The Best Friend Scandal (Bad News Billionaires Book 2) Read online

  I could see in her face that she was humiliated, and there was nothing that I could do about that. She took a deep sigh in and then buried her face in my jacket.

  “Don’t worry about Kerynne, either,” I said. “She’s just petty and jealous.”

  “Jealous?” Hensley laughed. Her small laugh sounded like a snort with her face buried against the jacket. She lifted her head back up to look at me. “Kerynne isn’t jealous. What in the world would she have to be jealous over me for?”

  I didn’t understand why she couldn’t see it. How was it possible that Hensley didn’t realize how beautiful she was, not in an airbrushed or photoshopped kind of way but in a real way.

  “She was jealous of how beautiful you looked. You outshined everyone here tonight. It didn’t matter which dress you were in. Fuck, it didn’t even matter if you were in a dress at all. You were the most beautiful and radiant thing on that stage. That made Kerynne boil over with jealousy. You took all of the attention from her, and she hated it.”

  “You think I’m beautiful?” she asked with her slightly parted mouth and her wet eyes. She looked as if she couldn’t believe what I was saying was true.

  “I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” I said.

  That was no exaggeration; it was finally the truth being spoken. It took me long enough to get up the nerve to say anything, but Hensley needed to hear it now. She needed to know what I really thought about her. Hensley stared at me in shock without saying anything, and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward to kiss her parted lips.

  16

  Chapter Fifteen (Hensley)

  I was shocked. I was equal parts surprise and exhilaration. For a moment, I couldn’t believe that Arlo was kissing me, that his mouth was on mine, that our lips were pressed together. But then, when his tongue met mine, I could believe it then. Not only did I let myself believe it, but I let myself feel it as well. I kissed Arlo back with the passionate longing that I had been holding in probably since the day I first met him, but definitely more and more each day since we had started working on this project together. We sat there on the bench in Madison Square Garden as his arms wrapped around my back, and my hands lifted to hold his face. We kissed as if we were each other’s air and needed to savor each other’s last breath. I had never kissed anyone like this before, not with so much emotion and the kind of feelings that made my head start to scold me for even thinking about the “L-word.” I was just caught up in the moment, that was all. At least that is what I was telling myself. But if that were true, then it sure seemed like Arlo was caught up in the moment, too. Our kissing didn’t stop, and I honestly didn’t want it ever to stop, but then Arlo pulled his face back for a minute to look at me.

  “Do you want to come home with me?” he asked. There was a frenzied look in his eyes that made warmth rush through me in every direction.

  “Yes.”

  When we got back to Arlo’s apartment, he immediately turned to kiss me again as soon as we were inside the apartment door. He dropped his keys haphazardly in the direction of a small end table, which resulted in them crashing into a tiny pile on the floor. The door closed by itself, and he didn’t seem to care about locking it. The only thing he cared about at this very moment seemed to be me. I leaned into him as his mouth pushed against mine and felt the encircling ecstasy of our tongues as they wrapped around each other. Never, since the day Arlo and I had met and become friends, did I think that kissing him would be even so much better than I had fantasized about in my imagination.

  His arm wrapped behind my back, and his fingers pushed gently against the top of my tailbone. Arlo pulled me into his body, and I could feel his very prominent and physical desire pressing against me. I couldn’t believe that I turned him on—me, his most definitely not supermodel friend. But there he was, kissing me and pressing his very hard and swollen cock against my body. I wanted him so badly that I could hardly breathe.

  When Arlo started to pull me toward him as he walked back toward his bedroom, I hesitated just the slightest bit. He lifted his mouth from mine and looked at me with concern.

  “Hensley,” he said through heady breaths. “I want to make love to you so badly that I can hardly stand it, and if I’m going to be completely honest, I have for a long time now. But I would never do anything to ruin our friendship. If you’re afraid of this affecting our relationship and you want me to stop, just tell me, and I will. It will probably kill me, but I will.” He grinned at the last thing he said, although I think he truly meant it.

  “No, it’s not that,” I said as I started to feel a rush of embarrassment turn my cheeks warm.

  Arlo held me gently in both arms and stared into my eyes. “Then what is it?” he asked.

  I was so reluctant to tell him. Everything was so wonderful right now. Tonight had been such an emotional roller coaster, but now, finally, everything was perfect. Arlo, my friend for years who I had pined after but never actually thought I could have, was here, holding me in his arms and saying out loud that he wanted to make love to me. I was terrified that if I told him, he would change his mind. Yet I felt like I had to be honest with him.

  “Arlo,” I said as I tried to keep my voice from shaking, “I haven’t been with anyone.”

  He looked at me in confusion. I didn’t think it was hard to figure out what that meant, but I guessed it was hard to believe that a twenty-three-year-old woman could still be a virgin. He stared at me with a mix of both shock and awe.

  “Wait,” he said softly as he lifted one hand to sweep a strand of hair away from my eyes. “Are you telling me that you’ve never slept with anyone? You’ve never had sex?”

  I didn’t say anything. I wished that I hadn’t even said anything at all. I wanted to just forget about it now and go back to kissing him. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to sink right through the floor and disappear.

  “Hensley, are you still a virgin?”

  Well, that wasn’t really a question that I could avoid answering now. It was too late; the cat was already out of the bag. Even so, I didn’t need to say it aloud. Instead, I just nodded.

  Arlo’s eyes opened so wide that I could almost see more whites in them than pupils. His mouth parted slightly as if he were just stunned and speechless. So, I did what I always do when I’m in a super awkward and uncomfortable situation; I started to ramble uncontrollably.

  “I’ve had boyfriends and stuff. It’s just that all the guys I’ve ever dated turned out to be such assholes, and I didn’t really trust any of them, and I didn’t want to—”

  Before I could continue with my disjointed and pitiful attempt at an explanation as to why my virginity remained intact, Arlo put his mouth on mine and pushed his tongue between my parted—and still talking—lips until he had wrapped me back up against him. This time, when he kissed me, there was a fresh urgency to it. This time, it felt like he was driven by a carnal instinct that tried to hold itself in check but was waning with every passing moment.

  “Hensley,” he whispered against my mouth without pulling away. His lips brushed against mine as he spoke. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No,” I whispered back.

  Arlo lifted me into his embrace, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him more as he carried me into the bedroom. I didn’t want ever to stop kissing him, ever again. I wasn’t sure what this was going to mean for tomorrow, or our friendship, or our new working relationship, but right now, I didn’t even care. I only knew that I wanted to be with Arlo in every possible way that I could. He set me down onto the bed and carefully lifted my shirt over my head. When I tugged at his shirt, he lifted his off as well. Arlo’s body was the most beautifully sculpted perfection that I had ever seen, and I ran my fingers along the muscular lines of his chest as if I were tracing him.

  “I have wanted you since the day we first met and every day that we have been friends since,” I said, surprised that the words were even coming out of my mouth. “I just always brus
hed the thought away because I never thought that you could possibly be interested in me in that way.”

  “Hensley, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Once I realized what I was feeling toward you, I recognized that those feelings had always been there. Why do you think I’ve always been so protective of you? Or so unable to control my jealousy with Cai? Why do you think I want to talk to you every day, even if it’s only over a text? I can’t get you out of my head. The moment I saw you in that first dress in my office, when my hand grazed against your back, all I have been able to think about is wanting you.”

  I leaned up to kiss him and felt our bare chests press against each other. Every inch of skin felt as if it were reaching for him. I let my hands wander down his chest and torso, and then they stopped at the top of his pants and lingered there. Arlo placed his hands over mine and undid the buttons. When he slid them off and his massive cock fell from out of his clothes, a part of me that I’d never felt before started to tremble with excitement. I leaned back as he pulled the pants from off my legs and tossed them to the side of the room. When he crawled over me, I reached up to bring his face back down to mine and tilted my head up to kiss him again.

  This time, I was the one to thrust my tongue inside of Arlo’s mouth first, and as soon as it met with his, he let his body sink onto mine. I could feel the warm, throbbing pulse between his legs, and I struggled to keep my body from squirming with excited energy and reckless longing beneath him. He lifted his mouth and kissed me on my temple as he looked into my eyes.

  “You can never again forget how beautiful you are,” he said quietly.

  My eyes diverted from his for a moment. I’d never really been that good with receiving compliments unless they were about my work. Arlo used his nose to brush against mine and bring my face back to look at his.

  “I will never let you go a day without knowing how incredibly beautiful you are,” he said. “I will remind you each and every day. I will look at you in awe and astonishment, and I will make love to you over and over until, at last, you understand and see through my eyes how breathtaking you actually are.”

  That sounded a lot like he wasn’t planning on a one-night stand. I mean, I knew that we were friends, of course, so it was really like a one-night stand. But it didn’t sound like he only wanted to be intimate this one time, and again, I let myself entertain the idea that Arlo and I might really be able to be together.

  “Being a virgin isn’t something to be embarrassed about,” he said as he kissed the top of my lips softly. “It means that, if you let me, I will be able to make love to you in the delicious and revered way that you deserve. I will treat your body as the cherished space that it is, and I will forever be honored that you chose to give your virginity to me.”

  I wanted to squeal at the top of my lungs how much I wanted him, and even more dangerously, I wanted to tell him how I felt about him. I wanted to tell him how I truly felt about him, but since it was way too soon to send him running for the hills, I kissed him instead and opened my thighs to wrap my legs around his body. I felt him between me, and I urged my body against his. When he started to push into me, my hands clenched the back of his shoulders. Arlo was slow and steady, and somehow, he was both strong and gentle at the same time. There was the most intense and explosively sensory feeling of pleasurable burning as he pushed his entire cock inside of me until he could go no farther. The feeling of fullness within me sent me body spiraling into an insatiable and erotic desire for more, as Arlo began to move inside of me.

  There were no words to describe the feeling, no words to describe the level of stimulation as Arlo’s hands were touching me, and his tongue was kissing me, and his body was making love to me. It was all so much more than I had ever imagined. I rolled my hips in response to his movement, and when I did, Arlo moaned, and his back arched ever so slightly. The thought of being able to do something to him that pleasured him enough to make him lose control was exhilarating. I wanted this moment to last forever, and I could tell that Arlo did, too. His body was trembling as he tried to hold onto the lingering climb for as long as our bodies could. But the way that he moved inside of me was more than I could take, and I eventually let go and unraveled around him in a fit of pleasure. As soon as Arlo felt my muscles spasm, he let himself go as well, and the primal sound that grew within him escaped his mouth and joined along with my gasp. Our bodies quaked and trembled with residual waves of sensation until we finally collapsed together and laid in a heated tangle of limbs and labored breaths.

  After we both had a chance to catch our breath, Arlo lifted his head to look at me. “I’m going to be very honest with you,” he said.

  For a split second, I was nervous about what he was going to say, but then he smiled, and whatever it was couldn’t be bad.

  “That was the most amazing experience of making love to anyone that I have ever had, he said with a wide grin.

  “No,” I laughed. “I’m sure that’s not true.” I didn’t even know what I was doing, considering that I had zero experience with sex.

  “It is absolutely true,” he said. “Maybe our bodies were meant to fit together like that. But the more important thing that I want to know is how it felt for you? This was your first time. How do you feel?”

  “I feel more wonderful than I have ever felt in my life.” I smiled.

  Arlo leaned down and kissed me again, and when he looked at me, the grin stretched across his entire face.

  “Good,” he said. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  If I could have told him that I felt like there was sunlight coursing through my veins instead of merely blood, I would have. If I could have told him that my hold body felt like it was now tied to his in every possible way, I would have. And honestly, if I could have told him right then and there that I loved him, I would have.

  17

  Chapter Sixteen (Arlo)

  As Hensley and I lay together in bed, I ran my fingertips along the side of her arm as she rested on my chest.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Hensley hesitated for a minute, and I kissed the top of her forehead.

  “You can talk to me about anything,” I said. “Surely, you know that by now.”

  “I mean, are we going to go back to just being friends?” she asked, unable to meet my gaze.

  I had a hard time believing that she was asking that question, and it made me a little worried that maybe I had overthought her feelings toward me and needed to slow this all down. Or, maybe she still felt that this was just too good to be true, in which case I needed to hold her closer to me.

  “I don’t want to go back to just being friends,” I said bluntly. “Not unless you do. I want to be more than that.”

  Hensley tilted her head up to me and smiled. She kissed my chest and nuzzled her cheek against my skin. “I want to be more than that, too,” she said.

  My heart went back to a steady beat. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear her say that.

  “But won’t that cause problems if I come to work with you at Luscious on the new line?” she asked. “Should we keep it a secret for now? Hell, I don’t even know what the secret would be, like are we dating now?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked as she looked up at me with a slightly miffed expression.

  “No, nothing,” I replied with a smile. “I just thought it was cute how you asked that. Yes, I would say that we should be dating now. Don’t you agree?”

  She grinned at me. “Yeah, I definitely agree.”

  “As far as Luscious goes, it’s not an issue at all. You’re a designer and colleague, not an employee. If anything, you would be working as a subcontractor for Luscious on the new line. There’s no conflict of interest there.”

  “So there’s nothing to worry about at all then?” she asked.

  “Nope, nothing. We can make out all day in my o
ffice if you want to,” I teased.

  “I don’t think Kerynne and some of the other models will like that very much.”

  “They won’t be around much longer anyway,” I said. “That group of models is contracted through the first couple of weeks following the retail release. After that, their contract is over, and it’s on to new models for further projects. I’ve hired Kerynne, Cai, and their whole group for several past projects, but that doesn’t mean that I need to hire them again. There are tons of good models to choose from in New York City. We can pick and hire whoever we want to.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we,” I said. “We’re a team now, right? In more ways than one.”

  “I like that,” Hensley said as she leaned up on her arm to kiss me.”

  “Me too.”

  18

  *** (Arlo Continued)

  Waking up with Hensley in my arms was the most amazing feeling ever. I caught myself feeling like I wanted it to be this way every morning.

  Henley put her hand on my thigh as I was driving while we rode into work together in the morning, and I clasped my fingers around hers. I could definitely get used to all of this with her really, really quickly if I let myself. When we got to work, almost everyone was already there. Today I would meet with everyone who was a part of the show to talk about the new line's roll-out. I had two more weeks with these models, and during that time, I would have them make high-end retail store appearances, do a few more promotional shoots, and all of the marketing that I wanted to get done with their faces attached to it.

  Yes, I was still furious with Kerynne, but all of the other models would follow her lead. So it wouldn’t be at all productive of me to linger on what had happened at the runway show, even though I wanted to grab her by her long hair and drag her down the runway naked in front of the press so she could feel how Hensley had felt. All of that aside, maybe if the entire incident hadn’t happened, I never would have kissed Hensley and we wouldn’t have been riding into work together this morning after a blissful night of lovemaking. For that reason, more so than the other, I was willing to drop it and just move on. I wasn’t, however, willing to put up with any more of her shitty treatment of Hensley, though, and I would be keeping a watchful eye on things today.