Page 55 of Just Friends
Yeah, okay, maybe I was playing with fire. Butshefelt the enticing electricity pulling us closer, too—she must have. In fact, Iknowshe did, because she moved her body seductively against mine, and she made those cute little noises a girl makes when we first start fooling around and she likes where things are going.
But Piper isn’t one of those girls you fool around with. She’s your best friend.
But why listen to that voice when I could listen to Piper instead? Her soft, sexy little moans led me right to her pretty mouth.
If you cross that road,that inner voice warned again,you realize you and her won’t ever be able to go back to the way things were, right?
I cupped her face and stared deep into her eyes, wondering if I was really about to do this.
Don’t you do it,the voice pleaded, but I was getting better and better at ignoring it.
Piper closed her eyes. Her lips parted, waiting for my embrace.
Was I really going to do this? After yearsof friendship? Afteryearsof trying to convince everyone we knew that we weren’t into each other, that we never fooled around, that we’d never even thought of doing something like this …?
The warm touch of Piper’s shallow breath on my face pulled me closer. I leaned in and gently grazed her lips.
Her plump lips, like succulent slivers of a juicy peach, locked onto mine.
That was all it took for my heart to flicker like one of those trick birthday candles. The ones where youthoughtyou’d blown the flame out, but the second you turned your back, the candle sparked and crackled back to life and the flame burned again.
The only sound in the quiet room was the locking of our lips. I’d kissed a lot of girls, butneverdid it feel anything like this. My heart thumped my ribs so hard, I became convinced she could hear it. I clasped her hand in mine and tried to deepen the kiss—
When she suddenly planted her palm against my chest and broke the kiss off.
“Whoa,” she said, her eyes wide with shock. “Wait, Jax.”
Told you,the voice that knew better gloated.You should’ve listened.
“Fuck.” Guilty, I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry.” I climbed off her and sat up. I had to use a pillow to hide the rock-hard protrusion in my shorts.
Really, dude?Hard already?
“Is the stream still on?” she whispered, gesturing at the computer.
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“Sure.”
I slithered off the couch, like the rotten fuckin’ snake I am, and sneaked over to the computer. Making sure to stay out of the camera’s eye, I reached for the mouse and shut the stream down. Out of the million-plus viewers, only a few thousand remained and the chat looked dead.
“It’s off,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said, her focus trained on the floor. “I hope they didn’t hear anything.”
“There’s no way they heard anything,” I said. I returned to the couch and sat, leaving a healthy distance between us. “We were quiet.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
An excruciatingly loud silence dominated the air between us. The gap between us, though it was only a few feet, felt more like a mile. When I couldn’t bear the awkward silence any longer, I snarled, “Fuck me.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked—as if she didn’t know.
“I fucked up, Pipes.” I angrily ground my balled fist against my thigh. “I can’t believe I did that. I don’t even know what got into me.”
“It’s okay.”
