Page 68 of Believing Bailey (Granton University 2)

Except I really couldn’t stop thinking about that.

Returning my focus to the dishes, I thought about it until we were completely finished cleaning the kitchen.

Bailey grinned companionable at me as she dusted her hands together with a satisfied air of completion. Yeah, she had no idea what was going on in my brain right then. “All right. Good job. Let’s see what the others are up to.”

I nodded and followed her to the opening of the kitchen, where she stopped abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, peering past her and into the living room, where the other two couples were watching a movie, it seemed.

“Dear God,” I murmured. “Do we have to go in there with them while they’re like that?” I leaned in toward her to lower my voice, and caught a whiff of her—the same fragrance I’d breathed from my pillow for the past two nights. “I might get hives.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Get used to it, Bud. They do this all the time. And we’re big home-bodies, so when I say all the time, I mean all the time.”

I shuddered in revulsion, even though the idea of snuggling up on a couch wrapped around Bailey while we watched a movie every evening didn’t sound repulsive in the least.

“How do you stand it?” I whispered.

“I don’t.” She widened her eyes to the point it made her look insane. “Can’t you tell?”

I laughed.

She relaxed her eyes and grinned. “I tried hanging out in my room mostly, but lately, I’ve been getting restless and going out by myself, finding parties where drunk guys throw their beer on me and then chase me into back bedrooms where they then force me to watch them making it with stupid, lying chicks.”

“Dear God.” I groaned and slapped a hand over my face. “Don’t remind me of that. Worst night ever. I doubt I’ll ever drink again.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Bailey advised, nudging her elbow at me. “Don’t you know dirty viper sluts like to take a

dvantage of pretty, vulnerable boys like you when you’re too drunk to know what’s going on?”

I started to grin before growing serious and saying, “Hey, it’s not cool to victim blame.”

She grinned back only to force a straight face too. “Sorry. You’re right. That was uncalled for.”

Simultaneously, she and I both grinned again together at the same time.

Nodding my head toward the couple-palooza going on in the living room, I lowered my voice some more and said, “Let’s go hang out in your room.”

Then I froze, wondering if that sounded too suggestive.

But relief showed in her gaze. “God, yes,” she said as if that were the best idea ever.

We snuck into the living room, and no one noticed us darting past them behind their couches and loveseats. Then we hurried into the hall and down toward her room. Bailey entered first, and I shut the door behind us, pressing my spine to the closed entrance. She skipped to her bed and fell down on it, holding her stomach and grinning when she rolled onto her back to grin my way.

“Oh, this is so much better,” she moaned in a pleased way that made my dick jump to attention. Her blonde curls splayed across the mattress, and this vision entered my head where I prowled toward her and crawled on top of her, covering her whole body with mine before I sank my fingers into that hair and kissed her endlessly.

Nerves jumped in my stomach as I slowly neared the bed to sit gingerly on the corner, purposefully keeping my distance.

“I hung out a lot in my room at the frat house,” I said idly, smoothing my hand over the coverlet of her bed. “There was always so many people coming and going at all hours. My room was my only sanctuary.”

She nodded, pulling herself into a sit and crisscrossing her legs so that we were on opposite sides of the mattress, facing each other. “I had a quiet little sanctuary at home.” She rolled her eyes. “With four butthead brothers, not even my room was safe, so I went somewhere else where no one would ever find me.”

“Where was that?”

With a secretive smile, she shook her head. “No way. No one knows that. Not even Tess.”

I grinned back, wanting to know where her secret place was now more than ever. Hell, I wanted to know everything. So I said, “Four brothers, huh? Wow. No sisters?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m the only girl.”

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