Nothing Left to Lose (Guarded Hearts 1)

“Great, I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” I looked down at the paper, “Paul,” I added, reading his name off it. He grinned, and I walked back over to a shocked Ashton and Nate. “Beat that,” I teased. “Oh, and I think something by Queen would be good.” I patted Nate’s chest, giggling at his astonished, yet slightly proud face.

“I told you not to play against my girl,” Ashton chimed in, shaking his head in disbelief.

By the time I got back to where Seth was standing, I already had six numbers. Nate shook his head in protest. “You cheated,” he accused.

“No way! I asked you if there were any rules and you said that anything was allowed. Isn’t that right, Wayne?” I asked, grinning.

Wayne nodded. “Yep, dude, those were your exact words,” he agreed, laughing as Nate punched him in the shoulder.

I grinned at Nate triumphantly. “So, how many do you have? Can we stop now?” I asked as another guy came up to me and handed me his number.

He sighed dramatically. “Yeah, okay. You win, I guess,” he grumbled dejectedly.

I grinned and turned to Ashton, cupping his face in my hands. “What? You’re secretly in love with me, and you’re not really g*y?” I cried. He flinched, taken by surprise at my outburst, but I didn’t give him time to recover before I pressed my lips to his, kissing him passionately.

Chapter Twenty-Five

~ Ashton ~

As we walked back to my apartment, I held Anna’s hand tightly. I’d had another incredible night. The band had been great, dancing with her was great, and Nate singing at the end of the night was priceless. Nate was easily the worst singer I had ever heard in my life, so Anna couldn’t have chosen a better forfeit for him to do.

Nate was coming home with us tonight too. Due to Anna’s little ‘he slept with my sister’ stunt, he hadn’t managed to hook up with anyone tonight, much to his disappointment. From the corner of my eye, I glanced at Anna and silently wondered if she was going to want me to make love to her again tonight. Every part of my body hoped that she did. The girl literally blew my mind. Last night and this morning was the best sex I’d ever had in my life, and I’d savoured every last second of it in case I never got to do it again.

In a way, Anna had ruined me. I couldn’t even look at other girls anymore; they were nothing in comparison to her. She was just incredible inside and out and what we had was more than just sex, it was everything that was good in my world. Being that close to her and knowing she would never allow another in my place made me feel as if I were the only man in the world.

When we got to my apartment, it was a little after one in the morning. “Hey, wanna play PlayStation?” Anna chirped.

I grinned; she honestly was the perfect girl. “Yeah, if you want to.”

Nate jumped over the side of the sofa. “First game!” he called excitedly. I rolled my eyes; he was such a kid at times.

“You two play first, I’m gonna go change,” Anna suggested. As she walked past me, she trailed her hand across my ass teasingly. I had the strong urge to follow her into the bedroom, but I wasn’t sure she’d want that. Instead, I plopped down onto the sofa next to Nate. We were in the middle of a mission on Grand Theft Auto when Anna walked out of the bedroom. She’d let her hair down so it fell messily around her shoulders. She had on one of my T-shirts and nothing else. Her long, toned legs were bare and begging to be touched. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“Holy shit, come sit by me, Anna,” Nate suggested, smirking at her and patting the chair next to him. Jealousy reared its ugly head, as it kept doing when he hit on her, so before I knew what I was doing, I’d punched him in the arm.

Anna giggled and shook her head. “I’m gonna make a sandwich or something, you two want anything?”

“Yeah, sounds good. You need a hand?” I asked, silently adding ‘or any other body part’ on the end.

“Nah, I think I got it, Pretty Boy,” she smiled her sexy smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

Instantly, Nate turned to me with wide eyes. “How the hell do you cope with that all the time?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Cope with what?”

“With dating Anna. I mean, damn, she’s so hot, I’d just want to bone her all day. You really like her, huh?” he questioned. He wasn’t teasing, which was surprising.

“Yeah, I’m so totally in love with her that it’s not even funny.”

“You’d better not screw this up, bud, because seriously, I’m gonna ask her out if you do,” he said, looking at me warningly. His serious expression told me he wasn’t joking.

“I won’t screw it up,” I promised. I just prayed that at the end of my assignment she’d still want to be around me.

“Good, because I really like this one, I think she’s a keeper.”

“Who’s a keeper?” Anna asked as she strutted back into the room with a plate of sandwiches, which she set on the coffee table.

“This girl on the game,” Nate lied quickly.

Anna looked at the screen, and a little frown lined her forehead because we were driving down the street in a stolen police car, no girl in sight. She picked up a sandwich and sat next to me, swinging her legs up into my lap. My attention was now solely on her bare legs and not on the game at hand so, of course, I was killed within a minute and passed my controller on to her. The position certainly wasn’t helping with my inappropriate arousal that seemed to happen all the time around her, and she was sure to feel it poking her in the leg but, thankfully, she didn’t mention it.