It takes me a long moment to start moving again, I’m that fucking pissed—and that fucking dizzy, but whatever.
She just left.
Without saying a word to me.
“Dammit, Gigi.” I drag my feet toward the frat house, limping as my knee protests the weight I’m putting on it, and feeling like I’m a hundred years old.
I pull the door open and enter, back into the noise and chaos I’d escaped only to land in worse trouble.
“Yeah, don’t worry about me,” I mutter, wiping a hand over my mouth and finding it bleeding. Maybe from that punch? “I’m perfectly fine, thanks for asking. And you’re fucking welcome.”
Talking to myself is probably not a good sign. I just need to find a new bottle of vodka—to ease the pain in my knee, and quiet my churning mind.
See, I don’t wanna admit that it hurt to have Gigi ignore me, get her friend and go—but seriously, after the way I treated her last time, what did I expect? Asking her to blow me in exchange for helping her friend. Of course she’s pissed with me.
And that had been the purpose of it all along, to get her to stay away from me. Well, it worked.
Be careful what you wish for, and all that jazz.
There’s a crash, and I slam into the wall before my brain catches up, my heart going a thousand miles an hour. “Whoa. Fuck.” All I see is blood, and darkness, and I smell burning flesh and blood.
Fucking shit.
It takes me a long minute to realize someone’s standing in front of me, not moving. A dress. A ponytail.
“Jarett.” It’s Gigi, staring at me like I grew a second head. “You okay?”
“Yeah, peachy. Just… warn a man, will ya?”
“Sorry.” She cocks her head to the side, and that damn long ponytail swings, getting me hard all over again. “I was coming back out to find you.”
“You were?” I grin, relieved.
“What happened out there? What was Sydney doing?” She steps closer, and I groan quietly, her sweet scent seeping into me, making my mouth water. My jeans are getting tighter by the minute.
“You know what she was doing.” I have to swallow to clear my throat, force my eyes up from her tits to meet her gaze. “You need to talk to her, Gigi. This is dangerous shit.”
“You’re hurt,” she says, lifting a hand to my face, and I flinch when she touches my swelling jaw.
“I’ll live.”
“You protected Sydney like I aske
d you to.”
I didn’t do it for you, I wanna say. I’m not an asshole. I don’t let innocent girls get punched by motherfuckers in the night if I can help it. Isn’t it what anyone would do in my place?
But I keep my mouth shut, because what is the truth? I also did it for Gigi, I looked out for her friend because she fucking asked me to.
Damn.
“Just keep your friend out of trouble,” I mutter, my eyes back on her mouth, because Christ, the need to taste it, to touch her, push her against the wall and fuck her right here is driving me insane. “Got it?”
“She won’t talk to me,” Gigi says, tucking her bottom lip between her small white teeth—and fucking hell, did she set out to kill me? “Look, Jarett…”
Shit, I’m reaching for her even as I know in the back of my mind that it’s a bad, bad idea. “What, you came to pay the price for my protection?”
I’m shitting her. She never accepted my douchey deal, and I was never serious about it. But she nods gravely.