Mad Boys (Blue Ivy Prep, #2)(56)

Not that it was a long trip at the moment.

I was pretty sure I’d already crashed into the insanity train head on. I was currently craving more contact, not less, with one of my tormentors and stepbrothers.

The guy who lied to me and used what he knew about me against me. A guy who helped to dump paint all over me, ruining an outfit, not to mention threw me in a fucking pond.

Oh, right, and cut my bra off so he could look at my tits. Then there was stalking me in L.A. and finally outing me at the dance club.

The litany of his various comments and actions helped to cool the ardor he’d fanned to life. I swallowed as he brushed a kiss to my fingers.

“This isn’t why I came,” he admitted. The low, husky quality to his voice promised he was every bit as affected as I was. But was there a camera somewhere? A phone to record us? Was I going to see photos of us pop up somewhere?

“So, you broke into my room for another reason?” Sue me, I was curious.

A corner of his mouth tilted up as he studied me. His hand was still right there, on my breast, but he wasn’t moving it. “Pretty sure I had a reason. Fuck knows, I can’t think of it right now. All I want is to kiss you again and touch you…and I want to taste—”

Right, I pressed my hand over his mouth this time. Not because what he described was repugnant. No because I was getting a thrill from it and, right now, I needed to let him go and he needed to back off.

Then I should get dressed.

These were all reasonable actions.

I pressed the hand on his chest to nudge him away. “Let me go.”

A long sigh escaped him but he took his hands away and fuck if I wasn’t suddenly cold for their absence. Even more for when he backed up a couple of steps and the air in the room rushed against my flushed body.

His gaze dipped to my breasts then back up. “Sorry,” he muttered as he locked on to my eyes. “I’m a guy and you’re…”

“Naked,” I told him as I forced myself to stand up straight. “Stay there…”

The sound of the locks giving seemed to tumble loudly into the silence punctuated by our panting breaths. The door to the suite opened…

Jonas.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

“Stay,” I hissed at Lachlan and then snagged my towels before darting into the closet.

Shit.

As grateful as I was for the interruption and the splash of icy reality, I had some real regrets.

Jonas walking in on this was going to kill all the progress we made.

So much for detente.





Twenty-Three





JONAS


I had KC’s assignments and the surprise reading they’d dropped on us. The novel was to be read before the break for the semester and it would be on the final. Gotta love Ramsey tweaking the syllabus. I would bet anything this had to do with KC not being in class. He’d stared at her empty seat more than once.

When he received a note halfway through class to go to the administration building, a certain amount of satisfaction filtered through me. He should never have been kissing one of his students, much less KC. Those images were burned into my brain.

But I’d only kept one and locked it onto my phone behind a passcode. It was the one they’d taken of her with me. I didn’t know which dick on campus had snapped it, but the look in her eyes as she stared up at me and her laughter was like a sucker punch of joy.

Were we friends? I wasn’t sure. I thought we might be. Then my brothers were kissing her or the press was chasing her. The KC who shared my suite wasn’t that “problem child,” and I was hating that label.

More, she seemed to see and hear me. I wasn’t less social than Lachlan or dumber than Ramsey. She liked my music, took time to put lyrics to it… she was a dream and a muse. Maybe we wouldn’t be friends.

Didn’t change my need to protect her. It was unreasonable and bordered on obsession. It had even come up in my sessions, but I refused to talk about her there. The world judged her enough.

Fuck them all.

The door to KC’s room was open and Lachlan strolled out like he belonged here. Worry speared through my suspicion instantly. “What are you doing in her room?”

“Oh, look,” Lachlan retorted with a smirk. “You remember how to use your words with me.”

The distance between us wasn’t so great. “You need to up your time with the next black eye?” Because I would be more than happy to deliver.

“Baby Bro, I’ve given you plenty of leash. Don’t try to hit me again. I will hit back.”

Given me? I slung my bag down onto the sofa. It was KC’s spot, but I kept my focus on Lachlan. “What are you doing in my suite?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” I was over this game.

“I came by to drop off something for my girl,” Lachlan drawled, possessiveness threading every sentence. “If you really need to know.”

“Yeah, I did…and she’s not your girl.”

“You sure about that?” The smirk pissed me right the fuck off.

“He may not be,” KC announced from behind him in a husky voice that vanished when she cleared her throat. “But I am. Definitely not your girl, Douchebag.”

Surprise flashed in Lachlan’s eyes and his smirk fell away before he spun to look at her. “Ace, you wound me.”