Page 29 of Besties
Without his shirt on, Richie’s scent was even stronger. It was weird, but I wanted to bury my face in his armpit just so I could smell his Old Spice. He’d started wearing it when he was thirteen, and I could never separate that smell from Richie. I would buy a tube on occasion and leave it in the bathroom, just so I could smell it. And yeah, I might have jacked off a few times while sniffing it too.
I extracted myself from his embrace and went back to the bed. Sliding under the covers, I patted the other side.
“Are you sure? I’m a big guy, and that thing barely holds me.”
“We’ll make it work. I promise.”
He rolled his eyes, but made his way over and slid under the covers. It took a few moments before we found positions we both seemed comfortable in.
“So tell me the things I missed.”
I reached over and flicked off the light, plunging the room into the now-familiar darkness. We lay there for a few minutes, the silence only broken by the sounds of traffic filtering up from the street. Then a deep sigh from Richie a moment before he said something that shocked me.
“I was engaged once.”
He was? “You were?”
“Yeah. I thought it was love, you know? We seemed to like the same things, had fun together, and it made sense that we should get married. So one day I went, opened up the ring box, and asked her to marry me. She said yes. I slid the ring on her finger, and we went to show all our friends. Well, her friends.”
My stomach was in knots. “How come I didn’t know?”
He chuckled, but it had no mirth to it. “I was excited to tell you, because you’d have to be my best man. Then it all came crashing down. I think her friends talked her out of it. Oh, when she returned the ring, I got the excuse that it wasn’t me, it was her, and that she hoped we could still be friends, but she wasn’t sure that being married was a good thing. After that, she stopped answering my calls, and if I saw her out, she ignored me. I’m not stupid, I got the hint really quickly. One day I stopped at a bar with Rebecca to have a beer after work. Jenna was there. Even if we weren’t friends now, we were once, so I said hi. Her friends started snickering, and the whispered comments about my body were loud enough to hear over the background noise. After that, I just threw myself into my work. I mean, why put myself out there if that’s the end result, right?”
I wanted to track this woman down and beat her ass.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What could you have done about it? With my luck, you would have said she was right. I mean, at least I came to realize I’m no one’s prize, right?”
I wanted to slap him for being so stupid. “So instead you’re going to feel sorry for yourself?”
Even in the dark of the room, I saw an eyebrow go up. “Excuse me?”
“Believe me, I say this as someone who has a lot of practice in it. So she wasn’t right for you. That doesn’t mean shit. For the record, there is not one damn thing wrong with how you look. There’s someone out there who loves you for who you are.”
I wished I had the strength to tell him that person was lying in bed next to him.
Chapter8
When I wokein the morning, I was surrounded by warmth. I reached up and found Richie wrapped around me, his arm draped over my chest. Instinctively I snuggled closer, feeling his morning wood poking me in the ass, andholy shit, it sure as hell felt like the man himself. Thick and powerful.
When he snuffled, I realized what I was doing and slid away from his body, despite the fact that I just wanted to lay there and luxuriate in it. I got up, went into the bathroom, and stepped into the shower. I jacked off furiously, thinking about Richie, so close yet still so far away. As the water washed away the evidence, I felt a hell of a lot better physically, but emotionally I was a wreck.
Richie and I didn’t talk much after his revelation of almost getting married. He told me a bit about how he started the company, the first person he hired, and how he screwed up the interview so badly, the person walked away, but came back and let him start over. And the thing I learned most was how much the business meant to him. Then he drifted off to sleep.
As I lay there, his rich scent enveloped me, and I realized that I never wanted to leave him again. Which meant that I had to man the fuck up and tell him how I felt. But my brain kept reminding me what I had to lose if he rejected me, and I withered under the weight of the imagined loss.
Banging on the door scared the crap out of me. “Dude, hurry up. I have to piss!”
I snorted. Richie tended to be a little crabby until he had his first… sixteen cups of coffee.
I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my hips. Opening the door, I found Richie there, his arm against the frame, head on his arm, bouncing on his heels.
“Get out of the way, or I may explode all over you.”
I stepped aside, and he rushed by, stepping over to the toilet and whipping out his dick. I stood there entranced by the length and girth of it. Then I realized what I was doing and backed out of the room, closing the door behind me.
Holy shit, he was hung like a donkey. Even if he was a shower and not a grower, it would still do serious damage if he wasn’t careful. And bam, just like that, I was achingly hard again. What I needed to do was go out and get laid. A good, hard fuck would help me get my libido under control before I said or did something stupid.
