My mouth snapped open as I gasped. “Ugh. You…jerk. I was not sniffing your damn jacket.” I slapped it against his chest, which only made him chuckle.
“I didn’t suggest that you had already. Why? Had you?”
“No,” I snapped, only to scowl and mutter, “shut up.”
The bastard only laughed harder before he brought it to his own nose. “Damn,” he murmured, lowering it again. “I actually hoped it’d smell more like you when I got it back.”
I had this sudden acute vision of him leaning over me while I was stretched out and naked on a bed, while he sniffed every inch of my body. And my hormones flipped to arousal so fast I was tempted to squeeze my thighs together.
“You like my scent.” I’d started it out as a question, but it ended up sounding more like a statement of awe. But holy shit, knowing he liked my scent as much as I liked his was fucking intoxicating.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, glancing down at me because I was suddenly close enough that he had to look down, which made me realize I’d just drifted right up into his personal space. And I wanted to drift even closer. “I like everything about you, baby doll.”
Yeah, I was going to drift even closer.
When his breathing changed and his chest moved as he sucked in oxygen, I knew he was as far gone as I was. I stared up at him, my skin practically buzzing with the need to feel him against me. My gaze coasted to his hair, which I wanted to clutch so bad, then to his lips that had parted and looked dewy moist as if he’d just licked them.
When I sank near, he mirrored me, shifting in as well. My eyelashes fluttered.
He drew in an audible breath, then said, “If you’re going to kiss me again, try not to mention my brother this time, okay?”
And bam. I was done.
Jerking backward, I gaped at him in horror. “You asshole.”
He shrugged as he slipped on his coat. “Hey, I was just setting ground rules. That was kind of a mood breaker for me the first time.”
I hugged myself, feeling humiliated and small. Unable to look him in the eye, I muttered, “Maybe you should just go.”
He nodded. “Yeah, maybe I should.”
But as soon as he turned away, a pounding came from the front of the apartment. When I heard the familiar muted shout of my ex, I grabbed Colton’s arm tight.
“Shit.”
He glanced at me, his eyes squinted as he listened to Shaun holler my name and claim he knew I was here. “Is that him?”
I nodded silently, my heart thumping a million miles per minute.
Colton turned as if to go confront him, but I latched on to his arm harder. “What’re you doing? Don’t go out there.”
“I’m going to tell him to leave you the hell alone.”
“No.” I wound my whole arm around his when he tried to break free. “It won’t work. I promise you. Seeing you will only piss him off more, and then it’ll be worse for me in the future. Please don’t make this worse for me.”
When he gaped at me as if I’d asked him to cut off his manhood, right at the penis, I begged more. “Colton, please. Think about this. What do you think confronting him will accomplish?”
“I think it’ll scare him off for good so you’d finally be free of him.”
“Armed with nothing but an apple core.” I sighed. “Yeah, I don’t think so, honey.”
“Hey, I could fling the apple in his face. It’d be super gross. He might just run off, screaming like a little bitch because I gave him my cooties. You never know.”
“You won’t scare him off,” I said dryly. “He’s bigger than you.”
He snorted as if that didn’t matter, but a second later, he paused and eyed me suspiciously. “How much bigger?”
“Like twice as big. And I can tell he’s been drinking. He’s not a pleasant drunk. If you do anything right now, this is just going to come back on me twice as hard later, so please—”