Page 99 of X's and O's

I caught her with one hand, the other firmly on thedoorknob, leaning my weight forward so the idiots on the other side couldn’t yank it open.

I grinned at her, my bad mood instantly lifting. “Hey, sweetheart. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

The door rattled behind me as X or Levi tried to escape.

Violet glanced past me curiously. “Do you have X inside there?”

“Nope,” I lied.

“Hey, wifey!” X shoved the blinds aside and waved at her from the other side of the window glass.

Violet hid a laugh. “So that’s not his ice cream truck in your driveway, and that’s not him waving at me like a lunatic from inside the house you just walked out of?”

“Nope. Definitely not. Levi’s definitely not in there either.”

She widened her eyes and glanced past me, but I stepped in front of her.

“Hi.”

She focused on me again with that pretty smile I hadn’t gotten to see nearly enough of.

She twisted her fingers in the strap of her purse. “I hope you don’t mind. I asked Bliss to ask Grayson for your address.”

“I don’t mind.”

She fidgeted, finding the zipper on her purse and pulling it open. “So…this is awkward, but I never got to pay you for the other night, and I didn’t feel right about it. Here.” She reached into her bag and thrust a stack of hundreds in my direction.

I glanced down at the money and then back up at herpretty face. Her cheeks were pink. And below that, on the side of her neck was a whopping big hickey.

Irrational jealousy surged through me. I lifted my finger, trailing it along her jaw and twisting her head to the side to give me a better look at it. “Did you forget the rules you so diligently wrote down the other night? Specifically rule number one, where you don’t pay me unless you’re completely satisfied?”

“Dinner was very…nice. I was satisfied.”

I frowned. “When I left you, you still very much had your V-card intact. I had barely laid a finger on you, let alone left you satisfied. I didn’t even get to drive you home. I don’t know what kind of dates you normally go on, but nothing about that should have been satisfying for you.”

She pressed her teeth into her pink, plump bottom lip. “But you did help my confidence.”

My gaze flickered down to her neck again. “Enough for you to let one of those yahoos in there put his mouth on you?”

She nodded, a faint smile on her mouth.

I knew that had been my job. To make her feel good enough about herself she wasn’t scared of dating. She’d thought she’d needed to lose her virginity to get there, but clearly, she hadn’t. I should have taken the win and the money and left it at that.

But something passed in the air between us. I couldn’t turn away, my gaze holding hers until she let out a shuddering breath.

I found myself leaning in, so my lips barely brushed the hickey on her neck and my voice was low in her ear. “Gotta admit, sweetheart, I wish it had been me, kissingyour neck, listening to your breaths get fast every time my tongue touched your skin.”

Just to prove it, I licked over the purple bruise right where Levi or X had left his mark.

She shivered, and a new round of door pounding started up behind me.

It seemed to shake her out of my spell, and I rushed to keep her in it. It was selfish of me, but I couldn’t stand the thought of not finishing what I’d started.

If I was being purely honest, I wanted her virginity. X or Levi might have had their lips on her neck, but I wanted to be the first between her thick thighs. “Did he fuck you?” I whispered to her.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

I licked her neck again, loving the way it sent goosebumps across her skin.