Disorderly Conduct (The Academy #1)

“She has excellent vision,” Jack supplies.

“Okay,” I breathe, bracing my hands on my knees. My brain is barely capable of functioning because it’s melting. Ever on a date. A real date. And I don’t think I can physically let it happen. I completely underestimated my ability to watch her go on dates from the sidelines, just being her supportive friend. No. Fuck supportive. I’m going to be sick. “Please. I need your help. Both of you.”

Jack elbows Danika in the side. “Run this kind of information by me first next time.”

“No way. I was the voice of reason last time.” She rubs her hands together. “Tonight, I’m up for a little nefariousness.”

I’m already heading for the locker room. “Let’s move.”





Ever


I’m on a date. A date date. Like, a buzzer isn’t going to make this guy switch tables in five minutes. Yesterday, while in the Laundromat folding my unmentionables, I’d felt someone’s eyes on me and turned around to see Landon sending me side-eye peeks. Landon is in his early thirties. An investment banker with almost freakishly light-colored eyelashes. He’d been folding ten versions of the same shirt and for that very reason, Landon is not a man I would typically approach. He’s a full-blown commitment guy, right down to being on a first-name basis with the Laundromat owner. I mean, we sat down ten minutes ago, and he’s already showed me pictures of his niece on his phone. This is a man with family on the brain.

Maybe I should be easing into the whole idea of lifelong relationships, but I’ve never been the kind to dip my toe into the water. My friend wants to start a catering company? I become a cook. My mother spooks me about a lifetime of solitude? I ask a Wall Street–type out for tapas and beer.

Would she be proud of me, my mother, if she could see me right now? I’m smiling and saying all the right things. I think. One of us poses a question, the other answers. Then we pause to look down at our menus. That seems about normal. But it’s impossible not to picture Charlie across from me. How easy that conversation would be. I wouldn’t be racking my brain for topics, they would just appear.

Charlie and I hit the ground running at the outset. I might have given him my standard three-question mistress test, but no one had ever responded like him. Or made the test seem almost . . . obsolete. Like we were clicking on some unseen level that went beyond the test. Not just a physical click, either. But that part had definitely come after we left the bar, stronger than anything in my memory . . .

Charlie kicks my apartment door shut behind him, shaking the rain from his hair like a playful dog, sending droplets everywhere and making me laugh. But my amusement is cut off by his low growl, his slow approach, the chest he reveals by stripping off his shirt. Rain smacks off the windows of my pitch-black apartment, thunder booming, lightning slashing and illuminating for a second here. A second there.

There’s something I’m supposed to do here. What is it? What—

“Ground rules,” I eke out, my bottom hitting the windowsill in the living room. “W-we should probably talk about those.”

A line appears between his eyes as he unbuckles his belt. “Agreed.”

I’ve done this before, and the words are supposed to roll off my tongue. Charlie seems to have tied said tongue together, though, and his zipper coming down, his jeans sluffing onto my floor only makes it worse. His thighs. They’re cut and thick and hairy. Are his thighs commanding the thunder? Calm down, girl. You got this. “No pasts, no futures.” I hold my breath while he unsnaps my overalls and lifts my shirt, uncovering my strapless bra. “No gifts or birthday cards. Totally casual, no expectations.”

His breathing has turned erratic, his palms lifting my breasts, massaging them. “Deal.” My bra is unsnapped, dropped to the ground. “No dates or meeting the friends and family. Just us. Whenever we need it.”

“Yes,” I breathe, the back of my head bumping off the windowpane. “No need for all the pretend concern or asking about each other’s day. Just . . . easy. Just like this, right?”

A pause. “Right.” I didn’t hear a note of doubt in his tone, did I? No. No, I’m projecting, because for the first time, I’m feeling a smidgen of it myself . . . it’ll go away. It’s just jitters over liking how he talks, how he moves, how he smiles and—I’ve never felt this weight deep down in my stomach before. This is a bad idea.

I haven’t even mentioned my one-month rule. Am I going to?

Charlie slides the overalls down my hips, leaning in to lock our mouths together, erasing my reservations a little more with each expert stroke. He hooks a finger in my panties, tugging the waistband down to reveal the most intimate part of me, where I’ve left it waxed and lotioned. For me, not because I’d planned to bring someone home. But I’m glad I made an effort. It’s worth it a million times when he curses, low and rough, a vibration thrumming through his body and pushing out into the air separating us. “Jesus. I’m going to need this a lot, Ever.” He shoves down his briefs and fists his heavy cock. “Be sure about this. Be sure you don’t need . . . more than sex. Because I think you’re fucking great, but I can’t give you—”

“Shhh.” I can feel his frown against my forehead, his conflict as he applies the condom, and I don’t want his guilt. There’s no need for it. He might be one of the good ones, but this noncommitment is exactly what he wants. What every man—and this woman—wants deep down, right? So I peel my panties the remaining distance down my legs, using a kiss to draw him forward while I wrap my legs around his hips. “I want you inside me,” I whisper, my voice shaking. I’m shaking. “Charlie—”

With a surrendering groan, he slides his smooth tip through my wetness a few times and shoves deep, a choked sound rending the air. Was it me or him? I don’t know. My sight winks out, my mouth dropping open. Oh God. Too good, too good, too . . . right.

Charlie groans my name and yanks me off the windowsill, thrusting his hips up while I use his shoulders for leverage and slap, slap, slap my hips up and down. “Ever, this is bad. This is bad. Bad, bad.” Lightning shoots through the room, and I see how tightly his eyes are closed, his expression of half-disbelief, half-pleasure. I ride harder, he pumps into me with more and more feverish intensity. “This isn’t happening,” he rasps. “You can’t be happening.”

We break at the same time and Charlie’s knees hit the floor, but he manages to hold on to me as he moans like a wild animal. My arms are tempted to creep around his neck, my satisfied body wanting to get as close to its savior as possible, but I can’t set that precedent. Ground rules. We have them. I helped set them.