Slamming Demon (Pounding Hearts 2)

“Yeah,” I assured him, letting him help me to my feet.

I wasn’t hurt, physically, I was just painfully embarrassed. Yet again I had made an ass of myself in front of the guy. What was wrong with me? Why, whenever he came around, did I transform into a dumb blonde?

Probably because all the blood was rushing out of my head to somewhere else.

“Are you sure?” he asked, as if he didn’t believe me. “You didn’t bruise or break anything?” Then he started checking me with his hands, patting them all over my body. I could have died right then and there.

“I’m fine!” I yelped, jumping away from him.

I was mortified, freakin’ mortified that I fell on my ass. The last thing I needed was his hands roaming all over me and turning me on. Horny and embarrassed, a sucky combination if there ever was one.

His brows pulled together and he scowled.

I immediately felt the need to apologize. “I’m sorry, I was just surprised. I didn’t think you would show. Thank you for helping me up.”

My phone buzzed and dinged so I bent down to pick it up. My screen was flooded with lots of please in caps with hearts followed by a gazillion exclamation points.

I groaned and dropped down to my chair, forgetting for a moment that Brett was still standing there. It was so hard to say no to Grace. She always covered my ass and it was the first time she asked me to return the favor. I knew she was really into this hot guy from another school… but Eric, yuck. I huffed and my curls flew up. I didn’t know what to tell the girl.

“Do you want to cancel?” Brett asked, pulling my attention back to him.

“Cancel?” I blinked. Did he know about the party?

“Yeah, you weren’t expecting me?” He shifted his weight and grabbed the strap of his messenger bag that was slung over his shoulder with both hands. “And you look pretty busy…”

“Oh, no!” I shook my head at him and then waved my phone in the air. “This, this isn’t busy. It’s just Grace asking me to go to a party with her and I’m trying to figure out a way to let her down, but she’s making it seriously hard. She’s totally claiming she’ll never forgive me, but it’s Eric’s party and Eric is just…”

And now I was babbling. Good going, Amanda. Keep it up.

Both of Brett’s eyebrow

s lifted high and his lips were curling with amusement. “Eric is just?”

I looked back down at my phone and tried not to laugh when I finished, “A douchebag.”

“A douchebag, eh?” Brett said with amusement and I lifted my eyes to see his eyes glittering back at me.

“Yeah, a total douchebag. And if I go to the party with Grace…” My phone buzzed and dinged again, cutting me off. Another gazillion pleases popped up, and I huffed. Damnit, she was not going to give it a rest. “Which is looking more and more likely, I’ll spend the entire night slipping him.”

“Why would you have to slip him?” Brett asked.

I sighed and seriously hoped Brett wasn’t friends with Eric and was going to blab this back to him. “Because he likes me? And I don’t like him. He just doesn’t seem to get it…”

Before I could even finish, Brett popped out, “I’ll go with you.”

“Wha?” I couldn’t even finish the word I was so flabbergasted.

Brett looked away and frowned. “I’ll go with you. It will keep Eric off your back.”

Woah. My voice squeaked as I asked, “You would do that for me?”

Brett shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Sure? Why not?”

But it totally was. It was a huge deal, and I could so see it working. But… “I can’t take advantage of you like that. I mean, my parents are paying you to tutor me, not to babysit me at a party. But thank you for offering.”

“I don’t mind, Mandy,” Brett said, looking back at me, and I felt ensnared by his gaze. I couldn’t move, my heart was pitter-pattering, and it was hard to breathe.

“You don’t mind acting like you’re with me?”