by A. J. Pine
Because after barely a week, she might very well have already found the man to end her cleanse.
But then she swallowed back the thought.
Because he’d called her “friend.”
Because she already knew the kind of guy he was, and it wasn’t the type to stand by and wait.
Because in just a few hours, she had a date—with any eligible bachelor who came her way.
Chapter Twelve
Jeremy paced the sidewalk in front of Kingston Ale House, which was ridiculous because he worked there. He could enter at will anytime he wanted. He even had a goddamn key to the place, and if he could get his head in the game and just commit, he’d be part owner as well.
Ah, there it was—that word. Commit. He’d been ready and willing to do it years ago with Whitney, and if Jamie had asked him when he was fresh out of grad school if he wanted to be his partner, he’d have said yes without thinking twice.
But committing wasn’t enough for Whitney, and now he wasn’t sure if he could trust that word at all. He’d done well enough not promising anything to anyone since then, and everything had been going fine until Jamie had to go and ask him for more.
And now there was Grace. She’d asked him for nothing. Hell, she’d even agreed he should stay home. Yet here he was, trapped under something too heavy to name, too distant from his current way of life to admit. All he knew was that every second he lay in bed trying to sleep, Grace appeared under his closed lids. His fingers tingled with the memory of her touch. And his mind raced with thoughts of her sitting in the bar with another man. With other men.
And even though he knew things couldn’t go further than a drink and some harmless conversation, it drove him mad.
He was Jeremy Denning. The fun one. The one who no longer gave a shit what happened beyond the present.
He should be at home, lying on a heating pad for fuck’s sake. Instead he limped his way here, driven by his pain-in-the-ass jealousy. Literally. His ass was killing him.
“Just go in there, you asshole,” he muttered to himself under his breath. But he reasoned he’d be a bigger ass if he did, barging in on her first night as Grace Bailey, local reality star. So, pacing it would be.
“You trying to wear a path in the pavement?”
Jeremy turned to find Brynn standing on the sidewalk just outside the entrance, her long curls blowing in the autumn wind.
“Hurts less if I keep moving,” he said, stopping when he reached her.
She hooked her arm in his and started them both moving again, away from their intended destination. “Then let’s keep moving for a bit,” she said.
He wanted to argue because he knew a lecture was coming, but his leg still ached, and his determination had yet to make its final choice: enter the building or turn and walk back home. So he just kept walking, Brynn on his arm, and said nothing.
Except she didn’t say anything, either. So they walked to the end of the block, passing the lit-up window of Bellini, the Italian restaurant that attracted the clientele who preferred fine dining and wine as opposed to Kingston’s pub fare. Then there was Gatekeepers, the bar that attracted the college crowd, which would have included Jeremy five years ago and now felt worlds away. At nine thirty at night, you could still see past the window and into the bar. No thumping music poured out at them because the door rested shut, the younger crowd not deigning to make its appearance on the city streets until at least ten.
When they crossed the street and started making their way back from where they came, Jeremy couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s have it.”
He and Brynn slowed to a halt in front of the one Jimmy John’s that stayed open as late as the bars did, making its money off selling sub sandwiches to the late-night inebriated.
“Let’s have what?” she asked, but he could tell she was trying not to smile.
“My lecture,” he said. “My unsolicited advice. My sister speaking vicariously through you and asking when I’m finally going to get past the whole Whitney thing and be happy, as if I’m not doing fine as is. You telling me that you’ve seen the way I look at Grace, and why the hell am I not in there throwing my hat in the ring to be her Mr. Fucking Right.” Because what if he was considering that? Would it be so bad to get to know each other in this platonic limbo and then see where it goes in three months? All he knew was that the thought of her in there, guy after guy flirting with her for the exact same chance, made it hard to breathe. He pulled his arm from hers and ran a hand wildly through his hair. “That, Brynn. Let’s have that.”
Now Brynn was smiling, but she cupped her palm over her mouth to hide it. He narrowed his eyes and pulled her hand free, so she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why oh why, Jer, would I say any of that when you just said it all yourself?”
He strode toward the nearest streetlight and rested his forehead on the post, trying not to think about the drunk idiots—or dogs—who probably pissed on it in the early morning hours. The dogs couldn’t aim this high, and the idiots were hopefully discreet enough not to try.
He banged his head lightly against the cold metal.
Brynn sidled up next to him and placed her hand on his.
“Wow,” she said. “I knew you liked her, but you really like her. Like, like her, like her.”
He lifted his head and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what’s worse, your middle school evaluation of the situation or the fact that I understand it.”
She laughed. “Go tell her, Jeremy.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “And then what? She has to date a different guy each week leading up to her final decision. I just have to sit by and watch.”
Brynn nodded. “Yes. You have to sit by and watch her have a drink or coffee or a meal with some guy and know that nothing else can happen. And if she feels the same way, then you know she’s just doing it to fulfill her contract and nothing else. If she feels the same way, then it’s your lips she kisses that night.” She winked at him. “And whatever else happens after that.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how to do this, B. The last time I did—”
“Grace isn’t Whitney,” she said.
No. She wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t looking for the same thing—a guy with ambition. A go-getter. Someone who knew what he wanted, went after it, and attained it. It wasn’t like Jeremy was some loser living off his parents and turning their basement into an apartment. Things just sort of fell into his lap. Things that made him happy. When he was an undergrad, he’d done so well in his marketing courses that his professor recommended him to the graduate program. He barely had to try to get accepted. When he needed extra cash while going to school, Jamie—one of his sister’s friends since high school—had offered him a part-time job. He took it and never left, earning enough to buy Whitney a modest engagement ring, even if it wasn’t the Tiffany one she had bookmarked on her laptop.
He’d expected them to have the whole future talk when he proposed. After she’d said yes, of course.
“Whit,” he’d said, a goddamn idiot of a twenty-three-year-old, “marry me.”
She’d placed a hand on his cheek and kissed him softly, but she’d barely even looked at the ring.
“I love you, Jeremy. I really do. But you had to know there was no future in this beyond grad school. I’m going to be on the national news someday, and you—you spent three years in grad school for what? To work in a bar. It doesn’t fit. We don’t fit. I’m sorry.”
They’d thankfully been in the privacy of their shared apartment, and she’d walked out after that, leaving him blindsided and obliterated. She’d moved out the next day.
He cleared his throat, focusing on Brynn again. “She’s not Whitney, but what if the kind of guy I am still isn’t enough?”
Brynn’s gaze softened, and her smile was a sad one. She placed her cold palm on his cheek. “Oh, sweetie. Is that what you’ve been thinking all these years? T
hat you aren’t enough? Shame on Whitney Gaines. She doesn’t love people. She loves what they can do for her. I don’t know her well enough to say, but I get the vibe that Grace is nothing like that.”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Fuck it. He’d go mad if he said nothing, and he’d go mad if he did.
“I think I need a beer,” he said, holding out his arm for Brynn to take again. She did.
“And I like the way you think,” she said. They headed back toward the brewery.
When they got to the door, he didn’t let himself hesitate, because then he might not have entered at all. Instead he charged through the door and found her easily, the round table at the end of the bar, a sign in a plastic holder advertising her “open call” for Chicago’s most eligible men.
It was nine fifty, and a man was just leaving the table. Jeremy dropped into the empty seat, too full of adrenaline to feel any physical pain.
Her eyes widened. “Jeremy. You’re supposed to be home. Resting. I told you— I mean, you said—”
He grabbed that stupid sign and dropped it on the floor. Grace Bailey was closed for business as of nine minutes from now.
“I didn’t want to miss my date,” he said, his voice firm. But her brows furrowed. She was still confused.
“You…have a date?” Her voice sounded wounded.
Shit. She wasn’t getting it.
He wanted to grab her hand or cup her cheek, something to let her know it was her. All her. But he wasn’t sure of the rules. The guy who’d just left shook her hand. It was one thing to hug her in the privacy of her apartment, but he didn’t want to risk anything in public that would give the network cause to say she violated their definition of platonic.
“I don’t want to be your wingman, Grace.”
She was staring with wide eyes again, but he could see the confusion morph into something else. Disbelief.
“You don’t want to be my wingman.”
She wasn’t asking a question, just parroting his words.
He shook his head.
“What— What do you want?” she asked, and he took that tremor in her voice as encouragement.
Shit. He hoped it was encouragement. Otherwise he was about to blow it. Big-time. If she didn’t want this, how could they go back to the friend thing?
He leaned toward her over the table. He didn’t care that he was still in pain or that she was looking at him with eyes so wide and her jaw so tight he wasn’t sure if she was frightened or furious or some other emotion he couldn’t put his finger on.
He could smell her shampoo, and for a second he closed his eyes and let himself inhale, the scent of fresh lime conjuring up images of margaritas and white sand beaches and— Jesus, what was this woman doing to him?
“I should be that first kiss,” he said, his eyes open now, gaze locked on hers. “Three months from now, I want it to be me.”
She breathed in sharply, and then those caramel eyes darkened with something he couldn’t read. Shit. He’d overstepped. She’d needed a friend, and dammit, he wanted to be what she needed. But he couldn’t ignore what he’d all but admitted to Brynn outside.
He needed her.
Yes. He wanted her physically. That had been evident the moment he laid eyes on her. But in five days of getting to know her, something deeper than desire had awakened in him, and fuck if he couldn’t turn it off.
She still hadn’t spoken. Her mouth hung open in a small O, but no words came.
He backed away, straightening in his chair. Her scent was too much. He was drunk on it, and it seemed sobriety was no longer an option.
“Christ, Grace. If you don’t want me on your list of suitors, just put me out of my fucking misery so I can get on with the status quo. But if there’s any part of you that—”
She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “Wait!” she finally said, her palm icy cold against his heated flesh.
“You’re freezing,” he said.
Her cheeks flushed, and she shook her head. “Nervous.”
He smiled and raised a brow. “I make you nervous?”
She let out a shaky laugh. “You make me…lots of things.”
Her hand still rested on his, the heat between them mingling so that she didn’t feel so cold anymore.
“Like what?” he asked.
“You want a list?”
He nodded. “I really do.”
She let out a long breath. “Okay. Yes. You make me nervous. But you also make me smile.”
This made him smile even broader. “Right back at ya.”
She looked down at their touching hands and then back into his eyes. “You make me warmer.”
He laughed.
“And drier,” she added. “Thanks to my new umbrella.” But then her smile faltered a little, and she squeezed his hand. “You make me feel safer than I’ve felt in a long time. Is that weird to say after meeting such a short time ago? I just get this feeling that I can trust you. That you wouldn’t do to me what…”
She trailed off and was quiet for a second. Jeremy flipped his hand over so he could squeeze hers back. Fuck protocol, if there even was one for this situation.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few months,” he said. “But I can tell you one thing. As your friend, as whatever I might be when it comes time for you to decide who you want, you’ll always be safe with me, Grace. And it kills me that anyone made you feel otherwise.”
“I want it to be you, too,” she blurted, and he could hear the tremble in her voice. Because here they were, six days into their friendship, admitting it might not be enough, that there might be something more brewing beneath the surface.
She chewed her bottom lip, and then her expression broke into the biggest, most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, and Jeremy knew he was in deeper than he’d ever meant to go. Yet he had no intention of swimming back to the surface.
“I’d give my right hand to kiss you right now,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.
He watched her neck as she swallowed and knew he was pushing the envelope, but he couldn’t help it. She wanted him, too.
“Are you right-handed?” she asked, her eyes sparkling now with a mischief he’d never seen before.
He nodded.
“Then don’t do that,” she said softly. “Makes it harder to imagine what that hand could do to me in three months.”
Holy shit. He was hard as a rock in a millisecond. What was she doing?
“Do you have any obligation past your ten o’clock deadline?” he asked, wanting to whisk her from this place and then…what?
She shook her head. “Not really. I just have to post about my experience on the Facebook page—per the contract—then I’m free. What did you have in mind?”
Christ. He had a lot of things in mind, but he couldn’t do any of them.
“How about this?” she continued, and he heard a playful teasing in her tone. “You go home and get comfortable. I’ll go home and do this little post thing. Then I’ll call you, and we’ll see if we can’t do something…together.”
Fuck. She was serious. He swallowed hard.
“Can you elaborate on that, please? Because if I let my imagination run with this and I’m misinterpreting you, there’s a certain vital organ of mine that will be really disappointed.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Your heart?”
He fought the urge to adjust himself right there in the chair.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly, leaning toward him over the table. “Why would I do that when it’s so fun to watch you squirm?”
And squirm in his fucking chair he did. “Do it now,” he insisted.
“What?”
“Do the post now. Then get in a cab and go home. Better yet, do the damn post in the cab. I’ll walk so it takes me a little longer to get to my place. Then call me the second you walk in the door. I mean, as soon as that door closes behi
nd you, have my number up and ready, and then hit send.”
I can touch myself all I want.
He let her words play on repeat inside his head, not caring that his dick throbbed, that he ached like he’d never ached before. Because he was going to talk her into the biggest fucking orgasm she’d ever had. Even if it brought him to his knees. And he knew it would.
Her phone was already in her hand, and she held it out to show she was on Facebook. He pushed himself up from the table, the throbbing in his pants outweighing the pain in his leg. She stood as well, and they walked to the door together, wordlessly.
Brynn sat on a stool across from Jamie at the bar, winking at him as he whisked Grace out the door and put her in a cab.
“Talk soon,” she said, before he closed the door.
All he could do was nod.
Her voice and her words remained on loop as he made his way back to his apartment, though this time his limp had nothing to do with his leg.
Chapter Thirteen
Grace stood outside her apartment door, phone poised in her shaking palm. It wasn’t like she hadn’t, you know, taken care of business before. But there was never someone on the other end of a phone, talking to her while she did it.
Oh God. She’d have to talk to him, too.
Where the hell had her boldness with Jeremy come from? As much as sex had been a part of her life before the cleanse, this…mutual self-pleasuring…was brand-spanking-new to her.
Oh God. Would there be spanking? Was any of this even permitted in the rules of the cleanse? She’d read the book backward and forward, and all she could remember was a throwaway quote: Self pleasure of any kind is permitted AND encouraged. Come on, ladies. We don’t need to be saints in order to take our lives back.
She’d been so overwhelmed not only with Jeremy showing up but with him saying what she’d secretly hoped he would since this whole crazy television circus was suggested, she hadn’t had time to let his words sink in.
I should be that first kiss.
Her insides coiled tight, and the nine-minute cab ride—and her overactive imagination—were enough to work her up to the point that she was afraid she’d come from simply wriggling out of her jeans. Some phone sex that would make. But every nerve ending was charged, every muscle tense and aching with need.