CHAPTER 12
Avril
Dane is inside me, and I’m having a hard time processing that.
My best friend and business partner, Dane Hawthorne, is inside of me.
Fucking me.
Well, not quite fucking me yet. My hips flex up, trying to draw him in deeper, yet he just stares down at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I raise my legs to press them into his ribs.
“Nothing,” he assures me with a smile and makes a small rotation of his hips.
And oh wow… that feels amazing.
“More,” I tell him, eager to see this through to the end. I’d given this some serious damn thought over the last few days. I sat on my couch each night, drinking wine and debating the pros and cons of agreeing to a sexual relationship with my friend. I knew the outcome could be disastrous, and it was the reason I couldn’t decide right away.
But ultimately, I decided to put faith in Dane. I decided to trust our bond. Our friendship extends seventeen years, and it hasn’t all been unicorns and roses. We’ve helped each other through some tough times, and I trust that we’ll both be diligent in making sure we don’t hurt the other.
Dane still doesn’t move any more than that tiny rotation of his hips, and I press my hands to his chest. “Dane?”
His eyes roam over my face briefly before coming back to lock with mine. He gives me a smile. “You’re beautiful.”
My entire body flushes warm from the compliment, because not once in seventeen years has Dane ever said anything that intimate to me. I’ve sucked his dick, he’s eaten me out, and yet him telling me I’m beautiful cuts straight through to my heart.
I let out a quavering breath over the magnitude of what those words mean, and I’m not sure what Dane sees on my face, but he rears back a bit. Shaking his head slightly as if to clear it, he pulls out of me so suddenly I cry out from the emptiness. I think for a moment that he’s had a massive change of heart, but then he’s picking me up and tossing me back down so my head is at the foot of the bed now. He then flips me roughly to my stomach.
I barely get my bearings before he’s pulling me up by my hips to my hands and knees, and without a word of explanation, he plunges back into me from behind.
“F-u-u-u-c-k,” he groans as his pelvis presses tight to me.
I groan in response because he feels impossibly huge from this angle, and I’m stretched to capacity. My head falls forward because I feel suddenly weak as a kitten, and from the realization that Dane is now fucking me from behind right after calling me beautiful, so I know it hurts for him to look at my face.
But then my head raises because Dane’s got his hand fisted in my hair, and I gasp with surprise as I realize he’s faced us toward the large mirror on the wall above the dresser.
And there I am… arms locked tight, legs spread, and my breasts swaying with hard nipples as I stare at my reflection.
And there’s Dane, right behind me with his big muscular chest and ripped abs and his cock stuffed inside of me. Our eyes lock in the mirror, and he mutters, “Fucking beautiful.”
I’m entranced from the heat in his voice, but that quickly breaks as he brings his other hand to my hip for leverage.
Then he fucks me, and he does it without mercy. Big body heaving against me, his cock hammering my wet pussy, and hitting something very deep inside of me. My tits are jiggling, and I hate to even think of what my ass looks like from his perspective, but God help me, it feels so damn good.
“Harder,” I manage to moan through panting breaths, and I watch as Dane’s expression turns dark and fierce.
A feral smile breaks free on his gorgeous face and he gives a wickedly dangerous laugh. “That’s my girl.”
Bringing both hands to my hips, Dane pulls his length out of me in one long, slow move that’s torturous in its teasing. Before his head pops free, his fingers dig into my hips, and then he’s slamming back into me so hard the slap of our skin on each other sounds like a thunderclap.
“Shit,” I cry out because whatever he just hit inside me has been secretly protected from any other man.
Dane doesn’t take my curse to mean I’m hurt, but rather reads pleasure from it, because he does the same thing again. Long, slow withdrawal, teasing every nerve ending inside of me, then one brutal punch back in that hits that sweet spot.
I groan with each thrust.
I curse at him because it hurts so good.
I beg him not to stop.
I beg him to go faster.
He gives me nothing but that unbearably sweet withdrawal, and that ferocious invasion back inside of me. For every time he hits that spot, he’s marking his claim there.
With only a few of those powerful thrusts, my sex starts to cramp from within. I know the mother of all orgasms is starting to build within me. I need release so bad that I lift a hand to put between my legs, but Dane’s gaze on me in the mirror catches it.
“Don’t,” he barks at me, and my hand drops back down. “I’ll give it to you when I’m ready for you to have it.”
“God, Dane,” I moan pathetically as my head drops down. “You dirty, sadistic fucker.”
He chuckles even as he withdraws and slams back in, causing the flame to burn brighter in me.
Every single thrust. Every grunt he makes.
I get a little closer until I’m teetering on the edge.
And then he slows down just a little so I won’t topple over, but the flames won’t extinguish either. He keeps me on the precipice, and I can’t figure out if this is torture or just painful pleasure.
Dane’s neck muscles contract and his grunts appear to come from deeper in his chest with each thrust. He seems focused and determined on reaching some goal, but I can’t figure out what it is since he won’t let me fall.
And then he does something I’ll never forget for as long as I live.
Dane slams into me and plants deep. He slides a hand from my hip to the front of my pussy, and he flicks my clit with his finger. That extra bit of stimulation is all that I need, and I explode with such force that I scream.
I watch in the mirror with my mouth open wide as my pleasure ripples through me, and feel a second orgasm tear free as Dane’s hands come to my hips and he closes his eyes. Without even taking another thrust, and almost as if he was waiting on my orgasm to be his catalyst, he starts to come inside of me.
Jaw clenched, eyes squeezed tight, and a long, low moan rumbles out of him. I can feel his cock pulsing inside of me as he unloads with quiet force.
Dane pulls me tighter to him by my hips and sucks in oxygen through his nose as his eyes open to meet mine in the mirror. A slow smile spreads on his face, and he hums out his satisfaction. “Mmmmm.”
“Indeed,” I murmur, giving him a smile in return.
Leaning forward, Dane brings his arms around my chest and pulls me up until I’m just on my knees in front of him. The length of his cock is still buried inside of me, and I don’t ever want to lose that feeling.
With a squeeze, Dane rests his chin on my head as he looks at me through the mirror. “I need a few minutes to recharge and then we’re going again.”
My sex clenches, and he laughs because of the power his words have over me.
With one arm banded over my breasts, Dane lets his other hand slide down to the front of my pussy where he draws a lazy pattern of circles through my pubic hair. Our eyes stay locked on each other in the mirror.
“We’re good, right?” he finally asks.
“We’re good,” I promise.
“You’ll look me in the eyes at work, right?” he prods.
“And when I’m sucking your dick,” I reply tartly.
He rewards me with a pinch to my clit, and I buck so hard his dick slides free. Dane gives a sigh of regret, but says, “Just as well… we probably do need to talk for a minute.”
Dane drops us both to the bed, and flips me so I’m facing him. He brushes the hair away from my face, not because it needs to be done but because I can tell he’s gathering his thoughts. When he focuses back on me, he says, “You remember when my dad came to our apartment?”
I tense slightly as the memory isn’t all that nice, but I nod.
“Then you know,” he says softly.
My heart clenches tight, because yes, I really know what’s at the core of Dane.
And it’s nothingness.
When we were starting our senior year, Dane and I were at the apartment studying. I can’t remember where Andrew was—probably class or something—but I was on the couch and Dane was sitting on the floor with a textbook opened on the coffee table.
At that time, everyone knew Dane’s genius and foresight was going to be history making. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would reach the ultimate success in whatever path he chose. This was not only because he was brilliant beyond imagination, but he also had a driving ambition that is possessed by few people. And this was quite remarkable given the fact that he had no stability growing up. He was removed from his drug addict father’s care when he was five and put into the foster system as he had no other family members. He was shuffled from house to house, never staying in one place very long.
You’d think a bright, good-looking boy like him would be adoptable, but apparently not. Dane never got into trouble for the most part, and the fact that even being a good kid who was brilliant in school couldn’t make him appealing to a family weighed on him hard.
He grew up relying only on himself and refusing to trust in another for help.
Until that day his dad showed up.
I’d opened the door to find a middle-aged man with short, dark hair and hazel eyes standing there. In hindsight, the resemblance to Dane was uncanny, but I really couldn’t see it at the time. I just saw the nervousness on his face when he asked, “Is Dane Hawthorne here?”
I looked over my shoulder, and Dane’s head popped up. I stepped back from the door so he could see the visitor, and Dane knew who he was instantly.
His entire body froze rigid and his eyes turned dark as he stared at the man. Neither of them said a word as they held unwavering eye contact for a few agonizingly awkward seconds.
Finally, the man said, “Dane… do you recognize me? I’m your father.”
My entire body jolted from those words, and my head snapped back to look at my best friend. For the first time since I’d known him, I saw pure pain swimming in those hazel eyes. Dane swallowed hard and then turned his head slightly to look at me.
His voice was raspy but clear. “Avril… get rid of him and tell him not to come back.”
Now why Dane couldn’t just say that to the man who was claiming to be his father, I have no clue, but I also never questioned his request. I positioned myself fully in the door again, giving my back to Dane and becoming his protector for the first time.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “You need to leave. You’re not welcome here, so don’t come back.”
“But if I could just—”
I leaned to the side and grabbed the baseball bat by the door. It belonged to Andrew, and I wielded it in front of me. “I will bash you over the head if you don’t leave.”
The man’s mouth drew downward into a saddened frown, and he tried to look past me inside the apartment. I raised the bat, and he took a few steps back.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he held his hands up for a moment before reaching back for his wallet. “I know this is hard on him. I just wanted to reconnect.”
I remained silent with a glare firmly in place as he pulled something from his wallet. He reached out and handed it to me, but I refused to take it. So instead, he bent over and put in on the concrete by my feet. “That’s my business card. I live just a little north of San Diego. I do home inspections and got my life back under control. Been clean for several years. I just wanted to reach out. I think about him all—”
I never heard another word because I’d backed up and shut the door in his face.
When I turned back to Dane, he looked up at me and simply said, “Thank you.”
I just nodded as I put the bat back in its place. I sat on the couch and continued studying, even though my heart was pounding so hard. I couldn’t imagine what Dane was feeling, but I knew it had to be something close to debilitating because he would have never in a million years asked me to protect him. The fact that he did tells me it was a pain he simply couldn’t confront.
I remember the next day, when I stepped outside the apartment, the card that his father left was gone. I had no clue if it blew away or if Dane picked it up, but he and I never spoke of his father again.
Not until just now while my body is still tingling from the orgasm he gave me. And when Dane says, “Then you know,” what he really is doing is reiterating the boundaries of what we have together.
Dane isn’t capable of love or attachment. He doesn’t trust easily, and as much as he trusts me as his best friend, he’d never trust me with his heart. He’s a solitary man who has made it through the first thirty-nine years of his life on his own, and he intends to do that for the next thirty-nine and beyond.
He’s making sure I really understand he has nothing to give me but what’s between his legs.
Leaning forward, I press my lips against his for a soft, reassuring kiss. When I pull back, I look him right in the eye and tell him what he needs to hear. “Yes, I know.”