Southern Seducer: A Best Friends to Lovers Romance Read online

  The image pops into my head: Beau between my legs, his naked thighs working as he thrusts into me. Hard and ardent.

  And then, in my head, he kisses me, tongue matching the roll of his hips.

  My eyes slide to his lips. I bet he’s a good kisser.

  Slowwwww down.

  But the fantasy won’t quit. He’s kissing my neck now, guiding my knee to my chest to deepen the angle. Then he kneels, pulling out of me, and circles the head of his cock—non-existent piercing is there, interestingly—around my clit. I feel it all.

  It’s shocking in the most pleasant way possible. I feel like myself again. Young. Free. At home in my skin.

  I already want more of it.

  “You okay?”

  I blink. Beau is looking at me funny.

  “What?”

  “You just moaned.” Oh, Christ. “Your boobs hurtin’ or something?”

  “Stop the cart.”

  “You’re really not okay? I can—”

  “Please, just—stop the cart, Beau.”

  He hits the brake, and I leap out onto the grass. I run my hands down my own thighs, squeezing them together in an effort to relieve the throb between my legs.

  “Bel—”

  “I think I’ll just walk home.” I don’t trust myself to stay.

  “Like hell you will. It’s pitch black out there.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, and start walking. There’s a fancy dock house just ahead on my left. “I just need to, um, clear my head. Fresh air and…stuff.”

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” I hear him mutter behind me. “Bel, stop.”

  He grabs my arm, the feel of his fingers lighting me up, and I stop, spinning around to look at him.

  His eyes are on my face, and he’s furrowing his brow. That barely restrained hunger is back, and it’s turning me inside out. It’s filling me with joy and hope and desire so sharp it hurts.

  I’m hit by the sudden urge to cry.

  “Did I miss somethin’?” I notice his accent has thickened. “I thought we had fun tonight.”

  “Tonight was great.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  I look at him, begging with my eyes for him to understand. To let me be, to give me time so I don’t ruin the good thing we have going.

  My heart is pounding. I look away toward the lake and run my tongue along the inside of my top lip as I search for the right words.

  When I look back, Beau’s eyes are on my mouth. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and any doubt he’s not feeling this too goes up in smoke.

  The pull his body has on mine becomes acute, and I’m dying.

  I’m going to die if I don’t touch him.

  So much has changed since we first met as eighteen-year-old kids. If now’s not the time to be honest, to be truly, terrifyingly up front about what we want, then when?

  We fall into each other at the same time. It’s fast and it’s wild, and the next thing I know, he’s capturing my mouth with his, our heads tilted just so, his to my left, mine to the right, like we’ve done this a thousand, a million times before. My heart’s in my throat now, kicking and screaming, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to keep tears from falling because it’s sweet.

  The feeling of being kissed by Beau is so damn sweet.

  The knowledge that he wants this, too—that he wants me—is the sweetest of all.

  That answers one question. Only a million more to go.

  I move my lips, asking for more. He groans, stepping into me and taking my face in his hands. His touch gentle, gentle, gentle, even as his lips sear my own. Even as he opens them with the hot demands of his tongue. I curl my arms around his neck and burrow into his body, pressing my breasts to his broad chest and my hips to his hips. I’ve always known that Beau is a big guy. But up close, he’s huge. The corded sinews and muscles of his neck flex beneath my fingers.

  Neck and thighs. Two parts of a guy I’ve never paid much attention to until now.

  Beau’s are perfect.

  His skin is hot to the touch.

  He sips me at first, small sucks, licking his tongue into my mouth. He tastes like a savory combination of apples and whiskey. His scruff catches on my chin and cheeks, and even though it burns, I like it. I reach up and press my fingers into his beard. I can feel the sharp, strong lines of his jaw underneath it, the shape of his expression as his kiss deepens and his tongue licks into my mouth. I curl my hand around his jaw and guide him closer. The smell of the bonfire lingers on his skin.

  A reminder of how close I am to lighting one of the most important relationships in my life on fire.

  But I couldn’t stop if I tried.

  Beau’s arm tightens around my waist, and at the same time, his sips turn into long, ardent pulls. My head tips back at the onslaught, each stroke of his lips and tongue making the beat between my legs heavier. My nipples harden.

  Experiencing this kind of arousal again is both a relief and a concern. My sex drive has plummeted since I gave birth. I’ve wondered if my vagina just dried up for good and worried that that part of me was dead forever.

  I’m happy to report I was wrong. So wrong.

  Still, I worry. I’ve heard stories about women squirting milk everywhere when they orgasm.

  Pretty sure John Riley Beauregard, star NFL linebacker, multi-millionaire and all-around Southern hottie, has never had to worry about being sprayed with breast milk during a make-out session.

  Is that all this is? I don’t know. I don’t know what this is, or how far it’s going to go. But controlling it—the kiss, my response to it, all the feeling that’s coursing between us—feels wrong.

  What if I just live in the moment instead? For the past four months, I’ve been living by the clock, always doing, dreading, preparing for the next feeding, the next load of laundry, the next time I get to sleep.

  But right now, time doesn’t exist. It’s only breath and heartbeats.

  I surrender to the sheer pleasure of just being.

  Chapter Eight

  Annabel

  Kissing Beau back harder, I slip my hand inside his jacket and pull out his shirt from his jeans. I slide my hand inside that, too, finally finding what I’m looking for.

  Skin.

  Heat.

  A solid wall of muscle that tenses beneath my touch.

  I’ve wanted to touch him like this forever.

  He groans into my mouth, drawing my bottom lip between his teeth. My clit pulses.

  “Wow,” is all I can say.

  He groans again when my thumb swipes the top band of his underwear peeking out over the waist of his jeans. I feel something inside him snap. His kiss becomes almost bruising in its intensity. He’s swallowing me whole.

  His hands find my waist, and he grabs me roughly, lifting me off the ground. Heat blares inside my skin, making me ache for more contact and more friction. I wrap my legs around his waist, and he takes several steps forward, holding me as though I hardly weigh more than Maisie. My breath catches when he presses me against the side of the dock house and wastes no time, immediately grinding his erection into the cradle of my pelvis. His movements are a little lewd in their urgency and slight roughness.

  He literally growls, dropping his head into the crook of my shoulder as he rolls his body into mine, simulating one long, hard, rhythmic thrust.

  I see stars.

  I grind against him in reply, seeking…I don’t know what.

  Freedom.

  Salvation.

  Escape.

  His mouth moves to my jaw, then my neck. I feel each flick of his tongue and each scrape of his beard and teeth in my clit. I roll my hips more urgently. Wild. Untethered. Just feeling and fingers, his kneading my ass, mine digging into the muscles of his back.

  Yes.

  Oh, yes.

  It’s the weirdest, best sensation to be touched sexually again.

  To be touched by your best friend, the guy you’ve fantasized about for-freaking-ever.

 
He slips a big hand inside the back of my jeans and gives my ass a firm squeeze.

  I don’t want to be self-conscious about my body. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I want to have outgrown that kind of painful awareness and shame. But I’m just getting to know my new body myself. I don’t know how it will react to Beau, or how he’ll react to it.

  I’m thirty-five, and this is all brand new. Immediately, I want to hate it. Another part of me, though, wants to explore it. Because for the first time in ages, I’m not just surviving. I’m enjoying. The crushing exhaustion of earlier feels like a distant memory.

  This could ruin everything. I could lose someone I really need right now.

  But my God, is this man’s kiss hot. Friend or not, Beau is a man, and his male appetite for me—not the mother, not the martyr, me—turns me on to no end.

  He’s been turning me on for years.

  I surrender, all thoughts and warnings and shoulds muffled by the thunder of freedom.

  I want more, more freedom and skin and heat, so I take it. My hands work their way to his waist. I linger for a heartbeat, then another, at the delicious slices of muscle at his hips. He may have retired from pro football years ago, but he’s still got the build of an athlete. He’s always been a little nuts about his fitness routine.

  Another growl from him when I unbutton his jeans as he’s working his hand inside my sweater.

  I’m starving for him. How many years of pent-up longing let loose, a slingshot finally released after being stretched taut, and tauter still, over the course of a decade and a half.

  The momentum of this kiss is intoxicating.

  I suck on his neck—it’ll leave a hickey, but I’m beyond caring, tomorrow doesn’t exist—and he returns the favor, trailing his lips over the sensitive place on my throat just beneath my ear. He nicks at it with his teeth. A wave of goose bumps courses over my skin, starting at my scalp and rippling through my arms, torso, and legs.

  I work my hand inside his fly and cup his erection through the silky fabric of his boxer briefs. He’s huge and hard, and the sharpness of my desire for him cuts me open.

  I want all of him. I want to fuck him. I want to give him as much of me as he’s willing to take.

  Tightening my grip, I give him a firm, slow tug, feeling the skin beneath his briefs slide up and down.

  He bares his teeth against my throat, sucking in a breath.

  “See?” he groans, kissing my mouth.

  “See what?” I open my eyes.

  He’s looking at me. “I wasn’t being cocky about that. The smoke you said they were blowing up my ass…”

  Can’t help it. I laugh against his kiss, even as I give his shoulder a not-so-gentle shove. “You really gotta work on your puns. Cocky? Really?”

  “I love making you laugh.”

  I steal his words with my lips and swallow them. I want to keep them inside me forever.

  He kisses me back, harder than before, and my eyes flutter shut. He’s pouring himself into me. He’s got me pinned to the wall with the enormous bulk of his body, and he’s got his hands and mouth all over me.

  I give his dick a tug, then another. My heart hammers as his hand moves up the bare skin of my torso. My nipples harden in anticipation. Then—oh, shit—I feel an all-too-familiar burning tingle descend from the top of my breasts to the tips. My milk’s coming in.

  But before I can say a word, Beau takes one of my boobs in his hand and gives it a firm squeeze.

  I see stars again, this time for a different reason. My eyes fly open.

  Crying out, I jerk away from him, immediately covering my breasts with my arm.

  He goes still, heat in his eyes morphing to horror. “Oh my God, Bel, I’m so fucking sorry. I forgot…”

  There’s something almost anguished about his response. My gut clenches.

  “It’s okay. It’s just that my milk—”

  “No. It’s not okay. I was careless.” He lets out a heavy sigh.

  “Hey. It’s fine, I promise.”

  “No, Bel, it’s not,” he says forcefully. “I hurt you.”

  “Please don’t be so hard on yourself.” I roll my hips against him. My boobs hurt, but I can last a few more minutes before I really need to go pump. “And please, please don’t stop.”

  But he’s already loosening his grip on my legs. “We have to. You know we have to, honey.”

  Honey.

  “No, we don’t.” I sound desperate. Feel it, too.

  “Yes.” His tone is commanding. “We do.”

  Carefully, he sets me back on my feet, but I wobble. He catches me, grabbing me by the arm. I love—love—the feel of his hands on me. Our eyes meet. His pupils look enormous in the moonlight.

  The need between us pulses. For a second, we just stand there, stuck between before and after.

  Before the time we almost fucked. And after, when the fallout comes.

  I’m terrified of fucking up. I don’t want to get left again the way Ryan left me when our marriage ended.

  I don’t want to lose Beau as a friend.

  But I’m tired of holding back. And let’s be real, is friendship even on the table anymore? Something tells me that ship sailed the second I slipped my hand inside his pants.

  When we were younger, I was terrified of ruining our friendship. Beau was my bedrock in many ways, and I wasn’t willing to fuck that up.

  Now, though? We’re not young. We’re not stupid, either.

  Maybe it’s time to finally take that risk.

  Still. My mind continues to spin out, jumping twenty steps ahead. Is now really a good time to start a relationship? When I’m struggling to find myself again? It’d be all too easy to get lost in someone like Beau, which would probably make me feel better in the short term. In the long term, though, I’d just be setting myself back.

  “Fuck,” Beau says. He must be reading my thoughts. “Fuck.”

  He steps back, looking away, and lifts the hat off his head. He spears a hand through his hair, making it stand on end, and I can’t help but admire the way the motion causes his bicep to bulge against the sleeve of his jacket.

  My stomach twists.

  Why do I get the feeling I’m losing him?

  He jams the hat back on his head, and his hands move to his fly, where he yanks at the zipper. There’s a violence in his movements, the way he refuses to look at me. In the rip of the zipper when he tugs it up. He adjusts himself with a wince, cursing yet again, then buttons the fly.

  He’s angry, and for the first time ever with Beau, I’m scared. Not of him but of what comes next.

  Finally, he looks up at me. “We can’t—” He looks back out over the lake. His Adam’s apple bobs, and my eyes catch on movement at his sides. His hands clench into fists, then unclench. His gaze meets mine, and when he speaks, his voice is raw with emotion. Same as it was at the bonfire. “I wanna touch you again, Bel. So bad it hurts. I’ve been waiting so long…but I can’t. I—” He takes a breath through his nose, then lets it back out. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I don’t mean to be an asshole, but I don’t trust myself to say the right thing to you right now. I promise I’ll explain myself, I just—I’m sorry.” He’s not talking about squeezing my boob anymore. “I never should have—Christ. I swear my intentions were good when I offered to take you out tonight.”

  “I know.” The auto-reply apology is on the tip of my tongue. I’m sorry I let this go so far. But I don’t say it because I don’t feel it. I feel terrible that he seems to be so torn up about what we just did. I don’t think I’m sorry, though, that it happened. It felt so good. I’m still ringing with it—the pleasure, the freedom…and the sense of self it gave me. I want more of it.

  I know right then that I want this to happen again. And again and again and again.

  I want to be with Beau.

  But I understand where he’s coming from. Taking some time to cool off is probably a good idea right now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish he’
d spend the night in my bed.

  “Your boob still hurt?”

  I manage a little laugh, despite the lump in my throat. “My boob will be fine.”

  “Let’s get you home.”

  Neither of us says a word on the ride back to the cottage. Beau sits stiffly beside me, careful not to let so much as his jacket touch me.

  When we pull up to my house, there’s a light on in the foyer, but the rest of the house looks dark. I let out a silent sigh of relief. Mom will know something’s up the second she sees my face, and I don’t really feel like talking with anyone but Beau right now.

  I linger for a minute in the cart. Beau is still stiff as a stone beside me, wrist hanging over the wheel, hurt and heat radiating off him.

  That makes me hurt. Was it really so bad, what we did? Is he angry with himself, or is he angry with me?

  I swallow hard. Beau promised me answers. I just have to be patient.

  “Take all the time you need,” I say.

  He makes this expression, this half-wince, half-grimace, jaw clenching. “I hate to keep you waitin’. I’m sorry.”

  I put my hand on his knee. “I keep telling you, Beau, it’s fine. Just because we…did what we did, you’re still my best friend. I’m here to listen, always. When you’re ready.”

  “Thank you.” His eyes are pleading. My curiosity to know what’s going on with him burns brightly inside my chest, but I can’t push him. He’ll tell me when the time is right. That’s his choice. “Bel—”

  He stops himself, sliding back his hand to grab the wheel with his fingers. He looks away.

  “Yeah?” I whisper.

  He looks back. “Promise me we’ll be okay. I need us to be okay, no matter what happens next. I need you.”

  I give his knee a squeeze. My throat is so tight I can hardly breathe. “I promise. Always.”

  “You gonna be okay?”

  I nod, even though I know I’m full of shit. “I’ll figure it out. Good night, Beau.”

  “Night, honey.” He presses a scruffy kiss to my cheek.

  He makes sure I get inside, and then he drives away.

  Chapter Nine

  Beau