Page 35 of Honey Pot

“Don’t believe him.” Zoey shook her head. “He bites.”

I smiled and the air shifted in the room again. I shrugged and wrapped my fingers around the shot glass, not caring what either Zoey or Ella thought.

The three of us took back the shots, and I was naive enough to think they would slow down.

MATTHEWS

The party was much more than I had expected. With the cupcakes and banners, both Ella and Zoey made it seem like it was for a child, but when the bodies started rolling in, so did the chaos. It was a true frat experience. That’s what I was having. It was like a booze-soaked fever dream.

It wasn’t just the baseball team. There were people from all the facilities and teams. I even noticed Silas and Arlo tucked into a corner, laughing and watching over everything. Ella rested in his lap with her hand around the back of his neck, playing with his hair and chatting with the people around her. The lightness of their relationship made me jealous. Even when Julien was being a gentleman, it was always uncomfortable.

He was afraid of what people thought of us. Of what they thought of me.

An actor at heart, he was damn good at pretending, but it showed in the way he looked at other women. Leaked out in his comments about how much I eat and how little interest I had in the gym. But the mistake was in his ignorance. I loved my body. I hadn’t when I was younger. It was hard being around the athletic girls, seeing them move and fit into clothes that I couldn’t.

None of that mattered. Not after that night.

I loved my body, and Cael Cody showed me just how much he did, too.

My soft belly, my pillowed curves, and my beautiful thighs. There was so much of me to love, and it was Julien’s loss that he couldn’t see past the scale to understand that.

My eyes scanned the crowd below, my hands wrapped around the railing of the loft as I searched for him. The booze tingled in my fingertips, and the musicthrummed through my limbs. The urges coursed through me, unable to resist just seeing him.

Eventually giving up, I wandered past a tight crowd playing darts and chantingMitchellinto the air as Zoey stood up against the dart board with a cupcake on top of her head.

“Do it, Baby!” Zoey laughed, balancing the cupcake and moving her hand away.

I stopped, turning my head just in time to see the dart slide clean through the cupcake.

They erupted into screaming and clapping as Van scooped her in his arms, and she smashed icing all over his face. Everyone at Harbor seemed so at peace with who they were, and it was weird to see such dynamics. I had come down expecting to find turmoil and heated secret fights in the locker room. But they weren’t that, and I shook my head, remembering what Silas said to me that first day. They were a family.

The sentiment should have brought me comfort, but the idea that I was right—that Cael had left Texas only to be welcomed into the arms of another family—made my stomach churn bitterly. I was glad he had found that, but he had done it without me.

Not a care in the world for his Clementine.

I pushed through the crowd in search of the bathroom, finding a line into the girls I turned and shrugged before pushing into the men's room.Cleaner than expected and empty. Dark blue subway tiles covered the bathroom from floor to ceiling, urinals lined the back wall, and there were a few stalls to my right across from the long counter of sinks.

The door closed with a click behind me and I steadied my hands on the side of the bathroom stall, closing my eyes. When I closed them he was there, staring up at me with those ocean eyes that screamed for undivided attention—the boy who had given himself to me that day, sitting waiting for me to welcome him back.

It was going to hurt.

But the fall wouldfeel so good.

My mind wandered to him, the buzz of the alcohol taking control. It tangled with all the luscious, delicate memories from the night I offered up my girlhood. The memory of his body rolling into mine was forever burned into my memory. There hadn’t been a day gone by in the last seven years that Cael Cody hadn’t gotten me off.

I chewed on my lip, knowing I probably shouldn’t but I was so ridiculously pent up that I didn’t trust myself not to find comfort from someone at the party, or worse from Cael himself.

I unbuttoned my jeans and slid my hand into my pants between my underwear and skin, feeling the wetness engulf my hand. Cael Cody was running through the collection of underwear I brought. All having been dirted without his knowledge or his assistance.

The sheer thought of him had me sinking my finger deeper.

“Can I help?” his voice rolled through me, keeping my eyes screwed shut. I had been so consumed with my thoughts I hadn’t even noticed his arrival. Not the sound of the stall clicking open or shut, not the overwhelming smell of sweat and gummy bears. Nothing. He wasn’t there and then he just was.

His hands crawled down my ribcage and over my hips, fingertips begging to be let in. Warmth spread over me as he snaked down in the tight space between my hand and core.

Cael’s body tensed as I leaned back against him and wrapped my hand around his neck. His teeth finding my neck, he nibbled at the hot skin and sunk deeper. “Have you been walking around the party soaked all night?” He whispered.

His hand raked over my body, cupping my jaw in the palm of his hand.

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