The Boyfriend Zone by Jillian Quinn
I’m two weeks into my friends-with-benefits arrangement with Preston. Two of the best weeks of my life. I smile when a text message lights my screen.
Preston:Someone misses you.
Bex: Look at you getting all mushy.
Preston:I was talking about my dick.
I laugh so loud I snort.
Bex: You’re an idiot. What are you doing?
Preston: Thinking about you.
Bex: Wanna study with me?
Preston:Is that code for sex? :)
Bex: No, silly. I’m in the library.
Preston: Mmm… library sex.
Bex: No way! Not happening. Too many people around.
Preston:That’s what makes it so much fun. Never stopped you before. Anyone could have walked in on us when I fucked you on my kitchen counter. You were purring in my ear. Begging for it.
Bex: You’re so bad.
Preston: You like it when I’m bad.
Bex: You got me there. Come to the library.
Preston:So we can be bad together.
Bex:So we can study.
Preston:Right. :) If you say so.
Bex: You coming or what?
Preston: I hope so *wink, wink*
Bex: Keep it in your pants.
Preston:That’s impossible to do around you. I’ll be there in 20.
Bex:I’ll be waiting.
Twenty minutes later, Preston strolls down the aisle toward my table, all muscle and swagger. Track pants hang low from his narrow hips, his T-shirt tight against his thick chest. Did he wear this on purpose?
Ugh, I’m dying over here.My ovaries will explode, and it will be his fault. He looks good, too damn tempting.
I smile up at him as he pulls out a chair and sits next to me. His large frame fills up every inch of space around me. So does his manly scent. He smells like freshly dried laundry, his musky cologne, and sweat.
“Why are you out of breath?”
“It’s all you, girl.” He smirks. “You take my breath away.”
I laugh and then nudge him in the side with my elbow.
“You kinda do. But that’s not the reason. I ran across campus to get in some cardio. I was also trying to dodge this chick I hooked up with last year. She’s a clinger.”
“Nice.” I shake my head. “This is the Preston Parker everyone knows.”
He leans in so close our lips are almost touching. “I’d never run from you.”
“You say that now because this is new and still fun. I’m sure you’ll be running from me by the end of the year.”
I have to face the reality of the situation. No matter how good the sex or how much I like him, we have no future. Our paths will never cross after graduation.
His smile fades. “You’re impossible, woman. Would you just go with the flow?” Preston presses his thumb to my temple. “Stop overthinking everything.”
Before I can answer, his lips are on mine and invading my mouth. Our tongues collide, and it’s like a silent war with each of us fighting for domination over the other.
Someone clears their throat from a distance. I break away from Preston, sinking back in my chair. The librarian shoots a pointed stare in our direction. Using her hands, she motions for us to move our chairs apart. I scoot mine along the carpet in desperate need of some distance from him.
“How come you’re on the top floor?”
I shrug. “No one ever comes up here. That’s why I like it. I can focus on my homework or study for a test. The dorms are too noisy.”
“I have the same problem at my house. Too many guys under one roof. It gets a little crowded.”
“I really have to study,” I confess. “I wasn’t joking about that part.”
He slides my open textbook along the table toward him. “So, what are we studying?”
“Business ethics.”
“I thought you were a sports management major.”
“I am. We’re learning how to negotiate sports contracts and how to deal with the ethical obligations in those contracts.”
“Ahh, I see. Like the dickhead agents who lure prospective clients with cars.”
I steal the book back from him. “Exactly.”
“My mom can’t stand those kinds of agents.”
“I can’t either. They use dirty tactics to gain clients.”
“I would never sign with someone who did that.”
“Isn’t your mom going to manage your career?”
“I don’t know. My family is already so involved in my life I’m not sure if I want her micromanaging my career, too.”
“What about JP?”
“Maybe,” he says. “We’ll see. I haven’t gotten that far yet. My mom assumes she’ll handle everything… because that’s what she does. I wouldn’t mind having someone outside our family.”
“No one will have your back like family.”
He moves his hand from the table to my thigh and squeezes it. “Yeah, you’re right.”
We sit in silence for a while, and I pretend to study even though Preston is too distracting. His fingers skate along my thigh, his delicate touch too much for me to stand.
“Are you doing this on purpose so I’ll change my mind about library sex?”
The dimple in his cheek pops. “Is it working?”
“Yes.” My cheeks redden. “But I need to study. For real. I have a test tomorrow that counts for twenty-five percent of my grade. Don’t you have practice or something else you can do?”
“Nah, I’d rather bother you.” He laughs. “I don’t have practice until tomorrow morning. I’m so ahead on my managerial accounting class that I finished all of my work in the lecture hall.”
“I’m sure you could find hundreds of things to do other than sit in a library.”
“Yeah. But you’re here. So, unless you plan on relocating to my bedroom, I’m staying here until you tell me to leave.”
“You can stay as long as you stop distracting me.”
“You’re an A student, Bex. I’m sure you’ll ace this class whether I sit here with you.”
“You’re skating dangerously close to the line we’re not supposed to cross,” I joke.
He cocks his head at me. “Oh, yeah. And how so?”
“We spend a lot of time together. Some would consider this dating with how much we hang out.”
“I don’t think so.” He scratches his jaw, thinking it over. “I’ve never taken you on a date. McDonald’s doesn’t count.”
I chuckle at his comment. “If you took me to McDonald’s for a date, we would not be dating, anyway.”
He laughs and then tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ve never enjoyed being around another girl as much as I do you. You make it so easy, Bex.”
“And you make this very complicated for me.”
“How so?”
“Because you make me want to break the last rule. We’re so close to doing it, too. You know it as much as I do, don’t you?”
He nods. “I thought it would be easier to be friends with benefits. But I like you a lot more than I thought I would.”
“Me, too,” I confess.
“You never told me what happened. What made your dad come up with the rules? Tell me, Bex. Please. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”
I bite my lip, nervous. “Only a handful of people know this story. Will you promise you won’t freak out if I tell you? And you can’t tell your friends.”
His expression darkens. “What happened to you?”
“Please, Preston. Promise me.”
He covers my hand with his and nods. My entire body trembles from the fear taking over.
What will he think of me after I tell him? Will he be able to look at me the same way?
He glances down at my trembling hand and grips it tighter. “You can tell me anything.”
I can trust him, which is why I want to tell him. He should know why we can’t be together. Why my dad would kill him for being here with me.
“When I was in high school, my dad coached the ice hockey team. Kellan Lehane was his star player.”
His jaw clenches at the mention of Kellan. He knows him, played against him the first game of the season.
“Kellan was my dad’s favorite… just like you are now. I was shy, kept to myself. I had friends, but I wasn’t popular. Not like Kellan. Everyone loved him.”
Preston grips my hand. His anger shakes through me.
“We dated for a few months. My entire life changed when I met him. Suddenly, everyone knew my name. I had new friends. He made me feel special, like I was the most important person in the world.” I hesitate with the next part, choking down the bile rising from my stomach. “Kellan was my first. I was so in love with him. Or at least I thought I was. It was more lust than anything.”
“Please don’t tell me he hurt you,” Preston whispers, his voice deep. “I will fucking kill him if he did.”
A single tear falls from my cheek, and he wipes it away with his thumb. “Just let me finish. This is hard for me to tell you.”
“We all have a past,” he says. “It’s how we take those painful lessons and change our future that defines us.”
“I’m so afraid of how you’ll react and what this will mean for us. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” he promises.
Sucking in a deep breath, I prepare myself for the rest of the story. I’ve tried to block it all out for years.
“He took my virginity. It was nice. So don’t get any ideas. He didn’t rape me, but what he did afterward was… horrible.”
Preston hooks his arm around me, still shaking, and pulls me to him. I’m not sure who needs this hug most—him or me. He seems more on edge.
“It’s okay,” Preston whispers against my ear. “You can tell me. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“He took pictures of me. I was naked in some of them. In my bra and panties, in others. He said he would erase them from his phone. But he never did. Instead, he uploaded them to porn sites and social media.”
Preston grinds his teeth, looking like he’s about to Hulk Smash the desk into pieces. His eyes are watery and filled with pain.
“My dad got the pictures taken down from Instagram and the other sites because they violated child pornography laws. But some pictures are still out there on websites that don’t have to comply.”
“Why the fuck not?” he growls. “You were a minor.”
“My dad tried. He sent complaints, talked to lawyers, and some sites refused to acknowledge our requests.”
Preston takes a deep breath, staring out the window. “I’ll find a way.”
“No. You can’t tell anyone, Preston.”
“If there are naked pictures of my girl on the Internet, I have to do something about it.”
“I’m not your girl.”
He leans back in his chair, shoving his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends. “I’m not allowed to help you. So what can I do? I have to do something. You shouldn’t have to live like this, knowing some pervert online is looking at you.”
“It’s not your responsibility, Preston. This is all my fault. I allowed him to take the pictures.”
His face scrunches in anger… pain… sadness? It’s hard to get a read on his mood. He’s like a storm of emotions.
“This is not your fault, Bex. You did nothing wrong.”
“I trusted the wrong person.” Another tear slides down my face. “I was so stupid.”
“No, you’re not.” He cradles me in his arms, his breath warming the top of my head. “I can’t believe Lehane did this to you. I will kill him.”
I stroke his arm with my fingers. “It’s not worth it.”
“I would do just about anything for you, Bex. That’s the problem.”