A Perfect Ten (Forbidden Men #5)(16)

But she wouldn’t...damn, she wouldn’t stroll in here posing as Kelly, would she? She’d been pissed at me earlier this evening; I would’ve thought she’d be more likely to smash my nuts into a hand vise than give my cock the ride of its life.

So, yeah, I had to be wrong. It hadn’t been her, no matter how much her voice had sounded like Caroline’s, no matter how much she’d smelled like Caroline, and no matter how much she’d felt as I would imagine Caroline would feel. Silky hair, soft skin, perfectly firm but malleable breasts, and the tightest, hottest * to ever squeeze my cock.

Oh, shit. Had I just had my cock inside Caroline’s *? I’d definitely treated her as I’d never treated a woman in the sack before, admitting that personal shit about my sister, kissing her temple, holding hands while we came together.

But no. No f*cking way. It couldn’t be.

Still...the idea of it turned me on like nothing else.

I lay there in my bed that felt extra empty without her and I started to grow hard again, just thinking about the possibility that I might’ve just had my dick in the woman I’d been craving for nearly a year.

I shuddered. No, no, no. It hadn’t been her. I’d only been giving her Caroline’s qualities because she was the one woman I wanted more than anything and I didn’t know who she really was.

Sitting up on my mattress, I flipped on my bedside light. But no matter how fast my midnight visitor had lit out of here, she hadn’t left anything behind; nothing to prove she’d been Caroline, but nothing to disprove it either. I was fleetingly tempted to race after her and find out who she’d really been—I could probably still catch her in the parking lot—but then...did I honestly want to know?

I ran my hands through my hair and then I squeezed my head hard, telling myself Kelly had just switched off with one of her friends this evening because...hell, who knew why. Who cared? I still couldn’t get over how good it’d been.

But getting off from hair pulling? Hmm. Interesting.

I finally got around to tossing my condom, then I flopped onto my bed, naked. I stared up in the direction of my dark ceiling, reliving every minute of my midnight visit.





My brain was still tangled with thoughts of her the next morning...until some * interrupted my fond memories.

“Hey, how do you spell informative?”

“Hmm?” I grunted when Gamble kicked me under the table. “What?”

“Informative,” he said. “How’s it spelled?”

We were accustomed to hanging out on Saturday mornings; it used to be football practice morning. But with us both being seniors and the season long over, we no longer had practice to attend; we wouldn’t be back next year to play. So, we’d been meeting up at the local coffee shop every Saturday morning. And boring-ass old men that we were becoming, we usually did homework together.

Yeah, I said homework. My homeboy had turned into a homework-finishing machine in the past year. It was a little embarrassing, but I went along with it because, hell, I don’t know. He was my friend, and friends sacrificed for each other and did shit like homework with their buddies who’d turned into pussies for the women they loved and wanted to impress with good grades. So, I sacrificed my precious Saturday mornings and did homework with my pal instead of what we used to do together, which was hit on chicks.

I kind of missed the hitting-on-chicks era, and yet, I kind of didn’t. It’d gotten a little monotonous and stale lately. I don’t know if it was Gam’s settling down that had changed things, or something in me. Damn, maybe I was getting as old and boring as Gamble was. Shit, that couldn’t be good. So, in an effort to preserve my Ten-ness, I still tried to put some effort into flirting with every girl who passed our table for the both of us, even though my heart was no longer in it.

“E, n, formative. Fuck, I don’t know.” I sent him a scowl. “Aren’t you the one married to the goddamn English teacher?”

“I can’t ask her.” Gam stared at me as if I was whack. “If she helped me out, the dick administration would know it’s not my work by the quality of the writing.”

“Then purposely spell it wrong. Or better yet, use a dumber word you can spell and would actually use in a sentence.” I shook my head. What a freak.

Gam ground his teeth and scowled. “But I want to amaze Aspen and make a good grade. English is her thing; I can’t suck at an English essay.”

I sighed and held up my index finger. “Reason number one why I will never fall for a f*cking English teacher: because I refuse to pretend to like English essays.”

As my buddy grumbled obscenities at me, I went back to ignoring him and chewing on my pen, wearing the end down to a mangled nub. It was still weird that he was married now. He’d tied the knot with his woman on New Year’s Day, three months ago.

The moment they’d repeated their vows echoed through my brain. As his best man, I’d had to stand right up there with a front-row view so I could hear their words, plain as day. Up until that moment when he was pledging his life to his woman, I’d done a damn fine job of not looking across them toward the maid of honor. But when Noel’s clear voice started promising to love and cherish, and all that shit, I’d caved in and glanced at her.

Caroline.

Fuck me, but she’d been glancing back, and looking stunning in her maid of honor dress. So I’d stared at her through the rest of the entire freaking service. If she would’ve looked away first, I might’ve too, but she hadn’t, so there I was, screwed into staring back and getting a stiffy in the middle of a wedding because I’d so desperately wanted to mount my best friend’s little sister.