“What are you doing?” Willow asks me, in a stern warden-like tone.

Glancing up at her from my phone, a little confused by her question, “Jussssst workin’ a little.”

“Ari, did you not tell him about the rule?”

Rule?

“Oh, I told him,” he says, grabbing another beer from the fridge, but he definitely didn’t tell me about any rules.

“So, what, since he’s your friend, you’re gonna let him keep it?”

Keep what?

Ari rolls his eyes at his sister, and I really have no clue what they are talking about. Ted leans over and says, “I’d give her your phone now, if it was me.”

What the fuck?

Willow outstretches one hand to me, with her other placed on her hip, and I’m in shock. Is she for real? I’m working on a three hundred-million-dollar deal, and she wants my phone? “I’ll stay off it,” I tell her and place it in my pocket.

The room erupts into chaos, everyone yelling and arguing. Well, everyone, except for Quinn. She’s sitting in her chair smirking, sipping on her third pink girly drink. So unbelievably gorgeous that I could fuck her, right here and right now, in front of everyone. She shrugs her shoulders at me, and I ask her, “Did you have to give yours up?”

She nods and I look at the ceiling contemplating my options. I’ve never been without my phone—it’s my lifeline to my job, and my job is my life, so they go hand in hand. “Can I just send this last email?” I ask Willow and reach into my pocket, but she snatches it out of my grip like it’s a stack of cash, and I get up feeling like I’m stuck in a house with a bunch of crazy people. Why can’t we have phones? As I grab another beer, Ari hollers over to me, “You’ll be fine, man, trust me.” I flip him off. Out of everyone, he should know how important my phone is to me.

The girls all begin to clean up from dinner, and without my phone, I find myself watching Quinn. And it’s not because she’s the only single girl here, it’s because I’ve never seen a chick so confident. Wearing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, with her hair pulled up.

“You know you got that deal in the bag,” Ari says, bringing me back to the moment.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve heard through the grapevine, man,” he says, and what Ari knows is typically the truth in our business.

“Well, nothing’s done until it’s done. Plus, you know my dad will freak if I don’t close it. He didn’t even want to let me take this week off.”

“Fuck your old man. You gotta keep him outta your head when you’re working.”

I nod, hearing Ari’s words, but actually listening to them is an entirely different thing. My dad owns the company I work for, which is a very prominent oil and gas business with offices all over the US. Ari used to work for him too and left to join a corporate venue. Now I run the western US, and the deal I’m working on is to expand into Canada, which would make us one of the top three largest US producers of oil in North America. Quinn’s laugh echoes through the house, pulling me out of my mind fuck and back to her.

“So, what’s the deal with that chick, Quinn?” I ask the guys.

“She’s Willow’s best friend, has been for years. She’s like family,” Ari says as Jacob is shuffling a deck of cards. “You pussies bring your wallets?”

Although Ari inadvertently left out the whole “no cell phone” thing, he did tell me about this. Every night is game night, most of which involves an actual cash pool for the winner.

“Yeah, let me go grab some cash,” I call, walking upstairs to get my wallet out of my bag. I go into the room I’m staying in and chuckle at the small beds. I didn’t notice them before. Probably ‘cause all I noticed were Quinn’s tits, but I’m not sure if I’ll even fit.

Digging through my bag, I find my iPad.

Fuck yeah!

The temptation is too great to resist, and I take it into the bathroom. I power it up and hope it gets service up here. I’m sure it will if my phone did. Sure enough, it does, and as I scroll through my emails, I’ve already received six new ones, on a Friday night no less. As I begin to read them, I’m startled by Quinn as she barges into the bathroom, and I freeze, looking at her in the reflection of the mirror.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she says, but smirks when she sees my iPad.

“It’s all good. I…I…” I stall, not sure how to explain myself. She and Willow are tight, so I’m sure she’s on her side when it comes to this whole no phone thing.

She looks down at my iPad and says, “You better not let Willow catch you on that thing.” Standing next to me, she sets a small bag on the counter and unzips it.

“I can leave,” I tell her.

“No, you’re fine. I mean, we are going to be sleeping together.” She takes out a contact lens case, and I can’t focus on anything else, except for her words. “Not like that,” she says. I nod, going back to focusing on my email. Being this close to her, alone, has my mind on other things. Goddamn, she smells so good; she’s very distracting. “What’s so important on there anyway?”

“Fucking work,” I tell her, and when I think about it, I realize that I hate that it runs my life, but it does, and I’m not sure how to change that.

“What do you do for a living?” she asks me.

“I’m in oil and gas. You?”

“Investment advisor.” Nice, she’s got her priorities in check, that’s for sure.

“So, no wife or girlfriend?” she asks me.

“No, you?”

“Wife or girlfriend?” she gapes back at me, holding one of her contacts on her finger.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, thank God.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask her, a little offended by her remark.

“Nothing, it’s just…I was with this guy for a bit, and he turned out to be a total ass. Let’s just say it didn’t end well and left a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to men.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her as she slides on a pair of glasses.

“It’s all good, it’s not your fault. This vacation is not about the past, Merritt, it’s about unwinding and letting go…” She trails off as her eyes get wide thinking about something, and I wonder what happened to her. What did her ex do that made her so anti-men? She recovers and looks down at my iPad, so I lock it. “I’m sure the whole no electronics thing seems crazy, but you really should try it. Once you’re unplugged from the world, it’s refreshing.” She goes to leave the bathroom, passing me close enough that I smell fresh rain and something else, the combination coming from her skin makes my cock twitch. Then she licks her lips—such a tease—and breezes past me. Her scent and her mouth, God, I fucking love it, I want it.

Grabbing my wallet, I drop my iPad in my bag and head back downstairs for something else to drink, something stronger, something that will tame the animal inside of me that Quinn is tempting. Because right now, for some reason, this chick has my head spinning, and I have no clue why. Not that I’m complaining, ‘cause she’s hot as hell, and I’d love to fuck her. But she’s fresh off a breakup and doesn’t want anything to do with men. So for once I’ll spare myself.