Friends With Benefits

Her cry of climax rent the still air of the stairwell. Carter soothed her gently, tonguing her lightly until she stopped shuddering and regained some measure of normalcy.

“That was really great work, Carter,” she joked, giving his shoulder a friendly pat to try to make it normal when she felt anything but. She had no idea what this meant for them, but it was too late to stop now. He’d knocked down the door and she didn’t have the tools to put it back up at the moment.

His blue eyes turning smoky, he rose and pulled her into him. She fought for the kiss this time, aggressively sucking his tongue into her mouth and running her hand over his straining erection. She wanted more of him, wanted the heavy weight pulsing under her hand inside her.

Unzipping his pants slowly, her eyes met Carter’s. It was officially the last gasp of their friendship, because there was no going back now.

She hesitated for just a split second, enjoying her new view but also to tamp down the terror that edged her buzz that Carter would want more than she could give if they went through with this. Adding sex to their friendship was basically putting them into relationship zone, which generally included those messy emotions she liked to keep in check.

She pushed the worry aside because she was sure Carter didn’t want anything serious, either. He was even leaving town, so they were safe. Switching their positions, she pushed him back against the wall and ran her hands over his chest.

She met his eyes as her hands moved lower and lower, and his flared as she came to his kelly-green boxer briefs. The color delighted her since she knew it was his favorite. She pulled them down and let his cock spring free.

Grinning at him and what she’d revealed, she murmured, “I just didn’t know what I was missing, did I?”

He kissed her hard, letting their desire rage out of control.

Her heart beating rapid-fire, she tore away from the kiss and nipped and licked her way down his chest and abdomen and finally ran her tongue up the length of his impressive cock. Thick, long and gorgeous, she wrapped her hands around him, feeling his hardness and heat as he throbbed against her hand in time to her own pulse.

Breaking eye contact, she leaned down and took the tip of him into her mouth, loving his growl of pleasure. She fell in, taking his length, tasting, sucking, caressing until his muscles tensed. Increasing the pressure, she slid up, almost letting him slide out of her mouth before taking him all the way in again. She loved the feel of him on her tongue, his skin, his musky smell. Her core squeezed in pleasure as the first salty drops of come greeted her tongue.

His big hands ran through her hair, pulling just a little. The time for slow was over; she was too turned on for finesse and she handled him easily, alternating between hard and soft pressure, fast and slow speed until his whole body froze against her.

“Alexa, stop, I’m there,” he growled, his voice raspy and strained.

She didn’t listen, sucking harder until he came apart in her mouth. It was the least a best friend could do. The pressure of his fingers on her skull intensified and she swallowed him down, licking around the tip to finish.

Lifting her head, she met his eyes, seeing a fierceness she’d never witnessed before in them.

Just then the door creaked open and her heart stopped. In an instant, Carter had himself zipped and her pushed behind him so the two uniformed Elysium employees didn’t see her face.

The two men exchanged greetings with Carter and her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. Christ, she’d had sex in weird places before, but never this public and never with Carter.

Once the two men had reached the second floor, Carter helped put on her shirt. He watched her, his deep blue gaze intent and focused on her face as he straightened out the hem of her camisole. They were both breathing hard.

“You okay?” he asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

She nodded and the moment of awkward silence seemed to stretch out for minutes instead of the actual seconds it was.

“Well, that’s a first for our friendship,” she tried, giving a forced laugh.

He shook his head at her lame attempt at humor. “My place or yours?”

The question jolted her back to reality. Sleeping with Carter would be the biggest mistake of her life if she lost him afterward. Her love life track record wasn’t exactly filled with functional long-term relationships. For Christ’s sake, her nickname in Vegas was literally the Disposal, because that’s where all her men ended up, thrown away and emotionally mangled beyond recognition.

She also had serious doubts about whether or not she could be in a real relationship. Her parents’ deaths had turned the entire trajectory of her life around. One minute she’d been a carefree sixteen-year-old, and the next she was the girl who everybody pitied because her parents died. It had taken her years to feel like Alexa again and not just a pity case. It made her extremely hesitant to enter into a relationship where not only would she have to deal with someone leaving her again, but that it would be Carter. He was her last link to what she would always think of as the happiest time of her life.

He took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t chicken out now.”

“Sleeping together would hurt our friendship,” she entreated, catching his gaze.

He drew her back into his arms and heat again, and it felt natural and right. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “I don’t like the way you fold your clothes in rolls. It would drive me nuts to be in a relationship with you.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t know your excuses could get any lamer. We’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe I could wear a wig or something.”

She felt his chest rumble against her as he chuckled. “What?”

“You know, like I’ll wear a wig and sneak into your house and have my way with you and then we’ll pretend I was a girl named Marci and never speak of it again. Then we’ll return to our regularly scheduled friendship.”

He nudged her chin up so she could see him. “Is this something you do with guys?”

“Yeah, it’s called role-playing and it happens, Carter.”

“Jesus, Alexa, you’re fucking killing me.” He took her mouth again, quick and rough.

Taking a deep breath, the familiar scent of his clean cologne hit her like a brick wall of need.

Then her phone rang. Pulling it out of her bag, she saw that it was Carter’s mom. The woman who’d, for all intents and purposes, filled in for her own mother after she died. Carter’s mom had been the one to buy Alexa the dress she’d worn for the funeral, the one who, along with her uncle, had held her hand during the service as the priest droned on and on about people he only barely knew. For an instant, Alexa thought about not answering, but it was the second call she’d missed from her today and she felt ashamed.

Carter saw who was calling and blew out an annoyed breath.

By the time the conversation was over and Carter’s mom had reminded her to bring her famous brownies to Sunday dinner, Alexa realized what a mistake she’d been about to make. Carter and his family were her family. If she and Carter didn’t work out—and all signs pointed to her not making an actual adult relationship work—she wouldn’t just be losing him.

She stepped out of his arms and out from under the stairwell.

Meeting his eyes, reading the disappointment already there, she said it anyway. “I’m sorry, Carter, but we can’t do this.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ALEXA WOKE UP with a pounding headache, knowing she’d totally fucked up. She grabbed at her phone on the pillow beside her, cringing at the eleven missed calls and ten urgent text messages from her uncle.

After her parents died, Uncle John had raised her with unconditional love and support and all she ever wanted was to make him proud. She’d been an okay student, but as soon as Uncle John told her she’d only have the casinos one day if she applied herself, she’d gotten her shit together and graduated at the top of her business class in college. He’d given her a purpose at a time in her life where she’d felt rudderless, and it was absolutely killing her that she was basically crapping all over the opportunities he’d given her.

His first text was a link to the local paper, so she tapped it with enough trepidation that a pit of dread opened up in her gut. Glaring at her in bright white light on the homepage of the Las Vegas Gazette was an enormous picture of her and Carter in Elysium’s stairwell. Her legs were wrapped around him and they were basically sucking each other’s faces off. In that light, the rest of her uncle’s text messages, which were some variation of FIX IT, made much more sense.

She groaned, a sound from deep in the bottom of her chest. And she’d thought yesterday had been a shitty day.

Calling her uncle, she prepared herself for his disappointment and the reiteration of his earlier directive to clean up her image. It was exactly what he delivered.

“I’m calling Carter, too,” her uncle expounded, fuming. “The Carter Hayes I know has more respect for women than to put them in compromising positions like that. He should be ashamed of himself.”

“I think—” she started, in an attempt to explain that neither of them had been thinking straight, but her uncle wasn’t interested in excuses or equivocations.

“You need to fix this, Alexa, or we’re both out of a lot of money,” he grumbled.

“Understood,” she told him, her heart clenching with the thought of hurting the investment her uncle had worked his whole life to build. “I will take care of it.”

“Please do,” he instructed, some of the steam going out of his bluster. It wasn’t like her uncle to be mad, but seeing his niece semi-nude in his daily newspaper would probably put anyone in a less-than-gracious mood. “And Alexa, if anything else like this happens, the deal we had about Halcyon is out the window.”

Her heart squeezed at the thought of losing Halcyon, too. “I promise I’ll make it right,” she reiterated. “Please just enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

She expected her uncle to hang up, but he stayed on the line.

Finally, he spoke again. “You and Carter, of all people, know that there are cameras everywhere in a casino. What the hell were you thinking, dear?”

Alexa so did not want to have this conversation. Especially since the moment she’d walked into that stairwell she’d known there would be a camera. She just hadn’t given a shit.

“We got into a fight. It didn’t, um, end like I expected it to,” she explained lamely.

Uncle John chuckled softly and some of the panic in her chest subsided. Business or not, he was still her uncle.

“Well, seems like this is a problem you two could work on together.”

Alexa blew out a breath. Unfortunately, he was right. After that photo in the news, Carter was her only solution.

Running a hot shower and scarfing down some pain relievers, she tried desperately not to think about just what had happened last night. Carter knew everything about her, stayed up late with her after her parents died and she couldn’t sleep, been her confidant about guys, her trusted friend as she’d learned how to run the casinos. And they were one bad breakup away from losing all of it.

She changed for work into a charcoal skirt and an aqua sleeveless blouse, hoping she didn’t look as awful as she felt. She had no idea what she’d say to him now. Maybe, “Hey, I know we almost boned, but I got scared because I’m an emotional kindergartner, so do you mind if we just get fake-engaged instead?”

The drive to the bakery and then to Carter’s was short, but thankfully gave her enough time to think of a plan of action. If heavy and shameless groveling was, in fact, considered an actual plan.

His house was ultramodern; the standard Southwestern adobe tile roof and white stucco didn’t interest Carter. Instead he’d designed a three-story building with sharp angles of steel, glass and countless windows. Five stone columns reached from the ground to the top floor, the middle floor cantilevering out into the air over the floor beneath.

It wasn’t really her style, but it was very expensive and creative, the latter of which probably most appealed to Carter. He’d always been a little bit of an odd man out, never quite fitting into the crowd. In high school, he’d carried a briefcase instead of a backpack. That fact had subjected him to a fair amount of ridicule to the point where Alexa had to step in a couple of times, except it never seemed to matter to him. If people made fun of her, she would have switched to a backpack, but the next day, Carter doubled down and added a pocket watch to his briefcase. It was one of the reasons she liked him so much. He was always himself, and there was a lot of comfort in that for her, especially in a place like Vegas where everyone wanted to be something else.

His house doors had smart locks and her fingerprint was already programmed in, so she let herself in without ringing the bell. It was a much better idea to not give him a chance to slam the door in her face before he could hear her best groveling.

She stepped into his foyer, a wide-open space with dark wood floors and an enormous modern brass light fixture hanging down from the high ceiling. Just as she headed in the direction of the kitchen to set down her bags, a youngish girl in her twenties tiptoed down the suspended staircase, silver stilettos dangling from her hand. It was clearly the commencement of a walk of shame.

When the girl saw Alexa, she froze mid-step, eyes wide with an arrested expression on her face.

“Don’t worry,” Alexa offered. “We’re just friends.”

The blond-haired girl blew out a relieved breath. “Thank God.”

The two exchanged another brief smile before she bolted toward the front door, taking a moment to slip on her shoes before she opened it.

The girl had her hand on the knob when Carter appeared at the top of the steps. Looking from his guest to Alexa, his eyes shuttered, as if he couldn’t handle the sight of what was happening.

Alexa attempted to rein in her rage, because Carter had every right to seek out someone else last night since she’d basically left him high and dry. Except, wait a second, no, he damned well didn’t because she’d given him a fucking amazing blow job.

More importantly, had it meant that little to him that he could turn around on a dime and sleep with someone else? They had been best friends for over fifteen years and their actions last night had changed everything.

Her heart stopped for a second at the thought that he might be seriously dating that girl, but he would have told her and she wouldn’t have been sneaking out the door at first light.

So basically she was just pissed again. The door closed shut behind his late-night date.

“It’s not what you think,” Carter began, holding a hand up as if to halt her train of thought.

Alexa was a power player and she’d spent years perfecting her poker face, which was just what she gave him.

“What you do is your business, Carter,” she said, meeting his eyes as he came down the steps. “We’re just friends.”

Jaw ticking, he crossed his arms over his bare chest and stared her down but she didn’t give anything away.

“Alex, you can pretend you’re not pissed all you want because far be it from me to presume that last night meant anything to the man-eater of Vegas, but I promise nothing happened. You fucking know me better than that. Now would you like to tell me why you’re skulking around in my house so early?”

“You know why I’m here,” she threw out, walking briskly into his expansive kitchen, where slate countertops and butter-colored eco-friendly wood cabinets lined the space. She sat her purse on top of the island along with the bag of pastries and fruit salad she’d picked up from his favorite bakery, vaguely irritated that she’d brought breakfast for a person who at the very least slept in the same room as another woman. “And since you now seem to be in a position to owe me a favor, I’m very glad I did stop by so early.”

“Nothing happened,” he gritted. “She was here when I got home—”

Alexa raised a hand. “Like I said, your love life is not my business.”

“Right, how can I forget that we’re just friends,” he mocked. “Your lips are wrapped around my dick every day.”

A bolt of heat shot up Alexa’s spine, which enraged her because she wasn’t interested in revisiting last night. She might not want to do it again, but it had meant something to her. A whole hell of a lot, in fact. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same way, which felt a little like a vise mercilessly squeezing her insides and jiggling them around at the same time. Additionally, she did not at all appreciate his sarcastic tone considering what he’d done, sexual penetration or not.

“Well, apparently that wasn’t enough of an evening for you,” she said, kicking herself for not being able to hold it back. “Nevertheless, it’s for the best because you’re going to have to pose as my fake fiancé.”

CHAPTER SIX

CARTER WAS ASTONISHED to see Alexa in his house this morning at all, much less with pastries, witnessing a near indiscretion on his part and proposing a fake engagement. It was a less-than-ideal wake-up call.

When he’d gotten home last night, Kelly had been waiting in his driveway. She was an old friend who’d just shown up with an expectation that usually he was up for, but they hadn’t slept together last night. He should have sent her away, but he’d been just pissed off enough to hope Alexa got wind of it to let Kelly stay. He was still pissed now, as a matter of fact, because last night had been some pretty epic bullshit even from Alexa, who was never honest about what she was feeling.

However, the call he’d gotten from his board just minutes before she arrived was the reason he’d nudged Kelly out the door. His company’s stock had risen in value today after the story of his and Alexa’s stairwell indiscretion hit the national news circuit. Apparently, the tech world loved that one of their geeky own had conquered the closest thing Vegas had to royalty. The increase had more to do with the fact that he was about to launch a product to expand his business, but his board would say anything to maximize their investment. They’d gone so far as to suggest him making the most out of his relationship with Alexa even though they’d previously been against his friendship with her because of her rep. It was nonsense that he ignored, so he wasn’t about to take their advice on his personal life now, either.

“You really want to get fake-engaged?” he asked Alexa.

“You know it would work,” Alexa contended. “Uncle John is madder than I’ve ever heard him. He threatened to sell Halcyon, too, if I didn’t clean this up.”

It figured. John knew that selling Halcyon would be just the incentive Alexa needed to take the threat seriously.

“Alexa, I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said, shaking his head.

He would literally give her the shirt off his back in an ice storm, but they needed to talk about what had happened last night. Unfortunately, now that she’d seen Kelly this morning, Alexa was closed up tighter than one of her casino vaults.

“Come on, Carter. You’re my best chance to turn this around quickly.”

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