“Do you?” She sank against him in a way that made all his blood go south.
He started humming “Afternoon Delight,” and she laughed. “How do you even know that song?”
“How do you?”
“Well, my place won’t do. Full house.”
“Dante’s out. He’ll be at the library all night. He’s got a project due tomorrow, and then he’s out of town for the break.”
“Already? We have over a week ‘til Thanksgiving.”
“Dante doesn’t play around when it comes to going home for breaks. He wants to get every second of time in sunny Florida that he can.”
“Okay. Let me tell them I’m leaving early, and we’re headed to your place.”
They went out to the parking lot and to his jeep. On their way to his place, Owen decided there was no point in not telling her, in not getting it out of the way. As he was driving them across town to his apartment, he said, “So I had a date Saturday night. With this girl, Brynn.”
“Oh?” Marci said. He thought he heard a hint of something unnaturally tense in her tone, but he wasn’t sure.
He glanced over at her, but her expression was unreadable. “Yeah.”
“You have a good time?”
“She’s nice. We said dating other people was okay, right?”
“Hey, this is your game, your rules. I’m only in it for the sex,” Marci said.
Owen laughed softly. “Right.”
“What’s that about?”
“What’s what about?”
“That laugh.”
“Oh, nothing,” Owen said lightly, enjoying having her unsettled for once. It was nice to finally be the one not on edge out of the two of them. He wondered if he should tell her about the other part, too. The Kristin part.
“You gonna see this Brynn again?” Marci asked.
“Probably.”
Marci didn’t say anything to this.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Owen asked.
“Spending it in Jersey with Ronnie and her family,” Marci said.
“You’re not going home?” Owen asked.
“First off, home is clear across the country. Second, my mother, brave noble soul that she is, has decided to spend Thanksgiving at the hospital being admired for her life-saving skills and so-called humility.”
“Saving lives? That definitely sounds admirable. More so than you’re making it sound.”
“My mother thinks she deserves to be worshipped. As the only person in the world who doesn’t think that apparently, I consider it my job to keep her grounded,” Marci said.
“I feel like there’s more to that.”
“And I feel like the time for talking’s over,” Marci said. “Considering you parked three minutes ago.”
“You’ve been keeping count?”
“So I’m a little anxious to get to the next part.”
“Next part?”
“The best part. Let’s go.” Marci opened the door and jumped out of the jeep.
“So I guess I really did make an impression on you.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Her face was hidden by her hair, so he couldn’t see the expression that went with it, but still. He didn’t buy that bored tone of hers for one second. He didn’t want to get too high on himself, but he was pretty sure that the last thing in the world she was with him was bored. At least not yet.
#
Marci couldn’t deny that there were definite benefits to this arrangement. Owen was insatiable. They’d only spent a handful of nights apart since starting up their little arrangement a couple weeks ago, and those had mostly been because Marci had deadlines to meet. An F.W.B. meant guaranteed sex more often. Why hadn’t she tried something like this before?
Owen wasn’t only insatiable—he was talented. And dedicated. They were always trying new things, and he could go for hours at a time. She was always hungry lately, and her clothes were fitting a little looser. Being with Owen was better than going to the gym—for many reasons.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving, Marci bit her lower lip as she stared down at her phone. She was thinking about texting Owen because she wasn’t in the mood to do any more work that evening. She was in the mood for something else. But was it too much to be seeing him so often? She’d gone over to his place almost every night over the past week since Dante was already out of town for the break. She was running out of excuses to give Tyler and Ronnie. And she was pretty sure she was wasting time as it seemed they’d stopped buying her excuses after the first few times. Well, Tyler had stopped buying them. She had her suspicions that Ronnie had never bought them in the first place.
Finally, telling herself not to be ridiculous, she texted, what up?
Owen texted back almost immediately. Hey you. Going to the kabab place near my apartment w/ some people. You should come. Before she could think up a response, he sent another text. Don’t worry. Not trying 2 trick you n2 a date. Have 2 eat, right? And we can go back to my place after.
Grinning down at her phone, she texted back. Meet you there?
There was no response for about a minute. She’d never realized how long a minute was before. Then he texted her with, Good.
When Marci entered the kabab place, she breathed in the aroma of spices as she took a quick look around. It didn’t take her long to spot him. It was almost as if her gaze was drawn automatically to him if he was anywhere near. Wavy dark blond hair sexily disheveled as if he’d run his hands through it a few times after removing the knit cap that now rested on the table in front of him. Black North Face fleece. Long, lean, sexy body draped over a bar stool as he talked and laughed with a group of people.
Marci walked over to them, and he turned to her with that tooth-paste-commercial grin. “There you are.” He moved his backpack from the stool next to him and pushed it out toward her. She pulled the stool closer to the high top table and sat.
“Here I am.” She told herself the tumbling act her stomach was doing was simply in anticipation of what would come next.
“Marci, these are friends of mine from A.P.O.,” he said. A.P.O., or Alpha Phi Omega, was a service fraternity. He introduced her to the three guys and a girl at the table as a friend of his. She shook hands with the four people whose names and faces she probably wouldn’t remember later. Julie, the girl, gave her a tight so-you’re-the-competition smile when they shook hands, and Marci was some shocked at how possessive it made her feel. When she was done greeting everyone, Marci scooted her stool a little closer to Owen’s so that their shoulders touched.
“Let’s order,” one of the guys said.
“Yeah,” another guy who was loud in both voice and size said in a booming voice. “I’m starving like a vegan on Atkins.”
Julie turned to Owen. “What are you getting, Owen?”
“Not sure yet.” Owen turned to Marci. “Know what you want?” He gave her a look that made her hungry but not for food. “Or do you need to look at the menu?”
Marci took the menu he offered but didn’t open it. She could feel Julie’s gaze burning into the side of her face, but Owen’s eyes held hers captive.
“I’ll get it for you,” he said in a tone that made her think he wasn’t talking about kabab. “Whatever you want.”
“I want what you want.” Marci cleared her throat and shook her head. She had to look away. He was clouding her judgment, her—everything. “I mean, just get me what you’re getting.”
She didn’t look up but didn’t have to in order to hear the grin in his voice as he said, “I’ll be right back.”
“So how do you know Owen?” Julie asked with total stone-face after Owen walked away with the other three guys.
“School,” Marci said vaguely. “Aren’t you going up there to order?”
“Nah.” Julie gave her that same little tight-lipped smile she’d put on earlier. “I’m actually not that hungry.” Julie, who looked like she could be knocked over by a strong gust of wind, attempted to pinch her side
. “I’d better watch it anyway with the holidays coming up. I had to go up to a size two when I tried on jeans the other day. Gross.”
“Yeah,” Marci said.
“Have you ever seen pictures of Owen’s ex?” Julie asked. “Kristin? She’s so thin.”
“Oh?” Marci said in the bored tone she’d perfected over the years thanks to G.K. “Is she?”
Marci turned in the direction of the front of the restaurant where the guys were standing in line, waiting to order. She caught Owen staring at her. Instead of turning away when he got caught, he gave her that disarming grin of his. Then he placed his hands together, leaned his head to the side, and rested his cheek on them. She laughed at what had become an inside joke over the past couple weeks—Imma put you to bed.
Things were going down a dangerous path. She wanted him all the time. Had to fight thinking about him all the time. Just being around him felt good—incredibly soul-warming good—and she could lie to herself and say it was because of the sex, but the terrifying reality was, she just wanted to spend time with him. She felt restless—like something was missing—on the nights they didn’t spend together.
And the sense of relief she felt whenever they came together was unsettling. The way her body reacted to him was beyond her control, and she did not like things being beyond her control. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from clinging to him with an almost drunken need whenever she’d spent more than a day or so away from him.
Bullshit. It was the sex. They had really amazing sex, and that’s what she missed when he wasn’t around. So good it was addictive sex. There wasn’t more to it than that. She couldn’t afford for there to be more.
When he came back to the table with their lamb kababs, she thanked him and dug in. She couldn’t help but notice that he made sure that he was close enough that their shoulders again touched when he sat down. Julie must have noticed, too, because she gave Marci the frostiest looks whenever Owen wasn’t looking.
Later, as they left the kabab place together, they stepped out into some frigid as hell November evening air. Marci huddled close to Owen. For warmth only.
“I’m glad you came out,” Owen said.
“Like you said, gotta eat,” Marci said.
He chuckled softly, but all he said was, “Yeah.”
“I’m not good for you. You know that, right?”
Owen looked down at her, a frown of confusion on his gorgeous face.
“You should be with someone like Brynn. Someone like you. Someone who wants the things you want.” Definitely not that Julie. That girl seemed like a bitch. Owen deserved to be with someone good, someone nice. Someone who would treat him the way he deserved to be treated.
Owen chuckled again.
“What’s so funny?”
“I doubt Brynn wants what I want most. Unless she’s lesbian or at least bi.” Owen put an arm around her. “Let’s get out of the cold.” They picked up their pace, and Marci leaned into him as a particularly chilly wind blew. The rest of their walk to his place was silent.
He’d make such a good boyfriend. For someone. But she bet he was hard as hell to get over. Maybe even impossible. If she were to fall for Owen—not that she’d ever let that happen but just thinking hypothetically in the abstract—if she were to fall for Owen, and things didn’t work out, she’d never be able to recover.
And she knew from experience—both her own and watching her mother blow through men—that these things never worked out in the end.
Chapter Twenty
The weatherman was not on her side. Ronnie had left for New Jersey yesterday. She’d driven up, and even though her family lived in the Trenton area, she gave Tyler a ride as far north as Newark where he would catch the train into Manhattan to spend Thanksgiving with some friends in the Village and then go for an audition before heading home. Marci had booked a flight for Thanksgiving Day because the flights were as empty as they were ever going to be for the holiday on that day, and she had wanted to get some more work done before heading out.
Unfortunately, the first snow of the season had decided to show up on Thanksgiving Day. And it came on hard and fast. Ronnie had been right about that early winter coming. Ronnie had been right about several things unfortunately. One of them being that Marci should have ridden up with her and Tyler yesterday and just put in some earplugs, tuned out their bad singing, and done her work in the back of Ronnie’s car.
And not only was it snow; it was a friggin’ blizzard. At least, to Marci’s West Coast, SoCal sensibilities it was a blizzard. Her flight had been canceled before she even got to the airport, but she refused to give up. If there was one flight going anywhere near the Newark airport, she planned to get on it. Hell, one flight going anywhere. She refused to spend Thanksgiving in her apartment alone.
Just getting to the airport was a chore. First, she’d had to find a cabbie intrepid enough to take her. In the Richmond, Virginia area, where people spazzed at the appearance of a single snowflake, that was quite a feat. Then, when she found one crazy enough to do it, of course he was too crazy. She spent the entire cab ride to RIC fearing for her life. Once she got there, the news was even worse.
“What do you mean all the planes are grounded?” Marci said, grilling the poor woman behind the desk. The logical part of Marci knew it wasn’t the woman’s fault, but the enraged part that didn’t want to be stuck in this place alone on Thanksgiving eating a nuked frozen dinner didn’t care. And unfortunately, that enraged part had taken over.
“Nothing’s getting off that ground right now.” The woman gestured to the glass doors behind Marci that led into the terminal. “I doubt that will change for the rest of the day. It might not even change by tomorrow.”
Marci glanced behind her to see too much white beyond the glass doors at the front of the terminal. And the snowfall didn’t show any signs of slacking up any time soon. She turned back to the desk. “You mean there’s no way I can—no standby or anything?” Marci asked.
“Afraid not.” The woman shook her head.
“You think there’s a train? A bus? Anything.” Marci was getting desperate.
“You can check, but I doubt it.”
So did Marci. But she pulled out her phone to check anyway. She was about to pull up the web browser and go to Amtrak’s website when her phone started ringing. She stared down at it with a sigh. Owen. Why was he calling when he clearly knew she was leaving town? Or supposed to be leaving anyway? This calling just to call nonsense was too much like relationship stuff. Especially after what’d happened the night before last.
She almost ignored the call but decided at the last minute, what the heck? Hey, maybe he could even give her a ride home. She sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere with that cabbie who’d brought her to the airport again. In fact, she’d sent him away as soon as she got out of his cab. Well, sent him away might be a little mild for what she’d done. She’d screamed at him that she wanted his name and any sort of ID number he might have because she planned on reporting him to someone, suing him, something. Either way, he’d gotten the point.
She picked up the call and put the phone to her ear. “Yes?”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Owen said.
“Happy Thanksgiving.” She found herself fighting a smile. Why did she have to react to him this way? Because the sex was really good, and hearing his voice made her think of the sex. She wouldn’t even be putting up with this arrangement if the sex wasn’t beyond anything she’d ever imagined two bodies grinding together could be. And she was no novice in the area of two bodies grinding together.
“It’s all over the news about all the flights being canceled. I’m guessing you didn’t make it out before they started shutting everything down. Or else you’d probably be on a plane right now instead of answering your phone.”
“Nope. Didn’t make it out. Still here.” She heaved a huge sigh. “At the airport.”
“You should spend Thanksgiving with us.”
“That sounds like a g
irlfriend thing,” Marci warned. The last night they’d spent together, Tuesday night, had her paranoid. That night had been unlike any so far. What they’d done…quite frankly, Marci didn’t even want to think about it. She wouldn’t be letting anything similar happen again.
“Not necessarily. Dante spent Thanksgiving with us last year because he had to stay in town to work on something for one of his business ideas. Please don’t tell me you think Dante and I have a thing.”
“Outside of the obsession you share for Call of Duty and fantasy football? Nah.”
Owen laughed. “It’ll be fine. You shouldn’t spend Thanksgiving alone holed up in your apartment. Or worse. At the airport. At least let me come get you from the airport.”
“How will you do that?” Marci frowned at the snow swirling outside the terminal doors.
“I have a jeep,” he said as if she’d asked what color the sky was.
“I’d really owe you if you could come and get me.”
“Owe me enough to spend Thanksgiving with me and my family?”
“Who all’s going to be there?” Marci asked warily. The last thing she wanted—or needed—was to walk into a den of wolves. The Matthis clan. She’d have to suffer through all that vetting and other girlfriend nonsense because there’d be no explaining their, um situation, uh arrangement, over a nice Thanksgiving family dinner.
“Just my mom, Jeremy, and me,” Owen said. “Mom’s already complaining about how she has no idea what she’s going to do with all the leftovers.”
Not even a dad? Maybe his parents were divorced. Marci certainly knew all about that. Knew enough not to pry and ask just in case that was the scenario, and he didn’t want to talk about it. “Fine,” Marci said. “I guess I can’t argue with the fact that a home-cooked meal is far superior to whatever is waiting in my freezer at home for me to microwave it.”
“Great. Be there in a sec.”
“Drive safely,” she said immediately. What did he mean, a sec? The roads were icing over. Had to be if all the planes were grounded. “Oh, and Owen?”
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