Page 88 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
We are in my car. The atmosphere is different this time. It’s warm.
“I keep making you drive me home,” she says, looking out the window.
“Your car is unreliable,” I say. “Even with the mechanic’s repairs, an electrical failure can compromise the entire vehicle. You need a new car.”
“I can’t afford a new vehicle,” she says sharply. Then she sighs. “Sorry. Sore spot. Your brother reminded me on Monday that I have zero liquidity.”
My hands tighten on the wheel. “He did what?”
“He knows I dumped the whole signing bonus into my loans,” she admits quietly. “He knows I can’t pay it back if I quit. He trapped me, Asher.”
A spike of adrenaline hits my bloodstream, cold and sharp.
“I didn’t know that. Ethan didn’t put that in the report. He told us he convinced you to stay. He didn’t tell us he blackmailed you. He shouldn’t have done that.” I say, my voice stern.
“It worked,” she shrugs. “I stayed. I didn’t have a choice.”
“He used your vulnerability as a weapon. That is… unacceptable.”
I pull up to her apartment building. I put the car in park and turn to face her.
“Tessa,” I say. “If you want to leave… I’ll cover the bonus.”
She goes perfectly still. “Really?”
“I’ll write you a check,” I say. “Fifty thousand. Tomorrow. You can pay Ethan back and walk away.”
She stares at me, her mouth slightly open. “Asher… you can’t do that.”
“It’s not a loan,” I clarify. “Ethan created an unfair variable. I am balancing the equation. You shouldn’t be a prisoner here.”
“Why would you do that?” she whispers. “If I leave, I leave you too.”
“If you stay because you’re forced to,” I say, looking at her hands, “then I’ve already lost you. I want you to choose.”
She unbuckles her seatbelt. She leans across the center console.
“I am choosing,” she says.
She kisses me.
It is soft at first. Fast. Then I cup the back of her head, threading my fingers through her messy hair, and deepen it.
She makes a small noise in her throat and climbs over the center console. It is awkward. Her knee hits the gear shift. Her purse falls onto the floorboard.
But then she is straddling my lap, facing me, her legs on either side of my hips in the driver’s seat. The steering wheel is digginginto her back, pressing her flush against me, but neither of us cares.
“Asher,” she gasps, pulling back just enough to look at me. The streetlamp illuminates the sharp need in her eyes. “Come upstairs.”
“Ethan—”
“Don’t overthink this,” she says fiercely. “I don’t care about Ethan. I don’t care about the rules tonight. Just come up.”
I look at the pulse beating in her throat.
“Yes.”
The door barely clicks shut before I have her against it.
