Resisting the Bad Boy - Nice Girl to Love, Vol 1 (Can't Resist #1)(13)

He shrugged. “Most of the ones who’ve shown up have been. But if I were broke off my ass, they wouldn’t have been standing at my door to begin with.”

“Point taken.” She chewed thoughtfully. “So you’re saying the only women who you deign to let in your home are the ones who aren’t interested in your money at all?”

“If I did, I’d have to take a vow of celibacy,” he replied honestly. “It’s a catch-22. Typically, the women not interested in my money are also not interested in a one-month arrangement.”

“Ah yes, the infamous one-month Connor Sullivan rule. Brian’s told me about it. I bet that’s another factor for some of these women who throw themselves at you—trying to become the white unicorn who you one day break your rule over.”

His jaw firmed. “Never going to happen.”

The corner of her lips quirked up. “Don’t worry, stud. I’m not submitting an application or anything.”

Now why did that declaration fill him with a touch of disappointment?

“Enough about me,” he said gruffly. “Tell me more about you. Something besides your research.”

She laughed. “Well that narrows it way down. Now that I’m in my final year of my PhD program and done with all my coursework, my dissertation is the only big thing in my life right now. Other than that, there’s really not much to tell.”

“What about work? Don’t you tutor at Skylar’s school?”

“Oh, I do that as a volunteer. A couple of afternoons a week for the kids that are struggling.”

How noble. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d met whose idea of volunteering wasn’t strictly confined to sitting on executive boards and planning fundraising events. “I could’ve sworn Brian told me you teach English.”

“I do. I teach English at ASU as a part of my fellowship. I get my tuition covered and get paid a lecturer’s salary, which isn’t much. Thankfully, one of my professors offered to rent out this guesthouse to me—living here costs less than I used to pay for my apartment in Tempe two years ago, and I basically get the entire back half of their ginormous lot all to myself.”

Connor leaned back, stuffed, surprised at how easy it was to talk with Abby. “Doesn’t sound like you have that much time for yourself. What do you do for fun?”

She got up to grab them another two beers from the kitchen. “Honestly, I’m a homebody. Never got into the nightlife scene here. By the time I was twenty-one, I was basically babysitting Skylar every weekend, and half my weeknights. Since that pretty much carried on clear until last year, I guess my idea of fun is hanging out with her. Lame, I know.”

He felt like he was talking to a martian. He hadn’t realized she’d spent even more time babysitting Skylar than he had. And he knew for a fact—from Brian’s complaints about it—that she hadn’t taken a single cent from them for babysitting.

For God’s sakes, she was just so nice.

“So you don’t do anything just for yourself? Just for fun?”

“Well, I have been privately executing my mission to learn how to cook the most beloved dishes from every country in the world,” she returned with a smile. “That’s fun.”

It was possible baby bluebirds helped her get dressed in the morning.

She was just that sweet.

“You’re driving me crazy.” He swept an arm around her waist and lifted her right up onto his lap.

“Connor!”

He slid a hand into her hair, rubbed a thumb over her heated cheekbone as he brought his lips to within inches of hers. “I shouldn’t want you this much. You’re everything I’m not, and I’m everything you couldn’t possibly want. I know I should leave you alone, but I just can’t. I can’t stop myself from wanting you.”

Her breathing had grown so erratic, he was actually starting to get concerned. “Say something, sweetheart. I’m baring my soul here.”

“I shouldn’t want you either,” she whispered, “but I do.”

His arms locked around her, instinctively staking a claim on her. Mine.

For now.

The two words were his only two anchors keeping him in the reality he’d created for himself. He had to be brutally honest with her, with them both. “I meant what I said earlier, Abby. I’m never going to break my one-month rule.” Feeling like the lowest piece of scum, he hammered that last nail in, “Not for anyone. Not even you.”

She was silent for a long while, and Connor started preparing himself for the rejection to come.

“I know our fifteen minutes of friendship are up, but can I ask you something as a friend? Will you answer me as one?”

He tensed. “I’ll try.”

She chuckled. “Again with the copout.” Raising her warm doe eyes up to his, she asked quietly, “If you weren’t trying to get in my pants. If you were just my friend and I asked you what one thing I could do to stop being ‘a nice girl’ for just a little while. What advice would you give me?”

That was easy. “I’d tell you to try something new. Something that excites you. Something that’ll take you from zero to sixty just as fast as it could take you back to zero whenever you were ready to return.”

“Something wild and fast.” She loosened her death grip on his shoulders, slid her hands down his back slowly. “That’s good advice.”