Page 27 of Butterfly Effect

Every word is more convincing than the last.

It’s not real, I remind myself. It’s not real.

Indi tilts her head. “Gabe.”

“Unless you’re apologizing, I don’t wanna hear it.” We pause in wait. No apology comes.

Gabe harrumphs and leads me to the door. “Let’s go,sweetheart. These hypocrites don’t deserve our time.”

As we leave, I crinkle my nose and stick my tongue out at them. “Right behind you, Freckles.”

We march down the hall to my room, and before I can properly process how incredible it was to be defended like that, I’ve sandwiched Gabe between my chest and the door, my mouth latched onto hers.

Chapter 6

Sounds Like A Date to Me

Gabe

“Fuck,”Wade mumbles between rough kisses. “What are you doing to me?”

His big, stupid, soft lips crush mine again, the slithery tip of his tongue greedy in its swipes. An unintentional pleasured noise hums between us. My mind melts from how our hands wander over each other until somethingelseof his that’s big and firm digs into my thigh. It brings me back to my senses, and I push him away by the chest, propelling off the door to get as far away as possible.

“Me? What areyoudoing?”

The smartass huffs out a series of chuckles. I don’t know what he thinks is so funny. “I think the technical term is ‘French kissing.’”

“Well,” I fumble through the words, arms flailing while heading to the opposite end of the room, “stop doing that!”

“I will when you stop liking it.”

Unbelievable.

My teeth clench. “I didn’t. Like it.”

“That’s funny. I coulda sworn it was you moaning into my mouth.”

“Excuse me? I did not moan—” When I spin around to face him, he’s shirtless. How’d he do that so fast? “What the fuck, Wade?”

“Oh,uh—are we not…” —the grasped tee flaps between us, drawing attention to every cut of his insanely chiseled chest— “…doing this?”

“No!” I screw my eyes shut. “Put your shirt back on. For fuck’s sake.”

“My bad.” The black fabric returns to his torso, falling over it like a closing curtain. Show’s over. And good riddance. I don’t need the temptation. He shoots me a double-finger gun with snaps. “You were awesome in there, though. Was really cool of you to stick up for me.”

“It’s calledacting.”

“Right, yeah. Me too.” His fancy hand flourish accompanies a deep bow. “You’re welcome for that brilliant performance.”

“Brilliant? You brought your dick into the conversation!”

“A penis is just a body part, Freckles.” He catches me staring while his hand adjusts the crotch of his jeans and smirks. “My best body part,as you already know. And hey, it’s nothing they haven’t seen before.”

I snort. “I get it. You have a reputation. But not everyone has seen your penis.”

“Nah, not everyone,” he says through a yawn. “Though, now that I think of it, every person in that room has.”

“Everyone?” I’m positive he constantly peacocks around the lockers naked. But in front of the wives? Doubt it. “Skylar?”

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