23. Preston #2
“But that’s not how you treat friends.” She squirms, so I let her down, and she hikes both her hands on her hips with so much attitude. “Don’t be a meanie just because you’re cool.”
This little shit is changing allegiances faster than the Cold War’s double agents.
“Right?” Marcus, the asshole, is feigning a pout, and now, I’m staring at his goddamn lips like a sexually-frustrated maniac.
I mean, I am, but still.
“I’m sorry Pressie is a meanie,” my sister tells Marcus. “I can be your friend.”
“Mimi!”
She holds her hand up. “You’re in time-out. Don’t talk to me.”
Marcus suppresses a smile.
“Can you skate?” she asks.
“A bit,” he says, like the humblest bastard he most definitely is not.
“I can teach you some moves!” She skates away, then spins. “Like this.”
“I don’t think I’m as elegant as you, Miley.”
“That’s okay, you’ll learn. Come on, follow me.”
Marcus starts to skate toward her, but I block his path, standing so close, our skates touch. For a moment, the hustle and bustle and the noise just disappear.
Fuck me sideways. I don’t tend to forget about the outside world when I’m with a fuck buddy.
Is Marcus even just a fuck buddy at this point?
No fucking has been detected lately, and yet I feel as if that lava is incinerating me alive in the middle of the ice.
Maybe it’s because of pent-up sexual energy.
It has to be.
An incurable hypersexual like me doesn’t usually go long without fucking.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper in a low voice.
“Skating, just like you.”
“You want me to believe it’s a coincidence that we happened to come here at the same time?”
He shrugs but says nothing.
“Have you been following me, Marcus?”
“No clue what you’re talking about.”
My lips lift in a snarl, but I force them into a line because I refuse to allow him to get the better of me like every other time.
He curls his index finger in my sweater, his eyes darkening. “What are you wearing?”
I frown, looking down at my green-and-blue striped sweater. “Clothes.”
“With your money, one would think you’d be able to afford finished clothes.” He reaches up and slides his hand along my exposed collarbone through the wide collar.
My skin prickles again, his touch igniting those familiar feelings of lust and abandon. The furious sensation spreads across my spine and shoots straight to my throbbing balls.
Flashbacks of slapping and jerking and thrusting pour into my head like lava, incinerating me from the inside out. I want…no, I need that again.
“It’s called oversized,” I grumble, trying to sound annoyed and not at all embarrassingly turned on.
“It’s called too much visible skin.”
“My collarbone isn’t fucking cleavage.”
“It’s much worse.” The rough timbre of his voice, coupled with his seemingly explorative but firm touch, thickens my cock. “You don’t seem to have any fucking clue how effortlessly erotic you look right now.”
His thumb presses on the line of my throat where it meets my collarbone, and I swallow against it, my ears ringing.
A flash of something intimate and ancient and prickling darkens his eyes as he stares down at me, his voice lowering to a raw range. “I don’t like it when others look at what’s mine, Preston. What belongs to me is for my eyes only, do you understand?”
“You’re acting as if I’m walking around naked,” I whisper. “It’s just a fucking collarbone.”
He shakes his head once. “It’s all of you.”
That stupid, inexplicable thing happens again in my chest—a sort of nonsensical movement that makes it hard to breathe.
“Heey!” Miley skates to our side. “What’s taking you so long?”
All the noise of our environment slides back in, harsh and jarring. The sound of skates on ice, the laughter and endless chatter.
I totally forgot about all the people surrounding us as this asshole dragged me into his web of madness.
I push him away and his hand drops from my throat, leaving a flush of heat in its wake. “I told you we’re strangers in public. Go away.”
His eyes narrow slightly, but then he smiles at Miley, who stops next to us, then glances at me. “Who says I’m here for you?”
“Come on, let me teach you.” My sister whirls with an attitude bigger than her tiny body. “I don’t have all day.”
Marcus, the asshole, casts a fleeting glance at me, then takes her outstretched hand. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, princess. Lead the way.”
She grins and drags him to the middle, her wings flying behind her.
Is this piece of shit really going to ignore me and pretend he’s here for Miley? He obviously stalked me.
I stand in place, my arms crossed, and yup, he’s totally into whatever gibberish she’s telling him—mirroring her movements and everything.
Since when does he even have the patience for kids? Listen, I love Miley, but she’s my sister, so that’s a given. Other kids, however, should stay the hell away from me.
She’s not Marcus’s sister, though, and he has zero need to indulge her. He’s obviously low on the empathy radar, and he has no patience whatsoever sometimes. He certainly seems to be ticked off by everything I do or say lately.
And yet he’s currently tolerating Miley’s constant yapping, as if she’s competing for how many words she can say in one breath.
I frown when he smiles at her, his expression soft, and that chronic pain in my chest sinks in deeper. What the fuck?
It’s almost as if…I’m jealous of my sister because he smiled at her like he never smiles at me.
Fuck the hell out of this shit.
That is not true under any circumstances.
“Preston?”
I turn sideways at the very familiar, irritating voice. And it’s none other than Dove—sorry, Daphne.
You know, the one Kane is dating and apparently not breaking up with anytime soon.
Anyway, she chose about the worst time to show her pretty face, because I don’t want her here while Marcus is.
Like at all.
And she’s wearing this cute little off-white knit dress with sexy stockings.
Better call Kane so he can come collect his girlfriend ASAP.
“Who are you again?” I say in my usual devil-may-care tone, purposefully standing in a way that blocks her view of Marcus dancing with my sister on the ice.
“Very funny. Ha. Ha,” she mocks, then frowns. “What are you doing here?”