“What the hell, man?” I yelled over the music. “You told us she cheated on you, but it was the other way around, wasn’t it?”
His smile hung. “What?”
“Madison.” I glared at him. “I don’t know how you landed a girl like that, but then you go and cheat on her? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He didn’t bother denying it. Instead, he flattened a hand to his chest like I’d mortally wounded him. “I made a mistake. I was lonely and homesick, and she was five thousand miles away.”
I sneered. “Not an excuse.”
“Don’t tell the guys. I’m not proud of what I did.” The thought finally occurred to him. “How’d you find out?”
“She told me.”
He swayed and peered at me with a dubious expression. “And you believed her?”
I’d been holding myself together since talking to Riley, but my restraint threatened to snap. “What kind of fucking question was that? Of course, I believed her.” I sucked down a breath to keep myself in check. “A girl like Mads . . . you didn’t deserve her.”
His expression soured. “What the hell do you know?”
“That she’s too hot, too smart, and too fucking fearless for someone like you. If she was mine, she’d be more than enough for me.”
“But she’ll never be yours,” he said. “She’s too much of a good girl to go for someone like you.”
“Colin,” came from a voice to my right. I turned, and my brain emptied of thought.
Mads stood in front of us, looking like she’d heard everything. Her expression was intense and focused on us, like she was unaware of the party going on.
She’d understood the assignment, because her dress was cut low in the front, and the skirt barely covered her ass, showing off her legs. The dress was made of something white and frilly. Coffee filters? She’d folded some into half circles and they covered her boobs but revealed tons of cleavage. The waist of the dress was banded in silver duct tape, before bursting out into a fluffy skirt.
She was so sexy, so beautiful, I had to look away.
“I want to kiss you,” she announced loudly.
I blinked, stunned. My gaze swept over Jack and the crowded room before returning to her. “Now?”
She nodded quickly.
“Then,” I said, “get the fuck over here and do it.”
She stepped forward as I leaned down, making it easier for her to reach up and thread her hands through my hair. Her fingers laced together at the back of my neck, and she pulled my mouth to hers.
Our kiss was fire.
Unlike anything I’d had before.
It was much too passionate for me to think this was all for show, that she was just doing it to make her ex jealous. She was kissing me now because she wanted to.
I put my hands on her back to draw her closer, only to stop immediately. Her costume looked delicate, and she’d obviously put a lot of work into it, so I didn’t want to rip it.
Her tongue filled my mouth, and it set my body buzzing. Fuck, how I wanted her, even after I’d already had her. It was a scary, new experience. She had me fucking addicted, and I wasn’t even mad about it.
I pictured us as Jack saw us. Me bare chested in a pink kilt and her wearing a ruffly white dress, kissing each other like it was the only thing we’d been put on the Earth to do.
But he’d vanished when we finally came up for air.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, still shellshocked from her kiss.
She acted like it was a strange question. “Didn’t you tell me to come?”
The memory of her lingered on my lips as she stepped back, putting some space between us, and it helped clear some of the fog from my head.
Mads raked a hand through her long hair, shaking out a tangle. “My friend Jenn said she wanted to go, so I came with her.” Her gaze wandered appreciatively over my chest, and amusement lit her eyes. “Nice outfit.”
“Yeah, same,” I mumbled, suddenly aware of things outside of the Mads bubble I’d gotten sucked into. I surveyed the sea of partygoers until I spied Riley. “We need to leave.”
“What?” She bristled. “I just got here.”
I grabbed her hand and squeezed, so I’d have her full attention. “Mads, trust me. We gotta go.”
Whatever face I was making, she could tell I was serious. “Okay.”
I held on to her as we shouldered our way through the crowd, heading toward the stairs and ignoring the strange looks we got. Last time these people had seen us together, we’d been throwing mud and fighting over the Fidelity Cup.
Now we looked like a couple.
I . . . didn’t hate that idea.
But she probably would, and it couldn’t happen, anyway. How did you date someone when both of your jobs required you to fuck other people—sometimes in front of each other?