Chapter 27
COLTON
JULY — THREE WEEKS TO WIN OVER THE FACULTY
I glare at the half dozen tomes laid across the desk. This article is due by the end of the summer, and with only a few weeks left, I can’t get past the hump. I’m supposed to get on a call with Richard soon to discuss it, hoping that will jog an idea.
My phone buzzes, breaking my standoff with my computer.
Quinn
I finished my meeting with the employers early. You around?
I smile at the screen. One text from her, and everything’s better. Not fixed, but better.
The past few weeks have been the best of my life. Lunch together at the local sandwich shop between classes. Dinner around our giant wooden table. And every night, she’s in my bed. If it weren’t for the threat of the summer’s end hanging over us, I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven.
We’ll still have our friendship when we get home, but this slice of paradise—the one where I spend every day devouring her stream of consciousness and she spends every night coming apart around me—has an expiry date that’s quickly approaching. How will I pretend her walking away doesn’t gut me?
I shoot back a response.
Me
Have a call with your dad to work out some issues in the article. Give me an hour?
QUINN
Lucky you.
Her sarcasm is laced with hurt, and it makes me ball my fists. She deserves so much better than she gets from him.
Less than ten minutes later, the FaceTime app on my computer lights up with an incoming call from Richard Riley.
“Colton. How are you doing, son?”
Great! Fucking your daughter every night and loving every second.
Probably not the best opener, so I go with something more neutral. “Could be worse. You heading to Venice soon?”
He grumbles something unintelligible. “I don’t see why we have to take these students to different parts of Italy. They’re adults.”
I personally had a great time—life-changing, really—on my university-led weekend trip. But, again, I’m not sharing that with her father.
“I’m sure they appreciate it,” I say instead.
“What a waste of the last two weeks in Rome,” he harrumphs.
The reminder that we are coming up on the end of the summer shoots through me. Our program goes a week past Richard’s, but that final day is looming, like the Grim Reaper waiting to drain the life out of me.
Richard sighs, snapping me out of my doom spiral. “Let’s hear this challenge you have for me.”
I run through the premise of the article and the limitations of my research.
There’s a reason he’s so respected, even if he is a terrible father, and by the end of our call, relief washes over me.
We sorted it out. I’ll get this published and add to the growing list of reasons I’ll eventually be granted tenure.
As we prepare to hang up, Richard clears his throat. “How’s Quinn?”
It’s like a shock from an electric fence hearing him say her name. Ten years, hundreds of calls, and dozens of dinners, and he’s never asked about her.
“She’s great,” I say, unsure how much she’d want me to share with him.
The papers on his desk rustle as he moves them around, creating a static sound that muffles his words. I barely make out, “A shame she chose not to come to dinner.”
I grit my teeth. She told me about dinner, how he was planning to ambush her. He should have been begging for the chance to spend time with her, not diminishing her accomplishments from this summer and trying to force her back into the box he created.
“You should ask her about her work,” I say. “You’d be proud.”
He grunts. “Her internship class.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to slow my response. “It’s impressive what she’s accomplished.”
“Well, she was never lacking in ability. Drive and follow-through, on the other hand…”
I need to take a breath, a step back, anything to keep me from biting off his head.
“With all due respect, she’s plenty driven.
She convinced the faculty—who were dead set on their plan—to give her a chance to prove them wrong.
And she hasn’t coasted her way through the course.
She created something incredible with little guidance or support. ”
He rolls his eyes, an undignified look on a man of his age. “I’m glad she’s getting her act together. Now if we can help her see that the mistakes of the past few years can be reversed, she’ll go back to school.”
“I’m not planning on convincing her of anything. Her job makes her happy. She doesn’t need to change.”
“She broke down when she didn’t get the Harrow Fellowship and threw away everything she spent her life working toward. Excuse me if I don’t praise the fact that she’s doing an okay job.”
“Who do you think you are?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Richard’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “I think I’m her father. Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone who actually knows her.” Someone who loves her.
“Think long and hard before you keep talking. You have shown incredible promise, and I’d like to continue our working relationship, but I value respect more than talent.”
It’s a clear threat. A powerful, insufferable man waving his dick around to reinforce that he can treat people however he wants because no one will stop him.
Recommendations from people in the field are vital for tenure review.
Dr. Cassia will always support me, but if I have the top scholar in the field bad-mouthing me, moving forward will be a lot more difficult.
But stopping the next words out of my mouth is impossible, like trying to catch a wave on the beach.
“And I value loyalty over respect,” I say. “So here’s the truth. Quinn isn’t good at her job. She’s phenomenal. She has every student and almost every faculty member eating out of her hand.
“Your daughter’s brilliant. If she wanted a PhD in Roman history, she’d have one.
She chose to do something else with her life.
You’re choosing to miss out on a relationship with the most incredible person I’ve ever met because you think you know better for her than she does.
So no, I’m not going to think before I tell you that you’re royally fucking up every day you choose not to be a part of her life. ”
His face goes bright red, a trait I’ve never had cause to learn Quinn inherited from him, and I can make out beads of sweat pooling on his lip even through the grainy image of the video call.
Now that I’ve finished my tirade, a ball of anxiety settles in my gut.
The fire in his eyes scares the living shit out of me.
What was I thinking?
“Thank you, Dr. Miller, for your unsolicited feedback,” he says. “Good luck on your academic journey. You’ll need it.”
He ends the call before I can respond, and I stare at the blank screen. Adrenaline courses through my limbs. I need to move, to do something to make me forget that I may have fucked up my career when both my mom and I are dependent on my salary.
I turn toward the end of my desk, swiping the books off with a yell. My body turns with the movement, and I stop short when I see Quinn standing in the doorway. My breath rushes out of my body.
She’s wearing that damn white lingerie.
I scan her body, my own responding even amid the fear and anger running through my veins. When I reach her face again, she has tears in her eyes.
“You defended me,” she says.
“Yes.”
“But you were counting on his recommendation for tenure.”
I pull in a deep breath and nod. “That was the plan.”
Her gulp is audible, and she blinks quickly. “He can be really vindictive, Colton.”
“I know.”
She closes the distance between us, going up to her toes and pressing a featherlight kiss to my lips. A shudder racks my body. The vulnerability and gratitude in that kiss wipes out any regret I have. I’d do anything—sacrifice anything—for her to know she’s loved.
She deepens the kiss, and I wrap one hand around the back of her head.
I let her maneuver us to the plush chair in the corner.
I drop back when my legs hit the seat, expecting her to come down with me.
Instead, she stands between my legs and runs her hands through my hair.
My eyes drift closed, and I plant a soft kiss on her wrist.
“You brought the lingerie,” I say, my voice coming out husky.
“You told me to.”
I did, but if I told the Colton of two months ago that Quinn would both listen to the suggestion and allow me to see her this way, he’d have assumed I’m on drugs.
She runs her hand down my neck and over my chest, continuing down my torso in a slow, addictive slide. She kneels between my legs, looking at me from under her lashes as she unbuttons my pants.
I place my hand over hers. “You don’t have to do that.”
It’s not like it’s the first time, but I don’t like the idea of her doing it as a reward. She deserves to be supported because she’s her—gorgeous, dazzling her—with no expectations.
“Please.” That word on her lips wrecks me. “I want to.”
She shifts my pants down my legs, removing them completely before sitting up on her knees, undoing the buttons of my shirt with steady hands. She undresses me slowly, almost reverently, until I’m completely naked before her.
She grips me, and my head drops back when she twirls her tongue around the tip.
I let out a deep groan, my breath turning ragged.
She hums in response, and my gaze is immediately drawn back to her.
I can never keep my eyes away from her for long.
Her gaze stays on me with every leisurely bob of her head, and my heart clenches at the trust in her eyes even as I feel the familiar tinge at the base of my spine.
“Stop.” I barely force out the word. “I want to be inside you when I finish.”
Her smile is so sweet, almost shy, when she pulls away.
She stands between my knees and slips one strap off, followed by the other, before she lets the lingerie drop to the floor in a pool of white lace.
The look on her face, open and unguarded—is it too hopeful to say loving?
—freezes me in place. Her underwear slips over her hips, dropping to join its pair on the ground.
She climbs into my lap and kisses me. I want to wrap myself up in her, to feel and taste every inch like it’s the first time, but she pulls away from me. Her fingers map my face, my jaw, my neck; her eyes shine with so much affection I can hardly breathe.
Quinn notches me at her entrance and lowers herself torturously slow. Our eyes never leave each other. I can’t think beyond her perfect heat wrapped around me, squeezing me tight.
There’s none of the frenzied energy that normally drives us.
No hard, punishing movements. My cock swells, but it’s the sensation in my chest that’s driving me to the brink.
It’s like my soul is swelling, too. Like it’s trying to escape my body, reaching out for hers as if they were always meant to be one.
Like it recognized something from the beginning and finally sees the hope that its pair will recognize it, too.
Quinn’s eyes fill with tears, and I bring my hand up to wipe away the couple that escape.
“Quinn, what’s wrong?” I want to take away her pain, to stand in front of her and defend her from anything that threatens to hurt her.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she insists, running her hand through my hair.
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be crying.”
“I’m not sad. It’s just… I feel…” And when I look in her eyes, I see it. There’s no heartbreak, no fear or insecurity. I can see what she can’t say yet. I’m not a convenient fuck or a living vibrator. I’m more to her. We are more.
And I know she’s not ready to deal with what that means, so instead I pull her forward for a soft kiss and place my forehead against hers.
“Me, too,” I whisper. The closest I can come to saying what I mean without scaring the living shit out of her.
Because what I want to say is that I’m hers, so utterly and completely that I could never belong to anyone else, even when she doesn’t want me anymore.
She’s my best friend, my Venus, the love of my goddamn life, regardless of whether or not I’m hers.
And all I can do is hope what I see on her face isn’t a desperate figment of my imagination.
We don’t say anything else as she kisses me and begins to move. The only sounds are our soft breaths and sighs. When we come together, my face buried in her neck, I fight to swallow down the words again.
If she needs time, I’ll give it to her.
I’ve waited this long already. And she’s worth every second.