While It Lasts (Sea Breeze #3)(37)

“MATTY!” Krit called out over the crowd. I noticed girls with too much makeup and not enough clothing hovering around us like vultures. Were they waiting on one of the band members to notice them?

A guy with long hair that stuck straight up in the air and really tight jeans sauntered up with a girl on each arm. Neither of them looked older than seventeen. I was more than positive they weren’t legal.

“Please tell me you checked ID,” Green moaned in annoyance.

“I trust them. They’re both eighteen, aren’t you girls?”

The girls bobbed their heads in unison.

“Sure they are,” Cage muttered beside me.

The new guy finally looked our way and his focus shifted from Cage to me back to Cage. “You already picked one for the night?”

Cage made an aggravated sound in his throat. “Eva, this is Matty the drummer. Matty, this is Eva, my date.” The warning look in Cage’s eyes wasn’t lost on me.

Matty’s surprised expression was something I was getting used to. If it was really this crazy for Cage to date just one girl then why was he out with me? If we slept together would that be it? Would he be done with me? Had I kidded myself into thinking he was a nice guy? Because I knew he wasn’t exactly a good guy.

“I’ll be damned,” was Matty’s reply.

“Yeah, we already knew you were damned. Even before you decided to have a go with two high school freshman.” Krit drawled in an amused tone.

“I told you they’re eighteen,” Matty insisted.

“We’re up in two,” Green interrupted them and took one last swallow from his newest shot glass. How many had he drunk during his five—minute break?

“Bring her back,” Green called out to Cage and then winked at me.

“Sorry about him. But you did unleash some stellar knowledge of famous bassists. That’s like porn for Green,” Cage said with a smirk.

“They were entertaining,” I assured him.

He pulled me around to face him and studied me a moment.

“Want to tell me how you know about bass guitarists?”

Was I ready to share this with Cage? I’d only played my acoustic once the other night. Sharing more of Josh with Cage almost felt wrong. If Cage was just in my life for the summer then did I want to give him too much of me? If I had imagined that there could be more for us that had been killed tonight. Cage didn’t do commitment. I was just a summer fling.

I shrugged, “I like guitars I guess.”

He didn’t buy it. I could see it in his eyes but he didn’t push me either.

“You ready to go?” he asked “Yeah, I think I am.”





Chapter Sixteen


Cage



I hadn’t said much on the drive back to my apartment. Eva was cautious. I knew this. I’d known it from day one when she’d basically called me a man whore. It was one of the things I liked about her. Up until tonight I had been making progress. She’d told me about Josh. I’d been able to hold her while she cried. I thought that had formed a bond of trust between us.

Taking her into my world had undone everything I’d worked damn hard to prove to her. If I didn’t have girls throwing themselves at me and talking about our threesomes, I had my friends acting like I used girls like disposable objects. I’d wanted my friends to meet her. I’d wanted her to know me until she got a real taste of my life. Now, I wanted to get her back to the country so we could live in our little cocoon where my past wasn’t there to haunt me.

“Are you mad at me?” Eva’s question snapped me out of my thoughts. I lifted my eyes from the spot in the floor I’d been staring at to see Eva standing in the doorway wearing a pair of tiny pink polka dot pajama bottoms and a matching tank top. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

“Huh?” I managed to ask through the lust haze that had settled over me. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I swallowed hard as her nipples pebbled under my gaze and pressed against the thin silky fabric.

“You didn’t talk the whole way back from the bar. I thought maybe you were mad at me about something.”

Mad at her? What?

I tore my eyes off her tits and focused on her worried face. “No, I’m not mad at you. I just had some stuff on my mind.”

She shifted her feet and chewed on the inside of her cheek nervously.

“Come here.” I invited, patting the spot on the end of the bed beside me.

She came willingly. I tried to focus on her face and making her less nervous. But damned if the fact those shorts barely covered up her ass wasn’t distracting. She sat down beside me fisting her hands together in her lap. I reached over and covered her hands with mine.

“Relax, Eva. I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated with myself.”

She tilted her head to the side and looked up at me. Her silky brown locks slid over her bare shoulder. Had I ever noticed how sexy something as simple as a bare shoulder could be?

“Why are you frustrated with yourself?”

Because I’m a f*ck—up and now you know it.

“Tonight didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I don’t have a very stellar reputation and it seemed like everyone who knew me wanted to make sure you knew just what a sordid past I had.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she leaned over and bumped my arm with her shoulder. “You do realize that I never thought you had a stellar reputation.” Her teasing tone made me smile.