The Duality Principle (8 page)

“More,” she pleaded. “Please.”

“God, Gabby.” Connor began grinding against her, finding a rhythm that pressed his fly into her shorts, a delectable chafe that made her moan. “You make me want to be so fucking bad with you.”

“Do it. Show me how bad you can be.”

He kissed her deeper, teeth tugging at her lower lip as he let go of her wrists. She drove her fingers into his silky hair, and he rolled them to their sides, breaking the kiss to push his sweatshirt off her shoulders and fumble with her top. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from kissing her in between his desperate grappling with her shirt, ravenous kisses that stole her ability to breathe properly. Her tank was halfway up her torso when Mikey suddenly popped his head into the tent.

“I got the beers—”

Connor twisted up angrily off Gabriella, his body shielding hers. Mikey froze.

“Oh. Dude. Sorry.”

He dropped the six-pack in the corner of the tent and quickly backed out. Once he was out of sight, Connor dropped his head and inhaled slowly, several times. Gabriella tried to do the same, her logical side knowing she had to even when her body screamed for more.

“Gotta calm down,” he said. “Shit, Gabby. It’s really hard to behave myself around you.”

“I don’t want you to behave.”

He laughed and when he looked away, her heart faltered. For a moment, she could see the same look on his face that she’d seen so many times before, the same words in his expression:
You’re too much of a freak for me, Gabriella Evans.
She waited for him to say it, to turn her down, to make her feel like there was something wrong with her, but instead, Connor simply smiled.

“Okay then. Maybe I won’t.”

Chapter Eight

This had to have been the dumbest decision Connor ever made. Either that or he had a death wish. He wanted Gabby so bad it was killing him. Still, if he was going to croak, watching the last of the fireworks go off overhead with her curled up between his knees was a pretty damn nice way to go.

After Mikey’s interruption, Gabby had put her glasses back on and crawled into his lap, breathing in a soft sigh of contentment as she drew his hands together over her belly. With her back to his chest, she drank her beer and he held her close, his weight shifted so the top of his left arm was hidden from view. Without his hoodie on, the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing didn’t quite hide the ink around his bicep. He didn’t know what she’d think of it, despite what she said about good being overrated. Besides, it was a symbol of his life in a different time, and it was another part of his rebellious past that he was trying to keep solidly behind him.

The final burst of color lit up the sky—rings of blue with red crackling around it, all of it ending in a waterfall of white that left glittering tracks in its wake. Everyone clapped and cheered, and Connor kept his arms tightly around Gabby as the crowd began to gather itself up, hundreds of feet about to make their way back out of the park. He pressed his lips behind her ear again and breathed in deep. She smelled of the ocean and summer and freedom.

“I always loved the Fourth,” she told him, her words nearly lost under the sound of so many voices, of engines starting and folding beach chairs. “It was my favorite time of year.”

“Are you a big fan of fireworks in general? Or just especially fond of the perils of our forefathers?” He nipped her earlobe and she wriggled in his grasp. “I bet you have the entire Declaration of Independence memorized.”

“Shut up.” She twisted away from his assault on her ear and then settled back down. “I loved it because it came at the beginning of summer vacation. I had lots of time left before I had to go back home.”

Connor felt something sharp burrow its way into his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the sadness in Gabby’s tone or the reminder that in a few weeks’ time she was going to leave him.

The wind picked up and he pulled her closer. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. What was the deal with her parents? And why the hell was she here all by herself? Hadn’t any of the guys she went to school with figured out how amazing she was?

“Jamie, Dean and Mikey are coming back,” she said.

Gabby put her empty bottle by the edge of the cooler, and Connor reluctantly withdrew his arms from the warm space underneath hers. She stood up and brushed her legs off, giving him a spectacular view of her ass. He groaned and rubbed the flats of his palms over his forehead, counting to ten and thinking of dissecting frogs, of Red Sox stats—anything other than the view in front of him—before standing up behind her. Dean and Jamie trudged toward them, Mikey in tow.

“So what’s next?” Dean asked as he flung an arm over Jamie’s shoulders.

Dean was like that, the kind of guy who saw bare skin and wanted to touch it, never caring who that skin belonged to. Jamie didn’t seem to mind, but Dean was a dead man if he ever touched Gabby again. The memory of his arm draped casually over her shoulders made Connor’s stomach churn. He was going to make sure they had a talk about that later.

“Next?” Gabby glanced over her shoulder at Connor and then at Dean again. “There’s a next?”

“Sure. The night is young,” he replied, lowering a hand, no doubt, to slip into Jamie’s back pocket. “I’d say let’s chill here, but we finished all the beers in the cooler, and I don’t think Mikey got to drop the second six pack in.”

He said the last bit with a wink at Gabby. She pinched her lips together and glanced up at Connor with an embarrassed smile, her cheeks now adorably rosy from her beer. He smiled back at her. Mikey avoided eye contact with both of them.

“How about the tavern by SMCC?” Dean suggested.

Connor tensed. Mikey raised a hand and called out, “Shotgun.”

“We’re walking, douchebag,” Dean replied, shoving him to the side. “There’s five of us. We won’t all fit. Or are you gonna make the ladies sit in the flatbed?”

Mikey frowned. “Gabriella can ride with Connor.”

Gabby hooked her bag over her shoulder, head cocked to the side as she threw a quizzical gaze in Connor’s direction. “You guys didn’t come together?”

Dean’s eyes flickered to his.

“Oh we did,” Dean answered quickly. “But I really don’t feel like driving through that huge mess of people. And—” he added with a satisfied grin, “—I’m drunk.”

Jamie’s giggle masked the sound of Connor’s sigh. The tavern wasn’t a bad spot. Just a local joint he’d been to more times than he cared to count. People who knew him might be there, people who knew the old him and didn’t have quite so much discretion as Dean, although that wasn’t saying much. Connor didn’t like the idea of taking Gabby there, but then again, he didn’t like the idea of having to say goodnight to her yet, either.

He held out his hand. “I’m in, but since you just made that announcement, hand over your keys. You’re not driving until you sober up.”

“Since when did you become the responsible one?” Dean reached into his pocket with his free hand anyway, fished out his keys and slapped them into Connor’s palm.

They packed up the tent and the cooler, dropped the contents in the back of Dean’s truck and then walked until they reached the campus edge. A line was leading into the bar, a bouncer checking IDs at the door. Connor watched Gabby bend over to fish her wallet from her bag. The move made the back of his sweatshirt ride up, once again showing off her ass in those tiny little shorts. It wasn’t fair, the way she made a scrap of blue and white cotton into the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

He stepped in close behind her in the line. “I like you in my sweatshirt,” he whispered in her ear.

She turned so her cheek brushed over his mouth. “I like wearing it.”

Connor slid his hands around her hips. Everything about his stance said
mine
. He’d never cared about anyone enough to want to stake his claim this way. The change felt good.

They moved in a pack toward the door, flashing their IDs before going inside. The tavern was crowded, music playing loudly and a line three people deep at the bar. Connor glanced around. No one he knew was there. He exhaled in relief.

“It’s been a while since I let Dean beat me in pool,” Jamie said. She took Dean’s hand, leading him toward the back of the bar. “Come on, you. Let’s wait for a table to open up.”

Mikey glanced uncomfortably back at Connor and Gabby.

“I call winners,” he said, hurrying after them.

A high-top by the window was open, and Connor gestured toward it. Gabby nodded, her eyes bright. He liked her this way—smiling and relaxed, like she’d unwound a part of herself and let him in. He wanted to be let in, wanted answers to the questions he’d had about her all summer. Maybe now, while they were in a place where he’d be forced to behave, was his chance to find out.

They hopped up onto the chairs, and Connor said, “All right, now that you’ve heard about my past, I think it’s my turn to get to know more about you.”

Gabby seemed to consider this. “Fair enough. But I don’t think I’ve heard nearly enough about you yet. How about a deal: a question for a question?”

Just like at the café, Connor was unprepared for the way she got inside him, how she edged herself under his skin in a way no other girl ever had. He was beginning to think he’d let her ask him anything.

He held a hand across the table for her to shake. “Deal.”

She shook it, business-like, and then her expression dissolved into a broad grin.

“You first,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

He’d start off easy. “When did you get into hiking?”

The sparkle in her eyes softened a little. “It was something I did with my grandmother. We’d go on these nature walks and she’d tell me all about flowers and plants. It was really different from my life at home, the vigorous schedule, the expectations and school.”

Her eyes went glassy. Connor wanted to reach across the table and touch her cheek, comfort her somehow.

“You must really miss her.”

She nodded. It was a brisk movement, one that begged for him to change the subject.

“Will you take me hiking with you?” he asked.

She found her footing then and gave him a sly smile. “Now, now, Mr. Starks. That’s two questions in a row. That wasn’t part of our deal. But yes. I will.”

“When?”

“You aren’t very good at sticking to your agreements, are you?”

“I never said I was.” He wasn’t backing down until he got another date out of her. “When?”

She crossed her arms. She was smiling, though. “Saturday.”

“Saturday it is.” He put an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. It was just an excuse to move closer to her. “Your turn.”

She leaned in and balanced her crossed arms onto the table too. It gave him another spectacular view, this time of her breasts. It was torture to drag his eyes up to her face.

“Why’d you do the sheriff’s daughter?” she asked.

Connor coughed out a laugh. It wasn’t a question he expected her to ask. But he wasn’t about to tell her how he’d fucked the sheriff’s not-so-innocent little girl in the backseat of daddy’s cruiser after she’d lifted the keys from his uniform pocket. How she’d pleaded with Connor to do it again when he didn’t have a second condom, and how after the near-miss that followed, he’d made it a habit to carry more than one on him. He could indulge Gabby, though, and let her hear a little bit about just how bad he once was.

“Because it was wrong and I could,” he answered.

Gabby narrowed her eyes. “You answered that really quickly.”

He shrugged, enjoying the way she was looking at him. She wasn’t horrified at all.

“It’s the truth.”

“Still, that was too fast. It barely even counted as an answer. I think I’m due another question.”

He laughed again, harder this time. “Fine. A freebie, but only this once.”

Her smile grew wide, her chin lifting in victory.

“How does a guy who tore donuts into the town sheriff’s lawn turn into a computer geek?”

“You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you? I wasn’t even the one driving.”

Gabby leaned in closer. The view got even better. It was nearly impossible for him to keep his eyes on hers.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

He made a face and let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine. It’s a boring story, actually. Dean liked to cause trouble, and I liked to cause it with him. But we had to grow up eventually, and for whatever reason, coding was something I was good at.”

It was almost entirely the truth.

“And you taught yourself everything you know.”

“Pretty much. I read a lot about it, practiced on a few small-budget sites. I never had any classes in it before college, other than high school typing.”

She seemed satisfied with that, so Connor took the opportunity to move on.

“My turn. Why did you get into math? I mean, what was the appeal?”

Gabby paused for a moment, as if she was weighing the worth of his question.

“It’s clean. Ordered. There’s no emotion involved. The answers are definite. Logical.”

He could understand that. Emotions were definitely something he’d attempted to avoid.

“Coding is like that too. It either works or it doesn’t. There are no gray areas to deal with.”

“Right, completely the opposite of my grandmother’s rose bushes, which seem to be dying on me now matter how many articles about gardening I read.”

They smiled at each other for a minute. Connor had managed to keep his gaze north of her chin and now found himself stuck on how perfectly clear her skin was, how it seemed to glow. On her heart-shaped face and the way her cheeks lifted when she smiled. Things he’d never noticed about any girl before, ever.

He cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles against the table. “Um, it’s your turn.”

“Right.” She looked up at the ceiling in thought, then back at him. “Most embarrassing moment.”

“When my grandmother wanted to use my laptop to look something up and my browser was still open to a porn site.”

She buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, that’s awful.”

He had to laugh along with her. “It was.”

She uncovered her eyes, her still hands shielding either side of her face. “You shouldn’t bother asking me the same question. Yours wins, completely.”

“Nah, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask,” he said. “Why are you here all by yourself?”

That seemed to rattle her. Her hands slid down from her face to the table. She picked at her napkin. “I told you, my parents and I don’t really get along.”

“I didn’t mean them. I meant, why are you single? Are all the guys at M.I.T. blind?”

Gabby opened her mouth like she was on the edge of replying and blinked several times. She eventually smiled, but her eyes didn’t light up the same way they usually did. It didn’t match.

“I’ve had some short relationships, if you could even call them that. But none of them really…worked out.” She spaced her words apart in a way that made Connor sense he’d touched a nerve.

“Same for me,” he said, hoping it would get rid of the tension at the table. The little V between her eyebrows disappeared, and she wagged a finger at him. He wanted to bite it.

“I didn’t ask about your relationships,” she said. “That doesn’t count as one of my questions.”

“But you wanted to know, didn’t you?” He knew she did, and strangely enough, he wanted to tell her. “Okay. Have at it. What’s your next question?”

She leaned an inch closer. “Do you miss your parents?”

“No.”

“Wow. Another quick answer.”

“It was an easy question.”

“Gotcha.” She didn’t push the subject, much to his relief, but instead lifted a hand to cover a yawn. “Sorry, I’m a little tired. I’m usually up at dawn, and I think that beer just got to me.”

“You want to head out?” he asked, trying his best not to look disappointed. “I can take you home.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that. It’s not a far walk.”