Disorderly Conduct (The Academy #1)

“No.” He looks down at me with a line between his eyebrows. “No, I came to help, but I’ve been watching you be incredible for hours. I see you. I smell you. I know what you feel like. You just got over your period, so I know you’re extra-hot for it, don’t I?” He lets out a breath against my temple. “I know what you need, cutie. I know.”

Maybe that remark about my period shouldn’t get me hotter, but oh boy, it does. I love that he paid attention. I love that he isn’t squeamish or afraid to talk about it. A man, not a boy. “I’m not going to stop dating.” There’s a hitch in the fluidity of how he’s moving me, dancing with me, but he recovers fast. “I’m sticking to my decision, Charlie, and . . .” My heart is way too much in play here, but I can’t say that out loud. Or maybe I should. It would scare him away once and for all, and I could focus on the future. There’s one problem, though. I’m not ready for him to go anywhere. “Thank you for the dance. Thank you for coming to help, but this is a bad idea,” I whisper. “Just friends.”

I catch a couple of disappointed faces as I leave Charlie’s arms and jog back toward the kitchen, getting there just as the timer goes off for my chocolate lava cakes. I’m the only one in the kitchen and it’s a good thing, because my knees are shaking. My palms are sweaty. But I’m not alone for long, everyone assembling downstairs to complete the dessert service. And when Charlie brushes behind me at the oven, his breath feathering along the back of my neck, I have a feeling tonight’s battle with my libido is far from over. Because I’m battling Charlie’s, too.





Charlie


Damn. I almost had her. She’s close to caving. I can tell by the way she’s watching me beneath her eyelashes, rubbing her palms down the sides of her skirt. Jack and Danika were sent home an hour ago, but I stayed behind to help Ever and Nina clean the kitchen. If I could just get alone with Ever, we could end the night with a new understanding. I know we could.

She keeps up her search for Prince Charming. I get her body in the meantime.

I’m totally cool with that.

Yeah right. I want to claw the fucking drywall down thinking about it. For a start.

At the moment, my only option is to make this agreement with Ever, then make sure she realizes Prince Charming is an illusion. I’m not just being selfish here. I truly believe she’s on a doomed mission. She’s going to get hurt or disappointed, and I want neither of those things for her. What we had together was fool proof, and she just needs a little nudge back into my corner.

It’s like Nina knows exactly what I’m thinking because she’s hovering around Ever like a mother hen, shooting daggers at me with her eyes. What is it with women? I want nothing more than to give her friend multiple orgasms, and she’s looking at me like I’m Scar from The Lion King and I sent Simba into the stampede.

I’m holding out hope, though, because Nina keeps checking her ringing cell phone and sharing eye rolls with Ever. It must be her scumbag ex-boyfriend. But scumbag status notwithstanding, it’s only a matter of time before she—

“I’m going to answer it,” Nina says, sending me into mental fist pumps. “Otherwise, he’s just going to keep calling.”

Ever looks concerned as Nina heads upstairs, her annoyed greeting ringing down the stairwell, and I calculate I’ve got about fifteen minutes maximum to make magic happen. I finish mopping the final corner of the kitchen and wheel the yellow bucket out of the way, aware that Ever is sending me anxious looks, like she knows the two of us alone spells trouble. That theory is confirmed a moment later when I come up behind her at the oven and she skates away, humming way too casually, and vanishes into the storage closet with a stack of pots.

I really need to bring my A-game here. When the winning move strikes me like a bolt of lightning, my blood heats in anticipation. Ever has a weakness. I just need to exploit it. Good thing her weakness is one of my strengths.

Ever is almost out of the closet when I appear in the entry . . . and I kick the door shut and just keep walking, forcing her to back up. She realizes she’s made an error—that much is clear. She starts to admonish me, all breathless-like. “Charlie Burns.” But just as fast as she tries to play it tough, she drops the strategy in favor of looking for a weapon. A rolling pin is what she comes up with and we both laugh a little, because it’s straight out of an old-timey cartoon. “What are you up to?”

“Just want to talk.” My voice betrays my lie. “Friends talk, don’t they, Ever?”

Throwing the F-word in her face was a mistake. Or was it? Because when she swings the rolling pin at my head, I stop her wrist in midair and use the opening to back her against the wall. “Your heart wasn’t in that swing.”

“You don’t know a single thing about my heart.”

I almost let go and walk straight out of the closet when she says that. Really, I do. Because she’s right. Mostly. After watching her cook and listening to her reasons for braving the dating world—her mother—I think I know some things about her heart. Not all, but some. Truth is, I . . . want to know more, but I have to exercise caution. I can’t know everything in her heart because that would make our relationship too serious. I don’t want serious.

I don’t want serious.

So why doesn’t that little hitch in her voice send me barreling out of the closet? Am I a complete bastard?

Does Ever want me to know everything in her heart?

No way. No, she knows I’m not the man for that. But since I’ve started overthinking her words in my head, her body has turned pliant against mine, her tits resting on my chest, shifting side to side with enough subtlety that I might have missed it if I wasn’t attuned to every fucking movement of her body. This is what she needs me for. Not some Prince Charming bullshit I could never pull off in a million years.

Why does it feel like I’m swallowing a handful of pennies?

“Charlie,” she whimpers, bringing me roaring back to here and now. “I can’t—”

“You know what I miss the most?” I curve my hands around her waist, sliding my thumbs inward to stroke her belly button. “That first lick of your bare pussy. It always let me know how much you’d been thinking of me. How hard you were going to let me fuck you.” My thumbs dip into the elastic waistband of her skirt, down, down, until they’re right at her panty line. “You were never less than soaked.” A slow press of my thumbs has her knees dipping. “Willing to bet you’re in that condition right about now.”

“Well, if I wasn’t . . .” Ever half breathes, half laughs with her eyes closed, “I am now.”