Lucy
Caleb Whitman’s hands are all over me. Well, all over my feet. He efficiently removed the purple polish I’d had on for weeks, and now he’s massaging my feet.
I’m about thirty seconds from spreading my legs a little wider and telling him to head due north.
But I won’t do that. No matter how much I want him, no matter how sexy he is. No matter how sweet, how charming, how flipping irresistible he is, I will resist.
I have no business wanting Whit. We’re all wrong for each other. And any guy that charming, that good looking, won’t have staying power.
But maybe staying power isn’t what I want? The other day at the mall, Alyssa said a million things, and most of them were misjudgments. But she was right about one thing: Whit knows his way around a woman’s body. He’s applying base coat to my toenails and I’m halfway to orgasm. Leaning forward, he blows gently on each toe and the sensation does wicked things to me. Nothing about this should be sexy. Feet are not sexy. And yet, as his cool breath hits my skin, a shiver ripples through my entire body.
“You okay, Lucy?” he asks, the hint of a smile on his too-handsome face. There’s no denying it: Whit knows what he does to me. What he doesn’t know is how close I am to succumbing to the attraction between us.Again. One last time.
But I can’t, can I? He’s my stepbrother. We’re family now. We can’t cross that line. Our parents deserve their happiness, and we can’t jeopardize it by giving in to the chemistry we’ve always had.
Am I still drawn to him? Of course, I am. He’s so open, so carefree, so uninhibited. I’m none of those things. And I’m envious. What would it be like not to care about people’s perceptions? To give in to impulse? To live a little louder? I imagine there’s a freedom in all of that, if you’re willing to take the risk, which I’m not. But I also wonder what it would be like to wake up in Whit’s arms, to be the sole focus of his attention.
If this pedicure is anything to go by, it’s basically paradise. But I can’t indulge.Dammit.
“What’s that?” Whit says, his brow is furrowed and I realize that I must’ve muttered that curse aloud. Shit.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Come on, Luce, spill. What’s all this about?” He gestures to my empty cookie plate, the wine I’ve put a dent in, and the TV drama that plays out on the screen on the wall, even though I’ve muted the sound.
“I told you. I had a shit day.”
With precision, he paints a perfect red stripe on my big toe, then expertly fills in the sides. What can’t this man do? Is he good at everything? And while my mind is coming up with delicious examples of everything, Whit’s still frowning at me. As much as I hate reliving this shitshow of a day, it’s preferable to telling Whit how much I want him to put down the nail polish and put his hands to better use.
“Remember the internship I interviewed for?”
“Yeah, it’s some big-deal marketing firm, right?”
“That’s putting it mildly. Well, they called today with good news and bad news.”
“Good news first.”
“What? No one wants the good news first,” I sputter. “That’s not how it works. You get the bad news first, brace yourself for the blow, and then the good news can lift your spirits a little.”
“Or...you get the good news first because good news is awesome, and you want to soak that shit up. And in the afterglow of that good news, the bad news doesn’t seem so awful.”
I’ll never admit it, but he may have a point.
“Fine,” I huff. “As unorthodox as it is, I’ll give you the good news first. I got the internship.”
Whit glances up, a look of pure joy on his face. “Lucy, that’s fantastic.”
“I know. Applying was such a long process, and there were three separate interviews, and I’m really excited that I was chosen.”
“So?”
I sigh. “The bad news is that I’m not the only intern. In an unprecedented move, the committee chose two of us. And it makes sense, in a way. They’re a huge firm and there’ll be plenty for both of us to do. It’s just that…”
“It’s just that?”
“The guy they chose is my nemesis. This guy, Derek, is the bane of my existence. He is…ugh. We’re the same year, same major. I’m currently number one in our class, and he’s number two. He’s...always around, always right at my heels with his smarmy smile and heavy cologne. I ran for student senate, then he did too. I started volunteering, and who shows up at the animal rescue the next week? He does. I was lucky enough to get the last seat in senior-level lecture this semester. Guess who got the department chair to add a seat?”
“Douchebag Derek?”
