Page 4 of The Couch Where It Happens

An accidental friction

Hank had told hershe was tight in such a slow, quiet voice. It conjured a pint of dark chocolate stout, thick and sweet, at the end of the night.

Of course, she knew he meant her back muscles. The benefits that came with their friendship were laughter and food and, well, friendship, and not capital-B benefits like intimate touching or anything that remotely encompassed the wordtight.But none of those truths stopped her imagination from providing a startlingly clear image of Hank’s big shoulders and broad chest above her, wearing one of his workout tanks that showed his arms—she was today years old when she realized she could look at his arms and imagine them bracketing her body—and then he’d mutter exactly that phrase,you’re tight, and absolutely mean her pussy. His cock would be as big as the rest of him.

That knowledge wasn’t based upon a guess, because if her overstimulated brain could add a footnote to this fever, it would cite the fact that the man always wore workout clothes. Occasionally, not frequently, because that would be creepy, butdefinitely a nonzero number of times, a woman could intuit the general dimensions of the penis presence from under the loose black mesh. And once or twice, she’d seen him in much more fitted black running tights, after which she could have drawn a technical rendering ofit. If, that is, she’d wanted. To draw. It. Him.

His hands kept going, but that didn’t assuage the tension that had spread from her back to deeper in her core. She could almost feel his bulk pinning her legs, almost, but it was the damn couch in front of her. Her thighs were so clenched from the effort to hold herself together that she’d probably gained a half-inch in height. And she knew without looking down that her nipples must be visible through her bra and thin shirt. They felt like the giant headlights on a long-ago era’s swank cars, glaring out in front of her body, and why not even add a cartoon horn blaring into the mix with a classicahh-OOOO-ga, baby-fuck-Ah, to draw Hank’s attention right here.

She wobbled. If she offered to lie on her stomach and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted, to her spine or otherwise, what would happen?

He reached from behind her and banded his right forearm across her collarbone to hold her upper body, so she wasn’t hinged half over the couch while he worked her back. Then his left hand straddled her spine, fingers on one side, thumb on the other. At least that’s what she thought happened, because presumably, he didn’t have three hands.

She felt dizzy with the realization that her fantasy of moments ago, Hank’s arms around her, had manifested itself in the real world. She couldn’t calculate how long it had been since she’d fooled around with a guy, and here was Hank, her Hank, her best friend, touching herlike this.

Surrounding her, moving his hand up and down, pushing into her tight muscles, over and over.

Her shirt fabric slid as he rubbed, mesmerizing her with a motion she couldn’t see, but could sense in every nerve. She wanted the shirt to disappear so she could feel the sticky touch of bare skin in a heat wave, but fabric blocked his hand.

How could this moment be so relaxing and, at the same time, so very not-relaxing?

Hank.That was the answer. Right now, right here, he was all hers, and she was definitely his, even though he didn’t know it. Yet.

His scent wrapped around her as solidly as his forearm. Parting her lips and panting didn’t give her enough oxygen, but it filled her with his essence, warm and spicy, with a tiny bit of good sweat, and confused her with all the deodorant advertising slogans, even salty and ocean fresh. It reminded her of a really fun kayak trip, if that had a smell, and a campfire after, and why the fuck was she thinking about sharing a sleeping bag with him when it was ninety degrees out?

Her brain felt like an espresso machine with a head of steam that needed someone to push a release button, but her neck was too soft to hold up her head. Her chin fell forward to rest on his forearm. She needed to get out of her thoughts and get grounded, get back to the now.

“Have you seen the movieMoana?” Another classic Emma-brain free-association fail, riffing on ocean fresh and kayaking to end at Disney.

His sigh ruffled the hair behind her right ear, adding to the heat pooling between her legs.

“Once with you, remember? Junior year.”

Of course she remembered that, but she’d been filling empty air. She was a really big, really humongous, five-foot-tall idiot.

“Three times with my nieces.” His hand kept moving. She exhaled and slumped forward again into his supporting arm, letting her eyes close. Her lips were inches from his skin, butshe couldn’t actually touch her mouth to him because he had her pinned too firmly. A treacherously self-destructive part of her would, however, if she could reach him.

“They said I didn’t have enough tattoos, so I let them draw on my biceps.”

Fuck you, Hank Kahue. Just fuck you and fuck me and fuck your godlike arms.

“Relax.” His voice had become quieter, deeper, and his hand strokes glided from high up her back all the way down past the starting curve of her butt, again and again. “We’re good.”

We’re always good.She let go of the couch back and curled her hands around his forearm.We’re more than good.She squeezed, and his skin barely seemed to dent under her fingertips.We’re so fucking good.Her knees felt like syrup, and nervousness roiled her until all she wanted to do was cling and let him Hank-handle her like she was another piece of furniture. She would happily let his hands move her body, let him roll her like a paintbrush, let him squeeze her.

The hand on her back and his forearm across her chest had become her world. She pictured the hand that was softening her muscles, softening her knees, softening her spine, pictured those long, thick fingers and the big knuckles. For the first time, she wondered what it would feel like if one of Hank’s fingers went inside her. Or two. His hands were fucking huge.

His feet shifted farther apart, and his body heat came closer to her back as he fixed her in place and pushed at the same time. The pressure nudged her faster and harder against the couch. Or maybe she was the one moving faster, maybe she was pushing herself back into his hand, bumping forward with the release, almost humping the couch. Maybe it was her.

She was wet.

The realization of exactly how wet she’d become should shock her, but it didn’t. The roughness of his breathing in her earshould shock her, but it didn’t. The way his hands dug deeper into her muscles, which thrust her pelvis and hips harder against the couch, should shock her, but it didn’t. And how she had to push back into him to stay on her feet and how she yearned to turn around and climb him? That absolutely should shock her, but it really, really didn’t.

She yanked at his arm, trying to make it slide lower on her chest so she could feel it mash her breasts. She needed him to touch her breasts more than she’d ever needed anything from a man. She stood on her toes to reposition herself so that she could get that friction, even an accidental friction, across her nipples.

“Emma.”

He’d never said her name like that. Like it was everything. Like he was asking her something, but without a question, because he was telling her something too.

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