With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men, #4)(42)

Reese and Caroline looked at me as if I’d just spoken a foreign language. “What?” I asked, clueless and feeling really stupid.

Turning the page to show me the picture again, Reese lifted an eyebrow. “Someone drew her barefoot in a dress and curled up on the grass, sleeping under a tree.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, totally not catching on.

“Seriously,” Reese cried jabbing her finger into the page. “Don’t you feel how sensual it is from the way the wind is blowing stray pieces of hair into her face, how the skirt of her dress is riding just the slightest bit high on her thigh. I mean, damn, I look at this and even I want her a little bit right now.”

Caroline snorted out a laugh and covered her face. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

“Well, really.” Reese shrugged. “Can’t you tell that whoever drew it likes her? Like, likes her.” She sang out the last two words for emphasis.

“Oh.” I said, finally getting it. It made perfect sense when Reese explained it that way. Then I tipped my face to the side. “Unless it was drawn by a lesbian.”

Both Reese and Caroline burst out laughing. I started to grin, tickled that I’d managed to entertain them, but Caroline immediately sobered and ripped the sheet out of Reese’s hand.

“Damn, I hope it’s a guy and not a lesbian who likes me. I like beard scruff, six-pack abs, tight buns of steel, and that bulge in the pants way too much to go gay right now.”

“Amen,” Reese murmured with a dreamy sigh.

Suddenly, Caroline cleared her throat and turned away, tucking the sheet into her art book. I glanced over my shoulder to see what had caused her to hide the drawing so quickly. Quinn and Ten were absorbed in whatever they were discussing as they entered class. They paid us no attention, but we couldn’t stop staring at them.

Both Reese and Caroline were right. Slight beard scruff, six-pack abs, tight buns of steel and that bulge really were powerful enhancements to the masculine race. They were definitely helping to keep me straight!

I wondered when Quinn would come by the house to pick Cora up for a date again. I kind of craved another biology lesson with him...which made me hope he never came by again, and Cora just kept going out to meet him as she claimed she’d been doing the last few nights, because I so very badly needed to nip this crush I had in the bud. The less contact with him, the better. Right?

He and Ten looked up at the same time to catch all three of us girls ogling them.

“What?” Ten demanded with an instantly suspicious frown.

“Nothing,” Reese, Caroline and I answered in unison. When we abruptly became interested in our own things, Ten snorted.

“That was definitely something,” he told Quinn. Falling into his seat next to Caroline, he sighed and stretched. “I bet it was about sex.”

I flushed because that word...yeah, it wasn’t something I’d discussed with anyone. Ever. Especially out in the open in a classroom where just anyone could hear.

Reese wasn’t so scandalized, though. She snorted. “I know it’s shocking, but unlike men, we women can actually think and talk about other topics.”

“Hey, guys can too. Ham and I were just discussing football, thank you very much. How I used my football image to score a chick last night.”

I finally dared to glance over at Quinn for the first time since he’d sat beside me. He looked a little hurt that we hadn’t told him what we’d been discussing. I already felt bad enough that I had to keep Cora’s secret from him, so while Reese and Ten bickered back and forth across Caroline’s desk, I picked up my pen, opened my notebook and wrote, “Caroline just found a drawing in her chair. Someone made a picture of her and left it there for her to find.”

I tipped it his way to get his attention. When he finally noticed, he paused, looking up at my face, then went back to reading. His eyebrows lifted as he opened his own notebook.

“And she doesn’t want Ten to know?” he wrote.

I grinned. “Exactly.”

“Don’t blame her. Do you think it’s a secret admirer?”

“That’s the general consensus.”

Quinn shook his head. “Wow.”

“I know. I wonder who—” My cell phone dinged from my book bag, making me jump.

I didn’t realize class had already started until everyone, including the professor, stopped to stare at me.

“Cell phones off, please.” The teacher sent me an irritated glower before he went right back to lecturing.

Sinking lower in my chair, I cringed. “Sorry.”

Fumbling to retrieve my phone and set it to silent, I checked the message first. It had to be from Cora. She was the only person who even knew I had a phone, much less what my number was.

Meet me in front of the library after this hour, was all she wrote.

I typed in a quick response, only to find Reese wiggling her fingers at me. “Ooh. I want your number,” she whispered, snagging my phone from my hand.

I didn’t get my phone back for the rest of art class. When Reese realized I only had one number in my address book, she and Caroline made it their mission to enter every number they thought I should have. They even confiscated Ten and Quinn’s phones to make sure we all had everyone’s numbers.

When I got it back at the end of the hour, I had a number for Reese, her boyfriend Mason, plus her cousin and cousin’s new fiancé, not to mention Caroline, her brother Noel, his girlfriend Aspen, and Ten and Quinn. They also thought it fitting that I have the number for the bar where every guy in their group worked.