𝜗𝜚 ┈ nicole ｡ @liartogirls - Tumblr Blog

garrett graham ❄︎ the deal.

pairing – garrett graham x princess!reader summary – months of staring, jealousy, interrupted hookups, and one very dangerous sleepover finally turn garrett and his best friend into friends with benefits. warnings – 18+, explicit smut, fingering, nipple piercings, praise kink, dirty talk, friends with benefits, alcohol/weed mentions. notes from me – AHHHH finally got something out for princess!reader!! i feel like i'm ticking off each trope with each of my !readers hahaha. as requested here, my loves! word count – 10k

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They’ve just escaped a ninety-minute lecture on behavioural economics that Garrett attended physically and she attended with the kind of detailed, colour-coded devotion that makes her notes resemble something sold in a university gift shop.

The air outside is sharp enough to turn their breath white, the campus paths crowded with students funneling toward the dining hall, everyone bundled in jackets and scarves and expressions of private academic misery.

Garrett walks beside her with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, hands shoved into the front pocket of his Briar hoodie, nodding at the right intervals while she explains the tragic consequences of substituting almond flour without adjusting the moisture content of a cupcake recipe.

“They taste fine,” she says, stepping neatly around a patch of slush while Garrett walks directly through it. “Actually, they taste really good. They’re just very…” She pauses, making a shape with both mittened hands. “Dense.”

“Dense,” Garrett repeats.

“Yes.”

He huffs a laugh and reaches for the back of her jacket when she starts drifting toward the edge of the path, steering her around an oncoming cyclist without interrupting her baking autopsy.

She moves where he puts her automatically, continuing as if this is a completely normal thing for another person to do with her body. Which, for them, it is. “I think the baking powder was old, but I only bought it last month, so maybe it’s the flour. Or the oven. The ovens in my building are fucked.”

“Thoughts and prayers.”

She bumps her shoulder into his arm. “Do you think the guys would eat the failed ones?”

Garrett looks down at her. Her woollen hat is pale pink, naturally, with a little pom-pom on top that keeps brushing his shoulder whenever she moves closer to avoid someone. “Dude, Logan ate a chicken wing he found under the couch.”

Her nose wrinkles. “How long had it been there?”

“We didn’t ask.”

“Why wouldn’t you ask?”

“Sometimes knowledge is a burden, princess.”

She rolls her eyes at the nickname, although she stopped seriously protesting it somewhere around the hundredth time he used it. Now she mostly makes a face because he seems disappointed when she doesn’t. “So that’s a yes?”

“That’s an enthusiastic yes. Bring food into that house and they’ll build a religion around you.”

She nods, satisfied. “Okay. I’ll bring them around tonight. Maybe I’ll do another batch too, so you can compare them.”

“You want us to conduct a cupcake trial?”

She nods. “I want constructive feedback.”

“We’re not qualified for that.”

“You’re constantly giving opinions nobody asked for. I think you’ll manage.”

Garrett grins, holding the dining hall door open. “After you, Your Highness.”

“You’re so annoying,” she says, sailing past him into the warmth.

It hits them immediately, thick and overheated after the cold outside, carrying the smells of coffee, fried food, tomato sauce and approximately six hundred damp winter coats.

She unwinds her scarf as they join the queue, still talking about whether sour cream might work better than yoghurt, while Garrett collects two trays from the stack and begins assembling her lunch with the efficient resignation of someone who knows exactly how this works.

She doesn’t ask him to. She hasn’t asked him in years. She just follows beside him, pointing out what she wants occasionally, although he already knows she’ll take the soup if it’s tomato, the pasta if it isn’t visibly congealed, the little fruit cup without melon because she claims melon tastes like wet disappointment.

He puts a bowl of tomato soup onto her tray, adds a grilled cheese, grabs the strawberry yoghurt before she notices it’s there and trades the banana from her fruit cup for the grapes in his because she likes those better.

He does all of this while complaining about Coach.

“I’m telling you, he’s on my ass because I missed one pass yesterday,” Garrett says, balancing both trays against his forearms as they move through the crowd. “One. We still scored on the next shift.”

She grabs two forks and slides them onto the trays for him. “Was it a bad pass?”

“That’s not the point.”

She giggles. “That means yes.”

“It wasn’t bad. It was... slightly overly optimistic.”

She gives him a look. “You passed to nobody.”

“There was supposed to be somebody there.”

“Was there?”

Garrett looks at her.

She smiles sweetly. “Just gathering information.”

He mutters something about betrayal and carries their food toward the quieter side of the hall, waiting while she chooses a table near the heaters before setting her tray down in front of her. She immediately steals one of his fries, because their careful food allocation system only applies when she benefits from it.

Garrett sits across from her, stretching one long leg beneath the table until his sneaker knocks lightly into her boot. “Anyway, Coach acts like I personally invented turnovers. He kept me after practice for twenty minutes going through film.”

She makes a sympathetic noise around a bite of grilled cheese, shrugging out of her jacket as the heat begins sinking through her sweater. “He’s riding you because he knows you can take it.”

“Great. Inspiring.”

“No, I mean it.” She drapes the jacket over the back of her chair and smooths her hair down where the hat flattened it, leaving herself in a fitted pale-pink top that clings softly to her body. “He knows what you’re capable of, G. That’s why he notices when you’re even slightly off. It would be worse if he stopped caring.”

Garrett, who has been reaching for his drink, misses the straw entirely. The top is long-sleeved. It covers her from her collarbones to the waistband of her jeans. There’s nothing objectively scandalous about it, except that she’s not wearing a bra and the metal bars through her nipples are pressing clearly against the thin fabric.

He has seen this before. Technically.

The white tank top incident happened months ago, and since then he’s become painfully aware that the piercings exist beneath multiple items of her wardrobe. He's seen them through sweaters, dresses and the tiny pink top that nearly caused him to commit several felonies at his own party.

But awareness hasn’t produced immunity. It's produced a highly specific form of suffering.

She’s still talking, entirely unaware that the captain of Briar’s hockey team has been rendered incapable of operating a straw. “You’re the captain. He expects more from you because everyone else takes their cues from you. That doesn’t mean you played badly. It means one slightly optimistic pass from you matters more than five terrible ones from Dean.”

Garrett nods slowly.

Her eyebrows lift. “Are you listening?”

“Yep.”

“What did I say?”

“That Dean sucks.”

“Garrett.”

His gaze drops again before he can stop it. The little bars make subtle shadows beneath the pink fabric, more suggestion than display, which is somehow worse. He thinks about her dorm room. The white tank. The way she had crossed her arms and accidentally made the situation more obscene. He thinks about what the metal would feel like against his tongue.

Her fork clicks against the bowl. “Eyes are up here, loser.”

Garrett drags his attention back to her face. She’s staring at him with an expression that is mostly unimpressed, although colour has crept faintly along her cheekbones.

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Totally. Sorry.”

“You’re such a guy.”

“In my defence–”

“There isn’t one.”

“In my defence,” he continues, “you brought weapons into a family dining establishment.”

Her mouth twitches. “I’m wearing a shirt.”

“We’ve had this argument.”

She tilts her head. “And you lost it.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

He leans back in his chair. “Interesting. Doesn’t feel like losing from where I’m sitting.”

She kicks him beneath the table, but her lips have curved around the edge of her spoon. She would never tell him, obviously, because Garrett already possesses enough confidence to power a medium-sized city, but there’s something satisfying about watching his eyes betray him.

She knows what she looks like. She chose the shirt this morning, stood in front of her mirror and watched the pink fabric settle over her chest, the piercings just visible enough that nobody could reasonably accuse her of doing anything deliberate. Nobody except herself.

It’s been months since a man made her come. Not since she has come, technically. Her vibrator is dependable, discreet and considerably less likely than most men to ask whether she’s close after thirty seconds of mediocre effort.

But it’s been months since someone else managed it, and the last hookup had ended with her staring at a boy’s ceiling fan while he treated her left thigh like it contained a secret combination.

She’s had sex. It’s been fine. Fine in the way a cafeteria sandwich is fine: technically sustaining, occasionally pleasant, never something she dreams about later. Garrett, unfortunately, has appeared in those dreams.

Brief, treacherous images that arrive while the vibrator hums between her legs and she’s already warm and pliant enough not to push them away. Garrett’s mouth at her chest. Garrett’s broad hand flattening over her stomach. Garrett saying princess in that lower voice he uses when he stops teasing and means something.

The first time it happened, she had been so appalled that she stopped immediately. The third time, she came hard enough to kick the blankets onto the floor.

Now he’s sitting opposite her, trying not to stare and failing so openly that warmth pools low beneath her stomach. He drops his eyes to his food like he’s imposing discipline on himself, jaw moving as he chews, ears faintly pink.

She takes another spoonful of soup and watches him over the rim. Interesting. Maybe she doesn’t need to stop wearing the shirt after all.

A week later, Garrett has his tongue in another girl’s mouth when she decides she wants to go home. The two things are unrelated. Completely.

She’s been ready to leave for at least ten minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend standing in the corner of an aggressively expensive fraternity house, pretending she cannot see her ex-boyfriend sitting across the room with his new girlfriend folded prettily into his lap.

The fact that Garrett is making out with a blonde against the kitchen counter has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

The party has that sticky, overripe feeling they all develop after midnight, when the floors have become tacky with spilled beer and the music is loud enough to flatten every conversation into shouting. Someone has knocked a decorative framed photograph off the hallway wall.

A group of freshmen are playing a drinking game with rules that seem to involve pointing at one another and screaming. The air smells like vodka, perfume and the warm electrical threat of an overloaded speaker.

She’s wedged between Tucker and Logan on a sagging couch, her legs crossed beneath a short black skirt, trying to contribute to a conversation about whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich while three girls near the drinks table keep glancing in her direction and whispering.

They’re hockey girls. They attend every party, know every player’s schedule and become visibly displeased whenever she sits too close to Garrett. She’s never done anything to them. Except perhaps exist in his immediate vicinity.

One of the girls looks her up and down, her attention lingering on the leather jacket buttoned over the baby-pink crop top beneath it, then turns away with a small curl of her lip.

“Did she just roll her eyes at me?” she asks.

Tucker, who’s absolutely seen it, becomes very interested in the label on his beer. “Didn’t notice.”

“Liar.”

“I’m practicing peace.”

Logan glances between her and the girl. “Maybe she has something in her eye.”

“Both eyes?”

“Serious condition.”

Across the room, Garrett’s hand slides along the blonde’s waist.

Her stomach gives one hard, unpleasant twist. Which is stupid. Garrett hooks up with people. She knows this because she has interrupted him during hookups frequently enough that Dean once suggested they install a traffic-light system outside his bedroom.

Garrett has never cared. If she needs a ride, his notes, help moving furniture or someone to kill a spider while another girl is in his bed, he complains loudly and then does whatever she wants.

He always puts her first. That’s simply how their friendship works.

The blonde curls her fingers into Garrett’s hair, tugging his head down to deepen the kiss, and something inside her turns hot and mean.

She stands.

Logan looks up. “Where’re you going?”

“Home.”

“Tuck can call you a car.”

She shakes her head. “Garrett drove me.”

Both boys look across the room.

Tucker rubs his mouth. “He appears occupied.”

“He won’t mind.”

Neither of them answers, because they have witnessed this particular ecosystem before and understand that interfering would only put them closer to the blast radius.

She crosses the room, stepping around another couple making out. Garrett doesn’t see her coming. His back is partially turned, one arm braced beside the blonde’s shoulder, his mouth moving slowly against hers while she presses into him with considerable enthusiasm.

She taps him on the shoulder. “Garrett.”

He hums without pulling away.

Her jaw tightens. “Garrett.”

He breaks the kiss just enough to glance over, lips swollen and curls mussed beneath the blonde’s hand. “What?”

“I want to go home.”

His eyebrows knit, focus dragging slowly into place. The blonde uses the pause to kiss along his jaw, her glossy mouth leaving a faint pink mark beneath his ear. “Make Dean drive you.”

“Dean disappeared twenty minutes ago to have sex with someone.”

Garrett squints past her into the crowd. “Twenty minutes?”

“Yes.”

“Great. He’ll be back any second.”

The blonde laughs against his neck. It’s not even particularly mean, but it lands that way.

She folds her arms, leather creaking softly at the shoulders. “Garrett.”

“What?”

“Please. I want to go home.”

The blonde’s hand tightens at the back of his neck. “She can get an Uber.”

Garrett’s eyes move to her face properly then. He knows her too well. That’s the problem with best friends. You can arrange your mouth into something neutral and keep your voice level, but they know where to look for the cracks.

His attention traces the stiffness in her shoulders, the way she has tucked one thumb beneath the cuff of her jacket and begun worrying the leather, the fact that she’s refusing to glance toward the couch where her ex is practically eating his new girlfriend’s face.

“You good?” Garrett asks.

“I’m fine. I just want to go.”

His mouth flattens slightly. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Princess.”

“Nothing happened.” She hates the tiny strain in her own voice, hates the sympathetic crease already forming between his brows. “Forget it. I’ll walk.”

“Great,” the blonde says. “Bye.”

She hooks her fingers around Garrett’s neck and tries to pull him back down.

Garrett resists without seeming to think about it, his body going still beneath her hand. He looks from the blonde to his best friend, who’s already turned away, spine straight as she begins weaving toward the front door alone.

The desire he’d been nursing all evening evaporates so quickly it’s almost impressive.

“Hey,” the blonde protests when he steps back. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, no. Sorry.” Garrett grabs his jacket from the counter and follows. “I’m driving her.”

“She’s being dramatic.”

He stops. It isn’t anger. Garrett’s anger is colder than most people expect, shaped by years of learning precisely how dangerous loud anger can become. His face empties instead, the easy warmth dropping out of his eyes as he looks back at the girl.

“She’s my best friend,” he says. “Don’t make me choose.”

The girl gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “What the fuck?”

He catches up with her outside, where she’s standing at the foot of the porch steps with her arms folded against the cold and her chin tipped stubbornly toward the road.

Snow crunches beneath his shoes as he approaches. “You seriously gonna walk?”

She doesn’t look at him. “Maybe.”

“In that skirt?”

“I have legs.”

He scoffs. “You also have no survival instincts.”

She finally glances over, eyes narrowing. “Go back inside, Garrett.”

“No.”

“You were busy,” she mumbles.

“I’m aware.”

“She seemed nice.”

“She wasn’t.”

She huffs, kicking some snow with her shoe. “She was nice before I interrupted you.”

Garrett exhales through his nose and holds out his jacket. She stares at it. “Put this on.”

“I have a jacket.”

“Yours ends at your ribs.”

She looks down at herself. “It’s cropped.”

“It’s useless.”

She makes an offended little sound but lets him drape the heavier coat around her shoulders anyway, swimming briefly in the dark fabric while he guides her toward the car with a hand at her back.

The contact is firm and familiar, his palm fitting into the curve above her skirt as naturally as if it was designed for him. Neither of them mentions the girl again.

Inside the car, Garrett turns the heat on high and pulls away from the curb while she works his jacket off, the leather one following because the warmth blasts through the vents almost immediately.

She tosses both into the back seat and settles into the passenger side in only a pink top. Garrett looks over. The car jerks toward the centre line.

“Jesus Christ.” She grabs the door handle. “Are you trying to kill us?”

He corrects hard, tires hissing over wet asphalt. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“A top.”

“That’s not a top.”

The baby-pink material is thin and fitted, cut just beneath her chest with narrow straps and a low neckline. Under the shifting orange light from the streetlamps, the metal through her nipples presses visibly against it, small hard bars beneath soft cotton.

Garrett fixes his eyes on the road with the rigid concentration of a man attempting to land an aircraft during a storm. She watches the muscle tick in his cheek. Interesting.

She adjusts the seat belt so it sits between her breasts, making the fabric pull tighter. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You were having fun,” she murmurs.

“I was making out with someone.”

“That’s usually considered fun.”

He glances at her for half a second, catches the faintly innocent widening of her eyes, then looks forward again. “You wanted to go home.”

“You didn’t have to take me.”

“Yes, I did.”

She frowns. “Why?”

“Because you asked me to.”

The answer is so simple that it presses strangely beneath her ribs. She tucks one leg beneath herself, turning slightly toward him. The skirt rides higher over her thigh, although this is a natural consequence of sitting and not something calculated to make his grip tighten around the steering wheel.

“You always do what I ask?”

“No.”

She bites back a smile. “You do.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“You’re driving me home after I interrupted you with a girl.”

He frowns. “You were upset.”

“I said I was fine.”

“You say you’re fine when you’re actively on fire.”

“I do not,” she frowns.

“You cried because Starbucks discontinued your syrup.”

“It was seasonal and I was hormonal.”

He laughs, the sound breaking some of the tightness between them. “You’re ridiculous.”

She looks out through the window before he can catch the smile tugging at her mouth. The campus passes in wet, blurred ribbons of light, bare trees black against the snow.

When he pulls up outside her dorm, she gathers both jackets but keeps his around her shoulders as she opens the door.

Garrett leans across the centre console. “Text me when you’re upstairs.”

“I’m ten feet from the entrance.”

“Text me anyway.”

She looks at him, his face softened by the dashboard glow, curls still messed up from another girl’s hands. The sight should bother her more than it does. Or perhaps it already bothers her exactly enough. “Thanks, G.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She climbs out, then bends to look back inside. The neckline of the pink top shifts. Garrett’s gaze falls. She catches him. His eyes lift slowly to hers, entirely unrepentant now.

She smiles, small and sweet. “Eyes up here, loser.”

“Go inside, princess.”

She closes the door before he sees how pleased she is.

A few weeks later, she’s on the hockey-house living-room floor with Dean asking why the puck bunnies hate her.

It’s nearly three in the morning. The party has contracted into its final, strange form, leaving behind twelve people who either live there, are sleeping with somebody who lives there, or have become too comfortable to understand that they should go home.

Music plays quietly from somebody’s abandoned phone. Empty cups crowd the coffee table. A girl is asleep beneath Tucker’s good throw blanket, which he keeps glancing at as if worried she might stain it with unconsciousness.

Logan sits cross-legged on the couch eating chips directly from the bag, while Dean sprawls in an armchair with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, looking far too alert for someone who has consumed enough alcohol to tranquilise livestock.

She sits on the floor between Garrett’s legs, her back against the couch, the hem of her little black dress riding high over her thighs.

Garrett’s been quieter than usual tonight and drunker than normal, although the two things appear to be related. His knees bracket her shoulders. Every few minutes, the inside of his calf brushes her arm when he shifts.

Dean studies her over the rim of his cup. “Why do the puck bunnies hate you so much, dude?”

She frowns. “They hate me?”

Dean immediately winces. “Oh. That’s– hate is probably too strong.”

She frowns. “You just said hate.”

“I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

She turns to look at Logan and Tucker. Both avoid her eyes with the speed of men who have already decided Dean can die alone.

“They hate me?” she repeats, voice small.

Garrett’s arm drops around her shoulders before anyone answers, heavy and warm as he hooks her back against his chest. “Don’t worry about it.”

She holds onto his forearms. “I’m not worried. I’m asking.”

“Same difference.”

She tilts her head back to look at him. His face is upside down from this angle, curls falling over his forehead, cheeks flushed slightly from alcohol. “That isn’t an answer.”

“Don’t need one.”

“Garrett.”

He tightens his arm around her and presses his mouth briefly to the top of her head, an absent gesture that makes Dean’s eyebrows climb before he wisely takes another drink.

Tucker clears his throat. “They don’t hate you.”

“They just don’t love how close you are with the team,” Logan says, aiming for diplomacy and landing somewhere near the border. “Especially Garrett.”

She twists around enough to look at him. “Why?”

Four male faces regard her in exhausted silence.

Dean waves one hand vaguely. “Because you’re always here.”

“You’re always here," she replies.

“I live here.”

“So does Tucker. They like Tucker.”

Tucker blinks. “Thank you?”

“And Logan.”

Logan nods seriously. “I’m very popular with women.”

“They don’t want to sleep with Tucker,” Dean explains.

She rolls her eyes. “They definitely do.”

Tucker’s expression becomes pained. “Please stop including me.”

Garrett’s hand spreads over her upper arm, thumb rubbing slowly through the thin fabric of her dress. “Doesn’t matter whether they like it. You’re not going anywhere.”

The certainty in his voice settles low in her chest.

She looks down at her hands. “I want to be friends with them.”

Dean’s face softens, the drunk sharpness slipping away. “Why?”

“Because I’m friends with all of you, and they’re always around, and it’s awkward when they stare at me.”

“They’re jealous,” Logan says.

“Of what?”

Again, silence.

Garrett reaches down and takes her cup before she can finish what remains in it. “You’ve had enough.”

She makes a small noise of protest. “That was mine.”

“You’re stoned.”

“I’m also thirsty.”

“That’s vodka.”

“Vodka’s a liquid.”

Tucker gets up and returns from the kitchen with a glass of water, holding it out. “Here.”

She accepts it with both hands. “Thank you, Tuck. You’re my favourite.”

“Bullshit,” Garrett says behind her.

She drinks, then settles back into him, pleasantly heavy and loose. Somebody changes the subject. Dean begins recounting an experience with a girl who asked him to keep his socks on because his feet were distracting, which turns into a discussion about weird hookup requests and then, somehow, whether women can tell when a man is faking confidence.

She listens with her cheek resting against Garrett’s knee, mind drifting slowly through the conversation. The weed has softened the room around its edges. Garrett’s fingers move through the ends of her hair without rhythm, gathering strands and letting them slide away.

“Women can always tell,” she says eventually.

Dean points at her. “See? This is valuable research.”

“You’re terrible at hiding when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing.”

She laughs. “That’s exactly what a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing says.”

“What about Garrett?” Logan asks.

Garrett’s hand stops in her hair.

She looks up. “What about him?”

“Can you tell when he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

“I’ve never seen him have sex.”

Dean nearly chokes on his drink. “Thank Christ for that.”

She tilts her head. “I’ve walked in after. And right before.”

“That’s still too much information.”

She thinks about it, lips pressing together. “Garrett usually knows what he’s doing.”

Garrett’s fingers resume moving, slower now. “Usually?”

She shrugs, her shoulder sliding beneath his palm. “I don’t know. Men are generally disappointing.”

The room stills almost imperceptibly. Dean lowers his cup. “In what context?”

Her brain, softened by weed and exhaustion, allows the truth to slip out without consulting the part responsible for dignity. “It’s been so long since a man made me come.”

Every pair of eyes turns toward her. She blinks at them. Then the sentence reaches her.

“Oh,” she says. “Fuck. Did I say that aloud?”

“Very much,” Tucker answers.

Logan nods, eyes wide. “Clear as day.”

Dean looks somewhere between fascinated and afraid for his life. “Do you often think things like that while we’re talking?”

“I didn’t mean to.” She covers her face with both hands. “Disregard it.”

Garrett has gone completely still behind her.

Heat moves up her neck despite the fog in her head. “Seriously. Everyone forget it.”

“Already gone,” Tucker says kindly.

“Never happened,” Logan agrees.

Dean taps his temple. “Deleted.”

Garrett says nothing.

The conversation restarts with the brittle enthusiasm of people attempting not to acknowledge a live grenade beneath the coffee table. She sinks lower against the couch, mortification gradually fading beneath the warm drag of exhaustion.

By four, the remaining guests have either left or collapsed into various corners. Garrett nudges her shoulder. “Come on.”

She looks up at him through heavy eyelids. “Where?”

“Bed.”

Her mouth curves before she can stop it. “Wow. Buy me dinner.”

“You ate half my fries earlier.”

“So romantic.”

He gets to his feet and pulls her up by both hands. The room sways gently. She bumps into his chest, laughing when he catches her around the waist.

“No way you’re going home like this,” he says.

“I could walk.”

He raises his eyebrow. “You can barely stand.”

“I’m standing right now.”

“Because I’m holding you.”

She peers down at his arms around her. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

He guides her upstairs, one hand firm at her waist while she climbs with exaggerated care.

In his room, he shuts the door and pulls a clean hoodie from a drawer, tossing it onto the bed. “You can sleep in that.”

She picks it up and presses it to her nose. “Smells like you.”

Garrett turns his back so quickly it might qualify as evasive action. “Change.”

She stares at the broad line of his shoulders beneath his sweater. “You’ve seen me in underwear.”

“Not tonight.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Because you’re high.”

She laughs to herself and reaches behind her for the zipper of her dress. Garrett stays facing the wall while fabric whispers down her body, collecting around her boots. She steps out of it, unhooks her bra and lets it fall onto the pile, then pulls his hoodie over her head.

It hangs to mid-thigh, thick and warm, the sleeves swallowing her hands.

Garrett throws a pair of boxers over his shoulder without looking. They land against her face. “Rude.”

“Put those on too.”

She tugs them over her underwear, rolling the waistband once so they stay up. “You can look now.”

He turns cautiously.

His gaze moves over her in a single, helpless sweep: bare legs, his boxers sitting low on her hips, his hoodie hanging loose enough that one shoulder has slipped through the collar. Her hair is mussed. Her mouth is pink from drinking and biting at it all night.

Garrett looks away first.

“Your turn,” she says.

He points toward the bed. “Get in.”

“I want to watch.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve told an entire room you haven’t come in months and now you’re wearing my clothes.”

She considers that. “That’s true.”

Garrett rubs both hands over his face. “Jesus Christ.”

He steps into the small closet alcove, although the door doesn’t close properly and the angle leaves him partly visible in the mirror beside his dresser. She sits on the edge of his bed and watches him pull his sweater over his head, the muscles in his back shifting beneath smooth skin. His pants follow, pushed down over narrow hips and strong thighs until he stands in black boxers.

Her mouth actually waters. Garrett glances toward the mirror. Their eyes meet in the reflection. She doesn’t look away. His jaw flexes.

For one suspended second, the room seems to narrow around them, warm and quiet and threaded through with everything they have been pretending not to notice. Then Garrett grabs shorts and a t-shirt, pulling them on with unnecessary force.

When he returns, she’s still sitting upright, staring at him.

He points toward the opposite side of the mattress. “You stay on your side. I stay on mine.”

Her stomach drops with stupid disappointment. She had been almost certain he was going to kiss her. Maybe not certain. Hopeful enough to feel embarrassed now.

She climbs under the covers anyway, watching him turn off the lamp before lying beside her with a cautious strip of mattress between them.

The darkness makes her braver. “I could be your fuck bunny.”

Garrett goes rigid. “What?”

She rolls onto her side to face him, struggling to arrange the words through the pleasant fog in her skull. “Your puck funny.”

“What?”

“No. Fuck punny.” She frowns. “That isn’t right either.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Puck bunny,” she says triumphantly. “I could be one.”

His voice is tight. “You’re a stoned bunny.”

“I’m a horny bunny.”

Garrett makes a sound that seems physically painful. “Well, sleep, horny bunny.”

She huffs, rolls away from him and buries her face into his pillow. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m being responsible.”

“Boring.”

“Goodnight, princess.”

She intends to say something cutting. Instead, she falls asleep halfway through the inhale.

The fourth time, she wakes with Garrett hard against her ass and his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

For several soft, disorienting seconds, she doesn’t remember where she is. There is only warmth – the heavy comforter tangled around her calves, a broad palm spread low across her stomach, slow breath disturbing the hair at the back of her neck.

Her mouth tastes faintly like vodka and sleep, her limbs weighted with the pleasant remains of the weed, and she's wearing far more fabric than usual in bed because Garrett’s hoodie has bunched around her hips sometime during the night, leaving one bare thigh tucked between both of his.

Then he shifts behind her. The hard length pressed into the curve of her ass moves with him, unmistakable even through his shorts and the boxers he made her pull over her underwear, and every blurred piece of the night before snaps sharply into place.

His room. His bed. Garrett standing half-naked inside the shallow cupboard while she watched through the mirror. Her own voice declaring that she was a horny bunny before she passed out facedown against his pillow like the sophisticated, sexually irresistible woman she so clearly is.

She should be mortified. Instead, heat gathers between her legs with embarrassing speed.

Garrett’s body is curled around hers as though neither of them spent several careful minutes negotiating opposite sides of the mattress. His chest is firm against her back, one knee wedged between hers, his face pressed into her hair.

The position is intimate in a way that should feel unfamiliar, except everything about him already belongs inside the architecture of her life. His arm around her. His hand on her waist. His clothes against her skin. Garrett is always touching her, always letting her lean, climb, tug and settle wherever she wants.

The only new thing is how badly she wants more.

His breathing is still deep and even. She lies perfectly still, staring at the thin bars of morning light stretching across his wall while her pulse begins beating in places it has no business being this early. Garrett’s hand flexes against her stomach, fingers spreading as though even asleep he is making certain she’s still there, and the movement draws the hoodie upward another inch.

She could leave it alone. She could untangle herself, find her dress and spend the rest of their friendship pretending she never woke up with his erection pressed against her while yesterday’s confession sat between them like a match beside gasoline.

It's been so long since a man made her come.

Garrett heard her say it. Garrett, who stared at her piercings through the pink top in the dining hall until he forgot how drinking straws worked. Garrett, who abandoned a girl mid-hookup because she asked him to drive her home. Garrett, who had clenched his jaw when she offered to become his puck bunny and then tucked her into his bed instead of taking advantage of how stoned she was.

Garrett, who is hard against her now.

She moves before she can talk herself out of it. Only slightly at first, a slow backward press of her hips that could almost be blamed on sleep. The reaction is immediate. Garrett’s breathing catches against her neck, his entire body tightening behind her, though his hand remains motionless across her stomach.

Her lips curve against the pillow. She does it again.

This time she rolls her hips deliberately, letting the soft curve of her ass drag against him through the thin layers separating them. Pleasure flickers low in her belly from the pressure of his thigh between hers, nowhere near enough but more than enough to leave her suddenly, painfully aware of how wet she's becoming.

Garrett wakes with a rough inhale.

“Shit.” His arm loosens and his hips jerk back as though he's touched something hot. His voice is wrecked by sleep, low enough that it moves through her body before the words fully register. “Sorry. I didn’t–”

She has spent months wondering what his mouth would feel like. She has spent weeks wearing thinner tops and pretending not to notice every stolen look.

She has spent an entire night aching beneath his attention, only for him to place an honourable strip of mattress between them and tell her to sleep.

She's finished waiting. She rolls over, fists one hand into his curls and kisses him.

Garrett goes completely still beneath her mouth. For one terrible heartbeat, he doesn’t kiss her back. His lips are warm and slightly parted, his body rigid beside hers, and humiliation begins crawling up her throat – but then she hooks her leg over his hip, presses herself against the hard shape beneath his shorts and makes a small, impatient sound into his mouth.

Something in him gives. His hand clamps around her waist and he kisses her back so hard that the breath catches in her chest. There's no careful, uncertain exploration, no fumbling attempt to determine whether best friends are allowed to do this.

Garrett kisses her like he's already imagined it too many times to need instructions, his mouth opening over hers, tongue sliding hot and sure against her own as he rolls her beneath him.

The mattress dips. His body settles between her thighs, broad and heavy enough to make her feel trapped without placing his full weight on her, and the sensation empties her head of everything except him.

Her Garrett. Her best friend, who carries two trays through the dining hall because she doesn’t like balancing her soup. Who knows she wants the strawberry yoghurt and hates melon. Who always does what she asks, even while complaining like she has sentenced him to hard labour.

Except he isn’t waiting for her instructions now.

She reaches for his face, wanting to pull him closer, but Garrett catches her wrist and presses it into the mattress beside her head. The abrupt restraint sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through her.

He pulls back just enough to look at her, his chest rising hard beneath his shirt. His curls are ruined beneath her fingers, his mouth flushed from hers, but his eyes are startlingly clear now, fixed on her with an intensity that makes her stomach clench.

“Tell me to stop,” he says.

She shakes her head immediately.

“Words, princess.”

“No.” Her voice emerges breathless and embarrassingly soft. “Don’t stop.”

His gaze drops to her mouth. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

She expects him to tease her. Instead, something almost hungry passes over his face, quick and raw before his mouth comes down on hers again.

She melts beneath him. There's no other word for it. All the sharp little remarks she might ordinarily use to protect herself disappear the moment Garrett’s hand tightens around her wrist.

Her body seems to understand the arrangement before her mind catches up: Garrett above her, Garrett in control, Garrett deciding how fast and how hard while she clings to him and lets him.

He shifts his hips, pressing himself firmly between her thighs. A thin whimper escapes her.

Garrett stills for half a beat, as if the sound surprises him. Then he does it again, slower this time, grinding the thick ridge of his erection directly against the place already pulsing beneath her underwear.

Her free hand flies to his shoulder. “Garrett.”

“What?” he asks, mouth brushing the corner of hers. The word is too calm for what he's doing.

She cannot remember what she intended to say. He moves again and her head falls back, throat exposed to him, every nerve beneath her skin drawn tight.

His lips find the sensitive place beneath her jaw. He kisses it once, then opens his mouth against her neck, teeth grazing softly enough to make her toes curl inside the sheets.

“This is what you wanted?” he murmurs.

She nods.

His fingers tighten around her wrist. “Wanted me to wake up and fuck around with my best friend?”

The filthy edge to the question sends another helpless noise from her throat. Garrett has always had a dirty mouth – on the ice, during video games, whenever Dean says anything remotely provocative – but she's never heard it aimed at her like this, lowered against her skin until the words feel like touch.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“How long?”

She turns her face toward him, cheeks hot. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

His other hand slides beneath the hem of the hoodie, palm moving slowly up her bare stomach. She feels every roughened patch of his skin, every subtle drag of his fingers. The hoodie lifts with his wrist, cool air following the heat of his hand.

“Months,” she admits.

Garrett’s mouth stops against her throat. The silence lasts only a second, but she feels the answer move through him. His hips press more firmly into hers. His breathing roughens.

“Months,” he repeats.

She nods, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “Since you– saw me... the tank top. Maybe before.”

His thumb traces beneath her breast. “You’ve been thinking about me since then?”

Her body arches toward his hand without permission. “Garrett, please.”

“Thinking about what?”

She squeezes her eyes closed. She cannot say it while he's looking at her like this. Not when the fantasies felt illicit even alone in her dorm, her vibrator between her legs while she imagined his dark head lowered over her chest.

Garrett releases her wrist only to catch both hands together and press them above her head with one of his. His other hand cups her breast beneath the hoodie, warm and possessive, thumb finding the metal bar through her nipple as though he has known exactly where it would be all along.

He strokes it once. Her entire body jerks beneath him.

“Oh.”

Garrett exhales through his nose, the sound nearly a groan. “That sensitive?”

She nods, breathing too quickly. He rolls the piercing gently beneath his thumb, watching her face while pleasure sparks through her in sharp, bright bursts. Her thighs tighten around his hips. The friction between them makes her ache, but he refuses to give her the rhythm her body is beginning to chase.

“Was this it?” he asks. “You thinking about my hands on these?”

She tries to pull her hands free, because she needs something to hold onto. He keeps them pinned easily.

“And my mouth?” His thumb circles her nipple. “You think about that too?”

“Yes.”

The answer breaks out of her before embarrassment can stop it.

Garrett’s eyelids lower. “Fuck, princess.”

He pushes the hoodie higher, baring her breasts completely. The fabric gathers beneath her raised arms, leaving her trapped inside his clothes and exposed beneath his gaze. Garrett simply looks for a moment, and the undisguised want on his face makes her feel more naked than she is.

She has seen him stare before. Across dining tables. From the driver’s seat. In her dorm room when the white tank turned translucent beneath the light.

This is different. There's no joke waiting behind his eyes, no exaggerated plea for her to cover up before he fights somebody. His attention moves over her slowly, the muscles along his jaw tightening as he takes in the silver bars and the way her nipples have already hardened under his hands.

“I knew they’d look good,” he says, voice rough. “Didn’t know they’d look this fucking good.”

Her stomach turns molten. “G.”

He lowers his head. The first touch of his tongue is directly over the metal.

She gasps, back lifting from the mattress, but his hand keeps her wrists firmly above her head. Garrett traces the bar with the tip of his tongue, slow enough that she can feel the contrast of warmth and cool metal, then closes his mouth around her nipple.

Her eyes fall shut. “Oh my God.”

His groan vibrates through her breast. He sucks with controlled, deliberate pressure, tongue moving around the piercing while his free hand cups the other side, fingers kneading the soft weight before his thumb begins teasing that bar too.

Every fantasy she has had was inadequate. None of them accounted for the size of him over her, the scratch of morning stubble against her skin or the way he keeps grinding lazily between her legs while his mouth works at her chest. None of them sounded like Garrett groaning because he finally has her nipple on his tongue.

Her hands strain uselessly in his grip. “Please.”

He lifts his head, lips wet, eyes dark. “Please what?”

She looks down between them, frustrated tears almost prickling at the corners of her eyes from how badly she wants him. “Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

“You know what I mean.”

His mouth curves slightly, but there's none of his usual bright humour in it. “Ask properly.”

Ordinarily, she would tell him to go fuck himself. She would roll her eyes, call him an idiot and take whatever she wanted through persistence alone. Now, with her body shaking beneath him and his thumb sliding over her piercing, there is nothing she would not say.

“Please touch me,” she whispers. “Please, Garrett. I need you.”

His expression changes again, satisfaction and something heavier moving beneath it. “There’s my good girl.”

The praise pours through her like heat.

Garrett switches breasts before she can recover, mouth closing around her other nipple while his hand slips back down her stomach. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of the boxers she borrowed and drags them slowly over her hips, leaving her underwear beneath.

She lifts herself immediately to help him.

“Eager,” he murmurs against her skin.

She cannot summon enough dignity to deny it. “Yes.”

He pushes the boxers down her legs and tosses them aside. Her knees fall open around him almost instinctively, the pink fabric between her thighs already damp enough to cling.

Garrett looks down. A sharp breath leaves him. She feels the attention like another touch, direct and scorching. Some small remaining instinct makes her knees begin to draw inward, but Garrett catches one and presses it back into the mattress.

“No.”

The single word makes her still.

His palm slides along the inside of her thigh, spreading her wider as he settles beside her. “You wanted my attention so badly, you can take it.”

Her lips part. He keeps his eyes on her while his fingers reach the damp centre of her underwear, pressing lightly through the fabric.

Pleasure jolts through her. Her hips lift toward his hand, searching for more before she can pretend otherwise.

“Look at you,” Garrett murmurs. “All that bossing me around, and this is all it takes?”

She shakes her head, though she has no idea what she's denying. He moves his fingertips in one slow stroke and her breath trembles out of her.

“Please,” she says again.

His eyes snap back to her face. The sound seems to affect him every time, as though he's never heard her ask instead of demand and has already become addicted to it.

Garrett hooks his fingers beneath the waistband and draws her underwear down. She helps impatiently, kicking the fabric away the moment it reaches her ankles. The exposure should embarrass her, but the only thing she can think about is his hand returning to her.

It does. His fingers slide through the wetness between her thighs, unbearably gentle at first, gathering it slowly as though he has all morning to learn her.

Both of them exhale.

“Jesus,” Garrett says softly.

She grips the sheet beside her, already fighting the urge to lift her hips into his palm. “What?”

“You’re fucking soaked.”

Heat burns across her face, but he sounds pleased rather than mocking, his voice roughening as he strokes through her again, spreading her open with two fingers and watching the slick gather against his hand.

“This all for me?”

Her eyelids flutter. “Maybe.”

Garrett looks up at her. “Maybe?”

His thumb drags over her clit, slow and deliberate, and her whole body jerks.

“Yes,” she gasps.

“Yeah?” He circles again, firmer this time, mouth curving when her thighs twitch around his wrist. “You get this wet thinking about me?”

She swallows, embarrassment dissolving beneath the ache building low in her stomach. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” he repeats, like he doesn’t believe a word of it.

His middle finger presses against her entrance, not entering yet, just teasing there while she tries not to move. She fails almost immediately. Her hips tilt toward him, chasing the pressure, and Garrett lets out a low laugh that makes everything inside her tighten.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Can’t even wait for me to put my fingers inside you.”

“Garrett.”

“What, princess?”

“Please.”

He slides one finger into her slowly. Her mouth falls open.

The stretch is slight, nowhere near enough, but the feel of Garrett inside her – Garrett, her best friend, the man she has imagined with his hand between her legs more times than she would ever admit aloud – makes a thin, breathless whimper escape her.

His eyes sharpen instantly. “That’s the noise you make?”

She turns her face into the pillow, mortified, but his free hand catches her jaw and draws her back.

“No. Don’t hide.”

He pushes his finger deeper, curling it inside her, and her lashes flutter as pleasure sparks hard through her.

“G–”

“There?” he asks, already doing it again.

She nods quickly. “Yes. Right there.”

Garrett keeps his eyes on her as he begins moving, drawing his finger almost all the way out before pushing it back inside, slow enough at first that she feels every inch of it, every deliberate curl and drag against the place that makes her stomach tighten. Her legs fall wider.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

The praise pours straight through her. She moans, soft and helpless, and Garrett’s jaw flexes like the sound hurts him.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “You like that?”

She can barely answer. “Yes.”

“Like me telling you how good you’re being while I finger you?”

Her hips rock into his hand.

Garrett smiles, dark and pleased. “Yeah. Thought so.”

He adds a second finger. The fuller stretch makes her gasp, fingers flying to his forearm as he pushes them into her together, watching her face the entire time. “Oh my God.”

“Too much?”

She shakes her head frantically. “No. No, don’t stop.”

“I’m not stopping.”

His fingers begin fucking into her properly then, the rhythm steady and deep, his palm pressing against her clit every time he pushes back inside. The wet sounds are obscene in the quiet room, each slick thrust loud enough to make heat crawl over her chest.

Garrett hears them too. “Listen to you,” he says, voice dropping lower. “So fucking wet for me.”

She whines, head falling back as his fingers curl harder. “Garrett, please.”

“Please what?”

She has no idea. More. Faster. Everything. “Please make me come.”

The words leave her on a broken breath. Garrett’s expression turns almost feral.

“Yeah?” His fingers drive into her again, faster now, finding the exact angle that makes her thighs shake. “You need your best friend to make you come?”

She nods, unable to stop the sounds spilling from her.

“Say it.”

“I need you.”

“Need me how?”

Her nails dig into his wrist. “Need your fingers. Please, G, please–”

He groans and kisses her hard, swallowing the next whimper as his hand works between her legs. His fingers thrust deep and curl with every stroke, firm and controlled, while his thumb finds her clit and begins circling in time with them.

The pleasure climbs so quickly she can barely breathe. She clings to his shoulder, moaning into his mouth as he fucks her with his fingers, every thrust sending another hot pulse through her.

He knows exactly when to speed up, when to press harder, when to drag his thumb over her clit in tight, relentless circles that make her hips buck helplessly against him.

She had wondered whether this would feel awkward. Whether she would become too aware of every ordinary thing she knows about him – how he takes his coffee, the face he makes when he loses at cards, the exact pitch of his snore after an away game.

Instead, it feels terrifyingly natural. He knows her even here. He feels the way her body clenches around his fingers before she can tell him she needs more. He hears the pitch of her moans changing and immediately fucks into her harder, curling his fingers against the spot that makes her vision blur.

“Garrett,” she whimpers.

“I know.”

His voice is rough now, every ounce of control in his hand rather than his mouth.

“You’re taking me so well,” he murmurs, watching his fingers disappear inside her. “Fuck, princess. Look at you.”

She squeezes around him, and his breathing stutters.

“That feel good?”

“So good.”

“Better than those other guys?”

The question should make her laugh. Instead, the jealousy underneath it sends heat through her. “Yes.”

“How much better?”

Her voice breaks when he drives his fingers into her again. “So much.”

Garrett’s mouth brushes her ear. “That’s because they didn’t know what to do with you.”

His fingers curl. She cries out softly.

“Didn’t know you needed someone to take their time,” he continues, filthy and tender all at once. “Someone to keep going when you start getting all sensitive.”

Her thighs begin trembling. “G, I’m close.”

“Yeah, you are.”

He fucks his fingers into her faster, thumb moving firmly over her clit while she writhes beneath him. She tries to turn her face away, overwhelmed by his attention, but Garrett catches her jaw again.

“Look at me.”

She forces her eyes open. The approval in his expression nearly destroys her.

“That’s it,” he says softly. “Want to watch you come on my fingers.”

Her stomach tightens violently. The pressure becomes almost unbearable, pleasure building so hard and fast that panic flickers through her. “G–”

“I’ve got you.”

She shakes her head, fingers closing around his wrist even as her hips keep meeting every thrust. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“It’s too much.”

“No, baby.” He presses a kiss against her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, never slowing his hand. “You’re just not used to somebody doing it right.”

A broken whine escapes her. Garrett smiles against her skin.

“That’s it. Let me hear you.”

Her legs try to close around his hand, but he shifts between them, using his body to keep her spread open while his fingers continue fucking into her.

“Don’t run.”

“I’m not–”

“You are.” His thumb presses harder against her clit, and her back arches. “Stay right here. Take it for me.”

She nods frantically, tears prickling at her lashes from the intensity.

“Good girl.”

The praise hits at the exact moment his fingers curl deep inside her. The orgasm tears through her. Her body clamps hard around his fingers, a cry breaking loose before Garrett covers her mouth with his.

Pleasure pulses outward in fierce, breath-stealing waves, her hips jerking helplessly against his hand while he keeps fucking her through it.

“That’s it,” he murmurs against her lips. “Come for me.”

She whimpers into his mouth, fingers tangled desperately in his shirt as another wave rolls through her.

“Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight.” His voice is wrecked now, proud and filthy. “Such a pretty fucking girl.”

The words make her clench around him again. Garrett groans and slows his fingers only slightly, dragging the orgasm out while she shakes beneath him, every stroke making her twitch and gasp.

“G– please–”

“I know, baby.”

She tries to curl away when the pleasure turns too sharp, rolling onto her side with a broken sound, but Garrett follows her, arm wrapping around her waist while his fingers remain inside her.

He gives her one last slow curl. Her whole body shudders. Then he finally stops. For several seconds, she cannot speak.

Her heart pounds beneath the hand he settles over her ribs. Her face is pressed into his pillow, chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths, Garrett’s body warm along the length of her back.

He withdraws his fingers carefully, and she whimpers at the sudden emptiness.

Garrett kisses her shoulder. “That okay?”

She lets out a weak, incredulous laugh. “Okay?”

Garrett’s mouth moves against her skin. “Need to know.”

She turns her head enough to look at him. His expression has softened, the sharp control from moments before giving way to the Garrett she knows – the one who checks that she has texted after walking ten feet into her building.

“That was so good,” she whispers.

The admission makes his grin appear slowly. Stunned and pleased, as though he cannot believe he's the one who finally gets to see her like this. “Yeah?”

She nods, too blissed out to pretend otherwise. “Really good.”

“Shit.” He drops his forehead between her shoulder blades with a quiet laugh. “I’m barely awake.”

A giggle escapes her, loose and helpless. “Me too.”

When she shifts, she feels how hard he still is behind her. She turns in his arms and reaches for him immediately, wanting to give back even a fraction of what he has just done to her, but Garrett catches her wrist before she can get beneath his waistband.

“We’ve got time for that.”

She frowns. “But you didn’t–”

“Later.”

“Garrett.”

He kisses her before she can argue, slower now, his hand cradling the side of her face. “You were the emergency.”

A stupid, warm ache opens beneath her ribs. She studies him when the kiss ends. His hair is a mess from her hands. His mouth is swollen. He's still her best friend, entirely and unmistakably, except now he's held her down and made her come so hard she briefly forgot her own surname.

Nothing is broken.

The room is still his room. The radiator still clicks beneath the window. Downstairs, somebody drops something heavy and Logan groans loudly enough to be heard through the floor.

She still knows him. Maybe she knows him better now.

“Can we be friends with benefits?” she blurts.

Garrett blinks at her.

She pushes herself higher on the pillow, ignoring the fact that the hoodie is trapped around her elbows and her underwear is somewhere near his desk. “It makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.” She gestures vaguely between them. “You can actually make me finish. Apparently very easily, which is irritating, but useful.”

“Useful,” he echoes, mouth twitching.

“And I won’t have to interrupt your hookups anymore.”

“You’ll absolutely still interrupt my hookups.”

“There won’t be hookups to interrupt,” she says, then pauses. “I mean, unless you still want to hook up with other people. We haven’t discussed exclusivity. This proposal lacks detail.”

Garrett laughs softly, staring up at the ceiling for a second before looking back at her. “You’re negotiating naked.”

“I do my best work under pressure.”

His hand slides along her bare waist beneath the tangled hoodie, thumb moving in a slow, absent stroke that makes her want to climb back on top of him.

“Friends with benefits,” he says.

She nods. “Nothing else changes.”

“Secret?”

“Definitely," she nods. “But Logan will walk in on us within a week.”

“Probably.”

She smiles. “But until then, nobody knows.”

Garrett watches her for a long moment, something unreadable sitting quietly behind his eyes. “And if it gets weird?”

“We stop.”

“No drama," he tilts his head.

“No ruining the friendship,” she agrees. “It’s us. We’ll be fine.”

The words feel true while she says them. Garrett holds out his hand.

She looks down at it, then back at him. “Are we seriously shaking on this?”

“It’s an agreement," he shrugs.

“You just made me come while holding me down.”

“And now I’m being professional.”

She laughs and places her hand in his. His fingers close around hers, warm and firm, his palm roughened in familiar places. He gives her one solemn shake without taking his eyes off her.

“Deal,” he says.

“Deal.”

Garrett releases her hand only to slide his arm around her waist and pull her beneath him again. She squeaks, laughter catching in her throat when he settles between her thighs, mouth already lowering toward her chest.

“What are you doing?”

“The deal started.”

“It started ten seconds ago.”

“Long ten seconds.”

His lips close around one of her piercings. Her hands fly into his hair and the argument dissolves into a breathless moan.

Garrett smiles against her skin. “Thought so, princess.”

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𝜗𝜚 ┈ nicole ｡