Page 67 of Faking It
Kostas notices and lifts an eyebrow.
In the past I’d have let her walk those fingers right up to my dick. Let her tease me with them. Let her show me how bad she wants it.
But fuck if I’m in the mood right now. Fuck if I’m going to let her touch me when my mind keeps thinking of Harlow. Of the goddamn foreplay we’ve been having to prove to the other we’re not fazed.
She fazes me all right. Grabs me by the balls and makes me want like I’ve never wanted before.
“I can fuck her if you need me to verify she’s worth the confusion on your face and justify the downright travesty of you rejecting our friend here,” Kostas says with a lift of his chin to the woman beside me.
I scoot forward in my seat and put my elbows on my knees. “She’s not my friend. She’s yours. And I love you, Kos, but it’s time that I leave and you go.”
“Worried she’ll want me over you?”
“You’re an arrogant SOB, you know that?”
“Just like you.” He smirks and slides his hand up the thigh of the woman beside him without breaking eye contact with me. “You’ve never been able to stay mad at me for long.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur and down the rest of my drink in one, long swallow.
“It was good to see you, Zane.”
No, it wasn’t, I think to myself.
“Good luck with your meetings,”
He nods, and just like that, he moves on to the women around him without caring about the ripples he’s just made into waves.
I take the Uber back across town, where the streets of Atlanta are busy and alive, but all I keep thinking about is Harlow.
Since when did I become so defensive when it comes to her?
I’m at the hotel within thirty minutes, entering the lobby toward the ballroom.
“Must be nice to up and leave without even saying a word.” Harlow’s voice is cold and her expression isn’t much better when I turn to find her sitting in a chair off to the left. Her arms are folded across her chest, and those long legs of hers crossed at the knee are bouncing up and down in irritation.
“I told Zoey I was leaving. She was supposed to—”
“She did tell me, but what the hell, Zane? I go to the bathroom and come back to her telling me you’d left.”
“I knew you could handle it just fine.”
“Me being able to handle it doesn’t give you the right to just bail.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I had to get Kostas out of here before he caused a scene.”
“Caused a scene, pissed you off, or you just needed a night out with the boys to feel like a man again because you’ve been stuck sitting on a bus with me?”
I shove my hands in my pockets and look around to see who else is within earshot. “He would have hit on you.”
“Controlling who I see now, are you?” She purses her lips and her eyes narrow at something before turning back to me. “That seems to have escalated quickly. From ‘I don’t want anything to do with you’ to you telling me who I can and can’t talk to? Talk about being a hypocrite.”
“You’re being irrational, Harlow . . .” My sigh fills the room because the minute those words are out of my mouth, I know they are a mistake. The steam all but coming out of her ears paired with her gritted jaw confirms it.
“Is that so?”
Any man who’s heard that tone of voice before knows they are in deep shit.
“Look, you have a right to be mad—”
