CHAPTER 6
Lauren
Lying with my back against the arm of the couch and my legs draped across his thighs, I studied Graham’s profile. He was hurting even though he was trying to play it off as though he wasn’t devastated.
Me? I was testing my alcohol consumption limit that day, seeking the numbness people claimed they found in the bottom of a bottle. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the physiological effects of alcohol. People called it a depressant, but it was a much more complicated drug. Yes, it suppressed the release of glutamate, which resulted in a slowdown of the brain’s pathways, making it harder to form coherent thoughts, but it also elevated dopamine levels which meant I felt pretty good despite what had happened.
What Jack had done wasn’t my fault. I felt guilty about telling Graham the truth, even though given the same situation, I would have done it again. Graham deserved not to be sideswiped by this.
Graham’s home life had toughened him. He didn’t talk about it but Jack and I had gotten glimpses of it over the years. I knew that Graham wanted to keep that side from me and I let him because I selfishly wanted my version of him to be real. He was my protector, my cheerleader. There had been times when I’d wondered if he hid his other side for us or for him. Was he worried that if he was anything but the good friend, the “big brother,” that we wouldn’t still love him?
Jack had pretty much made that a moot point.
Even though Graham said it wouldn’t change us, this was likely our last time like this. Jack would return that night or stay away to give Graham time to cool off—either way it would be ugly when they saw each other.
Aspen would never happen again.
Jack, Graham and I would never laugh over stupid shit we did as kids. Nothing would ever be the same.
I drank because my nerves were raw and I wanted this one last time with Graham. I drank for all the things I would never do again and all the things Graham and I had never done.
“I’ve had sex,” I blurted out.
Graham shot me an amused look. “That’s good to know.” His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were heavy, but hours of movies and drinking did that to a person. By driving standards, he was inebriated, but he wasn’t fall down drunk. At least, he hadn’t fallen during his last trip to the bathroom. Apparently beer went through a person faster than wine.
Even though I told myself he was like a brother to me, my pride was a little dented that he did not see me in any other way. It felt important to prove to him that some men did. “You didn’t have to teach me the term for fellatio. I’m familiar with it.”
He looked at me then looked away. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Strangely, I did. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He shrugged and picked up the remote, flipping through the channels without stopping at any of them long enough to know what he was skipping over.
“Actually, I do know.” I tipped my now empty wineglass sideways and watched the drops of Merlot gather into a small pool. It was fascinating in a way it wouldn’t have been before I consumed the entire bottle on my own and been introduced to a new equation. The more I drank the easier it was to down the next glass. “Alcohol affects the prefrontal cortex which regulates impulse control.”
“Bad news for Jack. I was hoping the beer would make me less likely to kill him,” he said but kept his eyes on the television.
I put the glass down. “It may slow your reaction time sufficiently enough to allow him to dodge your swings,” I said, hoping it didn’t come to that.
He rubbed the shin of my leg. “Then all I have to do is stay drunk.” Now that he said it, there was a noticeable slur to his words. Funny, I didn’t feel like there was to mine. The disconnect in self-perception explained why people felt capable of driving when they clearly were not. Holy shit, I may be drunk.
I sat up, waving off the dizziness that followed the sudden move. His pain cut as deeply as my own. I wished there were something, anything I could do to ease it. “I’m so sorry, Graham.”
He shook his head. We sat there quietly for several long minutes. “So, who was it?”
“Who was who?”
“The guy you slept with?” he asked as if it were a casual question about the weather.
“Tim Beller. My lab partner last year. Why do you say guy like you know it was only one? For all you know I might have slept with everyone I met at college. Men. Women. You don’t know.”
He chuckled and met my eyes again. “I know.”
That was a kick to my pride. “Because you think I couldn’t find more than one person who’d sleep with me?” The expression in his eyes changed, at least I thought they did, his face was a little blurry.
“You’re beautiful, Lauren, just in your own way.”
I rolled back against the arm of the chair and covered my face with my arm. Not even beer goggles could change the way he saw me. “Ouch.”
He tugged on my foot. “Stop.”
“You stop.” I pulled my foot away, running it over his cock by accident. It wasn’t erect, but that wasn’t a surprise. “I’m not insecure—I’m realistic. Men don’t lust after women with a higher IQ than they have. And before you try to cheer me up about that, I’m okay with it. Sex wasn’t that great anyway.”
“Then you slept with a douche.”
“Or a hundred of them. Maybe a thousand.”
“Lauren, look at me.”
I lowered my arm and did. “When you meet the right guy—and you will one day—tell him the truth. He won’t care if it was a hundred or none. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about who you are.”
Yes, there was a slur to his speech, but his words rang clear in my head. His smile was so beautiful I sat up so I could see it better. Flutters skidded through my stomach and filled me with a yearning I tried to suppress. This wasn’t someone I needed to lie to. This was Graham. “One. Just one guy. I didn’t want to graduate from another college still a virgin.”
Graham let out an audible breath. “It’ll get better.”
“I hope so.” I remembered my first time and suddenly it was funny. “At least he was quick.”
Graham groaned. “TMI.”
Okay, either it was the funniest story ever and had to be retold or I was drunk. Either way, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing. “I was so disappointed I went home and masturbated just to make sure all my parts were still in working condition.” I laughed as a joke came to me. “They were and I remembered a perk to sex with my hand—no morning after awkwardness, although there was a sense of jealousy from my other appendages.”
He turned away again.
I moved to lay my leg back over his lap, grazing my foot over his cock for a second time and froze. Whoa. Unless I imagined it, he was sporting a huge boner. For me? I double checked by easing my calf over it.
He grabbed my leg to still it. “Don’t, Lauren.”
Don’t what? Marvel that something I had done had turned him on? How could I not take a moment to bask in how it felt?
My breath caught in my throat. Sex would change our relationship but everything was already different. Even if he said it wasn’t—this night felt like our goodbye.
He’d never forgive Jack. Never trust him again. How would that not take him from me as well? I couldn’t close that door without tasting his kiss just once.
“Graham?”
He turned slowly toward me, looking tortured as he did. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m holding on by a thread here. You matter to me, Lauren. I don’t want to hurt you.”
The desire in his eyes was what moved me onto my knees beside him. He’d never looked at me that way before and it was mesmerizing. I ran my hand over the strong muscles of his chest. His heart was beating wildly. For me. There was so much I wanted to say, but the words didn’t come. Instead I leaned forward and kissed him.
He dug his hands into my hair and kissed me back roughly. There was no tenderness, no teasing. He took my mouth, claimed my tongue. This wasn’t the vanilla foreplay I’d experienced, but I wasn’t afraid. I wanted to be his even if it was only for one night.
He lifted me so I straddled his lap, then he tore away the front of my shirt. Cotton ripped beneath his strength. He unsnapped my bra and threw it on the floor. My breasts fit perfectly into his hands. I grasped his shoulders to steady myself as he kissed his way down my neck and to my breasts. He tongued one breast while he kneaded the other with his hand. I arched and moved my pelvis forward over his bulging cock.
His movements were angry, impatient, yet my body responded. He kissed his way back to my mouth. I met his passion with my own. As we kissed I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it aside, then rubbed my bare breasts across his chest, loving how it drove him wild.
He fisted a hand in my hair and pulled my face back from his. His breathing was as ragged as mine. “Get away from me, Peanut. You could be anyone tonight. I wouldn’t care.”
His words had cut through me, but they didn’t make me want to leave him. He was pushing me away but only because he wanted to protect me. I didn’t need protecting, not from him. I wanted to experience him and to comfort him. It was an irresistible combination.
“I want this, Graham,” I whispered. I’ve always wanted you. I kissed him before he had a chance to say more. I didn’t want to talk—I wanted to feel.
He ground his mouth against mine in a kiss that was somewhere between a punishment and a pleasure. It blew every kiss I’d ever had out of the water. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was years of fantasizing about being with him, but I was all in.
He eased me back onto my feet and then stood. I tore at his clothing. In a glorious frenzied blur, he surrounded me with hard muscle. With him, I felt small and feminine. With him, there was no self-consciousness—only hunger to feel more of him, taste more of him.
Graham had never been anything but gentle with me, even when we disagreed on something. He wasn’t gentle then. His hands were rough and demanding. His cock was huge and bold. I wanted it inside me, as deep as he could thrust it. No hesitation or consideration. I wanted him as crazy to have me as I was to have him.
I closed one hand around his cock and pumped up and down, loving how it felt—imagining how it would fill me. All the while, he kissed me relentlessly, deeply. He wanted everything and I wanted to give it all to him.
His fingers found my sex and while he fucked my mouth with his tongue, his fingers thrusted upward into me. I was wet and ready. He was hard and hungry. He picked me up as if I weighed nothing then stumbled backward before steadying himself against the couch. It was a physical reminder that we were FWI, fucking while impaired.
I thought that up even while the tip of his cock dipped into the folds of my sex. I’ve always been an over thinker. It’s what I hated most about myself. There I was having wild sex for the first time in my life and my brain would not shut off.
I wondered if our ancestors chose to walk upright simply for this sexual position.
I warned myself not to confuse real intimacy with what I might feel right after an orgasm. Orgasms were a gift from the universe, but they also had a purpose. The hypothalamus releases extra oxytocin. There were studies that linked it to a biological element of trust building.
He grabbed my ass with both hands, thrusted upward, and something magical happened. I stopped thinking. It was all about the connection. He kissed my neck. I clung to his shoulders and linked my feet behind his back. For a while I moved up and down in hot abandon. This was what it was supposed to be like. I didn’t want the moment to ever end. Each thrust took him deeper, drove me wilder.
A flush rose up my chest, spreading across my face. I was close, so close to coming. There I was, about to have my first non-solo orgasm and it was with Graham.
Graham. A man I’d loved most of my life.
A man I desperately didn’t want to lose.
There was something deeply, wrenchingly sad about finally being intimate with him now that our time together was ending. I hated Jack for betraying him. I hated myself for making this night about me when it should have been about Graham.
I wanted to start the night over and do everything better.
What could I say to Graham that would make him not hate himself for fucking me? I didn’t want him to feel guilty. I didn’t want to add more to his pain.
He was pounding up into me and it felt good, so, so good, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it. My brain was sabotaging what should have been the best orgasm of my life.
Once I’d imagined how Graham would feel the next morning, it was all I could think about. I’d put fulfilling a fantasy above what would have been best for my friend.
Was I any better than Jack?
An image of Graham holding up Hope’s engagement ring entered my head and everything went to shit. I didn’t want to think about her or what she’d done with Jack. I didn’t want any of that to be part of this, but it was the reason for it.
Graham wasn’t making love to me—he was proving he didn’t need Hope.
I wasn’t having sex with a man who loved me, I was saying goodbye to one who never would.
I wished I could’ve been a better friend for Graham.
Or at least a better fuck.
My orgasm faded away, the passion I’d felt now sadly elusive. All I wanted to do right then was hug Graham and tell him I was sorry for everything.
Graham sat back on the arm of the couch and growled. “Are you crying?”
With him still deep inside me, I hugged myself around him, hugged him tighter than I’d ever hugged anyone and burst into tears.
I learned another biological factoid that night—nothing kills an erection faster than sloppy sobbing. He wrapped his arms tightly around me and simply rocked me back and forth while swearing softly.