Shaw, my body only responded to hers. I went hard the second I so much as smelled her perfume. But anyone else, and I couldn’t even get my damn cock to so much as twitch.
Forcing a smile, I kept Gretchen’s hand in mine as we walked into the house. I knew plenty of people there since I went to just as many Santa Monica parties with Cannon as he did to ones in Malibu with me. Where one of us went, the other followed.
I just hoped he didn’t show up to this particular party. When Shaw saw me with Gretchen, I expected things to get ugly fast, and I didn’t want her brother to witness any of it.
After getting us each a beer, I sat on one of the couches in the living room and pulled Gretchen down onto my lap. She giggled and downed the full contents of her red Solo cup before tossing it carelessly on the floor and spearing her fingers into my hair.
She kissed like she knew what she was doing, and the way she was flicking her tongue across mine told me she probably gave really good head. Too bad thinking of her lips around my cock didn’t even give me a half chub. I grabbed her ass and arranged her so she was straddling my legs to keep her from feeling my lack of a hard-on and just let her go to town kissing me. I pretended to be in the moment, but my head was anywhere but on the girl fucking my mouth like a pro.
The feel of something spilling over my head startled me so badly that I jerked and pushed Gretchen to the floor. “Shit!” I yelled, running my fingers through the beer soaking my hair. Looking down at an unhappy Gretchen, I jumped to my feet to help her up. “Are you okay?”
“She’s fine.” Just the sound of her voice had my cock jumping and digging into the fly of my jeans for the first time all evening. “But you’re not going to be in a minute.”
Swallowing the sudden knot filling my throat, I slowly turned and saw her with an empty red cup in one hand. Realizing she’d doused me in keg beer, I tried to remember what I had planned to say when she caught me with another girl. “Shaw…” The words wouldn’t form on my tongue. All I saw was the pain in her beautiful blue eyes, and I wanted to fall to my knees and tell her I was sorry. Instead, I clenched my hands into fists and tried again. “Look—”
“No, you look, dickhead.” She moved so gracefully, the action mesmerizing as she stepped between me and Gretchen, who was still sitting on the floor. Shaw’s index finger stabbed me in the chest as the pain in her eyes morphed into anger. “You can’t kiss me one weekend, then avoid me like the fucking plague for days, only to set it up so I would find you like this. You were the only reason I even came to this damn thing tonight, and you knew it!”
The knot in my throat only doubled, and I tried to push it down before shaking my head in denial. “Listen—”
“No,” she interrupted again, practically spitting the word at me. “You listen. You know how I feel. You told me how you feel too. I thought we had a chance. That we could be the next Violet and Luca. Have something amazing. But apparently you’re too much of a goddamn pussy to fight for us.”
Her voice cracked, and I could feel the hold I had on my own emotions beginning to slip. If I fell to my knees and begged her to forgive me, would she? But even as the thought of doing just that filled my head, I locked my knees and stood my ground. I wanted her to hate me, I reminded myself. The whole point of this night was to show her I wasn’t the guy who deserved her.
“I fucking knew you two kissed!”
I’d barely registered the sound of Cannon’s voice before he grabbed my shoulder and swung me around. I had only enough time to take in the wildness in his eyes before his fist blocked my view and I felt the punch to my face. The force of it knocked me on my ass, and I stayed there, knowing I deserved the hit and much, much more.
“Stay the fuck away from my sister,” he snarled at