Fuck this, I think.Fuck this, I need to leave before?—
“Can I get you something else?” Krissy asks.
I let go of Jake’s face like it’s radioactive. “Tequila, please. Thank you. Please? Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I can feel Jake looking at me. I keep my gaze fixed on Cece’s bar shelf. “So are you… Do you still live in Pukekohe or…?”
“Not anymore,” he says, and the warmth in his voice makes me want to yak.
“Auckland?”
“Ah, yeah. I’ve got a place in Herne Bay?—”
Of course you do, bud.
“—but I’m staying at an Airbnb in town tonight. The bachelor party, y’know?”
It takes all my willpower not to gasp. An Airbnb? All the stags in one house?
The pitch-black clouds in my brain roll apart as sunshine pierces my soul.
The only thing better than screwing with my ex-bullies would be screwing with their stuff while they’re not there. Onlycertain thingswill have to transpire in order to enact said shenanigans. Not that it’ll be a chore. Jake from Pukekoheispretty sexy.
And sure, it’s kind of shady, screwing a guy just to gain access to a bachelor Airbnb, but it’s not like he doesn’t want to. And it’s not like Iwon’tbe screwing him. I just need to confirm…
I glance at Captain Popular, who is indeed still staring at me. I look him full in the face, parting my lips and lowering my lashes in the ‘come fuck me’ stare to end all ‘come fuck me’ stares.
Jake Graves-Holland swallows so hard his whole throat moves. “I… Have I already said you look amazing? Not that you didn’t look amazing at school, you were so?—”
I push my hand to his mouth, intentionally this time. I don’t know if he’s lying about thinking I looked good at school, or if he developed the same ‘poke the nerd’ thing his buddies got once we graduated. It doesn’t matter. My emotions are already flattening as my most impenetrable mask slides up and over me, coating my soul in invisible armour.
“Jake,” I whisper. “Will you take me back to your Airbnb and fuck me until I scream?”
His friendly face hardens, his upper lip curving against my palm as his eyes go black. It’s such a one hundred and eighty degree transformation, it would be scary if it wasn’t so fuckinghot.
Without breaking eye contact, he takes my hand from his face, weaving his huge, rough fingers through mine. Then he lifts his glass of scotch anddrains the whole thing in one. “Let’s go.”
I ignore the electricity buzzing up my arm, and I look around for Krissy. “My drink…?”
Jake pulls a hundred-dollar note from nowhere and slaps it onto the bar. “Got drinks back at the place. We’re leaving.”
Yes, sir, I think, and only hate myself a little bit as I allow him to lead me out of the bar as he orders an Uber with his free hand. He kisses me the second we’re outside, cupping my cheek and pulling our bodies flush together. I hoped it would be okay, but kissing him is so good the top of my head feels like it’s going to blow off.
It’s been a while since I’ve touched a man, but it’s something else, kissing Jake Graves-Holland. The barely restrained strength of him. The ease with which he slides his tongue into my mouth. He hoists me into the air, and I grip his shoulders for support, making him grunt as I wrap my legs around him. My mind blurs as he kisses me harder. If this is an act and he does this to all the rugby groupies who come after him, then that’s just another thing I don’t want to know.
A car arrives in record time. He stops kissing me just long enough to open the door one-handed and guide me inside. For a hazy second, I think maybe he’ll stop touching me once we’re in the back seat. Then he’s beside me, hand in my hair, mouth on mine, all heat and hunger.
I climb into his lap and wait for him to push me back. He doesn’t. If anything, he pulls me tighter, his grip desperate, like it’s been ten years since he’s had a woman.
God knows it’s been too long since I’ve had a man. I’d forgotten howbigthey are. How rough their skin is, how hard their chests are. But Jake is the biggest I’ve ever come near; from the bulge pushing up against my thigh, to his concrete slabs for shoulders. The knowledge makes me shameless, and I grab his hands and close them over my tits. He growls, pushing his hips into mine, thumbs closing over my nipples. I whimper. The radio is blaring Ashlee Simpson, but the driver can probably still hear us. I don’t care, and Jake doesn’t seem to, either.
The car rolls on through Auckland’s streets, and our bodies stay locked together, working as though we’re alone. Sensation blazesbetween my legs, the friction of my shorts almost enough to make me come. It’s like Jake Graves-Holland wants to eat me alive, and for the first time in a long time,I want to be eaten.
“Jake,” I gasp, pulling away from his lips. “I can’t... I need…”
He snarls, an incisor flashing in the streetlights. He undoes the buttons on my shorts, pulling my Daisy Dukes wide and sliding his fingers under my G-string. He pauses. “Yeah?”
