Lord Have Mercy (The Southern Gentleman #2)(21)

Hell, to show how far gone I was, I hadn’t even shied away from him when I felt his K-9 officer, Dooley, settle at our sides. He was so close that his ear was touching my thigh.

My heart was pounding, but not in fear.

In need.

“Uhh, Flint.” Carver smiled, his eyes hard. “How’s it going?”

I blinked in surprise.

I’d never seen Carver look pissed before, but I would have to say that at this instant, I thought he just might be.

Curious.

I honestly never thought I’d see the day. He was so soft-spoken and jovial.

I really didn’t think he gave a shit about me, either.

I mean, if he had, when I’d heard him in the teacher’s lounge earlier talking with Nivea, surely he would’ve said something if he’d cared.

Yet, based on the look on his face, he wasn’t happy about Flint’s closeness to me.

Then again, I wasn’t happy either.

I wasn’t happy because I liked his closeness, and I knew that it was fake.

I didn’t like how I liked it, and it felt good, and I wanted more.

Fuck me.

“It’s going good. How are you doing? Enjoying the game?” Flint asked almost absentmindedly.

His attention had turned elsewhere.

Where, you ask?

He’d focused entirely on me, skimming his mouth up and down my neck.

I didn’t stiffen in his arms like I should have, either. I fucking melted.

My knees went weak, and the feel of Flint’s lips pressing against my racing pulse was nothing that I had ever felt before.

I was twenty-nine years old, had four steady boyfriends, slept with three of them, and had never once felt anything like what I was feeling right then.

If I could bottle this feeling up and sell it, it’d be a better high than cocaine…at least, I thought it could be. I wasn’t too sure, to be honest. I couldn’t really compare it because I’d never done cocaine before.

I shivered and felt my eyes turn to slits, my breathing started to quicken, and suddenly I didn’t care if this was fake.

I turned in Flint’s arms and stared at him with need.

But anger was there also.

I didn’t like what he was doing to me.

He was playing with my emotions, and I didn’t like it at all.

I conveyed that fact with a brutal kiss and then bit his lip hard before I pulled away.

“Don’t fuck with me because you don’t like Carver,” I growled, trying to pull myself away.

His hands had locked around me, though, and he refused to let me go after I’d proven how angry I was.

“I don’t like Carver,” he agreed, his voice soft and low despite the crowd that was around us nearly causing me to not hear him. I could read his lips, though. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. “And I’m not fucking with you. If I was fucking with you, I would do it in other ways that didn’t have my cock pressing against your ass.”

With that he let me go, and I nearly stumbled at the loss of his heat.

He caught my arm before I could so much as sway, though, pulling me back in until I was once again in control of myself.

“What was that?” I hissed.

Flint shrugged. “I don’t like that guy.”

That was his only explanation.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And before I could demand more answers out of him than that crappy excuse, he left without once turning back, disappearing into the large crowd.

Dooley looked back at me, his face sad for a second before he too turned and marched next to his owner.

He stayed tucked close to Flint’s backside so he wouldn’t accidentally get trampled.

“All right,” Raleigh said practically into my ear. “What the fuck was that?”

I shook my head and turned to my best friend. “I have no fucking clue.”

She shook her head and then let her eyes drop.

They went wide.

“I thought you were tossing those clothes out?” Raleigh whined. “I specifically remember putting that into the basket and ordering you to throw it away.”

I snorted. “These are the clothes that you forced me to wear. It’s not my fault you made me come here. Now you get to deal with the shirt. Sorry.”

The ‘shirt’ under question was actually an NSYNC shirt that I’d cut up the sides and had tied into knots to make it smaller. The sleeves had long ago been cut off, and honestly, there really wasn’t much to the shirt.

Luckily, I had a camisole with a built-in bra I could wear underneath of it, covering all the juicy bits that might’ve spilled out of the mangled tee.

“And the shorts.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought those didn’t fit anymore.”

“Apparently two weeks at CrossFit has made my ass smaller.” I laughed. Then eyed her. “Have you noticed any difference?”

She looked down at her body. “My boobs are smaller.”

I glanced at the boobs and shook my head. “Those things aren’t smaller…where’s your son?”

Her son was six and a half months old and normally was attached at her hip when she wasn’t working.

“Ezra is passing him around like a good luck charm through the locker room.” She shivered. “I hope they all washed their hands.”