Not In My Wildest Dreams
McKenna Series Book Two
Jamie Hollins
Dedication
To Gabriel, who was born sometime around
chapter twenty-two.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Not In My Wildest Dreams: McKenna Series Book Two
Copyright © 2017 by Jamie Hollins
All Rights Reserved
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9978380-2-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-9978380-3-9
Cover Design by Asha Hossain Design LLC
Copyediting by Blue Otter Editing
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Thanks goes to God, my family, and all my friends who have been incredibly supportive of my writing. A special acknowledgement goes to my brother, Kyle. Anytime I got into a bind with how Sean would react in a situation, I always thought to myself: What would Kyle do?
To Parvez and Gabe who have been so patient with me. Thanks for putting up with all my long hours in front of my laptop. I love you both gobs.
To my wonderful critique partner, Jenn. Thanks so much for all your help with this story. From brainstorming, to revisions, and everything in between. For all the advice, support, and encouragement. Thanks, most of all, for loving Sean just as much as I do (if not more!).
To Amy at Blue Otter Editing for lending your expertise.
To Asha at Asha Hossain Design for another gorgeous cover.
To Jason and Marina at Polgarus Studio for the formatting.
Finally to the readers. Thank you for giving me a chance. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Chapter 1
“Okay,” Darcy sighed. “Whose lame-ass question is this?”
She looked at the women at the table before resting her eyes conclusively on her roommate. Quinn scrunched her nose.
“What? Why are you looking at me? What’s the question?”
Darcy cleared her throat as she unfolded the tiny slip of white paper she’d pulled out of the mug in the middle of the table. “Who gave you ‘the sex talk’ and when?”
The rest of the girls giggled from behind their drinks.
“Okay, yeah, that was my question,” Quinn admitted. “And it’s not lame. It has the potential to be very embarrassing!”
Darcy shook her head. It was Friday night and it was their monthly Girls’ Night In. Darcy and Quinn, along with their friends, Jessi and Mallory, would spend the whole night drinking, watching horrible romantic comedies, and once they got tipsy enough, they’d play a game that they’d started referring to as the Dirty Dozen. They’d each come up with three questions, the naughtier the better, and they’d each take turns reading them to the group. Each girl had to answer but was allowed one pass.
Quinn’s idea of a naughty question was What color underwear do you have on?
She wasn’t a prude, but Quinn blushed quicker than anyone Darcy had ever met. Throw down a challenge to the girl, and she’d get Tiger Woods competitive. Insult her, her family, or her friends, and she’d go all Muhammad Ali on your ass. Start talking about kinky shit in front of her, and she’d get as red as a fire engine.
It made no sense to Darcy. Quinn was having more sex than all of them combined. She and Ewan McKenna had been burning up the sheets for the last year.
“All right, all right. This is an easy one,” Darcy started. “My grandma gave me the sex talk when I was thirteen. She sat me down and said, ‘Darcy, you’re a woman now. And sometimes women get the bright idea to start sleeping around with men. They take their clothes off and let the boys poke them with their lusty lances. It’s all over after that. Don’t be one of those women, Darcy.’ And that was the end of my sex talk.”
“Oh, my God! Lusty lances?” Jessi howled with laughter.
“That’s all she said? She didn’t give you the mechanics?” Quinn asked.
“I was thirteen. I already knew the goddamn mechanics.”
“My older sister gave me the sex talk,” Mallory chimed in. “She showed me how to put a condom on a cucumber. And to this day, I’ve yet to find a man who was as impressive as that cucumber.”
They all cracked up at Mallory’s expense. Darcy swirled the honey-colored whiskey in her glass before draining it.
“My mom gave me the sex talk when I was twelve,” Jessi put in. “It wasn’t that embarrassing. It was quick and painless, like ripping off a Band-Aid. She didn’t want to be having the talk any more than I did.”
“Same with me,” Quinn said. “My mom gave me the talk when I was around thirteen, I guess. It was awkward, because she went into detail about the actual act of having sex, but she kept it short.”
“Lame,” Darcy whispered teasingly to her roommate, who kicked her lightly under the table. “Okay, next question.”
Mallory dug her hand into the mug and pulled out the next question. Her eyes scanned the paper and she laughed.
“What is your preferred shape when shaving your pubic hair?”
Quinn spit her beer back into her glass, almost choking on it. “Darcy!”
“You first, Quinn,” Darcy smiled.
Quinn’s eyes were as big as saucers, the whites totally surrounding her light gray irises.
“Pass!”
“Figures,” Darcy teased. “Okay, I’ll go first again. I try to keep it mostly in a little triangle shape. But I trim it pretty short so it doesn’t get too out of control down there.”
Quinn was turning three shades of purple. Mallory and Jessi both laughed hysterically, covering their faces with their hands.
“You are shameless!” Quinn yelled, looking like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Who’s shameless?”
All heads turned to see Ewan and Sean McKenna walk through the front door. Darcy’s smile froze on her face as she stared at the two cousins who looked absolutely nothing alike. One was dark and one was fair. Both were tall, fit, and drop-dead gorgeous. Ewan was a usual suspect on the weekends. Sean, however, was not.
Damn, I’m not drunk enough to handle this.
“Darcy’s shameless,” Quinn said, now with a little grin on her face.
“Of course she is,” Sean said, smiling his million-dollar smile. “She’s Darcy,”
Nope. Definitely not drunk enough to deal with Sean McKenna.
That smile was one of Sean’s many highly effective and deadly weapons in his arsenal against the opposite sex. It had been eighteen years, and Darcy’s breath still caught every time she laid eyes on him. Strong, sculpted shoulders and a chest that narrowed into a lean and muscled abdomen.
No matter what he had on, his body looked amazing
. Long, toned legs, shapely ass. His list of sexy and virile attributes could go on and on.
Combine that list with his sunny blond hair and his nonstop sense of humor, and he was a one-man woman-eater. And she didn’t mean that as an innuendo, although she could guess it was fairly accurate if the rumors served him right.
He had the confidence and charisma to charm Mother Teresa’s panties off. He was just that good.
Not that Darcy knew what it was like for Sean to charm her panties off, even though she’d been dreaming about it ever since she’d met him on her first day of school in Ballagh, a sleepy village south of Boston. She’d seen all his tricks and moves. But only because she’d helplessly watched him work them on other girls.
Sean had been the reason several lucky girls had given up their hymens. Ironically, he was and remained to be the reason she still had hers.
Call it sad. Call it impossible. Call it an abomination. Darcy was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. It was hard to have a physical relationship when all she did was compare other men to Sean. She didn’t mean to do it. She just did.
And if that didn’t fucking split her heart in two, the fact that he considered her one of his best friends did the trick. No guy ever fucked his best gal pal. It was in the guy code of conduct or something.
Ewan pushed by his cousin, bent down, and gave Quinn a hard kiss on the lips before whispering something in her ear that made her giggle. His smile for his girlfriend was warm and made promises that told Darcy she’d likely need to sleep with the TV on. Not that they were ever loud when the darkly handsome and brooding Ewan was getting it on with her roommate. But Darcy didn’t want to risk hearing anything.
Quinn smiled up at him. “We’re almost done.”
“Done with what?” Sean asked, pulling up a chair to the table.
“We’re playing Dirty Dozen.” Mallory’s words were slightly slurred.
Sean looked over at her and raised his brows. “Dirty Dozen? Sounds scandalous. Do tell.”
Darcy noticed the way Sean’s eyes lit up. He would be the only guy she knew who would use a word like scandalous.
“We have to answer twelve questions,” Jessi answered him. “The naughtier the better.”
“Jesus,” Ewan muttered, shaking his head as he started toward the living room to watch TV.
“Naughty questions, huh?” Sean replied. “And why haven’t I been invited to join in on the fun before?”
“Because you don’t have a vagina,” Darcy deadpanned.
Sean twisted his lips at her and raised a brow.
“I have intimate knowledge of vaginas. That should count for something.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. Before she could tell Sean that no dicks were allowed at their Girls’ Night In, Jessi chimed in. “Of course you can play with us. It‘ll be fun to get a guy’s perspective.”
With the exception of Quinn, Darcy’s friends didn’t know about her feelings for Sean. Jessi and Mallory, no doubt, thought he was the hottest thing since Tabasco.
Pretty much everyone did.
Her friends had met him a few times over the years through parties someone or other had thrown. Sean very rarely ever came down to Providence, where Darcy had just finished her graduate degree and Quinn was still trudging through hers. He lived in Boston, where he had earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees, and was now partner in a general contracting firm.
“Okay, hit me,” Sean invited. “What’s this shameless question of Darcy’s?”
“What shape do you shave your pubic hair?” Darcy challenged. She should have known that he wouldn’t even bat an eye.
“Great question,” he immediately answered. “Personally, I just trim my pubes. However, if you want to know my preference for how a woman should shave hers—”
“We don’t,” Darcy quickly said.
“Yes, we do!” both Mallory and Jessi yelled at the same time.
Sean smiled at them both before continuing. “It’s gotta be tidy down there. Shaved is okay, but waxed is better. And it needs to have some shape. I think it’s unnatural for a woman to be completely bare. I personally prefer something I like to call the Martini Glass, right above the—” He stopped suddenly and frowned. “I should illustrate. Can I get a pen and paper?”
“No!” Darcy cut in.
Sean shrugged, clearly loving how uncomfortable she was.
“My turn to ask a question.” He reached in to pull out a piece of paper. Sean smiled as he read it to himself before turning that blinding grin on the rest of the table.
“God, this is a great game,” he laughed. “Okay, the question is: When, where, how, and to whom did you lose your virginity?”
All the blood seemed to drain from Darcy’s head.
She’d been surprised that this question hadn’t come up the first few times they’d played the Dirty Dozen. It wasn’t that she was trying to keep her virginity a secret. She just never talked about it. Why the hell did it have to come up now, when Sean was here, for Christ’s sake?
Fuck, she was nowhere near drunk enough for this.
###
“Who’s gonna start?” Sean asked the table. He looked to his left and saw Quinn had the deer-in-the-headlights look. Jessi and Mallory were both giggling into their beer mugs, and Darcy’s expression was completely blank. “Come on, girls, don’t be shy.”
“Twenty-one years old. My college dorm room. Ben Alexander,” Quinn blurted out in a single breath. She scooted her chair back and shot to her feet. “Anyone want a refill?”
Darcy was amazed. “You won’t tell us how you shave your pubic hair, yet you’re the first to tell us who punched your V-card?”
Quinn narrowed her eyes at Darcy, trying not to smile. “I didn’t answer your question because it was gross.”
Rolling her eyes, Darcy handed her empty glass to Quinn for a refill.
“You didn’t answer the how part of the question, Quinn,” Sean said, grinning widely at her.
“Shut the fuck up, Sean,” came Ewan’s gruff voice from the living room.
Sean laughed at his grumpy cousin. Figured he wouldn’t want his woman talking about how she’d lost her virginity. If he had to guess, Quinn was definitely the missionary type. Nothing wrong with that. ’Specially for the first time.
“Who’s next?” Sean looked around the table. “Jessi?”
The petite blonde twisted up her lips. “My first time was at seventeen with Matt Laney. I’d seriously crushed on him for a year. He asked me out, and we did it in the back seat of his Volvo in a restaurant parking lot.”
He raised his brows. Impressive. He wouldn’t have pegged her for the kind who put out on the first date. Not that he knew her all that well, but she seemed kinda quiet. It was the quiet ones you really had to watch out for.
Mallory looked beyond uncomfortable as his gaze moved to her. She was a busty woman with a round backside, something that Sean didn’t mind in the slightest. But she was a little too needy for his tastes.
“Okay, Mallory,” Sean teased. “Let’s hear it.”
“Ugh! It was awful. I was on vacation with my family in England when I was sixteen. I met this guy in the village near where we were staying. His name was Chet, and he was so nice and cute, and we met up a few days in a row. Finally, he put the moves on me, and I was so overwhelmed that I went along with it. We did it in the woods.” She scowled. “I got leaves and twigs stuck in my hair. And I’m pretty sure I got poison ivy on my ass.”
Sean gave a sympathetic nod but didn’t waste much time on what Mallory had just said because he was eager to move on to the next story.
Darcy Owens.
He’d known her since he was ten years old, and she was one of his best friends. Not the kind of friends who gabbed about their sex lives, mind you. But the solid kind. She was a familiar face who could always brighten his day by just being in the same room. She cracked him up with her dark sense of humor and her sailor’s mouth.
“All right, Darce, spill it,”
he said, giving her a salacious smile.
She stared straight at him with narrowed, distant eyes. Her pink pursed lips grew tight as she took a deep breath.
“Pass.”
“What?” the three other girls yelled simultaneously.
“You’ve never passed before!” Mallory exclaimed.
Darcy shrugged, looking indifferent.
“What’s this pass business?” Sean asked.
“Each time we play, we’re allowed one pass if we don’t want to answer the question,” Jessi explained.
“Oh, no, no, no. Darcy, you need to man up and answer the question,” he demanded.
“Tough.” Darcy raised her refilled whiskey glass to her lips.
“Is it because I know the guy?” Sean asked. “Was it Peter Collins? Jeffrey Bloom?”
“Jesus, no,” she scoffed in obvious disgust.
“Michael—what’s his name? The kid with the twitch in his right eye?”
“I did not fuck Michael Patton! And why do you keep naming people with criminal records? Do you think that’s as good as I can get?”
He shrugged at her. “You tell me, Darce.”
“You’re such an ass. I said pass. Move the fuck on.”
Damn it, she really wasn’t going to answer the question. Now he was badly intrigued. This little detail seemed like something he should definitely know about her. He couldn’t believe he’d never wondered about it before tonight.
It had to be someone he knew.
Growing up, they’d hung out in the same circle of friends. She’d gone to school dances with guys, but he’d forgotten who they were. In fact, he never really paid attention to who Darcy went out with at all.
He looked over at Quinn. “Do you know?”
Quinn shook her head. Even though she looked genuinely surprised at her roommate, she had to be lying. Darcy and Quinn were thick as thieves. Girls talked about that shit, right?
Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly as he leveled his gaze at Darcy. “Fine, have it your way, Darce. But I’ll find out. You better believe it.”
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