Bound by Her Best Friend (A Club Smex Story) (4 page)

He was clearly not suffering from the same feelings. He strode into the room and snatched the letter from her trembling hands.

“What the hell are you doing with this?”

Chapter Four

“I didn’t mean to….” Freya stumbled over the words as Zak’s gaze practically seared her.

He looked…angry.

He looked…annoyed.

She almost never saw him like that, and that made it all the more shocking. “I was…”

She shook her head, unable to articulate the words. Zak was stuffing the letter back into the envelope. His features were tight, his jaw locked. His hair fell across his forehead again. He looked…Freya swallowed, only just realizing how dry her throat was. Zak looked different, disheveled.

A pleasure club…

Had he just been there? Had he been ignoring her increasingly desperate messages because he was too busy getting laid? Images that she did not want in her mind flooded it anyway. Zak with one, two, hell, even three women. A room filled with naughty, dirty things. Soft sighs of pleasure mingled with Zak’s own hoarse cries…
Dear God.

“You had no right to read this.” He spat the words out, tossing the envelope into a draw and slamming it shut. “What the fuck are you even doing here?”

Freya scrunched her eyes shut, trying desperately to dislodge the images. “Zak—”

“My personal mail,” he continued. “This was not meant to be seen by you. Why the hell would you read it?”

“Zak—”

“I’d expect better of you than this, Freya.”

Her eyes snapped open, her heart hammered, and she finally found her voice, Zak’s harsh words seeming to unlock the constriction there. More than that they dislodged the odd feelings that had been running through her, feelings she had absolutely no intention of dealing with right now.

“What am I doing here?” she asked. “What the hell do you think I’m doing here? Zak, where have you been?”

He started, pausing and shooting her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been worried sick about you,” she snapped. “You haven’t been replying to my messages. You haven’t answered your cell. I’ve been frantic.”

“Frantic? It’s been a day.”

“Exactly! Not once, not a single goddamned time over the last decade, have you ever left me waiting for a reply for that long. Not even when you were travelling!”

He shook his head, almost Freya thought, as if puzzled by her words. “
This
is why you’re here?”

She gaped. What other possible reason could she have for coming to his apartment? And why the hell hadn’t he realized how worried she’d been? “Yes,” she quickly. “I was looking for you. I wanted to see if you were okay. I was scared, Zak, scared something had happened.”

“You used your key?”

She reached down, almost automatically, to where the key was back in her jeans’ pocket. “Uh huh.”

He ran a hand though his hair. Freya wished she knew what he was thinking, where he’d been, who he’d been with. The questions tumbled inside her, one after the other. And it was odd, because Freya very rarely wondered what Zak was doing when he wasn’t with her. But now—her eyes flicked to the closed drawer that held the letter—everything felt different. Zak was doing things she could never have imagined. A pleasure club? Some sort of kinky place? Freya would never have imagined him in that context, and it jarred. Jarred because this was Zak, someone she would have said she knew better than herself…at least until five minutes ago.

Only everything is different now.

“I didn’t think you would,” Zak said softly, sinking into one of the stools that surrounded the counter, and pulling her desperate thoughts back to him. “I never suspected you would ever use it.”

“You gave it me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But you never come here. Not anymore. You haven’t been here for years.”

“I thought it was for emergencies,” she said. “This was an emergency.”

“Was it?”

Freya took a deep breath and stepped away from the counter, unable to stop herself from sneaking another look at the closed drawer.
Apparently not
. “Look, you’re here now,” she said, “and you’re okay…so…I should go.”

He stood back up, and Freya cast him a quick glance. The moment her eyes met his she wished she hadn’t. The intensity was back, almost dancing around him, and Freya felt it wash over her, felt it nudge something inside. She looked away instantly, shocked by the feelings now swamping her. Mortification. Embarrassment. And something else, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Everything is different. You need to leave.

The words echoed through her mind and for once Freya agreed wholeheartedly with herself. Being around Zak now was not a good idea. She needed a little distance between them.

“I’ll text you,” she said quickly as she edged toward the door, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

“Just like that?” he asked.

“I don’t—”

“You’re leaving? Just going to walk out? Ignore my questions? Ignore everything as always?”

He sounded angry, though Freya was not willing to chance another look to confirm it. Instead, she clenched her fists and moved a bit closer to the door. “You’re fine. Seems I was worrying for no reason.”

“Freya—”

“Seems you were just being an inconsiderate bastard!” she added, anger sparking all over again, because it occurred to her now Zak should at least be a little contrite he’d made her worry! “Can you imagine how pissed off you’d have been if I didn’t answer your messages immediately? You’d have been around my place in a flash! Or worse, dragging me from the school!”

“Look at me, Sparks.”

She
so
did not want to do that. “Forget it. You can feel bad about it once you’ve sorted your head out. I need to go.”

“Look at me.”

His voice was gentle, soft, a Zak she saw all too often, the Zak that had taken care of both their families, and it was enough to remind her that
this
was her Zak. Her best friend for God’s sake! Freya squared her shoulders and looked up. Zak was standing right in front of her. His hair falling across his brow again and he looked painfully serious. Only, there was the dishevelment again…and…none of it added up. Freya didn’t know how to feel. Zak and yet not Zak. Nothing had changed and yet everything had.
Christ
.

“I should feel bad,” he said slowly. “I didn’t realize you would worry like this. I’m sorry.”

“Well, okay then—”

“But I had something I needed to work through,” he interrupted. “I needed to be alone to do it.”

“What?” she asked, remembering that she’d thought something was up. Had planned to ask him about it. “What is it, Zak?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “This changes everything.”

“This?”

“You’ve seen the invitation.”

The invitation.
Freya dropped her gaze, mortification sweeping through her again. She wished she’d never read the freaking thing. Then she wouldn’t be feeling so weird, wouldn’t have to deal with the idea of Zak as a sexual being instead of just Zak her bestest friend.

“I wish I hadn’t,” she said honestly. “I never imagined…”

“But you did,” he said. “You read my personal mail, Freya.”

“I was worried. I thought...”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have read it. Yes, it’s personal, and why don’t we add on gross too?”

The word slipped out before she could stop it. Next thing she knew Zak had a finger beneath her chin, lifting her gaze back to his. “Gross?”

Too late to back out now
. “A pleasure club, Zak,” she demanded, the words feeling tight in her throat. “A sex club, right? What else would you call it?”

He laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And I don’t want to,” Freya said quickly. “I want to forget that I ever read this letter. Forget today even happened for that matter. This is…” She swallowed quickly, stumbling over the next words. “I don’t want to know about your sex life.”

“We talk about everything else.”

“
This
is different.”

Silence settled between them. Freya moved her head so that Zak’s hand fell away, then took a step back.
Distance
, she told herself,
you need some distance before you say something you’ll regret.

“Let’s just…let’s pretend I didn’t come here today,” she added edging over to the door. “You can message me later, and we’ll just…everything can go back to normal.”

“Normal?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Normal.”

“Best friends?” he asked and there was something in his tone that made her shiver a little. Or maybe those were her own frantic feelings coloring everything? Freya clenched her fists and frowned. She
really
did need to leave.

“Always best friends, Zak,” she said.

Zak crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. His jaw was clenched, his gaze narrowed, and for a brief moment, Freya thought he would refuse her request, maybe even stop her from leaving, but then, finally, he spoke, “If that’s what you want.”

She nodded quickly, eyes firmly on the front door, feet already itching to move as quickly as possible. “I do, Zak. I do.”

Chapter Five

If she sent him one more cheery fucking text Zak was going to slam his fist through the nearest fucking window, worse, he’d cell would probably go through too, losing the only connection he had with Freya this week. A connection that was paining him more and more as the minutes went by.

He yanked at his tie, the knot suddenly feeling far too tight, and shrugged off his suit jacket. He’d gotten home just a half hour ago, and in that time he’d done nothing but brood over the texts Freya had sent him during the last few days. One after the other they’d arrived and each had been as painful as the last.

He glared at his cell, sat so innocent looking in his hand. “Just leave it, Sparks,” he muttered. “You’re only making things worse.”

The phone beeped, a message from Freya of course, almost like she’d heard him for fuck’s sake. Zak pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath and stabbed a thumb on the touch screen to open the message.

Just seeing how you are, Zak, looking forward to seeing you tomoz, oh and I thought you might like this vid! x

He clenched his fist around the cell, marveling in an odd sort of way, that he hadn’t managed to crush the thing before now. Every time she messaged him his heart raced a little, though why he didn’t know. It wasn’t like Freya was going to address the fucking elephant sitting in the cell tower!

“So you’re a member of a club where you meet women and have meaningless sex,” he mumbled to himself. “That’s not a problem, Zak, not at all. Why don’t you invite me along, better yet stop going altogether and let me deal with your needs.”

He snorted as he imagined exactly what Freya would think when she knew what those needs were. Fact was. Zak liked his sex rough, hard and dirty. He fantasized about bending Freya over and pounding her until she screamed in satisfaction. He wanted to tie her hands behind her back and slide his dick into her throat. He pictured burying his face between her thighs and nibbling her clit until she begged him to stop…and that was just the beginning.

He ached for Freya in every possible way he could get her. Wanted her to pleasure him and be pleasured in return.

Christ!
He gripped the cell a little tighter, pained in a familiar sort of way by not only his desperate thoughts, but by how he held on to such a tenuous connection. Fantasies aside, the phone had been the main way he and Freya had communicated over the past decade. Sure, they had their Thursday nights, but as the years passed, and his life changed so rapidly—more than he could have ever expected—she had removed herself from it as much as possible. It had been so slow at first, subtle, even, that Zak hadn’t even realized what she was doing.

He closed his eyes as he recalled the invitations she had turned down. The refusal to attend this party or that trip. It hadn’t really occurred to him why she was doing it and by the time he caught on it had been too late. Freya wanted him in her life, but she wanted him there on her terms. The man she counted as her best friend, someone she could rely on for a once a week catch-up but nothing else. For her that was enough.

For him, it wasn’t.

Nothing was enough anymore.

He dropped his cell on his bed and resumed his pacing back and forth. He’d been pacing for the past ten minutes, probably even more than that, the only break being to glare at his cell.

It beeped again, the attachment to the message Freya had just sent him finally having downloaded. Zak paused at the foot of his bed and eyed the phone. The backlight was on, the scene flashing:
Sparks sent you a video
. He picked it up despite the fact he’d promised himself only a moment ago that he was not going to do so. The attachment was a video clip…a dancing dog.

He threw the phone back down.

If she could just be a little more subtle about it, he growled, but her texts and messages were so obvious. She was uncomfortable. She was trying desperately to act as normal as possible, but that attempt was backfiring, because Freya never texted him this much, or sent him so many not-funny videos.

Papering over the cracks in our relationship.

He ran a hand over his face and laughed. There was no humor in it, because Freya had no idea just how deep those cracks went! Cracks? Hell, call them what they were, they were gaping fucking canyons! And she had no idea, or she did and was refusing to face up it. Zak wasn’t sure which was worse, nor which he’d prefer. If only he knew what she was thinking! If only she could give him something, a clue, a crumb…anything!

He picked the cell back up, opened her message and hit reply.
See you tomorrow
. Because what else could he say?
I wish you were here now so I could strip you naked and fuck some sense into you.

His thumb hovered over the screen and for one wild moment he considered sending those very thoughts back to her. Only the image of her lovely face, filled with shock, stopped him. She would break away from him completely then, Zak was sure of it. He would lose her for good. Lose the messages, the emails, and the Thursday nights.

He closed his eyes and thought of all those nights in that freezing cold apartment, eating Chinese after fucking Chinese, grateful just to be close to her.

He imagined how he would feel, knowing those nights were over.

Unbearable.

Zak slumped down on the bed, his head spinning, his chest tightening, because like or not the letter from the club that Freya had read changed everything, he knew it and it was damn sure to hell she did too—why else would she be bombarding him with those ridiculous messages?

Freya knew him for what he was now, knew about his dark desires, and it would alter things between them. It already had. If there was ever a time to take the leap it was now. Question was could he risk it?

Zak dropped his head in his hands as he considered that question. How many fucking times had he
already
considered it over the years? How many times had he opened his mouth to speak, almost turned his head to kiss her?

Only the thought of losing her had stopped him.

It’s better to have something than nothing.
That was the idea he’d comforted himself with. It was better to have her as a friend than to not have her at all.

Up until he’d seen her reading his invitation, he’d almost believed that. But the look on her face, the way her lips had parted in a gasp, the blushes, the embarrassment? It had almost undone him.

They could not carry on like things were still normal.

He
could not carry on pretending.

And suddenly it was clear that it had to be now, whilst their relationship was shaky, changing, different. This was his only chance. If Zak didn’t take it now maybe he never would, and that could only mean one thing. He would lose her either way.