I Made My Boyfriend and His Best Friend Kneel For Me

The screwdriver slipped again and Liam muttered something under his breath, his forearm flexing as he braced against the cabinet door. I sat at his kitchen table with my phone face-down, watching the way his shoulders moved beneath his thin t-shirt, the way his fingers gripped the tool with patient precision. He'd been at this for twenty minutes, trying to realign a hinge that had worked itself loose over months of use.

"Pass me the smaller one," he said without looking up, and I handed him the Phillips head from the collection scattered across the counter. Our fingers brushed in the exchange, casual as breathing, but I felt it in my spine.

His wrists were pale from winter, the bones delicate beneath skin that looked impossibly smooth. I found myself cataloguing details: the way his pulse was visible when he turned his arm certain angles, the faint blue of veins that disappeared into the cuff of his shirt. When he stretched to reach the top screw, his shirt rode up just enough to expose the hollow above his hipbone, and something shifted in my chest like furniture being rearranged.

"There," he said, testing the door's swing. It moved smoothly now, no more catching or grinding. He turned to me with that small, satisfied smile that meant he'd solved something, fixed something, made something right.

Later, lying in his bed with the curtains still open to the streetlights, I couldn't stop looking at his hands as they moved across my skin. The same hands that could dismantle and rebuild, that could make stubborn metal obey. When he reached to turn off the lamp, I caught his wrist.

"Don't," I said, and something in my voice made him pause. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and walked to his wardrobe, my bare feet silent on the floorboards. The tie was exactly where I knew it would be—navy silk with tiny white dots, the one he'd worn to his sister's wedding.

Back in bed, I straddled him without explanation. He started to speak but I pressed two fingers to his lips, then lifted his arms above his head with deliberate care. The silk slid through my hands like water as I looped it around his wrists, testing the give, the way the fabric bit gently into his skin.

His breathing changed. In the half-light from the window, his eyes searched my face for something I wasn't sure I could name. I secured the tie to the slats of his headboard with a knot I'd learned in Girl Scouts, of all places, and sat back to examine my work.

His arms stretched taut above him, the line of his body exposed and waiting. The pulse in his throat beat visibly now, faster than before. I leaned down until my mouth was against his ear, feeling the heat radiating from his skin.

"Lie still," I whispered, the words emerging fully formed from somewhere I hadn't known existed. "Don't move."

He looked at me, his expression unreadable in the low light from the street, a question in his eyes he didn't voice. A strange, sharp feeling, like a plucked string, resonated low in my stomach as I watched the pulse beat in his throat. I leaned down, my mouth close to his ear, and the words came out before I had fully formed them. "Lie still. Don't move."

His body went rigid beneath mine, not from fear but from something else entirely. I could feel the tension in his shoulders where my hands rested, the way his breathing had become shallow and deliberate. The tie held firm against the headboard slats, and I tested it again, pulling slightly to ensure it wouldn't give.

I sat back on my heels, studying him in the amber glow filtering through the curtains. His chest rose and fell with controlled precision, his eyes never leaving my face. There was something different about the way he looked at me now—not the soft affection I was accustomed to, but something more acute, more focused. As if he was seeing me for the first time.

My hands moved to his chest, palms flat against his skin. I could feel his heart beating rapidly beneath my touch, the heat of him radiating through the thin barrier of his t-shirt. When I dragged my nails lightly down his torso, he inhaled sharply but remained perfectly still, obedient to my command.

The power of it was intoxicating. I leaned forward again, my hair falling like a curtain around us, and pressed my lips to the hollow of his throat where his pulse hammered against his skin. He tasted like salt and something uniquely him, and when I bit down gently, he made a sound that was half-gasp, half-moan.

"Good," I murmured against his neck, feeling the vibration of his response. My hands explored him with newfound authority, mapping the terrain of his body with deliberate slowness. When I reached the waistband of his boxers, I paused, letting my fingers trace the edge without proceeding further.

His hips shifted almost imperceptibly, a reflex he couldn't control, and I pulled back to meet his eyes. They were darker than usual, pupils dilated, and I could see the effort it took for him to remain motionless under my scrutiny.

"Don't move," I repeated, softer this time, and watched as he forced himself to stillness, surrendering completely to this new dynamic between us.

The next evening, I stood at Liam’s stove, stirring a sauce that had started to separate. Julian arrived early, as always, letting himself in with the key they’d shared since university. He paused in the doorway, his eyes moving from Liam—who was setting the table with careful, measured movements—to me, then back again. I felt the weight of his gaze like a hand pressed between my shoulder blades.

“Something smells burnt,” he said, though his tone was mild. He dropped his jacket over a chair and moved closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne, something cedar and sharp. “Need help?”

“I’ve got it,” I said, not turning. Behind me, Liam’s silence was a third person in the room. I could feel Julian watching the way I held the wooden spoon, the way my wrist flexed as I stirred. When I finally looked up, he was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, his eyes steady on mine.

Liam had told him nothing—I was sure of that. But Julian had always been the kind of man who noticed things: the way Liam’s sleeves were rolled down though it was warm in the kitchen, the faint red mark on his wrist that might have been from a watch strap, or might not. The way I didn’t meet Liam’s eyes when he handed me a glass of wine.

We ate in near silence, the clink of cutlery too loud. Julian asked polite questions—how was work, had I seen the new exhibition at the Tate, did I think the sauce was meant to taste like that—and I answered in short, even sentences. Liam chewed slowly, his gaze fixed on his plate. Every so often, his thumb would brush the inside of his wrist, absently, as if checking for something still there.

After dinner, I cleared the plates. Julian followed me to the sink. He didn’t speak, just stood close enough that I could feel the heat of him. When I reached up to replace a glass on the shelf, his eyes followed the line of my arm, the stretch of my shirt across my back. I turned, suddenly, and he didn’t step away. We were inches apart.

“You’re different,” he said quietly.

I dried my hands on a towel. “Am I?”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’ve always been quiet. But now you’re still. Like you’re listening for something.”

I didn’t answer. Behind us, Liam was humming tunelessly in the living room, the sound of vinyl crackling as he flipped a record. Julian’s gaze dropped to my mouth, then lower, lingering on the hollow of my throat. I felt my spine straighten, my shoulders square. I didn’t move.

He leaned in, not to kiss me, but to speak. His breath was warm against my ear. “I don’t know what you did to him,” he murmured. “But I felt it the second I walked in.”

I pulled back slowly, meeting his eyes. “You don’t know anything.”

His smile widened. “Not yet.”

He returned to the living room then, sinking onto the sofa beside Liam, their knees touching casually, like always. I stayed in the kitchen, wiping down surfaces that were already clean, my hands steady, my pulse loud in my ears. The secret sat in my chest like a stone I’d swallowed—smooth, heavy, and growing warmer by the hour.