Page 23 of Tracking Luxe

“She made a mistake,” now she was rattled and she’d intended to swan back from the bathroom cool as a diva princess, dammit. “I set her straight.” Luxe took a long drink.

“Yeah, you did. Impressive. Not a fan of the females, Luxe?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Of idiots? No. I don’t have many women friends.” None, actually. “Mimi, probably, but she is myabuela, I don’t think that counts.”

“A friendly little thing like you with no girlfriends, I’m shocked…” she saw he was biting the inside of his cheek, the unmoored grin lit up his eyes and for a second she was taken aback by the feeling she had in her lower portion of her body.

Hot and sticky.Needy.

What had she said about orgasms being overrated?

“Oh, har har, fuck you. I have friends, but they’re men. I prefer their company, less bitchiness and backstabbing. I don’t have to worry if my mascara is being judged or they’re wondering if I’m wearing last season’s Valentino’s.”

“Nah, they’re just speculating how they can bang you.”

She scoffed in his handsome face. “Of course, you’d lower it to sex. Men and women can be friends.”

“I hate to tell you, but they can’t. I can guarantee every guy friend you have has wanted or wants to fuck you stupid. It’s just DNA.”

“That’s a load ofbull crap”

“Trust me. It’s a guy thing. He might treat you like one of the boys, doesn’t mean that horny bastard hasn’t fucked you ten ways to Sunday in his mind or hopes you’ll give him the signal you want on his dick.”

“Sounds more like you talk from experience.”

Streams of women passed by their table, all of them eyeing Grinder up like a side of beef jerky. His eyes didn’t stray once from her face. She found it incredibly...intense. “You don’t have one female friend?”

“I didn’t say that, love.” Those lips smirked and rubbed one finger along the seam of the lower one. “I’m a guy, we think this shit. Just telling you how it is with your dick-buddies.”

She offered a token shrug. “Hmmm. Lucky,weare not friends then.” She didn’t find one of her friends/associates attracted enough to peel down their zippers, so they could think whatever they wanted.

This guy, however? Maybe he was right, because in the last ten minutes watching his mouth form words and stretch as he smiled easily she’d had not so friendly thoughts.

He’s not my friend. Didn’t count. And please stop drooling on the floor.

“I don’t wanna be your friend.” He said it was a growl in his throat, rearing her eyes up mostly from the shudder his growl caused in her chest.

If anyone had the right to be pissed off here it was her, had he forgotten the small matter of the duct tape and the forced entrapment? Luxe wouldn’t forget it for a very long time, she’d be scarred for life. Okay, she wouldn’t, she was over it already, but the point was made, he was in the wrong now and always would be.

Luxe’s eyebrows, perfect in their curvature, she paid enough for them to be threaded, pointed down in what she’d been told was her vicious-fucking-scowl that made resting bitch face look like a happy day at the zoo petting baby koalas.

He didn’t flinch.Huh.Annoying.

Was she losing her super power?

Another drink soon disappeared, she ordered more and another while Grinder kept his first bottle half untouched. She hadn’t noticed how sexy his Adam’s apple worked when he swallowed. No, not at all.

She was half buzzed, relaxed like jello in her seat.

And when she got in any kind of relaxed state, with her defences down, she became an unrepentant tease.

Everyone had their party tricks.

Licking her lip, she gave an appreciative hum, her shoulders curling to the music pumping, it was like she could feel sex in her bones suddenly.

“You have amazing eyes.Sexeyes, I noticed that right away that first time you looked my way,” she leaned forward, gazing deep into gray sex, taking power from the way his irises blew up to two dark pools. “Did you know that? Nathan Frazier with the sex eyes.”

A surge of want fizzled between then. That same fizz she’d ignored back at her motel. Luxe always hated surprises, the biggest being when her mom dumped her on Mimi’s doorstep, from then she on she’d needed to be in control, having it taken from her for those two days with Grinder, though in zero danger, it had turned her inside out, she’d used the week she hadn’t seen him to find her footing again, to regain her composure and to acknowledge the attraction she’d felt a year ago was very much still present.