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SCARLETT

“ H er? She looks like a grad student. She’d eat our boy alive.”

“Maybe that’s what he needs. Someone to take control.”

Jamie rolls his eyes at Sebastian and Tuck as they’re putting their heads together to determine which girl here in the nightclub they should force him to hit on.

The place we’re in is called Starlite, and it’s by far the most upscale bar or club in town. It’s a really fun place to have an excuse to look your best and feel glamorous, though you pay for the privilege with the eye-watering price of the drinks.

One of the guys on the team procured a fake ID to get the twenty-year-old sophomore into the club. Since getting here, Tuck and Sebastian have been obsessed with the idea of giving Jamie hands-on lessons on how to approach and chat up girls, something that rumor has it he’s not the most skilled at.

It’s hard to believe at a glance, considering Jamie’s boyish good looks, curly dark-blonde hair, and golden retriever energy. But then again, he does give off shy vibes, and I think he’s blushed every time I’ve talked with him, so who knows.

“Would you two leave Jamie alone?” I call, nestled under the crook of Lane’s arm while I overhear this conversation. “If he wants to save himself for the right person, that’s his choice.”

“Look, we’re not saying Jamie needs to lose his V-card tonight,” Tuck retorts. “But he does need to start getting better at talking to women.”

“Trust me,” Sebastian chimes in, “if you’d seen him fumble girls at parties as many times as we have, you’d be pushing for an intervention, too.”

Tuck nods solemnly. “If I get to graduation without having helped cure one of my beloved teammates of their total lack of game, I could never forgive myself.”

“Hudson!” Tuck calls to get the goalie’s attention. He and Summer are also out with us, as well as Olivia and Harper. Rhys and Maddie, though, are in Burlington because some band they’re both into is having a concert there.

“What now?” Hudson grumbles, approaching the trio of Tuck, Sebastian, and Jamie, with Summer by his side.

“Which girl should Jamie try to talk to?” Tuck asks.

“How the hell should I know?”

Summer lets out a beleaguered sigh like she’s a preschool teacher wrangling a bunch of her rowdy students.

“You boys are hopeless,” she says. Her eyes scan the dancefloor. “That girl over there. She’s open to a guy approaching her, and she looks nice. Come on, Jamie, we’ll dance together near her and I’ll facilitate an introduction,” she winks at the bashful sophomore.

When Summer wraps her grip around Jamie’s wrist, his ears instantly go red. His whole face is like a big cherry as Summer pulls him into the crowd on the dancefloor, and they disappear into the sea of bodies.

Hudson chuckles, shaking his head amusedly as he watches them. Though Hudson’s definitely the jealous type, he’s not bothered by how obvious it is that Jamie’s got a little crush on Summer.

Lane steps back from the bar with our drinks. After handing me mine, he curls his long, corded arm around my waist and tugs me close. I take a sip of my drink and immediately feel light-headed, not because of the alcohol, but because Lane’s just started to trace circles on my hipbone with the pad of this thumb.

He looks delicious tonight in a pair of fitted slacks and a button-up shirt with the top two buttons undone, revealing the healthy glow and broad expanse of his muscled chest.

I scan the bar to look for Harper. I spot her at the edge of the dancefloor. There’s a guy in a polo shirt and jeans bending to say something into her ear. A small smile curls on her lips and she says something back.

While I’m watching this play out, Sebastian appears in front of us. “Check out that doofus,” he says.

“Huh? Who?” I ask.

He folds his arms over his chest, his eyes beaming in Harper’s direction. “That guy in the polo shirt.” He huffs a derisive laugh. “Polo shirt and jeans. Are you kidding me?”

I’m pretty sure I saw Sebastian wearing a polo shirt with jeans, like, three days ago, but I keep that memory to myself.

I set my drink down on the table behind us and go to use the bathroom. When I come back out, something stops me in my tracks as I’m walking back to where we were all hanging out.

There’s a girl in front of Lane. And even from this distance, I can see the hunger and appreciation that lights in her eyes as she looks at him like he’s a tall drink she wants to slurp up.

Lane stands with his arms at his sides and his shoulders stiff, but her body language is so obviously begging him to make a move that she might as well be audibly saying, “Fuck me, please.”

A territorial feeling that I’ve never felt before curls up my spine. My eyelids become narrow slices as I look at her, and suddenly it feels like my nails have sharpened into claws.

I march up to Lane and immediately wrap my arm around his waist, pulling myself close to his hard, solid mass. I flutter my eyelashes and look up at him.

“Hey, baby,” I say, with all the sugary-sweetness I can muster.

He looks down at me, and his eyes soften.

I beam a prim and tight smile at the girl in front of us. “Who’s your friend?”

“Amelia,” she answers. “Lane and I hung out a lot last semester.” Her smile is barbed, masking a competitiveness that says she thinks she can attract Lane’s attention even when I’m by his side.

I choose the nuclear option to quickly dispel that idea from her pretty little head.

“Scarlett,” I introduce myself. “Lane’s girlfriend.”

I feel Lane’s muscles ripple under his shirt in reaction.

We haven’t put a title to what exactly we are in these last couple weeks, since we learned the truth about what happened in Chicago at the pool.

But we’re all over each other every day. We sleep in each other’s beds, he buys me random gifts, he pulls me into kisses when we’re in the kitchen together, we text all day long.

I look up at Lane again, and the big smile that spreads across his mouth and the happy sparkle dancing in his eyes make it immediately clear we’re on the same page.

“Girlfriend?” Amelia repeats, the wind out of her sails.

I plant my hand possessively on Lane’s chest. “Think we should head back to our place, babe? I’m getting tired.”

Amelia’s eyebrows elevator up her forehead, her lids blinking energetically as her gaze bounces between us. “You two live together?”

I tilt my head, tugging my forced smile higher. “That’s right.”

“Wow,” her expression drops. “I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”

“I am,” Lane replies, his deep voice firm and unambiguous.

“Oh. Well, that’s nice,” Amelia answers, a little flustered. “It was nice meeting you, Scarlett. See you guys.”

Even as she walks away, possessiveness like I’ve never felt before thrums through me. Seeing another girl coming onto Lane awakened something inside me that I didn’t know existed. It has my blood pumping hotter and thicker, setting off a desire to stake my claim to him with more than just words.

Lane turns to face me, shaping my hips with his palms over my dress. “Jealous, much?”

I tilt a shoulder. “Maybe I am.”

His eyes darken. “I like it.”

I toy with the buttons running down the front of his shirt, imagining popping them open one by one. “Is that so?”

A pleased sound pulls from deep in his throat, and I feel it between my thighs.

“I was serious about wanting to head back home.”

The side of Lane’s plush mouth curves sinfully. “Because you’re tired?”

“No.”

As soon as the door is closed behind us back at our place, I don’t even waste any time walking upstairs to one of our rooms. I plant my hands on the hard planes of Lane’s chest, push his back against the front door, and sink to my knees.

“Fuck,” he groans as I undo his belt. “I like your jealous side.”

With Lane’s zipper undone, I grab the waist of his pants and underwear and pull them down his hips with a single firm tug. Possessiveness is still laced through my blood, somehow making me irrationally horny, and I’m in no mood to tease or draw this out.

Satisfaction roars through me when Lane’s cock springs up. The sound of him sucking in a breath is a harsh whistle through his clenched teeth. I wrap my hand around the base of his solid length, loving how he feels against my palm and fingers.

I glide to his tip. The smooth heat of his skin contrasts so deliciously with the throbbing stiffness of his member that sizzling heat snakes from my grip and spreads through me, settling between my clenched thighs.

Lane lets out a raw chuckle. “If this is the response it gets out of you, maybe I’ll start paying girls to hit on me.”

He winces when I pinch the tip of his swollen pink head in reply. “Do that at your own risk,” I say with a devious lilt.

“You know you have nothing to worry about,” he husks. “I’m yours.”

Damn fucking right he is. I pump his cock, marveling at how huge and gorgeous it is. When a pearl of precum glistens on his tip, I wrap my lips around it.

Lane spears his fingers into my hair and grabs hold. The roots of my hair pull at my scalp, the sharp and prickly sensation only winding my arousal higher. Wetness gathers between my legs as I pump my lips up and down Lane’s length, loving the way he throbs in my mouth.

Lane’s muscles dance and ripple as I work him to the brink. It’s outside of my power to go slow right now. I suck him like I’m staking my claim to his body, every moan and raspy curse of pleasure falling from his lips a confirmation.

His release gushes into my mouth. I keep my lips sealed around him, drinking every drop of his climax. Tonight, I’m so possessive that I don’t want to share even a drop of his orgasm with the floor.

When Lane catches his breath, he kicks off his shoes and pants, gathers me in his arms, and marches me up the stairs to his room.

Then he sets me on his bed, drops to his knees, and shows me that as much as his body belongs to me, mine belongs to him.