Page 50 of Under Pressure

A strangled snort escapes me. “Thanks for the clarification.”

His grin makes my knees weak. I quickly enter the elevator and choose to stand a generous distance from where he settles. There’s something knowing in his expression when our eyes meet again, so I keep them down while he chooses the floor.

Too much has changed between us in only a few hours, and that reminder has me terrified of what’s to come.

18

I’ve never beennervous to show a woman my place before.

Excited? Yeah, of course. Whenever I’ve brought one home in the past, it was usually to fuck. We’d both be too busy with other things to pay much attention to our surroundings, which meant there was no need for tours or small talk. The person I was with knew the deal, and I made sure I kept things on track, even on the off chance they started getting ideas they weren’t supposed to.

Tonight—or this morning, I guess—things are different.

This isn’t some random hookup I’m guiding inside, and there’s no chance of us so much as sharing a room, let alone having sex. Quinn’s eyes inspect the condo in a way that has my heart thumping with unfamiliar anxiety. I’m not a total slob, but from what I saw of her apartment earlier, she might not agree.

She had more organizational bins and bookcases neatly stacked than I’ve ever seen outside of a department store. There aren’t boxers thrown over the back of my sectional or packets of condoms left strewn about on the coffee table, yet I feel like she’s judging me. It’s still up in the air whether it’s in a good way.

The leather couch is fairly new, as is the matching chair in the corner of the room, surrounded by the floor-to-ceiling windows Ihad tinted with one-way film a week after moving in. You can see the ocean from wherever you stand, so I kept the furniture minimal, not wanting to overshadow the view. Nobody pays what I did for a place here, in this exact corner on this exact floor, if they don’t want to wake up every day to the ocean. Or maybe they do and I’m a total fucking loser.

I adjust the strap of her bag on my shoulder and wander into the kitchen to grab two bottles of water from the fridge. They’re chilled to perfection, and I swipe my thumb along the dew before returning to Quinn’s side. She’s deeper into the room now, drawn to the windows the way I was the first time I was here.

“You never told me if you like the beach,” I say.

“I prefer the water to the sand. Similar to Wes, I guess.”

I battle a smirk. “You don’t like sand in your ass?”

“You do?” She flashes me a curious glance over her shoulder. “Actually, forget I asked that. You probably roll around in it like a dog.”

“That depends, actually.”

“On?”

“If that’s a turnoff for you.”

Her laugh floats through my living room as she looks back out the window. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“With the risk of disappointing you, I actually don’t roll around in it. But I do love a good sandcastle. Me and a few of the guys built a massive one last year. And I’m talking it hadlevels, Quinny. Aubs and Brielle spent a good chunk of time collecting shells for us and detailed the fuck out of it.”

She already knows Brielle from all of the times she’s hidden herself in Blank Page to people-watch, orstalk, as Wes calls it. Aubrey, though, I’m not sure if she’s ever met. I think she’d like her. They’ve both got a killer glare and a habit of knocking a cocky guy off balance.

“Did it have a moat?”

I guffaw. “Did it have a moat? Who do you think I am? That’s the most important part.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, I guess.”

“Nah, I’ve got pictures.”

Before she can answer, I’ve got my phone out, scrolling through my photos. Her gaze burns my knuckles as I search for July of last year. There are far too many pictures of the guys in the clubhouse and screenshots from the group chat all the guys are in that by the time I find what I’m looking for, it feels like hours have passed. Pulling up the sandcastle pic, I lift my eyes to capture her reaction.

I’m not expecting to see her cheeks a deep red or her stare slightly glassy. My stomach crawls in on itself as I begin to worry I’ve kept a nude or something and unknowingly shown it to her on my search, but I don’t keep that shit on my phone. Iknowthat. Regardless of how many I’ve been sent, I’d never keep one somewhere anyone could access it.

Confusion lingers in my voice. “What?”

Quinn blinks, her eyes focusing a bit. It’s not until I watch her lick her lips and peer up at me that I realize what that look was. My dick starts to thicken in my jeans as I register the change in the air. The soft caress of arousal that’s draped over us like a cocoon, warm and inviting.

The picture isn’t solely of the sandcastle. It wasn’t intentional on my part to choose this exact shot, but I can’t say that I’m complaining. I’m squatting beside the right side of it, wearing only a pair of mid-thigh, hot pink swim trunks that I remember nearly cutting off my circulation while I held that position, with dark-tinted Ray-Bans perched on my nose and a baseball hat on backward. My hair was a bit longer then and curled wildly beneath the cap as it dried from my dip in the ocean.