Page 6 of Lovefool

“I’m glad I got to be the first.”

Ugh, there he goes again! Not only is he making me rethink my previous stance on hockey players, but he’s—shudder—giving the male species a good name. If I didn’t love dick so much, I would’ve turned to lesbianism a long time ago.

“Thank you again for letting me borrow your clothes. I just feel bad that you don’t have anything to wear.”

Do I feel bad for taking his clothes? Yes. Do I hate the view? Not one bit. I’m a perverted woman.

Sutton adjusts his towel ever so slightly, endearingly unaware that I’m not going to be able to resist him without combusting into a million pieces. I’m like a rabid dog teething on a big, juicy bone.

“Please don’t. I tend to run hot anyways.”

“You are hot,” I mumble dazedly.

“What?”

Panic threads through my voice, and the overbearing heat that has been dispatched to the rest of my anxious body is on a mean kill streak. “I mean, you run hot! Yep, totally. I get that.”

I’m not one to lose my cool when talking to a guy. I usually just picture them in their underwear—or towel, more appropriately. But unfortunately for me, my Freudian slip isn’t that easy to cover up. Nor are the dozens of crickets that still hop around aimlessly.

A deep chuckle localizes in the pit of Sutton’s chest, and he’s about to (probably) comment on my nerves before his phone pings somewhere to the left. He swipes his device off the top of Buford’s dresser, reading the incoming message with wide eyes.

“Buford is on his way back home,” he announces.

If I wasn’t already immobilized by the walking smoke show in front of me—one that definitely should come with a warning label—then I am now for an entirely different reason.

My fear is like a bloody, suppurating wound that refuses to be cauterized. “Shit. I have to clean all of this up.”

Before I got my senses lightly knocked into me by Buford’s teammate, I was all for leaving his house to be the next breeding ground for cricket generations to come. But actions have consequences, and I’ve already given my mother one too many heart attacks this year. She doesn’t like this impulsive side of me. I do things without thinking. I lead by emotion. I set a terrible example for my little brother, who, according to her, will grow up to follow in his degenerate sister’s footsteps.

“No, you don’t. Leave it. We need to get you home,” Sutton says.

“What? No! This is my mess. I need to cl⁠—”

“For the love of God, Lake, just let me help you. Buford is a douche on good days. I’m not going let you take the blame for something that he deserved.”

He said my name. I would swoon if we weren’t actively working against a ticking time bomb.

Shunning this man’s help would be an idiotic decision, and I’m fresh out of those given my nightly rap sheet.

Siphoning a centering breath, I run over to the window to attempt to liberate my dress once again. “I think my friend went to go get help, but my car should still be here.”

Sutton joins me, choosing to refrain from commenting on my sad display of strength when his arm rises over my head and bangs squarely on the glass. The window flings all the way open with ease, releasing my rightful possession like I hadn’t just spent the better half of the night trying to uproot it. The scrap falls into my arms.

I don’t think this guy can get any hotter. And that’s saying something, seeing as I got a whiff of his bergamot cologne when he blew the hinges wide open. Male hygiene is hot. Buford just used to let everything crust in the shower until it flaked off. No wiping. No soap. It was a crime against humanity—and my olfactory senses.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna walk you to your car, and you’re gonna get the hell out of here.”

I blink ten times in a row. People don’t usually go out of their way to help me. Call it tough love or an epidemic rise in self-interest, but I’m not used to someone taking accountability for my fuckups.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I blurt out, trying to wrestle my guilt back into submission.

Sutton begins to usher me downstairs with an alarming lack of effort. “Good thing you’re not asking.”

So much for army-crawling past the invisible lasers that I thought Buford might have installed in his snotty rich-person house.

I dig my heels into the ground, flailing. “I’m inconveniencing you! You were an innocent bystander that I dragged into my mess!”

Without warning, Sutton bends down to swoop me into his arms, presumably deciding that carrying me bridal-style would reap the best outcome without much outward rebellion from me. With his towel still equipped somehow, I yelp and cling to his muscular torso, unsure if I should be reacting appropriately given the situation or rolling myself in his natural man musk like a house cat with a catnip addiction.