Page 52 of Parallel

Nick straightens and his chin goes up. “I don’t answer to you.”

“No, but you answer to Mom and Dad,” Ryan says, his eyes shifting to me, “and you made them a promise.”

“I know that,” Nick growls. “And I don’t need a reminder from you.”

“Well, since we now know that keeping agreements is a struggle for you, I thought I’d better mention it.” Their mother told them they couldn’t ask me out until I turned sixteen, an agreement Nick broke when he kissed me that day in the woods. I was always going to choose Nick. But Ryan doesn’t seem to believe it.

“Get out of my way, Ry,” Nick says. He has a slow temper, but there’s steel in his voice when he’s on the cusp of losing it, and even Ryan knows not to mess with him when it’s present.

“Don’t fucking forget,” Ryan says, as Lisette pulls him away.

We go out to his car, but guilt weighs me down the entire way. I hate that I’m the reason things have gone wrong. I stand still by the passenger door, staring at the gym.

“Come on,” Nick whispers, the words coming so close I can feel them against my lips. “Let’s go before one of the teachers comes out here.” He smiles, leaning closer. Anticipation crests in my stomach, making me breathless.

I am not normally the aggressor, but tonight, I am. I ignore his words and pull his mouth to mine, letting the slow sweep of my lips and my tongue do the work for me. I will make us both forget how much Ryan hates us now.

23

NICK

I am certain I won’t be able to fall asleep. Not with Quinn a few feet from me, presumably wearing next to nothing. I try to focus on anything other than her, lest she wake up to find me dry humping the mattress in my sleep, but I can’t seem to stop. I’m remembering her face after we left Grosbaum’s office, relaxed and happier than I’ve ever seen it. Remembering the moment she walked into the room for Darcy’s birthday party, looking so fucking ethereal she hardly seemed real.

And then I’m thinking of the lake, and when I fall asleep that’s where I go. Quinn is in that red bikini, floating away on the Sunfish, shouting at me to come help her, panicked and laughing at the same time. I swim to her, pulling myself up, and her body presses to mine. She is taut and sun-warmed, and as our mouths join, I want to groan with the relief of it—decades, centuries of separation finally behind us. I pull her on top of me and she comes willingly, sliding against my skin. Her top is gone, though I don’t remember undressing her. My palms go to her breasts—how could I have forgotten how perfect they are?—and then to her nipples, pressing pebble-hard against my chest. She gasps then, and I lose that last ounce of restraint I was clinging to.

I roll her under me, my hands gripping her hips, my mouth hungry for every inch of skin. I’m hard as nails and just the friction, being pressed to her stomach, has me close to coming. I slide her bottoms off to the side. She’s drenched, ready.

Except…there’s something wrong here. I want to plunge inside her more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but how did we get here? How is it that her bikini is gone and beneath us it is soft, nothing at all like the Sunfish’s fiberglass bottom?

I open my eyes.

I’m not in a boat. I’m no longer in high school. And Quinn is beneath me, in the hotel room we rented. I have no idea how she wound up in my bed, but she is quite obviously sound asleep, despite the fact that she’s arching against me and my hand is…fuck…between her legs. I’m so hard my dick has pushed through the slit in my boxers. With a suppressed, reluctant groan, I remove my hand and go the bathroom to take care of an issue I probably should have dealt with earlier. The obsession with her has to end… It was one thing to have a painful crush, but this has gone too far. I could lose my fucking medical license over what just happened.

I stand beneath the hot spray, one hand pressed to the wall to support myself. I think about the feel of her beneath me and the way her body arched toward mine, begging for more. I think about what would have come next, how I would have thrust into her and fucked her hard and fast, with the kind of desperation that comes from years of denial.

I come in five seconds flat.

24

QUINN

I open my eyes to daylight streaming in and sit straight up with a gasp. I went to sleep in the bed next to the window. I know I went to sleep in the bed next to the window.

I am no longer in that bed. I clutch the top sheet to my chest and turn toward Nick, who is slowly blinking awake. “Good morning, roomie,” he says with a yawn.

“Why am I in your bed?” I grit out.

“Maybe you time traveled there.”

His smile is teasing, but I barely even register it. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. I knew we shouldn’t have shared a room. Practicality and sleep deprivation made the decision for me, but I knew better. “I seriously need to know why the fuck I’m in your bed.”

“I think you must have been sleepwalking,” he says. “I woke up and you were there, so I just switched over to your bed.”

My stomach takes a nosedive. He’s making light of it, but the fact remains that I climbed into bed with him, wearing nothing but a thong. Even if nothing more happened, that’s sort of enough, right there. “Oh my God.”

“Quinn,” he says, pausing long enough that I’m forced to look over at him. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m pretty sure Jeff wouldn’t agree with that,” I whisper.