I closed my eyes, his words hurting me. “I’m not yours to protect.”
Adam’s body grew solid next to mine and we sat in awful silence for a moment.
The silence was broken when his arm loosened its hold around my waist. I was just turning my head to look at him questioningly when I felt the touch of his fingers against my upper back. Slowly, torturously he skimmed them down my spine and I flushed feeling my n**ples harden visibly against the fabric covering my chest. “You sure about that,” he murmured hoarsely in my ear.
My eyes widened as I stared into his, a flurry of confusion and questions rioting in my head, none of which I had time to voice before Donna and Darren took a seat next to us with our drinks. Adam’s arm came back around, his hand resting gently on my hip, and I sat there in stunned silence wondering what the hell he’d meant by that.
Chapter 7
Adam winced as he looked over at me. “I really did send you some pretty mixed signals.”
I snorted. “You think?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Els. You pissed me off. I was trying to make a point that you were mine. It wasn’t fair.”
I shrugged. “You were torn. I forgive you. Especially since it makes a really good story.”
He laughed as I reached for the diary again, flipping through the pages to find the next entry.
“That night at Club 39 wasn’t nearly as bad as the night at Fire.”
Adam groaned. “Damn, I don’t know if I want to read this from your point of view.”
“I get quite detailed.”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Detailed?”
I nodded, blushing.
He saw the blush and grinned, pulling the diary out of my hand. “Baby, that’s hot.”
Sunday, September 16th I’m done. It’s over. I don’t care what history lies between me and Adam… it’s finally over… I hadn’t been looking forward to the night at Fire because it meant being stuck in a club, watching Adam flirt with everything that moved, but it was a big night for Braden as he was holding a special event for Fresher’s Week, and I promised him I’d be there.
As per usual he and Joss were so wrapped up in their own stuff they didn’t notice the tension between me and Adam. It was this horribly awkward tension, mixed with sexual frustration, and it had sprung up between us after our clash a little while after the eventful night at Club 39.
It had happened when I accepted a date with a guy called Jason that I met in Starbucks.
Jason was hot and seemed nice and I saw no harm in grabbing a drink with him. Except, Braden had informed Adam of my plans and Adam had spent the entire night calling me up with stupid questions. He ruined the date. It was immature and completely outrageous.
Even more so was the fact that, as Joss so bluntly pointed out, I had rudely kept answering the phone instead of switching it off. The truth was I’d been enjoying Adam’s reaction to my date. Somewhere along the line I had forgotten my vow to move on from him after the night at his apartment, and I was playing our stupid game again. I wanted a reaction from him and I got it. But after chewing him out at my parent’s Sunday lunch the next day, Adam had gone from hot to ice cold. He tried not to be alone with me and when he was alone with me he spoke to me about things you’d chat to a perfect stranger about. It had been wearing on my nerves for weeks, and that along with my worries about school and the recurring headache I couldn’t seem to get rid of, I found myself wanting to lay my frustrations at his feet.
Everyone else would get nice Ellie, sweet Ellie, the Ellie everyone knew and liked. Adam would get crabby Ellie, tired Ellie, the Ellie with the bitter, broken heart.
While Braden detained Joss after a small skirmish about her dress (my brother was such an alpha-male idiot sometimes) Adam led me up to a private booth across from the bar. I slid in one side and was surprised when Adam sat down quite close to me.
“Careful,” I warned him dryly, “I think you’re breaking your one meter distance rule with me.”
He curled his lip, unimpressed. “Don’t start. Not tonight.”
“Not any night.”
His eyes flashed. “You know why I don’t date, Ellie? So I don’t have to put up with this shit. It’s like being in a f**king relationship without the benefits.”
Hurt, I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster. “No, it’s like being in a friendship you broke.”
Having successfully spread my hurt to him, I felt awful, and feeling awful made me even angrier at him. I didn’t want to care that I hurt his feelings.
Adam was about to respond when movement drew our heads up and we saw Joss trying to escape our argument. He gave her a look that told her to plant her bottom down beside us and save him from me.
I was almost as relieved as he was when she sat down on my other side.
“Braden’s having drinks sent over,” she said, her eyes taking in all the guests. “I didn’t realize he had other friends appearing tonight. I thought it was just us and random people.”
“No,” I replied absentmindedly, my bad mood causing the rope bridge between my brain and mouth to snap. “Some of his exes as well as his previous friends-with-benefits girls love clubbing. He invited them and a few of his guy friends.”
It wasn’t until Adam snapped, “Ellie, what are you playing at?” and I turned to see him gazing pointedly at Joss that I followed his gaze and saw Joss had frozen at my careless comment.
Mortified, I hurried to assure her apologetically, “Oh crap, Joss, I didn’t mean anything. I mean, those girls don’t mean anything…”
“Let’s get drunk,” she announced overly cheerily and I felt unbelievably guilty for making her feel uncomfortable and uncertain of Braden.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s just wait for Braden,” Adam insisted.
However, Braden spent an awful long time flirting and chatting with guests and the tension at our table grew so thick we all sought to escape it. Joss and I headed for the dance floor, and I kept her company for a while until I headed to the bar to get some water. As I approached I caught sight of Adam and felt that oh so familiar burn in my throat. He was wearing a black shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, with black dress trousers. It was simple, it was hot. He always looked hot. And tonight he looked hot as he leaned into a girl who was sitting on a stool at the other end of the bar. She had her head tilted back while Adam braced one hand on the bar and leaned in to whisper in her ear. She laughed and he lifted his face so they were almost close enough to kiss. Whatever he murmured to her made her laugh soften to a flirtatious smile and I felt that burn in my throat transform into a lump of tears.
As if he sensed my gaze Adam’s head lifted and our eyes met. I’d never found it easy to hide my emotions when I was feeling something particularly deeply and I hurried to look away before he caught it.
“What can I get you?” One of the bartenders finally approached me.
“Bottle of water,” I replied, my voice hoarse with pain and he had to lean in for me to repeat the order. Just as I handed him money for the water, I felt a hand on my lower back and his cologne hit me seconds before his mouth brushed my ear.
“Els,” Adam said quietly, his voice thick with emotion.
I didn’t know how to respond. My eyes fixed downward on the bottle as I tried to control myself, knowing that every day I was getting closer and closer to forcing our situation into some kind of resolution by putting the truth out there.
“Sweetheart, look at me.”
I did as he asked, searching his face for answers I knew he wasn’t ready to give me, answers he may never be ready to give me.
He lifted his hand from my back and brushed his knuckles tenderly along my jaw, his eyes following their movement. “The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.
The words stung because they signaled another round on this merry-go-round of mixed signals. I reared back from his touch, grimacing. “Don’t.”
He dropped his hands. “Ellie—”
I gestured to the girl at the other end of the bar who was now throwing invisible daggers my way. “Did you say that to her?”
“El—”
A surge of shocked murmurs and shouts interrupted him and we both turned to look over his shoulder to see Braden rearing back from hitting… “Gavin,” I gasped.
Adam immediately took off to be by his friend’s side and I followed, my heart racing for Braden. Gavin had been his and Adam’s friend at school, but he’d grown up into a prize arsehole. Braden, for some reason, felt loyalty to him and kept him around. That was until five years ago when he’d slept with Analise and betrayed Braden.
Now he was in his nightclub?
“That is Gavin.” Braden threw Joss a disgusted look. “The friend who f**ked Analise.
Why the hell were you talking to him like you know him?”
Oh dear God, Joss knew him? For a moment I felt absolute panic take over me at the thought of history repeating itself for my brother. But I remembered this was Joss, and despite her flaws, she would never be disloyal. I only had to watch the shock fall across her features at the discovery of who Gavin was to realize that whatever this was, it was a big misunderstanding.
Well, at least on Joss’s part. I sneered at Gavin.
“He’s a trainer at my gym,” Joss explained. “He helped me once.” She looked up at Braden and as she promised him she had no idea who Gavin was she let her feelings for my brother all hang out. I knew she probably didn’t realize it, would even be mortified if she thought for one second she was making herself transparent. However, I was glad to see it and wished Braden wasn’t so riled up because he didn’t even notice it.
“Looks like you moved on to better things, Bray.” Gavin peered at Joss in a way that made my skin scrawl and I saw Adam’s shoulders tense in front of me. “Here’s hoping history repeats itself because I’ve wanted between her legs for f**king weeks. How about it, Joss? You fancy shagging a real man?”
I’d never witnessed my brother hit someone but he was on Gavin before anyone could stop him. Adam tried his best, but I knew there was a part of him that didn’t want to pull Braden off the sleazy little traitor. But he did, only just managing to keep a grip on Braden when Gavin said something so crude I almost threw a punch.
By the time security came to drag Gavin out, I thought Adam was going to let Braden go just so his own arms were free to start swinging. And poor Joss. I watched with concern as Braden, bristling with adrenaline and anger the likes I’d never seen in him before, hauled her out of the main club and up the stairs into his private office.
I didn’t even want to know what was about to happen in there.
Instead I stood there, still shaking from the whole thing, as the excited customers and guests returned to enjoying their night. Adam and I were just standing on the dance floor staring at one another. I reckoned we were both trying to work out where we were at, and what the hell had just happened.
The girl from the bar strolled over to him in a tight jersey dress that showcased a bombshell figure. She was shorter than I was but like Joss she had more h*ps and ass. I suddenly felt dowdy in my shapeless, shimmery shift dress. Stopping beside Adam, the girl placed a proprietary hand on his arm. “Let me buy you a drink after that.”