COULD HE MEAN what my addled brain thinks he means?
As far as my libido is concerned, there’s only one interpretation...
But no... Of course not. The excited fluttering in my belly peters out. I’m nothing like his usual women—glamorous, immaculate, sexual beings only looking for a brief, casual fling. There’s no way I want to become one of those temporary women. Never once in all these years I’ve known him has he had a relationship that lasts longer than a week. Emboldened by alcohol after a few too many drinks, I once asked him about his relationship avoidance, and he said that he only had to look at his father—who’s been married six times—to know that he hadn’t inherited the commitment gene.
‘What? Do you want to have a crack at it?’ I snort, trying to make light of a situation that makes me feel like I’ve waded into the sea up to my neck.
‘I could. Why not?’ he says, regarding me intently, as if with new-found fascination, until I burn with exquisite temptation.
I finally look away from his handsome, deadly serious face. ‘Very funny, Olly.’ Oh...yes, please. ‘No, thanks—I’ll stick to the dating app.’
He rolls his shoulders back, a move that pushes his buff chest closer to my peaked nipples. ‘Why? So you can have a string of depressing dates with a string of selfish guys who can’t keep a girlfriend—because otherwise they wouldn’t be on the dating app in the first place? No way am I watching you put yourself through that, not after what you’ve just told me.’
‘Then close your eyes,’ I snap. He’s crossing the line here, and part of me is enthralled and part of me equally appalled.
He carries on as if I didn’t speak. ‘You deserve so much better than that after your experiences with your exes, who I assumed were at least satisfying your needs, despite acting like superior wankers towards me. All of your needs.’
My eyes burn with incredulity just looking at him; he’s seriously not joking...
‘Most men our age use dating apps for hook-ups,’ he ploughs on. ‘Do you think those types are going to be any more attentive to your needs than Limp Liam or Tris Tosser?’
I fist my hands on my hips, ignoring his nicknames for guys who’d disliked him in return, their animosity a source of many an argument during our respective relationships.
‘You’ve had your fair share of hook-ups,’ I say, ‘So I bow to your superior knowledge. But it’s not your place to determine what I deserve.’ I aim my index finger at the centre of his sternum. ‘And don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’ If I’d wanted to feel second rate again, I’d simply have watched him crack on with the blondes outside. There’s always a queue for Oliver’s attention.
He leans closer, eyes sparking with gravity, until my finger brushes his chest. He tenses his pectoral muscles, the tip of my finger almost swallowed in the deep valley formed.
I drop my hand, retreating from the physical stand-off.
‘You’re my best friend,’ he says, his seductive voice almost unrecognisably un-friend-like. ‘I care about you being hurt or disappointed again.’
His words wash over me, wonderful and irritating at the same time. Because I want to be more than his friend. A part of me always has. ‘You’re hardly qualified to speak about relationships—you’ve never had one in your life.’ Something that, for me, helped maintain the boundaries of our friendship. I might not have been the chosen one in his bed, but for sheer staying power in his life I had all those other women beat.
He grits his teeth. ‘I may not want a relationship, but I’m damned well good at fucking, which is all that’s on offer here. I could make you come until you screamed your throat raw. I promise you that.’ He steps closer, so close his tall frame and broad chest eclipse my vision, so he’s all I see.
I sway on my feet, weak with lust just from the ecstasy of his words. But I’m used to ignoring my libido where Oliver is concerned. Used to lecturing myself on protecting a good thing—our friendship—from something as underwhelming as sex, which has been my experience.
Although, I know with him it would be far from underwhelming. In fact the English dictionary boffins would need to come up with a new adjective—perhaps ultra-whelming. Still, can’t tell that to Mr Cocky.
‘Oh, I believe you.’ I say. ‘I’ve seen and heard enough of your conquests over the years to know that’s no idle threat.’ I close my eyes and drop my head back in mock ecstasy. ‘Fuck me harder, Olly. OMG, Olly. Olly, I’m coming!’ I mimic the sex cries of Oliver’s past lovers, who hadn’t been able to contain their delight during that brief and hellish-for-me month when he’d lived with me in our early twenties.
When I open my eyes there’s amusement in his intense stare, his lips twitching with barely concealed mirth. I want to kiss the smirk right off the self-satisfied prick’s face.
He leans in, his manly scent washing over me until I’m weak from the head rush.
‘Jealous...?’ he says, his voice low and enticing enough to vibrate the air around my nipples through two layers of clothing. But no amount of armour can protect me from the effect he has on my needy body. Because I’ve always been jealous, part of me desperate to be on the receiving end of some Oliver loving just one time...
And isn’t this that chance? A once-in-a-lifetime offer?
I huff, brace my hands on my hips and stick out my chest. ‘I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, as you can see.’ I wave my hand towards my bag of delights. ‘I don’t need you or anyone else.’
But how would it feel to cast off the exhausting battle of denial just for a few minutes? To throw myself into his bulging arms and say, Yes, I am jealous, show me what I’ve been missing! To surrender to every desire I’ve kept at bay all these years and allow my rampant libido loose on Oliver Coterill?
Would I survive? Would he?
The day I met him in a student pub, he was so charming, but with a sadness in his eyes that seemed to fuel his behaviour and a cynicism too profound for someone of our age. We’d clicked immediately. My attraction was instant, and for a few heady hours—laughing over stupid jokes and being competitive over game after game of pool—the insecure younger woman I was back then had hoped that maybe, just once, I might score the sexy, funny, charming and best-looking guy in the bar.
Then, green with longing and furious with myself for daring to dream I’d be his type, I watched him slope off with my room-mate of the time. Back in our tiny student flat with paper-thin walls, the sounds of Oliver’s sexual prowess kept me awake most of the night. Fortunately for my ears and my sanity, their relationship ended after a couple of days—she didn’t get his dry sense of humour and she hated pool. When he spent more time talking to me than he did fucking her, she turned on both of us. I tried not to take sides, but as soon as she realised that nothing would put her back in Oliver’s bed she called me his pathetic puppy dog and moved out, leaving us to our budding friendship and me to cover all of the rent.
‘I know you don’t need me, or anyone else,’ he says, his beautiful eyes temptation enough. ‘But I’m not talking about disappointing dates or relationships or second-rate, battery-operated orgasms.’
Simply hearing him say the word ‘orgasms’ aloud in his sexy baritone sends shockwaves of delirium down my thighs, almost triggering a mini-climax.
‘I’m talking about sex,’ he says. ‘Full-blown multiple orgasms that will make your extensive, and I might add impressive, toy collection redundant.’
I can barely stand, my lower limbs like rubber, even though I know he’s teasing. But he’s sown seeds of ‘if only’ in my brain, and it’s like a greenhouse in there, shoots sprouting all over the place, each possibility more graphic than the last until I’m a turned-on mess. I want to beg him—please stop for the sake of my hearing...
But he’s still talking, his sinful mouth crafting wonderful, dangerous words. ‘You should at least experience that once, so when you do date the next serious, condescending arsehole you’ll have expectations beyond discovering his career aspirations, whether he’s allergic to your cat and if he’s prepared to watch those baking shows you love.’
A gasp slips out through my slack mouth at his expression. ‘You’re actually serious?’ It’s finally computing in my head that this isn’t some elaborate, bored Oliver practical joke at my expense, although he’s not usually cruel.
I grow lightheaded with need, my imagination running at warp speed. Oliver and me. Sex. Orgasms.
‘Deadly,’ he says, no hint of amusement now. ‘Why not? Apart from today’s shocking revelation, we know everything there is to know about each other.’
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself wincing. Oh, Oliver, if only you knew how long I’ve lusted... How many fantasies, how many orgasms, you’ve already aided unbeknown...
‘I’d never hurt you,’ he continues. ‘And, as you said, I’m an expert at casual and I deliver. Blokes on dating apps lie—they’ll claim to be the best lover in the world and send you some Photoshopped picture of their enormous dick...which begs the question why they can’t find dates in the first place.’
The room starts to spin, so oxygen-deprived is my brain.
‘So how will that go?’ I lash out, because he’s made me hornier than ever before with the way he’s looking at me and with all his talk of orgasms. But I’m not a toy. He can’t take me out of the friend box, play with me and then put me back. Red rage boils behind my eyes. ‘Would I be some sort of altruistic pity-fuck?’
My question falls into the tense silence.
I’ve only seen Oliver truly angry once—with some pap who stuck a camera in my face outside a swanky restaurant he’d taken me to for my birthday a few years ago. It’s not a thing I ever wish to revisit, especially if said anger is directed my way, but there’s no escaping his furious stare and the strain radiating from his rigid body.
I hold my breath, my heart leaping through my T-shirt like that of a cartoon character.
‘Don’t.’ His single-word reprimand is little more than a throaty whisper with the effect of a blow, given the sincerity in his eyes and the harsh set of his jaw. ‘Don’t you dare demean my respect for you. You’re more precious to me than the sum of everyone else in my life.’
I shudder, confused by his words, but ready to swoon at his feet. Like this, all sexy, commanding and self-assured, he’s ten times as hot as when he’s just laughing, friend Olly.
We’re so close, I feel his heat. When my head starts to swim because I’ve forgotten to breathe, I inhale his air.
‘I want you. And I’m a selfish bastard. An orgasm for you means an orgasm for me.’ He clicks his tongue, a hint of that roguish smile of his. ‘Come on, Neve. You’re a feminist—you know the way equality works.’
He wants me the way I want him? I open my mouth to speak, to tell him to stop teasing because it’s not funny, to argue that there are willing blondes more his type out by the pool, but he silences me, a finger resting on my lips with infinitesimal pressure.
I try not to pant my excitement onto that solitary fingertip, because then he’ll know all the longing and conflict bubbling inside me.
‘If I have to watch you parade around in these sexy bikinis for the rest of the week, fighting my hard-on for you, we might as well both get our money’s worth, don’t you agree?’ He lets the last question hang for a beat or two, his mouth kicking up once more, although his eyes stay banked with heat. ‘You know how much you enjoy being frugal.’
Two compliments in a row from Oliver scrambles my disbelieving brain, especially when one of them contains the words sexy and hard-on. He thinks I’m sexy. Has a hard-on for me.
Go red bikini!
But, no, I can’t. There may as well be a neon line painted on the timber flooring between his toes and mine. Even the tip of a toe over that boundary changes everything. If only we could somehow forget that line for a while.
His finger slides down my chin and falls away. I groan in my head because his touch, flirtatious bordering on seductive, may as well have delved into my soul to massage my wildly beating heart. I want him to touch every part of me in that way until I’m so full of sensation, there’s no room for reason, doubt or fear.
And it seems I can have what I want.
‘But...’ Why am I stalling? This is what I secretly craved when I agreed to Brooke’s silly pact, back in London. That he’d suddenly wake up and notice me. Why am I not laving my tongue over his pierced nipple, over every inch of him as if he’s a giant lollipop, and then ripping off those shorts with my teeth?
‘It’s a stupid idea,’ I say, ‘because it will change things between us.’
I’m not naive. Oliver is Oliver. He’s not going to miraculously morph into boyfriend material overnight. He doesn’t do relationships, just sex-fests. We’ll sleep together, and it will be great, but then what? Will we be friends with benefits every time we’re both single and feeling horny? Will our friendship end as soon as the shagging ends, Oliver reverting back to type, growing bored and moving on? The roll of butterflies reminds me of his value in my life. And to risk it all... For sex. Probably one-sided sex, like all my other experiences. No—it’s not worth the price.
But, couldn’t I have a little taste of what I’ve always craved? Just one time?
‘It’ll only change things between us if we let it,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It’s just fucking. You’ll tell me what feels good,’ he says, his stare tracing my mouth. ‘And we’ll get you over this hurdle, no big deal.’ He’s still the voice of reason, and if I didn’t know better I’d think he’d waited all these years just for this chance. And he makes it sound so easy. So neat and compartmentalised.
‘Don’t you want to know what your body is capable of?’ His voice brims full of delicious promise. ‘I want to be the one to show you.’
At my continued hesitation he holds up his hands, palms out, and moves back a fraction. ‘I don’t want to pressure you. It’s your decision. And if I’m being inappropriate here I’ll apologise and we’ll never mention this conversation again.’
Panic flares in me. I grip his forearm, stalling. ‘Hold on a second. I’m thinking.’ Could I keep my distance emotionally and just enjoy the sex? Take the orgasm on offer, learn from the master and keep feelings and expectations out of it? Would I be any worse off? And at least I’d know one way or another if there’s truly something wrong with me. If I can’t come with Oliver, no other man stands a chance. And he’s right. I shouldn’t dive back into dating with such depressingly low expectations.
As long as he keeps his word that it won’t change our friendship, this is my best shot at a safe space of sexual exploration...
He stands stock-still, his stare glued to mine while my pulse flies.
I narrow my eyes to what he calls my ‘mum look’. ‘Let’s say for argument’s sake we’re the first couple in the history of the world to make friends with benefits work... We’d need to have a defined set of ground rules.’
His lips twitch. ‘Of course. A person with an analytical, spreadsheet-wielding mind like yours could rattle those off in seconds.’ He crosses his arms and lifts his chin, playfulness deepening the creases around his eyes. ‘Hit me with it.’
My voice is too breathy, because the longer we talk about this the hornier I grow. And the more of an actual possibility it seems, not just talk. But there’s a riot going on inside my stomach as I ponder the practicalities, nerves beading perspiration on my top lip. Still, he’s right. Rules and numbers don’t lie.
‘You’ve already stated rule number one,’ I say. ‘That it won’t affect our friendship.’
He nods. ‘Done.’
‘Rule number two,’ I say, ignoring the way he finds this amusing, warming to my theme. ‘What happens on the island, stays on the island.’ As long as I keep the rules coming, I can delay the moment when I have to make an actual, life-changing decision. But is there really any question? Am I really going to turn him down when a part of me has never had platonic thoughts where he’s concerned?
‘Yes, of course...’ He’s growing impatient. Bored.
I roll back my shoulders. If we’re doing this, I’m putting in the safeguards. I won’t let him railroad me. ‘Rule number three—we never speak about this with each other after today. Ever.’ Perhaps that way we’ll both forget it happened and therefore protect our friendship.
He gestures a mock salute. ‘Roger that.’
‘And four—no kissing and telling.’ Heat boils up my neck at the hypocrisy of this last point, because if Oliver lays one finger on me in lust there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to keep it from Brooke and Grace. I’ll be spilling my guts in our group chat before he can say ‘take off your clothes’.
My heart thuds.
‘As if I’d do that. And I’ve already agreed that we keep it a secret. You’re repeating yourself now,’ he says with an indulgent smile. Oliver slowly reaches for the sunglasses I’d forgotten were still perched on my head, folds them and tosses them onto the chair.
Of course I’m babbling—I’m a bundle of nerves.
‘Let’s shake on it,’ he says, his deep voice more dark and dangerous than I’ve ever heard before. With eyes locked on mine, he holds out his hand palm-up. His big, sexy Oliver shaped hand is so familiar. But the gesture, us shaking on a deal to step over the friend boundary together, is so alien that the scant inches between us may as well be miles. My own arm feels leaden, hanging at my side with paralysing inertia.
My fingers twitch. Burn for his touch.
My eyes burn with longing, trapped by his vivid blue stare.
My throat burns, all the reasons and arguments and conditions dried up.
I lift my hand so it’s hovering over his.
Before I can vacillate further, Oliver closes the gap and slides his palm against mine in a strong grip. I suck in a gasp and then flush, because there’s no way he missed the sound. We’re not hand holders, Olly and I. Despite the hundreds of sexless touches that have passed between us, this touch is breath-stealing, scorching.
But, if I’m gasping at hand-to-hand contact, what happens when there’s some breast action going on? I’ll probably self-combust.
My thighs quiver at the very idea.
This is the longest handshake in history. I try to pull my hand free, but Oliver holds firm, using the momentum of my recoil to propel me closer, my breasts now only millimetres from his hard chest. I look up from his mouth, the breath panting from my lungs.
‘Olly,’ I plead, my body almost touching his in all the places that matter.
‘Rule number five...’ he says, his stare blatantly tracing my parted lips with the hunger I’ve longed to see a million times—the bedroom eyes.
‘No more Olly.’ His deep voice is full of unfamiliar command. ‘Only Oliver.’
I nod my agreement, my knees too weak to keep the tremble from my legs.
Olly is my friend. Oliver will be my lover.
Temporarily.
‘Say yes,’ he says, tempting me.
I feel my pulse to the tips of my toes.
‘Yes,’ I say, on a heavenly wave of surrender.