How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,60

ankle go and grabbing the other, starting the process again. His jaw was grim and set. He could probably see straight up my dress from this angle, but he wasn’t looking. “I was too nice. That isn’t what you want. You want a wedding date and some sex—fine. No problem. I agreed. I overstepped—it won’t happen again. But I didn’t sign on to sit around and watch people treat you like you don’t matter, just because you’re not a lawyer or some stupid shit. So we’re leaving.” He dropped the second shoe into the suitcase, picked up my flip-flops, and dropped them on the pile. He looked me up and down. “I’d take that dress off you, too, but I have a feeling I’d get a kick in the nuts for it.”

“Yes, you would,” I snapped.

“Fine,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Thirteen minutes. If you’re not in the car, you can walk back to Michigan.” He walked to the door, then turned back. “By the way, your ex is a fucking douchebag. And don’t wear that ratty bra.”

Then he was gone.

I stared after him. It was outrageous. It was rude. The speeches were happening even now, and those two seats were empty, with our names neatly printed on expensive name tags. A big banner that may as well read Megan and Jason have bailed on this wedding.

He was being a jackass. It made me angry, but what made me even more angry was that deep down he was right and I really, really wanted to fucking leave.

He knew everything before I did. It made me insane. It also made me horribly, almost painfully turned on.

Shit. Shit.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

I was too nice. It won’t happen again.

Kyle. Stephanie. Aunt Janice. The speeches, the orchestra.

He’d drive off without me. I knew he would.

Jason fucking Carsleigh.

My panties were wet.

I got up and unzipped the dress.

Twenty-Six

Megan

No one saw us leave. It was as easy as Jason had said it would be: we walked out, dropped our luggage in the car, and drove away as applause sounded in the reception hall behind us.

I went as far as wearing the outfit he’d picked out, even down to the thong beneath my jeans. I let my hair down and tied it back with a silk scarf. He’d told me not to wear the ratty bra, so I didn’t. I didn’t wear any bra at all.

Take that, Jason Carsleigh.

But he didn’t look, not once. The air was thick between us, the silence intense. Jason drove without needing any navigation; he remembered the route we’d taken to get here. I didn’t even put the map on my lap. I just stared out the window, trying to get myself together.

I was a soup of emotions. I was angry—at him, at myself. At everyone who had made me feel less than at that stupid wedding. The further we drove away from it, the clearer I could see it.

I was disappointed that my family blamed me, didn’t want me. I was a little humiliated. I was relieved to be out of there, to have had the decision taken out of my hands. I was overwhelmingly aware of the six-foot-four mass of unbelievably gorgeous male flesh sitting a few feet away from me, saying nothing because I’d pissed him off and hurt his feelings. And, as always, I was afraid.

I was too nice. I overstepped. It won’t happen again.

If I was too much trouble, and he didn’t want me anymore, I only had myself to blame.

I glanced over at him. He didn’t look furious; just intent. But there was a new seriousness behind his eyes, a thoughtfulness. The easy, cocky expression had disappeared, along with the appreciative, sex-god way he looked at me. He wasn’t looking at me at all. Not my hair, my mouth, my hips in my jeans, my nipples beneath my shirt. I hadn’t realized how much I liked to have Jason looking at me until he stopped.

I’d hated him; that was familiar. I’d been in lust with him; that was familiar, too. Now we were on new terrain again, and I didn’t know how to navigate it, which way to turn. We’d gone from incredible sex to dangerous emotions to a blow-out fight that still had my blood humming with an illicit kind of angry excitement. Part of me had liked fighting with him, the raw honesty of it. The problem was that I didn’t know how to stop wanting him. I’d never