Page 17 of Sweet Spot

This was ridiculous. Ifeltridiculous.

Laeth looked around the room before shifting his attention back to me like I’d lost my damn mind. It kind of felt like I had. “What? You afraid if you say it out loud Bloody Mary or the Boogeyman or something’s gonna pop out and get you?”

Sometimes I hated my friends.

“It’s not that,” I muttered grumpily. “I just... don’t like it.” Could I have sounded any more childish? “I mean, what the hell is she thinking? She can’t just find some random asshole to hook up with. What if he turns out to be a psychopath? It’s dangerous.” I raked a hand through my hair, the frustration and anxiety churning in my gut getting worse by the second.

Jensen let out a short laugh. “Holy shit. You’re jealous.”

I jerked back so hard the chair creaked and rocked backward. “What? You’re crazy! I’m not jealous. I’m just concerned.” I didn’t get jealous. Not ever. It wasn’t in my nature. Not even when I was with Vanessa.

That was actually something she used to get pissed about. When we’d go out for drinks, she’d try to get a rise out of me by being flirty with some of the other guys in the bars. But I knew who she was going home with, so I never felt the need to take the bait. I chalked it up to her being young and kind of immature. She wouldn’t really do anything.

Or so I thought.

When I didn’t make the scene she wanted, she’d get pissy and throw a tantrum that would inevitably end up with her giving me the silent treatment for a couple days before she got over it. It was childish and annoying, but I was the kind of guy who could go with the flow easily enough, who could let shit roll off my back. When you had the job I had, saw the shit I saw, it was easy to put the petty stuff in perspective, and jealousy wasn’t an emotion I had time for.

At least not until now, apparently.

Christ. If this was what jealousy felt like, I didn’t want any part of it. I felt like I was coming out of my skin, and she hadn’t even decided for sure if she was going to find a random hookup to take the edge off.

What if I was the guy who did that for her? I tiny voice in the deepest recesses of my mind said, and as soon as that seed was planted, it sprouted like Jack’s magic fucking beans.

I’d have been lying or just plain stupid if I said I didn’t notice how beautiful Wynn Klein actually was. With that blond hair so pale it was nearly white, all that creamy, smooth, unblemished skin, and those exotic violet eyes, she had the kind of beauty that was damn near impossible to look away from. It wasn’t an obvious, smack-you-in-the-face-with-it kind of beauty, but much subtler. However, the moment you locked eyes with her and noticed, there was no escaping it ever again.

I wasn’t blind to the kind of male attention she drew when we were out in public together. The way men stared like they couldn’t help themselves. Of course I’d noticed. And oddly enough, unlike with Vanessa, it bothered me that those assholes couldn’t rip their eyes away from her. For the past three years I told myself it was because it was disrespectful. They were gawking like she was a piece of meat, and she deserved better. But now I was starting to question everything.

Was it really those asshole’s obviousness that bothered me, or was it jealousy?

I let out a groan and massaged at the ache that had formed behind my temples.

“Ah, look at that,” Laeth drawled, a teasing lilt to his words. “His head’s finally extracting itself from his ass.”

Jensen chuckled. “We’re witnessing a real-life lightbulb moment. Soak it in.”

“Get fucked,” I grunted as I shot them a death glare. “And get the hell out of my office. I have shit to do.”

“Yeah, like stew over the fact that your girl’s looking to get plowed by a stranger when you could just man up and take what you’ve wanted all this time.”

I shot to my feet, ready to plow my fist into Laeth’s face, but those two pricks took off in a run, bolting out of my office before I could pummel them into the ground.

All the better, because he wasn’t too far off the mark. I had a strong suspicion my mind was going to be consumed with a tiny little firecracker of a blonde for the foreseeable future.

ChapterNine

WYNN

There wassomething wrong with me. Like, seriously wrong.

My brain was broken. My brain or my vagina, I wasn’t sure which. Or which was worse.

For the past three days I’d been able to think of little else other than finally breaking this damn dry spell. If I kept having sex dreams about my best friend, things were bound to get awkward in a way there would be no coming back from, and I couldn’t risk losing Gage. He was too important to me.

That was why I currently found myself slowly pushing a cart through the aisles of the local market while I scoped out my surroundings, or more importantly, the men with bare ring fingers.

I’d been caught ogling more than once already and for every interested look I got in return, I’d also received a wary glance. If I didn’t learn to be more inconspicuous, I was going to be asked to leave the store.

I could just imagine the rumors that would start flying after that.Crazy supermarket stalker kicked out of the Shop and Save for making male patrons uncomfortable.

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