Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(59)

I rolled my eyes. “They didn’t even come close to succeeding. They were trying to hook me up with guys that they had hooked up with.”

“Murphy is earning his red-wings tonight!” Marnie shouted loudly.

I looked at James, who had me crowded against the side of the pool. “What does that mean?” I asked him, knowing it was something kinky, and that he was the expert on kink.

He grinned, moving close against me. “When you go down on a girl on her period for the first time, that’s called earning your red-wings. I’m going to earn my red-wings with you.”

I felt like I blushed from head to toe. I had to look away. I didn’t know how, but he could still manage to shock me.

He gripped my chin and turned me back to look at him.

“So you’ve never done that before?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“And people actually do that?”

He shrugged. “I’m going to.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “You are so kinky in the strangest ways. I just kind of assumed that people just stopped doing…stuff…during that time of the month.”

He laughed. “Look at you. You can’t even say it. I won’t be going a week without sex just because you have your period, I can tell you that much. And I won’t be going a week without going down on you either. So yes, I’ll be earning my red-wings soon.”

I flushed hotly. The idea was so embarrassing, but the fact that nothing about me was a turn-off for him, was still always kind of a turn-on for me.

He grinned, gripping my chin in a hand, and leaning in close. “Words can’t even express how much I love to put that scandalized look in your eyes.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I whispered back, still blushing.

“God you guys are good at eye-f*cking each other!” Marnie shouted at us, just making me flush harder. “Get a room!”

“I might not be in the mood when I’m on my period,” I told him, ignoring Marnie. “I can get tired and grumpy.”

He laughed, unfazed. “Oh, trust me, I’ll get you in the mood.”

Knowing him, I could hardly doubt it.

“I need to go to the bathroom, you kinky bastard,” I told him.

He made an embarrassing show of getting me out of the pool, drying me and putting my cover-up on. My friends cheered him on, and I flushed. He even tried to walk me to the bathroom.

I gave him a level stare. “James, I can go to the bathroom by myself.”

He looked none-too-happy about it, but he handed me a key from the pocket of his swim trunks. “Use the one in our bedroom. It’s locked.”

I just nodded and walked off, keeping the towel wrapped tightly around my chest.

After I finished and came back down to the main floor, I was particularly surprised to find one partygoer that I did recognize, but that I certainly hadn’t expected to come.

“Hi Melissa,” I told her.

Melissa was drinking a martini and looked to be flirting with a bartender in one of the makeshift bars that had been set up around the house.

She sent me a pretty disgusted look for someone partying at my boyfriend’s house.

“Bianca,” she said with a sneer.

I’m not sure if it was her venom, or if it was the nerve of her bad attitude at this particular location, but that sneer just seemed to snap the class right out of me.

I grabbed her arm, pretty much dragging her into the nearest room. It was some sort of entertainment room, with a giant TV mounted on the wall, theatre seating, and a long sofa set up at the back of the room. I’d only seen the room once before and briefly, when I’d finally gotten the full tour of the house.

A couple was making out on the sofa. I ordered them out like I owned the place. They seemed to think I did, because they listened and obeyed without a protest. I shut the door behind them and turned to Melissa.

“Ok, let’s hear it,” I told her in my coldest voice. “What is your problem? Do you dislike me, or is your personality just this horrible in general?” Normally being this rude to someone literally made my skin crawl, but I didn’t seem to be having any problem with it just then.

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at me, the look more pouty than convincing. “It’s you. You are just the type of woman that I absolutely despise.”

I raised my brows at her. I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t like me—that was hardly a shocker, she hadn’t been keeping it a secret, but I rarely found myself described as a type. Unless maybe it was the distant, reserved type. And that type rarely inspired this kind of animosity. I didn’t have to ask her what she meant; she was more than happy to elaborate.

“You act like a prissy bitch, you look down on the girls that want a sugar daddy, but you are just like us! You are playing the same game I am; you’re just less honest about it. That is what I hate! And you landed the biggest rich guy of all! You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve any of this! I was born rich. Born in to this life, born deserving this life, but then my daddy lost everything, and now I have to throw f**king peanuts to make ends meet, blowing sixty-year old men just to get the bags I used to get for giving my daddy a kiss on the cheek. And you, with your supposed virtue, land the ultimate rich guy on your first try. You give honest girls like me a bad name.”