Chapter 14

After getting themselves cleaned up, they quickly retreated from the art gallery. It would have been hot to get caught in the act, but getting caught after they’d both finished was just tacky and embarrassing.

Bre wasn’t sure where they were going so she just followed his lead. Collin never mentioned how many times he’d been to the mansion, but he seemed to know his way around. Come to think of it, Bre didn’t really know very much about him at all. Other than the fact that he worked on Wall Street for Logan Atwood. She was enjoying the mystery, but she had to admit that she was curious to get to know him better.

“So are you normally into that kind of thing?” Collin asked, breaking the silence.

“You mean messing up priceless art?” Bre countered, grinning.

He gave her a knowing a look.

“Everything has a price.”

“Not one that I can afford.”

Collin let out a tiny laugh before getting serious again.

“But seriously… you like having sex where you know someone might see you?”

“I didn’t hear you complaining. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I wasn’t the only one having a good time.”

He laughed even harder, this time. It sounded nice. She liked making him laugh like that.

“It would be pretty hard to hide how much fun I had.”

“You did leave a mess all over my back.”

Collin winced at the mention of what he’d done.

“Sorry… I felt bad about that.”

“Gross,” she groaned. “It was fun, right? The worst thing you could do is apologize for it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast.”

She hooked her arm through his and hugged herself close to him.

“Good. Me too. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Deal.”

They made their way through parts of the mansion she hadn’t seen yet. Bre didn’t really care if any of the house staff saw her clinging to his arm like that. It was actually pretty nice to have him that close to her. Nothing like all of the other guys she’d hooked up with before. She found she liked pretty much all of the ways he responded to her.

“What about you?” she asked, after a while. “You can’t be all work and no play… what kinds of things do you like to do?”

Collin’s body tensed. It was enough for Bre to let him go. Did she just say the wrong thing?

“You mean in bed?” he asked.

“I mean I want to know more about you.”

They walked on for a few moments in silence while she waited for him to respond.

“Look… I don’t know if that’s something we should get into.”

Why was he taking this so serious? She gave him a playful nudge, trying to lighten the mood.

“You got some dark, sordid hobbies that you don’t want me to know about?”

“Nothing like that,” he said, flashing her a grin. “I just think we should keep some boundaries, is all.”

She pulled to a stop, giving him a concerned look.

“Boundaries?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

Collin looked nervous for a moment as he tried to find his words.

“This is just a weekend fling… When we leave here we’re never going to see each other again.”

“What does that matter?”

“Look, I have these rules when I hook up with a girl…

“Rules?” she repeated.

“I should have mentioned them last night, but we were in the heat of the moment.”

“Last night you told me that you don’t usually hook up with women and now you’re telling me that you have rules? Why are you acting weird all of a sudden?”

“Don’t make a scene,” he said, giving a quick look around. “I didn’t lie to you—I haven’t really dated all that much. But I still have needs…” He gave her a serious look. “Look, the sex is fun but I can’t have you getting all lovey-dovey with me. You snuck into my room last night and that was fine, but I don’t want us getting confused about what’s happening.”

“You invited me to sneak into your room!”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Could she really have been so wrong about this guy? Everything had been going fine—where was all this coming from?

“It’s not a big deal. We’re having fun, right? Let’s just play by the rules and we’ll both have a good time.”

She shook her head.

“You’re not the person I thought you were.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I thought you were different than all of the other guys…”

He shrugged.

“This is who I am. If you don’t like it then we shouldn’t keep doing this.”

She smiled, disbelievingly, trying to stop herself from getting emotional.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t keep doing this.”

Collin studied her for a long moment before finally letting out a breath.

“Fine. If that’s what you want.”

She nodded.

“Yeah, it is. I wouldn’t want anyone to get confused.”

She turned and walked away. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going, but she didn’t want to be there anymore. This is why things with guys never worked out. This is why she didn’t like for things to get messy.

The end of Not So Casual: Part 1.

To read about Aimee and Logan,