The Duality Principle Read online

  “Saturday it is.” He put an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. It was just an excuse to move closer to her. “Your turn.”

  She leaned in and balanced her crossed arms onto the table too. It gave him another spectacular view, this time of her breasts. It was torture to drag his eyes up to her face.

  “Why’d you do the sheriff’s daughter?” she asked.

  Connor coughed out a laugh. It wasn’t a question he expected her to ask. But he wasn’t about to tell her how he’d fucked the sheriff’s not-so-innocent little girl in the backseat of daddy’s cruiser after she’d lifted the keys from his uniform pocket. How she’d pleaded with Connor to do it again when he didn’t have a second condom, and how after the near-miss that followed, he’d made it a habit to carry more than one on him. He could indulge Gabby, though, and let her hear a little bit about just how bad he once was.

  “Because it was wrong and I could,” he answered.

  Gabby narrowed her eyes. “You answered that really quickly.”

  He shrugged, enjoying the way she was looking at him. She wasn’t horrified at all.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Still, that was too fast. It barely even counted as an answer. I think I’m due another question.”

  He laughed again, harder this time. “Fine. A freebie, but only this once.”

  Her smile grew wide, her chin lifting in victory.

  “How does a guy who tore donuts into the town sheriff’s lawn turn into a computer geek?”

  “You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you? I wasn’t even the one driving.”

  Gabby leaned in closer. The view got even better. It was nearly impossible for him to keep his eyes on hers.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  He made a face and let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine. It’s a boring story, actually. Dean liked to cause trouble, and I liked to cause it with him. But we had to grow up eventually, and for whatever reason, coding was something I was good at.”

  It was almost entirely the truth.

  “And you taught yourself everything you know.”

  “Pretty much. I read a lot about it, practiced on a few small-budget sites. I never had any classes in it before college, other than high school typing.”

  She seemed satisfied with that, so Connor took the opportunity to move on.

  “My turn. Why did you get into math? I mean, what was the appeal?”

  Gabby paused for a moment, as if she was weighing the worth of his question.

  “It’s clean. Ordered. There’s no emotion involved. The answers are definite. Logical.”

  He could understand that. Emotions were definitely something he’d attempted to avoid.

  “Coding is like that too. It either works or it doesn’t. There are no gray areas to deal with.”

  “Right, completely the opposite of my grandmother’s rose bushes, which seem to be dying on me now matter how many articles about gardening I read.”

  They smiled at each other for a minute. Connor had managed to keep his gaze north of her chin and now found himself stuck on how perfectly clear her skin was, how it seemed to glow. On her heart-shaped face and the way her cheeks lifted when she smiled. Things he’d never noticed about any girl before, ever.

  He cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles against the table. “Um, it’s your turn.”

  “Right.” She looked up at the ceiling in thought, then back at him. “Most embarrassing moment.”

  “When my grandmother wanted to use my laptop to look something up and my browser was still open to a porn site.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, that’s awful.”

  He had to laugh along with her. “It was.”

  She uncovered her eyes, her still hands shielding either side of her face. “You shouldn’t bother asking me the same question. Yours wins, completely.”

  “Nah, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask,” he said. “Why are you here all by yourself?”

  That seemed to rattle her. Her hands slid down from her face to the table. She picked at her napkin. “I told you, my parents and I don’t really get along.”

  “I didn’t mean them. I meant, why are you single? Are all the guys at M.I.T. blind?”

  Gabby opened her mouth like she was on the edge of replying and blinked several times. She eventually smiled, but her eyes didn’t light up the same way they usually did. It didn’t match.

  “I’ve had some short relationships, if you could even call them that. But none of them really…worked out.” She spaced her words apart in a way that made Connor sense he’d touched a nerve.

  “Same for me,” he said, hoping it would get rid of the tension at the table. The little V between her eyebrows disappeared, and she wagged a finger at him. He wanted to bite it.

  “I didn’t ask about your relationships,” she said. “That doesn’t count as one of my questions.”

  “But you wanted to know, didn’t you?” He knew she did, and strangely enough, he wanted to tell her. “Okay. Have at it. What’s your next question?”

  She leaned an inch closer. “Do you miss your parents?”

  “No.”

  “Wow. Another quick answer.”

  “It was an easy question.”

  “Gotcha.” She didn’t push the subject, much to his relief, but instead lifted a hand to cover a yawn. “Sorry, I’m a little tired. I’m usually up at dawn, and I think that beer just got to me.”

  “You want to head out?” he asked, trying his best not to look disappointed. “I can take you home.”

  “Oh you don’t have to do that. It’s not a far walk.”

  “No way. It’s late and it’s dark.” He didn’t want her walking all the way back alone.

  “Well, Jamie is probably ready to go too.” She glanced at the pool table. They’d started a game, and Jamie was laughing, an open palm pressed against Dean’s chest. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. At least, not with Gabby.

  Connor hopped off the chair and pulled the truck keys from his pocket.

  “If I know Dean, he won’t let Jamie go until he’s let her win at least twice. Besides, they’re all trapped here until I say so. I’m the designated driver, remember?”

  She slid off her chair too and looked up at him.

  Say yes.

  Give me a little more time with you.

  “Okay. Just let me tell Jamie that you’re taking me home.”

  He watched as she found her way to the pool table and cupped her hand around Jamie’s ear. Dean was leaning low, about to take his shot, but then looked up and met Connor’s eyes across the room. Connor dangled the keys to the truck in his hand, pointed a finger at Gabby and tilted his head in the direction of the door. Dean gave him a silent nod. If nothing else, at least almost a decade of friendship had made him into a halfway decent wingman.

  Gabby hurried back, and this time, she was the one to take Connor’s hand in hers when they were out on the street again. He didn’t let go of her until they got to Dean’s truck.

  “Connor?” she said when he fit the key in the ignition. He paused and looked across the bench seat. She was curled up in his sweatshirt, hair messed up from the windy sea air and looking so fuckable he could hardly stand it. “I had a nice time tonight.”

  Whether she was talking about the fireworks or the tent or the bar, he had no idea. It didn’t matter.

  “Me too.”

  She smiled and blushed. When he pulled up in front of her house, she didn’t rush to get out of the cab. Connor cut the engine.

  “One more question,” he said.

  Her eyes were wide. Serious. “Yes?”

  He swallowed. Of all the things he’d done, what he was about to ask somehow seemed the most daunting.

  “Can I have your phone number?” />
  Gabby laughed loudly at that. It was possibly the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

  “Of course. I’ll give you my email too.” She dug into her bag and pulled out her phone. “Give me yours. We’ll trade.”

  Connor handed his phone over and took hers in return. He held it for a minute, enjoying touching something that belonged to her. When they’d given each others’ phones back, Gabby seemed to hesitate for a moment, then slid slowly across the bench until she was right next to him.

  “I have one last question too.”

  He could feel her breath on his face. “You want to keep my sweatshirt.”

  She grinned and shook her head. Then she pulled off her glasses, folded them closed and put them on the dashboard. His dick twitched in his pants, just like it had when he took them off her in the tent. She rocked that whole sexy librarian look, big time.

  “Can I get a goodnight kiss?”

  “A goodnight kiss,” he repeated. She nodded. “I think that would be all right.”

  “Good.”

  She leaned in and brushed her lips shyly over his. It was gentle at first, and he let her control the kiss, let her choose the pace and the pressure, slow and soft. But then she changed the game on him, opening her mouth and sliding her tongue along his. She made the tiniest noise of pleasure when she did it too, and Connor couldn’t stifle his groan. He slid his right hand around her and settled it into the dip at the small of her back, pulling her forward until she had no choice but to press herself against him. She rose up on her knees to put her hands on his shoulders, and Connor gripped the steering wheel tightly in his left hand. It was the only thing keeping him from grabbing her hips, tearing off those tiny cotton shorts of hers and pulling her down on top of him.

  It seemed to last forever, until his hands got sweaty and the windows began steaming up around them. Gabby sucked his lower lip into her mouth, then giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “We’re gonna get in trouble if we keep this up,” she said.

  “I have no problem with that.”

  He didn’t bother to say that he was pretty sure he was in trouble already.

  Gabby shimmied away and put her glasses back on. She turned back to grin at him, one bare shoulder peeping out of his sweatshirt and her hair falling over her face. She looked like his wildest schoolgirl fantasy come to life. She needed to get inside before he cracked.

  She wriggled out of his sweatshirt and handed it to him. “Goodnight.”

  “Night. See you Saturday.”

  She hopped down out of the truck and closed the door. Connor watched her cross the lawn, resisting the urge to lift his sweatshirt to his face and breathe in the scent she was sure to have left behind on it until she was out of sight. When she finally went inside, he buried his nose in the cotton. It smelled amazing.

  He dropped it into his lap, mashed his head against the headrest and stared up at the ceiling. God, he deserved a fucking medal for holding himself back like that. She was hitting all his trigger points, finding everything that set him off and making him harder than he’d been in his life. He didn’t just like doing it in public—it wasn’t just the thrill of getting caught. He got off on being totally filthy with a girl, in watching her completely give in to lust regardless of where they were. That wasn’t happening with Gabby in the cab of Dean’s truck, especially after their little question and answer period that had only made him like her more.

  Connor sighed and started the engine. He hadn’t found out everything he’d wanted to, but they had time. He’d be seeing her in two days. He could ask her more questions on the hike.

  If he was able to keep his hands off her, that was.

  With a smile that stretched his cheeks to cartoon-like proportions, he drove back to the tavern. It had cleared out a little since they’d left, and he snagged a spot out front. He found Dean in the back, still at the pool table. Mikey was playing him now and losing. Badly.

  “Where’d Jamie go?”

  Dean sank a solid then stood up. “She’s about to ply me with some coffee. Just went off to the bartender to ask them to brew me a pot. What is it with these women trying to make honest men out of us?”

  “You’re sober enough to drive, then?”

  “I will be soon.”

  “Good.” Connor handed over the keys to the truck. “Thanks for letting me take Gabby home. By the way, if you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you.”

  “About that.” Dean balanced his cue against the table. “You’re into her. I can tell. But you might want to back off on this one.”

  Connor’s smile hit a pothole. “Why?”

  “Because she is who she is, and you are…” Dean waved a hand in front of him. “You.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Whoa, chill. All I mean is, she seems like kind of girl who might take certain things seriously.”

  “Things…like, sex?” Connor chuckled. Dean didn’t know the half of it. “Don’t worry about it. We’re good on that front.”

  “So you’ve changed your M.O. with her, then?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Ah. I’m guessing she wasn’t the one who started up shit with you back in the tent, right?” Dean nodded back over his shoulder. “I think poor Mikey’s been scarred for life.”

  Connor’s fingers tingled with the familiar need to curl into fists. “She was into it. Trust me.”

  But it made him think. Which one of them had initiated things in the tent, or even the other day on the docks? If he thought about it, the reality was, both times it had been him. And Gabby’s kiss in the truck had taken things at about a quarter of the ridiculously fast pace he’d been careening towards whenever he was around her. Still, she hadn’t so much as flinched when she’d heard a few more details about the reckless kid he’d been. She said she saw more in him, and that made him want to show her everything.

  Dean bumped a fist against his shoulder. “All I’m saying is, she doesn’t seem like your type. And you probably shouldn’t get involved anyway. She’s outta here in a few weeks. Not the best time for you to get all emo over a girl.”

  It was a little late for that.

  And she was leaving but not yet. He still had time to get this right.

  Chapter Nine

  On Saturday morning, Gabriella didn’t jump out of bed as usual, ready to start the day. She just lay there, staring at the ceiling. She’d been awake half the night, her pulse pounding in anticipation, too excited to sleep. In a few hours, she’d be spending the day with Connor—an entire day away from her research and her doubts, filled instead with clean mountain air and him by her side.

  As if she’d have been able to get any work done anyway. She was supposed to have spent Friday working, but her thesis prep remained untouched, especially after getting an email from Connor confirming their plans for today. She hadn’t been able to think about anything but him since he dropped her off two days ago.

  She turned her head to glare at where her laptop sat folded up on her desk, shadows crossing over the cover. Outside her window, wind chased the early morning sunlight through the tree limbs. The sight made her sigh. The angle of the sun was already a little bit different than it had been when she first got here in early June. Although this part of the summer once held so much promise for her, today it was a reminder of how the clock was ticking. She was running out of time before the fall semester began, but it was impossible for her to concentrate on that now.

  She still hadn’t quite recovered from what Connor did to her in the tent at the park or the way he kissed her in Dean’s truck. How he’d gripped her with that one big hand and pulled her to him, every line in his body stretched tight as a wire. Gabriella closed her eyes at the memory. Even when she’d been so sure what they had wasn’t going anywhere, he’d proved her wrong. This thing between
them was another paradox: him the unstoppable force and her, the immovable object. A duality, and both could not be true at once. If an irresistible power existed, then it logically followed that that there couldn’t be any such thing as an unyielding entity, so how much longer could she deny what she craved? With Connor, she’d finally found a glimpse of what she’d been looking for, even though locking up that side of her was the thing she came to Portland to square away. She thought she had to prove to herself she couldn’t be both sides of the coin, that she had to pick one way to be, that there was no way to be both. All her logic was failing her.

  “If A equals B, then if you do the same thing to A and to B, the results will be equal,” she said to the empty room. “I am ‘A’: an intelligent, independent woman, a mathematician who wants a successful career.”

  But if that was true, then could she be the same woman who was willing—no, eager—to let Connor grind against her in public, with no shame about who might catch them? She couldn’t, and yet, she was. She was both A and B, two halves of the same, and both wanted Connor to fuck her senseless.

  She threw off her blankets and reached for her bathrobe, the air in her bedroom chilly despite the calendar. She’d always loved the twin natures of the seashore in the summer: the way the midday sun would bear down until the insides of her knees and elbows were soaked with sweat, but then needing to pull a sweatshirt from her closet once the sky went purple with twilight. Maine summers could be two things at once, so why couldn’t she?

  When she was freshly showered, her hair twisted up in two French braids, she dug through her closet to find her hiking boots, thick socks and sturdy shorts. The sports bra and Henley tee she gathered into her hands would have appalled Jamie, but a hike was a hike whether it was a date or not, and Gabriella was always prepared.

  She giggled at the thought and wondered if she should bring a condom too.

  With her backpack in hand, she went outside to wait on the porch. For a moment, the vision of her rider taking her on it flashed through her mind. But she was too excited to see Connor to be distracted by silly fantasies. She searched through her bag for the trail map of Bradbury Mountain State Park. She was still studying it when the gate creaked open and slammed shut.