deny. defend. depose.

By early afternoon, the sun had softened everything. The sand was hot beneath your towel, the air smelled like salt and coconut sunscreen, and Dick had abandoned his shirt somewhere near the cooler, as if he had never once considered the effect this might have on your ability to behave normally. He lay beside you on his back, sunglasses low on his nose, one knee bent and one arm folded under his head. He looked unfairly relaxed for a man who had ruined your concentration at least three times since you arrived, mostly by existing too close to you with bare shoulders and damp hair.

“You’re staring,” he said.

You looked away from the slow rise and fall of his chest. “I’m checking whether you’re asleep.”

“With your eyes glued to my abs?”

“I was looking for signs of life.”

Dick hummed, amused and lazy. “Find any?”

Unfortunately, yes.

You rolled onto your stomach before he could see too much of your face. Your bikini top shifted as you moved, the strings pressing into the back of your neck, and you grabbed the bottle of sunscreen from the corner of your towel. “Make yourself useful.”

“I’ve been useful all day.”

“You carried the cooler ten feet from the car and then asked me to praise you.”

“You did praise me.”

“You looked pathetic.”

“I looked strong and dependable.” His shadow fell over you before his voice did, and then the towel dipped near your hip as he sat beside you. “What am I making useful?”

“My back. I missed a spot.”

A quiet pause followed. You could feel him looking at you. It should not have mattered; he had seen you in swimsuits before. He had seen you in pajamas, in old shirts, in the kind of half-awake disarray reserved for people who had stopped pretending they were guests in each other’s lives. He had zipped dresses for you, untangled necklaces from your hair, carried you home once when you twisted your ankle and refused to admit it hurt. This was not new territory.

That was what you told yourself until his fingers brushed your shoulder.

“You did more than miss a spot,” he said, voice lower now, though still light enough to pass for teasing. “You missed half your back.”

“I can’t reach half my back.”

“That’s why you keep me around?”

“Among other reasons.”

“Good to know I have a purpose.”

The first cool line of sunscreen touched between your shoulder blades, and you bit the inside of your cheek. Dick’s hands followed, broad and warm, spreading it over your skin with slow, even pressure. He started at your shoulders, thumbs pressing into the tight muscles there with enough skill to pull an unwilling sigh from your throat. You felt his laugh more than heard it.

“Relax,” he said.

“I am relaxed.”

“You’re lying on a beach towel.”

“You’re taking too long.”

“I’m being thorough.” His palms slid down your back, smoothing sunscreen over the edge of your ribs and the dip of your spine. “You burn if someone looks at you wrong.”

“That happened one time.”

“It was memorable.”

“You’re memorable,” you muttered, then immediately wished the ocean would rise up and take you.

Dick’s hands paused for half a second. It was almost nothing. If you had not known him as well as you did, you might have missed it, but you knew every shift in his rhythm, every careful breath, every moment where he decided whether to let something pass or make it a problem.

He made it a problem.

“Am I?”

You turned your face into your folded arms. “Shut up.”

“That wasn’t an insult.”

“It’s going to become one.”

His fingers continued lower, and you stopped breathing when his thumbs reached the small of your back. He rubbed in a slow circle there, then moved outward, dragging more sunscreen across your waist. The edges of his thumbs slipped beneath the side strings of your bikini bottoms, not far, not enough to be indecent, but enough to make heat gather low in your stomach with humiliating speed.

“Dick.”

“Hm?”

“You are not applying sunscreen to my ass.”

“I’m making sure you don’t get weird little tan lines.”

“That is not a real concern you have ever had in your life.”

“You don’t know all my concerns.”

“I know too many of them.”

His hand settled briefly on your hip, fingers curving there as if they belonged. “Then you know I take care of my friends.”

Friends.

The word should have helped. Instead, it made everything worse.

You lifted your head just enough to look at him over your shoulder. His sunglasses had slid down his nose, leaving his eyes uncovered, blue and bright and entirely too pleased with himself. His smile was soft around the edges, but there was nothing innocent in it. Not really. He looked like he knew exactly what his hands were doing to you and was waiting to see whether you would be brave enough to say it.

“You done?” you asked.

His eyes flicked down your back, over his own hand still resting near your waist. “Almost.”

“You said that two minutes ago.”

“I lied.”

You laughed despite yourself, and the sound loosened something between you. Dick’s smile widened, warmer now, but his hand did not move away. His thumb stroked once against the curve of your hip, so small it could have been an accident if he were anyone else.

But he was Dick.

By the time you made it into the water, your skin felt too tight for your body.

The ocean was cold enough to make you gasp when the first wave broke around your thighs. Dick laughed at you from a few feet away, already waist-deep and gleaming with salt water, his hair pushed back from his face. You splashed him for it, which was how the afternoon inevitably tipped into a kind of war.

He let you win for about thirty seconds.

After that, he caught your wrist, spun you away from another wave, and pulled you back against his chest with the smooth, effortless strength that always irritated you most when you were trying not to be impressed. His arm wrapped around your waist. Your back hit warm muscle. The next wave rolled in before either of you moved, lifting you both, and your feet slipped on the sand beneath the water.

Dick tightened his hold. “Careful.”

“You grabbed me.”

“You were about to fall.”

“I was standing perfectly fine.”

“You looked fragile.”

“I’m going to drown you.”

“You’d miss me.”

Another wave moved through, smaller this time, but it pressed you back into him. The thin, wet fabric of your bikini clung to your body, every inch of it suddenly obvious. Dick’s hand was still on your stomach, fingers spread low enough to make your breath catch. Behind you, he went very still.

The shift was so immediate that your teasing died on your tongue.

He felt it. You knew he did because his breath changed, warm against the side of your neck. It was not just his hand or your back against his chest anymore. It was the hard line of him pressed against you through his swim trunks, unmistakable even with the water moving around your hips, and the knowledge of it made every thought in your head scatter.

“Dick,” you said again, but it did not sound like a warning this time.

His mouth hovered near your ear. “Tell me to move.”

He would. You knew that as well as you knew anything. Beneath all the teasing, all the charm, all the impossible confidence, Dick had always been careful with you where it mattered.

You swallowed. “Are you going to?”

His fingers flexed once against your stomach. “If you ask me to.”

You did not ask.

For a moment, neither of you moved except with the water. Then his other hand found your hip beneath the surface, slow enough that you could have stopped him, deliberate enough that he knew you would feel every second of the choice. He guided you back, just a fraction, until the hard ridge of him pressed more firmly against the globes of your ass.

Your knees almost failed you.

Dick’s breath left him in a quiet, controlled sound that did terrible things to you. “That okay?”

You nodded, then remembered he could not see it properly. “Yes.”

The word changed his grip.

It was still barely anything. That was the awful part. His hand on your hip, his chest at your back, the blunt pressure of him nudging against you through layers of wet fabric while the ocean covered the worst of it from view. It should not have been enough. It should have felt like a tease, like a joke gone too far, like something you could laugh off and bury beneath the years of things you and Dick had refused to discuss.

Instead, it felt like being split open by wanting.

He rocked once, shallow and restrained, giving you just enough pressure to make you bite back a sound. His mouth touched the edge of your ear, not quite a kiss. “You’re quiet.”

“You’re horrible.”

“I asked if it was okay.”

“It is. You’re still horrible.”

His laugh was low and breathless. “That’s fair.”

You turned your head, intending to glare at him, but the movement brought your mouth too close to his. The whole world narrowed to the space between you. Sunlight flashed over the water. Someone shouted far down the beach, distant enough to feel like another universe. Dick’s eyes dropped to your lips.

He did not kiss you.

Somehow, that felt worse.

The next wave broke gently against you both, and he released you before you could decide whether to close the distance yourself. His hands slid away from your body, leaving you cold in places the water had nothing to do with. He stepped back, smile returning with effort, though the flush high on his cheekbones betrayed him.

“You want ice cream?” he asked.

You stared at him. “You’re insane.”

Best friends bought each other ice cream.

That was what you told yourself while sitting beside him on the towel twenty minutes later, salt drying on your skin, your hair damp, your heartbeat still not entirely recovered. Dick had bought two soft-serve cones from the little boardwalk stand near the parking lot and returned as if he had not just pressed his hard cock against your ass in the ocean, his mouth at your ear and his hands on your hips. He sat close enough that your knees almost touched. His shoulder brushed yours whenever he moved.

He was doing it on purpose.

You hated him.

You wanted him so badly that every nerve in your body felt awake.

“You’re dripping,” he said.

You blinked. “What?”

His eyes were on your chest.

The ice cream had melted faster than you could eat it, a pale streak sliding over your fingers and down onto your skin before you noticed. It had traced a cold path along the upper curve of your breast and into the valley between them, disappearing beneath the flimsy edge of your bikini top.

You grabbed for a napkin. Dick caught your wrist.

“Let me.”

The words were soft. Almost polite.

Your mouth went dry.

“Dick.”

He leaned in, still holding your wrist, and dragged his thumb through the melting trail before it could run farther. His eyes lifted to yours as he brought his thumb to his mouth. It was shameless. He sucked the sweetness from his skin with the kind of slow attention that made your thighs press together under the edge of your towel.

“There’s still some more,” he said.

“I can get it.”

“I know.”

He waited.

You should have pulled away. You should have made a joke sharp enough to cut the tension and turned toward the ocean until your face cooled. You should have done any number of sensible things.

Instead, you stayed still.

Dick’s gaze held yours as he bent down. His mouth touched your skin where the ice cream had melted, tongue warm against the cold path it had left behind. Your breath hitched hard enough that his fingers tightened around your wrist. He followed the trail down, not rushing, his lips brushing the valley of your chest with such obscene patience that your hand curled uselessly in the towel beneath you.

“Dick,” you whispered.

He hummed against your skin. “You keep saying my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to feel guilty.”

His mouth moved lower, over the edge of your bikini top, and your pulse stumbled. “Do you?”

He looked up at you through his lashes. “Not even a little.”

Then he closed his mouth over your nipple through the wet fabric.

The sound you made was embarrassingly close to a whimper. Dick’s eyes darkened, and he sucked harder, the heat of his mouth soaking through the thin material while his free hand found your waist. Your fingers flew into his hair before you could stop yourself, and the groan that left him vibrated against you.

It was too much for the middle of the afternoon, too much for a beach towel and the open air and your best friend’s mouth on you like he had been thinking about it for years.

Maybe he had.

The thought made you pull his hair.

Dick lifted his head just enough to smile, lips damp and wicked. “That a complaint?”

“You are such a good friend,” you said, and your voice shook.

His smile shifted. For a second, something more honest moved across his face, desire threaded with something careful and almost tender. He kissed the place he had just sucked, softer this time, and let go of your wrist so his hand could slide to your knee.

“I’m trying really hard not to be.”

The afternoon changed after that.

It didn’t become less bright or less warm. The sun still glittered over the water. Seagulls still circled like thieves. Someone’s radio played too far away to make out the song. But the air between you and Dick had been named, if not directly, and every silence after that felt full of it.

You ate the rest of your ice cream badly. Dick watched you like he wanted to lick every stray drop from your fingers and was only restraining himself because he enjoyed seeing you squirm. He made casual conversation with the ease of a criminal. You answered with half your attention and spent the rest of it thinking about the way his mouth had felt through your bikini top.

By the time the sun started slipping lower, you were restless enough to crawl out of your skin.

“I’m changing,” you announced, because if you did not do something normal soon, you were going to do something reckless.

Dick glanced at the sundress folded neatly on top of your beach bag. “Need a towel?”

“You offering?”

“I’m a gentleman.”

“You’re a menace.”

“Gentlemen can multitask.”

He stood and shook out the larger towel, holding it up between both hands with exaggerated seriousness. It made a little wall between you and the rest of the beach, though the area around your chosen spot had mostly emptied as the day cooled. There were still people in the distance, but no one close enough to matter. It should have made the moment practical. Instead, the sight of Dick standing there with his arms raised, eyes fixed very carefully above your head, made your stomach flip.

“You’re not looking?” you asked.

His mouth curved. “I would never.”

“Liar.”

“Best friends trust each other.”

“Best friends don’t suck on each other’s nipples.”

His eyes dropped to yours over the top edge of the towel. “Some best friends are special.”

You hated how close you were to smiling.

You untied the top first. The wet fabric peeled away from your skin, and though the towel shielded you from the beach, it did not shield you from him. Not really. The space was too narrow. He was too close. You could see the outline of his hands gripping the corners of the towel, the tension in his forearms, the way his jaw flexed when you dropped the bikini top into your bag.

He was not looking.

That was almost worse.

You reached for your sundress and pulled it over your head. The light fabric settled over your body, soft and thin, clinging slightly where your skin was still damp. Your bikini bottoms remained on because changing them on a beach, even behind a towel, required more coordination than you currently trusted yourself with.

“Done?” Dick asked.

You stepped closer, just enough for your breath to disturb the towel between you. “Mostly.”

His eyes met yours.

There it was again. That pause. That little held breath before one of you chose whether to keep pretending.

You lifted your hand and touched two fingers to the towel near his chest. “Are you going to drive me home?”

“If that’s what you want.”

His voice had gone quiet.

You pushed the towel down.

Dick lowered it slowly, and then there was nothing between you except sunlight and the years you had spent pretending this exact thing was not waiting for you.

You were the one who kissed him.

For half a second, he went still, as if even after everything, he had not quite let himself believe you would cross the final inch. Then the towel fell forgotten into the sand, and Dick’s hands were on your face, your waist, your back, everywhere at once. He kissed you like a man losing an argument he had started on purpose. It was deep and hungry, open-mouthed, nothing like the quick affectionate kisses he had pressed to your forehead or cheek over the years. This was not comfort. This was not friendship disguised as habit.

This was Dick licking into your mouth with a low sound that made heat pool between your thighs all over again.

You grabbed his shoulders. He pulled you against him, one hand sliding down to your ass beneath the hem of your sundress, and when his fingers found the damp edge of your bikini bottoms, he groaned into your mouth.

“You’re still wearing these.”

“I didn’t have many options.”

“Poor planning on my part.”

“You planned this?”

Dick kissed the corner of your mouth, then your jaw. “I planned to behave.”

“That went well.”

“I was doing fine until you let me touch you.”

“You offered.”

“You asked.”

“You took too long.”

His mouth found your neck, and your eyes fluttered shut. “I was being thorough.”

You laughed breathlessly, and he kissed you again, swallowing the sound as if he could not help himself. The beach was too open, even with distance. The towel at your feet did not make a private room, and the remaining line of cars in the lot sat just beyond the dunes, promising shelter without promising patience.

Dick seemed to reach the same conclusion at the same time.

“Car,” he said against your mouth.

“Yes.”

The walk back should have been awkward. It was not. It was charged and quiet, the kind of quiet that made every brush of his hand against yours feel like a filthy secret. Dick carried the cooler and both bags with insulting ease, while you clutched the loose towel to your chest as if that could hide what he had already done to you. His car sat near the far end of the lot, shaded slightly by a wind-bent tree, with no one parked close on either side.

He opened the back door and looked at you.

That should not have been as hot as it was.

“You sure?” he asked.

Your answer came without hesitation. “Yes.”

His expression softened, desire still burning through it, but held back by something steadier. “I need words for this.”

You stepped closer and set your hands on his chest. “I want you, Dick.”

His breath left him sharply.

“I wanted you when you had your hands all over my back,” you continued, braver now because he looked like you were killing him. “I wanted you in the water. I wanted you when you put your mouth on me through my bikini. I want you now.”

Dick stared at you for one more second, then ducked his head and kissed you so hard you stumbled back against the open car door.

“Get in,” he said.

You got in.

He followed, pulling the door shut behind him, and the small space filled instantly with heat. The seats were warm from the day. Sand clung to your legs. Your sundress rode up as Dick dragged you into his lap, his hands firm on your hips, and you kissed him like you had been waiting all your life to find out whether he tasted like salt and sugar and desire.

He did.

His hands slid under your dress, pushing it higher until the fabric bunched around your waist. When he saw the bikini bottoms still on you, damp and clinging, he laughed under his breath in a way that made you want to bite him.

“What?” you demanded.

He hooked one finger beneath the fabric at your hip and pulled it lightly away from your skin before letting it snap back. “I’ve been thinking about these all afternoon.”

“You’ve been thinking loudly.”

“I’m usually better at hiding it.”

“You were terrible today.”

“I wanted you to notice.”

The confession landed somewhere deep. You looked at him, really looked, taking in the flush on his face, the kiss-swollen curve of his mouth, the way his chest rose and fell beneath your palms.

This was Dick, your best friend, the person who knew you better than almost anyone. He had held your hand in hospitals, stolen your fries, remembered things you forgot telling him, and now he was sitting beneath you in the backseat of his car with his fingers under the edges of your bikini bottoms, watching you like he had finally gotten his hands on something he was terrified to lose.

You touched his cheek.

His expression changed.

“Hey,” he murmured.

“Hi.”

“You okay?”

You nodded. “Very okay.”

“Good.” He turned his head and kissed your palm. “Because I’m about to be so much worse.”

The laugh barely made it out of your mouth before he shifted you off his lap and onto the seat beside him. He leaned over you, one hand braced near your shoulder, the other sliding up your thigh. Your dress was already a lost cause, twisted around your hips. Dick kissed down your throat, over your collarbone, then lower, shoving the neckline down just enough to get his mouth on your breast.

This time, there was no bikini top between you.

You arched into him with a broken sound, and he groaned like he felt it in his own body. His mouth closed around your nipple, hot and wet, tongue circling before he sucked. Your fingers buried in his hair again, pulling harder than before, and his hand slid between your thighs.

The first touch over your bikini bottoms made you jerk.

“Oh,” he breathed, lifting his head. His fingers pressed against the wet fabric, finding the shape of you through it. “You’re soaked.”

“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.”

“I’m incredibly pleased with myself.”

“Dick.”

“I know.” His mouth brushed yours. “I’ve got you.”

He rubbed you slowly through the bikini, and your hips lifted into his hand before you could pretend they would not. The fabric was slick from the ocean and from you, rough enough to make every stroke a tease. He watched your face as he touched you, eyes bright and focused, as if he were memorizing every tiny reaction.

“You were this wet on the beach?” he asked.

You clenched around nothing.

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

His smile turned devastating. “From the sunscreen?”

“From you being annoying.”

“From me being thorough,” he corrected, and slipped his fingers beneath the side of your bikini bottoms.

The first direct touch made you gasp. Dick swallowed it with a kiss, fingers sliding through you with slow, filthy appreciation. He circled your clit once, twice, learning how you liked it with the same unfair competence he brought to everything, and when your thighs trembled, he pressed his forehead to yours.

“There,” he whispered. “That’s it.”

You tried to answer, but he slid one finger inside you, and the words disappeared.

The stretch was not enough and still somehow too much after the entire afternoon of teasing. You clutched at his shoulders, nails digging in, and he kissed your jaw, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.

“You can take another,” he said.

It wasn’t a question, but he waited anyway.

You nodded quickly. “Yes.”

A second finger joined the first, curling slowly, and your body went hot and loose beneath him. The angle was awkward in the backseat, one of your knees pressed against the seatback and the other hooked around his hip, but Dick made it work because of course he did. He moved like he knew exactly how to turn a cramped space into something intimate and obscene, his body sheltering yours while his fingers fucked you open.

“You know what’s been driving me crazy?” he asked.

“Everything, apparently.”

He laughed against your throat. “Your dress.”

“My dress?”

“You put it on like it was going to save you.” His fingers curled again, and your head fell back against the seat. “Like I wasn’t going to end up with it around your waist the second you let me get you alone.”

The sound that left you was not a word.

Dick kissed down your chest, over your stomach, lowering himself carefully between your legs. His shoulders pushed your thighs wider. The car suddenly felt smaller, hotter, the windows fogging faintly at the edges. He hooked his fingers in your bikini bottoms and looked up at you.

“Can I?”

“Yes,” you said, too fast.

His grin flashed. “Eager.”

“I swear to God, Grayson—”

He pulled the fabric aside and put his mouth on you.

Your threat broke into a moan.

Dick ate you out like he had all the time in the world and no intention of being forgiven. His tongue licked into you first, slow and deep, before dragging up to your clit. He sucked there with the same focused hunger he had used through your bikini top, only now there was nothing between you, no flimsy excuse, no wet fabric, no plausible deniability left to hide behind. You grabbed at the seat beneath you, then at his hair, and he moaned when you pulled.

The vibration nearly sent you over the edge.

“Dick,” you gasped.

He lifted his head only enough to speak, mouth shining. “That’s my name.”

“You’re so smug.”

“You’re so pretty when you’re about to come.”

Your whole body clenched.

He smiled like he felt it, then lowered his mouth again and slid two fingers back inside you. This time, he did not tease. He licked your clit in steady, deliberate strokes while his fingers curled into the spot that made your thighs shake around his head. The world narrowed to the heat of his mouth, the press of his shoulders, the slick sound of his fingers working inside you, and the impossible fact that this was Dick between your legs, Dick making you fall apart, Dick groaning like your pleasure was doing something to him too.

You came with his name in your mouth.

He worked you through it gently, not stopping until you pushed weakly at his forehead and made a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. He kissed the inside of your thigh, then the place where your bikini bottoms had dug into your hip, then climbed back up your body with a satisfied, dazed expression that should have been illegal.

“You good?” he asked.

You blinked at him. “You’re asking now?”

“I asked before.”

“You’re very proud of that.”

“I’m proud of a few things right now.”

You reached between you and found him hard through his swim trunks. His breath caught, the cocky expression slipping just enough to make your pulse kick again.

“This one of them?” you asked.

Dick’s laugh sounded strained. “Careful.”

You squeezed him lightly. “You said that in the water.”

“And you didn’t listen then either.”

“I listened. I just didn’t obey.”

His eyes darkened.

The shift was immediate, and your body answered it before your mind could catch up. Dick kissed you, dirtier this time, letting you taste yourself on his mouth while he pushed his trunks down just enough to free himself. Your hand wrapped around him, and he groaned into your mouth, hips twitching up into your grip.

He was hot and heavy in your palm, already slick at the tip. You stroked him once, then again, slow enough to make his fingers tighten on your waist.

“Don’t tease,” he said.

You smiled against his mouth. “You hate that?”

“I hate it from you.”

He kissed you harder for that, biting gently at your lower lip before pulling back just enough to breathe. “Condom?”

The question was practical, but his voice was wrecked enough that it still made your stomach tighten.

“I have an IUD,” you said.

Dick’s eyes flicked back to yours, sharper now, focused in the way he got when something mattered. He knew that already, technically. He had been there for the complaints, the cramps, the dramatic texts after the appointment, the relief of not having to remember a pill every morning like you were trying to pass some impossible test. But knowing was not the same as asking here, with your dress around your waist and his hands on your hips.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yes.” You swallowed, suddenly more exposed by the words than by your clothes. “And I haven’t been with anyone since my last test. Everything was clear.”

His thumb moved once over your hip, gentle enough to make your chest ache. “Same.”

“You’re sure?”

“Completely.” His gaze did not leave yours. “Last test was clear, and there hasn’t been anyone since.”

The air between you changed again, not cooling, exactly, but settling into something steadier. You had known each other for years. You knew too much, probably. His bad habits. Your worse ones. The names of old almosts and failed dates and people who had never lasted long enough to matter. Still, hearing him say it made the choice feel real in a way the teasing had not.

Dick lifted one hand to your face, brushing his thumb along your cheek. “We don’t have to skip it.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know,” you said, softer this time. Then you leaned in and kissed him. “I want to feel you.”

His breath caught.

For a second, all the careful control left his face.

“Okay,” he said, and the word sounded like it cost him something.

Then he pulled you back into his lap.

Your dress stayed bunched around your waist. Your bikini bottoms were still pulled to one side. Dick’s hands settled on your hips, and for a moment, the urgency softened into something that made your chest ache. His eyes searched yours, and you understood the question without him saying it.

“Yes,” you whispered.

He kissed you once, gentle and brief. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”

“I will.”

Then you sank down onto him.

The stretch stole your breath. Dick’s head tipped back against the seat, his throat working, his hands tight on your hips but not forcing you. He let you take him slowly, inch by inch, his control visibly fraying with every second. When you finally settled fully in his lap, your thighs trembling around his, he exhaled your name like it hurt.

You pressed your forehead to his. “You okay?”

He laughed, rough and breathless. “I’m trying very hard not to embarrass myself.”

“Good.”

His hands slid up your back beneath the dress. “You’re enjoying this.”

“You’ve been smug all day.”

“I earned it.”

“You earned suffering.”

Dick looked up at you, eyes dark and bright at once. “Then move.”

So you did.

The first roll of your hips made both of you groan. He filled you perfectly, deep enough that every movement dragged pleasure up your spine and left you dizzy with it. His hands guided you but did not control you, palms sliding over your waist, your hips, your thighs, like he could not decide where he wanted to touch most. You braced one hand against the seat and the other on his shoulder, riding him in slow, uneven strokes while the car grew hotter around you.

Outside, the sun slipped lower.

Inside, Dick fell apart beautifully.

He kissed whatever part of you he could reach, your mouth, your jaw, the top of your breast where the dress had slipped down again. His hands grew less patient as you moved faster, fingers digging into your hips to help lift you, then pull you down again. Every thrust pressed him deeper, and when he shifted beneath you, changing the angle, your mouth fell open.

“There?” he asked, voice wrecked.

You nodded helplessly.

He did it again.

“Words, sweetheart.”

The pet name hit you hard enough to make you clench around him.

Dick noticed. Of course he did.

“Oh,” he said, breathless and delighted. “You liked that.”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m absolutely starting.”

You tried to glare at him, but he thrust up into you at the same time, and your expression collapsed. His smile went soft with hunger.

“There she is,” he murmured. “Taking me so well.”

The praise went straight through you. You rode him harder, chasing the friction, the fullness, the look on his face as he watched you use him. His thumb found your clit again, rubbing tight circles that made pleasure flare hot and sharp in your stomach.

“Dick.”

“I know.” He kissed you. “I’ve got you. Come for me again.”

It should not have been that easy.

After years of friendship, years of restraint, years of pretending his hands did not linger and your eyes did not follow, the command broke something open. Your second orgasm rolled through you slower than the first, deeper, your body clenching around him as you buried your face against his neck and shook in his lap.

Dick swore softly, hips jerking.

“That’s it,” he said, voice strained. “God, you feel so good.”

You tightened around him deliberately.

His control snapped.

He grabbed your hips and fucked up into you, short and desperate and careful even at the edge. You held onto him through it, mouth against his throat, feeling every shudder as he came. His groan was low and broken, his arms wrapping around you so tightly that for a moment you could barely move.

Neither of you spoke.

The car was quiet except for your breathing. Your dress was wrinkled beyond saving. Sand stuck to your calves. Dick’s hand moved slowly up and down your back, soothing now, the way it had during late nights and bad days and all the ordinary moments that had somehow led you here.

Eventually, you lifted your head.

His hair was a mess. His mouth was swollen. He looked dazed in a way you had never seen before, and when his eyes met yours, he smiled.

It was not smug this time.

“Well,” you said.

Dick laughed, and the sound eased the last tight thing in your chest. “Yeah.”

“You do this for all your best friends?”

His hands tightened around your waist. “Only my favorite one.”

“That’s terrible.”

“That’s honest.”

You studied him for a moment, letting the word settle. Honest. 

After all the flimsy excuses, all the teasing disguised as accidents, all the touches passed off as friendship because neither of you had known what would happen if you stopped pretending.

Outside, the sun was still setting.

Inside, Dick kissed you once, slow and sweet, with one hand warm at your back and the other smoothing your dress down as much as he could manage.

“Let me take you home,” he said against your mouth.

You raised an eyebrow. “Home?”

His smile returned, softer at the edges but no less dangerous. “Eventually.”

Best friends drove each other home.

Apparently, some best friends took the long way.