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FOURTEEN

DANIEL

Clearly, I have my work cut out for me. If I didn’t have the first clue of Quinn being touch adverse…him trying to murder me with his tongue would have been a waving warning flag.

But I can do this. Even if holding his soft hands almost gave me a hard-on like I was a teenager on my first date.

The kiss is in the top of my never-want-to-do-that-again category. What else did I expect? He didn’t keep it a secret. And I’m sure I wasn’t Casanova my first few times either. I just didn’t have a witness who was this patient.

In fact, I’m pretty sure it was Monica Fields, and she ran in the opposite direction, breaking up with me because I was a bad kisser. Which she told the whole school. It got me the stellar name of fish lips in the ninth grade.

He’s in his bed now. The lights are off. I can hear him breathing, not quite even, so I know he’s still awake.

I stare at the ceiling and the shadows playing across it when a car drives past the building. But all I can think about is the tiny frustrated sound he made when I said later, as though later wasn’t soon enough.

It makes me smile. I bet when he finds his person he will be the kind of guy who is vocal about what he wants in bed. Yeah, that’s not a thought I should be having right now. Not if I actually want to sleep.

“Are you still awake?” he whispers.

I inhale and hold my breath counting to ten. “Yeah. What’s up?” I roll toward him, even though I can only see his lumpy profile in the dark as he faces me.

“Maybe we can try something different tomorrow. Maybe more touching?”

He sounds hopeful. I hope he isn’t afraid of kissing. Maybe I should have kissed him properly just to prove to him that he could kiss.

“Yeah, of course. You can touch me however you want.” I press my lips together. That came out way more suggestive than I meant.

“Okay,” he says. “Good night, Daniel.”

“G’night, Quinn.”

His soft breaths fill the silence, and I know he’s finally asleep. I roll back onto my back and wait for sleep to claim me.

I wake up to the smell of pumpkin spice. I must be dreaming. Still I inhale deeply. No. That is in the room. I blink groggily to find Quinn sitting on his bed, cross legged and facing me.

He smiles. “I brought you a latte.”

My brain isn’t processing words, probably because half my blood is in my morning wood. I groan and roll onto my stomach to hide it.

“And a Strawberry and cream muffin, you said it was your favorite…”

I lift my head and look at him. He looks nervous as fuck. “You bought me breakfast? Is it because you tried to kill me last night?”

He nibbles on his lip and picks at his nails. “Maybe,” he says with a shrug.

I huff a laugh. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Oh—” His face falls, and it makes me feel like I kicked a puppy.

“But I’m so happy you did. And you remembered my order, now that is some epic foreplay. Like top-tier boyfriend level.”

He lifts his gaze to me, a small smile playing on his lips. “Yeah?”

“I mean, yeah, if you were into guys.”

Which he isn’t. He told me he wasn’t. This is just practice for when he finds the girl of his dreams. I’m being a guy’s guy.

I shift to sit up, pressing a pillow into my lap, and reach for the cup. It’s still hot. And it is exactly what Eli got me hooked on. Pure sugar.