Page 39 of Hothead

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Luke was finding ithard to concentrate. When Bella was by his side, everything he was doing made sense. But when she wasn’t, he was teetering on head-fuck territory. Which evidently meant he couldn’t go a single minute without thinking about her.

After spending the entire weekend together, he was back at work, and missing the hell out of her. It was crazy. He’d known the woman five minutes. And yet, it wasn’t just his body craving her anymore, it was all of him.

You’re totally and completely screwed.

He was. He’d left Bella in his bed mere hours ago, and he was dying to message her. Find out if he could see her again tonight, after he got off work.

“Just do it,” he mumbled to himself as he whipped out his phone.

Luke:Up for another lesson later?

He waited, staring at the open message like some kind of desperate fool, willing a reply to appear. The cushion next to him jostled, but he didn’t look up from his phone. Not when he saw those three dots appear as she typed out her message.

“I never thought I’d see the day, man,” Benny’s voice filled the room. “You’re so gone for this chick, you’reliterallystaring at your phone, waiting for her to call.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Luke was waiting by his phone, and he didn’t care. So he decided a simple “fuck off” would do. And hopefully get rid of him.

It didn’t. “So, I take it you guys are a thing now?”

Luke turned to look at his grinning friend. He was in no hurry to leave apparently. “Why do you care?”

Benny clutched his chest and gasped. “That hurts, man. I care!”

He turned back just in time to see a message from Bella appear.

Bella:Sure, although, I’m not sure what else I can teach you. You’re totally gonna ace the pop quiz ;)

“What quiz?” Benny appeared over his shoulder. But even his friend’s lack of boundaries couldn’t wipe the smile off Luke’s face.

An elbow in Benny’s chest later, and the man dropped back onto the couch. “Oh, I didn’t tell you? Must’ve been none of your damn business.”

When Luke chanced a look at Benny, he was sniggering. “Look at you, dude, you’re so damn happy, you can’t even hide it. Who knew you had feelings and shit? You kept that a big fucking secret, didn’t you?”

Luke simply sighed as he typed out another message.

Luke:You can never study too much, angel. Pick you up at 8.30?

“Oh, I get it, it’s some kinky shit, right?” Benny wasn’t done annoying Luke it would seem.

“Seriously?” Luke twisted to give Benny his full attention now.

“You’re not exactly giving me much to go on here, man ...” His friend shrugged. “Maybe if you answered a damn question every now and again, I wouldn’t have to jump to conclusions.”

Luke realized then that if word had already gotten out about Bella and him, then this was just the beginning. He expected to have to dodge some questions, but three weeks of this was going to end up bringing him out in hives.

“Look, Bella and I are seeing each other”—he watched Benny go to say something, but he cut him off—“temporarily. She’s in town for a couple more weeks and we’re hanging out. That’s it. End of story. When she leaves, I go back to being single again, okay?”

The grin was gone, and Benny’s green eyes were narrowed on him. “So, let me get this straight—you’re playing boyfriend with this chick for a few weeks while she’s in town ... but after that, nothing, you go back to living your lives pretending that it never happened?”

Exactly. It was genius. Relationships weren’t that scary when they had an end date.

“Yeah.”

Luke was treated to atskand a headshake. “Another one bites the dust,” Benny muttered.

“What?”

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