“You’re beautiful,” I say with a smile. As I expect, she rolls her eyes.

“What a line.”

“Are you going to let me get away with it?” I ask, getting down on my knees and bringing my face to her stomach.

“Maybe,” she says, her voice just an exhale. I place a kiss on her bellybutton and then dip my tongue inside. She shivers and I watch her skin ripple with goose bumps. I kiss and lick my way lower. I didn’t get a chance to taste her last time and it’s been driving me crazy since then.

She makes a sweet little moan that causes me to smile. She didn’t make that sound last time. I find that I want her to make it again, so I use my tongue just under the band of her shorts. She moans again and her fingers clench on my head. If I had longer hair, she’d probably be pulling on it. Hm. That’s something to think about.

I take hold of her shorts and start inching them down her hips, revealing her bottom half.

And then her doorbell rings.

Ten

She stumbles away from me with a little cry and yanks her shorts up. As if we’ve been caught. I lick my lips, savoring her taste. She seems flustered as she picks up her shirt and puts it back on and then runs her hand through her hair. The doorbell rings again.

“I’ll go get that. Stay here,” she says, holding her palm up as if I’m a dog she wants to obey her. I get to my feet, but I nod. I put on my clothes and then stand in the doorway of her bedroom to listen as she opens the door. I’m expecting it to be a delivery or something like that, but then I hear a female voice talking to Saige. Loudly. I can’t make out what she’s saying, but I hear Saige trying to shush her.

Then there are footsteps and I dart back into the room and shut the door. A second later, it’s flung open and I’m face to face with Lo Hobbes. I recognize her from some of Saige’s pictures online.

“Yeah, it looks like you’re really busy doing homework,” she says over her shoulder to Saige. “Hello, homework.”

“Actually it’s Quinn,” I say, holding out my hand. She gives me a good shake, despite her willowy frame. She’s nearly as tall as I am and reminds me of one of the fairies from Lizzy’s favorite book. She’s all thin long limbs and a sweet face. Although, at the moment, it’s not so sweet.

She takes her blonde hair down from its bun and then twists it up again.

“Lo,” Saige says, a warning tone in her voice. Lo turns toward Saige.

“What? You’ve been so weird the past few days and now I know why.” She grins back at me with lips covered in gloss. Saige mouths an apology to me over Lo’s shoulder, but I actually find the whole thing funny.

“It’s nice to meet one of Saige’s friends, under any circumstances,” I say.

“From the looks of it, if I’d come a little later, I might have met even more of you,” Lo says and I decide I like her. My initial impressions are almost never wrong. With one exception. Cash.

“Almost,” I say and Saige seems to have shoved her embarrassment aside.

“Was there something you wanted, Lo?” Lo looks back and forth between us.

“Just this. I’d love to interrogate you now and give the whole speech on not fucking over my best friend, but sadly, I have a work emergency.” I remember from my research that she works as a curator at a local museum, which is probably one of the reasons she and Saige get along so well. They share an affinity for things from the past.

She pats me on the shoulder.

“Fuck with her and I’ll destroy you. I have three brothers who adore me and would do anything I asked. Okay?” Little does she know that I have my own brothers of a sort who would do anything for me as well. But I give her a smile.

“Duly noted.” She passes Saige and whispers something in her ear that makes Saige narrow her eyes. Lo leaves, her laughter echoing even after she’s closed the front door.

I leave the bedroom and stop in front of Saige in the hallway.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t know she was going to just show up here.” She seems to have smothered her embarrassment into mere annoyance.

“It’s fine. No harm done. Although, if I hurt you, I guess there will be.” I laugh.

Saige rolls her eyes and tugs on her shirt to make sure it’s covering her stomach. It’s a strange fit of modesty.

“Don’t listen to her or believe anything she says. I don’t.” I put my hands on her shoulders and she looks up at me.

“Maybe we rushed things a little bit,” I say. As much as I would like to relieve the hard-on I have, building a foundation with Saige is more important. I need to get her to trust me before she even knows she’s doing it. Before I use that trust to get what I want.

She rises up on her tiptoes and then down. I wonder if she took dance when she was younger. I don’t have access to a lot of those details.

“You’re probably right. I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” She sighs and walks back toward the living room.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something? Or we could go out and take a walk.” A walk would be most uncomfortable until I can talk my cock back down.

“A movie sounds great.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re still arguing about which Hitchcock movie is the best.

“Are you kidding me?” Saige says. “It’s not Rear Window. It has to be Vertigo. You’re crazy if you think otherwise.” I can’t believe her. She’s the insane one if she thinks that Vertigo is better and I tell her that.

“Whatever. We’re just going to have to watch both and then you’ll see.” She grabs the remote and selects Rear Window. I’ve seen it so many times that I don’t need to watch it again.

“You’re wrong, Quinn Brand,” she says as she stomps off to the kitchen to make popcorn. She keeps surprising me. Shifting, changing from what I think she is into something else. Trying to figure her out is like trying to hold water with your fingers apart. She keeps slipping through. It should make me uneasy, but I’m too wrapped up with the mystery of this beautiful girl to care. That’s going to be a problem, but I’ll deal with it later.

“Butter?” she yells over the sound of the air popper.

“Yes! And salt!” I yell back. I’d actually prefer to have the popcorn with just salt, but I don’t mind eating it with butter.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Water is fine.” She comes back with a giant blue bowl in one hand and a glass in her other, a second glass held between her side and arm. I stand up to take it from her so it doesn’t fall.

“If you needed help, you could have asked,” I say as she sits back down and folds her legs up on the couch. She places the bowl between us and I see that she’s been quite liberal with the butter. Suck it up, Quinn.

“I usually put more stuff on my popcorn, but I didn’t know how you’d like it,” she says, grabbing a handful.

“What do you put on it?” I keep my eyes on the screen, but all my attention is on her.

“Chocolate chips, caramel sauce, hot sauce, chili powder, frosting, you name it. I should make you my ranch popcorn. It could change your life.” I reach for a handful myself and try not to grimace at how saturated the popcorn is.

“It sounds disgusting,” I say. I’m a food purist. I like things to be as simple as possible.

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong about that too. You’re wrong about a lot of things, Quinn Brand.” I shake my head and go for another handful of popcorn.

“And you really like to be right, Saige Beaumont.” I don’t know why I like using her first and last name, but it almost feels like a habit.

“I am right. There’s a difference.” Tossing a piece in the air, she catches it in her mouth and then grins at me with the popcorn between her teeth.