I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He rubbed a hand over his scalp, dragging his hand over the close-cropped dark blond hair. “That guy you were talking to? The one you were about to get busy with on the pool table? 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.”

“Does 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.

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 lied. “When he whispered in my ear.”

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 who’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 pity 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 hands, and pulled his head down to mine.

Chapter 4

THERE WAS THE BAREST minuscule of a second when my mouth touched his that I wondered what the hell I was doing. Then that thought died.

I mean, you don’t take a leap off a bridge and then change your mind. It didn’t work that way. If I was going to kiss a guy as hot as this, then I was going to give it my all and enjoy the hell out of it.

I still had a hand around the back of his neck and my fingers flexed in his cropped-short hair. My hand slid upward, my fingers enjoying the feeling of hair that was both sharp and soft against my skin.

His lips were softer than I expected. I didn’t get an immediate response so I stood on tiptoes and angled my mouth over his.

The idea that I was somehow forcing a kiss on him panicked me. That would be too mortifying. Please. Please, kiss me back.

My free hand grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down, willing him to kiss me. To not let me walk away from this feeling like a complete loser. I pulled back slightly, my lips moving against his. “What’s the matter, Logan? Not up for it? I thought you were good at this.”

An exhale passed from him into my mouth. “Brat.”

His mouth opened over mine then. Whether he thought I was a brat or not, my words had done the trick.

He released the kraken. All of the sexual promise Logan Mulvaney radiated spilled into me.

He crouched in one quick motion, wrapping an arm around my waist and lifting me off my feet so that our fused mouths were level.

No me standing on tiptoes or him bending down. He kissed me back. No. More than that. He took over. Kissing me with lips and tongue and faintly scraping teeth.

I released my death grip on his shirt and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

We were moving. I was faintly conscious of this. I didn’t open my eyes to look. I was lost, reveling in his tongue in my mouth, his fingers diving into my hair.

I gave the barest grunt when he backed us against the wall of the building, but that didn’t stop the kiss. No. He didn’t slow down.

His mouth was hot and aggressive, punishing on my stinging lips. I’d never been kissed so hard. So thoroughly. I felt him everywhere and this was just a kiss. Oh. God. What would the rest of it be like with him? It would wreck me.

“Is this what you wanted?” he growled against my lips.

I mewled against his mouth. He pushed his hips against me and I moaned, shifting slightly so that the juncture of my thighs was lined up more accurately to take the hard thrust of him that made my insides melt to warm pudding.

He increased the pressure of his mouth on mine, his body rocking and grinding into me until I wanted to tear our clothes off and just have at it. It was that or I die from this exquisite torture.

“Talk to me, Pearls,” he commanded between kisses. “Let me hear that sweet accent telling me how much you want this.”

I kissed him desperately. I was out of breath and drowning and couldn’t think to form coherent words. I could only gasp his name as he sucked on my bottom lip. “Logan.”

Laughter intruded. I blinked dimly, clearing the haze from my vision and unattaching my face from Logan’s. My gaze landed on a couple stumbling up the porch.

“Couldn’t even make it into the building before going at it, Mulvaney?” a guy called out amid laughter.

Just like that the spell was broken. I shoved at Logan’s chest and stumbled out from between him and the wall, smoothing a hand over my wayward hair.

The couple disappeared inside the building.