She must’ve had the same feeling. Rainey turned in her short, velvet green dress with strings where the back should be. She complained about her clothes, but Legend didn’t shortchange the woman.
Each outfit molded to her body. They accentuated her best features—her tits and that ass—and revealed what her endless collection of jeans tried to hide. A pair of perfect, tan legs that gripped as she bucked on top of me, spilling my blood.
Rainey bent at the waist, dropping her palms on the grass. I was inching for my phone and suddenly forgot why.
“Cobra pose,” Legend said.
She dropped on the ground, lying flat on her stomach, then pushing up on her arms. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders—catching the sunlight and tossing it back. Rainey de Souza was an incredibly beautiful woman, and that she didn’t know was evident by the fact she didn’t stop and admire herself in every reflective surface she passed.
That’s what happens when you spend your life in muddy overalls and the closest thing you have to a boyfriend is the goat that keeps headbutting you in the crotch.
Cairo’s hatred of all things that reminded him of her farm days made a lot more sense.
“My turn,” I said. “Happy baby.”
She pinked. “At home.”
“I say now.”
“I say at home.”
“Four,” Jacques chimed in.
“I’m not doing that pose while wearing a napkin and a thong,” Rainey said. “Ask me to again, and I’ll give you a number.”
The guys got quiet. Jacques didn’t even say five.
“Is that right?” I sat up, draping my arm over my knee. “Don’t leave me in suspense, baby. What happens if I get a number?”
“Thirteen.”
My brows drew together.
“That’s how many letters are in my name,” she said, smile curling those sinful lips. “Where’s your knife?”
My boy wasn’t twitching anymore. He stood ramrod straight, pitching his flag smack on Homer Green.
“Just to be clear,” I began. “Are you threatening to carve your name in my skin if I continue demanding you flash your ass to all of Bedlam University?”
She rose up, shifting into puppy dog stretch on her own. “Not much of a deterrent when it comes to you, Roan Banks,” she purred. “But a girl’s still got to let you know who’s in charge.”
I knocked my lemonade over getting up. “Come with me.”
“I have class in twenty minutes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Ugh.”
Quinn blocked my path as I turned to go, Rainey hanging under my arm like a saddlebag.
“You dumped me for that flat ass?” she scoffed. “Big mistake.”
A comeback was on the tip of my lips. Something to do with the real order of events, and that included her panting moans while she jumped on my cock, they were so vomit-inducing we had to dump her before I got dangerously underweight.
I set Rainey on her feet, looking past Quinn to the guys two steps behind her.
“Unless you’re into flat asses now.” Quinn reinserted herself in my way. “To go with the blood fetish. And the cum fetish. And the sweat fetish. Did I ever tell anyone you got off on licking my armpits?” she half bellowed.
Quinn laughed. “Oops. Guess I did now.”
“This,” I said as the Crows fanned out around her, “is unwise.”
“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked.
Their group wasn’t six.
Students followed behind, broke off from their path, or dropped their footballs. Legend grasped Rainey’s shoulder, guiding her behind us. That wasn’t good.
It meant a fight was coming.
“Roan liked to let me put a saddle on and ride him around the living room,” Quinn went on. “He’s a freak, but that’s nothing on Arsenio. He—”
“Junior year,” Cairo said. “Dallas away game.”
Quinn’s grin melted away.
“Say another word. Open your mouth one more fucking time, and everyone learns that secret.”
She didn’t utter a sound.
“Hey.” Jeremy pulled her close, kissing those pinched lips. “Back off my girlfriend. For fuck’s sake, you guys can’t take a joke. We get into a little argument, I don’t fall for your prank with my brother, and now you are pouting out here, refusing to eat on the terrace. Would Bedlam Babies be a more fitting title?”
A few people snickered.
My eyes narrowed, searching them out. It was difficult. The crowd was getting thicker.
I lit on a vaguely familiar face. He forced through the crowd, hopping on a pair of crutches. Alphonso planted himself between Gael and Micah.
His bruises were in various stages of healing, and the colors did nothing to improve that once vaguely handsome face. His glare tried to burn a hole through me. I slid off him too fast for him to make an impact.
He should thank us for going easy on him.
“Our mistake,” Arsenio said. “We came out here to get some fresh air, enjoy some peace and quiet, get a break from your constant chest pounding. If we’d known you’d get pouty and cry about it, we’d have been there first thing to give you attention.”