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T W E N T Y
- Quinn -
I couldn’t go through with it. She was too perfect, her hopes for me too high. Her kisses too sweet. I hated closing myself off to her like that, but I knew if I touched her body—if I smelled her skin—it would be game over.
It wasn’t like me to tread so cautiously, but this situation was foreign, and I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Not only was she technically off-limits, but I’d never lived with a woman, and I didn’t want things getting weird or intense overnight.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t just her body I wanted to devour. I already knew it wouldn’t be enough to have her soft lips wrapped around my cock or her tight pussy clenched around me. I wanted more than that from her. I wanted to know what made her tick, what made her laugh, what she dreamt about at night and what she was afraid of. I wanted to know what she thought about when she was in the shower or waiting in line or shooting clay pigeons. I wanted to download her entire world into my brain and spend my days figuring out where I could do a little DIY to make her life easier. I wanted to keep her left dimple like a goddamn pet.
And all those intense feelings scared the shit out of me. Because I knew I couldn’t just fuck her out of my system, knew there was no amount of time that would cure my desire for her. It was bad enough to fall for a woman when you were a stoic asshole who didn’t know the first thing about relationships, but the fact that she was my best friend’s little sister meant the stakes were so fucking high I got vertigo every time I thought about them.
Yes, I wanted to fuck her, but what I wanted most was to not hurt her. And that was a tough one because I’d hurt every woman I’d ever been with. There were no exceptions. Despite what a miserably private jerk I was, every woman I’d ever had a relationship with had fought me when I tried to end it. Every. Single. One.
Usually there were tears, which freaked me out because I’d never learned to deal with them. I’d also had scissors taken to my clothes and bedding. One girl even threatened to kill herself if I left her, which I found extremely disturbing…though not disturbing enough to try and work things out. Fortunately, she hadn’t gone through with it. According to Facebook, she married her first rebound and was living in Naperville with her second kid on the way. Thank fuck for that.
The point was, I didn’t know if my brand of aloofness attracted crazy women or if they went crazy from dating me, but I had no interest in being the bad guy in Maddy’s life. Yet to be good to her, I had to be bad to James, and he’d been like a brother to me the last few years. Which meant a lot considering I was an only child whose only living family member was entirely devoid of compassion and perspective.
Even now, as my dad spoke from the other side of his oversized mahogany desk, it was obvious that he was going to be cutthroat until the day he died. I knew it was impressive how fast he’d grown the business, knew it was a big deal that we were the biggest agency in the Midwest. Personally, though, I liked it better when we were half this size, when our focus was on making athletes’ dreams come true as opposed to seeing how many million-dollar contracts we could line our pockets with.
Maybe that made me a pussy. Or a bad agent. Lord knows it made me a fish out of water around here. But the more we grew, the less proud I was to be a part of his operation, which was fucked up because the business was his entire legacy. He’d dedicated his life to it, and he’d taken me along for the ride, just like he promised he would when I started working for him at sixteen.
But the novelty of cold calling families across the Midwest, scouting high school football games, and going cross-eyed from internalizing different players’ stats day in and day out had worn off. And I didn’t know how to tell him that because I was afraid it would murder whatever scrap of a connection we had left.
My phone buzzed in the folder on my lap, and I peeked at the screen. “Sorry,” I said, standing to excuse myself. “I have to take this.” My dad and his CFO both stared at me like they were dying to know who the fuck had more right to my attention than them. “It’s Reggie Wallace.”
My dad’s bushy salt and pepper brows inched together like two furry caterpillars. “Remind me?”
“The kid from Indianapolis with the fire free throw record.”
He waved me away and I bowed my head slightly, more out of habit than anything.
“James—hey,” I said after closing the door to the conference room. “How’s the rainy side of the pond treating you?”
He laughed. “It’s drizzly all right, but when the girls in the office show up with wet hair and dewy cheeks, I can’t say I mind.”
“Oh jeez. I forgot about your wet hair fetish.” My mind flashed back to the calendar I gave him for Christmas two years ago. It featured a new Sports Illustrated model every month of the year, and I swear he was more aroused by the women’s messy beach hair than the way their nipples poked through their bikinis. “Are you all settled in and cheerio-ing your way up and down the Tower Bridge yet or what?”
“Not trying to lose my Chicago accent, bro. The chicks out here dig the sound of my hard A’s.”
My stomach churned when he called me bro. If only he knew the inappropriate thoughts I’d been having about “our sister.” Ugh. “Sounds like you’re not doing any work at all.”
“Oh, I’m working all right. But once I leave the office, everything feels so shiny and new. I’m right in the heart of downtown, too, so it’s more like being in a postcard than a London grime song.”
“Small mercies,” I said, closing myself in my office. “What’s your place like?”
“Tiny,” he said. “From the fridge to the sinks to the bedroom. If I hadn’t researched the cost of living here before I came, I’d think my company was trying to pull one over on me.”
“That’s good to hear. Wouldn’t want things to be so great you’re not ready to leave in six months.”
“Aww. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you missed me.”
“But you do know better,” I joked.
“What about you?” he asked. “How are things going with your new roommate?”
“Fine.” I felt like a fraud as I sank into my leather desk chair. “Maddy’s super chill.”
“Told you. How’s her internship going?”
