I looked over at the door when I heard a knock. I was sitting on a stool, watching an old episode of New Girl on my laptop and eating leftover pizza, and after seeing Zooey Deschanel look so damned adorable, I’d pulled out my makeup bag and attempted to re-create her look.
It hadn’t worked.
I had on bright red lipstick that looked kind of good but super trampy, like I was the kind of woman who would eat a Popsicle hyper-sexually in an obnoxious attempt to arouse all the menfolk. My eyes were lined in black and I had the wings, but I looked more like I should be in an eighties rock video than an adorable show with Nick Miller.
To make it worse, I was wearing my old softball pants because I saw them in the box and remembered how comfortable they were and wanted to see if they still fit.
“Who is it?” I stood and tried gauging how long it would take for me to sprint up to the loft and change my pants really fast. Colin had said he wasn’t coming by, and no one besides my brother and Dana even knew where I lived.
“It’s Colin.”
Of course it is. “If you’ve come looking for gratitudial favors, just keep walking.”
“I brought bedding.”
I undid the locks and opened the door a crack, leaving on the chain. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans and—holy shit—those glasses. It was like he was trying to look like a hot nerd or something. I said, “Bedding for my bed?”
He tilted his head. “What else would I bring bedding for?”
Dear Lord. “Hang on.”
I shut the door and started undoing the chain. “You need to promise not to say anything about the way I look.”
“This should be good.”
I pulled the door open, and his face immediately split into a wide grin. “Well, what do we have here?”
“Bite me.”
He walked into the apartment with an armful of bedding, his eyes all over me as he grinned like I was a moron. “What is this, though? Like . . . Cher meets Taylor Swift . . . ?”
“Cher?” I grabbed the pile from his hands and set them on the island. “What part of this says Cher?”
He put his lips together as if trying to stop himself from smiling. “I just thought all the makeup and . . .”
He gestured to my hair and face.
“Whatever.” I put my hands on my hips and tried for the cool I would surely exude if I weren’t wearing softball pants and a Coors Extra bro tank. “So do you want to see it?”
He gave a little laugh and his eyes dipped over me, but this time I felt it. This time it was flirty, not mocking. “Oh, yeah.”
There was a lot in his oh, yeah, but I chose to ignore it. “Grab the beer out of the fridge and you can come help me make the bed.”
I didn’t even look at his face as I grabbed the stack of sheets and went upstairs. I hadn’t meant it to sound suggestive and had no idea why I’d invited him to help me make my bed. What the hell even was that? Thankfully he had no comment, and I heard the refrigerator open, so I knew he was actually obeying.
When we got upstairs, I was a little embarrassed that there was an empty beer can on the floor beside the bed and an open box of Froot Loops. I was tempted to kick them into the closet, but it’s not like my bad habits were any secret to Colin.
I set the stack of sheets on the half wall that overlooked the rest of the apartment, and ran my hand over the pristine whiteness of the fabric. “Oh, my God, Beck, are these sheets linen?”
He emerged from the last stair and—oh, mama—his handsomeness took the air out of my lungs. Something about those tortoiseshell glasses on the bridge of that strong nose really worked for me.
“So what?”
That made me smile. “So you’re such a diva, Beck.”
His mouth was firm but his eyes were amused. “It’s summer, Liv—linen is perfect. Light and breathable so you don’t get hot, but they feel heavier than a traditional sheet. You’ll love them.”
I knew he was right, because I’d lied; when he’d gone to Boston, I had slept under his covers. I hadn’t known it was because of the sheets, but I’d been enamored with the feel of the cool bedding on my skin. “I promise to return them after I buy some.”
I’d ordered a sofa and a TV from Amazon earlier in the day, so why not add bedding? I had a stable job now, after all.
“Consider them a gift. I washed them after I bought the set, but they’ve never been used.”
“Um, thanks.” I unfolded the bottom sheet—of course Colin had folded it perfectly—and shook it out. “But I’m still not sure why you’re doing these nice things for me. It’s so unlike you that I’m a little terrified.”
“First of all, it’s not unlike me. I’m a super-nice guy.”
“Except to me.”
“Granted.” He stepped over and grabbed an end, pulling the sheet toward the bed. “Second of all, this is my insurance policy that you never return. If all it takes is a mattress and a sheet and you’re forever out of the nest, it’s a tiny price to pay.”
“See?” I moved with him toward the bed, holding my end and being a little distracted by the sight of us doing such an intimate, domestic thing together. “That’s exactly what I needed to make myself not feel guilty about being a charity case. You’re actually kind of being a jackass by buying me a luxurious bed just like yours, then.”
“It is not just like mine,” he muttered, tucking his side under his corner of the mattress, “it is a much cheaper version.”
“Sure it is.” I tucked the sheet around my corner of the mattress, then moved down toward the foot of the bed with sheet in hand.
“Believe what you want, Marshall.”
“Oh, I will, Beck.”
He grabbed the top sheet from the stack and shook it out while I cracked open a beer. I watched in amusement as he not only laid it over the mattress but went around the bed four times, straightening the sheet and tucking in all the corners.
It was so white and crisp that it looked like a hotel bed.
Then he tossed a pillow on the mattress and just stood back to survey his work.
“Thank you so much.” I couldn’t be nonchalant anymore because my heart was overflowing with warmth for Colin. “I don’t care if getting my irritating ass out of your apartment was the reason. This is like the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
He swallowed and I was transfixed by the sight of his throat moving. Such a solid, tan, masculine column of neck.
“Everyone deserves presents sometimes.”
“Wow.” I blinked. “I hadn’t expected that to come out of your mouth.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I grabbed the beer and started down the stairs. “You just don’t strike me as the gift-giving sort.”
“You calling me cheap?” He followed me down, his voice right behind me. “What the hell is that?”
“Not cheap,” I said, setting the beer on the island and turning to face him. “Just a little too cerebral to think of thoughtful gifts.”
Just like that we were close. He took another step, bringing us even closer. “I’ll have you know that I am an amazing gift giver.”
“Is this where you’re going to tell me what an amazing lover you are? Spare me the orgasm count, Beck.”
That made him smile, but it was a slow one that started in a naughty look and turned up to full-on sexy. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“But you know I’m a numbers guy.”
“Come on, Beck, don’t.”
He gave a little chuckle. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“But we both know.”
“The number?”
“The sheer possibilities of my numbers.”
Now I was giving the chuckle. “I think I need another beer.”
His hot blue eyes just stayed on me for a minute, pinning me in place as we both let our minds drift to a sexual place. But then he cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to take off and let you get to your bed.”
“Thanks.” Disappointment slithered through me. I hadn’t consciously known I’d wanted this sexual tension to go somewhere, but I was full-on bummed that he was leaving. I smiled and said, “I guess you really didn’t get the bed so we could bang one out.”
His jaw clenched before he turned and walked over to the front door, seeming in a sudden rush to get out of there. I followed him, and just as he put his hand on the doorknob he said, looking back at me, “You and me, Liv? We wouldn’t need a bed.”
My eyes were on his, the rest of everything falling away. “No, we wouldn’t.”
His hand gripped the door handle. “But that would be a terrible idea.”
“The worst.”
The air was so electrified that it felt like we were panting as we watched each other. He said, “I should go.”
“You should.”
He turned, pulled open the door and I heard myself say, “Unless.”
Colin slammed it shut and turned around. “Unless . . . ?”
I shrugged and stepped forward, suddenly fully committed to this terrible decision. “Unless we were to lay down some ground rules.”
“Like?” He took his own step forward and his lips were just above mine, his eyes so heavy lidded and intense that it was almost intimidating.
“Like, um,” I started as his teeth nipped at my bottom lip, making my breathing choppy, “this means nothing, no strings, no one ever knows it happened, and no weirdness.”
“Fuck, I love your rules.”
“And,” I said as we kind of started kissing around our conversation, moving back into the apartment, “no romance.”
“Genius.” He put his big hands under my ass and picked me up, and I happily wrapped my legs around his waist. “God, I’ve been dying to eat off your red lipstick since I got here.”
“If you’re wearing those sex-nerd glasses, you’re welcome to eat whatever you want.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges. “Pervert.”
“Maybe.” He started full-on kissing me then, with all the power of his tongue and teeth and lips and breath. My hands went up to his thick hair, and all ten fingers sunk in.
“By the way,” he breathed, lifting his mouth off mine, “your polyester baseball pants are like the biggest fucking aphrodisiac.”
“Shut up, you ass, I didn’t expect—”
“I’m so serious, Livvie, you don’t even know.”
His words made me glow on the inside, and I licked at the corner of his mouth as I reached for the bottom of his shirt.
“I thought you hated my abs.”
“Shut up and help me.”
He carried me over to the island and set me down, and I was almost breathless in anticipation as he grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. Yes, I’d seen his chest before, but I’d never been able to ogle out in the open. I stared up at him through sleepy eyes and said, “Oh, my God.”
He was defined to the nth degree, his body all tanned skin and hidden strength.
“Gross, right?”
I nodded and whispered reverently, “So, so disgusting.”
I ran my hands up his pecs, and then things ignited. It was like we both got greedy for everything we weren’t doing yet. I pulled off my shirt and he was toeing off his shoes, and then his hands were unsnapping and mine were unbuckling.
As opposed to some drawn-out exploration of each other’s bodies, this was a race to the main event. We needed to feel and had no time to spare for half measures like foreplay. Hands were everywhere. Mouths were fused and unwilling to part.
I whispered into his mouth, intending to say, Are we sure about this? but instead saying, “Condom,” to which he muttered something in the affirmative that required his hands to go rummaging while I continued sexually dominating his mouth with my own.
Could a person die from this? I felt like I was going to die as my heart raced and my breath hitched and my every molecule was buzzing with electricity and writhing and attuned only to Colin Beck. He grunted when I used my heels to pull him closer to me, and he cursed into my ear when I bit his shoulder.
And then—finally—he was there, hot and tense and so unbelievably right inside me that I unintentionally dug my nails into his shoulder blades. I’d always thought the fingernail thing was cliché, but in that moment, I was physically incapable of retracting my claws.
I forced my eyes to stay open so I could look at him. His nostrils were flared and his jaw was clenched, those rowdy eyes glued to mine as his body made me feel unbelievable things. It was so unreal—so deliciously good—that the kitchen, the apartment, and the entire world disappeared. Time dropped away as we caught fire on the granite countertop, and I wasn’t sure if seconds or hours passed as Colin made me burn. My entire existence was right there, where we were together, and nothing else mattered.
“Oh, holy fuck, yes, Liv,” Colin rasped as he breathed against my mouth, “Come on—”
I said through gritted teeth, “Don’t rush me.”
Which made him chuckle and growl into my ear, “I would never rush you, Marshall. Take all the time you need, because I could stay in here for fucking ever.”
His words sent me tumbling, which clearly affected Colin because he groaned something that sounded a lot like holyshitmotherfuckingfuck into the space between my neck and shoulder and squeezed my ass so hard I was sure there’d be marks.
When he finally lifted his head, he gave me a crooked grin. “Did we just christen your new kitchen?”
“We did.” I grabbed my shirt from where it was dangling on the faucet and said, “Someday, when my mother swings by without calling first and sets her purse on this very spot, I will smile, knowing just how upset this scenario would make her.”
Colin
What in the holy shit have I just done?
I opened Olivia’s fridge and grabbed one of the three remaining cans of beer from moving night and tried to stay cool, but the truth was that I was freaking the hell out.
I had sex with Olivia Marshall.
I had sex with Olivia, Jack’s annoying little baby sister.
What had I been thinking? Jack was going to kill me, and it was the absolute right thing to do. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole. I’d been determined to not come down and see her new bed, but somehow, after work, my dick had convinced my brain that I could drop off bedding and then just leave.
Idiot move right there.
As soon as Olivia came out of the bathroom, I was going to convince her we’d made a huge mistake, beg her to keep quiet, and get the hell out of there.
Shit.
Maybe I should move. To another country.
I was mid-chug when she came out and I nearly choked.
Because . . . shit.
She was wearing just her tank top, which hit right at the top of her thighs, and her long, dark hair was a mess. She absolutely looked like she’d just climbed out of bed, and she kind of took my breath away, especially when she gave me a total Olivia smirk.
“We need to talk, Beck. Let’s get some air.” She turned her back to me and walked toward the living room, so I dutifully followed. I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt as I forced my eyes to stay up, looking at the back of her head—instead of her perfect ass—as she walked.
“I’m glad you said it,” I muttered, trailing after her as she opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the dark balcony.
As I closed the door behind me, she leaned on the railing and looked out at the city. I denied my discipline and let my eyes dip, but it was too dark to really see anything other than the curve of her backside.
Shit.
“I don’t know what we were thinking in there,” she said, her voice a little gruff in the darkness, “but I’m sure we both agree that it was a huge mistake.”
I sat down on the deck chair that’d come with the apartment and said, “Agreed.”
“I’m sure we also agree that Jack can never know what happened.”
“Never.” The sound of a car horn honked from below, and I crossed my arms over my chest and wondered how she wasn’t freezing out there. It was an unseasonably cool night, yet she stood there in panties and a tank top as if it were a hot summer’s night.
“Good.” She cleared her throat and turned around, a smile on her lips as the light from inside her apartment shined on her face. “So, um, you should probably take off now so we can put this mistake behind us.”
For some reason, the smile pissed me off. Even though I’d been planning on saying to her exactly what she’d said to me, the way she was grinning and telling me to leave just hit wrong. So I said, “I could take off right now, but I don’t know if I feel like it.”
“What?” Her eyebrows slammed together like I knew they would.
I tilted my head and let my eyes stroll all over her. Shit, shit, shit—not too smart. “Think about it. The mistake has already been made—we had sex. So . . . if we were to have sex again on the same night, it still counts for the same mistake.”
She blinked fast, like she was thinking, and she crossed her arms. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Are you saying each time counts, then?”
“Yes.” She stacked one foot on top of the other and stood like a flamingo, which was somehow hot.
“So if we were to go up to your loft right now and have sex four times and then decided to come clean, you’re saying we’d have to tell your brother, ‘Hey, we had sex four times’ instead of ‘oops, we had sex.’ ”
She rolled her eyes but I could tell she wanted to smile. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“So you concede my point.”
“Kind of.” She did smile then, shaking her head a little. “I agree that sexual mistakes are probably on a per session basis, as opposed to per orgasm, but that still doesn’t mean—”
“Come here, Marshall.” She was only about two steps away from of me, but it wasn’t close enough. “You’re too far away.”
Her smile changed, slid into something sexy as she dropped her arms to her sides and closed the gap between us. Except she kept coming, stepping in between my spread knees so I had to look up at her.
“So here’s what I’m thinking.” I put my hands on her waist and squeezed, and then—holy shit—Olivia climbed onto my lap like it was totally natural.
“Lay it on me.”
I was done. Any indecision was gone as she smiled and teased me. I said, “If this is our one and only ‘session,’ aren’t we cheating ourselves by not showing our best work? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really liked our counter work—”
“As did I.”
“But I have more to offer. I’ve got some skills I’d like to showcase.”
That made her laugh. She crinkled her nose and said, “So basically you want to make sure I know just how good you are before we never do this again.”
“Exactly.” It was tough not to laugh, too, when she was looking at me like that. “Don’t you? Or maybe you don’t have skills . . .”
She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I have skills.”
“I don’t think I believe you.”
“Really, Beck?”
She leaned closer and whispered something so incredibly dirty into my ear that my fingers reflexively tightened on her back. I didn’t know if she could do that with her tongue or not, but I was all in on finding out.
“Son of a bitch, Marshall.” I stood, threw her over my shoulder in a fireman’s hold, and opened the door. “Let’s go.”
She squealed my name.
“That’s right—say it,” I said around a laugh as I smacked her squirming ass and headed for the loft, which made her cackle.
One thing about Olivia that I’d forgotten before she came back to town was that she was always fun. Whether she was falling on her face or being a brat, she’d been quick to laugh since the day I first met her. I still remembered that I’d gone home with my school friend Jack, and his weirdo little sister followed us around the entire time singing songs from Annie. To this day I could hear her howling out the damned words to “Maybe.”
But as someone who grew up in a very serious family, I found her laugh a little addictive.
I charged up the steps, and when we got to her room, I dumped her on the bed. She was giggling, wild hair everywhere, and then she leaned up on her elbows, cocking an eyebrow. “Ready to show me those skills?”
She was all legs and tank top and sexual promise, and I had no idea how I would ever see her the same again. The smell of her perfume, the green hue of her eyes, the tilt of her pink mouth; it all worked together to destroy me.
“Born ready, sunshine.” I climbed onto the bed, crawling up her body on my hands and knees.
When her eyes were right under mine, she blinked up at me and swallowed.
She had less bravado than she let on.
I remembered her texts to Mr. Wrong Number about only wanting it fast and furious; did the slow burn of intimacy scare her? Her long-lashed gaze pulled me in, and I think I muttered something like God help me before I lowered my head and kissed her, a hot, slow kiss that shot fire all the way through my body as she wrapped her arms around my neck and moaned into my mouth.
I kept at it, feeding her slow intensity while wondering why it mattered that she was letting me. With every long-drawn-out scorch of a kiss, I felt like I was winning something by her wanton participation.
Closed eyes, deep sighing breaths—damn.
I didn’t want to push my luck, though.
“Marshall.” I pulled back and watched as her emerald eyes fluttered open.
“Hmmm?” She smiled up at me with an unfocused gaze and moved her hands up to the back of my hair.
“Quit distracting me with slow kisses.” I bit down on her lower lip and grabbed her ass in both hands. “I’ve got skills to showcase.”
“It’s about time,” she said, breaking into a wide smile and giving my hair a tug before reaching between us to grab the hem of her shirt and pulling it up and over her head. “I was falling asleep.”
“Is that right?” I touched her then, and she gasped out a breathy “Well, I was about to.”
It turned explosive, with the few items of clothing we’d had on dissipating in an instant. The long kisses turned into a frenzied meeting of mouths—teeth and lips and tongues, crashing, dragging, biting as we flipped all over her new bed, our bodies fitting together so fucking perfectly that I swear to God I lost my hearing for a few minutes.
Everything disappeared but the urgent electricity crackling through that loft.
“That’s a nice move,” she bit out as I drove her a little higher up on the mattress.
“You like that?” I nipped her neck with my teeth and did it again, earning me a fingernail scrape down my back before she sunk all ten claws into my ass.
“Definitely a solid maneuver,” she panted.
“Thanks,” I managed, but it was taking every bit of my control to hold back. “I got you, Liv.”
She let her head fall back as she moved with me, absolutely unaware of how mind-fuckingly perfect her skills were. I wanted to tell her, but I’d lost the ability to do anything but grit my teeth and hold on for the ride.
