Soft Shock (15 page)

“Of course I
do,” Marci said, smoothing Ronnie’s hair back from her forehead.

Ronnie sighed
and shook her head. “I think I need a drink. Mudslides?”

“Only for you,”
Marci said.

Ronnie laughed.
“We have really different opinions of liquor, huh?”

Marci laughed
back. “I guess so.” Marci liked her whiskey straight over rocks. Or downed in a
shot. Ronnie couldn’t stand the taste of any liquor and had to drown it all in
sugar. “I can’t take all that sugar in my liquor. I don’t see the point. Those
things you call mixed drinks are milkshakes with a splash of liquor in them.”

Ronnie raised
an eyebrow. “And what’s wrong with that?”

Marci grinned
and shook her head. “Plenty. Now are we going to make your alcoholic milkshakes
or not?” Marci got to her feet and offered her hands to Ronnie.

“Yep.” Ronnie
put her hands in Marci’s and allowed Marci to pull her up from the couch.

Chapter Nineteen

Owen had a
serious problem, and the problem was named Marci. She was all he could think of
all the way through his date with Brynn. He could barely stop himself from
counting the minutes until he’d see her at the writing center. The one good
thing about it was he hadn’t even been so much as tempted to call Kristin back.
She kept trying to call him. Not like that first night when she’d tried
twenty-six times, but she tried several times since then to reach him.

Monday, Owen
was already smiling as he walked down the hallway to the writing center. When
he saw Marci, he was pleased to see that he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t
wipe the smile off his face.

“Am I your last
appointment today?” he asked.

“You are,” she
said. “Actually, you’re my last appointment before we shut down for the
semester.”

“I have good
news,” he said.

“What’s that?”
she asked, crossing to the middle of the room.

He met her
there. “No more paper. Turned it in this morning.”

“A whole day
early. Look at you.”

He breathed in
the rose scent of her neck before murmuring against it. “I wonder what we’ll
find to do to fill up all that time.” He couldn’t get enough of the way she
felt beneath his fingers.

“Do you?” She
sank against him in a way that made all his blood go south.

He started
humming “Afternoon Delight,” and she laughed. “How do you even know that song?”

“How do you?”

“Well, my place
won’t do. Full house.”

“Dante’s out. He’ll
be at the library all night. He’s got a project due tomorrow, and then he’s out
of town for the break.”

“Already? We
have over a week ‘til Thanksgiving.”

“Dante doesn’t
play around when it comes to going home for breaks. He wants to get every
second of time in sunny Florida that he can.”

“Okay. Let me
tell them I’m leaving early, and we’re headed to your place.”

They went out
to the parking lot and to his jeep. On their way to his place, Owen decided there
was no point in not telling her, in not getting it out of the way. As he was
driving them across town to his apartment, he said, “So I had a date Saturday
night. With this girl, Brynn.”

“Oh?” Marci
said. He thought he heard a hint of something unnaturally tense in her tone,
but he wasn’t sure.

He glanced over
at her, but her expression was unreadable. “Yeah.”

“You have a
good time?”

“She’s nice. We
said dating other people was okay, right?”

“Hey, this is
your game, your rules. I’m only in it for the sex,” Marci said.

Owen laughed
softly. “Right.”

“What’s that
about?”

“What’s what
about?”

“That laugh.”

“Oh, nothing,”
Owen said lightly, enjoying having her unsettled for once. It was nice to
finally be the one not on edge out of the two of them. He wondered if he should
tell her about the other part, too.
The Kristin part.

“You gonna see
this Brynn again?” Marci asked.

“Probably.”

Marci didn’t
say anything to this.

“What are you
doing for Thanksgiving?” Owen asked.

“Spending it in
Jersey with Ronnie and her family,” Marci said.

“You’re not
going home?” Owen asked.

“First off,
home is clear across the country. Second, my mother, brave noble soul that she
is, has decided to spend Thanksgiving at the hospital being admired for her
life-saving skills and so-called humility.”

“Saving lives?
That definitely sounds admirable. More so than you’re making it
sound
.”

“My mother thinks
she deserves to be worshipped. As the only person in the world who doesn’t
think that apparently, I consider it my job to keep her grounded,” Marci said.

“I feel like
there’s more to that.”

“And I feel
like the time for talking’s over,” Marci said. “Considering you parked three
minutes ago.”

“You’ve been
keeping count?”

“So I’m a
little anxious to get to the next part.”

“Next part?”

“The best part.
Let’s go.” Marci opened the door and jumped out of the jeep.

“So I guess I
really did make an impression on you.”

“I’m here,
aren’t I?” Her
face was hidden by her hair
, so he
couldn’t see the expression that went with it, but still. He didn’t buy that
bored tone of hers for one second. He didn’t want to get too high on himself,
but he was pretty sure that the last thing in the world she was with him was
bored.
At least not yet.

#

Marci couldn’t
deny that there were definite benefits to this arrangement. Owen was
insatiable. They’d only spent a handful of nights apart since starting up their
little arrangement a couple weeks ago, and those had mostly been because Marci
had deadlines to meet. An F.W.B. meant guaranteed sex more often. Why hadn’t
she tried something like this before?

Owen wasn’t
only insatiable—he was talented.
And dedicated.
They were always trying new things, and he could go for hours at a time. She
was always hungry lately, and her clothes were fitting a little looser. Being
with Owen was better than going to the gym—for many reasons.

On the Monday
before Thanksgiving, Marci bit her lower lip as she stared down at her phone. She
was thinking about texting Owen because she wasn’t in the mood to do any more
work that evening. She was in the mood for something else. But was it too much
to be seeing him so often? She’d gone over to his place almost every night over
the past week since Dante was already out of town for the break. She was
running out of excuses to give Tyler and Ronnie. And she was pretty sure she
was wasting time as it seemed they’d stopped buying her excuses after the first
few times. Well, Tyler had stopped buying them. She had her suspicions that
Ronnie had never bought them in the first place.

Finally,
telling herself not to be ridiculous, she texted,
what up
?

Owen texted back almost immediately.
Hey you. Going to the kabab place near my apartment w/ some
people. You should come
. Before she could think up a response, he sent
another text.
Don’t worry. Not trying 2
trick you n2 a date. Have 2 eat, right? And we can go back to my place after
.

Grinning down
at her phone, she texted back.
Meet you
there?

There was no
response for about a minute. She’d never realized how long a minute was before.
Then he texted her with,
Good
.

When Marci
entered the kabab place, she breathed in the aroma of spices as she took a
quick look around. It didn’t take her long to spot him. It was almost as if her
gaze was drawn automatically to him if he was anywhere near. Wavy dark blond
hair sexily disheveled as if he’d run his hands through it a few times after
removing the knit cap that now rested on the table in front of him.
Black North Face fleece.
Long, lean, sexy body draped over a
bar stool as he talked and laughed with a group of people.

Marci walked
over to them, and he turned to her with that tooth-paste-commercial grin.
“There you are.” He moved his backpack from the stool next to him and pushed it
out toward her. She pulled the stool closer to the high top table and sat.

“Here I am.” She
told herself the tumbling act her stomach was doing was simply in anticipation
of what would come next.

“Marci, these
are friends of mine from A.P.O.,” he said. A.P.O., or Alpha Phi Omega, was a
service fraternity. He introduced her to the three guys and a girl at the table
as a friend of his. She shook hands with the four people whose names and faces
she probably wouldn’t remember later. Julie, the girl, gave her a tight
so-you’re-the-competition smile when they shook hands, and Marci was some
shocked at how possessive it made her feel. When she was done greeting
everyone, Marci scooted her stool a little closer to Owen’s so that
their
shoulders touched.

“Let’s order,” one
of the guys said.

“Yeah,” another
guy who was loud in both voice and size said in a booming voice. “I’m starving
like a vegan on Atkins.”

Julie turned to
Owen. “What are you getting, Owen?”

“Not sure yet.”
Owen turned to Marci. “Know what you want?” He gave her a look that made her
hungry but not for food. “Or do you need to look at the menu?”

Marci took the
menu he offered but didn’t open it. She could feel Julie’s gaze burning into
the side of her face, but Owen’s eyes held hers captive.

“I’ll get it
for you,” he said in a tone that made her think he wasn’t talking about kabab. “Whatever
you want.”

“I want what
you want.” Marci cleared her throat and shook her head. She had to look away.
He was clouding her judgment, her—everything. “I mean, just get me what
you’re getting.”

She didn’t look
up but didn’t have to in order to hear the grin in his voice as he said, “I’ll
be right back.”

“So how do you
know Owen?” Julie asked with total stone-face after Owen walked away with the
other three guys.

“School,” Marci
said vaguely. “Aren’t you going up there to order?”

“Nah.” Julie
gave her that same little tight-lipped smile she’d put on earlier. “I’m
actually not that hungry.” Julie, who looked like she could be knocked over by
a strong gust of wind, attempted to pinch her side. “I’d better watch it anyway
with the holidays coming up. I had to go up to a size two when I tried on jeans
the other day. Gross.”

“Yeah,” Marci
said.

“Have you ever
seen pictures of Owen’s ex?” Julie asked. “Kristin? She’s so thin.”

“Oh?” Marci
said in the bored tone she’d perfected over the years thanks to G.K. “Is she?”

Marci turned in
the direction of the front of the restaurant where the guys were standing in
line, waiting to order. She caught Owen staring at her. Instead of turning away
when he got caught, he gave her that disarming grin of his. Then he placed his
hands together, leaned his head to the side, and rested his cheek on them. She
laughed at what had become an inside joke over the past couple weeks—Imma
put you to bed.

Things were
going down a dangerous path. She wanted him all the time. Had to fight thinking
about him all the time. Just being around him felt good—incredibly
soul-warming good—and she could lie to herself and say it was because of
the sex, but the terrifying reality was, she just wanted to spend time with
him. She felt restless—like something was missing—on the nights
they didn’t spend together.

And the sense
of relief she felt whenever they came together was unsettling. The way her body
reacted to him was beyond her control, and she did not like things being beyond
her control. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from clinging to him with an
almost drunken need whenever she’d spent more than a day or so away from him.

Bullshit. It
was the sex. They had really amazing sex, and that’s what she missed when he
wasn’t around. So good it was addictive sex. There wasn’t more to it than that.
She couldn’t afford for
there
to be more.

When he came
back to the table with their lamb kababs, she thanked him and dug in. She
couldn’t help but notice that he made sure that he was close enough that their
shoulders again touched when he sat down. Julie must have noticed, too, because
she gave Marci the frostiest looks whenever Owen wasn’t looking.

Later, as they
left the kabab place together, they stepped out into some frigid as hell
November evening air. Marci huddled close to Owen.
For warmth
only.

“I’m glad you
came out,” Owen said.

“Like you said,
gotta eat,” Marci said.

He chuckled
softly, but all he said was, “Yeah.”

“I’m not good
for you. You know that, right?”

Owen looked
down at her, a frown of confusion on his gorgeous face.

“You should be
with someone like Brynn.
Someone like you.
Someone who
wants the things you want.”
Definitely not that Julie.
That girl seemed like a bitch. Owen deserved to be with someone good, someone
nice. Someone who would treat him the way he deserved to be treated.

Owen chuckled
again.

“What’s so
funny?”

“I doubt Brynn wants
what I want most. Unless she’s lesbian or at least bi.” Owen put an arm around
her. “Let’s get out of the cold.” They picked up their pace, and Marci leaned
into him as a particularly chilly wind blew. The rest of their walk to his
place was silent.

He’d make such
a good boyfriend.
For someone.
But she bet he was hard
as hell to get over.
Maybe even impossible.
If she
were to fall for Owen—not that she’d ever let that happen but just
thinking hypothetically in the abstract—if she were to fall for Owen, and
things didn’t work out, she’d never be able to recover.

And she knew
from experience—both her own and watching her mother blow through
men—that these things never worked out in the end.