Disorderly Conduct (The Academy #1)

I need to get rid of him before I attempt to find out.

“Look, it’s a long story and I don’t want to bore you,” I say, trying to fill the wake of silence. “Suffice it to say, someone very close to me pulled a Ghost of Mistresses Future and showed me what life could be like if I didn’t give relationships a fair shake.” My throat starts to hurt, thinking of my mother’s distress. “I don’t want to be left thinking what if. What if I’d tried. So I’m going to armor up and enter the battle.” Dismissing Charlie from my life is even harder than I’d thought it would be. “The least you can do is wish me luck. You’ll . . . find someone else.”

I have to be imagining the flash of hurt that crosses his face at those two final words, right?

Yeah, a moment later, he proves I had.

Charlie’s eyebrows lift. “You really expect me to believe all that?” He advances, rapping his knuckles on my kitchen counter. “This is the part where I say, ‘No, please, Ever, don’t date someone else. Date me. I’ve seen the light.’ Right?” He scoffs. “There’s no way in hell, Ever. We’ve never lied to each other about what we wanted. I can’t believe you of all people would pull this shit on me.”

Uh. Wow. I’ve now had my hair blown back twice in one day by the two most unlikely candidates. Charlie thinks my brave foray into the dating scene is a ploy to land him as a full-time boyfriend? Hot acid razes the back of my neck, my vision crowding together. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Charlie.”

“Kidding about what? Not wanting to officially date you or anyone else? I assure you I’m very serious. I would be serious about that if you were Kate Middleton.” There’s a touch of discomfort to his jerky movements, as though he wasn’t all that sure about his argument, but he’d committed, so now it was ride or die. “We were up front from the beginning, Ever. I don’t have time to cuddle on the couch with you and watch Fashion Police.”

“Okay, first of all, I haven’t watched Fashion Police since Joan Rivers died. It has lost its luster.” I hold up my finger and allow that to sink in. “Second, I understand you, Charlie. I know you don’t do serious. I never had these ambitions myself until this morning. I was trying to let you down gently with some goddamn lavender water and you’re shitting all over it.” I can’t believe this. I’m having a break-up squabble. As if we’ve even been dating in the first place. “I don’t want to date you. I don’t want to cuddle you. And by the way, I must really be a truly evil mastermind to trick you into a relationship with a month of no-strings sex. What a bitch I am, right?”

Charlie holds up both hands and whistles, long and low. “All right. I’m backtracking. Tracking way back. This is why everything said in a locker room should stay in a locker room. I’m sorry. I jumped to an idiotic conclusion.” He searches my face, but I have no idea what he’s looking for. Lingering signs of deception? Maybe he’s just trying to decipher the shade of red my cheeks have turned. Magenta? Crimson? “I forgot for a minute I was talking to a unicorn.”

“What?” I have the sudden urge to throw my bowl of chocolate-orange mixture through a window. “And Kate Middleton? I’m like her exact opposite.”

“I don’t know. It just came out,” Charlie mutters. “I mean, if I had to pick, it would be Pippa—”

“Please leave, Charlie.” I’m definitely not jealous of the Duchess of Cambridge. Or her sister. This whole conversation needs to be filed away in my things to cringe about at odd moments folder. “I have a job tonight. And dating matches to go through.”

Oh, real mature, Ever.

“Wait. Just wait. This is going way too fast.” Charlie drags both hands over his close-cropped brown hair, then visibly centers himself with a deep breath. “Ever. You’re making a mistake. No one has what we have.” His throat flexes. “It’s too rare to give up.”

I ignore the distant voice in my head, shouting from the back of the class to agree with him. Against my will, memories rise from that afternoon in the bar. When we met and kissed. I must have imagined the relentless sense that something huge was happening. It must have been the stupid romance of the rain or a trick of light. All he really wanted was a hookup. That’s still all he wants from me.

“I’ve made my mind up, Charlie.”

He’s in front of me before I can blink. Big, frustrated, confused, turned-on male. His eyebrows are knit tight, his breathing heavy at my lips. He presses me into the counter, his fingers digging into my waist before his right hand drops to hook beneath my knee. That thumb of his, the one that has brushed my nipples and strummed my clit countless times so skillfully, makes circles on the inside of my knee. And then out of nowhere, he jerks my knee up around his waist with a groan. My neck loses power, my head falling back. He’s hard, the shape of him mouthwatering against my stomach. Pressing, pressing, thrusting. “Unmake your mind,” Charlie rasps into my neck, a thread of desperation twining with seduction. “Ever . . . please. I wanted you to ride me today, cutie. That hot as fuck way you do it, all bouncing tits and shaking legs. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to feel me crammed up into your wet pussy?”

Oh shit. Yeah. He knows all my weaknesses and when to exploit them. I’m feeling exploited enough right now to need an underwear change. It would be so easy to say, yes, Charlie, and let him round out my afternoon with another one of the best orgasms life has to offer, but I know I’d be disappointed in myself when he left.

Although, I would be so satisfied . . .

Eyes on the prize, Ever.

“Charlie, stop this.” I push on his shoulders twice before he budges. He stumbles back, his features tight, swiping a hand over his mouth. “I like you,” I breathe, horrified over the wobble in my voice. “I think you’re great. But we’re not in the same place anymore. I can’t give my full effort to finding someone if I know you’re going to show up and take me to bed. My . . .” Heart? No way. “My energy won’t really be in it.”

His hands are back in his hair, looking as if he might yank it out by the roots. “You’re really doing this,” he enunciates, going from shell-shocked to angry. “You’re going to be one of those girls who drags her boyfriend shopping, parades him in front of her friends at brunch and ends up with joint custody of a yellow Lab when it all goes south six months later?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “That sounds awful, but I won’t know until I try, will I?”

Charlie opens and closes his mouth about eight times, but can’t seem to decide on what to say. “We have the perfect thing going here.” His finger stabs the air with a jerky movement. “You’re going to realize it the first time some chump asks you to split the bill.”