Authors: Chloe Grey
Chase awoke to the sound of the alarm on Meaghan’s phone. “You going to turn that off?” he grumbled, stretching beneath the covers.
“Yeah.” She sounded like she was still half asleep, and when she tried to turn the alarm off, all she managed to do was knock the phone to the floor. “Stupid thing always does that.”
When she leaned down to fetch it, he found himself studying her, wondering if they’d ever make love again. He was beginning to think it might have been a huge mistake. She sat upright and turned to him. A broad smile graced her face. He smiled back at her.
The look she gave him seemed to say his thoughts were far off. Like the kiss in the diner, she looked like she was ready for more. “Feel like a shower…with me?” she asked.
“Um, sure,” he answered. He felt his cock twitch just thinking about it.
Who could turn down an offer like that
? The concern he had before disappeared. Anticipation flooded through his body.
She took his hand and led him into the bathroom. Chase stepped ahead and turned on the shower to warm up the water. She got inside and tugged him to follow. He went in after her. He pulled a small bath towel from the rack. He scrubbed her back gently and she groaned.
“God, I needed that. Keep scrubbing, Chase. It feels so good.” After a few minutes, she turned toward him. “Turn around. I’ll do your back now.”
He turned and she scrubbed slowly. She didn’t miss a spot. She went from his neck down to his ankles. Her touch was intense, and he had no more control over his cock. It stood at attention, and when she turned him around again, she stopped short for a moment. Her eyes were wide and full of need.
“Oh my God, Chase. I can’t believe how muscular you are. You don’t even work out that much.”
“It’s all those years fixing cars with Dad. Maybe it’s good genes too.”
“And can I say one more thing?”
“Sure.”
“I love your big cock. I never realized it was so big! I mean, yeah, you were inside me last night, but I didn’t get to look at it. It’s massive!”
Her hands dropped the small bath rag and reached down to touch it. Chase could only stand and groan while his eyes rolled back into his head. When he opened his eyes again, he admired her gorgeous, perfect breasts and tiny waist. She continued to pump his cock, and traced her other hand up his chest, lingering slowly to feel his pecs and abs.
Chase couldn’t stand there anymore. He slid his hand down to her thighs, and let fingers explore her clit. She let out a long moan. He had to have her now. He picked her up in one sharp motion. Her arms snaked around his neck and legs wrapped tightly around his hips. She seemed ready to take him inside, but he didn’t have any doubt when she said, “Fuck me now, Chase. I need you so bad.”
He turned toward the side wall and pinned her up against it, careful not to slip as he buried his cock deep inside her hot, sweet channel.
“Oh God, Chase. You feel so good.” Her groans of pleasure were so foreign, but he loved every sound she made.
“Meaghan,” he rumbled from his throat. The feel of his bare cock inside her was mind-blowing. He could feel every movement, and she was so tight.
“Fuck! I think I’m gonna come,” he exclaimed. He thrust his cock wildly inside her, pounding deep until she seemed ready to climax. Her head tilted back and he felt her channel tighten around his shaft as she screamed her orgasm. In no time, his own body shuddered as he came deep inside her.
He lowered her to her feet when she recovered, and kissed her hair, letting the water flow down their bodies. It felt like heaven to Chase. He could only hope she felt the same way.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.” Meaghan slipped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. She took another towel and went back to sit in the sofa, while she hand-dried her hair. “I’m going to get dressed, and then we can go eat, okay?”
***
Chad wasn’t sure what to think. He wasn’t sure if he was being paranoid, or if Meaghan was really avoiding talking about what was happening between them. The couple of times he tried to raise it, she would change the subject or ignore the question altogether.
This time, before he could stop her to ask, she left the shower. He didn’t know what he would do about it, or
if
he would do anything at all. Meaghan had clearly decided their night together—and shower this morning—was something they shouldn’t be talking about, and he disagreed. They needed to deal with whatever was happening between them, not pretend it wasn’t there.
Maybe she would decide she didn’t want a relationship, but taking was better than avoidance. He couldn’t pretend they hadn’t slept together after it was done. He couldn’t shove the memory away. He
couldn’t
not
think about it. Breathing deeply, he focused on their plan for the day—search online for places, ride around for apartment magazines, and maybe call a few more realtors.
Sounds like fun
. But it wouldn’t be, not with the steaming hot memory of last night bouncing around in his head.
Chase dressed quickly before packing up his things on the sofa. He scolded himself for not just coming out and letting Meaghan know he needed to talk. All he really wanted to do was look after her, so if she decided she wasn’t ready to think about what happened, he wouldn’t force the issue. He didn’t regret anything about last night, or this morning.
Maybe he was overthinking things, but to him, being in a relationship with her would be entirely different from being best friends. He needed time to let her make a decision about that. He liked her. No, he loved her. And he had no issue showing it. He’d been so sure when he’d been making love to her, but everything seemed different in the stark light of day.
“What are you thinking about?”
Meaghan’s voice startled him. “Jeez, Meg. Sneaking up on me?” He turned to look at her. “I was thinking about what I want to have for breakfast.”
“Really?”
“Well that, and a few other things.” He could kick himself for not raising it after blowing it up to be such a big deal in his mind.
“The answer to breakfast is easy.” She sounded relieved to him. Maybe she’d been expecting him to bring up last night. “Are you doing all right?”
“Of course I am. When am I not?” He forced a smile. “I just need to get out. Let’s get breakfast.”
“Okay.” She rubbed her eyes. “I wish we didn’t have to wake up so early. I hate the sound of the alarm on my phone.”
“You hate anything that wakes you up. You hate
me
when I wake you up. It’s not unusual for you to hit me with a pillow when I’m forcing you out of bed.” He walked past her, feeling awkward at the mention of bed. He had to stop himself from squeezing her arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Being around her wasn’t easy, all of a sudden. Every time he looked at her, he thought about the expression on her face when she came. He tried to push the memories away, but it didn’t work. She didn’t want to talk about it. He wasn’t sure he did, either. Talking about it meant assessing what was happening. What were they now? And
that
was the problem. The labelling was hell.
He was hurting. His heart hurt. Being with her was special, wonderful, and one of the stupidest things he’d ever done when he realized it could cost him their friendship. As they walked into the diner, he did his best to discard the memory of a naked Meaghan underneath him, back in the room.
It wasn’t until he got to their seat that he realized how impossible that actually was. He thought about taking his breakfast to eat in the room alone, and told himself not to be a coward. They would eat together, and enjoy each other’s company. So he sat down opposite her at the table.
“Hey!” She waved her menu at him. “You can have cooked or continental. I’m going for cooked, but you can choose whatever you want.”
Their eyes met, and he couldn’t help thinking she wanted him to go away. Far away. Maybe she was feeling the same way. He couldn’t help obsessing. The scent of the cooked breakfast from another table reached his nostrils, and his stomach grumbled.
“I thought we could work out how we’re going to do things today while we’re eating,” she suggested. “We didn’t talk much about that before.” She trailed off, and he almost thought she was going to say something else, but she didn’t.
“No, it’s fine.” Chase wished he could read her mind. “I…never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re giving me this look. It makes me think you don’t want me around.”
“Ignore it, Chase. It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling. Things are new; different. And different can sometimes be difficult. Things are going to
keep
being difficult for a while. I have no idea when I’m going to stop worrying. And now I have another thing to worry about.”
“What’s that?”
“That maybe we’ve made a mistake.” She stared down at the tablecloth. “I feel uncertain.”
Chase didn’t know what to say. He was relieved and pensive and hesitant at the same time. When the waiter appeared and requested his order, he was glad for the break in his thoughts. After he ordered, the waiter dashed off, and they were quiet for a little while.
“I remember feeling that way when I got the letter from college,” he began. “I was certain they weren’t going to accept me, and it took me forever to open the letter. Why would they want me?” He shook his head again, remembering every moment, and realized it was another example of his tendency to think the worst.
“I was elated when I realized I’d been accepted, but at the same time I wasn’t. I was happy they wanted me, but I knew it meant I was in for more stress once I got there. Everything was uncertain then, and it’s uncertain now.”
“Dad didn’t want me to go to the same college as you.” Meaghan took a sip from her water after squeezing lemon into it. “He wanted me to go somewhere else. Somewhere better, he kept saying. He thought I deserved it. But why would he even think that, when he hadn’t set much money aside for me to truly entertain it?
He couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to go to some Ivy League place. He thought it would be good for me. I thought it would be the worst place I could possibly go. How would I even afford it, to begin with? And add the workload to that? I’ve heard some real horror stories about people who go there and aren’t ready for it, or just the hierarchy of it all.”
“So have I, but I think you would have been fine. You’re one of those people who would make it and be successful no matter where you go.”
***
Looking at him was hard. Meaghan kept imagining him on top of her, his hooded, darkened eyes reflecting passion and ecstasy. She was doing everything she could to push that memory aside.
“Maybe I would have done well at an Ivy League school, but I still didn’t want to go,” she said, thinking at least the topic of conversation was tame. “Dad kept telling me I was making a huge mistake, which wasn’t easy to deal with. I knew I wasn’t. I was doing the right thing for me, no matter what he thought. In the end, I came to terms with the fact he would never understand me. I’m more like Aunt Jennifer than like him. She pretty much raised me, anyway. He didn’t. He couldn’t.”
“Losing your mom must have been hard for him to deal with.”
“It was hard for both of us.” Her memories of her mother were fuzzy, but the images of her death remained razor sharp. “Dad withdrew into himself, which was understandable, while I…I had no choice but to grow up very quickly, because he needed me. Aunt Jennifer did what she could, but she was having a very hard time, too.”
“I know. I remember being there for the funeral. I was holding your hand. Three days later, I held you when you cried. After that, I don’t think I ever saw you cry over your mom’s death again.”
“Crying wasn’t going to do me any good. Not when there was growing up that needed to be done. Aunt Jennifer did what she could. I should have been enjoying my childhood, but instead I was missing the loss of both my parents. Dad was a shell for so long. And he left me over at Aunt Jennifer’s for weeks on end.”
Chase spoke up. “That’s one of the things I’ve always been furious with him for. You resent my parents for not giving me a childhood, and I resent your dad for not giving you one.”
“It’s fair.” A plate of food appeared in front of her. “Thank you.”
The waiter checked to see if they needed anything else, and headed off to serve another table. Meaghan looked down at the plate, and tried not to focus on the fluttering in her stomach. If she was going to get through the rest of the day, she needed to eat.
“Sometimes I get so mad at Dad for putting up a wall between us when I was young.” She felt as if she was rambling. “Actually, when I think about it, there are a lot of things I resent Dad for, because he wasn’t a good example. I wish he had been, but there were so many choices he made that could have been so much better. Neglecting your mom, and then divorcing her and marrying Wanda is a huge example of that. There are other examples, of course.”
“We may know each other better than anyone else, but we still keeps secrets, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do.”
She looked at him, and last night flashed through her mind again.
“How could we not? There are times when I just wanted to be able to spend some time not thinking about how terrible my life was. I wanted to just…to forget for a bit.”
She cut her food into pieces, hoping to make it look more appetizing, but nothing helped. As she filled her fork, she shrugged.
“You, I believe, were the same way.”
“Most of the time I was. Then there were days when all I wanted to do was talk about it, and you were always there to listen.”
“And I always will be there to listen, because I care about you. You’re my best friend, Chase.” She felt her face flush as she thought of sleeping with him. Nothing made sense. “We’re always going to be friends, Chase,” she added, uncertain who she was trying to convince.
At the time, sex had seemed right, so she knew she shouldn’t regret it. Despite everything she told herself, she
did
regret it. She regretted it for so many reasons, she wasn’t sure she knew what each of them were. “No matter what happens, I promise we will always be friends,” she said.
The look he gave her was impossible to read. She didn’t know what he was thinking, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask. She knew she should. They needed to talk about it, and they would have to eventually. Could she still be friends with him if the sex was a temporary thing?
The waiter brought Chase’s breakfast, and he began to eat. She played with her food. She tried to push all her emotions aside. What she needed to be thinking about was finding a place to rent, and finding a job, instead of thinking so much about something she couldn’t change. It had happened, and there was nothing she could do about it. In a couple of days, they could talk about it, but it was best to get settled first.
She watched him stir pieces of his omelette around on his plate. Maybe he was just as perplexed.
“Now, what’s the plan for today?” she asked.
“Find a nice place. And look for jobs we like. Or at least jobs we can tolerate until we find something we like. While I was waiting for you, I emailed a couple more places. They have a few good leads for us. Some of them are probably too expensive, but that’s okay. We’ll just weed those out, and we’ll look for jobs in the meantime.”
“You did ask for places that were furnished, right?”
“Of course. One or two bedrooms, with furniture, because we don’t have any of our own,” she said between bites.
“We definitely can’t afford to buy furniture.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
“Maybe even studio apartments. It doesn’t have to be big. Just until we figure things out.”
Meaghan could see how worried he was. His forehead was crinkled, and he chewed his food slowly and carefully. She was worried, too, but moving to San Diego—a place she already thought of as home because she went to school here—couldn’t be so bad.
She tried to think positive. A positive outlook could help with a lot of things, and she knew that from experience with problematic courses. She reminded herself it had never helped her deal with Wanda. But then, Wanda was just screwing some strange guy at a gas station restroom. Why on earth was she worried about her anymore?
She looked over at Chase. After finishing his eggs, he started in on his toast. He noticed her looking at her; and that she wasn’t eating.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.
“A little. We didn’t have dinner last night.” She wouldn’t have been able to eat dinner even if she’d wanted to, and now she was having trouble with her breakfast. She tried to force a little of it down, not wanting to waste it. It wasn’t as though they could give it to someone else. “You can have some of mine, if you want. I’m not
that
hungry, I guess.”
“Meg…”
“Don’t. There’s too much going on. I can’t eat right now.” She thought she would be able to eat, but having him sit opposite her reminded her of last night. It was all she could think about. She remembered telling him she loved him, and she meant it. She
did
love him. She just didn’t know if she was
in
love with him. They’d grown up together. How could they go from being friends to lovers? Would it ruin what they already had?
“I’ll take a yogurt for my bag,” she decided.
“A yogurt isn’t breakfast,” he said. “Is there anything else that might tempt you? A croissant and jam, maybe?”
“Not really.”
Telling him she didn’t think she was going to be able to keep it down wasn’t going to help. Meaghan bit her lip.
“I don’t even want muesli, and you know how much I like that. I’m stressed. I keep thinking things aren’t going to work out. I feel like I’m having a slow-burning anxiety attack or something.”
Chase reached out and took her hand. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She could hear the forced certainty in his voice, but that was okay. She didn’t have a problem with him pretending for her.