“I wasn’t.” With a sniff, I turned back to the papers in front of me. “Do you have anything else to say?” I challenged as I flicked through the music book.
“Yeah, how aboutbiteme.”
I heard her walk back to her area before I took a small inhale, trying to calm my temper down. It was silly to react to something so trivial and, quite honestly, harmless. However, her words stung because Avahaddumped me for Jett, and even though I knew she hadn’t really, it kind of felt like she had.
It was annoying because Ava, being Ava, hadn’t even changed as a person; she’d just changed where she spent most of her time. And she didn’t even realize how horrible it was that she was spendingallof her time with Jett and none of her time with me.
I was lonely.
And because I was lonely, I’d been drawn to my best friend’s boyfriend’s cousin. Well, the first time, it wasn’t my fault. They’d caused Mayhem at the party we were at, and I had let go of Alex’s hand and stepped back in the darkness, knowing not to run.
And I hadn’t run. But I had stepped back into a solid wall of muscle and knew instantly it wasn’t my date. Large hands had picked me off the floor effortlessly and placed me in a corner.
“Stay here, little Red. The Devils are hunting, and they can’t bite if you don’t run.” The voice was low in my ear, and hisnearness caused my body to react. I was pretty sure which Devil was in front of me.
“What if I want to run?” I asked him softly, and I felt his hand trail over my arm lazily. My skin broke out in goose bumps, exactly as before when he touched me in the bar. A reaction I had pretended hadn’t happened at the time. My nipples hardened, and I felt my body sway into his in invitation.
“You want to start something?” Ash asked me, almost in surprise. “Here?”
Yes. “No, I’m with someone.”
“Are you?” I could hear the humor in his voice. “You think he can stop me?”
His voice was taunting, and I fought the urge to laugh hysterically, because I knew Alex wouldn’t, and more importantly, I knew I wouldn’t want him to. But I wasn’t that girl. “I’m on a date,” I whispered, but I could hear my own lack of conviction.
I felt his lips at the shell of my ear before soft hair brushed over my face as he stooped to nuzzle my neck. “Pity,” Ash murmured as his teeth bit the sensitive spot between my ear and my neck. “I wouldn’t mind a taste.”
My heart was racing. “Didn’t you just take it?”
“Red, you’d know if I’d taken it.”
I knew he had stepped away from me, and when the lights went on minutes later, I saw Alex wrapped around another girl, his tongue down her throat. His startled look when his eyes met mine as he looked down at the girl in his arms in shock had mine narrowing. He’d thought she was me? Was he joking? Out of the whole party, a stranger had identified me in the dark, and Alex, mydate, couldn’t even tell that the girl he was kissing hadn’t been the same girl he was kissing before?
Needless to say, I didn’t go on another date with him.
Had Ash been the cause of the mix-up, or had he been the one to open my eyes to the fact that Alex was a jerk? I’d yet to ask him, because when I was in the same room as Ash, I wasn’t capable of logical thought. He was freaking gorgeous. I’d just accused Mindy of being shallow, but put me in front of Ash Santo, and my brain wanted to just take in his sinful good looks, never mind conversation.
And dear Lord, he knew how to use those looks. His biceps were huge, his strength obvious in how fit he kept his body. He had the body of a man older than his years, and yet, there was something angelic about his face, almost boyish, until you looked into his eyes. And the wicked promise that they held stole my breath every time.
Yes, he was a player. A big one. I knew I wasn’t the first girl to drop to her knees to worship the specimen that was Ash Santo, and I wasn’t such a fool to think I would be the last.
He filled a gap in my life that Ava had left. Frowning, I stared at my sheet music. That wasn’t fair to Ava. I was truly happy she was so wrapped up in Jett, and it was obvious he loved her as much as she loved him, despite their rocky start. I just wish he didn’t take up so much of her time. I missed her. And now that she had some sort of tight friendship with Quinn, I was feeling more and more left out as I felt my best friend slipping away from me.
In a weird way, this new arrangement of me having to share my space with the mountain that was Ash would maybe bring us all together more.
“Mia, are you okay?” my professor asked me again, and with a shake of my head to clear it, I focused on my scales, my breath support, and making my voice the instrument it should be.
* * *
“What in the heck?” I hurried to my apartment as I saw the delivery van and the door to my dorm suite wide open. After climbing the stairs, I found two men in Ava’s bedroom and stopped dead when I saw them dismantling her bed.
“Who are you?” I demanded as I glared at them.
The two of them were eerily similar in looks, one slightly taller, although that was hard to determine when they were both on their knees. One looked up at me and gave me a careful once-over.
“Delivery,” he grunted.
“Said who?” I asked as my hands landed on my hips. “The college?”
