Dirty Professor (36 page)

She had clearly spotted us, but went back to looking at her magazine and pretending she didn’t.

Leo squeezed my hand and pulled me to the bar to place our orders. “Did you see who was sitting out there?” I said under my breath.

Leo nodded as he paid for our smoothies. “I saw.”

“I want to give her a piece of my mind.”

He laughed. “Don’t even bother.”

“But she needs to know that what she did was wrong.”

“Sophie, just look at her. She’s sitting at this restaurant, drinking all by herself. She looks completely miserable. And now she sees us here together and knows that we’re happy and none of the bullshit she tried had any effect on us at all. Do you realize how much it sucks to be her right now?”

I thought about it and realized he was right. “Let’s get those smoothies to go, just the same,” I told him. “I’d rather have them on the ride back. Just you and me. Together.”

“Your wish is my command,” Leo replied, bowing slightly.

A few minutes later, we were walking to the car and getting inside, and already, as he started the engine and pulled away from the curb—we’d begun discussing the film script again. “I’m telling you, she would never do that,” I said, shaking my head as I sipped my smoothie.

Leo started to tell me why my idea for the script was wrong and his was still right, when it suddenly occurred to me that we’d walked right past Kait as we’d left the restaurant. And I’d completely forgotten about her. She’d just slipped my mind, as if she’d never really existed.

And I realized that it was because, in a way, she hadn’t.

Her brand of anger and bitterness was like smoke, dissipating in the wind, and now we were driving with the windows down and my hair was blowing in the warm breeze and I was truly happy.

Nothing else existed but me and Leo and the life we’d dared to create together.

I took another sip of my drink and listened to Leo talk, loving the sound of his voice and reminding myself to never let this feeling slip away.

M
eet The Beckett Boys
. Three Brothers. Each One Dirtier, Rougher, and Sexier Than The Next…

A
standalone romance
with a guaranteed HEA

S
MITH

I
want her
.

P
lain and simple truth
. I want her. I want to push inside her. I want to grip her hair and tug her scalp and lick her bared throat. I want to tie her wrists and ankles to my bed, make her helpless, weak, begging for me.

I
want
to leave my marks on her, bruise that delicate flesh, have her sore and aching after I ravage her.

B
ut my cravings
are most definitely too dark for her.

I
’m not
the white-picket-fence kind of guy, and I can’t let myself start thinking otherwise.

M
y life is my brothers
, the bar my father left us, and proving to everyone in this craphole town that we’re not the trash they think we are.

B
ut Aubrey is off limits
.

I
should stick
to the kind of girls I’m used to, the kind who are fine with one night.

A
ubrey deserves love
, real love, the kind of love I’m incapable of.

T
he problem is
she’s all I want.

I
know
I can only destroy her.

B
ut I can’t stay away
.

A
UBREY

I
try
to pretend that I’m not aware of the tattoos covering him. That I’m not aware of the muscles of his arms and legs. I try to pretend my core doesn’t tighten in response to his raw sexuality, pretend I don’t want him to push me up against the wall and have his way with me.

I
’m so attracted
to him I can barely focus.

H
e thinks
I’m just some scared little girl, and maybe he’s right.

A
m
I really so naïve as to think that maybe what Smith and I are doing is different? Or is this just me being blind?

S
ometimes I can see
every emotion on his face. Other times, I can’t tell a damn thing he’s thinking.

I
’m plagued by doubts
, yet also trying to convince myself that I know what I know. I’m not just a booty call to Smith. There’s more between us than that. What that “more” is, I don’t know. But it’s there. Either that, or he’s the world’s greatest actor. Because the emotion in our last kiss was so strong it almost blew me over.

I
f I’m
wrong about him, it will shatter my heart, break me into a million pieces.

T
he only thing
worse would be walking away…

A
ubrey’s standing there
, lips swollen, breath panting, eyes heavily lidded. She’s so innocent but so primed for me. I could probably take her upstairs to my apartment, spread her wide and plunge deep inside her.

But I can’t do that. Because she deserves better than to be one of my random booty calls. I can’t ruin her.