My Stepbrother's Best Friend

My stepbrother's best friend has been around our house for as long as I can remember, and for as long as I can remember I have been quietly, desperately obsessed with him.

His name doesn't matter. What matters is that he was the forbidden one. The one my stepbrother would have absolutely killed me over. The one who ruffled my hair like I was a kid even when I had very much stopped being one.

This summer everything changed because he got a job in town and started crashing in our guest room while he saved up for an apartment. Two weeks. Fourteen days of him wandering around in boxers and a t-shirt, drinking coffee at our kitchen counter, smelling like whatever expensive body wash he'd stolen from my stepbrother's shower caddy. Fourteen days of me trying not to stare.

The afternoon it happened, everyone was gone. My stepbrother was at work. My mom and stepdad were visiting my grandparents three hours away. I was doing laundry in the basement, bent over the dryer in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts, when I heard footsteps on the stairs.

He came down in gym shorts and a tank top, all sweaty from a run, and just started helping me fold like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like he hadn't spent the last two weeks walking around my house looking like a walking temptation. We folded in silence for a minute, and then he said the thing that broke me. He told me I'd gotten so grown up, and there was something heavier in his voice, something that made my stomach drop.

I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the heat of the dryer against my back. Maybe it was the way his eyes kept dropping to my legs. Maybe it was years of wanting, all stacked up like dry kindling. But I looked right at him and told him to stop treating me like a kid.

He went very still. The dryer was at my back and he was in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his skin from his run. He lifted my chin with two fingers, and I swear my whole body lit up like a switchboard. He told me he'd been trying not to notice for two weeks.

Then he kissed me, and it was nothing like the sweet careful kisses I'd imagined. It was hungry. His mouth took mine like he'd been holding back for years too, and his hands slid under my t-shirt and up my bare sides, and I made this tiny helpless sound against his lips that made him groan. He pulled the shirt over my head, and his eyes went dark.

He took my nipple into his mouth, slow and deliberate, and I arched into him, my fingers tangling in his damp hair. He paid attention to every inch of me like he was memorizing me, like he knew we only had this one stolen afternoon and he was going to make it count. When his hand slid into my sleep shorts, I was already soaked, and he made this low approving sound that vibrated through my whole body.

He pulled my shorts down and spread my legs wider, and then he was on his knees on the basement floor, his mouth on me, and I had to bite my own wrist to keep from screaming. He was so good at it, patient, thorough, like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he'd rather be. My thighs were trembling around his head. When I came, it rolled through me in wave after wave, and he held my hips steady through all of it.

Then he stood up, pulled his shorts down, and I got my first real look at him, thick and hard and straining, and I wanted it so badly I could taste it. He pressed against me, teasing, and I begged. I actually begged for him to take me, because I'd needed this for so long.

He pushed in slow, filling me inch by inch, and I clung to his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his waist. The dryer hummed underneath us. He moved in me with this deep steady rhythm, his forehead pressed to mine, and every thrust felt like a confession. Like we were both admitting what we'd been pretending not to feel.

He picked up the pace, his hands gripping my hips, and I could feel myself climbing again, higher and higher, until I shattered around him with a cry I couldn't hold back. He followed a few strokes later, burying himself deep, his whole body shuddering against mine.

We stayed like that for a long time, breathing each other in. Then he helped me down, kissed my forehead, and told me we could never tell my stepbrother. I agreed. Of course I agreed. But here's my secret, the one I can only write in this diary: I don't want it to be a one-time thing. I want him to corner me in the laundry room again. I want the risk, the secrecy, the way he looks at me now across the dinner table like he's remembering exactly how I taste.

My stepbrother's best friend was never supposed to be mine. But one taste was all it took, and now I'm his, whenever, wherever he wants me. And I'm not sorry. Not even a little.