By the Book

by Scarlett Parrish

  Yes. I had. And afterward I’d been so turned on I’d stripped naked, kidded myself it was for the sole purpose of showering, then jacked off in the shower while thinking of him. Not her. Him.

  And that realization made me sit up, literally. My spine stiffened even if my resolve did not. “It’s all right if I fool around with another man as long as you’re there to see it?” I asked, not knowing if I wanted an affirmative reply or a negative one. Or maybe even a free pass to get it on with Daniel behind her back. A Get Into Daniel Free card.

  Fuck. An image of that tattoo, glistening with sweat, flashed through my mind, and I shuddered. I was with Georgia. Georgia. Had to keep myself present, no matter how bad I had it.

  I bit my lip. My reluctance to confess said it all. Georgia heard nothing but my relative silence, and it was deafening.

  “You did,” she said after a time. “You did.”

  “You did a hell of a lot more than kiss Sarah.”

  “Yes, because it was your birthday,” she spat, then held herself back, an incongruous flash of venom against the backdrop of serene holiness planted on an oasis of greenery. “We agreed beforehand. And you were there.”

  “I thought you wanted me to persuade Daniel to—”

  “Yes, but not…” Georgia looked all around us as if afraid we’d be overheard. Judged. Not that we were ashamed of our nonconventional relationship, but sometimes people could judge.

  I guessed we were safe in a sea of students who had more than likely acquainted themselves with some exotic herbs on the odd occasion and jumped into bed with a person or people they hardly knew. At least Georgia and I played sober, with people who were on the same page as we were.

  Or so I’d thought. Daniel had nursed a secret attraction to me, and now it was no longer a secret.

  “He kissed me.”

  “You didn’t have to enjoy it quite so much.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Confused and irritated, I tapped at the air between us with an accusatory finger. “You wanted me to bring Daniel in again. So you’re obviously attracted to him. When you found out he was”—I gulped—“attracted to me, that was okay as well. You were fine with us getting up close and personal. But when you find out he’d gotten a little too close? I don’t get it. I thought that was what you wanted?”

  “Yeah, while I was there.”

  “For you to get off on?” I asked. “You wouldn’t mind seeing me get it on with another man, as long as I didn’t enjoy it?”

  “You—”

  “Did you fake it with Sarah? Or were you genuinely enjoying it?”

  “That’s different. You were there.”

  I tutted and turned away from her, not angry, just confused. Something about this situation didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t work out if it was genuine irritation at Georgia or a pathetic attempt to deflect some of the culpability for this situation away from myself. “Look.” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

  “That hardly helps, Reece.”

  “Would you rather I got into bed with a guy—for you—if I thought he was entirely unattractive? How would that make me feel? Disgusted. That’s how.”

  “You’ve done it before, and you’ve never kissed… Have you?”

  “Never,” I confirmed in one easy word, shaking my head. “Never.”

  “Why Daniel?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” The silence between us grew even more deafening, and I had to break it. Had to. “I don’t know.” Momentarily I raised the palm of my free hand and could have laughed. Who the hell did I think I was supplicating? “It just… He…kissed me. And it just was.”

  “Well.” She sighed. A resigned sound, not at all pleasurable, but at least it wasn’t a pained groan or threatening growl. “The fact that it happened behind my back shows it couldn’t have been for my benefit, so if you two can’t control yourselves when you’re around each other…”

  “Jesus, Georgia, it was only a kiss—it’s not like we were humping each other’s fucking legs.”

  “And he said himself it’d only happen if he could…well, as you said. A free-for-all. He wants you. You want him.”

  “I—” My head jerked up, and I caught her eye again. Stopped when I saw resignation there.

  “And where does that leave me?” Her voice trailed away, and she shrugged, avoided my gaze for once, focused on something else. Anything but me. “Between the two of you, and not in a good way.”

  “We’ve both been with other people.”

  “But always with the other one present,” she said through gritted teeth. “Of either sex.”

  “I haven’t even been with—”

  “You’ve done enough to get a fucking boner for another guy.” Almost absentmindedly, Georgia saluted me with her water bottle. “Haven’t you?”

  I blinked against the memory of that damn shower. It had been him in my mind’s eye for sure. Not her.

  “Tell me this, Reece.” She screwed the bottle cap on and gathered her things together. Bottle in handbag, pockets zipped up, crisp packet scrunched up. A prelude to an exit, if I read the signs correctly. “If I wasn’t in the picture, how far would it have gone between you?”

  “What?” My brow tightened in a frown. And denial. I didn’t want to think about that. It fucking scared me. My experience of men was zilch, and the very thought scared me blind. “I don’t know. If you weren’t in the picture, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Okay, so we’re not the most conventional couple. But we have our own rules. And if you feel the need to go outside of us for whatever, you need to make up your mind.”

  “What? Georgia, you can’t just…”

  “You expect me to hang around and wait for you to decide?”

  “No. I thought you… You want him, don’t you? He—”

  “Let’s not do it then. Let’s stop playing.”

  “What?”

  “If it’s too much for us, we’ll stop here and now. I can do without him.” Georgia clutched her handbag in the last seated movement of someone trying to work up the courage to leave. “Can you?”

  “I…”

  “Up until now, I’ve been enough for you. Seems like that’s not the case anymore. I share, but not like that. Not if I’m no longer enough. You need to make up your mind.”

  “What, just like that? You send me to him, get pissed when he kisses me, and demand I choose which one of you I most want?”

  She stood, and my gaze followed her as she rose, rolling her shoulders. “If it was only a kiss, you shouldn’t have to think too long then.”

  “Georgia, this is—”

  “Do what the hell you like with him. Just get it out of your system. But I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to be part of a two-guy thing if I’m not the main attraction. Call me selfish, but that’s the way it is.” She held on to her damn handbag like it was a shield. More like a barrier. “But…”

  “But what?” I gulped. Whatever she said next had the potential to stab an icicle through me.

  “But I won’t compete with him.” She shrugged like we were discussing our shopping list rather than our relationship dynamic. “I don’t want both of you if this is how things are. And you can’t have both of us. I won’t compete.” And Georgia’s parting shot hurt. The icicle hurt. “You come back or stay gone.”

  Chapter Nine

  I craved Georgia and Daniel, craved a hell of a lot more than actually seeing them, but guilt kept me from both.

  Logic told me I’d done nothing wrong. Apart from kissing another man—but I’d stopped it before it went any further. And I hadn’t cheated on her.

  Not with my body anyway.

  Hell, I hadn’t so much as spoken to Daniel since the Kiss. A text here or there. An e-mail. A conversation though? No. Being in the same room as he was? Hell no. I hadn’t dared.

  And this went on for a couple of weeks. Me, waiting for Georgia to
get in touch to arrange the collection of some bits and pieces she’d left at my place. Me, pretending I wasn’t desperate for some trace of Daniel.

  Maybe he was being mature about this, giving me the space I needed to figure things out. I already knew what I desired, but was too damn chickenshit to do anything about it.

  Daniel blinked first, early on a Friday evening.

  I stared at DanX on my mobile screen as if not answering his call would ever be an option.

  “Daniel?” A request for clarification.

  “Reece?” Questioning, but not overmuch. Just ah, there you are.

  “Wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” I murmured. “Tonight, I mean.”

  “You hoped you’d be able to hide behind empty texts until I faded away?” He laughed, softening the impact of the accusation.

  Not that it had hit the mark. Me, want Daniel to fade away? Never.

  “You should know by now, Hutton. Me and boring are as far apart as night and day. I’ve just been biding my time.”

  “For?”

  He took a deep breath. “Letting things blow over.” He knew about the split. Hadn’t texted back with any invasive questions. Typically masculine in his attitude to the news, he’d typed out That sucks, man. and left it at that. “I figured if I made my move too soon, you’d think I was less of a gentleman than I may at first appear.”

  I shook my head slowly, laughing under my breath. Daniel was so blatant, so shameless at times, that his determination to use every available opportunity to flirt was endearing rather than offensive. “Your move?”

  “Let’s face it, Hutton, I’m Daniel Fucking Cross. Everything I do makes it look like I’m putting the moves on someone. I can’t help myself. So I thought it best to remove myself from your aura for a bit, just to let your blood pressure return to normal.”

  “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

  “I get that a lot. So, say yes.”

  “Yes? To what?”

  “I don’t need to ask the question. If I’m involved, you’ll like it.”

  “Daniel…”

  “If you insist. I know this is a bit last minute, but I figured there was no harm in calling you, especially after all this time. Well…” He cleared his throat. “A couple of weeks, whatever. I have a tradition on a Friday night. If I have nothing else on, I go to the cinema. Call it a writer’s quirk. I love soaking up the fruits of others’ creativity. Anyway, I usually go on my own, but you’re welcome to join me. If you want. I just thought…”

  “I don’t know.” Shut up, Hutton. Shut. Up. This is the sign you were waiting for. Daniel blinked first. Blink. Back. “I wouldn’t want to…” Yes, you would.

  “You’d get out of the house. Unless you already have something planned?”

  “No, I don’t,” I blurted out.

  “And you don’t have to say anything ‘cause we’ll be watching a movie. Win-win. You’re not one of those annoying people who talks all the way through, are you?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” And so it seemed I had agreed.

  “Good. Cinema’s only at the end of my street. That was why I bought this place, actually. Perfect for a writer, if you ask me. So you want to meet me at the cinema or here?”

  “At the cinema’s fine.” An evening with Daniel, fine. More than fine. Being alone in his apartment with him? That was an inch too far over the arbitrary line I’d drawn in my imagination. Not yet. Not yet.

  “There’s one condition. I have to warn you.”

  “Oh?” What now?

  “You buy the popcorn.”

  * * *

  Daniel asked if a new action thriller was okay with me, but I wasn’t bothered. I would have been willing to watch a damn chick flick if it got me out of the house and kept me with Daniel, but guns and car chases seemed like a pretty good way to pass a few hours.

  “You didn’t have to buy the popcorn, you know.” He grinned as we took our seats. In the center of the back row, which he claimed gave the best view in the house, adding, “Though sometimes it depends what you’re looking at.”

  The look in his eyes made me shudder, no matter how much I tried to convince myself it was down to a reflection from the dim screening-room lights.

  “Fine, I’ll keep it to myself.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” At close quarters, even with the spotlights above us being of such low wattage, I couldn’t miss the dimple when he grinned. “I’m hungry. I don’t think you understand the life of a writer, Reece.” Leaning on the mutual rest between our seats, he cocked his head in my direction, gave me puppy-dog eyes. “How hard it gets.”

  I stared for a second, but the look on his face and the images in my own head got too much for me. The movie couldn’t start soon enough as far as I was concerned.

  I’d thought I needed to distract myself from Georgia, but my entire right side thrummed with the electricity proximity to Daniel brought, tingling on the surface of my skin.

  Distracting yourself from Georgia with Daniel? What the fuck were you thinking, Hutton? Talk about out of the frying pan…

  The curtains across the screen swished back, and knowing the spotlights were about to fade out completely, I cast a final sideways glance at Daniel. Hardly moving an inch, he looked back at me, and my last image of him before inky blackness took over was a sly, heavy-lidded wink that said, I see you.

  The trailers went on forever, and I flitted between wanting the movie to start and not. The sooner the film got under way, the closer we’d be to leaving the cinema, and I’d be able to breathe again.

  But as uncomfortable as it was to sit this close to Daniel and not be able to touch him, it was a delicious discomfort. This way I got to be with him, but the enforced restraint meant I didn’t risk making a fool of myself. If I didn’t touch him, he couldn’t tell me not to.

  Despite everything that had passed between us, despite my self-consciousness whenever he was around, despite my heightened state of awareness just being in his aura, I still felt I shouldn’t want this. But I did. I wanted to be near him, but any closer than “close” would short-circuit something in my brain and wipe out all ability to speak or touch.

  Or kiss.

  He shifted in his seat, instantly making me hyperaware of him again.

  The movie was entertaining. I thought. My judgment would have been fairer had I been able to remember more than a few lines here and there. But I was more aware of the man beside me than any image on the screen in front.

  Especially when Daniel leaned in to me, as he occasionally did, to whisper the odd comment about the film. Given his dislike of talking in cinemas, I assumed he was only doing it to wind me up.

  And it worked.

  “Hey.” He touched my arm briefly to get my attention, and I wondered if he realized he already had it.

  I turned my head to him, and breath jarred in my throat. At that exact moment, light flashed on-screen to illuminate every contour of his face: his cheekbone, the arch of his eyebrow, the quietly confident smirk.

  Oh yes. He knew.

  I couldn’t take my damn eyes off him.

  “I think…” The closer he leaned in, the warmer his breath was on my skin. “You have something I want.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah.” And just like that, his entire demeanor changed from flirtatious to playful. “The popcorn.”

  “The…?”

  “God, yeah, I’m craving something tasty. What? Not gonna share?”

  I wet my lips, but it wasn’t enough to enable me to speak properly. My entire throat was dry. “Here,” I croaked, reaching for the popcorn carton balanced between my legs.

  He laid a hand on my arm. “No, it’s all right. I’ve got it.” Without taking his eyes off me, he reached for the carton.

  Although I couldn’t see him in great detail, every time light flashed on the screen, his face lit up and there was something intensely erotic about the way his cheeks hollowed when he sucked on the piece of popcorn. Th
e twist to his lips as he chewed and swallowed. And all the damn time, he stared at me. If I saw correctly, his gaze occasionally flitted down to my mouth but stayed mostly fixed on my eyes.

  “Mmm,” he murmured, only just loud enough for me to hear above the soundtrack. “Tasty.” He licked his lips, I was sure to draw my attention, and it worked. His bottom lip was fuller than his top and made me think all sorts of—

  He moved his hand again and I flinched, but it was only going for the carton I still held. “Here.” He waited a beat. “Why don’t you try some?”

  My lips parted in shock, and he took the opportunity to hold the popcorn to my mouth, use his forefinger to push it past my lips and onto my tongue.

  Trying to hold on to the popcorn meant my lips pursed around his finger as he pulled it back.

  “Addictive, isn’t it?” he asked with another damn wink. “You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help yourself.”

  Shaking myself back to life, I tried to take in the film, but no matter how I shifted in my seat, leaned back, crossed one ankle over the other knee, fidgeted, nothing worked. Because Daniel was always sitting next to me. Whispering from time to time or adjusting his posture so I’d think he was leaning over to me and then not. Straightening his cuff or crossing a leg over the opposite knee, leaning back in his seat, hogging the armrest.

  At one point I hypnotized myself by staring at the silhouette of his hand hanging off the end of the armrest, not pale but certainly less dark than the absence of light around it. The hand I wanted curved round my neck as the other stroked my—

  Clearing my throat, I jerked upright in my chair and tried not to look like someone who’d just allowed his mind to run away with itself.

  Daniel lifted his arm off the rest, held a finger to his mouth contemplatively. “You okay?” he asked without leaning in.

  “Yeah, sure.” I paused to see if the lie clanged as loudly against the near darkness as it did against my conscience.

  “Hey.” He moved his hand away from his face as a casual gesture, I thought, and somehow managed to hook a finger round one of my own. “You’re jumpy.” One finger became two became his hand became a gentle squeeze, which to anyone else may have felt reassuring, but with me? My pulse rocketed. Even when he lowered his hand—our hands.