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I didn’t care that she wasn’t my soul mate. I didn’t care how much she’d hurt me and pissed me off. I didn’t even care that it was Brandt she really wanted. I just knew I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to fuck her very, very badly.
COLTON’S CHAPTER | 11
By the time the song ended, I’d found myself a new drink and was sipping from it as I stood on the sidelines to watch Julianna rub and grind against her girlfriends.
The way they skimmed their hands up the other’s thighs and then laughed and leaned into each other as if they might kiss took sensual to a whole new level.
I realized I wasn’t the only one gawking when some guy paused beside me and let out a loud wolf whistle. I tensed, hoping he was watching one of the other two and not Julianna, but damn, she was by far the most gorgeous of the trio. The one in the middle was tall, maybe even taller than me and wore her hair in box braids. And the chick on the opposite side of the sandwich was the shortest. She had a nearly shaved head, the biggest loop earrings I’d ever seen, and was packing some serious curves. They were all beautiful, but Julianna remained my favorite.
There was just something about her style and grace and the way she laughed with her friends when she busted a bold move that kept my attention glued to her. As the song ended, I prayed she would keep dancing, but the dude who’d been hanging out next to me flashed forward, interrupting them. I stepped after him to pull him off Julianna, but he wrapped his arm around the shortest chick. She screamed out her surprise and jumped, whirling toward him as if to wallop him, but when she saw his face she screamed again, in excitement this time, before she leaped up and gave him a full body hug, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing him full on the mouth.
I eased back and glanced around, hoping no one had caught me starting to act on the instinctive need to keep him away from Julianna. It was a stupid instinct, and I didn’t like that I’d been following it.
Rubbing the back of my neck in humiliation, I started to turn away. Except another dude popped forward and caught hold of the tall friend. Seeing Juli’s two friends greet their boyfriends, I paused, curious if Julianna’s significant other was going to appear and surprise her too. But she only smiled tightly at the two couples and took a tiny step away from them. I knew then no one was coming for her. She looked too uncomfortable, too much like the fifth wheel, too much like the very reason why I’d declined to go to supper with Caroline and her family earlier. She didn’t feel as if she fit in.
Hating that she felt left out, I moved toward her without thinking. She didn’t see me coming; she was too busy watching her friends and their boyfriends talk animatedly amid the four of them.
So I leaned in and said, “You told me you didn’t dance.”
She gasped and spun toward me.
Pressing her hand to her chest, she sucked in more air, her chest heaving with surprise. After taking a moment to collect herself, she shook her head. “I told you I didn’t want to dance that night.”
“Right.” I nodded. “You just hadn’t wanted to dance with me. I remember now.”
She scowled. “No. That wasn’t it at all. I was just too uncomfortable to dance at all. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Sure,” I murmured in a tone that let her know I didn’t believe her.
With a sniff, she said, “We ended up dancing, didn’t we?”
“We did,” I allowed. “After I forced you into it.”
Huffing some more, she set her hands on her hips as if she were about to give me a piece of her mind. I lifted my eyebrows and took a drink, letting her know I was all ears and ready to hear what spiteful words she had to deliver this time.
But her gaze focused on my cup and she instantly narrowed her eyes. “I thought I told you no more alcohol tonight.”
When she reached for it, I pulled the drink away. “Relax, there isn’t any this time.”
After sending me a telling look, she reached for my cup again, less forcefully this time. I let her take it, and instead of dumping it out on the ground, she took a sip. My body tensed as I watched her lick an excess droplet of pop off her top lip. She swallowed some more, and I couldn’t recall if I had ever seen anything look so freaking sexy before.
Something about watching her drink after me made me want to go into caveman mode, just pick her up, haul her over my shoulder and carry her back to my lair so I could turn into a primal beast that rutted until dawn.
My stomach clenched as I physically restrained myself from reaching for her. “You know,” I murmured, masking all outward signs of arousal. “If you think going protective big sister on me and keeping me sober is going to win you brownie points with Brandt, I should probably just clue you in now…he doesn’t give a shit if I sneak a drink every now and then.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came. I could tell I’d caught her off guard, and I wasn’t sure if I felt smug or shitty about that. I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned Brandt, but hell…he was the only thing between us.
Clearing her throat, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin before saying, “I thought you promised to stop all that contention you keep slinging my way.”
I took my cup out of her hand. “It’s a work in progress.”
But I didn’t get a chance to take a drink. She once again swiped my cup from my clutches. She didn’t dump any liquid on the ground, though. No, she threw the whole damn thing down, cup and all.
A split second later, her finger began to wave madly in my face. “Let’s get one thing straight, Little Gamble.”
“Yes, let’s,” I growled right back, pulling out my own pointer finger and aiming it at her nose so that we could damn near start dueling with them. “Stop calling me Little Gamble. You compare me to him every time you say it, and I don’t like that. I’m not Brandt. I could never be Brandt, even if I tried. So this is who you got, baby doll. Colton David Gamble, and no one else.”
Again, I managed to stun her speechless. “That’s not what I…I mean, I didn’t intend to—shit!” Her eyes grew big as she caught something behind me when she glanced over my shoulder.
