Slow Grind (Men of Mornington Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter One
Drew

Me: Dude, I’m coming over tonight whether you like it or not. If you’ve got plans, cancel them.

Grabbing my jacket off the arm chair, I grin as I walk out of my apartment and place the key in the lock to latch the deadbolt. It’s been a few weeks since Max has wanted any visitors. Today marks the end of that streak. It’s Friday night, the one night a week we all used to catch up—no matter what—before life got in the way. I’m not taking no for an answer, even if I have to bust the door down to get inside. As the lock clicks into place, the feminine voice of my neighbour fills the empty hallway.
This is out of control.

“Drew, I’m so happy I caught you before you left. My dishwasher is broken again,” she says loud enough that any ninety-year-old granny who has her ear to the door, hoping to catch some good gossip to talk about while everyone else is working for a living, can hear.

I let out a slow breath and brace myself for the inevitable before I turn around and see Darla leaning against the doorframe of her apartment, opposite mine. She tosses her long, blonde hair over her shoulder and grins at me as she fingers the plunging neckline of her top, purposefully trying to draw my attention to her generous cleavage. It works. What can I say? I’m a guy with a dick. And there’s boobs.

“Yeah?” I ask, knowing where this is headed. The same place it always does. To her bed. Or sometimes her shower. Or the kitchen counter. I glance at my phone, knowing I don’t have time for this now. “I’m kinda in a hurry—”

“It’ll just take a second, I promise,” she pleads, cutting me off. She takes my hand and drags me inside, slamming the door shut with her foot. No sooner than I’m over the threshold, she’s on me. I laugh because, at the very least, she’s determined. You have to admire the fact the woman knows what she wants and goes after it.

“Darla, you’ve gotta be shitting me,” I groan, trying to ease her off me without being rude. The first few times it wasn’t a big deal, but now it’s nearly every day she’s on me like a dog in heat. I grab her wrists and pull her hands away from my chest.

“You know you want it, baby,” she mewls, pushing her breasts higher by crossing her arms underneath them. She frowns at me with a full-on pouty lip, her heavily made-up eyes narrowing at me.

“You wanted your dishwasher fixed, not my dick,” I point out. I move toward the “broken” appliance and she steps in my way, her eyes pleading.

“Can’t I have them both?” she whines in a voice which almost makes me feel sorry for her. She’s a manipulative one, there’s no denying that.

“Not today, Darla,” I respond and shake my head.
I gotta be tough or I’ll be here all day
. I move toward the kitchen and yank open the dishwasher, keen to get out of there as fast as possible.

For the last year or so, since I moved into this building, Darla’s been my only regular fuck. It started simple and now she’s not taking a hint. It’s not that I don’t find her attractive; I’m just bored with it already. It used to be kind of fun—a little bit of a fantasy come to life. The repair man shows up to a bored, rich ex-trophy wife past her prime who’s wearing nothing but a matching lace bra and panty set and stockings to her mid-thigh. I’d fix whatever was broken and then accept a quick fuck in lieu of payment. It was a win/win for all parties, but recently, she’s hassling me to come over all the fucking time. I almost spend more time fucking her than I do working, and when it gets to that point, it starts to feel like a job.

I wouldn’t put it past Darla to be breaking shit on purpose just to get me over here. Or more recently, telling me something’s broken to get me inside and jumping me as soon as the door’s closed.

“I bet I can get you to change your mind.” Darla wraps her arms around my waist and her hands paw at my belt. She shoves her fingers down my jeans, wrapping them tightly around my cock. I groan and stop thinking with the head on my shoulders, letting the one in my pants take over.

“We’ve only got five minutes,” I say, taking charge. “I have plans with a friend. No time for this.”

I swat her fingers away from my belt and take control. Roughly, I spin around, taking her with me, and bend her slender frame over the dining room table. Without doing much more than dragging down my zipper and slipping on the condom she already has sitting on the table and sliding her panties to the side, I’m ready for duty. I push myself into her body, immediately regretting the lack of foreplay as her barely-wet pussy molds around my dick.

“Hold on,” I say, gripping her hips tightly and preparing for a marathon round of get in, get off and get out.

Knowing that
Welcome to the Jungle
by Guns and Roses is only four minutes and thirty-five seconds long, I start humming the tune in my head while I hammer away at Darla. By my calculations, if I finish as the song ends, that leaves me a few seconds to clean up, zip my pants and leave before she starts begging for round two; trust me, she always does.

About halfway through the song, Darla cries out. Her pussy grips me tightly as she screams, her wetness dripping onto my balls. Mentally high-fiving myself, I prepare for the last half of the sexcapade, not holding back a single bit. My hips slam into her arse at rapid pace. She climaxes again and this time, it’s enough to pull my own orgasm from the base of my balls.

As the last bit of cum escapes the tip of my dick, I pull out, remove the condom and deposit it into the kitchen trashcan.

“Alright, see ya later, Darla,” I call and head toward the door.

“You’re really not going to stay?”

“Nope. Told ya already. Plans with a friend.”

“You really are an arsehole, Drew,” she retorts, her hand perched firmly on her hip. “What about my dishwasher?”

I shrug and turn my head long enough to flash her a grin.

“Next time, call a repair man.”

Out in the hallway, my phone buzzes. I dig it out of my jeans pocket and see it’s Max.

Max: Sure, it will be good to catch up.

I click call, barely able to contain my excitement as I wait for him to answer.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I laugh, balancing my phone between my neck and ear. “It’s been weeks, man. You missed a great party the other night. Nash got punched in the face by some chick for hitting on her girlfriend.”

“I heard,” Max chuckles. “I’m sorry I missed it, but I had shit to do.”

I start walking toward the lift but stop when I realise I smell like cheap sex. I really need a shower to wash the Darla off me.

I shove the key in the lock of my apartment and yank open the door, throwing my jacket over the hall table. I’m still in shock he actually answered his damn phone. It’s good to hear from the guy because, honestly, I’ve been worried about him. I know he’s sick and all that, but the last few weeks it feels like he’s giving up or something. I’m not used to seeing him like that. Max doesn’t quit anything. We’re talking about the guy who hassled his mum for months to let him join us at public school until she finally caved. So much for the twenty-thousand-a-semester world-class grammar school he’d been on the list to attend since birth. Mornington High was good enough for my boy.

“How’s things?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice light. I’m not great with all that disease shit.

“I’ve been better,” he laughs. “But you know me. Mum is a bigger problem than anything else at the moment. She can’t look at me without crying. It’s doing wonders for my positivity.”

“Any updates?” I ask tentatively. Last we heard, he was doing a third round of chemo and radiation because the first two didn’t put a dent into the disease. His scans lit up like fireworks.

“Nothing good enough to share,” he says. “It’s not looking great, but what can you do, huh?”

“Shit, man.” I run my hand through my dark, cropped hair. What the fuck do you say to that? “Is there anything I can do?”

“Maybe come over for a few drinks with the guys? I just need a night off from all this shit, you know?” He sounds tired. And angry. Not that I blame him. When you get cancer in high school and beat it, you think you’ll be fine for the rest of your life. Not Max, though. Twenty-seven years old and he’s going through this bullshit again. I’d be pissed off, too, if after all that things were still looking grim.

“Yeah, sure, of course. We already planned on coming over if you didn’t invite us. Consider us a walking get well soon card.” With a laugh from Max, we confirm a time and he disconnects the call. Looks like I won’t be breaking and entering tonight, which disappoints me. I was looking forward to the rush.

Tossing my phone on the kitchen bench, the urge for a strong drink consumes me. One to make me forget for a second that I’m going to see my best mate who’s so sick there’s nothing anyone can do to help him. Above the fridge, in the small cupboard, a half-full bottle of expensive scotch is the first thing I see. Not even bothering with a glass, I twist the cap off and take a swig from the bottle. The haze kicks in quickly as the liquid hits the pit of my empty stomach, lighting a fire along its path.

I quickly run through a shower making sure to wash away any remnants of Darla from my body. Tossing on a pair of dark jeans and my favourite Zeplin tee shirt, I grab my keys and phone I left in the kitchen. On the way to the car, I text the guys and let them know “Operation Rescue Max from Self Loathing” is in effect and to meet me as his apartment in the city. From my place, the drive is short, and I arrive just in time to see Max’s mum leaving his building with a scowl on her face and tear stains on her heavily made-up face.

“Andrew,” she coolly states, acknowledging my presence as I step out of my car.

“Ms. Rosewood, it’s nice to see you again. How’s Max feeling?”

For a long time, especially when my parents were going through their divorce, Ms. Rosewood was like a second mum to me. She never complained about me staying over or eating her out of house and home during my teen years. She never seemed bothered by my presence until Max got sick for the first time when we were seventeen. It was like she looked at me as if she didn’t understand why Max got sick and not me. It hurt until I got old enough to understand she was hurting herself and didn’t know how to express it.

It was Max’s sister, Aubrey, who made sure to keep the peace. Ms. Rosewood was determined to keep Max from anything she thought would hurt him. Aubs made sure Max’s high school years weren’t affected too badly. It was hard enough for him to go in for chemo and radiation, miss a lot of school and nearly miss our formals. Aubrey was always there—even though she was six years younger than us—to put their mum in her place. Sweet kid, Aubrey. Grew up too fast for her age, if you ask me.

“He’s not well, Andrew. Please talk to him. I just want to help and he’s not letting me. If I can’t fix this, the least I can do is make it easier for him.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, but I’ll have a chat,” I promise her. “He’s stubborn, though.”

“Just like his father.” She grimaces and slides into the driver’s seat of her luxury car. I turn to head into the building to find out what they fought about this time, when Max comes storming into the parking lot.

“Just go upstairs. I need a second with my mum.” He tosses me the keys and stalks angrily toward his mother’s car … she’s crying no less.
Excellent job on the guilt trip, Ms. Rosewood.

I nod my head and do as he asks, not bothering to mentioning how terrible he looks. It’s only been a few weeks since we last saw each other and already, you can see the effects of his disease ravaging his body. His skin’s pale, cheeks sunken in and he’s probably lost another eight kilos he didn’t have to lose. It’s frightening.

“What was that all about?” I ask as Max storms back into the apartment, out of breath and frail. He throws himself down on the couch, muttering something incoherent under his breath. I’ve never seen him this angry, but fighting with his mother isn’t anything new.

His mum can be hard work. I know she means well, but everything about him is off-the-charts wrong. As a kid, Max was always teased for shit his mum was doing. The whole school knew she was sleeping with our English teacher, but Max—being the kid he was back then—buried his head in the sand and pretended everything was fine. His dad had to have known what was going on, but for whatever reason, he ignored it, too, until he’d had enough. Then, when she had an affair with one of her husband’s students, he finally called it quits. That’s when he took Max’s sister and went back to the States, where he’s originally from. He wanted Max to come, but he’d just started Uni and it made more sense for him to stay. Besides, Max could never leave Melbourne. He’d miss me too much.

“You know my mother,” he mutters, his dark eyes blazing. “She just shits me sometimes with the games she plays.”

I wince and take a sip of my beer. I know better than he realises. After our year twelve formal, I crashed at Max’s house because I was too pissed to even walk home. In the middle of the night, I got up to get something to eat and his mum came on to me.

We made out, but then I realised what the fuck I was doing and backed off. The first rule of friendship is never touch a friend’s mum, no matter how hot she is or how horny you are. I’ve never told any of the guys or even my sister. I’ll take that secret with me to my grave.

“What’s she done this time?” I laugh, knocking back the last of my beer. I hold the empty bottle up and take aim, tossing it into the bin. Boom! I slap my hands together and reach for another drink.