Blindsided Read online

  I swallow down the knot in my throat. “I’m sure.”

  He inhales deeply, lifting his shoulders and hitching himself inside me once again. “I’m going to start moving. It’ll probably hurt at first, but then it’ll get better.”

  I nod and look down at where our bodies are connected as he pulls back and slowly pushes back in.

  I groan out a noise that’s a little less like pain and a little more like pleasure. “Oh my God.” I inhale a shuddered breath.

  “Relax, my treasure,” he says as the tender term of endearment brings a fullness to my chest that takes my mind off the pain below. “You’re beautiful like this.”

  The motion between us begins to creep towards pleasure. Pleasure that I want to enjoy. Relish. Taste. Feel. My hands reach around to cup his arse as he thrusts in and out of me. He grips my leg and holds it to his side, deepening our embrace and adding friction to my clit with the new angle. That tiny bundle of nerves gives me chills all over my body, and I can literally feel my wetness begin to increase.

  “God, you feel so good,” Mac groans, dropping his forehead to mine in an intimate way. He pulls back and looks down as he thrusts inside of me again. “Too good. Way too fucking good. I wanted this to last longer.”

  “It’s perfect,” I whisper, cupping his cheek and looking into his eyes. “I know I don’t have anything to compare it to, but this feels perfect.”

  The corner of his mouth tilts up with the tiniest smirk, and suddenly, he begins driving into me faster, maintaining our eye contact the entire time. His face loses all humour, and he bores into me with such force, I feel trapped. It’s intense—looking at someone as they do something so primitive, so animalistic. So feral. It’s an exposing moment that lays you bare, and before I know it, I feel that build inside my body again.

  As if Mac can feel my orgasm coming, he swivels his hips and hits that special spot inside me. I cry out, gripping his back and failing to hold on to what’s left of my sanity.

  “Come for me, treasure. Let go for me. Let me feel you all around me.” Mac’s husky voice opens my eyes, and I find him watching me with a look of awe on his face.

  My body locks up around him, and I explode, shattering all over him as he continues rocking inside of me. Holy fucking shit. The orgasm I had with his mouth before felt like firecrackers. This one was more like a nuclear bomb.

  We continue staring at each other, and it’s so…right. Could I look at another man like this and feel so completely at ease? I don’t think so. It’s then that I realise this was the best way for me to lose my virginity. This is my best friend. He cares about me, and even if this is just a one-time thing, it’s special, and I’ll always be grateful for this gift he’s given me.

  Mac’s body suddenly goes rock hard as he stills inside of me. He lowers his head, burying his face in my neck while groaning out his release right into my ear. After a few tremors that shake his whole body, he pulls out of me, wraps his arms around my waist, and rolls us so we’re both laying on our sides, facing each other.

  “Thank you, Mac,” I croak without pause, my eyes pricking with tears as I cup his cheek and drag my thumb along his stubble. “Thank you for being my best friend.”

  Mac’s brows furrow, and I stare back at him, trying to discern the shifting nuances behind his intense unreadable expression. Finally, his face lightens, resuming its normally sweet, gentle Macness.

  He pulls me into his chest. “Thank you for being mine.”

  He drops a kiss to my hair, and it’s the perfect kiss to seal a perfect moment between two best friends.

  I wake the next morning to a rough tongue touching my nipple. A smile spreads across my face as I open my eyes and expect to find Freya. My face falls when I see it’s her fucking demon of a cat laving at my pec like it’s going to produce milk at any moment.

  “Fuck off, you wee bastard!” I bellow and shove the animal off my chest.

  Hercules takes off down the hallway, and a snort echoes in the room. I turn my gaze to find Freya perched on a chair in the corner of her bedroom. She’s dressed in a long nightshirt, her red hair a wild mess of curls, and her makeup smudged like she was properly fucked last night. And she looks positively entertained.

  “Did you just sit there and watch your cat violate me?” I croak, sitting up and rubbing my tender nipple.

  She giggles and steadies herself so as not to spill the two cups of coffee in her hands. “I came in to bring you a coffee, but Hercules looked like he was warming up to you, so I just sat down here to not interrupt. I had no idea he was going to lick your tit.” She bursts out laughing all over again.

  “You and I are in a fight then,” I reply gruffly, propping myself up on the headboard of her bed. “That was disturbing.”

  She nods, her face still tormented with poorly concealed laughter. “For us all.” Her head shakes as she continues laughing and tiptoes over to hand me my coffee as though it’s some sort of peace offering.

  I eye her warily as she sits down on the edge of the bed by my feet. “How long have you been awake?” I ask, my eyes reflexively eyeing her legs as she curls them up underneath her.

  “Not long,” she replies, taking a careful sip out of the kitten mug I bought for her.

  I glance down at the mug she gave me and see it’s yet another kitten mug. This one says: Cats Make Me Happy. You, Not So Much.

  I take a quick sip before asking, “How are you feeling?”

  Her eyes are full of sweet innocence. “I feel okay. You?”

  “I feel great,” I reply with a shrug. “I had sex last night.”

  Freya rolls her eyes.

  “Are you sore?” I ask, leaning forward and glancing down her body, a strong hunger to taste her again overwhelming me.

  “Yes,” she replies with a small laugh, her eyes drifting from my eyes to my lips. “Does that go away the more you do it?” she asks with the most gorgeous innocence on her face.

  My lips twitch with a fondness I’ve never felt for another burd. “Aye, I believe so. Practice makes perfect and all that.”

  She nods. “And I bled a little. I suppose that will go away, too?”

  “Aye, I don’t think it will happen again,” I confirm with a frown and grip the back of my neck as guilt overwhelms me. Last night after we finished, Freya nipped off to the loo to clean up while I slung the condom into the bin by her bed. I saw a bit of blood on the condom, but the sheets were okay, so I threw on my boxers and crawled under the covers to wait for her. I didn’t even realise I fell asleep until I woke up hours later to find her sound asleep beside me.

  “Sorry I passed out on you last night.” My voice is remorseful because that’s not how I wanted the night to end. I wanted to ask her questions and see how she was feeling. “Was it all…okay for you?”

  “The sex?” she asks, her voice hitching up at the end. “God, yes! It was lovely. Everything I hoped it would be. Was it okay for you?”

  “Definitely,” I reply with a laugh. “Honestly, it was dead brilliant on my end. I was just worried about you because it’s been a while since I’ve had sex, so I wanted to be sure I hadn’t lost my touch.”

  “It’s been a while since you had sex?” Freya asks, sipping her coffee and eyeing me curiously.

  “Aye, since Cami. Over a year ago.”

  “Holy shit.” Freya chews her lip for a second and adds, “You haven’t been with anybody since Cami?”

  “I think you would have noticed if I had been, Cookie,” I reply, sitting back against the bed to hold my coffee against my chest.

  Her brows pinch together. “You travel a lot during the season. Surely, there was some random girl in some random city you went to.”

  “No,” I reply simply. “Just me old hand giving me a crack.”

  Her nose wrinkles. “That surprises me.”

  “It’s been a proper dry spell, that’s for sure,” I reply, glancing down at her legs again. “Actually, Roan thought I was shagging you for several months whe
n we first started hanging out.”

  Freya’s eyes widen. “He did?”

  I nod and smile. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “It did?” Freya’s dropped jaw makes me laugh.

  “Aye, are you saying it never crossed your mind?”

  Freya flushes and gets an uncomfortable look on her face.

  “Okay then, I guess it was one-sided,” I reply, my jaw taut as a sense of rejection overwhelms me. My jaw tics as I set my coffee down and move to get off the bed.

  “It wasn’t one-sided,” Freya says in a rush, stopping me by placing a hand on my leg. “I just…never really gave myself the hope, I guess. I was an almost thirty-year-old virgin until last night, so I rarely ever give myself hope with men. I never would have imagined you’d think of me sexually.”

  I throw my legs off the edge of the bed so I’m sitting beside her, my boxers just barely containing my morning wood. I turn and eye her speculatively. “Do you remember that night we went out in a limo with the Harris family? Vi coupled you and me off for that ridiculous group ballroom dancing lesson, and we ended up at the club downstairs afterwards to test out our moves?”

  “The night when my heels trashed my feet so badly you had to carry me out of the club?” she asks, blinking as she recalls that evening.

  “Aye, that’s the night.” I swallow hard as memories of my own flood the forefront of my mind. “I wanted you that night. Badly. Things with Cami and I had just ended, and I was lonely, and you were so cute in your flirty skirt and bare feet.”

  “Seriously?” Freya barks, a laugh on her face. “You wanted to hook up that night? Was I hot to you before or after I hobbled myself with those ridiculous shoes?”

  I fight back a laugh. “I must have a thing for damsels in distress because it was definitely after. I helped you into your flat, and it was the first time I’d been over here, and…I don’t know, I thought we had a moment.”

  Freya’s eyes blink in surprise as she clearly tries to recount the night that happened well over a year ago. “I had no idea you even looked at me like that.”

  I shrug. “Freya, I’m a bloke. I think with my cock ninety percent of the time.”

  “So why didn’t you make a move that night?”

  I exhale heavily because it’s not the first time I’ve given that question some thought. God, she was so sexy that night. So unassuming and real. Hilarious without even trying to be. I knew from the moment I met her that she was not one of those women who blends into a crowd, even if she’s trying to. She’s a standout, and I wanted her naked so badly I could taste it.

  But from the moment I met Freya, she’d always felt different than other girls. She made me feel like my true self at a time I wasn’t sure who my true self even was. I couldn’t risk losing that by shagging her.

  “I realised I liked you too much to treat you like all the other women in my life,” I reply thoughtfully as I look forward and rub the palms of my hands down my thighs. “Most women I sleep with are such arse kissers, I can hardly stand to be around them for more than five minutes. But you were so interesting and different. You didn’t get starry-eyed when Roan and I came into the boutique for that first fitting. In fact, I was quite certain you hated me from day one, which must make me a masochist because I fancied the shite out of you after that. And I knew then I wanted more than five minutes with you, so I resisted my urges.”

  I turn just in time to see Freya lift a shy hand to hide her pleased smile. “That’s actually really sweet, Mac.”

  I shrug and look forward, trying to lighten the mood. “Then we started Netflix and chilling, and I realised how bloody refreshing it was to just sit on your damn sofa and watch telly like a normal bloke and not think about football for a single moment in my life. I kind of love the fact that you don’t give a shite about football. Have I ever told you that?”

  Freya’s lips curve down with sentiment. “No…but I guess I kind of love the fact that you don’t give a shite about my obsession with Heartland.”

  “Fuck, I’m hooked on that daft show,” I reply with a laugh and run my hand through my messy hair. “I think I love those bloody ponies just as much as you now.”

  Freya giggles, clearly pleased with herself. “And look at us now. We’ve managed to have sex and stay friends anyway. Well done us.”

  “Well done us, indeed.” I grab my coffee to give her a quick cheers.

  Freya exhales heavily after taking a sip. “What are we going to do about our friends?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are we going to tell them what we did?”

  I flinch. “I’d rather not.”

  Her lip curls up in agreement. “Me too.”

  “I don’t see the need if it was just a one-time thing, right?” I stare over at her and regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. “I mean…you wanted to have sex for the first time, and we accomplished that, so there’s nothing more to be done, right?”

  She chews her lip thoughtfully. “Or.”

  “Or?”

  “Or we keep having The Sex,” she says and lifts her brows hopefully as she gauges my reaction.

  Her comment scares me a bit, so I deflect with a joke. “I thought after you had The Sex you would stop calling it The Sex.”

  “Probably not,” she says distractedly. “But I was thinking, since you no longer have a friends-with-benefits situation, and I’m so inexperienced with The Sex, it would do both of us some good to continue this new part of our friendship. I imagine I could get better at sex with practice, right?”

  I can’t even begin to hide my look of complete and utter amusement. “Aye, sure. You get better the more you do it.”

  “So we keep doing it,” she says excitedly as though she’s talking about a school project she’s eager to work on and not about having regular intercourse with her best mate. “Maybe you can show me how to do some of those things I drank to during that Never Have I Ever game.”

  “Not the fucking dirty Sanchez,” I growl, losing all humour. “I’ll die before I do anything close to that.”

  Freya rolls her eyes. “Obviously not the dirty Sanchez. I was just thinking about like, maybe the oral stuff?”

  My brows lift. “More than what I did last night?”

  She shrugs shyly. “Yeah. I’d like to try it the other way around. Maybe sixty-nine? I googled what that was after the party, and it doesn’t look too hard.”

  I purse my lips together to fight back my smile. “You don’t need to ever sixty-nine, Freya. Sixty-nine is something teens do when they’re trying to hurry and get everything in before their mum and dad get home.”

  “Oh,” she says, deflating a wee bit.

  “But I can show you how to give a proper blow job if that’s what you fancy.”

  “Yes, I think I’d fancy that a lot,” she beams happily, her face a picture of innocence that quite truthfully scares me a bit.

  It’s one thing to have sex just the one time. It’s quite another to do a full-blown friends-with-benefits arrangement with someone all over again. Plus, what if Freya wants more than just friendship? I can’t risk losing her.

  I grip the back of my neck and eye her seriously. “Look Freya, I’m up for more because, hell, I’m a bloke and saying no to regular sex just goes completely against my biology. But I just want to be sure you know what you’re asking for. What if you want more than just sex?”

  “What do you mean? Like a relationship?” she asks, her lips twitching with barely concealed amusement.

  “Aye,” I reply, pinning her with a confused look.

  She bursts out laughing so hard she nearly spills her coffee with the fit of giggles shaking her entire body.

  My face falls as she wipes away the tears in her eyes. “Mac, don’t be silly,” she says with an amused sigh. “I know you don’t see me like that. And believe me, you’re not my type.”

  My brows furrow. “It seemed like I was your type when I gave you two orgasms last night.” />
  She rolls her eyes and gives me a playful shove. “Don’t get sensitive. I’m just saying that I know you, and I know myself. We won’t fall for each other. We can barely get along for twenty-four hours, let alone be in a real romantic relationship where we have to care about the other person’s feelings. You and I are like oil and water. Or like super glue and skin. You and I ending up together would be the equivalent of horse whisperer Amy Fleming falling for a city boy,” she adds, referencing her daft Heartland show like that reference is supposed to click for me.

  Okay, it does click for me. There’s no way in hell Amy Fleming could ever give up ranch life for a slick businessman type.

  I clear my throat and try to shake away the strange sense of rejection I feel. Of course I shouldn’t feel rejected. I should feel overjoyed. Freya is gorgeous, and she’s my pal, and she wants to have no strings sex with me. This is a win-win-win situation. Right?

  “If we do this, we have to set an end date for this arrangement,” I state, running my sweaty palms along my thighs. “That will help make everything neat and tidy.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she replies, nodding her head thoughtfully. “How long do you think I’ll need to feel experienced enough to go out there and shag someone else?”

  The mention of her doing it with someone else sends a strange chill up my spine that makes me feel like a fucking caveman. Of course Freya is going to have sex with someone else someday. She’s not just going to be ruined by my cock for the rest of her life…even if that notion makes me positively gleeful.

  But it’d be better for her to have more sex with me first than to just rush out there and have sex with anybody. I could show her a few things in the bedroom. Help her figure out what she likes and doesn’t like so she knows how to speak up for herself.

  However, I’m not going to allow myself to get wrapped up in a long-term Cami situation again. Two years of that shite, only to be left for someone she deemed more worthy, wasn’t exactly an ego boost.

  If Freya and I do this, I can’t let her break me like Cami did. I won’t risk my game like that ever again. I’m not a young lad anymore. One distracted game could result in a career-ending injury for me, and I do not want to go through that kind of pain ever a-fucking-gain. No woman is worth that shite.