“We come from two different worlds, Stefan. You’re a player, and as much as some people think I am, the reality is that as soon as I saw even just a few of the women I was lumped in with, I didn’t want to be there. That’s never going to change either.”
I didn’t want to hear that. Never before had I not been able to change a woman’s mind, and there was no way in hell Shay Callahan was going to be the first. We may have been as different as night and day, but that was no reason we couldn’t get together.
“We both work in this club. That’s something we have in common, right?”
Her green eyes stared up at me, unconvinced. “I don’t think that’s enough to base having sex with a person on.”
Maybe it was my ego, or maybe it was the bet with Kane. Or maybe it was the feeling of emptiness when I thought of not ever being with her again, but I had to do something to convince her to at least give us a chance. “What if we start over?”
“Stefan, we already started over, remember? I don’t think pretending not to know one another again is going to work.”
She began to back away from me, but I grabbed hold of her wrist. “Wait. What if we started over as friends?”
Shay’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. I had to admit even I was stunned I’d said that word. I’d never been friends with a female. To be honest, I couldn’t even imagine how to do that, but if being friends with Shay was the way to have a chance to be with her, then friends it was.
“Do you really think we could be friends, Stefan? You’re a man whore and I’m a female. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for success.”
“Sure. Why not?”
She seemed to think about my challenge and smiled. “One of the most important parts of friendship is honesty. Can you handle that?”
“Absolutely.”
Looking around, she nodded. “I bet you’ve been in one of these rooms hundreds of times.”
The first test of our friendship. She did like to go big. “You’ll probably be surprised to hear I haven’t been in one of these more than a handful of times.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s not really my thing. I have my office downstairs, Shay.”
There was a long pause and then she said, “I’m guessing I shouldn’t ask how many times you’ve used your office to be with someone, huh?”
“Probably not.”
Even as she continued to smile up at me, I saw the distance in her eyes. She was pulling away emotionally as the idea of me with all those other women registered in her brain. Never before in my life had I regretted what I was, but at that moment, the way she looked at me made me wish I hadn’t been that man whore.
“It’s late, Stefan. I think I better go.”
“Don’t. Come with me. I know a beach we can go to and hang out.”
Shay’s face twisted into a grimace. “You don’t seem to understand how to be friends with a female, do you?”
“I didn’t say we can go and fuck on the beach. Just hang out. That’s it. Get to know each other. Isn’t that what friends do?”
“What beach are you talking about?”
“Just say yes.”
She took a deep breath in and sighed. “Don’t make me regret this, okay?”
Taking a step toward the door, I held out my hand to take hers. “You’re going to love this place. We’ll be the only two people on the beach.”
“How do you know?”
I tugged her toward me as we walked out into the hallway. “It’s a private beach—we call it March Beach.”
Shay looked surprised. “You have your own beach? Do Cassian and Kane live there too?”
“No, none of us live there now. It’s where Cash and I grew up. My mother still lives in the house, but she’s in Italy until next week. It’ll just be you and me.”
We walked down the stairs as I told Shay about how great the house was, and she asked, “You’re taking me to your mother’s house?”
“Yeah. Come on!”
“She won’t mind? Do you often bring people to her house to enjoy the beach?”
I knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if I routinely brought women to my parents’ house to fuck them on the beach. Assuming I could leave out the girls from high school I’d done exactly that with, I told her the truth.
“I’ve never brought anyone to my mother’s house since I moved out of there when I was nineteen. And not because that would mean having to meet my mother, not that I’ve ever introduced anyone to her.”
“And it will just be us?” she asked with a hint of curiosity in her voice.
“Well, the caretaker and the other people who work the estate are there, but they won’t bother us. It will just be the two of us enjoying the beach and the water, if you want to swim.”
As we walked out to my bike, she shook her head. “I don’t have a bathing suit with me, Stefan.”
The idea of Shay buck naked next to me in the water made my cock swell. I winked and said, “Then you can skinny dip. Nobody will see you.”
Climbing onto the back of my bike, she slipped her arms around my waist and leaned in next to my ear. “You’re still struggling with this whole friend thing. Women don’t skinny dip with their male friends, Stefan.”
I started my bike and revved the engine. Fuck, her body felt incredible pressed up against me. Turning my head, I looked back at her. “It was just a suggestion, but I’ll make a mental note of that for the future. No swimming naked with friends.”
She smiled and rested her chin on my shoulder so our lips were nearly touching. “You’ll get it someday. New things take time.”
I hoped her words meant more than just figuring out this whole friend thing.
THE HOUSE we rolled up to could only be described as breathtaking. An enormous Victorian home right on the waterfront, it made me feel like we’d traveled back in time to the days when all of Tampa looked like this. I’d seen paintings of neighborhoods full of homes just like this in my faculty mentor’s office, who in his spare time liked to trace the history of the area’s more distinguished families. He’d never talked about the March family, but if this house had been theirs for more than a few years, Dr. Taduch would know about them.
Stefan climbed off the bike first and held out his hand to help me off. “Welcome to the March House.”