More Than Friends (Friends, #2)(60)

I’ve never felt so alive.





Amanda clings to me, her long legs tangled with mine, her arms wrapped around my neck as she breathes hard. My head rests on her chest and the wild thump, thump of her beating heart calms me. Reminds me that this moment is happening. That what I just did to her is one hundred percent real.

Being with her is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and it’s…terrifying. That quick encounter with my father tonight reminded me that spending time with her is wrong. Stringing her along, stringing myself along. Pretending I believe in relationships and that what Amanda and I could have could ever be healthy and strong. It’s all lies.

We won’t work out. Something—me—will screw it up. I am my father’s son. And I am my mother’s son too. That conversation with my mother earlier had been downright painful. She’d been drinking, and after popping a few anti-anxiety pills, that combination always sends her into near hysterics.

She ranted on and on about her cheating husband. How I should turn my heart to stone to prevent it from ever being broken. She claimed I have a more sensitive heart, that I’m more like her than my father, who’s cold and calculating and flat out heartless.

Maybe she’s right after all. I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise for years. I’m not sensitive. I don’t care about anyone. I don’t have real friends and I definitely don’t need a relationship. Girls are nothing but trouble.

Amanda changed everything. Even when I was twelve, she scared me. And not in a bad way—more like in a good way. It scared the shit out of me how much I actually liked her. And the more time I spent watching her, listening to her, seeing her every day in various classes over the years, the more I liked her.

The more I eventually knew I had to make her mine.

And now here she is. Lying in my arms completely naked. I just made her come and damn, she is beautiful when that happens. I don’t think I could ever get tired of making her come again and again.

“I want to touch you,” she murmurs into my neck. She shifts closer to me, her naked body brushing against mine, and I smooth my hand along her hip, trying to keep myself under control.

“You’re tired.”

“Not too tired to keep this going.” She kisses my jaw once. Twice. Three times. Sweet little kisses that bring her lips closer and closer to mine. “It’s your turn.”

I turn my head and kiss her fully, effectively shutting her up. When I pull away she’s watching me with flushed cheeks and stars in her eyes. “This is ridiculous. I’m completely naked and you’re completely clothed.”

“I like you this way.” I squeeze her ass because it’s perfect and I can’t stop touching it. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I want to worry about you.” She reaches for the front of my shirt and starts unbuttoning it. “This moment rates high in my fantasies.”

“You have fantasies? About me?” That’s intriguing. Wonder if she’ll tell me them someday. I have a few I could share with her too.

She bats at my chest. “Stripping you of your clothes is a pretty fine fantasy to have, don’t you think?”

“As long as I’m the one benefitting from this fantasy, then hell yes.”

Her fingers brush against my skin with every button she slips undone, and then my shirt is open and she’s spreading the fabric away from my chest, trying her best to tug it completely off. I sit up and get rid of it, tossing the shirt on the floor before I rejoin her.

“Not good enough.” She’s reaching for the fly of my jeans and it’s my turn to bat her hands away. She accidentally brushes her fingers against my dick, and I’m done for. I’ll probably come in my jeans and that would be all sorts of messed up.

“It’s either we do this or talk about your dad,” she tells me, sincerity glowing in her pretty brown eyes.

And there goes my erection.

I fall onto the mattress right next to her, exhaling loudly. “You want to talk about my dad right now?”

She shrugs and pulls the comforter over us, then snuggles in close to me. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. I know that what happened at the restaurant wasn’t—pleasant for you.”

The mildest way she could’ve put it. I’d barely looked at the man and became enraged. My behavior was completely over the top.

But my family is pretty fucking ridiculous, so…

“I’m here for you, Jordan, if you ever need to talk. Or even if you don’t want to talk, you know?” She hugs me. Kisses my chest with those lush, beautiful lips.

I say nothing. How can I answer her? I love that she wants to be there for me, but I can’t rely on her. I can’t rely on anyone.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she whispers against my chest before she lifts her gaze to mine. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Mess what up?”

She shifts so she’s now kissing my stomach. Again and again, her lips soft and damp and making me shiver. Her fingers fumble over the front of my jeans and she hesitates.

“Do you want this?”

Fuck yes, I want to shout, but I remain calm. Neutral. I don’t need to act like a crazy man when I’m with her.

But Amanda makes me want to lose my mind.