The coach blows the whistle, signaling the end of class. We rack the balls and head for the locker room. My phone lights up with a text from Bryc:
Meet Eden and me at the coffee house after school-my Treat!
In the next text, he sends me the address.
I respond right away that I’ll be there. It’ll be the perfect time and place to ask them about Josh.
I slide on my skirt and pull my button-down over my sports bra. I toss everything else into my backpack. As I’m heading outinto the hall, my phone dings again. I expect it to be Bryce, but it’s a notification that biology has been canceled. My boots hit the ground with determination to get the fuck out of Monarch.
To my pleasant surprise, the rain has stopped for now. Hopefully, it’ll hold out until I get to the coffee house. That’s the one thing about having a bike, it sucks to drive in the rain or cold.
I tie the button-down shirt around my waist. “Fucking uniform,” I mumble to myself.
“There she goes again,” someone says while his friends laugh.
“Back the fuck off.” Another voice dominates the first.
I close my eyes and pray it’s not who I think. But that deep baritone is undeniable, and it’s exactly who I think it is when I glance up. The guys who blabbed shit are scurrying off in the opposite direction.
Edge is at my side in only a few strides. His gaze scans me slowly from my boots to my face. “Are you avoiding me, Ninja?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” I scoff and shake my head. “And here I thought I was the one who was being ignored—not that I’m pining for your attention.” I don’t bother saying he was the one who acted like I was invisible while I played basketball with his friends. The two, I believe, are innocent of murdering my dad. Edge… the jury is still out on him.
It’s his turn to scoff. “You don’t pine?—”
“At least we agree on something,” I interject as I pull on the straps of my backpack, tightening them on my back.
“You don’t pine, you tease.”
“Tease? You’re full of shit.” I don’t give him a chance to answer. “Just because I’m not falling at your feet like every other girl around here doesn’t mean I’m a tease. It means I don’t have the time or patience for your fucking games.”
His jaw ticks. And that twinge of excitement dances on my ego in knowing I can rile him up with only a few words. He stepscloser, invading my personal space like he does when he’s going to touch me. I tense, ready for the heat of his hands to trail along my skin.
This time, though, he keeps his hands to himself. He only leans down to whisper in my ear. “Are you still wet?”
It’s then I shift my stance to look at him. I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Because I am, and I have been since his fingers glided toward my very aroused pussy and his talented mouth trailed along my neck. I shake the images out of my head, but not before he notices the changes in my demeanor or the fucking way I slowly close my eyes, only to open them to him staring at me with his deep penetrating steel gaze boring into mine.
He grins knowingly. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Shit me!
“You should let me get you naked to know exactly what my mouth…my tongue…my hands feel like when I can really take my time before I fuck you.”
Even if I wasn’t wet before, he’s taken care of that with his taunting. How could I have let myself be so easy to read?
Erecting my walls again, I take a step back. “I have to go.”
“Where?”
I throw my leg across my bike. “None of your fucking business.”
“Levi said you’re going to the Halloween party with Josh.”
“Yeah, so?”
“He’s not the sweet, innocent guy you think he is.”
I look directly at him and grin. “Who says I’m looking for a guy that’s sweet and innocent?”