Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Henry
I rritation shone back at me from narrowed eyes, and I didn’t miss the subtle way Phoebe curled her hands into little fists that hung by her thighs.
Her parted lips were swollen, and the apples of her cheeks were stained with the kind of red that made me want to sink my teeth into every part of her skin.
To find out if she tasted as good as I imagined she would.
Fuck, she was gorgeous, the sumptuous little witch, and I despised her because of it.
This entire place was packed with women writhing around in barely any clothes, begging for attention, constantly on the lookout for their next victim, but Phoebe stood out without even trying.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to notice.
Every pair of eyes had been on her when she’d lost herself to the music, and she didn’t have a fucking clue about any of it. Men and women studied her from all angles, and that shit irritated me more than I cared to admit.
A bead of sweat rolled from the base of her neck down over her chest, and a knot of desire I couldn’t ignore lodged itself in my throat as I followed its trail, unable to help the way my tongue ran out to taste my own lip as though I was actually about to taste her.
“Henry?”
The sound of my name on her lips made my eyes rise to meet hers.
“You’re staring,” she said coolly, her chin raised in defiance.
I hated what stared back at me. Phoebe had no time for me, clearly, and I had no idea what the fuck to say while she waited for me to speak.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Good chat.”
The moment she tried to turn her back on me, I reached out without thinking, circling her wrist with my free hand, pulling her back around to face me.
She spun with the grace of a ballerina, only to stumble at the last moment and land a little closer to me than either of us intended.
Her bright, wide, innocent eyes stared up at me with surprise before she slowly glanced down at my hand wrapped around her delicate wrist, and for just one moment, she remained eerily still, looking at it as though the contact burned.
I thought about how to say what I needed to say, only for her to pull her arm out of my grip and take a step back as she glared up at me again with murder in her eyes.
“I am so sick of this shit with you already,” she snapped. “Get off me.”
“Have you always been so fiery?”
“Funnily enough, no. Seems you bring out that side of me far too easily.” She ran the fingers of her other hand over the wrist I’d just grabbed, making me frown.
“Did I hurt you?”
“What?”
Without thought, I dropped my almost-empty beer bottle in the sand and stepped forward to reach for her wrist, only this time I kept my touch tender when I picked it up to rub her skin.
Her expression changed immediately, her breaths coming in and out of her quicker than before. “What are you doing?” she asked quietly just as the music switched up to Faith Evans, “Love Like This” , making the entire crowd around us bounce. “Henry…”
“I know you think I’m an arsehole, but if I hurt you physically, I promise you, I’d hate myself more than you ever could.”
She scowled.
“What?” I asked.
“Where did that come from?”
“You were rubbing your wrist just now.”
More heat rushed to her cheeks, and Phoebe quickly pulled herself out of my touch for the second time in a matter of minutes.
“I didn’t know I was doing it, okay? Stop making a big deal out of nothing all the time.
” She took a few steps back and tucked her hair behind one ear before she began to search the crowd, looking everywhere but at me.
“Phoebe?”
“What?”
“Do I make you nervous?”
She huffed out an incredulous laugh before finally making eye contact again. Fuck, those eyes. They were the kind a man could get himself in a lot of trouble for. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you, Cohen?”
“Cohen? You’re calling me that now?” I hated it from her, preferring Henry wrapped around her tongue.
“It’s either that or dickhead. You choose.”
“I prefer it when you call me Henry.”
Her obvious confusion grew, her brows knitting together. “Why?”
“I just do.”
“You give me personality whiplash, you know that?”
One corner of my mouth tilted up without intention, and I pushed both hands into the pockets of my shorts and exhaled heavily. “Sorry about that.”
“Are you? Or do you just like to play mind games with women you barely know?”
“Mind games?”
“You blow hot and cold more than the weather back home, Henry.”
Henry. That’s better.
But even though I had a lot to say to her in response to that, I didn’t get the chance.
Before I could open my mouth to speak, that gorgeous little growl of hers erupted, and she threw her hands up in the air.
“You know what? I’m not doing this. I prefer to be around people who don’t make me feel like I have to walk on eggshells all the time and whose mood swings don’t give me a neck injury.
So, to quote your very own words, Henry Cohen, you’re the last thing I want right now , and the very last thing I’d ever need. See you around. Or not, hopefully.”
I knew I’d fucked up saying that to her.
This time, she walked away without looking back, telling Bailey and Rhea she needed a bathroom break as she breezed past them.
Not that either one paid her much attention when they waved her off, which made my blood boil.
They were too wrapped up in my dickhead mates’ attention to look after their supposed friend in a foreign country.
“Guess I’ll go make sure she’s all right, then.
Not like she’s wandering around all alone, half-dressed in a foreign country full of greasy men or anything,” I muttered to myself as I strode past the four of them, following Phoebe as closely as possible to make sure she stayed safe without it being obvious that I’d somehow turned into a lust-driven stalker who couldn’t simply leave shit alone anymore.
Joe Goldberg, eat your heart out.
I shouldn’t have given a single damn about some stranger I’d only just met.
Especially not after everything I’d left behind back home.
Especially not considering who it had involved and how my life had literally crumbled apart, and this holiday was supposed to be about me patching that back together.
I had too much at risk.
“Cohen, hey. Where you headed?”
I looked over my shoulder to find Jace standing there with a confused expression on his face.
I spun around to face him, running a hand through my hair and blowing out a breath. “What?”
Jace glanced past me in the direction Phoebe had gone, and I saw him connect more dots than I thought him capable of before he looked back at me with a knowing smirk in place. “Ah, shit. Her? Really?”
“Who?”
“Little blondie over at the bar.”
“The bar?” I swung around to look behind me, finding that blonde halo of hair propped up against the bar and not heading in the direction of the bathroom like she’d told the others. “Goddammit.” I growled, running a hand down my face as I turned back to face Jace. “She’s a living nightmare.”
“Phoebe?”
“Who else?”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Jace raised a brow and waited.
“I just find it gross that her mates are so wrapped up in you two idiots, they leave her to wander around a bar like this on her own. So much for girl code and all that.”
“She’s literally twenty feet away from them, Cohen.”
“A lot of creeps can be packed into twenty feet, Jace.”
“Yeah, and you may be the biggest one of all following her around like this.” His expression slowly changed from curious to amused. “You actually like her, don’t you?”
“About as much as a hole in the head.”
He laughed. “Man, this isn’t going to go down well with Andy.”
Screw Andy , I wanted to respond, somehow holding it back. Andy was my brother—almost literally—and I loved him more than life itself, but I was sick and tired of him constantly watching over me, judging every move I made in this life.
Not that I could blame him. I’d hurt those he loved by my actions recently, but I couldn’t live under his constant surveillance much longer, either.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and blew out a heavy breath. “Jace, don’t make more of this than there needs to be. I was just checking on her safety, that’s all. It’s the decent thing to do. No one else seems to give a shit.”
“Ever the gentleman, huh?”
All I could do was roll my eyes at him.
“You sure there’s nothing more to it than that?” he asked.
“Not a damn thing.”
“I guess you won’t be bothered by the guy currently cosying up to Phoebe at the bar, then, will you?”
I turned quickly, feeling a strange kind of pinch in my chest when I saw Phoebe throw her head back in a fit of pure laughter before the guy next to her reached out to run his hand down her bare arm as though he had permission to touch her.
Everything around me turned red, and I had no idea why.
The only thing I’d ever been jealous of in my life were those who still had their parents around, but looking at that fucker touching Phoebe elicited the same kind of stomach-churning response, and I didn’t like the lack of control I had over my own reactions.
A slap to my shoulder had me flinching hard, but I never tore my eyes away from Phoebe when Jace leaned into me and said, “Shit just got interesting, Cohen. Let’s try not to turn this holiday into a warzone, though, huh?
This place is too pretty for everything to blow up in all our faces again all because of your inability to keep your dick out of the wrong girl. ”