Pretend Kisses in the Stockroom

The stockroom smelled like starch, cedar, and the faint metallic tang of fairy-light wire. Becca smoothed her hands down the front of her slate-gray sheath dress—the one that hugged her hips like it had been tailored by a pervert with excellent taste—and tried not to notice how Barrett filled the narrow aisle. At thirty, the former pro hockey player had traded shoulder checks for shutter clicks, but his body had never gotten the retirement memo. Six-four, broad through the chest, thighs still thick enough to make dress pants look illegal. The charcoal suit he wore for tomorrow’s rehearsal dinner stretched across shoulders that had once blocked NHL snipers. Becca, twenty-eight and ruthlessly competent at making other people’s weddings perfect, suddenly felt like a teenager again.

“Remind me why we’re doing this at midnight?” Barrett asked, voice low and teasing. He reached overhead for a plastic bin, the motion pulling his shirt tight across his back. The formalwear made everything worse. Becca had spent years perfecting the art of pretending Barrett’s flirting was just their thing—harmless, constant, safe. Best friends since they were eight and he’d body-checked a bully for her on the neighborhood rink. She’d watched him date models and Instagram influencers. He’d watched her almost marry a corporate lawyer who’d bored her to tears. Both of them single now, circling the same old jokes like moths that refused to admit the flame was real.

“Because your sister will actually murder me if the head table isn’t dressed in those exact ivory linens tomorrow,” Becca said, squeezing past him. Her ass brushed the front of his thighs. She felt the contact like a sparkler dragged across skin. “And you volunteered to help, hero.”

“I volunteered because you batted your lashes and called me ‘Bear’ in that voice.” He grinned down at her, the same crooked grin that had once melted her fifteen-year-old heart. “Don’t act like you don’t weaponize it.”

The space was ridiculous—shelves on both sides, a single bare bulb overhead, and a heavy door that had clicked shut behind them with ominous finality. Becca told herself it was fine. They’d find the linens, bang on the door until a custodian heard, and go back to their separate hotel rooms like always. No big deal.

Except Barrett in a suit was a very big deal. The way the jacket framed his narrow waist. The way his stubble had grown in just enough to look like deliberate sex appeal instead of laziness. She wanted to lick the hollow of his throat where his collar sat open. She’d wanted that for roughly twelve years and had exactly zero chill left tonight.

Barrett crouched to check a lower shelf, pants pulling tight across his ass. Becca’s mouth went dry. Stop staring. You’re professionals. You planned a wedding. He’s photographing it. Do not eye-fuck your best friend in a closet the night before his baby sister’s nuptials.

“Found the bin,” he announced, triumphant, and stood up too fast. His shoulder caught the edge of a cardboard box balanced precariously on the shelf above. The box tipped. A waterfall of tangled fairy lights spilled out like cheap Christmas had come early to ruin their lives.

“Shit—Barrett!”

They both lunged. Which was a mistake.

String after string of delicate wire and tiny bulbs cascaded over their heads, wrapping around Barrett’s raised arm, looping across Becca’s waist, tangling their legs together in a glittering mess. The box clattered to the floor. They stumbled, chests colliding, and suddenly Barrett’s big hands were steadying her hips so she wouldn’t fall. Her palms landed flat on the hard plane of his chest, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat through expensive wool.

For three full seconds they just stared at each other, wrapped up like the world’s most awkward holiday present.

Then Barrett started laughing—that deep, rumbling laugh she loved too much. “We’re going to die in here. The wedding photographer and the planner found strangled by fairy lights. Headline writes itself.”

Becca snorted, which turned into helpless giggles against his sternum. “Noelle will kill us both. She’ll cremate us in these lights and use the ashes as table confetti.”

Their laughter should have broken the tension. It didn’t. It morphed, thickened, until the sound ran out and they were simply breathing the same three inches of air. Barrett’s hands hadn’t moved from her hips. One thumb traced a slow, unconscious circle against the fabric of her dress, right over the bone. Heat pooled low in Becca’s belly.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured. His voice had dropped half an octave.

“Cold,” she lied.

“It’s eighty degrees in here.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back up. Those blue eyes—hockey-player eyes, sharp and unfairly pretty—were dark now. “You’ve been staring at me all night, Becs. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Her pulse spiked. The fairy lights tugged when she shifted, binding them closer. One strand had wrapped around his thick forearm and her ribcage, forcing her breasts against him. She could feel the heat of his body, the solid ridge of his cock starting to swell against her stomach. Jesus.

“Pot, kettle,” she shot back, trying for their usual banter. Her voice came out breathy. “You’ve been eye-fucking me since I put this dress on. Don’t pretend you haven’t.”

Barrett’s grin faded into something raw. “I stopped pretending about three minutes after we got locked in. Maybe longer. Maybe since you wore that red thing to my last game before retirement and I realized I’d rather look at you in the stands than at the puck.”

Becca’s stomach flipped. This was dangerous territory. This was the edge they’d danced around for years with jokes and “haha wouldn’t that be weird” comments. She swallowed hard.

“Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something,” she whispered.

“Yeah?” His fingers flexed on her hips, pulling her infinitesimally closer. The lights jingled softly. “What’s it saying, smartass?”

She licked her lips. His eyes tracked the movement like a predator. Humor and terror and twelve years of longing collided in her chest.

“It’s saying we should just… pretend to kiss. Right now. Get it over with. One big theatrical make-out so the universe stops torturing us with all this stupid tension. We laugh, we untangle, we go back to being Becca and Barrett, best friends who definitely don’t want to fuck each other’s brains out.”

Barrett stared at her for a beat. Then his mouth curved into that dangerous half-smile that had once scored him endorsement deals.

“Pretend, huh?”

“Purely therapeutic,” she said, even as her nipples tightened against his chest. “Scientific, even. We’ll rate it on a scale of one to ‘why didn’t we do this sooner.’”

He laughed again, but it was rough this time. “You’re insane.”

“You love it.”

“God help me, I do.”

Barrett dipped his head. The first brush of his mouth was feather-light—testing, playful, still half-joking. Their noses bumped. Becca smiled against his lips. See? They could do this. Keep it light. Keep it—

He made a low sound in his throat and angled deeper.

The kiss caught fire.

His tongue swept in, tasting her, and suddenly pretending was a joke that had never been funny. Becca’s hands fisted in his shirt as she kissed him back with twelve years of swallowed want. He groaned, the sound vibrating through her bones. One of his hands slid up her back, tangled in the lights and her hair, tilting her head exactly how he wanted. The other palm cupped her ass, hauling her tighter against the hard length now straining behind his zipper.

“Fuck, Becca,” he growled against her mouth. “You taste like every fantasy I’ve jerked off to since we were twenty.”

Heat flooded her face and between her legs. She rocked against him, feeling the thick ridge of his cock press right where she needed friction. The fairy lights tinkled with every movement, a ridiculous soundtrack to the way her best friend was devouring her mouth.

“I want you,” she gasped when they broke for air. “Barrett, I’ve wanted you so long I don’t remember what it feels like not to. Every time you called me ‘beautiful’ like it was a joke, I died a little.”

His forehead dropped to hers. They were both breathing hard. His free hand traced her jaw, thumb stroking her swollen lower lip.

“I stopped dating other women because none of them were you,” he confessed, voice ragged. “Every wedding I’ve shot for you, I spent half the time imagining dragging you into the coat check and fucking you in that little headset you wear. I’m so hard it hurts, Becs. Feel.”

He took her hand and pressed it over the massive bulge in his pants. Becca moaned at the sheer heat and size of him. Her fingers curled instinctively, stroking the thick outline through fine wool. Barrett’s hips jerked.

“Tell me you want this,” he said, suddenly serious beneath the heat. “Tell me I’m not ruining us.”

“You’re not ruining anything.” She squeezed him again, delighted by the way his breath hitched. “I need you inside me, Barrett. I need—”

A sharp tug on the lights made them both freeze as the tangle shifted, pulling her thigh up against his hip. The new angle ground her aching center directly along his cock. They both groaned.

Barrett kissed her again, slower this time, filthy and deliberate. His tongue fucked into her mouth in rhythm with the shallow roll of his hips. One big hand slid up her thigh, under the hem of her dress, fingertips brushing the lace edge of her panties. He was shaking with the effort of holding back.

“Been dreaming about how wet you get for me,” he whispered hotly against her ear. “Gonna peel these little panties down and—”

The distant sound of a vacuum cleaner hummed somewhere down the hallway outside the locked door. They both went still, chests heaving, mouths inches apart, bodies still bound together by fairy lights and twelve years of mutual starvation.

Barrett’s eyes burned into hers, dark with promise and a question that hadn’t been answered yet.

Neither of them moved to untangle.

The vacuum’s drone faded down the hallway, but Becca couldn’t hear it anymore over the roar of her own pulse. Barrett’s eyes were pure blue fire, the question blazing there so plainly she wondered how she’d ever missed it. Twelve years of best-friend armor cracked wide open in the ridiculous glow of one bare bulb and a thousand fairy lights.

“Yes,” she breathed, the word tasting like freedom. “I’m done pretending, Bear.”

She slid down his body before he could answer, the strings of lights loosening just enough to let her drop to her knees on the cool concrete. Her fingers made quick work of his belt and zipper, and then his cock sprang free—thick, heavy, veined, the flushed head already glistening. At thirty, Barrett was every inch the man she’d secretly measured every other lover against. She wrapped her hand around the base and gave one slow, teasing stroke, watching his abs clench under the charcoal dress shirt.

“Been dying to know how you’d feel in my mouth,” she confessed, voice husky, then leaned in.

She started with enthusiasm and zero shame—licking a wet stripe from root to tip, swirling her tongue around the head like she was savoring an ice cream cone on a hot day. Barrett’s hand flew to her hair, fingers threading through the dark strands with a groan that sounded punched out of him.

“Fuck, Becca. Look at you. My best friend on her knees sucking my cock like she’s starving for it. That’s it—tease the head, baby, just like that. Good fucking girl.”

The praise lit her up. She took him deeper, cheeks hollowing, bobbing with playful, filthy strokes—sucking hard on the upstroke, fluttering her tongue on the down. One hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently while the other twisted around the thick base she couldn’t swallow. Lights jingled every time she moved; a stray strand tickled her cheek and she laughed around his cock, the vibration making his thighs shake.

“Jesus Christ,” he panted, hips twitching like he was fighting not to fuck her face. “You laugh with my dick in your mouth and I almost come right there. You’ve been hiding this talented throat from me for years? Dirty little secret. Suck harder, Becs—yeah, just like that. Gonna ruin me for anyone else. There’s only ever been you.”

Her pussy clenched at the words, soaked and aching. This was Barrett—her Barrett, the man who’d carried her piggyback across a frozen pond when she twisted her ankle at fourteen, the man who’d flown across the country for her twenty-fifth birthday even though he had a playoff game the next day. Now he was leaking on her tongue and groaning filthy praises, and the combination of love and lust felt so enormous she could barely breathe around it.

He finally hauled her up with a growl, big hands under her arms like she weighed nothing. The shelving unit behind her was industrial steel, bolted to the wall and sturdy enough to hold wedding arches. Barrett lifted her onto it so her ass perched on the edge, dress rucked to her waist. He hooked one finger in the crotch of her lace panties and yanked them brutally aside, exposing her dripping folds.

“Need inside you,” he rasped. “Tell me you’re ready.”

“I’ve been ready since I was eighteen and you wore that gray suit to prom,” she whispered.

He lined up and drove in with one ruthless thrust.

The stretch was perfect—burning, full, devastating. Becca’s head fell back against a box of table runners as he bottomed out, balls pressed tight to her ass. For a second they just stared at each other, foreheads touching, breathing the same stunned air. Then he started to move.

Hard. Deep. Punishing strokes that rocked the shelf and made her bite her lip bloody trying not to scream. Every thrust dragged across her g-spot and ground her clit against his pelvis. The wet slap of skin on skin was obscenely loud in the stockroom.

“Shhh, baby,” he laughed breathlessly even as he pounded her, one hand clamped over her mouth. “Can’t let them hear how hard I’m fucking my best friend six feet from my sister’s wedding linens. But Christ, you’re creaming all over me. So fucking wet. This pussy was made for me, wasn’t it?”

She nodded frantically against his palm, legs locked around his waist. The lights still tangled around them jingled like perverted sleigh bells. Every time he drove deep her breasts bounced inside her dress and he groaned at the sight. The humor and the heat braided together until she felt drunk on both.

Without warning he pulled out, spun her, and bent her over the shelf. Her palms slapped against a stack of folded napkins as he yanked the panties even farther to the side and slammed back in from behind. The new angle punched the air from her lungs. Barrett’s big body covered hers, one hand braced beside her head, the other reaching around to rub tight circles over her swollen clit.

“Take it,” he growled against her ear. “Take every inch like the gorgeous, filthy girl you are. I love you bent over like this, ass up, dripping down my balls. Quiet, Becs—fuck, you’re clenching so tight.”

She was going to come from his words alone. The shelf creaked dangerously; a box of votives wobbled. They both froze for half a second, then dissolved into muffled, hysterical laughter that somehow made the sex even hotter. He fucked her through the giggles, hips snapping, fingers flying over her clit until her legs shook.

But he wasn’t finished.

“Chair,” he ordered, voice wrecked. He pulled out, cock shiny with her arousal, and dropped onto the old wooden chair tucked in the corner. It groaned under his two-hundred-twenty pounds but held. Becca didn’t hesitate. She straddled him reverse cowgirl, facing away, and sank down onto that thick cock in one smooth glide.

“Oh my God,” she moaned. The angle was even deeper, the head pressing against some magical spot that made her eyes roll back. She planted her hands on his thick thighs and started to ride—slow at first, then faster, ass bouncing, lights still draped across her shoulders like some trashy erotic Christmas card.

Barrett’s hands spanned her waist, guiding her, then one slid down to torture her clit again. His fingers were relentless, two of them rubbing slick circles exactly where she needed while she fucked herself on his cock.

“That’s it, ride me, beautiful. Use me. I want to feel you come all over your best friend’s dick. Been dreaming about this view for years—your perfect ass bouncing, my cock disappearing inside you. Come on, Becs. Let go.”

The orgasm blindsided her. It started low in her belly and detonated outward, her walls clamping down on him in rhythmic, powerful pulses. She shoved her fist against her mouth to muffle the cry as pleasure ripped through her so hard her vision whited out. Barrett cursed, hips snapping up, and followed her over with a deep, guttural groan. She felt every hot spurt as he emptied himself inside her, claiming her in the most primal way possible while his fingers kept stroking her clit through the aftershocks.

They stayed locked together, panting, sweat cooling on their skin. The fairy lights finally slipped from their bodies and pooled on the floor like surrendered tinsel. Barrett gently turned her until she could bury her face in his neck. The kisses that followed weren’t hungry anymore. They were soft, reverent, the kind of kisses that felt like coming home after a war.

He cupped her face in both huge hands, thumbs brushing tears she hadn’t realized were falling.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were teenagers,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “Since you stole my hoodie and wore it to every game like it was armor. I was too chickenshit to say it. Every time I called you ‘beautiful’ I meant it in the forever way. I’m done pretending, Becs. I want everything. The wedding, the house, the stupid arguments about whose turn it is to pick the music on road trips. All of it.”

Becca’s laugh came out watery. She kissed him again, tasting salt and love and the future. “I’ve loved you since the same stupid rink, Barrett. I watched you date half the city and told myself the ache was normal. It wasn’t. I want all of it too. We’re walking out of this stockroom as a couple. Tomorrow we watch Noelle get married, and then we start planning ours. I’m thinking something with way too many fairy lights so we never forget how long it took us to stop being idiots.”

They were both laughing—soft, disbelieving, joyous laughter—when the distinct sound of a key sliding into the lock froze them solid.

The heavy stockroom door swung open.

Noelle stood in the doorway in her rehearsal-dinner cocktail dress, custodian right behind her, eyes going comically wide at the sight of her brother and her wedding planner still half-dressed, flushed, glowing, and very obviously tangled together on a very creaky chair.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Noelle’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again.

“Well,” she said faintly, “this explains why the head-table linens are still in their box.”

The door stayed open. The lights kept twinkling. And Becca and Barrett, hearts still racing from the best orgasm and the best confession of their lives, realized the pretending had just been replaced by a whole new set of problems.