Page 13 of Man Candy (After We Fall 1)
I mean, she’d clearly wanted me to kiss her in the kitchen, if only to prove that I was the kind of guy who couldn’t keep my hands to myself.
But the more I thought about it, the more I was glad I’d backed away. I could play the long game with her, especially if the game was chicken.
When I kissed her—and I was going to kiss her—it was going to be on my terms.
I wanted her to come to me and admit she felt that spark. I wanted her to give me another chance. I wanted to do things differently with her.
But first, I wanted to make her sweat a little.
Then I wanted to make her sweat a lot.
Five
JAIME
I was fuming.
The nerve.
The fucking nerve of the guy.
He’d wanted to kiss me, I knew he had—so why didn’t he do it? Or had I misread him again? God, why was Quinn Rusek so hard for me to figure out? For crying out loud, I had degrees in psychology and marketing! I made a living out of studying people and strategizing how to make them behave a certain way. I was good at it. How did he have me so off my game?
Now I was even more embarrassed than I’d been in the first place. Jesus, this was twice now he’d turned me down. Twice!
I flopped facedown on my couch.
I’d been so proud of myself for playing it nice and cool, then I ruined everything by trying to get him to kiss me!
Ugh, he was probably downstairs laughing his ass off, and up here I was all hot and bothered by how close he’d been to me. Even closer than the night of the doomed seduction, his entire body grazing against mine.
Holy smoke, his body.
I was dying to know if it would look as good naked as it appeared in photos. Did it really have all those ridges and lines? Was his skin really that smooth and perfect? He’d been so close I could smell his soap.
Or maybe that was his hair product. Yeah, he looked like the kind of guy to have hair products—pomades and waxes and gels and pastes—I bet he spent more time in front of the mirror than I did.
Whatever it was, he’d smelled good enough to eat. I’d wanted to take a big old bite out of him. And I would have too—that’s what made me even madder. If he’d have kissed me, I’d have dropped that wine glass and jumped up on him like bacon grease hopping off the pan. We’d probably be fucking each other’s brains out on the kitchen floor by now, which sounded like a pretty good time.
So why hadn’t he done it? Was it his mission in life to torture me? Make me hot for him only to reject me again? OK fine, so ten years ago he’d been worried about crossing the line because of Alex or my parents or whoever, but what was his problem tonight?
He doesn’t have a problem. You do.
I howled into the cushion, kicking my feet and pounding my fists like a toddler throwing a tantrum. I didn’t care what Alex said—Quinn Rusek was a sadist. And this was the last time—the last time—I was going to let him make a fool out of me. No way would I agree to a date with him.
He’d probably stand me up anyway!
I dragged myself into the kitchen and poured another glass of wine (well, it was probably more like two glasses, but since it fit in a single big glass, I’ll call it one), then took my laptop into the guest room where I had my home office set up. I opened it, but instead of going to client files, I went right to Quinn’s Instagram account. His last post was a selfie (of course, did he take any other kind of picture?) with the MacArthur Bridge behind him that looked as if it had been taken on Belle Isle. Snow blanketed the ground and chunks of ice floated in the river, which stood out in the picture because it was the exact blue of his eyes. He wore a navy baseball cap with a white Old English D on the front, and the caption was just a hashtag: #BeautifulDetroit.
To the right were all the usual comments from friends, followers, and creepers, everything from a gazillion smiley-faces with hearts for eyes or blowing heart-kisses to marriage proposals, actual compliments like wow gorgeous pic, and just plain weird crap like do you like helicopter rides? next to a banana emoji. Lots of the comments were not in English, and I wondered if Quinn had actually picked up any foreign languages during the last ten years with all his traveling for work. I wondered what countries he’d been to, which were his favorites and why, and where he’d like to visit again.
But I couldn’t ask him those questions. Or any questions at all. My only mission for the next month where Quinn Rusek was concerned was to avoid him. Protect my dignity. And if my curiosity (or my desire) threatened to get the better of me, as it often did, I’d remind myself how I’d felt the night of the graduation party—rejected, ashamed, foolish. Since then, I’d been lied to, cheated on, and taken advantage of, but I’d never felt as heartbroken as I had the night Quinn turned me down. Why should I invite him to hurt me again?
Because he would. I knew he would.
They always do.
