More than Friends: (A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance) Page 2

  “Let’s just finish our dare and come back.”

  Dean narrows his eyes at me. “Kitten, you cannot be serious. I’m not going to fuck you in some nasty room in a frat house.”

  “We can pretend,” I breathe against the shell of his ear.

  He catches on to what I’m putting down and helps me up from the couch. While Dean doesn’t even closely live up to his reputation on campus, the people in the room with us expect more from him. I could care less what any of them think about me. I never turned down a dare before, and I don’t plan to start now, not with everyone watching us. Kat Baldwin is no punk.

  Dean leads me by the hand up the basement stairs and to the top floor of the old Victorian. We’re doing this for appearance sake. No one will even notice how long we’re gone or if we bother to come back.

  Once inside the room, Dean shuts the door behind us and locks it. I was expecting a bed, but instead, there are two couches, a coffee table, and a flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. I sit down and grab the remote from the table to turn on the TV. If we have to pretend, we might as well keep ourselves entertained.

  “I’m sorry about this, Kitten.” Dean places his big hand on my knee and squeezes it. “I should have known better than to bring you into the basement. That’s where all the weird shit happens in this house.”

  I shrug against the cushion and lean into his bulky frame. “Don’t worry about it. They have no idea what we’re doing up here. No one will know if we kiss or not. Let’s hang out here for about twenty minutes, return the key, and get out of here.”

  “I should have brought some beer with us,” he says, leaning his head back on the cushion.

  “Fuck it.” I climb onto his lap and straddle him, pressing my palms down on his shoulders. “What’s one kiss between friends?”

  He reaches up to run his calloused thumb along my jaw and traces his way to my lips. “You’re beautiful, Kat, but I don’t want you to do this because some asshole dared us to come up here together.”

  I dip down to brush my lips against his. “We can kiss and still be friends.”

  He slides his hands down to my waist and holds me tight. “Once we do this, we can’t go back.”

  “It’s just a kiss, Dean.”

  “You say that now, but what if everything between us changes tomorrow? I can’t afford to lose you, Kitten. You mean too much to me.”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like?” I move his hands from my hips to my ass, staring into his eyes. “Shouldn’t we see if there’s something more between us?”

  “Where is all this coming from? Don’t let those idiots get under your skin.”

  “They’re not.” I take his bottom lip in my mouth and suck on it. “I thought you were asking me out the day we met.”

  “Would you have said yes?” He breathes the words against my lips.

  “In a heartbeat,” I confess.

  With that, Dean cups my ass in his hands, gripping me with so much force that I let out a soft moan. “Is this what you want, Kitten?”

  “Uh-huh.” I grind on him, feeling him grow beneath me. “I know you do, too.”

  “You’re drunk,” he grunts. “I feel like I am taking advantage of you. I made a promise to Theo and Tucker that I would take care of you. I’m violating their trust and abusing the situation.”

  “You can’t take advantage if I want it to happen, Dean. Now, shut up and kiss me. Stop overthinking the dare. We won’t even remember this in the morning.”

  Once our lips collide, Dean slips his tongue into my mouth, taking his time at first. It shouldn’t feel this good to kiss my best friend. But damn me for wanting more of him. I want all of him. If we weren’t in this room, I would allow Dean to wander more.

  Heat spreads from my cheeks and down to my chest, warming my insides. As Dean navigates my body with his strong hands, he commands his dominance over me, my sex clenching from each touch. His soft kisses turn more passionate and rough with each flick of his tongue. He palms the back of my head, threading his fingers through my hair to deepen the kiss.

  Neither of us wants to stop. The Dirty Dean that I know would have come out to play. Instead, I have to watch him with other girls and pretend as though I do not secretly wish I was them.

  Dean never does anything with girls in my presence. But knowing he has the occasional hookup bugs me sometimes. Now, I have the chance to be that girl for the night. We spend the next twenty minutes kissing and running our hands over each other’s bodies, never pushing the limit far enough that we can’t go back.

  Sex is a fine line that could cost us everything.

  Chapter 4

  Sophmore Year

  Dean

  “Did you hook up with our sister?” Theo strolls into my bedroom, giving me a disgusted look. He plops down on my bed next to me and waits for my response.

  “It was for a game,” I admit, leaning my back against the wall. “Kat and I are friends. Don’t read anything into it.”

  The truth is that I loved every second of the kiss I shared with Kat. I didn’t want it to end. But we are friends. If anything, the kiss only complicated our relationship.

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Tucker says, sitting on the opposite side of Theo.

  I laugh at him. “What are you going to do about it, tough guy?”

  He makes a fist, with his face twisted in mock anger, and punches me in the arm.

  I guess I deserved that much for kissing Kat. Being with her gave me the worst case of blue balls. After I walked Kat to her dormitory, I stood under the water in the shower for at least an hour. Nothing I tried had helped.

  The worst part is that I cannot stop thinking about her mouth and those luscious lips. I dream of what she would taste like and how good she would feel beneath me. I want all of her. But I need her friendship more.

  Ever since Kat’s twin brothers joined the Senators this year, I have become just as close to them as Kat. She wasn’t joking about them being overprotective. Kat’s brothers would kill for her.

  Growing up with no siblings and a single mother who worked three jobs to keep me in skates, I never knew what it was like to have a big family. I spent most of my time at other people’s houses or playing video games to keep myself entertained. My mom did her best, and she still busts her ass to make my pro hockey dreams become a reality.

  But seeing how a close family operates makes me wish I was part of one. That’s why I cannot screw things up with Kat, despite my feelings. Kat has become family to me, and by extension, so have her brothers.

  “Kat texted me.” Tucker sits up to read the message. “She wants us to meet her at the SAC to play air hockey.”

  “Kat likes her air hockey,” I deadpan.

  He shrugs. “We played it all the time at home when we were kids. It’s our thing.”

  “I noticed. Kat makes me play with her almost every night that we don’t have a game or practice.”

  “I’m hungry,” Theo says to Tucker. “Tell Kat to meet us in the cafeteria first. And make sure she brings some cash with her. I’m out.”

  “You’re rich,” I say, stating the obvious. “How are you out of money?”

  “I put the rest of my cash down on us winning the game tomorrow night. I only need to borrow a few bills for dinner.”

  “If dad finds out that you’re placing bets, he will kick your ass.” Tucker, the eldest of the twins by two minutes, gets up from the bed and stares down at his brother. He’s the more responsible of the two. “You are such a dumb ass. Don’t go gambling away your trust fund on sports betting. Remember what happened to Uncle Steve?”

  Theo nods, deflated. “Yes, Dad. I won’t do it again.”

  Tucker snorts. “You know I’m right. Stop jerking off and focus on staying on the team.”

  Theo rolls his eyes at his brother. “My game is fine, thank you very much, and my spot on the team is secure.”

  “What do you think happens to players that take bets on their te
am, Theo?” Tucker points his finger at his head. “Think with your head for once. If you get kicked off the team, there goes your shot at the NHL, and Dad will kill you if you blow your shot over a stupid bet.”

  “Okay, enough fighting, boys.” I push myself up from the bed and to my feet, holding out my hand to help Theo up.

  He takes my hand with a sigh. The Baldwin twins go at each other like this for hours. Sometimes, one of our teammates who live in the house with us has to break up their arguments. The one thing every member of the Baldwin family has in common is their tempers, Kat included.

  After thirty minutes of non-stop fighting, I get Theo and Tucker to stop yelling at each other long enough to drag their asses to the Student Activity Center to meet Kat. The scents of herbs and fried foods assault my nostrils as we go through each station. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until we got here.

  We fill our trays in a hurry and set off toward the table in the back of the room, the one where we normally meet up with our friends. Kat peeks up from her plate, locking onto me. She pats the seat next to her.

  Now, she’s the one beckoning me. We still joke about the day we met. Back then, I used my usual tricks on her, not even thinking that they wouldn’t work on a girl like Kat. She has me so whipped that sometimes even I wonder why we never took our relationship to the next step. Until last night.

  But I have to set those feelings aside for the sake of our friendship. As much as I would love to explore more with Kat, it could never work with her brothers around to block us at every turn. She’s never even had a boyfriend because of them.

  I sit next to Kat and slide my chair into the table.

  “What did you get?” Kat scans my plate. “I’m still hungry.”

  “Cheesesteak and fries. You want half of it?”

  She lifts a fry from my plate and stuffs it into her mouth, speaking between bites. “Maybe just a bite of your steak.”

  “You owe me a few bucks for this joker,” Tucker says to Kat, pointing at Theo with a goofy smile.

  She pulls a twenty out of her back pocket and throws it across the table at Tucker. He picks it up, looking victorious.

  “I’m not a joker,” Theo says, defensive, but he’s too busy eating his food to argue.

  Kat and her younger brothers only have a one year age difference between them, but you would assume by their behavior that the twins are years apart from Kat. While she’s mature and sensible, they’re both wild and think after they act. Tucker surprises me on occasion, but that doesn’t happen often.

  Then, there’s Duke and Austin, who are over five years older than Kat and rough around the edges. The Baldwin’s are a dynamic bunch. Never a dull moment around any of them.

  I break my steak in half and give it to Kat. Instead of taking it from me, she grabs my hand and sinks her teeth into the sandwich. She pins me down with an intense stare, making it harder for me to focus on anything other than her face. I watch each movement of her mouth, thinking of how her lips felt pressed against mine. I miss being that close to her already.

  Does she feel it, too?

  Can we make this work between us?

  For better or worse, things have changed between us. I cannot deny the connection I have to Kat. It was always there. But how do we move forward?

  Chapter 5

  Junior Year

  Dean

  Sitting on the bed next to me, with her back against the wall and her legs pulled up to her chest, Kat reaches for the remote between us. She turns off the TV, leaving the room in silence. We were in the middle of another one of our crappy movie marathons.

  She takes my hand in hers and tugs hard enough to bring my attention to her beautiful face. “Dean, would you be my first?”

  My heart speeds up, beating out of my chest. I have no idea how to answer Kat. After spending months working out my feelings for Kat, things had finally returned to normal. I thought our summer apart had healed the old wounds, only for her to rip them open again.

  “You mean sex?” I have to clarify just in case I am way off base.

  She nods. “Yeah. Is that a weird thing to ask you?”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about sex, and I want to do it, you know.”

  “And you want it to be with me? Are you sure, Kitten? That’s a huge responsibility. You should have sex with someone you love.”

  She shakes her head, smiling. “I love you, silly. That’s why I want it to be with you. If I make the mistake of having sex with some random dude, I will regret it later. But I would never regret my choice if it was with you.”

  I should be happy about the situation. After pining for my best friend for what feels like an eternity, this is what I want. But I have my reservations about sex destroying our relationship. It had taken me long enough to get over our kiss. But I want her. I never stopped.

  In one swift motion, I grab her by the hips and pull her onto my lap. She squeezes my legs between her thighs and stares down at me, licking her lips.

  Starting at her hips, I run my hands down to her legs, feeling her soft skin. “Once we go down this path, there’s no turning back. We can’t hit the reset button.”

  I should confess my feelings for her so that everything is out on the table, but I don’t want to ruin the moment. Kat asked me to do something for her that should be handled with care.

  “Not in my room,” I tell her. “If this is what you want, we should plan it out. I want it to be special for you. Your first time shouldn’t be in the house I share with my teammates. Plus, your brothers are on the other side of this wall. Hell, we even share a bathroom. How will that look if they find us together?”

  She beams with delight. “So, you’ll do it. I was so afraid to ask you.”

  “Kitten, having sex for the first time is not a Band-Aid you have to rip off. If you only want this because you think it’s the right thing to do, then you are doing it for the wrong reason.”

  She pushes her hair behind her ears, sitting up just enough to give me a perfect view of her tight body. With her full breasts popping out of a fitted blue top, I had trouble focusing on the movie, but now, I can’t even think straight.

  “You have more experience than me and know what you’re doing. I want you to take my virginity, Dean. It should be you.”

  “You have no idea how much I love hearing that, Kitten.” I slide my hands beneath her shirt and lower her onto my chest. “But I’m afraid of what will happen if we cross that line.”

  “I will still be me, and you will still be my best friend. Nothing will change between us. We kissed and sort of made out last year. It’s not like we haven’t been with each other in some sense before.”

  “I don’t think you get what I am trying to say.”

  “I do, Dean, trust me, I get it. You are looking out for me and want me to have this magical experience. It will be. That’s why I asked you.”

  “Not tonight, okay? I’m serious about this being planned out.” I close my eyes and sigh, hating myself.

  Tucker and Theo would kill me if they knew I was even considering taking Kat’s virginity. The complexity of this situation has me so conflicted. Can my heart survive this? I barely made it through last year. I dreamed of this moment for so long, and now that it’s here, I don’t feel worthy of her.

  Kat presses her lips to mine, forcing my eyes open for a few seconds, before I close them again, allowing myself to get lost in her. Kissing my best friend shouldn’t feel this good. But it does.

  I devour her, my kisses hungry and passionate, the two of us sinking so far into each other that neither of us wants to come up for air. The more I kiss her, the more I feel myself falling for her, hard and fast as our bodies fuse together. I’ve never had this kind of connection with anyone.

  With each kiss, I grow harder, tenting my track pants to the point I am in physical pain from the pressure building. I don’t want her like this. Kat is wholesome, in a girl-next-door kind of
way. But not now, not when she’s tearing at my clothes, begging me to take her right here in my bedroom.

  My hand slips beneath her top once more, and I get even harder when I discover she’s not wearing a bra, granting me easier access. Massaging her full, perky tits, I peel my lips from hers and stare into her eyes. She is so fucking beautiful, so pure and unlike the puck bunnies that throw themselves at me on campus.

  I push her shirt up further to expose her skin to the cold air, and her nipples grow harder beneath the pad of my thumb. She hisses, biting down on her bottom lip, as I roll my tongue gently over the swollen bud.

  Threading her fingers through my hair, Kat moans my name, causing me to work faster. Every groan of pleasure from her lips sends me over the edge. I have waited far too long for this moment.

  But what happens after we have sex? Will she look at me the same? Am I just someone to help her feel more confident for other men?

  I never talk about women with Kat, and she never mentions any men on campus. She knows of the girls, but I never go into explicit detail, so I can save her the pain of what I go through pretending not to be in love with her.

  She purrs my name. Good, Kitten.

  I bring her lips to mine and slip my tongue into her mouth, dividing and conquering her body, as my hands wander her skin. Not until I hear the door slam in the Jack and Jill bathroom I share with Theo and Tucker do I realize my door is probably open.

  “Fuck.” Without meaning to manhandle Kat, I throw her onto the other side of me, just in case the twins come barging in on us.

  Kat pulls down her shirt and fixes her hair and clothes. “That was a close call.”

  I point at the bathroom door on the right side of my bedroom. “If we went any further, your brothers would have ruined your first time. This is why I want to do it the right way. We can get a hotel room or something off campus. Anywhere but here.”

  She rolls onto her side, facing me, and sinks her elbow into the stack of pillows behind her. “Thank you, Dean. There’s no else I would rather share this with than you.”