Sweet Filthy Boy (Wild Seasons, #1)(5)

But the way he looks at me makes me feel naked—good naked—and beneath the cotton of my top, my nipples tighten.

He notices and takes another step closer, bringing with him warmth and the scent of soap, and I’m suddenly sure he’s most definitely not looking at my leg. It doesn’t even seem like he sees it, or if he does, he likes how I come together enough to ignore what this scar says. It says trauma, it says pain. But his eyes only say yes, and please, and mischief. And that he’d like to see more.

The shy girl inside me crosses her arms over her chest, tries to pull me back to the safety of my own room. But his eyes pin me in place.

“I wasn’t sure I would see you again.” His voice has gone gravelly, hinting of the filthy things I want to hear him growl into my neck. My pulse is a frantic, pounding drum. I wonder if he can see it. “I looked for you.”

He looked for me.

I’m surprised my voice comes out so clear when I say, “We left pretty soon after I saw you.”

His tongue slips out, and he watches my mouth. “Why don’t you come . . . inside?” There are so many unspoken promises tucked in those five words. It feels like he’s a stranger offering me the most delicious candy on the planet.

“I’m going to sleep,” I manage finally, holding up my hand to keep him from moving any closer. “And you guys are going to be quieter or I’ll send Harlow over. And if that fails, I’m waking up Lola and you’ll find yourself thanking her for leaving you beat up and bloody.”

He laughs. “I really like you.”

“Good night.” I turn to walk back to our door on less than steady legs.

“I’m Ansel.”

I ignore him as I slide my key into the lock.

“Wait! I just want your name.”

I look back over my shoulder. He’s still smiling. Seriously, a kid in my third-grade class had a dimple and it did not make me feel like this. This boy should come with a warning label. “Shut the hell up and I’ll tell it to you tomorrow.”

He takes another step forward, feet bare on the carpet and eyes following me down the hall, and says, “Does that mean we have a date?”

“No.”

“And you really won’t tell me your name? Please?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll just call you Cerise, then.”

I call out, “Fine with me,” as I walk into my room. For all I know, he’s just called me uptight, or prude, or pig jammies.

But somehow, the way he purred the two syllables makes me think it was something else entirely.

As I climb back into bed, I look it up on my phone. Cerise means “cherry.” Of course it does. I’m not sure how I feel about that because something tells me he wasn’t referring to the color of my nail polish.

The girls are both asleep, but I’m not. Even though the noise across the hall has stopped and everything grows still and calm in our suite, I’m hot and flushed and wishing I’d had the guts to stay out in the hallway just a little longer.





Chapter TWO

HARLOW ORDERS FRIES before dropping her shot into her beer and downing it.

She pulls her forearm across her mouth and looks over at me. I must be gaping because she asks, “What? Should I be classier?”

I shrug, drawing the straw through the ice in my glass. After a morning massage and facial, an afternoon spent at the pool, followed by a few cocktails, we’re all more than a little tipsy. Besides, even after chugging a beer with a shot in it, Harlow looks classy. She could jump into a bin full of plastic balls at McDonald’s Playland and come out looking fresh.

“Why bother?” I ask. “We have the rest of our lives to be sophisticates, but only the one weekend in Vegas.”

She listens to what I say, considers it before nodding firmly and motioning to the bartender. “I’ll have two more shots and whatever that monstrosity is that she’s drinking.” She points to Lola, who’s licking the whipped cream from the rim of a hideous, LED-flashing cup.

He frowns before shaking his head and says, “Two shots of whiskey and one Slut on a Trampoline, coming up.”

Harlow gives me her best shocked face but I barely have time to register it before I feel someone press up behind me at the crowded bar. Large hands grip my hips only a split second before “There you are” is whispered hotly—and directly—into my ear.

I startle, turning and jumping away with a gasp.

Ansel.

My ear feels damp and warm, but when I look at him, I see the same playful light in his eyes he had last night. He’s the guy who’ll do a ridiculous robot dance to make you laugh, who’ll lick the tip of your nose, make a fool out of himself for a smile. I’m sure if I tried to wrestle him to the ground, he’d let me win. And enjoy every minute.

“Too close?” he asks. “I was going for seductive, yet subtle.”

“I’m not sure you could have been any closer,” I admit, fighting a smile as I rub my ear. “You were practically inside my head.”

“He’d make a horrible ninja,” says one of the guys with him.

“Oliver, Finn,” Ansel says, first pointing to a tall friend with messy brown hair, stubble, bright blue eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, and then to the one who spoke, with short-cropped brown hair, dark backlit eyes, and what I can only imagine is a permanently cocky smirk. Ansel looks back at me. “And gentlemen, this is Cerise. I’m still waiting for her real name.” He leans in a little, saying, “She’ll have to give it up sometime.”