Page 70 of Devil's Kiss

Derek shook his head and gave a humorless laugh. “Bullshit. You’ll answer my calls as long as I keep dialing, and just like the fucking addict I am, I’ll never stop calling you.”

Wow…It wasn’t often that he was rendered speechless, but in that moment he had nothing. Jordan wanted to deny Derek’s words, to tell him that he was wrong. But he was right.

Whenever Derek’s name and number flashed up on his screen, it was like his next fix was delivered straight to his veins. A high he couldn’t shake because Derek needed him. He wanted him. But having it reduced to that? Having it labeled in such a way as if it were a bad thing made it feel cheap and…sleazy.

Jordan brought a hand to his mouth and rubbed his fingers over his lips, trying for patience, and then he raised his eyes to Derek’s stormy ones. “So, just so I’m clear and I don’t misunderstand the next time I see some random guy all over you. You’re breaking up with me?”

“Breaking up with you? That would imply that we were together in the first place. Finn and Brantley, they’re together. They go to bed together, they wake up together. They go on dates in publictogether. We don’t. We fuck.”

“Notanymore,apparently.”

“Apparently,” Derek agreed in a tone that grated on Jordan’s last nerve.

He had just about had it. He could feel the angry heat crawling up his neck, and put his hands on his hips, ready to do battle since that was clearly what Derek wanted.

“Be careful, Derek. You’re showing signs of being a total asshole.”

“Well, if anyone would know what one of those looked like?—”

“My, my, youarein a particularly caustic mood today, aren’t you?”

Derek shook his head but didn’t respond, obviously done with the conversation.

Damn him for being impossibly sexy,Jordan thought, and in the back of his mind a voice was saying,Let him go. If he wants to go, then let him go.

He took a step back, out of the elevator, and wondered if this was it. If this was how they would truly end after everything they’d been through.

As the heavy metal door began to close, Jordan couldn’t let him go without asking, “So, this is how it ends? Howweend? This is what you want?”

Derek’s shoulders stiffened and his eyes blazed. “You are so clueless for a man who is supposed to be so fucking intelligent. You know that?”

Jordan flinched at the vehemence in Derek’s tone as he released the door and let him go. Nothing he’d said or done tonight was right, and the flame that burned hot and furious between them was finally threatening to consume them. So maybe it was time to put out the fire before it raged out of control.

Chapter 19

THE NEXT MORNING, Jordan shoved open his car door and squinted at the sun beaming down at him. His head was killing him, but he couldn’t blame anyone for that except himself. Once Derek had left, he’d hit his liquor cabinet and wasn’t really proud of the fact he was turning up to class today hungover.

Shoving his sunglasses up his nose, he bent at the waist to check himself out in the side mirror and was mortified by what he saw reflected back at him.Ugh,it was worse than he thought. He used the palm of his hand to try and smooth down the right side of his hair that was sticking out at all kinds of odd angles. But after two minutes of unsuccessfully trying to tame it, he huffed out a sigh of defeat and straightened.

Oh, just quit while you’re ahead, Jordan,he told himself, and ran his fingers through it instead, hoping the unruly strands would fall in some kind of way that made him look fabulous instead of fugly.

With his head down and his brain protesting at actually having to make his legs move, he headed across the east lawn and inside to his first class. When he reached his room, he spotted Brantley standing by his door and frowned.

Happy and in love was sonotwhat his digestion called for this morning.

“Okay, that face doesn’t look happy,” Brantley said as Jordan got closer. “Tell me, do you ever wake up in a good mood?”

As Jordan came to a standstill opposite his friend, he glanced at his watch then back at Brantley. “No. And especially not when I have to be up early enough to be here at eight on a Monday morning. So run along. I’m already late?—”

“Something unusual for you.”

“And,” he continued, as if Brantley hadn’t spoken, “your overenthusiasm is not appreciated or wanted this morning. Please go and be put together elsewhere.”

“Rough night? What if I brought coffee?” Brantley asked, as he flashed a charming smile and held out a venti cup.

Jordan eyed the caffeine bribe and pursed his lips. Something was going on. When Brantley was waiting in front of his classroom this early armed with coffee, something was always going on. Butwhat, was the question.

He reached for the cup, and as his fingers came close to slipping around the top of it, Brantley snatched it back and that smile of his turned smug.