Tessa didn’t look at me, but gave Lucy a nasty look and walked out of my office, slamming the door behind her. When she was gone I looked down at the girl I was holding onto like a fucking lifeline. I was. This girl was the link to everything good in my life. When we were kids, it had been something different than what I was feeling now, but no less intense. I needed her so fucking much.
That should have scared the shit out of me. Finding your soul mate was a life altering moment. For a guy my age, fresh out of college with a club that got him pussy every night, that could have been terrifying. The thought of giving it all up for a girl when I was this young could have sent me out, screwing her out of my head.
It didn’t. I wasn’t scared of anything but losing her, or worse… That she didn’t or wouldn’t ever love me the same way that I loved her. I was ready for her, felt like I’d been born ready for Lucy Thornton.
But she was only seventeen. Sure she was going to be eighteen in just a matter of weeks, but still she was so young. She had college to get through, a life she could lead without me. Being with me, having a serious relationship with me, it might not be something that she was ready for now. Maybe never would be.
Maybe I would only ever be her best friend.
Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try, though. I wasn’t going to live with the regret of not fucking trying.
Lucy pulled away. “Wow.?
? She shook her head, a humorless laugh leaving her lips. “Just…wow.”
“I would never do something like that to Jenna!” I didn’t realize I was going to yell until the words were echoing off the walls of my office. Clenching my jaw, I struggled to lower my voice. “Tessa made a mistake and I didn’t want to hurt her. I was trying to get her off me without being forceful when you walked in.”
Nearly black eyes rolled and I had to remember that a month really wasn’t all that long to wait. When she rolled her eyes like that, I wanted to kiss the sass out of her until she was whimpering my name. “Keep telling yourself that, Harris. She was all over you. I didn’t see you pushing her away or even attempting to.”
There it was again. That small hitch, but this time it had a bite to it and I mentally pumped my fist in the air as a small grin lifted my lips. Well, shit. Lucy was jealous. That gave me a shot of hope that was just as powerful as pure adrenaline as it flooded through my veins.
I leaned back against my desk and watched her a little more closely. The way her jaw was slightly clamped, the way her hands kept clenching and unclenching, and there—yes, deep in those fucking amazing dark depths—was the hurt I finally recognized along with the jealousy.
My body, my entire being, reacted instinctively. It was like I had no control over it as I pushed away from the desk. I reached her in less than three steps and wrapped my arms around her waist. Lucy stiffened in my embrace, those eyes shooting fire up at me, but even with the foot separating our gazes I could see the same want and need that seemed to consume me shining back.
“I don’t fucking want Tessa,” I murmured as I slowly lowered my head. My nose skimmed over hers. Don’t kiss her, dumbass. Kissing will lead to something that will get you ugly dead. Jesse Thornton will gut you and bury your fucking body.
Lucy shivered as I lowered my head farther and rubbed my nose down her neck. Fucking hell. She smelled so damn good. I’d never smelled another chick that smelled as good as this one. It wasn’t her perfume. I bet a hundred girls could wear the same perfume and it still wouldn’t smell as good as it did on Lucy. It was something stronger, something more intoxicating. It whispered seductively to my soul. Mine. “That…wasn’t what it looked…like.”
“What it looks like and what it really is can be two separate things, Lu.” My hands moved as if they had a will of their own, skimming down her sides to her hips and carefully pulling her just a little closer to me. Her lower body pressed softly against mine and my body, which hadn’t even twitched when I’d had Tessa on my lap, woke up instantly.
She gasped softly when she felt me against her stomach, her hands reaching out to hold onto the belt loops on my jeans. “W-wh-what are…?” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Harris…”
The tip of her tongue snuck out and dampened her full bottom lip and I had to bite back a groan. No, dickhead. You can’t kiss her. Stop thinking about it. “What, Lu?”
“I can’t think when you d-do that,” she breathed, her voice hitching for an entirely different reason now. My body responded by flexing against her. Oh shit. I was losing control of this situation way too fast and fighting the will to care if the end result got my dead body tossed into a hole out in the middle of the desert.
Don’t kiss her. Make her understand that you would never hurt Jenna like that and then get her out of the office. The voice of reason was almost shouting at me but my body was starting to shut that part of my brain down. She smelled so good, felt so good. I needed to taste her so fucking badly.
Focus, Cutter. Focus.
“She was on your lap,” she murmured as if she was trying to remember what we’d been talking about just as much as I was. “That…girl.” That seemed to snap her out of the daze I was putting us both in and she jerked away from me. “She was on your damn lap, Harris. Jenna’s girlfriend was on your lap and you were letting her kiss you. Don’t you realize that something like that could set her recovery back?”
“Which is why I’ll tell her about it when she gets home in a few weeks,” I assured her, mentally willing my body to calm the fuck down. Jenna would be home by Christmas. Any longer than that and her family would start to question where she was. “I’m going to try my damnedest to get that bitch out of Jenna’s life. I should have way before now, but I didn’t really see what a conniving whore she was until recently.”
Lucy sighed. “You swear you weren’t hooking up with her?”
“I swear, baby.”
The anger in her eyes began to fade and she nodded. “Okay,” she muttered, finally believing me.
I smiled, thankful that our friendship was strong enough that she could trust me so wholeheartedly. “Still mad at me?”
“A little.” She was smiling though so I wasn’t worried about it. “Stop threating my friends with unemployment. It’s not nice.”
I shrugged. “I don’t like him flirting with you.” I didn’t like anyone flirting with her. Or looking at her. Fuck, I didn’t even like them breathing near her.
She took a small step closer, her dark eyes lightening just a little as she looked up at me. “I don’t like him like that,” she murmured. “I don’t like anyone like that…”