The Best Part of Me

by Jamie Hollins

  Jesus, what a little shit.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “How fortunate for your fiancée.”

  Ewan looked down at her hand and noticed the golden wedding band on her left ring finger.

  “Not as lucky as he is, I assure you,” Sean insisted. “Now Pamela, I was hoping to speak with you for a quick second about your upcoming request for proposals for your new student center.” Sean politely drew her away from where Ewan stood, but not without one final leering smirk from the university’s president.

  It really shouldn’t be a surprise that his cousin had begged Ewan to visit him this weekend in Boston, then dragged him to this God-awful event to pimp him out to a potential client. Not that he’d done it before, but Sean was a shark when it came to his job as partner at a top-ranked Boston contracting firm. If he wanted a client, he did what it took to sign them. Ewan guessed that meant dangling him in front of Pamela Shazier as bait.

  Once Sean finished his conversation, he returned to lean against the bar beside Ewan. “Think I got that one in the bag.” He flagged down the bartender and ordered a beer. Ewan just stared at his cousin, assuming an explanation to his most recent antics was on the way. Beer in hand, Sean took a sip followed by a long sigh.

  “Dude, that woman would have allowed you to fuck her on this bar if you’d shown the inclination. Jesus.” Sean shook his head and took another sip.

  Ewan raised his eyebrows.

  “Baxter University is getting ready to accept bids next week to build a massive new student center. We’re talking one whole city block. Michael wants that project. He told me to work my magic and get it.” Sean shrugged and looked over at Ewan. “I heard through a few sources that she had a thing for younger men.”

  “You’re a younger man. Why’d you have to drag me here?”

  “She prefers tall, dark, and handsome, I was told,” Sean shrugged. “She wanted to lick you from your knees to your neck like you were a melting soft-serve ice cream cone.”

  “So you weren’t trying to pimp me out?”

  “Hell no. Why’d you think I told her you were engaged? She can look all she wants, but she can’t touch. At least that’s what I was hoping for. Apologies ahead of time if she jumps you in a deserted alley while we’re walking to my car.” Sean smiled.

  Ewan shook his head. Sean always had a shit-eating grin glued to his face, almost as if he were continuously telling himself a joke. Who knew what was rolling around in that head of his all day? A better question was who would want to know.

  Ewan reluctantly thought of Sean as his best friend. Reluctantly because Sean annoyed the shit out of him most of the time. But he was closer than a cousin. They were more like brothers.

  “Well, well.” His cousin laughed. “Look who the night’s entertainment is.”

  Ewan followed Sean’s nod and saw Rory Hughes and his bandmates setting up on a raised stage in the opposite corner of the large lobby. Ewan’s eyes quickly scanned the crowd looking for Quinn.

  Where Rory went, Erin Brauer was sure to go. He spotted the tiny redhead ordering a drink at a bar across the room. Lisbeth Tanner stood next to her with more skin showing than was entirely appropriate. Darcy Owens stood behind them, her face reflecting blue from the smartphone that was inches from her nose.

  Quinn wasn’t with them.

  He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding but didn’t miss the fact that his stomach clenched in disappointment. What sort of spell had she cast on him? She was like some form of personal torture. Just thinking about her was enough to get his mind spiraling down a rather perverted path of all the things he’d love to do to her. All the things he knew he shouldn’t do with her.

  He saw the three women move away from the bar. Ewan looked in the direction they were headed, and all the blood rushed from his head straight to his cock.

  Quinn sat at a high-top table close to the stage. She was in all black. Tight black. Her hair was pulled up high in a messy knot atop her head, leaving her long, graceful neck bare. His eyes followed her profile, the gradual arch of her back, and along the round curve of her ass as she sat with her legs crossed on a stool. Her tight pants left nothing to the imagination.

  And Jesus, her shoes.

  Strapped to the bottoms of her long, tantalizing legs were the tallest fucking shoes he’d ever seen. Ewan didn’t really consider himself someone who gave a shit about fashion. But those shoes… Those shoes he definitely liked.

  When his hungry eyes traveled back up her body, he saw she was laughing.

  She wasn’t alone.

  A guy with a cocky grin was leaning against her table. His eyes shined as he spoke to her and got another smile out of Quinn. The fucker had trust fund written all over him. He wore khaki pants and a navy blue blazer with fucking elbow patches over a crisp white shirt that was so bright it hurt Ewan’s eyes.

  He scowled. This was the type of guy she probably went for. A pretty boy who took her for dinner at his country club. An asshole with an allowance from his parents who would buy her jewelry to celebrate their monthly dating anniversaries. He probably wore more hair gel in his brown hair than most women did, for fuck’s sake.

  The guy leaned toward Quinn and put his hand on her arm.

  Ewan felt his teeth protest as his jaw clenched. His stomach turned sour, and he had an overwhelming urge to walk across the room and put his fist through Richie Rich’s pretty face.

  The thought of another man touching her had him thinking all sorts of homicidal thoughts. God, when he’d kissed her in his apartment last weekend, it had seriously been better than some orgasms he’d had in the past. It was honestly that good.

  Her soft lips pursing against his mouth. Her breathy sighs.

  He quickly shook his head.

  Jesus, he needed to get laid. And by someone other than Quinn Adler. Or maybe he needed to fuck her so he could forget about her. But even as the thought swirled inside his head, he somehow didn’t quite believe it was possible. If he couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect her lips were, how was he going to ever survive fucking her?

  “I’ve got to admit, she’s a looker,” Sean said, leaning into him as he peered over in Quinn’s direction.

  Ewan gave him an icy glare. He and Sean had never competed for women in the past. Sean tended to go for the statuesque types who looked good on his arm but had nothing between their ears. Ewan used to prefer someone with a little more spirit who offered up a challenge. But his preferences in women had changed over the years.

  Maybe it wasn’t so much his preferences that had changed but more the type of women who were attracted to him. He’d hardened over time, and pretty girls who followed the rules didn’t often approach him.

  When he was younger, he’d chased girls. Now it was the other way around.

  Women usually made it easy for him. A whisper in his ear or a graze of a hand up his thigh to his dick was a pretty clear sign of what they wanted. The sex was instant gratification for him, albeit empty.

  But that was fine. That was the type of woman he had time for. Rough edges and completely transparent.

  He made it a point not to get mixed up with women in Ballagh. Any action he got was on his trips to the city to visit Sean. He liked the no-strings-attached ones who probably carried as much fucked-up baggage as he did.

  That was why this sudden fascination with Quinn was unusual for him. Maybe the earth had shifted infinitesimally or the lack of an ozone layer over the East Coast was getting to him, but it almost seemed impossible to get her off his mind.

  “So what’s your move?” Sean asked.

  Ewan watched as she bounced her long, lean leg under the high-top table. She laughed again at something Pretty Boy said.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Ewan shrugged. He wasn’t about to get into all the ways Quinn Adler had him twisted up.

  “You don’t have to resolve yourself to be miserable for the rest of
your life,” Sean said seriously. “You don’t have to marry her, for fuck’s sake. Just take her out for a drink or something. Have a little fun.”

  Ewan frowned. “You know me better than that.”

  “You’re a goddamn masochist is what you are.” Sean tossed back the rest of his drink and put his glass on the bar. “Let’s go over and say hello at least. Or will being polite ruin your image?”

  There was nothing polite about the things he wanted to do to Quinn.

  Chapter 9

  Quinn looked over her shoulder, wondering what was taking the girls so long. Turning back around, she smiled at Gavin, the nice art history professor who’d approached her the moment her friends had left to get drinks. At first she’d pegged him for a student because he looked young, but after he’d introduced himself, she totally saw that he had professor written all over him. He talked with an easy confidence, and his brown eyes danced with humor behind his dark-framed glasses. There was something quietly charming about the way he smiled.

  “Are you a graduate student here?” he asked.

  Quinn shook her head. “No. I’m from Pittsburgh. I’m visiting family for the summer.”

  “Ah, I see. I didn’t think you attended classes here. I definitely would have remembered you if I’d seen you before.” There was that lazy grin again. “So what do you do, Quinn from Pittsburgh?”

  “At the moment, not much of anything. I’d like to work in landscape design at some point though.”

  “So you like to play in the dirt, huh?”

  “Guilty,” she said as she shrugged.

  “So what would you say if I told you that if you were a flower, I’d pick you?”

  She blinked. “Um, I’d say that’s an incredibly bad pickup line?”

  “Noted,” he replied, smiling. “How about if you were an ear of corn, I’d shuck you all night on the back porch?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Getting worse.”

  “Darn. Okay, here’s one: you would be the perfect fruit of my labor.”

  “What does that even mean?” she said with a laugh.

  “I’ll have to work on those. How about I buy you a drink?”

  “Honestly, I’m good on the drinks, but if you would have started with that one, you would have been much better off.”

  He grinned, looking sheepish. He was charming in an innocent, try-too-hard sort of way. His witty and silly personality didn’t exactly match the very masculine persona he exuded. He had a Jake Gyllenhaal thing going on with his looks. If she’d been a student and showed up to her first day of class and saw this guy walk in, she would have had a major crush.

  She just wasn’t feeling the chemistry though. Why in the world would someone as nice and as charming as Gavin not do it for her while someone as ridiculously rude and unfriendly as Ewan make her heart pound?

  “So what do you think of Boston?” he asked.

  “It’s a nice city. I like the history here.”

  His smile brightened. “There’s nothing quite like it, really. I mean, if you’re a lover of American history, that is. Sure, Washington D.C. has all the monuments and museums, but the birth of our nation happened here.”

  She watched his eyes sparkle with excitement as he went on to point out some off-the-beaten-path sites that she should check out in her spare time. It was nice to hear someone speak with such passion. It had been a while since she’d spoken like that about something she was passionate about.

  “And of course,” he continued, putting his hand on her forearm, “since you’re a gardener, you need to check out the Boston Public Garden. This is the perfect time of year for it too.”

  She was about to tell him that she would definitely do that when Erin, Lisbeth, and Darcy finally made it back to the table.

  “Hello there,” Lisbeth purred at Gavin.

  He smiled awkwardly and nodded at the three of them before turning back to Quinn.

  “If you’re looking for someone to hit up any of those places, give me a call.” He handed her his business card with the Baxter University logo on top. “Hopefully I’ll hear from you, Quinn from Pittsburgh.” He winked at her before turning and giving her friends a quick nod of farewell. As she watched him disappear into the crowd, she found herself wishing for that little zing of excitement she used to get when someone showed interest in her.

  It just wasn’t there.

  “He’s yummy in a naughty principal sort of way,” Lisbeth said. “Wonder what he’s packing behind those pleated khakis.”

  “Jesus, you have no shame,” Darcy said.

  “What? I appreciate men is all.”

  Darcy rolled her eyes and mumbled something under her breath that Quinn couldn’t hear.

  “But seriously, you guys, does this dress make my ass look big?” Lisbeth asked as she tried to look over her shoulder at her own butt. Quinn had to stop herself from scoffing at how self-absorbed Lisbeth was.

  “Good God, Lisbeth. That dress barely covers your ass.”

  Darcy and Lisbeth bickered back and forth as they all waited for Rory’s band to start. The sun was hovering over the horizon, casting a warm, golden glow into the amazing lobby space. Quinn squinted out the windows and watched amber and yellow play on the ripples of the water not more than two blocks away. She wasn’t sure if it was the Charles River or the Boston Harbor, but it was pretty, whatever it was.

  “This building is super-fab and the view is killer, but whoever positioned this lobby should be drawn and quartered,” Darcy complained. “The sun is going to blind people for most of the year right at dusk. I know they wanted to take advantage of the view, but they could have positioned it slightly more to the south and avoided the eye-searing treatment.”

  Darcy raised her hand to block the glare as she surveyed the floor-to-ceiling windows. Quinn had learned earlier in the day that Darcy was an interior design student at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.

  Quinn liked the curvy brunette a lot. Darcy was a great buffer between the overly enthusiastic Erin and the pampered and pretentious Lisbeth. She also cussed like a sailor and drank whiskey like it ran through her veins. How the three of these women had become friends was anyone’s guess.

  Their weekend had started off with shopping in Boston, and it’d given new meaning to “shop till you drop.” Quinn had never been big on shopping, especially for dresses. She much preferred pants and definitely would pick a pair of old cutoffs over a flowery skirt any day.

  After they’d all checked into their hotel that morning, the day of torturous shopping had begun and hadn’t stopped until Erin had pulled Quinn into every dressing room in downtown Boston, flinging dresses at her left and right.

  After much pleading from Erin and the help of a very insistent boutique owner, Quinn had finally agreed to a pair of black skinny pants that were formfitting and sat low on her hips paired with a sheer top that made Quinn break out in hives. It was all black and fit Quinn’s torso and chest like a second skin. From waist to breast, she was covered (barely) in a solid spandex material. A sheer black fabric extended up into a crew neck and short capped sleeves.

  It looked like a figure-skating outfit, for Christ’s sake.

  Quinn didn’t think she had the body for it, but when her breasts were smashed into the tight top, they were pushed into soft swells just above the solid spandex. Feeling practically naked, she’d insisted on getting a sweater to cover her shoulders. She was now giving serious thought to ditching the sweater because the temperature inside the sunny, people-packed foyer was way too hot to be comfortable.

  To finish the ensemble off, she wore a pair of four-inch heels that were bound to make her turn an ankle at some point during the evening. They were all black with a closed toe. In her wildest dreams, Quinn never would have imagined herself wearing such shoes. Maybe after she was done wearing them she could give them to a thrift shop that catered to strippers.

  After a thousand assurances from the rest of the girls that she didn’t lo
ok like a hooker, Quinn had agreed to leave their hotel room and go to the grand opening. The two glasses of red wine that she’d had while getting ready certainly hadn’t hurt.

  It was funny what a little makeup and sexy clothes could do for a girl’s confidence. Quinn had to admit that her legs looked long and slim in the pants and the shoes did wonders for her butt.

  Lisbeth wore a dark green minidress with full sleeves. Darcy, with her lovely curves and raven hair, was snug in a long purple tunic and black leggings. And Erin’s porcelain skin glowed in an off-the-shoulder navy dress.

  The four of them made quite a pretty picture.

  “Let’s ditch this place and go to a club,” Lisbeth complained, twirling a strand of her blond hair around her finger.

  “The first set hasn’t even started yet!” Erin cried.

  Quinn frowned in confusion. “Are we seriously planning to go somewhere after this?”

  Lisbeth laughed. “Duh. There are no men here and the drinks are shit.”

  “I agree on the drinks,” Darcy chimed in. “What a cheap bunch of fuckers to have a cash bar. Good thing I filled up my purse with stuff from our hotel mini-fridge.” Darcy opened her purse and started handing out tiny bottles of liquor. Quinn waved her off, perfectly fine with the five-dollar beer Erin had just gotten for her.

  “Rum, vodka, and whiskey? That’s all you have?”

  “Sorry, Lisbeth,” Darcy said with saccharine sincerity. “The Holiday Inn Express must have been out of Dom Perignon.”

  Lisbeth rolled her eyes but stopped instantly when a good-looking college student approached the table. Rory’s band picked that moment to start tuning their instruments, so Quinn couldn’t hear any of what the younger man said to Lisbeth. But moments later, Lisbeth smiled sweetly at him, grabbed the rum and vodka bottles from Darcy’s purse, and gave them all a short finger wave as he led her toward the back of the room.

  “Bitch,” Darcy hissed, looking down into her near-empty bag.

  “I’m gonna go wish Rory good luck. I’ll be right back!” Erin slid off her high stool and disappeared into the crowd starting to herd toward the stage. Apparently Rory’s band was fairly well known in certain small circles in the Boston area. Erin described them as being a lot like Mumford & Sons. This gig was one of their higher-paying ones, so all the guys were taking it very seriously.