in front of me.
She rolls her eyes. “You never give up, do you?” When it comes to her? “Never.”
Lily must know about my success, and she manages to treat me the same. If, occasionally, with a little extra distance and bite. But maybe that’s how a true friend acts. A friend I occasionally—or very often—fantasize about in very un-friend-like ways.
“You won’t be jealous?” I jeer. “Not the jealous type.” If I weren’t a romance author, I’d probably believe him, but there’s something about his words that I don’t trust.
Friends don’t get jealous when one of them needs to get laid.
“Nico?” “Hmm, princesa?” A smile appears on my face, and I don’t bother scolding him for using the nickname.
On the beach, with my bag of coxinhas and one of the hottest guys I know beside me, I feel a little regal. And, truthfully, I’m feeling much better after airing out my grievances with Nico.
Off-limits. OFF. LIMITS. There’s no fucking way I can fantasize about any part of Nico doing any thrusting, tensing, licking, tasting, biting… No. Friends don’t think about their friends doing any of those things. My platonic friend Nico. I shake it off. Everything’s fine.
Can I deserve something when I haven’t completed any of my goals?
Nico and I are just friends. We have a good time and get along, but none of it is enough to take away from the fact that we’re both players. Whatever game we’d get wrapped up in would result in damage. I can’t hurt my best friend’s family.
“Oh no, we’re just friends.” There must be a broken record in her annoyingly beautiful head repeating the words just and friends. Just friends, just friends, just friends.
This is the second time this week someone’s assumed we’re a couple. It’s as if us being together doesn’t seem outlandish in the eyes of a stranger. But Lily waves off the suggestion at once.
Diego’s acting as if he’s the first to discover the treasure that is Lily Rodin. News flash, dude, you’re not good enough for her. Nobody fucking is.
I’ve never been a violent man, but I have the sudden urge to tattoo my fist into his conniving smirk.
If I don’t act like a complete fool right now, maybe she’ll actually give me a chance to prove to her that exploring something between us is worth it.
I can’t help but enjoy how she doesn’t keep up a front when she’s around me. Every raw part of her is on display, only for me to see.
“We should’ve fucked when we met,” Nico calls out, his footsteps trailing behind me. “Gotten each other out of our systems, and then we wouldn’t be acting like this every time we’re alone.”
“I don’t sleep with people I’m close to,” I remind him. “That’s exactly what fucking people is, Lily. I would’ve thought you’d be more experienced.” There isn’t a response I can give him. He’s not wrong. But mixing feelings with sex always makes things complicated.
“Since you’re such an expert, do friends get jealous?” “They shouldn’t.” “You look so pretty tonight, Lily. It almost hurts being around you.” “What?” “You heard me.” He closes the remaining distance between us and raises his palm to bracket my neck. “Let me give you a release. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.”
Would it be such a bad idea to let him live up to all of his claims? Just once?
“I know you look at me the way I look at you,” he whispers and reluctantly pulls away. “How exactly am I looking at you?” “Like you want me to be the one suffocating you with compliments as your pussy wraps around my fingers.” His mouth snakes down my neck.
“This is such a bad idea.” The devil incarnate stares at me through Nico’s eyes. “Want me to convince you it isn’t?” “Yes.” So badly.
“You’re good at showing someone you want them.” My eyes land on the night sky, painted with stars like the ones from the first night we kissed. “There’s no one I’ve ever wanted as much as you.”
“Can you be a good girl for me, Lil, and run your pretty tongue over my fingers?” My heart stops. “I don’t want to wait until your wicked mouth goes dry because you can’t stop screaming my name.”
“Let me see you do it one more time.” The demanding tone in his voice returns. I don’t have enough willpower to protest. I may die. Death by filthy, lust-filled orgasm. One after the other.
“If I haven’t made it clear already”—he slides his fingers into me and curls them—“I’ll never get enough of you.”