We both exhale the moment our lips touch, Brandon’s hands still steadfast on their mission to reach my center. His pinky finger brushes the lace of my thong and I moan, bucking my hips, ready for more.
Always ready for so much more of him.
And he delivers, slipping one finger under the lace when I lift my hips again, a ragged please escaping my lips. But before that finger can dip all the way inside me, before that void is filled, Brandon’s eyes widen at something behind me. He yanks his hand back like he’s touched fire, his face ashen, and when I glance over my shoulder, I regretfully understand why.
“Well, well, well,” Kimberly says, tongue pressing into her cheek as she glares at us with a satisfied grin. I thought I hated seeing that spiky hair and messy lipstick every morning, but it’s nothing compared to the sinking stone I feel in my gut looking at her now.
Shit.
She crosses her arms over her chest, casually leaning a hip against the door frame. “I would say I’m surprised, but I called this from day one.”
“Ms. Marks, it’s after hours. You shouldn’t—”
“I shouldn’t what, Mr. Church?” she asks defiantly, chin raised high. “Please, I’m dying to hear you tell me what I shouldn’t be doing right now.”
At first, I swear I see Brandon shrink in size, his shoulders deflating a little like he’s ready to accept defeat. But I know this man, and I know he doesn’t react to someone trying to exert power over him well.
Unless it’s me. And I’m naked.
“You shouldn’t assume things,” he finishes, standing.
As soon as he does, the power shifts, like the wind switching directions mid-storm. He stands so tall, so straight, his eyes on Kimberly like she just interrupted a meeting instead of walked in on him with his hand up my skirt.
“It’s late, it’s been a long week, and it’s Spring Break. You should go,” he says calmly, and I pull energy from him, straightening my shoulders and smiling at Kimberly like she has nothing on us, even though we both know we’re in deep shit. “And consider the consequences of your actions, or your words, should you choose to utilize either.”
Kimberly swallows, her confident stance weakened for a split second before she shakes her head, that wry grin back in place. “Oh, I will. Trust me when I say I will.” She snaps her menacing gaze to me next. “Your days are numbered, slut.”
She turns on the heel of her suede pumps, and damn it if she doesn’t keep the cocky swing in her walk all the way to the front office doors. When they close behind her, the relief I thought we’d find once she was gone isn’t there. In fact, the air is thicker, coated with a hot, wet heat like the Florida humidity — sticky and heavy and uncomfortable.
I just close my eyes, finally letting out a long, weighted breath.
“I’ll fire her.”
Brandon speaks first, his words punctuated and sure.
“I’ll fire her immediately, have her manager call her tomorrow and tell her not to come back after Spring Break.”
“You can’t fire her,” I say with a sigh, kneading my temples.
“I can, and I will.”
“No.” My voice is louder, eyes hard when I tilt my chin up to find his gaze. “That’s a law suit waiting to happen, Brandon. There are cameras, and logs of our key access into the building. She’d have too much against us, and then you’d really put your career — your business — in jeopardy.”
He shakes his head, frown firm. “I don’t care. She can’t take me down.”
“She could, if you fire her,” I quickly correct. “But if you just wait and let me handle this—”
“I can’t wait,” he says incredulously, dropping back into his chair with a huff. He reaches for my hands, pulling them into his own with his eyes locked on mine, brows bent. “Don’t you understand what this means, Ashlei? This could… this will ruin you. If she talks, if she tells anyone, you’re in danger. Me?” He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine. Even if you left, even if I had to submit to a slew of rumors or whatever, this is my business. I make the rules. Sleeping with the intern wouldn’t hurt me. Hell, the guys would high five me, and the women would probably ask where the line is to be next.”
The truth in his assessment stings like a slap to the face, and I swallow, nodding in agreement.
“That’s all true. You would be fine, but my name, my reputation would be damaged. I wouldn’t be able to stay here,” I say quickly. “And, if I left, I’d have to go somewhere far enough away that they don’t know about Okay, Cool… or what happened… is happening between us.”
“So, out of the southeastern United States,” he says gruffly, a curt shake of his head. “No. Absolutely not. We have to do something. I can’t let this… I can’t let her…” his voice fades, and he swallows hard. For the first time since his speech in Atlanta, emotion strangles him — all because he can’t bear the thought of me being hurt.
Am I allowed to swoon right now? Because… SWOON.
“I know,” I say, squeezing his hands. “I know. But, I think I have a plan.”
“You do?”
I nod, the thought still forming in my head, like a caterpillar wrapping itself in a cocoon.
“But, you have to trust me,” I say, forcing him to meet my eyes again. “And you have to wait.”
“Wait,” he says, already shaking his head again. “We can’t wait. She could run out and tell someone tonight. She could be telling someone right now.”
“She could, but she won’t. Kimberly is smart,” I say, believing it more when I say it. “And she’s calculated. She’s been waiting for this, to get something on me, to prove what she’s always suspected — and she’s not going to waste it as soon as she has it by just telling anyone who will listen. No, she’s going to sit on it, and she’s going to come up with the perfect time to take me down.”
“And when would that be?”
I swallow, almost smiling at the obviousness of my enemy. “The staff meeting on Monday. That’s when they’re announcing who the event coordinator is for the project we’ve been splitting. If it goes to me, which we both know it will, she’ll do it then.”
“Fuck!” Brandon runs his hands over his head, kicking back in his chair. “I hate this. I fucking hate this. I’m so, so sorry, Ashlei. I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off.
Brandon swallows, his eyes searching mine.
“Don’t tell me you shouldn’t have touched me, or kissed me, or made me feel the way you have. I’ve been happier in the past few months with you than I have the past few years before I knew you existed,” I admit, voice rough. “And I’m not letting some girl set on taking down a fellow female co-worker because of her own insecurities ruin that.”
For a moment he just watches me, his eyes softening as the left side of his mouth quirks up in a soft smile. He rolls closer to me, framing my cheeks in his hands and planting a long, sweet kiss on my lips.
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
He rests his forehead against mine as I smile, the heaviness gone if even for just a moment.
“Okay, I won’t fire her,” he concedes, as if that was still an option on the table. “What’s your plan?”
I don’t have the full answer to that question yet, but as it forms slowly in my mind, I see it playing out the way I want it to more and more clearly. It will take patience, and courage, and the timing has to be perfect. With one wrong move, or one mistake on my assumption of my opponent, everything I’ve worked for could go up in a dumpster fire.
“Simple,” I say, trying to convince myself of the same. “We beat her to the punch line.”
“HOW DO YOU LOOK like this,” I ask Becca, one hand sweeping over her ridiculous physique, “when you eat donuts like that.”
She bites off another hunk of the maple bacon donut she’s devouring, grinning at me as much as she can with her mouth still full. Her eyes are shielded by round sunglasses, straight out of the seventies just like everythin
g else about her, as we people watch on a bench in front of the fountain. I leave for the Spring Break cruise tomorrow, and it’s my last chance to see her before I go.
On a shrug, she licks the frosting off her fingers and swallows. “Donuts don’t count as calories.”
“Tell that to the gut you’re going to give me if I continue eating them with you.” I pat my stomach — still hard as stone under my t-shirt.
She laughs. “Whatever. Pretty sure you could eat twice as many donuts as I do and not workout for three weeks and you’d still have that six-pack.”
“What makes you think I have a six-pack under here?” I lift a brow. “Not like you’ve seen.”
“Not like I haven’t tried to see,” Becca counters with a sassy head swivel. She opens up wide for the last bite, wiping her hands together and sending dry glaze all over the cement beneath us.
I don’t have anything to retort to that. The fact that I’ve been dating Becca for almost two weeks now and we haven’t hooked up is a miracle. The fact that she’s wanted to and I’ve insisted we wait is a goddamn oxymoron. I’m Clinton Pennington — fucking is one of my favorite hobbies. But, everything feels different with Becca, and after Shawna, I know how fast different can turn into gut-wrenchingly painful.
“You’ll see it soon enough.”
“Mm-hmm,” she grumbles, clearly not convinced.
“You will,” I promise. “Trust me, I want to do…” I shake my head, eyes roaming down her body and back up again. She’s wearing a bright orange dress, modest at the top but so short I know just a few more inches would reveal everything I want to see. “So many inappropriate things to you. But, I’ve never done slow before,” I confess. “And, honestly, you’re the first girl I’ve wanted to try with.”
At that, Becca smiles, nudging me with her shoulder. She doesn’t lean away again, but stays close, her skin as warm against mine as the sunshine. “Don’t think saying cute shit like that is going to get you out of banging me for very long.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
“I mean it,” she continues, poking me in the chest. “I want the goods.”
“Oh, you’ll get them.”
She crinkles her nose, pressing up on the bench until her lips meet mine. That first touch is always overwhelming to every sense, and for a moment I’m paralyzed, just breathing and kissing the most beautiful girl in the world. Then, my hands find her hair, and I pull her closer, realizing again how much I don’t want to let her go — not even for a short cruise.
When she pulls back, Becca’s eyes catch on something behind me, and she cringes. “Damn, poor girl.”
I turn, searching the courtyard until I spot a girl with a mess of shit at her feet — books, pens, highlighters, planners, a Diet Coke can — the contents of that sprayed all over everything else on the ground. She huffs, letting her head fall back before dropping to her hands and knees. And when she does, she pulls her hair over one shoulder, and my heart squeezes painfully in my chest.
Erin.
“I know her,” I murmur, carefully maneuvering until my arm is out from behind Becca’s shoulders. I hop up, jogging over to where Erin is still retrieving everything that fell from her bag.
“I’m fine, I’ve got it,” she says before even looking up, but I bend down anyway, working on the pens and highlighters as she stacks the papers.
Erin huffs, grimacing a little as she falls from her knees to her hip, grimacing a little as her skin scrapes against the sidewalk.
“I said, I’m—”
She stops when she sees it’s me, a glimmer of something passing over her as she takes me in. Her eyes graze my shoulders, my chest, before they land on my own eyes.
“Fine?” I finish for her. “I know. Erin Xanders is the queen of fine.”
She narrows her eyes at first, but then she smirks, covering her face with her hands as I continue picking up her stuff. “Ugh,” she groans. “Is it Spring Break yet?”
I laugh. “Almost. Here,” I say, handing her everything I’ve gathered. She shoves it into her bag, picking up the last book and forcing it inside, too. When I’m standing again, I hold out a hand, helping her upright.
“Thank you.”
I nod, tucking my hands in my pockets. And then we’re just standing there — me staring at her, her staring at me, and all I want to do is ask every question she still hasn’t answered. I want to know if she’s gotten help, if she’s okay, if she’s even remotely close to the girl I once knew who looked like her and wore her name.
Something is wrong.
I know what Erin looks like when she’s hiding something, when she’s hurting — but this is different. This is something deeper, another scar, another permanent mark on her that she’s trying to learn to wear with the same grace as she does her others. The longer I watch her — the bags under her eyes, her nails chewed down to the nub, skin pale and slick — the more questions I have.
And she feels them.
Her cheeks flush, eyes skirting to the ground as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m fine, Bear. Really. You can stop looking at me like a charity case.”
“I’m looking at you like a friend,” I correct her. “Don’t expect me to ever stop doing that.”
She peeks up at me through her lashes, her brows bent, but then her gaze draws to my left.
“Hey,” Becca says, sliding up beside me. Her arm wraps under mine, hand folding over my bicep as she eyes Erin curiously. “Everything okay?”
“Actually, you might want to take a picture and mark the date and time,” I say. “Not very often you catch Erin Xanders anywhere outside the lines of perfect, poised, on time, and put together.”
Erin laughs, shaking her head before reaching her hand out for Becca. “Hi, I’m Erin.”
“Becca,” she answers, eyes finding me before resting back on Erin. “Did you guys used to date or something?”
“Oh, God, no,” Erin says quickly, and my jaw tenses, though I can’t place the discomfort.
We didn’t date, but she doesn’t have to say it so sure, like it’s impossible to fathom.
“Erin is the president of Kappa Kappa Sigma,” I explain. “We’re friends.”
“That’s the sorority you’re going on Spring Break with, right?”
“It is,” I confirm, noting that Erin can’t stop staring at Becca. Her eyes sweep over every inch, and she shifts, tucking the strap of her messenger bag back in place.
“Yep,” she echoes. “And I’m late for my last final, so I better be going. I’ll see you tomorrow, Bear.” She won’t meet my gaze, barely glancing at me before she’s smiling back at Becca. “It was nice to meet you.”
And then she turns, strutting off in the same hurried fashion she always has.
I watch her go, a frustrated sigh leaving my lips before I turn back to Becca. She has her weight balanced on one hip, arms crossed, and one brow cocked as she peers up at me.
“Just friends, huh?”
“It’s complicated,” I try. “I promise, we never dated. But, we did hook up. Once.”
“Hmm.”
But instead of diving more into whatever the hell Erin and I were — are? — I take the chance to tease Becca.
“Wait…” I stroke my chin with my fingers and thumb, grinning. “Are you jealous?”
She shoves me in lieu of an answer, already storming back to our bench, but I grab her from behind and lift, crushing her into me with a classic Bear hug from behind.
“Put me down!” She laughs, pounding her little fists on my forearms. “Ugh, you’re so infuriating.”
“But how turned on are you right now?” I whisper against the skin of her neck.
That just earns me another punch.
When we’re back on the bench, Becca tells me about her plans for the week, and I kiss her goodbye just a short hour later, wishing she was going to be on the boat taking me to the islands tomorrow. But on my walk back to the house, it’s another girl on my mind.
One who maybe never left it in the first place.
I’ll have a whole week with Erin on this cruise, and one thing I know for sure is I’m done playing this I’m fine, I promise game. This week, I’ll get her to talk. She’s gone long enough shoving everyone away, and I won’t stand back and watch her deteriorate any longer.
This time, she’ll let me in.
I won’t take no for an answer.
I HATE HIM.
I absolutely, without a doubt, whole-heartedly hate him.
Just standing within fifty feet of him now makes my jaw ache, my teeth are clenched so tight. Adam is laughing and smiling and goofing off with his brothers like he doesn’t have a care in the world. And maybe he doesn’t. Maybe, to him, everything is fine. Because to his knowledge, I’ve been “working on me,” and everything between us is just fine.
I laugh.
Sure, he’s assured me that there’s nothing between him and Skyler, that they’re just friends and he has no idea why she would ever say she had feelings for him. He’s assured me that he’s just trying to be there for her — as a friend — and there’s nothing to worry about.
Of course, I know the background behind why Skyler said what she did about still being in love with Adam. I know the real plan behind her actions, the real motive, fueled by Erin — but Adam doesn’t. And the fact that he still cares about her enough to run out of his own dance for her without even spending one full minute with me? Well, call me petty, but that hurts.
And no matter what he says, it’s not okay.
I’ve done all the “me” stuff I can stomach. I’ve done yoga, and spa days, and long evenings on my longboard cruising the campus. I’ve studied, aced my midterms, picked up meditation and even pinned more than thirty-five possibilities for cutting my hair this summer. I’m over it, the me time, and whether he thinks I’m ready or not — I want us time now.
If Adam wants me, if he cares about me the way he says he does, then time is up.
All the games end this week.
But first, I have to play my own.
My stomach churns a little as I watch him, playing over my sister’s words in my head. I called her yesterday, needing to talk to someone about Adam and actually use his name. The other girls still don’t know about me and Adam, but my sister? She’s a safe place.
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