Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(30)

Fuckfuck. I watch as she adjusts her laptop. She’s slipping further into her bed. Lying down. I think she props the laptop on the pillow next to her. I can’t see below her breasts, but her arm seems to shift…

And move. Her lips part in a short breath. Her eyes shut for a beat longer.

Fuck, she’s masturbating. My muscles flex, sweat glistening along my body, and pre-cum coats my hand.

Desire pulsates my veins like a coked-up drummer banging and banging. “Willow,” I groan. “Willow.”

She gasps and squirms. I strain my ears to hear her whisper, “Garrison.”

I’m an idiot and I reach out at the computer screen like I can touch her. This fucking 2D version is only half of my girl, and yeah, I’d rather be able to pull her underneath me right now.

She covers her face with her hand, nearing a peak. “I want you,” she mumbles into a sharper breath. “I want you in…”

“I’m in you,” I say in a tight, deep voice. I quicken the friction on my length. “I’m so fucking deep in you.”

Willow moans.

My neck strains, blood bursting my veins, and I tilt my head back. “Fuuuck,” I grit down.

She quakes.

I hit a powerful climax, and an involuntary noise breaches her lips, this high-pitched whimper that reminds me she’s completely let go. Out of her head, and I release into my palm. My body on fire as I pump out the tension.

Fuck.

She breathes hard with me, and I try to remind myself that even miles away, intimacy is still strung between us.





*



The next few weeks, Willow’s classes get harder, and I back off calling my girlfriend until she can call me. I won’t be her distraction. She’s got shit going for her, and I’ve ruined enough. I’m not going to ruin her.

To not think about her, I just bury myself in work. It’s the only thing that keeps me relatively sane. I’m averaging four to five hours of sleep. Which isn’t too bad, all things considered.

And I haven’t burnt another pizza. So improvement, right?

I grab my backpack off the bed. Normally on Saturday I’d be in the office, but Cobalt Inc. is having a party for the diamond division, and I really don’t want to run into those pricks. They’re the guys who pass me and “cough” out the word nepotism. They’re not wrong. But it is annoying. Coughing words died in prep school. It’s fucking lame—especially when thirty-year-old tools do it.

But I got a call, so I do have somewhere to be.

I’m babysitting.

I lock up my apartment and on the way to the stairwell, I pass the cracked door to the shared “smokers” balcony. I quit smoking a while ago, so I’ve never ventured out there. Voices are muffled from outside, but I can still clearly distinguish Ana’s high-pitched drawl.

“What do you mean he’s never around? Doesn’t he live here?”

“I mean what I said, Ana. He isn’t around much,” Jared replies, freezing me cold. “Last time I saw him, I helped with his fire detector.” I freeze. They’re talking about me.

“That was weeks ago,” Ana whines. “If we want to make headway into the inner-circle, you need to be nicer.” I almost snort out a bitter-ass laugh. I knew it was all an act. It actually sucks to be right.

“Baby, I’m being as nice as I can be without getting on my knees and sucking him off.”

“Maybe—”

“Ana,” he snaps.

“I’m just saying, we have one chance to be in with the most famous people in the country. Can you not fuck it up?”

I can’t with this shit. I leave, hurrying down the stairwell. I pull my hoodie over my head. My anger surging. I’m babysitting, I remind myself. I can’t go into it with this type of anger. Calm down.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Fucking breathe.





*



Superheroes & Scones is hard to walk into these days. Part coffee shop, part comic book store—it’ll always remind me of Willow and all the time we spent working here. Stocking the shelves and serving coffees.

I was shit at the espresso machine. Shit at recommending comics. Shit at shelving the “popular” collectibles in the front and the older ones in the back.

But somehow, I was never fired, and that’s kind of a success.

Lily walks out from the back, hearing the chimes of the front door. Her bodyguard lets me in and then locks the door behind me. After-hours, only soft lights illuminate the store, and it’s eerily quiet. Like walking into a fucking morgue.

I hate being here.

It’s the first time I’ve felt that in a really, really long time.

I hate thinking it.

“Garrison, thankyouthankyou for coming.” Lily bounces a three-year-old in her arms and then sets him down. “I’m so sorry this is such late notice.” I agreed to babysitting her toddler. It’s something Willow used to do when she was here.

“It’s not a problem.” I nod to Maximoff Hale. “We’re going to have a lot of fun, right?”

He stares up at me with big green eyes. “Will you watch Batman with me?”

Shit. I raise my brows at Lily. Her husband owns a comic book company called Halway Comics, but everyone in the world is aware that Loren Hale’s true allegiance is to Marvel. He says fuck DC on practically every Instagram Live I’ve seen.