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“Well… yeah.” I swallowed. This, uh, wasn’t going how I expected it to. I’d tried to turn the tables on him and his dating life, and instead I was still the uncomfortable one. I mean, what kind of girl didn’t like a good-looking man in a suit? Dress clothes on men were like lingerie on women: instant kryptonite.
“Maybe I’ve been waiting for someone.”
“Who?” I could barely get the word out.
“The right woman,” he said, and then he pointed at me, still smirking. “Maybe if you didn’t dress like you just rolled out of bed, you’d have more guys interested.” Creed, ever the stoic man, was cracking a joke.
I think.
“Hey!” I huffed, glancing down at my hoodie. “This is comfortable! And I don’t need to dress up to impress anyone. If I want to dress up, I do it for myself.” Okay, that was a lie. I was a nineteen-year-old girl. Of course I dressed to impress cute guys sometimes, even if there was no hope of them liking me back.
“I should be thankful you enjoy looking like that,” Creed went on, dismissing everything I just said with a wave of his hand. “It means I don’t have to beat down any boys trying to get with you.”
Beat down?I let out a chuckle, mostly out of disbelief. He wouldn’t…
Creed shot me a look, and I knew right then: he totally would.
“Well, maybe with all my fancy new clothes, I’ll catch the attention of one of the campus hotties—”
“Campus hotties?” He sounded utterly ridiculous saying those two words with his deep, gravelly voice. His dark stare narrowed at me a bit, his suspicion evident.
“Yeah, you know, the guys every girl on campus want to hook up with. You’re not that much older than me; you had to have some of those people in your grade, even in high school. The ones on their own level.” Even as I said it, I knew it then: the guy in his grade that every girl and probably some of the guys wanted to hook up with was him. Had to be.
A muscle in Creed’s jaw tensed, and he was measured in saying, “I don’t know about that. But as for these ‘campus hotties,’ you should give me their names.”
Again, I found myself laughing. “Why? So you can stalk them and scare them? Are you going to be my big, protective older brother again?”
Creed leaned back with a shrug. “I never should’ve stopped. But, yes, if any guy tries to get with you, I’ll need to check them out, first.”
“Of course, sir, should I make up an application to give potential boyfriends to fill out? Have them answer a bunch of intrusive questions, maybe get it notarized?” I deadpanned.
“I’d rather meet them myself. People can lie on tests. I know how to read people.” When I didn’t say anything to that, he asked, “Is it really so bad of me to want to make sure no one comes into your life just to fuck around? I left you once, and I’m not going to do it again.”
“I’m in college, Creed. Fucking around is pretty much all everyone does. That’s, like, the whole point—besides getting a degree.” It was my turn to shrug. “And what ifIwant to fuck around? Maybe I—”
“No,” Creed said, and that one word shut me up. It wasn’t the word itself that made me shut up; it was how he said it, like it was an order. A command no one would be able to refuse, least of all myself.
It took me far too long to say, “No?”
“That’s what I said.”
I stared at him for a minute, my mouth open. It took me far too long to formulate a response, and once I figured out what I was going to say to him, I got to my feet, set my hands on my hips, and told him off, “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
Creed stood, the movement deliberately sluggish. He stepped closer to me, towering over me easily. His head angled down, and his dark gaze captured my stare and held it hostage, refusing to let it go. “I left you once,” he told me, his voice a deadly sort of serious. “I’m not going to do it again.” Less than six inches between my chest and his; he stood that close to make a point.
I didn’t come to him so he could protect me from the fuckboys of the world or the anger of my dad, so I told him that: “I don’t want you to protect me. I just want you to be there for me.” My defiant stance wavered, and my hands fell off my hips. Still, his gaze wouldn’t let mine go.
“I can be there for you and protect you at the same time,” he whispered. One of his hands lifted and touched my cheek, his fingers drawing down along the curve of my jawline in a touch that sent butterflies aflutter in my stomach. “There are so many people out there who would hurt you, just like your dad. Some worse. If I can save you from it, I will, whether you want me to or not.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was this Creed being sweet, or was this Creed being controlling, possessive… and jealous of potential future boyfriends of mine? I honestly didn’t know what to think.
His fingers were still on my jaw; they’d fallen near my chin. The only word I could say was his name: “Creed.” It came out of me in a bare whisper, breathy and wispy, so soft any gust of wind would’ve carried it away. I was surprised he heard it over the sounds of the TV.
Creed’s gaze dropped as his thumb moved over the skin on my chin, lightly trailing over my bottom lip. When that thumb touched my lip, my breath caught, a tiny shock of warmth zapping through me. “I do love the way you say my name,” he whispered as his thumb continued to graze my bottom lip. “No one else has ever said it quite like you do.”
No words came from me, probably because anything I thought to say would’ve made no sense. It was hard to think under the intense scrutiny of his dark eyes, and add that to the way he currently touched me, how close he was to me…
In that moment, he didn’t feel like a stepbrother. He felt like something else, something so much more.
