Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(79)

“You are so lucky,” I told her. “I was just about to walk out the door. Is it in your room?”

“Yes, right on my bed. Thank you, Juli. I owe you so big.”

“No problem,” I answered, backtracking to her room. I was actually honored to get her things for her. She’d called me for help, not Tyla. I was pathetically pleased by that until it struck me, she might’ve called Tyla first only to discover Ty wasn’t home.

My eagerness to please her deflated a little at realizing I was probably second choice, but I was still happy to help.

“Where do you want to meet?” I asked as I scooped her bag off her unmade bed and hurried from the apartment with both our things.

“How about by the Viking statue in the quad right before my eleven o’clock class.”

“Okay.” That meant I had to carry around both her and my things through first hour. “I’ll see you then.”

My nine thirty class lasted only an hour when it was supposed to run closer to an hour and a half, so I made it to the quad almost half an hour early. I sat on the bench next to the statue of Victor, ESU’s school mascot, and I tried to read a little from my Kindle, but Colton had ruined the story for me. When I got to the part where the hero said he could see heaven when he looked at her *, I snorted and put the book away. I was tempted to text him and call him a reading ruiner, but Sasha showed up, gushing her gratitude as she swiped up her bag and unzipped it to make sure she had her paper inside.

Then she hugged me, and we talked a few minutes until she decided she needed to go.

We’d just parted ways, Sasha heading one direction and me starting the other.

When I caught sight of Colton up ahead, I slowed to a stop.

He stood just off the sidewalk in the grass with one foot propped up against the seat of a nearby bench, while some tiny blonde bimbo preened in front of him, twining a piece of hair around her finger as she freaking flirted with him.

Flirted with my man.

Shading the sunlight with his hand, he nodded at something she said and then laughed.

The bastard laughed.

He hadn’t laughed or smiled on the first day of class when that other floozy had flirted with him. But here he was now, laughing with the blonde, while he had something going on with me on the side.

That just wasn’t acceptable. Bitch better keep her hands off.

Before I could rationally think past anything but claiming him so she would disappear, I stormed into action, marching forward, straight up to him so that I had to brush past her to get right into his face. And then I kept going, grabbing the front of his shirt and fisting it into my hand as I stepped up onto my toes and jerked his face down to my level.

“Wha...?” His gaze registered shock that whole split second before my mouth collided with his. And then he kind of tightened against me before he seemed to realize who was kissing him.

At first, I was hard and demanding, my mouth punishing him for even looking at another woman. But then he relaxed against me. His fingers grazed the side of my neck. And his lips softened against mine before parting and sweeping his tongue into me.

When a strangled, hungry groan rose from his throat, I felt settled and infinitely calmer.

I broke away, gently and slowly, backing off just enough to look into his heavy-lidded, aroused gaze. Then I let go of my grip on his shirt and smoothed my fingers down his chest.

“You’re still planning on coming over Thursday, right?”

He blinked once before breaking into a sly grin. “Nowhere else I’d rather come.”

“Good.” Unable to help myself, I glanced at the bimbo, the meaning in my gaze absolutely clear.

This territory was mine, honey. The flag had just been planted.

Receiving the message, she was already backing away, her shiny golden hair no longer in her hand. “Well, I...I’ll talk to you about the assignment later. Bye, Colton.”

He waved. “See you, Jess.”

I watched her hurry away, clutching a pile of books to her chest before I turned back to him and lifted an eyebrow. “Jess, huh?”

“Hmm?” He’d been checking out my cleavage before lifting his face. “Yeah. Jessica. She’s in my history class. I like your top. Very colorful, and tight in the most perfect places ever.”

I ignored the compliment. “You have history with her, huh?”

He stared at me a moment before a smile spread across his face. “You’re jealous.”

I sniffed because I had to hide the fact I was suddenly embarrassed to realize that yes, I was jealous. Extremely, blindly, irrationally jealous.

“Of Jessica the tiny blonde bimbo?” I said, though. “Honey, I don’t think so.”

With a chuckle, he slid his hands around my waist until he was sinking them into the back pockets of my jeans and tugging me forward against him. “She’s not a bimbo,” he murmured, his grin way too freaking smug for my liking. “She’s actually really smart. We’re on the dean’s list together.”

“Oh? So you’re in history and on the dean’s list with her?” Mad he was changing his story about just how well he knew Jessica, I tried to shove at his chest to make space between us, but the bastard only snickered and tugged me closer until my hips crashed flush against his, and shit, I felt the stirrings of a hard-on coming from him.

God! He was getting aroused about pissing me off. Not cool.