Sugar Kisses

  Holt sends me home at about two in the morning, and I offer Roxy a ride.

  “Don’t think this is going anywhere.” She drones it out like she isn’t above drop kicking my balls into the next decade if I try something.

  “Likewise, smartass.” I give a little smile as I let her into the apartment. Of course, I don’t mean it, and I’m sort of hoping she doesn’t mean it, either. “Thanks for helping me out. That chick has been closer than my shadow all week.”

  “Sounds like a problem.” She tosses her purse on the couch.

  Roxy comes toward me with that I’ll-cut-you look on her face but I don’t move, hell, I don’t breathe.

  “If you ever think of landing those lips on me again, I will make sure it’s the last kiss you ever share with anyone.” Her chest heaves. Her cheeks darken a deep shade of red, calling her bluff.

  “Oh, yeah?” I take a step in and push my face toward hers. “If you ever land those lips on me again, I’ll make sure it’s the last kiss you ever share with anyone”—a cocky smile cinches up one side, and I can tell it’s pissing the hell out of her—“other than me.”

  Her throat jumps as she swallows hard.

  “In your dreams, manwhore.” She flops down onto the couch.

  I flip on the tube and land on the opposite sofa. It’s kind of nice to just hang out with a girl for once, even if she is rabid half the time.

  “So what do you feel like watching?” I ask. Roxy is like a faucet. I never know which I’ll get, hot or cold. “Rom com? Horror flick? I bet you’d like to see a few zombies lose some body parts.”

  “Yup, you got me all figured out. After all, nobody knows women like Cole Brighton.” She says that last part overly cheery like some goofy ad campaign.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I simply meant she looks like the type of girl who enjoys taking a bite out of a person—a big, bloody, painful bite.

  “Save it. Watch whatever the hell you want. I really don’t care.” She twists her hair into a bun then shakes it back out again, and I sit mesmerized by the fluid way her arms move, the way her midnight-colored hair cascades down her shoulders in perfect waves. The apartment still holds the slight scent of vanilla, and I’m strongly associating that smell with Rox and her creamy-looking skin.

  “So, what’s your major?”

  She gives a hard sigh. “Again, no need for one-liners—really I’m cool with just watching TV.”

  “It’s not a one-liner, I want to know. Mine is business. Now it’s your turn, that’s how polite conversation works.”

  She smirks at me. Her eyebrow peaks on one side, giving her that sexy-as-hell look that makes my balls ache just a little.

  “Business—not that it’s any of yours.” She folds her arms across her chest.

  “You don’t need to get all defensive over nothing. This is a safe zone. You can let down your hair, both figuratively and literally, around here.” Her panties, too, but I leave that part out. “I’m not out to get you.” Yet.

  Roxy spears me with a look that says I’ll twist your dick off if you go there again. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. This is the real me, the wall is up, and it’s staying up because I like it that way, so you can stop trying to scale it, and while you’re at it, put away your armchair psychiatry. There’s no use in figuring me out. I’ve already tried.”

  A brisk knock erupts at the door, and neither of us moves.

  Shit. If I see Angel on the other side, I might have to ask Bryson to play bouncer, and I haven’t done that in months. Then I remember he’s not home, and I’m screwed as shit.

  The knocking grows increasingly aggressive, so I hop up and glance out the peephole.

  Crap. It’s Tia and Mia from Victory University—two blondes that aren’t even related, and yet they’re pretty hard to tell apart. They come around every now and again looking to triple their pleasure, and I’m usually quick to comply. Maybe I’ll tell them I’ve had a rough night, that I just want some damn sleep for once. Not that it’s true. I just don’t feel like the hookup. Wait, did I just say that?

  I crack the door open, and they trample their way inside, giggling and falling like they, too, have bellied up to the bar a good six hours tonight.

  “Happy New Year!” One of them screams before blowing into her party horn. They stop short when they see Roxy on the couch. “You didn’t start the party without us, did you?”

  Roxy drags her eyes from one to the other, and I can practically hear the sarcasm streaming from her lips.

  “Trust me, girls, he’s saving the best moves for last.” She snatches the remote off the table. “Go ahead, cowboy.” She shoots me a look. “Corral these fillies into your stall, and take ‘em for a ride before one of them pukes on me.”

  “About that.” I pull the girls in and start walking them toward the door. “I was just about to hit the sheets.”

  “No time like the present!” They sing in unison and bounce up and down like a couple of pornographic cheerleaders.

  “I was sort of thinking—”

  One of them cuts me off. “She could totally join us if you want.” Mia holds a charitable hand to Roxy.

  “Yeah, for sure!” Tia sings. “The more the merrier!”

  Roxy slits her eyes to nothing. “I’ll pass.”

  “Oh, come on,” Mia whines. “Cole knows how to make you feel like you’re the only girl in the room.” She closes her eyes and moans as if we’re already there. “And the things that boy can do with his tongue.” She lets out a heated cry, and Roxy rolls her eyes.

  Tia smacks her friend in the gut. “She’s obviously slept with Cole. Of course, she knows what he can do with his tongue.”

  “I haven’t slept with Cole,” Roxy growls it out with venom as if they just accused her of a bank heist. “Nor do I intend to.”

  “Oh!” Mia dips her knees. “You must be a lesbian.” She claps as if it were a novelty. “Cole can totally change your mind about that whole girl-on-girl thing. He’s really got a gift for—”

  “Look, I’m not a dyke,” Roxy barks it out before reverting her attention to the television. “Believe it or not, there are girls who don’t feel the need to bed Cole Brighton, and I happen to be one of them.”

  The girls straighten in tandem.

  “The only one,” Mia huffs. They smirk at my new roommate before stalking off to my bedroom, incredulous that an anti-Cole supporter has penetrated the inner sanctum. Come to think of it, I’m a little disbelieving myself.

  “You’d better get going.” Roxy kicks me in the shin on the way to the kitchen. “You don’t want to keep your guests waiting. Do what you do best—bang like a screen door in a hurricane.” She pulls out a mixing bowl and a bag of sugar.

  My chest pumps with a laugh. I guess I could give a hurricane a run for its screen-banging money. The smile melts from my face as I follow her over.

  “You eat dinner?” I’m not sure why I asked other than my heart breaks for her just a little the way she’s assaulting those ingredients.

  “This is dinner.”

  “You know you can’t eat that crap every day.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She looks up with wild eyes. “What do you eat?” She pushes forward an empty fast food bag. “This?” She reaches back and thrusts a pizza box in my face. “This?”

  “That happens to be very nutritious, it’s got bread, a vegetable, and a dairy. That’s knocking out three levels of the food pyramid right there.”

  “Oh, please. Everyone knows the food pyramid is a sham.” She looks up exasperated. “Get out of my face, Cole. Go pleasure your harem. I really don’t give a shit.”

  And there’s that.

  My stomach sinks like a stone.

  Wait a minute. Do I care if she gives a shit? My insides churn because, holy hell, I think I do.

  “Do you think we could have something?” There I laid it all out. If she says yes, I’ll simply kick the girls out. And if she says no, I’ll still want to kick t
he girls out, albeit for a far less justifiable reason.

  Roxy turns around, drills those nightlights she calls eyes into mine, and her features soften. “No, Cole, I don’t.” She reverts her attention back to the mixing bowl, and the air in the room stiffens to something just this side of claustrophobic.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t either.” I have no clue why I threw it out there—maybe saving face. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been turned down for anything and still have four fingers and a thumb left over. It doesn’t feel good. In fact, it downright feels like shit.

  I head over to my bedroom.

  I think Rox and I can have something if we give it a shot. That kiss we shared tonight can testify to that.

  My bed is already rocking by the time I get inside with two very naked, very wasted blonde bombshells. They scream in a fit of giggles as I enter their midst and land square between them. They start in on the alternate kisses, the ripping of my clothes, but I’m not feeling it. I lie back on the bed, and one of them offers up a quick hand job to get me going, but my dick is busy playing dead.

  After about ten minutes, they sit up with a look of sexual frustration in their eyes that I’ve never seen before.

  “Maybe we should go?” Tia fumbles for her bra, and my ego kicks in full throttle. If Roxy sees them leave, it’ll take her two seconds to figure out I couldn’t get it up.

  “I think we should play a game.” I reach under my bed, where I know for a fact I have a testament to both Milton Bradley and the Parker Brothers, until I fish out Monopoly. “I call bank.”

  We play until sunrise, and I make sure the girls giggle up a storm while I stomp the wall with my fist each time I pass go.

  No use in letting Roxy think this is all about her. I’ve never let a girl get to me before, and I’m not starting now.

  But too bad for me because I’m already gone.

  Roxy Capwell already has me in the very worst way, and, tragically, she’s the only girl at Whitney Briggs who doesn’t want anything to do with me.

  Ego blown.

  4

  Sticky Situation

  Roxy

  Marilyn Manson called and ordered two-dozen big top cupcakes. Not the Marilyn Manson, the other Marilyn Manson that belongs to my mother’s ritzy rotary club. My mother is in more clubs than Cole Brighton is girls.

  I let out an audible chuckle. Actually, Cole hasn’t had a single girl over for a solid week since the Bobbsey twins rang in the New Year with him. Technically, it was the kiss we shared that rang in the New Year. They were simply a supplement to make his dick feel like a hero.

  Anyway, if Marilyn likes these cupcakes and word gets out, I’m likely to boom into a full-fledged upper echelon cupcake catering facility. All the who-gives-a-shit-who’s-who will want in on my mad sugar wielding skills, and, before I know it, I’ll be delivering cupcakes in a fully loaded Bentley. Well, not really. I’d die before I yakked up that kind of money for a car. In fact, the Hollow Brook rapid transit is perfectly fine at getting me around to wherever I need to be. Besides, I’ve practically shirked all mass consumerism. I’m Gen-X that way, not to mention a little on the hippie side—peace, love, and all the bullshit that comes along with it.

  My lips twist as I examine the pink confections neatly lined in rows of four on the counter, each with a pink gumdrop pressed into the center like a glowing pink nipple.

  “Lame,” I whisper. I ran out of butter, so I thought I’d see what they looked like if I went without frosting. Melanie Harrison swears up and down that frostless cupcakes are going to be the new rage. That it was all they talked about in pastry school last summer in France, but I’m betting a bunch of four-year-olds aren’t going to buy my art Nuevo bullshit if I show up to a princess party without a three inch clearance of butter and sugar on top of these bad boys, so I grab my purse and head for the store.

  “Hey, girl!” Baya catches up with me as I’m about to cross the street. There’s nothing but a clear, blue sky up above, but it’s freezing as shit.

  “What’s up?” She barrels at me with a monster hug. Baya is friendly like that, and I don’t really mind. For whatever reason, God smiled, and I don’t have an ounce of hatred in my heart for her. I think Laney is the real reason I don’t mind Baya. Any friend of Laney’s is a friend of mine.

  “I was just headed to Hallowed Grounds. Laney’s there, wanna join us?”

  “Sure. I still have a couple hours before the cupcakes need to be delivered, and I’m all for a decent cup of coffee. Try as I might, I still haven’t mastered that one.”

  “Cole makes a pretty mean cup.” She bumps her shoulder into mine.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not one of his hussies, Baya.” I try to say it as sweetly as possible, but she’s got to know her brother’s a douche, right? I mean she is the one who pointed out the writing on the wall.

  “I never said you were one of his hussies.” She pulls me by the hand until we’re inside the warmth of the coffee house where the air is thick with the scent of heavenly-roasted beans. If Cole could make the apartment smell like this, I might reconsider my stance on sleeping with him. Wait, what am I saying? Cole Brighton is a walking STD. Hell, he’s inventing new STD’s by the minute. I should be investing in Purell and walking around the place with Lysol in hopes to keep my immune system intact.

  “What’s going on?” Laney looks genuinely worried for me.

  “She denies having feelings for Cole.” Baya’s teasing, but a part of her is wishing it weren’t true. I know all about wanting your BFF and brother to hook up, that’s exactly what happened with Laney and Ryder.

  “I’m not denying any feelings. I simply don’t have them.” Something pinches in my chest like maybe I do. “Anyway, I think all this sugar is going to my head. I just stepped out to pick up a few more ingredients for a delivery this afternoon.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Laney perks up. “How’s business?”

  “Great. I’m averaging three orders per week. And usually one of them involves a penis.”

  “Nice,” Laney sings. “Good weeks usually do.”

  “That’s disgusting considering you’re with my big bro.”

  We get our coffee and take a seat out front under the heat lamps.

  “Hey, what’s going on over there?” I nod toward the center of campus just shy of the fortress of evergreens that border the property. A camera crew has set up, flocked with dozens of students as a couple stands to the side.

  “Crap,” Laney whispers. “Is that today?”

  “Is what today?” My voice sharpens as I spot an all-too-familiar brown leather jacket standing next to an all-too-familiar pop-tart singing sensation with an overgrown coif.

  “Look, we should probably just sit inside. It’s pretty cold out here.” Laney does her best to herd us back in, but I prove immovable.

  “It’s them.” Aiden and LeAnn hold one another while the camera snaps away. The crowd of students move in a slow blob behind them.

  “It’s stupid.” Laney snatches at my elbow and tries to pull me toward the door, but I hold strong.

  “Damn straight, it’s stupid, but that looks like it’s beside the point. What the hell is happening? Spill it, Sawyer.”

  Laney lets out a reluctant sigh. “The drama department was asked to show up this morning for a photo shoot.” She glances nervously at Baya. “They’re redoing all of the university promo shots using Aiden and what’s her face.”

  Baya heaves as if she’s just been sucker punched, but really it’s me who’s had the wind knocked out of her.

  “So—what? They’re representing the entire damn school?” Just the thought of seeing their smiling faces stamped all over campus makes me rethink my enrollment.

  “Something like that.” Laney’s shoulders drop. “I’m really sorry, hon. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to throw things or cry.”

  “I don’t cry.” I spit it out so fast I almost believe it. I don’t cry in front of people that is. I
’m not opposed to letting the waterworks loose in my bedroom. “So what’s new with you guys?” I try to fake interest, but the fact is I want to run over to that photo shoot and dump my scalding hot coffee all over Aiden and his cock’s new favorite addiction. I hate that he said he loved me and then turned around and “loved” someone else. I hate that I fell so hard for a boy who I thought could really care about me, and he turned out to be nothing but a player. At least Cole owns his manwhore ways and flaunts them loud and proud for all to see by way of tally marks in the living room. Aiden is nothing but a coward who hid them behind his girlfriend’s back.

  “Well, now that you’ve asked”—Baya blushes a severe shade of red—“I did see something on Bryson’s laptop the other day when he left the room for a minute.”

  “God”—I force myself to take an even breath—“if this has something to do with kinky porn, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”

  “No.” Baya looks skyward a moment. “God, no. It has to do with engagement rings. He happened to leave the room, and I wanted to look something up—that’s when I saw it. He was on Trevor’s website.”

  “Trevor’s!” Laney’s eyes bug out. “That’s the engagement ring superstore.”

  “I know.” Baya slaps her hand down on the table.

  “Congratulations?” I’m not really sure how to respond to the fact she stumbled on an engagement ring website.

  “Thanks.” She wiggles in her seat. “Anyway”—Baya glances down, the color rising to her cheeks again—“if he were to ask, of course, I’d say yes.”

  “I sure did.” Laney holds out the golf ball my brother put on her finger and blinds us momentarily.

  “So, Laney, what’s new with you?” I cross my arms and slouch in my seat because I’m one hundred percent positive I’m about to be treated to more pre-wedded bliss.

  “My talent agent called and said there was an open audition for Invicta coming up. Ryder, and I have already booked a flight.”

  “Oh, my gosh, I love that show! Congratulations!” Baya gushes.