Tease, Page 24

  I was a mess, but here he stood looking all cool and collected . . . telling me where I didn’t belong.

  “You want to explain to me why it’s any business of yours what I do? I mean . . . don’t you have a curfew or something?” It was a deliberate dig. Instead of getting offended though, he grinned. And that grin was devastating. Seriously. No wonder he had such a reputation. Girls must throw themselves at him. His mouth was sexy as hell, too. His lips well-defined, wide, the bottom fuller beneath the top lip. Oh, the things I bet he could do with those lips . . .

  I blinked at the totally wayward thought.

  He laughed deeply. The sound sent goose bumps over my flesh and settled in the pit of my stomach. “I’ve never had a curfew.”

  Never? I shook my head, telling myself now was not the time to wonder at his parents’ lack of supervision. My mom firmly believed no good could come of staying out past midnight. When I went home on break my parents still imposed a curfew on me. As if I wasn’t in my second year of college. As if I hadn’t been staying out all hours of the night doing all manner of naughty things. Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t. But I could be.

  This reminder of my sheltered existence just made me more determined to live my life on my own terms. To do tonight what I set out to do. To stop living such a boring existence. I was almost twenty and I’d been living the last four years like a married woman. School. Studying. Sex once a week. Shit. Liar. I couldn’t even be honest with myself. The last year with Harris we maybe had sex every month.

  Standing there looking at this incredibly hot guy who had a hell of a lot more experience than I did and was younger, only flustered me. I flipped the hair back over my right shoulder, noting that his eyes followed the move, skimming over the long trail of hair before moving back to my face.

  I started to walk past him, but he blocked me.

  I edged back from the wall of his chest, careful not to touch him. I think Reece mentioned his brother played sports. It explained the breadth of his shoulders tapering down to a lean waist. The flat stomach. I’d glimpsed Reece without a shirt when he stayed the night with Pepper. It was criminal. Logan was in good shape, too. My gaze flicked over him. Okay. Great shape. He was probably ripped under the black thermal shirt he wore. Just like his brother. Ridiculous six pack, defined biceps and all. I swallowed against the sudden thickness of my throat. Shoot me. Was I actually drooling over a guy still in high school?

  “That guy you were talking to?” He rubbed a hand over his scalp, dragging his hand over the close-cropped dark blond hair. “Georgia,” he expelled my name on an exasperated breath. “You don’t have a clue about the things he’s into . . . the things he’ll do to you.”

  I shivered a little beneath the weight of his blue eyes. “I can handle myself.”

  “Do Pepper and Em—”

  “Pepper and Emerson aren’t my parents,” I snapped. “I’m a big girl, thank you very much. I don’t need permission to be here.”

  He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering at my throat. “Sure you do, Pearls. You fit in here about as much as a bull in a china shop.”

  My hand flew to my necklace. The pearl necklace had been a graduation present. For some insane reason the hot sting of tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I would not cry. He would not make me cry.

  “I’m tired of people telling me who I am.” First Harris. Always my mother. I lived halfway across the country and she was still trying to tell me how to live my life. Even Pepper and Em, in their well-meaning way, did.

  And now him. This guy who didn’t even know me.

  I nodded toward the door. “Maybe I want to hook up with that guy and have him do those things to me. Ever consider that?” I deliberately let it sound like I knew what those things were.

  “You don’t even know what those things are,” he retorted, seeing right through me. And how did he do that, anyway?? Did I have a sign around my neck that said TOO BORING TO FUCK? Harris’s face flashed across my mind. I need more, Georgia.

  I fumed. I could be more. I was more.

  “Yes, I do. He told me,” I bluffed. “We were talking about it when you walked up.”

  His eyebrow winged. “Really? I heard he likes it when the girl dresses up as a dude and puts on a strap-on. You into that, Pearls? I would have pegged you for the type of girl that’s only ever done it missionary style.”

  I sucked in a breath. Insulted, yes. Shocked, too. Shocked that he had guessed that about me.

  He laughed, nodding. “Yeah. Thought so.”

  “Asshole,” I spit out. Another first. I had never called anyone a bad word before. It wasn’t something ladies did.

  “Why don’t you go home to your safe dorm room and forget about this place?” His look then was part pitying and part smirk. I could have handled the smirk. It was the faint pity that got to me. I wasn’t pitiable. No way.

  How dare he talk to me like I was the child? I was an adult. I came out tonight to have a good time. To put an end to my drought and prove to myself that I wasn’t boring. I could be spontaneous. I could be unpredictable.

  I could be wild.

  Before I could stop and think about what I was doing, I stood on my tiptoes, circled his neck with my hand and pulled his head down to mine.

  About the Author

  SOPHIE JORDAN is the international and New York Times bestselling author of the Firelight series and Avon romances. When she’s not writing, she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattes preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her kids), and cramming her DVR with true-crime and reality-TV shows.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Sophie Jordan

  THE IVY CHRONICLES

  Foreplay

  HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  How to Lose a Bride in One Night

  The Earl in My Bed (Novella)

  Lessons from a Scandalous Bride

  Wicked in Your Arms

  Wicked Nights with a Lover

  In Scandal They Wed

  Sins of a Wicked Duke

  Surrender to Me

  One Night with You

  Too Wicked to Tame

  Once upon a Wedding Night

  THE FIRELIGHT SERIES

  Breathless (Novella)

  Hidden

  Vanish

  Firelight

  Credits

  Cover photograph © by StockShop Photography LLC/istockphoto

  Author photograph by Country Park Portraits

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  TEASE. Copyright © 2014 by Sharie Kohler. Excerpt from Wild © 2014 by Sharie Kohler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jordan, Sophie.

  Tease : the ivy chronicles / Sophie Jordan.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-06-227989-7 (pbk.) 1. Single women—Fiction. 2. Man–woman relationships—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.O66155T43 2014

  813’.6—dc23

  201304868000

  EPUB Edition June 2014 ISBN 9780062279903

  14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  dpgroup.org

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