The skin of the fingertips was warm as they fluttered down the center of my back. The sensation causing me to shiver. I wanted to feel more, to know the true feel of his touch. But I knew there was little chance of that. He was my best friend and simply didn't see me as someone with whom a relationship was possible. "Ri, when are you leaving on your trip?" I asked as he started to more powerful strokes to work the kinks out of the muscles of my back.
"I fly out tomorrow evening at seven, why?" He asked starting to put some real pressure into the movements across my back.
I groaned as he hit a truly tight muscle and began to work the tension out. "Because I was wondering. You know I worry when you travel." A sigh escaped my lips as I felt the muscle begin to relax with his ministrations.
"That I do know, but I don't know why. I mean you know it's for work and you know I do my best to stay safe. What worries you about my traveling?" He asked me. His hands paused on a muscle just at the edge of my back and I longed silently for his fingers to drop the slightest amount and brush across the side of my breast.
The need for his touch wasn't a new thing in my world. I had wanted to be more to him than just a friend since the day we met. But it seemed the world had conspired against that. Either he was with someone and I was free or, like now he was free and I was in a relationship. I had never bothered to say anything because I couldn't bring myself to risk the friendship that had become so much a part of my life. I knew I had better give him an answer to his question or he would start asking others that I wasn't ready to answer. "I worry about all my friends, you know that." I arched my back against the pressure of his fingers as he went back to working the muscles.
"You do at that, but I have never seen you stress out over something as simple as one of them going to a business meeting."
I hated this conversation, and we had a version of it before he left for any trip that took him out of the city. I was tired of fighting my heard and my head. "What do you want me to say." I snapped rolling onto my back. My entire body seeming to explode when he didn't react fast enough and his fingertips brushed my nipple as I turned over. Being topless around him had never been a thing until that moment. In that single heartbeat my entire world changed. I gasped for a breath that seemed to have been sucked out of me and I could feel my face becoming the color of a ripe tomato. I couldn't see a graceful way out of it so I payed perfectly still and prayed he didn't notice that both of my nipples had become pebble hard.
The next words out of his mouth told me I wasn't that lucky. "I want the truth." He tilted his head as he looked at me. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't read. I watched as he lifted his hand slightly and after seeming to rethink whatever it was he was going to do dropped it to his side.
I laid there for a long moment thinking about how best to answer him. I didn't think I was ready to tell him the truth, at least not all of it. "You are important to me, you always have been." I silently hoped it would be enough of the truth to get me by.
He sat there leaning back against his elbows. The look in his eyes still unreadable. "Something tells me that isn't everything, but for now I will take it." He smiled his silly little quirky smile and once again my heart melted.
Dropping my head against the pillow I sighed, "Thanks for the back rub. You want to go to the beach with us tomorrow?"
