Page 33 of Dirty Love

“No more until you eat something.”

“Damn it, Kade, you’re not the boss of me,” I hiss, both hating and loving that stupid smirk on his face.

“Yes, I am,” he points out, slowly dragging his teeth over his lip while he slides me the pizza he had delivered just now. “Eat.”

I feign a glare and snatch the smallest piece from the box, taking a childish, exaggerated bite out of it. His eyes darken and I purposely lick the sauce from my finger, dipping my head to suck it into my mouth.

“Nicky…”

“You told me to eat, brother,” I tease, moving along to do the same with the middle one. “I’m eating.”

“You fuckin—”

“Yo, boys,” Mark calls out, tipping his chin at us as he walks over with some random blonde girl under his arm. “Which one’s your room?”

“Third door on the right,” Kade says, straightening up a bit to pass me my drink. “Take any other one you want.”

Mark grins and picks the girl up by her ass, enjoying the happy giggle she lets out as he carries her over to the stairs. I shake my head at him and face forward again, pulling my brows in when I find Jasper leaning back next to the sink, gesturing between me and Kade with a mixture of confusion and interest.

“You two are sharin’ a room?” he asks, and Kade’s jaw locks up, his hands curling into fists on the counter separating us.

“There’s a couch in there, too, you little weirdo,” Parker chuckles, walking over to scrub a rough hand over his head, easily distracted, it seems. “Did you dye your hair to get it this white, or what?”

“No, I was born like this,” Jasper deadpans, hiding a laugh when Parker nods like he believes him.

“That’s bad luck, man.”

I snort and Jasper raises a brow at me, keeping his eyes on mine as he grabs himself a beer from the fridge, uncaps it with his teeth, and then slowly sucks a drop of stray liquid from his middle finger.

Fucking hell.

I don’t know if I’m that obvious with my feelings for Kade or whether he just watches us that closely, but neither of those possibilities are good ones.

This boy has trouble written all over him.

And even though I was kind of using him before to piss my brother off, I can’t deny the guy makes me a little nervous, especially after I watched him talking to Kade about fuck knows what last night.

“Kade, baby, it’s freezing in here,” Arianna whines from beside me, wrapping that stupid coat around herself with an exaggerated shudder. “Can you throw some more wood on the fire, please?”

My teeth clench at the word baby and I look at Kade, finding him staring at me because he’s been staring at me this whole time, our eyes locking for a couple seconds too long before he pushes himself off the counter. He goes with her and I glare at nothing, ignoring Jasper and everyone else while I tilt my head to light a cigarette. He’s a persistent fucker, though, and ignoring him isn’t as easy as it looks.

“You gettin’ high tonight, sweetie?” he asks, leaning his elbows on the island next to me.

“What makes you think I’m not high already?” I throw back, not even bothering to acknowledge the nickname that makes me feel like a six year old kid.

He cocks his head and studies me for a second, his intense gaze moving all over me and my body. “Kade doesn’t let you drink or do drugs on an empty stomach, and something tells me that was all you’ve eaten today,” he adds, tilting his head at the pizza box.

I roll my eyes at that, grabbing a red cup from the stack in front of him to flick my ash into it. “You really think you know it all, don’t you?”

“I know enough,” he says cryptically, stealing the cigarette from my mouth to take a hit.

He blows his smoke into my face and I’m just about to ask what the fuck his problem is, but then he looks at something behind me and laughs, passing the cigarette back before slowly backing away.

“Calm your ass down, man. I’m leaving.”

“Leave faster,” Kade grits out, placing both hands on the back of my chair, his knuckles gently grazing my back through my hoodie, a direct contrast to his tone.

As soon as Jasper’s gone, he leans over my shoulder and grabs a bottle of tequila from the island, discreetly pressing his mouth to my ear as he takes the salt and limes. “You gonna sit here and sulk all night?”

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