Just as I walked in from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of popcorn in my hands, my housemate, Masie, squealed. She was over by the TV, flitting between Anna and Richie, arching her back so that Jack – who lived with us, too, and who just happened to be my best friend – couldn’t whip her ass with a rolled-up towel again.
When he saw I was back, Jack waggled his eyebrows and grinned at me. He had such a dopey smile. An all teeth and rosy cheeks one that made his eyes crinkle and his ears twitch. I’d never been able to ignore that smile. Every time I saw it, I never failed to return it with a helpless one of my own. But not tonight. Tonight, I was pissed at the world, and – best friend or not – he wasn’t getting a damned thing from me. I stared back at him, just long enough for him to register my lack of response, then rolled my eyes and joined our other housemate, Toni, on the floor.
I could feel Jack watching me. His eyes boring holes of confusion in my back. Knew he was wondering just what the hell my problem was. And, though it wasn’t his fault, I did have a problem and it had been eating at me for days. Weeks. I couldn’t be sure why, but my mood seemed to worsen as his mood brightened. It was like I was becoming his total opposite. The clouds over his sunshine. The rain on his parade.
At the same time as Masie squeaked ‘stop it, Jack’ in her ridiculous Minnie Mouse voice, Toni reached for the popcorn. I swatted her hand away, harder than was probably necessary, snarling at her like I was a lioness and she’d just tried to stroke my cub.
Rubbing her reddening finger, she gave me a withering glance. “Jeez, is there any need for you tonight?”
I could feel the poison in my glare, but I was past caring. “Get. Bent.”
“Attitude, much?”
Masie appeared a few feet away, hands on her hips. “Are you causing unrest again, Missy Katherine? You need to learn to be nicer. Nice like… nice like Jack!”
That did it. Before anyone knew what was what I was on my feet and Masie was wearing a red and white striped bucket on her head. White fluffs of popcorn scattered across the rugs, salty butter dripped down Masie’s white dress, and I flared my nostrils like a bull in a room with four red walls.
“What the hell, Katie?!”
Jack pulled the bucket off Masie’s head, half-heartedly reaching for her when she turned around and bolted, but not following. He squared off with me instead, looking as curious as he looked puzzled.
“What did she ever do to you?”
I couldn’t stand his disapproving expression. I didn’t want it, didn’t need it, and didn’t have to stand and take it. “Fuck her,” I hissed. “Fuck this house, fuck the people in it, but most of all, fuck you. Just fuck you, Jack. Shove that popcorn bucket – and Masie – right up your ass and FUCK YOU!”
My feet peeled across the linoleum floor in the kitchen. The back door handle was blisteringly cold beneath my fingers, so I should have known that things wouldn’t be much better outside, but I didn’t care. I needed air, needed to walk off this ache that had been building inside of me for weeks before it burst out of me in a show of rage rather than just temper.
I wanted to storm around the frosty garden, tearing up Toni’s evergreen bushes, knocking over Masie’s stupid swing, pulling Jack’s homemade brick barbeque to the ground with my bare hands. But I stayed right there on the decking, trying to pretend that the damp, slimy wood beneath my feet wasn’t grossing me out.
I needed quiet, but I wasn’t going to get it. The door behind me opened then slammed shut, and Jack spun me around by my shoulder. “Hey! Just what in the fuck was that? You gonna tell me what’s up with you?”
I was pacing, stealing glances at Jack, wanting nothing more than to push him down the stairs then run away. “Why would you think there’s something up?”
“You’ve been giving everybody edge for weeks. If anyone so much as looks at you sideways you’ve been ripping them a new one, but the way you just spoke to me… that’s not you, Katie. So, what, exactly, is eating your ass?”
Oh. Tonight’s bug out had been hard to miss, but I hadn’t realised my mood over the past month had been so obvious to him. Instant guilt. I’d been acting like a dick and he hadn’t called me out on it. Not until I turned violent on Masie frigging Poppins.
I sighed, pulling my unbuttoned shirt closer to my chilled body. “It’s nothing, Jack, really. I’m sorry I snapped at you, okay?”
“Well, that’s a whole world of bullshit right there. Going ape on Masie I get, cos we all know her sunny disposition can sometimes be hard to bear, but if there’s one thing you do less than snap at me, it’s apologise to me. Tell me what your problem is. I’m your best friend, Katie. If it’s something I can help you with I’ll do it.”
My God, if he only knew the half of it. The very thought of him knowing why I was behaving like a bear still awake at the end of December…ugh, it filled me with a mortification so intense it had the potential to kill.
“No, it’s not something you can help me with.”
“Oh, come on, Katie!”
Jack’s hand brushed my shoulder. It was the briefest touch, but it buzzed through me as if it had been a strike, and it shocked an answer right out of me. Before I could stop them, my lips opened and allowed words I didn’t want to say to escape.
“It’s been six months, okay.”
Jack frowned, then grimaced. “Six months since Raj walked out on you.”
I tried to stop the snigger from blowing from my nose when I replied, but failed. “Yeah, that too.” I sounded like such an ass.
It took him a few heartbeats of time to get it, but once it dawned on him he blushed. “Oh, I see. Six months since you last…yeah. But I…uh…I thought you said it was something I couldn’t help with. You’re wrong, you know. I can help with that. If you want me to.”
I laughed, shaking my head as though my bestie had just lost his mind, right in front of me, out here on the soggy decking. “Are you suggesting we… are you certifiable? You’re my friend, Jack, why would you want to…Christ!”
Pushing his floppy hair away from his forehead, he blushed. “You’re hot,” he said with an uncomfortable shrug. “And just so you know, you’re not the only one it’s been a while for.”
“Yeah, right! You’ve had loads of girls since you broke up with Celia.”
“No, I’ve had lots of dates. Not all of them had a happy ending. Not many of them, actually.”
Was he seriously serious? He wanted to me to have sex with him? He wanted to have sex with me? The guy had to be crazy, there’s no way could we ever…I mean, we couldn’t… right?
“All I’m saying is, you’re not the only one suffering from sexual frustration right now. If you want to do something about it, I’m here.”
He took a step closer. Not so close that I’d feel swamped by him. He didn’t make any gesture that might suggest that this was anything less than my decision. All he did was stand there, letting me think about what he’d offered.
And I was thinking about it. Hard.
Could me and Jack work together? We’d been friends since what felt like the dawn of time. He’d nursed me through my heartbreaks, and I’d stood by him through his. And I had always thought he was hot, if I was truly honest with myself. But still, neither of us had ever given any inclination that we might want to be…more.
Pursing his lips, Jack exhaled, making a ridiculous, childish sound. He did that whenever he was nervous. “You’re not telling me yes,” he said quietly. “But you’re also not telling me no.”
If I said no, he’d accept it. If I said nothing, he would take it as a no and he’d walk away.
“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “We can give it a shot, but if at any point this makes me laugh –”
My words were cut off by his lips pressing against mine. I’d always teased Jack for having lips that would look fabulous in a cosmetics commercial, and every time I did it he laughed and told me they were his secret weapon. I was fast learning that he hadn’t been kidding.
His pout enveloping my bottom lip, his tongue just skimming it, was the softest touch I’d ever felt. Warm, enticing, the pressure lingering somewhere between confidence and uncertainty. Tingles travelled up my arm in a shivery flash, the ring his fingers made around my wrist as gentle as his kiss. It only lasted for ten seconds or so, and then he pulled away.
“Oh.” That’s all I could manage. An almost silent exclamation of surprise – and delight. I never knew Jack, of all people, had the power to make me feel this way.
There was still a question in his eyes. The way he looked at me said he knew what he wanted, but was afraid to cross a line. I wish I could say I answered his question as gently as he’d put it, but I didn’t.
My nose collided with his. Our teeth clashed. I stood on his foot, shoved him too hard into the wooden railings, whimpered through my nose when he pulled my shirt down and off my arms then buried a hand in my hair.
His tongue was hot in my mouth, his hand freezing cold on my waist. With every breath he took his kiss grew in urgency but then, maddeningly, he stopped again. My vision blurred for a split second, and then he was behind me. He’d switched our places, and now I was against the rail, looking out into the frosty garden. I could hear cheers and laughter coming from inside the house, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter if they were cheering on the players on the TV screen or me and Jack. All that mattered was the hands that were running down my goosefleshed arms, the lips that were peppering my throat with kisses that turned to almost painful sucking bites, and the heat coming from the solid body that was pressed against me.
Jack was hard. I could feel his cock through his jeans. It was moving, trying to get free, straining against fabric, against me. I tried to focus on the hand that was inching down my belly, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of anything but the way he was curling his hips so he could grind against my ass.
But then…then I felt a cold trail blazing through my pubic hair. A chilly finger slipping between my folds and coming to a rest just shy of my clit. I forgot all about the cock that wanted in me, because there was something more immediate right there between my thighs.
“Oh fuck, Jack, please, I need…”
A quiet, breathy chuckle tickled my ear, and then Jack started to move. He rocked against me, circling my clit in time with the movements of his groin. Kissing… circling… biting… rubbing… whispering words I couldn’t make out, all the while stroking my clit until it started to burn with the need for release.
A single hushed sentence filtered through to my lust addled brain and my eyes snapped open. “Oh God, I’ve wanted you for so long, Katie.”
I realised then why I hadn’t bothered looking for anyone after Raj left me. It was because I hadn’t needed to; I already had everything I needed in my best friend. The only thing that had been missing, was this.
My hands were tugging at my sweat pants, dragging at his jeans. I was completely losing my cool in the face of so much desire and shared need.
“Now!” I demanded in a voice so deep and husky I wondered if I’d actually been the one to speak. “I want it now, please give it to me now.”
A quiet rattling caught my attention. I realised it was my knees knocking against the railings I was leaning on. My legs were failing me. I wanted to get down on all fours, raise my ass in the air so that Jack understood exactly what I wanted from him. No uncertainty, no more questions.
As it went, laying myself out like an all you can eat buffet was unnecessary. My spoken consent had been all Jack needed. While I’d been imagining myself belly down on the decking, waiting to be filled, he’d been dropping his pants. Then mine. Icy cold air tightened the skin from the small of my back to my ankles, and after a few brushes of hairy legs against the backs of my thighs, a knuckle or two digging into the fleshiest part of my ass cheeks, I felt it.
Jack’s thick cock stroking over my lips, parting them, making my clit spasm almost painfully. He was grunting in frustration because he couldn’t find his way in. And then, it happened. A stroke just a little bit below my entrance, then he found it. Even though my pulse was booming in my ears because I’d held my breath, I still heard him hiss in surprise. He held himself there, the tip of his cock not quite in me but not quite out either. So still and quiet.
I was about to growl at him, to tell him to just fuck me before my racing heart exploded from my chest, but before I knew what was happening he’d fisted my hair, shoved me right over the railings until my feet left the ground, and slammed his cock in me in one shockingly hard thrust.
My scream didn’t make it to my lips. Jack’s hand was around my mouth, keeping me quiet, stopping my caterwauling from announcing to everyone in the house behind us that, yes, Jack and Katie were fucking outside in the snow. If he’d let me scream he wouldn’t have heard me say ouch, though; he’d have heard me say, “Yes!”
Each foggy cry I expelled into the palm of his quickly dampening hand was the same encouraging word. “Yes…yes…yes…” Each time his cock reached the deepest part of me I said it, each time he spanked my ass I said it. And when my cunt squeezed around his relentless cock, so much sooner than I ever thought could be possible, I sobbed it.
“Yes!”
When Jack pulled me back against his chest I could barely stand, but he held me up. Arms around me, he panted into my ear, saying his own little mantra over and over. “I’m gonna come…I’m gonna come…” A soft, almost disbelieving moan, and then, “I’m gonna come in you, Katie…oh fuck, I’m finally gonna come deep in your hot little cunt.”
And he did.
I felt him throbbing, listened to him groaning, yelped when he squeezed his arms around me so tight I thought my ribs might shatter. When his climax finished wringing the last drops of pleasure from him he shuddered, and the breathless little laugh that accompanied it made me moan in shock. We both stilled and waited until the orgasm that had snuck up on me petered out.
In the peaceful stillness that followed, Jack held me. We watched the silently falling snow start to blanket the back garden. “So, I was wondering…” Jack murmured right by my ear.
“What?”
“Do you think that maybe you might need my help again later tonight? And then again tomorrow night? And the next night, and the night after that?”
“Hmmm.” I paused, pretending that I was thinking about it. I wasn’t, though, because I didn’t need to. It was obvious to me now. I knew what I wanted. Giving him the smile I should have given him when I still had the bowl of popcorn in my hands, I gave him his answer. “You know what? I think I just might.”
