Page 50 of Finding Their Place

The candy bulged his cheek. “You hurt her, I’ll bury you so goddamn deep that the earth’s core will burn you to cinders.” The warning came low and quiet as he held my drink out to me.

Biting back a smirk at his intensity, I grasped his hand around the glass he offered, not allowing him to let go. “If I hurt her,” I whispered, “I hope you do.”

Lips tight, he nodded.

I let him move away.

“Garrett!” Haley hollered from the bathroom.

He pulled the lollipop from his mouth. “What?” he yelled back, his lips glistening. Probably sticky. Sweet.

Goddamnit.

“When Wyatt gets here, you better be on your best behavior! He doesn’t know you’re going to be home tonight, and I won’t have any testosterone-charged air making shit weird!”

Garrett huffed, a smirk curling his lips before he took a sip of wine, eyes moving back to mine.

A definite spark hung in the air between us, interest in his gaze even though the promise of his threat lingered.

“And no drooling all over him, either!” Haley added.

Her roommate slid his gaze down over me, intentionally slow while tonguing over what was left of his candy before crunching it between his teeth. Considering the intentionally flirtatious move, I wondered how faithful he was to their friendship. She adored him, no question, but would he keep from sexual advances with the guy she hoped to create something real with?

She’d told me Garrett knew her feelings for me, that there wasn’t anything she didn’t share with him.

I narrowed my eyes when his finally returned to my face. “If you hurt her…” I trailed off, laying down the law about flirting or making a pass at me like his slowly tenting sweats suggested he might do.

He tossed the stick into the trash, a grin flashing over his features that ripped the oxygen from my lungs. Garrett was hot while broody and protective, but the happier side of him?

Stunning.

Dick-swellingly delicious.

I wanted to grab hold of his chin and bite on his candy-sweet lips before soothing the sting with my tongue.

“Don’t worry, big boy.” He stepped close to pat my chest, his palm burning through my shirt. “You aren’t my type.”

“Glad to hear it,” I bit out the words even though he lied through his teeth. Had Haley not been in the picture, he and I would have ended up fucking against the closest wall or one of us bent over the back of the couch.

No. Fucking. Doubt.

I’d never felt such instant lust in my life.

“Garrett!” Haley hollered again.

“What?” he barked back over his shoulder with sarcasm as though she annoyed the hell out of him.

“Let me know when he knocks! I want to answer the door!”

“Too late!”

Haley’s footfalls hurried toward the kitchen, and she skidded to a stop at the sight of me and Garrett less than two feet apart, both of us with drinks in our hands. Her gaze narrowed as her focus flitted between us.

“Did I miss the dick measuring contest?”

Garrett barked a laugh and turned away from me to get her wine, and I grinned like an idiot, unable to tear my eyes off her.

She hadn’t straightened her hair—a darker shade of red than it had been last I’d FaceTimed with her hung in waves over her shoulders, and she hadn’t put on a stitch of makeup.

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