Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

I spend the next hour or so hanging out with Alexander and his inner circle—one of whom is his brother, Jim, who also happens to be Kathy’s fiancé. Alexander tries to cuddle up a couple of times, but I don’t let him. Spending a little while with him so he and his friends know I’m totally over him is one thing, but letting him get touchy-feely with me is quite another. No way am I going back down that road with him.

Which is why as soon as I feel like I’ve done my duty—spent some time with Kathy and Jim, bolstered my friend about how great the party turned out, and flirted with a couple of Alexander’s friends just enough to make sure Miles knows I’m not interested in listening to anything he has to say—I make my excuses and head toward the elevator…and my DVD player.

What I don’t count on is the way Alexander follows me like a lost puppy. Or the way he all but tries to hump my leg the second we’re out of the crush of people.

“If I remember correctly,” he says, looping one arm around my shoulders and the other around my waist from behind before pulling my back against his chest, “you have a sweet little condo in this building.”

“You remember correctly.” His breath is hot against my cheek, but not in a sexy way. I turn my head, pull away. “In fact, I’m heading there now. My bed is calling my name.”

“I bet. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s calling my name, too.” He cocks his head to the side, pretends to listen. “See, there it is again. Can you hear it?”

“I can’t.” I shake my head, deliberately widen my eyes. “Must be someone else’s bed calling for you. I know that happens a lot.”

“Still bitter about the twins, huh?” He laughs like everything that happened between us is just one big joke.

“Not bitter. Just cautious.” He starts to put his hands on me again, but I step back and he’s left clutching at thin air.

“Where’s the fun in caution? You’re young and hot and I know you like to fuck. And since we have all that in common…”

Wow. He’s a real Prince Charming. Was he always this bad, I wonder as I stare at him a little bemused, or has he gotten worse in the last couple of years? I like to hope it’s the latter, but my gut tells me it’s the former. Ugh. I can’t believe there was ever a time I thought this crude self-aggrandizement was anything other than sleazy. Maybe my taste in men for myself is no better than Ethan and Chloe’s taste for me. At least Stephen was completely up front about what he wanted. Alexander hides his douchiness behind his guileless smile and I’m-a-good-guy good looks. “Since we have all that in common we should just go for it, huh?”

He nods, his blue eyes gleaming in the fairy lights draped above our heads. “Exactly.”

“Why wait for my condo? We could just fuck in the elevator.”

His eyes light up even as he shakes his head. “I can’t do that anymore. There are cameras in all the elevators and now that I’ve gotten as famous as I have…it’s a problem.”

“Aw, come on now. A good sex tape would just up your street cred, wouldn’t it?” I’m being completely sarcastic, but the sudden light in his eyes tells me the sarcasm went right over his head. Not that I’m surprised. It’ll take more than the sharp side of my tongue to pe

netrate that ego. At this point, I’m not sure a nuclear blast could do it.

“Maybe you’re right.” This time when he reaches for me, it’s so fast that I don’t even have a chance to step back before I’m plastered against him. “So you want to help me out with that, then?”

“Not even a little bit.” I slide my hands between us and somehow manage to get enough leverage to shove him back. “But I’m sure there are a bunch of women here who would be more than willing to do whatever you ask them to.”

“No doubt,” he agrees with the careless shrug of the endlessly privileged. “But I don’t want them. I want you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen. At the risk of sounding like a Taylor Swift song, we are never ever getting back together.”

“Who said anything about getting back together?” He leers at me. “I just want to fuck.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to settle for someone else scratching that itch tonight, dude. I’m going to bed. Alone.” As the elevator doors open, I lean forward and brush a kiss over his cheek, with its exceptionally chiseled cheekbones and its perfect amount of stubble. “It was fun catching up. We’ll have to do it again some time.” Or not.

“I know what would be more fun.” He follows me onto the elevator, presses the number for my floor without having to ask. Guess our couple of months together made more of an impression than I believed. The thought doesn’t make me happy, though, especially not when the last glimpse I get of the party before the elevator doors slide closed is Miles’s storm-tossed blue eyes staring straight into mine.

The fact that Miles sees me leaving the party with Alexander upsets me more than it should. Not because he saw me getting into the elevator with Alexander—I don’t answer to him and I never will—but because I don’t want him to tell Chloe. I’ve worked so hard to clean up my act the past couple of months, worked so hard to be the godmother Violet deserves. The last thing I want is for Miles to go tattling to her about me drinking too much and taking some random guy home to fuck. Not that Chloe would be mad at me or anything, but I don’t want to worry her. Not when she’s finally getting over all the shit that happened in the last few years. Not now that she finally has the life she deserves.

“Go back to the party, Alexander. I already told you. I’m not interested.”

“You did,” he agrees even as he snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me into his side. “But you didn’t sound very convincing.”

I grab his hand from where it’s sliding toward my crotch and pull it away from my body. If I bend his fingers back a little in the process, well, we’ll just call that an accident. “Maybe that’s because you were too busy checking yourself out in the mirrored doors to actually listen to me. But I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun. For old times’ sake.”

“In case you forgot, the old times weren’t all that great.”

“Sure they were. You’re a wildcat in bed.”