The Best Part of Me (10 page)

He had to admit that on the infrequent occasion he got to fight whenever someone organized a little wager on the outskirts of Ballagh, he welcomed the action. He could let go of those pent-up demons on whomever was stupid enough to challenge him, unlike last weekend at the pub when he'd had to hold back from causing any lasting damage for fear of a lawsuit.

“Pamela, this is my cousin, Ewan McKenna.” Sean had finally approached with the woman he'd been chatting with for the last fifteen minutes. “Ewan, this is Pamela Shazier, the president of Baxter University.”

Ewan took her offered hand. “Pleasure,” he replied. The older woman smirked. He watched as she took a long, leisurely inspection. When her eyes finally came back to meet his, her smirk turned into a smile with a perfect row of startlingly white teeth.

“Likewise,” she replied in a honey-sweet voice. “Sean tells me you run your family's pub.”

Ewan nodded. He guessed her to be in her early fifties. Her hair was chestnut brown with no signs of gray. She had the slightest hint of aging around her eyes, but for the most part, she was a very attractive older woman.

“He also tells me you're engaged to be married soon?”

Ewan looked over at his cousin, who stood just out of Pamela's periphery. Sean widened his eyes at him in a silent plea to play along.

Jesus, what a little shit.

“Yes, that's right.”

“How fortunate for your fiancée.”

Ewan looked down at her hand and noticed the golden wedding band on her left ring finger.

“Not as lucky as he is, I assure you,” Sean insisted. “Now Pamela, I was hoping to speak with you for a quick second about your upcoming request for proposals for your new student center.” Sean politely drew her away from where Ewan stood, but not without one final leering smirk from the university's president.

It really shouldn't be a surprise that his cousin had begged Ewan to visit him this weekend in Boston, then dragged him to this God-awful event to pimp him out to a potential client. Not that he'd done it before, but Sean was a shark when it came to his job as partner at a top-ranked Boston contracting firm. If he wanted a client, he did what it took to sign them. Ewan guessed that meant dangling him in front of Pamela Shazier as bait.

Once Sean finished his conversation, he returned to lean against the bar beside Ewan. “Think I got that one in the bag.” He flagged down the bartender and ordered a beer. Ewan just stared at his cousin, assuming an explanation to his most recent antics was on the way. Beer in hand, Sean took a sip followed by a long sigh.

“Dude, that woman would have allowed you to fuck her on this bar if you'd shown the inclination. Jesus.” Sean shook his head and took another sip.

Ewan raised his eyebrows.

“Baxter University is getting ready to accept bids next week to build a massive new student center. We're talking one whole city block. Michael wants that project. He told me to work my magic and get it.” Sean shrugged and looked over at Ewan. “I heard through a few sources that she had a thing for younger men.”

“You're a younger man. Why'd you have to drag me here?”

“She prefers tall, dark, and handsome, I was told,” Sean shrugged. “She wanted to lick you from your knees to your neck like you were a melting soft-serve ice cream cone.”

“So you weren't trying to pimp me out?”

“Hell no. Why'd you think I told her you were engaged? She can look all she wants, but she can't touch. At least that's what I was hoping for. Apologies ahead of time if she jumps you in a deserted alley while we're walking to my car.” Sean smiled.

Ewan shook his head. Sean always had a shit-eating grin glued to his face, almost as if he were continuously telling himself a joke. Who knew what was rolling around in that head of his all day? A better question was who would want to know.

Ewan reluctantly thought of Sean as his best friend. Reluctantly because Sean annoyed the shit out of him most of the time. But he was closer than a cousin. They were more like brothers.

“Well, well.” His cousin laughed. “Look who the night's entertainment is.”

Ewan followed Sean's nod and saw Rory Hughes and his bandmates setting up on a raised stage in the opposite corner of the large lobby. Ewan's eyes quickly scanned the crowd looking for Quinn.

Where Rory went, Erin Brauer was sure to go. He spotted the tiny redhead ordering a drink at a bar across the room. Lisbeth Tanner stood next to her with more skin showing than was entirely appropriate. Darcy Owens stood behind them, her face reflecting blue from the smartphone that was inches from her nose.

Quinn wasn't with them.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding but didn't miss the fact that his stomach clenched in disappointment. What sort of spell had she cast on him? She was like some form of personal torture. Just thinking about her was enough to get his mind spiraling down a rather perverted path of all the things he'd love to do to her. All the things he knew he
shouldn't
do with her.

He saw the three women move away from the bar. Ewan looked in the direction they were headed, and all the blood rushed from his head straight to his cock.

Quinn sat at a high-top table close to the stage. She was in all black.
Tight
black. Her hair was pulled up high in a messy knot atop her head, leaving her long, graceful neck bare. His eyes followed her profile, the gradual arch of her back, and along the round curve of her ass as she sat with her legs crossed on a stool. Her tight pants left nothing to the imagination.

And Jesus, her shoes.

Strapped to the bottoms of her long, tantalizing legs were the tallest fucking shoes he'd ever seen. Ewan didn't really consider himself someone who gave a shit about fashion. But those shoes… Those shoes he definitely liked.

When his hungry eyes traveled back up her body, he saw she was laughing.

She wasn't alone.

A guy with a cocky grin was leaning against her table. His eyes shined as he spoke to her and got another smile out of Quinn. The fucker had trust fund written all over him. He wore khaki pants and a navy blue blazer with fucking elbow patches over a crisp white shirt that was so bright it hurt Ewan's eyes.

He scowled. This was the type of guy she probably went for. A pretty boy who took her for dinner at his country club. An asshole with an allowance from his parents who would buy her jewelry to celebrate their monthly dating anniversaries. He probably wore more hair gel in his brown hair than most women did, for fuck's sake.

The guy leaned toward Quinn and put his hand on her arm.

Ewan felt his teeth protest as his jaw clenched. His stomach turned sour, and he had an overwhelming urge to walk across the room and put his fist through Richie Rich's pretty face.

The thought of another man touching her had him thinking all sorts of homicidal thoughts. God, when he'd kissed her in his apartment last weekend, it had seriously been better than some orgasms he'd had in the past. It was honestly that good.

Her soft lips pursing against his mouth. Her breathy sighs.

He quickly shook his head.

Jesus, he needed to get laid. And by someone other than Quinn Adler. Or maybe he needed to fuck her so he could forget about her. But even as the thought swirled inside his head, he somehow didn't quite believe it was possible. If he couldn't stop thinking about how perfect her lips were, how was he going to ever survive fucking her?

“I've got to admit, she's a looker,” Sean said, leaning into him as he peered over in Quinn's direction.

Ewan gave him an icy glare. He and Sean had never competed for women in the past. Sean tended to go for the statuesque types who looked good on his arm but had nothing between their ears. Ewan used to prefer someone with a little more spirit who offered up a challenge. But his preferences in women had changed over the years.

Maybe it wasn't so much his preferences that had changed but more the type of women who were attracted to
him
. He'd hardened over time, and pretty girls who followed the rules didn't often approach him.

When he was younger, he'd chased girls. Now it was the other way around.

Women usually made it easy for him. A whisper in his ear or a graze of a hand up his thigh to his dick was a pretty clear sign of what they wanted. The sex was instant gratification for him, albeit empty.

But that was fine. That was the type of woman he had time for. Rough edges and completely transparent.

He made it a point not to get mixed up with women in Ballagh. Any action he got was on his trips to the city to visit Sean. He liked the no-strings-attached ones who probably carried as much fucked-up baggage as he did.

That was why this sudden fascination with Quinn was unusual for him. Maybe the earth had shifted infinitesimally or the lack of an ozone layer over the East Coast was getting to him, but it almost seemed impossible to get her off his mind.

“So what's your move?” Sean asked.

Ewan watched as she bounced her long, lean leg under the high-top table. She laughed again at something Pretty Boy said.

“I don't have one.”

“What? Why not?”

Ewan shrugged. He wasn't about to get into all the ways Quinn Adler had him twisted up.

“You don't have to resolve yourself to be miserable for the rest of your life,” Sean said seriously. “You don't have to marry her, for fuck's sake. Just take her out for a drink or something. Have a little fun.”

Ewan frowned. “You know me better than that.”

“You're a goddamn masochist is what you are.” Sean tossed back the rest of his drink and put his glass on the bar. “Let's go over and say hello at least. Or will being polite ruin your image?”

There was nothing polite about the things he wanted to do to Quinn.

Quinn looked over her shoulder, wondering what was taking the girls so long. Turning back around, she smiled at Gavin, the nice art history professor who'd approached her the moment her friends had left to get drinks. At first she'd pegged him for a student because he looked young, but after he'd introduced himself, she totally saw that he had professor written all over him. He talked with an easy confidence, and his brown eyes danced with humor behind his dark-framed glasses. There was something quietly charming about the way he smiled.

“Are you a graduate student here?” he asked.

Quinn shook her head. “No. I'm from Pittsburgh. I'm visiting family for the summer.”

“Ah, I see. I didn't think you attended classes here. I definitely would have remembered you if I'd seen you before.” There was that lazy grin again. “So what do you do, Quinn from Pittsburgh?”

“At the moment, not much of anything. I'd like to work in landscape design at some point though.”

“So you like to play in the dirt, huh?”

“Guilty,” she said as she shrugged.

“So what would you say if I told you that if you were a flower, I'd pick you?”

She blinked. “Um, I'd say that's an incredibly bad pickup line?”

“Noted,” he replied, smiling. “How about if you were an ear of corn, I'd shuck you all night on the back porch?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Getting worse.”

“Darn. Okay, here's one: you would be the perfect fruit of my labor.”

“What does that even mean?” she said with a laugh.

“I'll have to work on those. How about I buy you a drink?”

“Honestly, I'm good on the drinks, but if you would have started with that one, you would have been much better off.”

He grinned, looking sheepish. He was charming in an innocent, try-too-hard sort of way. His witty and silly personality didn't exactly match the very masculine persona he exuded. He had a Jake Gyllenhaal thing going on with his looks. If she'd been a student and showed up to her first day of class and saw this guy walk in, she would have had a major crush.

She just wasn't feeling the chemistry though. Why in the world would someone as nice and as charming as Gavin not do it for her while someone as ridiculously rude and unfriendly as Ewan make her heart pound?

“So what do you think of Boston?” he asked.

“It's a nice city. I like the history here.”

His smile brightened. “There's nothing quite like it, really. I mean, if you're a lover of American history, that is. Sure, Washington D.C. has all the monuments and museums, but the birth of our nation
happened here
.”

She watched his eyes sparkle with excitement as he went on to point out some off-the-beaten-path sites that she should check out in her spare time. It was nice to hear someone speak with such passion. It had been a while since she'd spoken like that about something she was passionate about.

“And of course,” he continued, putting his hand on her forearm, “since you're a gardener, you need to check out the Boston Public Garden. This is the perfect time of year for it too.”

She was about to tell him that she would definitely do that when Erin, Lisbeth, and Darcy finally made it back to the table.

“Hello there,” Lisbeth purred at Gavin.

He smiled awkwardly and nodded at the three of them before turning back to Quinn.

“If you're looking for someone to hit up any of those places, give me a call.” He handed her his business card with the Baxter University logo on top. “Hopefully I'll hear from you, Quinn from Pittsburgh.” He winked at her before turning and giving her friends a quick nod of farewell. As she watched him disappear into the crowd, she found herself wishing for that little zing of excitement she used to get when someone showed interest in her.

It just wasn't there.

“He's yummy in a naughty principal sort of way,” Lisbeth said. “Wonder what he's packing behind those pleated khakis.”

“Jesus, you have no shame,” Darcy said.

“What? I appreciate men is all.”