“I didn’t say that.”Why did I agree to come to brunch with these guys, again?
“Yet here you are defending him,” Chessly observed. “You never did say when you got home today.” She stared me down over the top of her menu.
“I called an Uber a little after midnight, Nosy Nellie.” Pointedly perusing my menu, I willed the inquisition to stop.
Like that would happen.
“Wait. Bax didn’t drive you home? That’s seriously uncool,” Jamaica said, her brows drawing together in a frown.
“Like I’ve been telling these two for weeks now”—I waved my hand between Saylor and Chessly—“Wyatt and I aren’t a thing. We hook up every now and then whenever we run into each other. It’s nothing serious.” I took a sip of my water to soothe my throat when those words threatened to stick there. “He played a hard game, partied afterward, and showed me a good time. Then he fell asleep. I didn’t have it in me to wake him for a ride home. No big deal.”
“You mean you didn’t want him to know where you live.” Saylor’s tone pricked my conscience. “And you won’t give the poor guy your number.”
“Look, I’m not in a hurry to go through another Fuckery, okay? Wyatt is fun, and this is working for us.” I glanced at my menu again. “Eggs Benedict sounds good today. What are you having, Chess?”
Chessly refused to play along with me. “You can change the subject all you want, but I saw the way Bax looked at you last night. He wants more than a hookup.”
“And he wants more than your number,” Saylor added.
Jamaica grinned. “I never would have put the two of you together before today. But sometimes it’s the one you never saw coming.”
Chess cleared her throat and raised a brow in Jamaica’s direction. “Takes one to know one, huh, Jamaica?”
Jamaica returned her stare. “What’s going on with you and Finn, Chessly?”
Right then the server showed up to take our order. After she left, by some unspoken agreement, Jamaica, Chess, and I steered all conversation away from a certain trio of football players who happened to live together. Guess we all had secrets to keep.
Chapter Seventeen
Wyatt
Iwanted the poundingto stop. Rolling over, I pulled the pillow over my head—and froze. I was alone in my bed. The thunderous noise was Finn yelling at me from the other side of my bedroom door to wake up.
I sat up so fast my king bed shuddered. Faint daylight filtered in through the blinds on the window above it. The desk lamp was still on. Piper’s clothes weren’t scattered among mine on the floor.
I was alone.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m awake. Be down in ten,” I yelled and flopped onto my back, flinging my arm over my eyes.
Memories from the night before flooded my brain. Piper indulging me as I horned in on her and her friends at their table in Stromboli’s. Piper rolling her gorgeous eyes at the way I maneuvered her into attending the party at our place and riding in my truck for the drive over. Piper whisper-shouting in my ear as we danced that she wanted to come up to my room. Piper’s genuine interest in my art. Piper’s bossy delight in giving me head. Piper wrecking me with the best sex I’d ever have in my life.
I’d told her I was going to wreck her, and I’d had every intention of doing exactly that. She liked it when I bossed her back—when I made her wait to come. The desire in her eyes when I insisted she beg had matched the desire in her eyes when she insisted I let her take what she wanted, which matched the desire firing my blood for all of it when we were together. When it came to sex, we were equal partners. Until her, I’d never met anyone who liked to play the same way I did, who insisted on give-and-take in equal measures. The way she’d chanted my name over and over as I thrust into her made me believe I’d succeeded in driving her as wild as she drove me.
My empty bed this morning told a different story.
What the fuck was wrong with me? How had I passed out so hard I hadn’t heard her dress and leave? What the hell did she think of me not staying awake for long enough to give her a ride home like the fucking gentleman my mama raised me to be?
“Fuuuck!” I shouted at the ceiling.
I rolled out of bed, grabbed a clean pair of boxers from my dresser, and headed to the shower. As the hot water washed her expensive spicy scent from my body, I banged my head against the shower stall, cursing my stupidity.
While I yanked on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I wished for the thousandth time since I first laid eyes on her that the stubborn woman would give me her damn number. If I had her number, at least I could text her, apologize for being the sort of a selfish asshole who passes out immediately after epic sex. I could ask her to dinner or something to make up for not driving her home like I should have. I could find out if she was all right and make sure someone else didn’t come on to her at the party, make her feel uncomfortable.
When that thought entered my head, I saw red. If someone else came on to her or gave her a ride home... My fists flexed. Fuck, I was such an idiot. I’d be lucky if the next time I ran into her she gave me the time of day.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” Finn said. “Who dropped by and shit in your Wheaties this morning already?”
I wanted to punch the smirk off his face. “Fuck off.”
