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“What’s it like being famous?”
“Did you really bang that pop star?”
“Now that you’re back, maybe we could get together for dinner, or... you know.”
The intrusive and highly inappropriate questions came from all sides. You would have thought I was sitting in the middle of an interview, for Christ’s sake, not my high school reunion. I didn’t bother responding to any of them, only looking down at Anna, who’d clearly just propositioned me, and giving the gold band on her ring finger a pointed look before arching my brow.
Jesus, is this what these people were like back in school?
I shook my head and heaved out a weary sigh, something I’d been doing a whole lot of lately. I was contemplating turning around and heading back the way I came when that bag of dicks, Mike Perry, finally walked away from Presley, giving me my opening.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled to no one in particular as I wormed my way out of the throng of former classmates. My feet carried me across the gym, the heels of my dress shoes clicking against the glazed floor as I closed the distance between us.
I recognized the pretty woman who’d rejoined her as her best friend from childhood, but I couldn’t remember her name. Presley used to run around with her all the time back when we were kids, the two of them practically attached at the hip.
Presley’s back was to me, so her friend was the first to see me coming, and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face at her deer-in-the-headlights expression. A soft chuckle of anticipation rumbled through my chest as I stopped a foot away. If her friend’s reaction was anything to go by, Presley wasn’t going to be very happy to see me. Not that I could really blameher. I tended be a bit of a... well, prick back then. But pushing her buttons was a compulsion. The only time I got a break from being Beau Wade, football player or Hank Wade’s son was when I was battling her, and as much as she might have hated the little games we played, they were the only light I had back then. When she refused to fawn over me like everyone else, that made me feel more normal than anyone or anything, and I hadn’t been able to give that up.
“Well look at you, Bubbles. All grown up.” Anddamn, but she had grown up well.
She turned around slowly, and as soon as I got an up-close look at her face, at that fire spitting and sparking in her cinnamon eyes, my dick went hard as stone. Christ, she was even more beautiful than I remembered.
Even with rage billowing from every pore on her pretty face, she was enough to take a man’s breath away. Sleek, perfectly arched brows rose over intriguing eyes that couldn’t be classified simply as brown. The color could change with her mood or what she wore. If she was in her usually pleasant, sunny mood they could radiate a golden glow that had the power to feel like the sun warming your skin, but if she was gearing up for a fight—like she usually was with me—that fire tended to peek through, giving the brown more heat that reminded me of those delicious warm spices on cold winter days. And sometimes the gold and spice blended together in the most beautiful shade of amber.
I was getting all that spice at the moment, and I wasn’t mad about it.
Her pert little nose was scrunched up angrily, the tip just slightly upturned. Her round cheeks prevented her from having that model sharpness that so many of my exes paid a fortune to obtain, but I much preferred the real deal that was all Presley over the surgically enhanced women I’d dated over the span ofmy career for no other reason than we looked good next to each other in photos and in magazines.
Her normally full, pouty rose-petal lips were pursed in disdain, but even with the daggers she was throwing my way, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.
“Don’t call me that,” she ground out, her voice low and throaty, almost feral.
Game on, I thought as my grin tugged wider.
Fuck. Something was seriously wrong with me that I got off on screwing with her in such a big way, but I couldn’t help myself. Presley Fields made me feel alive. Even when she was hating me.
As it stood at that very moment, it was taking every ounce of strength I had not to tangle my fist in her hair and yank her against me so I could taste that luscious little mouth of hers. To see if it was as delectable as I remembered, or if my memory had somehow faded over time.
“Saw you talking to that asshole, Perry. You still have a thing for losers and Momma’s boys?”
That comment deepened the pink on the apples of her cheeks. “He’s not an asshole or a loser.”
I held a finger in the air. “Ah, but you didn’t deny he’s a Momma’s boy.”
Her friend’s nervous gaze bounced between us like a ping-pong ball. “Uh, you know what? I think I see someone I’d like to catch up with over... far away. I’ll meet up with you later, Pres.”
“Colbie, don’t you dare—” she started, but her friend booked it in another direction.
“Good to see you, Colbie,” I called over my shoulder, and I could have sworn it looked like she stumbled over her shoes before righting herself but didn’t stop.
Presley stared after her and huffed out an exhale. Her pinched lips moved, and I was watching them so damn closelyI could see her silently mouthing a count to ten, like she was desperately struggling to stay calm.
When she finally looked back at me she’d schooled her features. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m really not in the mood for whatever this is.”
One corner of my mouth kicked up in a smirk. “Pretty sure I’m here because it’s my reunion too.”
Her nostrils did that little flare that always happened when she was trying really hard not to lose her shit. She let out a low, angry growl that made my dick twitch behind my fly. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Why did you have to come backhere? To Whitecap. Everything was going so—” She stopped herself and slammed her eyes closed, her lips moving as she counted to ten again.
I lifted a brow and stuffed my hands onto the pockets of my slacks to keep from reaching out to touch her. “You know, you almost make it sound like you haven’t missed me.”
