Like a Boss (Accidentally Viral)

by Anne Harper

  “I’m serious,” she whispered. “This whole place has already been rocking. I might want the journey, but that doesn’t mean I want to go down with the ship.”

  Quinn took one hand and ran it along her side. Instead of going over her panties and continuing down to her thigh, he went beneath the silk.

  Then adjusted course.

  Nell’s breath caught.

  It, like the rest of her, was driving him the best kind of crazy.

  “Hey. When the house starts a’ rocking…” He lowered his lips to hers but didn’t touch them yet. “…Don’t come a’ knocking.”

  Nell’s chest was rising up and down faster than before. If Quinn wasn’t already as hard as a damn tree he would have definitely grown at seeing how much he affected her.

  “Th-That doesn’t even answer my—”

  Quinn moved his fingers around, interrupting whatever it was she was about to say. Instead a moan escaped between her lips as he picked up the pace.

  Whatever playful, talkative interim they’d found themselves in was over. There was no more lead-up. Now they were headed for the actual show.

  Quinn kept up with the motions until she let out a moan that moved through her entire body. He almost followed suit. Nell moving her hands down to his boxers and tugging certainly didn’t help.

  “I want you inside of me,” she whispered. “Now.”

  Quinn wasn’t about to argue.

  He rolled over to follow instructions while Nell bucked her last vestige of clothing clear off. She reached for the condom wrapper and then ripped the foil open just as he became as naked as naked could be.

  That’s when they heard the dirt crunch out in the driveway.

  Nell froze, wrapper in hand, and turned toward the front of the house. Her eyes were so wide it almost looked painful.

  Quinn followed her gaze, head tilting like a dog trying to place a foreign noise.

  Who the hell would be at his house unannounced on a Saturday afternoon? Nell so far had been the only guest who he’d had there since moving to town.

  Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.

  “Shit.”

  Quinn jumped off the bed and dance-walked his way to the front door. He locked it before moving to the window over the kitchen sink. His phone started to buzz on the counter. Now he was almost certain who he was about to see when he moved the blinds apart to look outside.

  Still, it was a kick to the mood to actually see her.

  “What?” Nell called from the bed. Naked Nell. Nell who, he was sure, was about to freak out.

  “Well. It looks like you’re about to meet my son.” Quinn sighed. “And my ex-wife.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nell had no idea who Quinn was talking to on the phone. There was no time to listen, no time to ask, no time to even wonder.

  All there was time for was Nell to become a superhero.

  One who could leap between rooftops, move at the speed of light, and find her clothes and get dressed before the villain could do any real damage to the city.

  Not that she was thinking of Quinn’s ex-wife as a villain trying to destroy a city. She just didn’t have the time to come up with a really good metaphor, since she had just orgasmed less than two minutes ago.

  She might as well have been drunk for all of the coordination and sense she currently was possessing.

  Quinn ended his call after she managed to shimmy back into her jeans, skintight and sexy as hell but now she realized a huge mistake—she’d like to see Batman try to slip into them post-almost-sex—and went back out to the living area to find her blessed bra. He held it up to her with a blank expression.

  “I asked Deborah to give me a minute before coming in. She didn’t want to walk into anything, so she called.”

  Nell swiped her bra and made a strangled noise.

  “Oh my God. This is not how I wanted to meet Owen or your ex. Does she know someone is in here with you?”

  “I didn’t specifically say it. Wait. You wanted to meet my ex?” Quinn was back in the bedroom. Again, Nell didn’t have the time to deal with him. Not when she was rebuilding an outfit she’d put together earlier with the hopes it would make the man horny.

  Not something to meet his son in!

  “I mean, I just assumed I would at some point and I wanted to make a nice impression.” She pulled her blouse over her head and hurried to the mirror next to the bathroom. Hot mess was a generous description. “Oh my God! I look worse than the time I tried to pretend I hadn’t been making out with Alex Kant in the closet at Olly’s eighteenth birthday party! There’s no way we can pretend we were doing anything but getting it on!”

  Quinn had the nerve to laugh.

  “But we didn’t actually get it on.”

  If the man had been next to her, she might have slapped at him for his calm tone.

  “Parts of you were inside of me, Quinn,” she hissed. “That’s enough to look guilty as hell for.”

  The man who was about to live through the phrase catching these hands moved into the doorway, pulling on his shirt.

  “Owen is smart, but he’s not up to speed on that kind of stuff yet. As long as we don’t spell it out for him, we’ll be fine.”

  “And what about your ex?”

  Quinn looked Nell up and down and then at the general mess they had made with pillows, blankets, and the bedsheets. His expression only confirmed her fear.

  Quinn’s ex-wife was about to know that she’d interrupted him having sex.

  It was all too cringey for Nell, which was saying something.

  Nope. I’m out.

  She went to the window and peeked between the blinds. Deborah was sitting in the driver’s seat talking to Owen. Her car was next to Nell’s, which was directly in front of the house.

  “First impressions are incredibly hard to get over. This will not be mine,” Nell declared.

  She went to the window over the couch and had it open before Quinn could put together what she was doing.

  Then his amused expression went to disbelief.

  “Are you escaping?”

  Nell turned around, swiped her purse, gave him a peck on the lips, and then had her leg over the window ledge.

  “I’m giving myself another chance to make an awkward first impression. Call me later!”

  Quinn started to say something else, but Nell was in superhero mode again. Screw saving the city from the villain. It was time to save her own ass by running into the woods and hoping no one saw her.

  All in a day’s work.

  After twenty minutes of light jogging and fast walking, Nell wouldn’t say she was mortified.

  She wouldn’t say she was flying easy breezy, either.

  Yet…she had run from Quinn’s tiny house and full tilt into the woods, almost all the way to the bay even, before she realized something super crucial to escaping.

  She’d left her car parked out front.

  Normally, that would be what best friends and family were for, right?

  Well, Tally’s phone had gone to voicemail. Jones’s phone was off. Leon and Liere didn’t answer, Olly was doing a work thing, and Mateo had already been drinking with his buddies. If she hadn’t just run from Quinn’s house, she would have called him for another round of their shenanigans, too, but that was how she’d wound up there in the first place.

  Quinn shenanigans.

  Nell might have kept going through her contact list looking for someone who wasn’t keen on spreading gossip or trying to earn some kind of fame online, but even she knew that some situations were a little too wild for outsiders she didn’t trust.

  So, when in doubt, she called her mom.

  Who, despite her daughter’s request to come alone, thought to bring her dad.

  “Mom, I said this extraction was a private thi
ng. You know, for your eyes only,” Nell whined as she slid into the back seat. “Not a bring your husband along to work kind of thing.”

  David Bennett laughed from the driver’s seat. He was wearing a look that was uniquely him. The short-sleeved shirt covered in bananas Olly had gotten him for Father’s Day, a Bob’s Burgers hat Mateo had given him for his birthday, and a pair of retro sunglasses that Nell had once told him he needed to lose because, along with his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair and his mustache, they made him look like a man that was typecast into shows about stalkers.

  “Her husband is your dad, just so you remember,” he greeted. “And this fine lady next to me is my wife. When you two are up to something I like to be a part of it.”

  Marta Bennett turned around in her seat. She was more sensibly dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, her dark mass of hair pulled back with a red handkerchief.

  “And you know how much I hate to drive,” she added to the defense. “Plus, you know me and your father. We’re a team. Especially when we have to come out into the middle of nowhere to pick up our youngest daughter.”

  Nell groaned. A sound that traveled from her frustration, through her embarrassment, and then all the way into her toes. She motioned to the dirt road they’d driven down to get to her. It was parallel to the main road and didn’t share a drive with Quinn’s house. Which was convenient, considering the alternative had been to trek to the main road, looking like a hitchhiker with big hair and bad decisions.

  “Well then let’s get going, Team Bennett,” she rushed. “I would like not to be seen by anyone I know.”

  Her father followed the directive with a little too much zest. He saluted her and then did a questionable U-turn as soon as the door was closed. It earned a soft hit on the shoulder from his wife who, Nell did know, wasn’t a fan of driving or riding, least of all when her dad was trying to be funny.

  “You know, I’m pretty sure you’ve said that to us before.” Her dad adopted a high-pitched voice he often used to tease his daughters and pointed them toward the main road. “Drop me off here, Dad. I don’t want anyone to see me riding around with the likes of you. You old fart.”

  “I never called you an old-anything, so calm down and just drive.”

  Nell rolled her eyes, which probably didn’t help the case her dad was making. Her mother, though, was less distracted. She circled back to the blaring topic at hand.

  “Put your seat belt on, Antonella.” Her voice was pure maternal authority. “And then tell me why we had to stop watching The Witcher to come out here and get you.”

  Nell’s father quieted. While they were co-parents in every aspect of their children’s lives, there was one truth that still reigned supreme within their family.

  When Marta Bennett used that voice, you did exactly as she said. No jokes. No guff. Just full on attention or you risked her dropping the hammer.

  The terrifying tone, ice-cold stare, and the knowledge that a grudge was being formed. One that would outlive everyone involved.

  “Nothing bad happened,” Nell started, giving in. “It was just an awkward situation and I kind of panicked and left my car.”

  “Left your car?” That made her father’s humor drop a bit. “Where? Do we need to go get it?”

  Nell could already picture driving up to Quinn’s house and having her first impression with his family be her showing up with her own family. Her parents.

  “Hi, Owen and Deborah! I’m the crazy lady you might have seen running into the woods. Here are my parents. Quinn and I almost had sex just now. It was lovely to meet you. I hope you enjoy your time in Arbor Bay.”

  It all made Nell cringe so hard that she legit felt it in her butt.

  “It’s at a friend’s house. Not that far from here. We definitely don’t need to go back. I can get it from him later.”

  “Him?” Team Bennett was nothing if not in-sync. They said the one syllable at the same time.

  “A friend.” Nell sighed. She plopped her head against the glass of the window. “We were hanging out and his ex showed up and I wasn’t ready to meet her so I literally leaped from a window and ran like a crazy person to avoid it all. I don’t think she saw me but I’m definitely not going back to see if she did. I’d rather walk home from here than do all of that.”

  Silence filled the car. Nell knew without looking that her parents were using their special brand of married telepathy to have a conversation. Despite the awkwardness of it, it was probably better her parents were there instead of her siblings. The Bennetts were all differing levels of intrusive. If Liere had been the one to pick Nell up, she wouldn’t allow silence of any length to stretch between them. Not until she had all the answers and was satisfied with them. Olly would have been only a little better. Leon and Mateo? Silently judgy and loud and judgy, respectively. Then they would all talk to each other to fill everyone in on what had happened.

  At least her mom and dad had the decency to respect their children’s privacy.

  Well, more like there was a fifty-fifty chance they wouldn’t blab.

  Small blessings, I suppose.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nell waited for some kind of interrogation for a few minutes before she finally sighed.

  “Come at me, guys,” she said, defeated. “Say whatever it is I can feel you not saying.”

  Her father laughed. Then cleared his throat.

  “You know, now that you’re older, I think it’s finally okay to tell you how I really met your mother.” Nell tore her gaze from outside of the car to the rearview mirror. Her father was looking straight ahead at the road but there was a small smile across his lips. Her mother was looking at him, already humored by something. They were holding hands over the center console.

  “What do you mean? I thought y’all met at a faculty party when Dad first started working at the college?”

  They shared a look.

  “That was the PG version,” he said. “Though we did officially meet at the holiday party. Before that we actually had an, as Olly likes to say, ‘spicy’ run-in first.” Nell’s mother sighed. Not only did Nell look like her mom, but even their exasperation sounded the same. Her father chuckled and continued. “The first time I laid eyes on your mother we were at a bar, she was very inebriated, and when I was on the way to the bathroom, also very inebriated, she grabbed me and kissed me like there was no tomorrow.”

  “What?” Nell leaned as far forward as the seat belt would let her. She put her index finger between them then pointed to her mother. “You’re talking about this mom? The same one who nearly gave me an intervention when I threw up in the backyard after my twenty-first?”

  The woman in question swatted her hand away. She was smiling, though.

  “Yep. That mom right there,” he continued. “There I was just minding my own business out with a few of the guys and then bam she attacked.”

  Her mom elaborated with a touch of defensiveness thrown in.

  “It was a dare,” she said. “I was there for a bachelorette party for your aunt Paula and, you know how she is, if there’s an excuse for tequila, then everyone has a reason to drink it. I was already a lightweight anyways so it didn’t take long for me to agree to her dare to ‘get freaky.’ After that I grabbed the first guy I saw.”

  Nell’s dad laughed.

  “Never have I been so thankful for tequila and a full bladder.”

  “So Mom drunkenly attacks your face at a bar and that’s it? Right?” Nell was starting to get that icky feeling kids got when they saw their parents make out. “No more details your daughter should hear?”

  They shared another look that clearly said she was going to make a face at the answer.

  “This is why we go with the PG story,” her dad said. “Making out while both of us were drunk and having a quickie in the back seat of my roommate’s car isn’t a story you like to tel
l your five kids over the dinner table.”

  Nell sat back in the seat and shook her head. She made a face. It only made her parents laugh more. Her dad was the first to recover.

  “But you want to know what my favorite part of the story is?” he asked.

  “Don’t make me put my fingers in my ears and sing,” Nell warned.

  He shook his head.

  “My favorite part is that when we were drunkenly saying goodnight, your mother refused to give me her name or her number. So I watched her leave thinking I’d never see her again.” Nell watched as her mother’s face softened in profile. “But then, two months later, I walked into a Christmas party and there she was. Sober, cautious, and committed to avoiding me.”

  Nell instantly thought of Quinn. Sure, there hadn’t been tequila involved, but there had been mashed potatoes, a Polaroid picture, and a kiss. Then Quinn had hightailed it away without any attempt at reconnecting.

  Only they had.

  And now?

  Now they’d officially crossed the line of just friends.

  Nell found the similarities to be oddly cheering with another Nell-sized dose of panic thrown in. She shouldn’t have run into the woods. Though, even if she hadn’t, Nell doubted they would have had the talk.

  The talk about them.

  The talk that said exactly what Quinn wanted.

  Nell’s father, unaware of the turmoil in his daughter, pulled his wife’s hand over and planted a soft kiss on it. For her entire life, Nell had seen them do this. No matter what it was Nell was feeling, the sight would always make her smile.

  “Luckily for you kids, your father eventually wore me down,” her mother added.

  “A one-night stand for the books.”

  Nell shook her head in mock disgust again—that is what kids do when their parents reference sex, after all—and met her mother’s gaze as she turned around in her seat.

  “The moral of the story—”

  “Besides the general warning about drinking tequila?” Nell interrupted with a smirk.