Page 29 of The Best Friend and the Shortstop

While I’m holding back, Nikki’s teeth graze along my lower lip, tugging my skin as her tongue passes over it.

“Gah!” I let out, peppering her lips with kisses as laughter sets in.

“What?” She giggles.

“This! It isn’t weird at all. It’s so fucking not weird,” I say, diving in for more.

Her mouth opens, deepening our kiss, and I allow my tongue to explore all of her. She bends her knee against my hip, and I doubt there’s a chance she isn’t feeling what she’s doing to me. When her hips lift, I know she is.

“Nicole Jasmine Thomas,” I utter softly in her ear as I make my way down the curve of her neck. She breathes out a short laugh that quickly melts into a whimper.

“You’re going to have to tell me when,” I say, my teeth tugging at the collar of her T-shirt.

“When?” she breathes out, arching her back. Is this permission?

I swallow hard and kiss her bare shoulder, then the divot along her throat.

“When to stop,” I say, grabbing the center of her collar with my teeth and tugging it lower. She’s dressed for bed. And I’ve slept with her enough—sleeping—to know she takes her bra off the minute she has a chance.

“And if I don’t?” she says, sinking her teeth into my neck. I think she might actually leave a mark. I hope she does.

I halt my kisses and stare at the tiny heart-shaped mole on the center of her collarbone. I make a wish on it as if it’s a star. Please don’t fuck up this friendship.

“Then I won’t,” I say, dragging my hand down the side of her body and gripping her thigh, pulling her leg up even more so I can sink into her. So she can feel what she does to me.

I thread my fingers through hers on one side, holding her hand against the bed as we kiss while my other hand glides up her waist, under her T-shirt and to the bottom curve of her breast. It’s taking all the willpower I have to slow down, to savor every first. And when Nikki moans into my mouth, arching her back, basically begging my hand to keep trailing upward, I give in.

My fingertips graze the hard peak of her nipple, and I run my thumb over it next, in circles until I feel her breathing pick up with want. I squeeze the hard peak between my thumb and index finger, rolling it to ease her need. Her hips buck up, pressing her body into my hard cock. She’s wearing those tiny little sleep shorts, the ones that look like boxers, and I want to rip them off.

Tugging her shirt up to expose her tits, I drop my mouth to the one I’ve now rolled into a raw bright pink with my hand, soothing it with my tongue.

“Oh, my God!” Nikki pants. I flick the hard tip with my tongue, feeling her body quiver every time I do. I suck it in and hold it between my teeth as she writhes beneath me, her hands deep in my hair, grabbing fists full.

I move to the other one, flicking again, puckering it with my lips then sucking it into my mouth so my teeth can graze the soft pink tip.

“You taste so fucking good, Nik. I never want to stop tasting you. All of you,” I say, leading her to what I really want.

“Yes,” she moans, her hands dropping to my shoulders as she pushes me lower.

I sit up, straddling her and pulling her T-shirt over her head, tossing it to the floor, then pause for just a breath to admire her. My hands roam over her shoulders, my fingers painting down her tits, my fingers curling to scratch along her hard nipples. All the while her hips wiggle beneath me.

When she reaches for the bottom of my hoodie, I take her direction and pull it over my head, sending it to the floor with her concert shirt. Her palms flatten on my stomach, her fingers taking their time to trace along my muscles. Every damn crunch in that gym was worth this moment right now. Her palms trail up my chest, then over my pecs. I drop down, kissing her and allowing her time to touch my back, and my hips. And then her palm drops to my massive hard-on, cupping it and running her thumb along the length through my sweatpants.

“Oh, fuck!” I groan, tucking my mouth in the crook of her neck.

I lick my way down her body, stopping to taste her nipples one more time before continuing down her body, between her ribs, to her belly button. The small stud she’s had since we were teenagers looks a whole lot different like this, and I flick it with my tongue.

“I told you that was sexy,” she says, teasing me for calling it dumb when we were sixteen.

I kiss her belly.

“You were right, Nik. This”—I pause to flick it again with my tongue—“is very sexy.”

“Oh,” she says, her voice breathy and raw.

I curl my fingers into the band of her sleep shorts and slide them down her body, stopping to kiss the white silk band of her panties that cuts across her abdomen. She lifts her hips and I roll her shorts down more, sliding them over her curves as I sit up on my knees to let her slip her legs out one at a time.

She’s trembling, and I’m sure she’s nervous. This step is momentous. It’s irreversible. It will change everything. She’s revealing herself to me, for the first time in our lives. To know someone so well and then to see them bare, vulnerable.

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