Once Should Be Enough Read online

  Once Should Be Enough

  Nikky Kaye

  Contents

  1. Will

  2. Will

  3. Cassie

  4. Will

  5. Will

  6. Cassie

  7. Cassie

  8. Will

  9. Will

  10. Cassie

  11. Cassie

  Afterword

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Will

  “I think I hate sex.”

  I wasn’t sure which went down the wrong way first—Cassie’s casual announcement or my chocolate shake.

  “What the—?” It was hard to cough and swallow at the same time.

  Her face turned pink and she wouldn’t look me in the eye. My own eyes were watering pretty badly as I tried not to choke. The noise and colors of the little diner swam around us as I processed.

  Hate sex? She said sex?

  Cassie was the perfect female friend for a guy to have. She was shy, but not fake, unlike a lot of girls on campus. She wasn’t one of those types who wore pajamas to class, but she didn’t put a ton of shit on her face either. She was the kind of girl that didn’t care if you saw her eating like a guy, and she never expected you to pay for her like you were on a date or something.

  She had a weird sense of humor, so maybe she was joking now. After meeting in our first Biology lab where we dissected a dead cat, she dragged me to a really disgusting spaghetti dinner. We recently turned 21 within days of each other and went to a bar together. Her puns got worse with every drink, and she blushed like a nun at every dirty joke I made. You actually could see her embarrassment go down her creamy neck and under her shirt, since her long, dark hair was usually up in a ponytail. I had wondered at the time where the heat stopped.

  Okay, she was pretty hot, too. Her legs were long and her ass looked great in jeans, like the ones she was wearing today with knee-high leather boots. Her upper body almost looked short in comparison, but today the long sweater coat thing she was wearing seemed to even her out a bit. Unfortunately, it hid her ass.

  What could I say? She was the kind of girl that every buddy of yours thought you were secretly banging, and you secretly wished you were, but you weren’t.

  Like a dumbass, I friend zoned myself from the beginning. And because we were friends, I couldn’t hit on her. Recently, I had been reconsidering that rule. And now she threw this on the table? She hated sex? Shock had rendered me temporarily speechless.

  “It’s not a big thing,” she mumbled and picked at a fry. Her lips were glossy from hamburger grease.

  “That’s what she said.”

  She shook her head, frowning. Really? Come on, if there was ever a time that called for ‘that’s what she said’ joke, this was it. She was lucky my brain was working enough to form cogent words.

  My breathing started to normalize but not my heart rate. She wasn’t joking, was she? She was talking about sex? My hot chick friend inhaled a burger and was talking about sex? Was I in a Chive meme?

  She shook her head. “I’m serious, I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” I joked.

  She didn’t usually talk about sex. She never talked about sex. I would wonder if she was a virgin if I hadn’t overheard her dickhead ex complain about the way her too tiny tits bounced around when he fucked her. I felt a frown coming on just thinking about him. Her tits were just fine.

  She wiped her hands, her attention on cleaning her fingers one by one. My attention was only on her.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said slowly, “and I think maybe sex isn’t for me.”

  “If it hasn’t been for you, then somebody hasn’t been doing it right.”

  “Hardy har har.”

  “Okay, what do you mean then?” I shook my head. It was like she was suddenly speaking Japanese and my brain couldn’t process the sounds she was making.

  If it was possible, she was turning redder. “I don’t think…“ She trailed off, and we sat in a pretty fucking uncomfortable silence for the first time—ever.

  We were friends, but we hadn’t had a ton of deep personal discussions yet either. Our relationship was forged in formaldehyde, after all. There was only so much bonding you could do over fixative.

  Halloween was the closest we’d been since we met, physically and otherwise. And that was only last week.

  Earlier that day, she’d sneezed three times and ripped through a box of tissues, bitching and moaning about her first head cold of the school year. When I saw her later, she went on a rant about near-nudity being the standard Halloween costume for girls. I made the mistake of not agreeing with her—but come on, what guy would?

  I didn’t know she was medicated when I dragged her to a house party with the not-too-many naked women. And I sure as fuck didn’t know that someone had already added grain alcohol to the OJ she guzzled there for the vitamin C.

  By midnight, she had peeled off her sweater to expose only a flimsy tank top masquerading as a bra, then climbed into my lap and closed her eyes. It was just reflex that made me run my hands up and down her bare arms as she shivered. I didn’t even think I realized that my thumb crept under the skinny strap of her camisole and dipped into the dent above her collarbone. I’d blame my subconscious for skimming the line of her clavicle until she shuddered in my arms again.

  I was pretty happy to sit there with her flushed cheek pressed against my chest and her head bobbling as I laughed. True, it was kind of uncomfortable sporting a semi underneath her, but thankfully she didn’t notice.

  It wasn’t until some asshole leered and offered me a room to get her into that things really spiraled. She bolted upright. At first I was offended—like I would ever let her become a campus crime statistic? Then she wobbled.

  She gulped. “Will, I don’t think—I think I—”

  Uh oh.

  The cool air helped as I steered her out the door, but I still held her hair back while she puked onto a pile of dead leaves. Sporting a glazed expression and some impressive headlights, she asked me to take her home to bed—not the way it sounded, though.

  I still felt like shit almost a week later for not noticing how out of it she was at the party. My only excuse was that her skin was so damn distracting at the time. It still was, I realized now, my gaze was drawn to the way her collarbone shifted.

  “Hey, you started it.” I pointed my empty shake cup at her. “Finish it.”

  She hunched over her fries, dipping one in ketchup until it was soggy. “Yeah. Uh, I haven’t.”

  “What?”

  “Finished,” she said in a small voice.

  What? What was she saying? “You’ve never come?”

  I dropped my cup on the table, right next to my jaw. She slunk down into the bench, her chin nearly touching her chest.

  My back straightened. “No way.” I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. Not her.

  “Way.”

  That shit just wasn’t right.

  “Are you sure? Maybe you just think you haven’t—” I knew some girls had a hard time getting off. I’d read that. Not that I’d met a lot personally.

  She held up a hand but didn’t look up at me. “Stop. Please. Stop. I am sure. Pretty sure, anyway. And it’s okay, I don’t really care.”

  “You should care. I care. I can’t believe that asshole—”

  “It’s probably my fault,” she interrupted. “I think I’m frigid or something. And that’s okay with me. I don’t think I like sex anyhow. I mean, I never even think about it.”

  I must have made another choking sound or my eyes must have been practically falling out of my head, because her co
lor was still rising and she started looking around nervously.

  “You are not frigid,” I informed her once I could speak.

  “How would you know?” She frowned and pulled her ponytail out, letting her hair fall around her face. She snapped the hair elastic onto her wrist like a bracelet, fiddling with it.

  I couldn’t believe that she was accepting this bullshit like she just said that she had failed a quiz. She didn’t even seem upset, just matter of fact. And that made me mad.

  She didn’t realize that she basically just issued me a dare, and it was one I was definitely up for. In fact, as I adjusted myself under the table a little, the idea had me hardening as fast as my fucking resolve.

  Our staring match must have lasted a minute, maybe two. My body started to heat up at the same time that hers seemed to cool down, her skin slowly returning to its normal pale complexion. Except for a little flush at the base of her neck, nobody would ever suspect that she had just blurted out probably the most embarrassing thing ever.

  I leaned across the table, pushing her abandoned fries to the side.

  “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that you’re not frigid.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t have a thousand dollars, Will!” she pointed out. But, interestingly, she didn’t say no to my proposition.

  I did have that kind of money, though I didn’t use it or flash it around. I had wealthy parents who filled my bank account every month instead of visiting or even sending a damn text. They paid for my apartment off-campus and my car, and in the process had nearly bought my pride as well. At least they didn’t buy my fucking groceries or condoms. Which brought us back to…

  “Okay, fair enough. Let’s see,” I said, stippling my fingers under my chin.

  She eyed me suspiciously.

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll give you a thousand dollars. If what you believe to be true is, in fact, true—” I snorted, “—then you can pay me a hundred dollars. And you get to say ‘I told you so’.”

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as you want.”

  Were we talking about the same thing?

  Her eyebrow arched. “And how do you propose we prove my theory?” Those rosy lips suddenly pressed together as she must have figured it out.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  I couldn’t help smirking. “Yeah, oh. I’ll give you one.”

  Will

  Instead of reaming me out or throwing her fries at my head, she was quiet again. I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. Was she mulling it over? Imagining us together? Disgusted by the idea or getting turned on?

  Finally, she slid to the end of the booth and stood up. I guess we were leaving. Or she was about to leave without me if I didn’t haul ass. I threw some money on the table to cover our meal and hurried after her. The wind swirled around us as we left the diner, lifting her hair off her face as leaves tried to sneak in the door.

  On the way back to campus, her silence was killing me. We walked about half a block with her alternating between her gaze glued to the sidewalk in front of her, and her head occasionally whipping around to look at me. I could have pretended not to notice, but there was no chance of that.

  In fact, I was lucky I didn’t trip. My eyes were glued to her the whole time. I started to fantasize a little as she scurried in front of me, the heels of her knee-high leather boots clicking on the sidewalk. Last week I’d been treated to a better view of the silky skin underneath those skinny jeans and sweater coat thing—a much better view.

  I had tried to be a gentleman on Halloween, really I did. But her sleepy snuffles and mumbling about her PJs as she fell onto her bed after the party turned me on.

  Hell, everything about her turned me on that night. Her stripping down and snuggling in my fucking lap like a kitten was just the start. Not even her tossing her cookies made my erection go down much, making the walk back to her dorm room pretty awkward.

  Yeah, I undressed her there. She had to get comfortable, after all. But all I did was unzip her jeans. She was the one who moaned when my fingers accidentally brushed against the top of her panties, sending a jolt to my cock.

  Then I tried to peel those jeans down her long legs as quickly as possible, until they got stuck around her knees thanks to her hooker boots. It was her sexy as fuck boots that forced me to sit on the bed beside her, so I didn’t fall over unzipping them.

  I had to lean a little closer as I tugged them off. She was the one who pressed her bare thighs together, then drew them apart and pulled her knees up, making it harder for me to reach her calves. I changed position to kneel between her legs, trying not to look down at the perfect fucking view of her pale pink panties and her toned quad muscles.

  I swear on my car that my intention was just to crouch at the end of the bed to pull off the rest of her jeans. But she was the one who sighed first, in relief I guessed, and splayed her creamy legs out wide until it was impossible not to notice the wet spot at her center.

  Her scent stretched between us, musky and sweet. I was frozen on the floor, my cock aching in my khakis, and my grip tightening on her bare feet. I wanted to run my hands up her legs, feeling each tendon and muscle quiver until I got to her pussy. Her toes pointed in a plantar reflex against my thumbs, my palms wrapped around the top of her foot. My eyes squeezed closed as I tried to control my arousal.

  But shutting my eyes didn’t stop me from hearing her shift against the unmade bed and smelling the juices dampening her panties. So I gave up and admired—okay, ogled—her like she was a statue in a museum coming to life at my touch. Cool alabaster heating up, suppliant and soft in my hands. Just for a moment.

  I should have left at that point. But she let out a little whimper that sounded a lot like my name, which didn’t help. My brain told my feet to move. She was safe and fine now, and would be good for the rest of the night in just her underwear and little tank top thing. But my brain registered the scene before me and decided to cede all control to my dick. He wasn’t ready to leave just yet, the traitor.

  As though she unconsciously knew the job of undressing was only half done, she then crossed her arms at her waist, pushing her tits together. I admit I was a little mesmerized by her cleavage and her hard nipples sticking out front and center. Then damn if she didn’t start to pull up the hem of her top, revealing her stomach and the luscious crease at the bottom of her breasts.

  That was when I was able to move again. This was all embarrassing enough, but if she thought that I’d seen her completely naked, she would never speak to me again. I leapt up onto the bed, straddling her belly as I reached for her hands.

  Her top was still bunched up under her tits as I pinned her wrists down gently to stop her from exposing herself more.

  “Wait,” I ordered her. “Stop wriggling. Damn it, Cassie.” I felt sweat beading on my forehead, and I licked my lips.

  Still asleep, she tilted her hips up toward me reflexively, making contact with my rock hard cock. Now it was my turn to groan. Holy shit; that felt good.

  “Will…” she murmured. She pressed up against me again, her torso arching toward me. Was she dreaming? Dreaming of me?

  I could almost feel her heat, and her tangy scent went straight to my head—both of them. I felt ready to explode, wanting to grind against her until her soaked panties left a mark on my pants and I came in mine like a dumbass teenager.

  It was the second grunt coming out of her throat that snapped me out of my daze. What the fuck was I doing?

  I leaned back on my knees a little to rest lightly on her upper thighs and pulled down her top with shaky hands. Careful not to touch her skin, I covered her back up as best I could. The bed squeaked a little as I got off it, but it didn’t wake her up.

  She turned on her side then, her face pressing into her pillow as she flashed me the back of her thighs. Her panties rode up to expose the creamy bottom curve of her ass, and my fingers twitched with the impuls
e to creep under the elastic and smooth it down over her soft skin.

  Wiping my hand over my burning face, I let out a long whistling breath and tried to pull myself together. I felt like a voyeuristic asshole. This wasn’t a random chick, not that I would have undressed a random chick either. This wasn’t even a webcam peep show. This was my friend, and I realized that I had totally taken advantage of her—even if she didn’t know it.

  Quickly I yanked the covers over her, left her some meds and a note, and hightailed it out of there. It had taken most of the week for me to be able to look her in the eye again, as though she would be able to see what a secret pervert I was.

  And now she was telling me that she hated sex? What a fucking tragedy.

  As she marched ahead of me back towards campus, I examined that round ass, those “fuck me” boots, and remembered how her slim ankles felt in my hands. How her tits jiggled as she shimmied against the bed. How she smelled, and how I would give my left nut to taste her.

  Secret pervert no longer, I had basically just offered to fuck her brains out. And god help me, I think she was actually considering it.

  “Cassie!” I called out as her strides lengthened away from me.

  She halted. It took me only a few steps to catch up to her, but she didn’t turn around. Now that I had let my inner pervert out, I desperately wanted to allay her fears and insecurity. It was bothering her, I could tell. But my friend, this woman was not frigid. Frightened, maybe.

  I stopped close to her, my chest almost touching her back. When she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, her chunky sweater grazed against me. The wind picked up again just long enough to blow her hair into my face.

  “Just wait,” I ordered, my hands landing heavily on her tense shoulders.

  What now?

  Bending toward her, I smoothed my palm over her jaw, combing my fingers through the tendrils of hair at her neck. With my other hand, I reached down her arm to tug the hair tie off her wrist. She was motionless, except for the goosebumps that popped out where I cupped the side of her neck. But it wasn’t that fucking cold.