James: A College Girl Romance (16 page)

“
Hey
!”

We both looked toward the other side of the velvet rope separating the VIP section from the rest of the club. Mark, my suitor from earlier—who had obviously had a couple of shots of liquid courage since I had left him on the dance floor—was pointing at me.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say you had a boyfriend? I bought you a drink!”

I was half tempted to argue with him—because he hadn’t bought me shit. Then I remembered that I didn’t
owe
him anything, even if he
had
bought me a drink. He was just some asshole who had thought he was going to score an easy hookup because my friend was on the rebound.

“Stupid bitch!” he wailed.

James made an inconspicuous hand gesture, and suddenly a burly security guard grabbed the guy under his armpits and started hauling him toward the exit. James looked back at me and shook his head.

“Was
that
the usual type you attract?”

“The crazy loser type? Yeah. Pretty much.”

Until James McDevitt. He was crazy, but there was no question that he was hotter than hell. He gestured to the glass of champagne, and I shook my head.

“I can’t. I have to take Vicki home.”

“Drink up. I’ll take you both home.”

I shook my head.

“Are you insane? I can’t leave my car downtown!”

“I’ll have it brought back to your place.”

“You have an answer to everything, don’t you?” I asked with a reluctant smile.

G
enerally speaking, I did have an answer to everything. This girl, though—she put me on edge, and I was exceedingly glad I had told Irving to put the tracking app on her phone.

She attracted trouble like no other—I was proof of that.

I sat back and contemplated the shitty whisky in front of me. Cass picked up her champagne flute and sniffed it. Her nose wrinkled, making me laugh. The alcohol selection here was divided into two groups: shit and shittier.

Something across the bar suddenly caught her attention, and she jumped up. A second later, she had ducked under the velvet rope and was halfway to the bar before I could catch her. I followed, wondering what sort of trouble she could be sniffing out now.

By the time I found her, she had her arms around a crying girl with big blue eyes, spectacularly large tits, and a decidedly average face. The girl with the enormous rack was struggling to escape Cass’s grip as two guys a couple of feet away stood nose to nose. More accurately, they would have been nose to nose, if the second guy hadn’t been under five-six.

The short guy, though, was juicing, no doubt about it. Bulging muscles and veins popping from his arms. Plus, he had that crazy fucking look about him, like he was spoiling for a fight every second of the day. Anabolic steroids would do that to a person.

The place was packed with people, and security hadn’t figured out they had an imminent problem on their hands. I grabbed Cass around the waist and yanked her backward just as shorty-the-juicer pulled his arm back, catching Cass’s compatriot at the shoulder with his elbow before punching the guy in front of him.

After that, it was a fucking melee. I managed to scoop up the dazed girl and throw her over my shoulder as I kept my other arm around Cass. Once we reached the street, I set down Cass’s friend’s, whose caterwauling took center stage over the music blaring from inside the club. People spilled out around us, scattering like cockroaches into the night.

“Vicki! What did you do?” Cass demanded.

The other girl stopped bawling long enough to stumble a few feet away to puke in the gutter. When Cass rushed over and steadied her, I took the handkerchief from my pocket. Cass smiled wearily as I handed it to her.

“I-I texted Justin. I didn’t think he would show up. Th-then he was right there when that guy was buying me another drink.”

“Come on. We’ve gotta get you home,” Cass told her.

When Cass began pulling her in the opposite direction, I grabbed her hand and whistled at the valet, who recognized me, thanks to the tip I had given him when I had left my car. Seconds later, four security guards burst out of the club carrying the ’roid-addled douchebag. As soon as they dumped him on the curb, he jumped up and saw us at the corner.

“
Vicki
!
You fucking cunt!
”

He started charging toward us just as the Tesla turned the corner. Cass saw him and froze.

“Oh my god.”

“Get in the car.
Now!
” I ordered.

The valet left the driver’s door open, and Cass jerked open the back door and pushed her friend in. As soon as Cass was in the passenger seat, I spun around and kicked out, using the juicer’s momentum to send him crashing to the ground. Within seconds, I was behind the wheel, pulling away from the curb. In the rearview mirror, I watched the ape get up run out in the middle of the street.

“Are you okay?” Cass asked quietly.

“If that’s the company you keep? Then, no.”

The girl in the backseat had passed out against the window. I turned to Cass.

“That was her boyfriend?” I asked icily.

“Her ex-boyfriend—I hope.”

“You do realize he’s on steroids, don’t you?”

Cass was quiet for several seconds as she absorbed this information.

“Is that why …”

“He’s built like a gorilla and has a nasty face?” I finished after she trailed off.

She laughed a little and then stopped.

“You really think he’s on steroids?” she asked.

I didn’t think so; I knew it. Bad skin, worse temper, and bulk a guy like him couldn’t put on given eight hours a day in the gym? Classic hallmarks of steroid use.

“Your friend has poor taste in romantic partners.”

Cass looked over at me with a wry expression.

“Ya think?” She glanced in the backseat at her unconscious friend. “And she gives
me
grief for not having slept with anyone.”

And thank you, Ms. Flynn, for reminding me how badly I want to fuck you
.

As soon as I hit the freeway, I pressed on the accelerator, absolutely fucking grateful for the technology that allowed this car to silently eat up asphalt without a drop of fossil fuel. I made a mental note to buy more stock.

“I should really stay with her tonight and make sure she’s okay,” Cass murmured.

“Absolutely not.”

She spun toward me.

“You have less than no right to tell me—”

“I am
not
leaving you at that girl’s apartment to wait for her ’roided up boyfriend to knock down the door and leave you as collateral damage. In fact, if you ever think about going to that girl’s apartment unaccompanied, I will—”

“You’ll what?” Cass snapped.

“Your judgment can’t be so poor that you think it’s acceptable to put yourself in danger like that again.”

Yet here she was with me. When I looked over at her, Cass had wilted into the seat.

“He’s a psychopath, but I can’t leave her alone,” she said with less force.

“I’ll take care of it. Take my phone and send a text to Irving telling him to reach out to Blake. See if he can arrange for him to meet us at your friend’s apartment. What’s her address?”

“What? Why? Who is this guy?”

“A friend who owes me a favor.”

She picked up my phone and looked over at me.

“Are you going to give me your pass code?”

“Ten, fourteen.”

She tapped it in.

“Any significance?” she asked distractedly as she searched my contacts.

“It was my mother’s birthday.”

She stopped and looked up at me.

“Was?” she asked with barely any volume.

“She died when I was thirteen.”

When I looked over at her again, her eyes were full of tears.

“Has anything good ever happened to you?” she murmured.

You
, I thought. We rode in silence until my phone vibrated.

“What did Irving say?” I asked.

She looked down.

“He said Blake said to tell you you’re a bloody bastard … and I don’t really feel like saying the other word he called you.”

I smiled.

“Is he meeting us or not?”

“Forty-five minutes, according to Matt, who I’m still pissed at, by the way.”

I grinned and increased my speed. No sense in letting Blake beat me there.

“Aww, lovely. Don’t be mad at Irving. He doesn’t do anything without my say so.”

“That makes him your lackey,” Cass shot back.

“That makes him well compensated. What’s your friend’s address?”

She gave me the address before falling silent again. Within ten minutes I pulled up at an apartment complex a few miles from Cass’s new complex. It wasn’t as nice as the one I had set up for her, but in comparison to the shit hole Cass had been living in, it was the Ritz.

“Vicki’s in unit two-twenty,” she said before getting out.

I stepped out and opened the back door. As soon as I had swung her friend into my arms, Cass began leading the way into the interior of the complex. At her friend’s unit, Cass began knocking on the door. Two minutes later, a sour-faced girl in a neon pink tube top and white shorts answered the door. She gave Cass a nasty look before her eyes slid to me.

“Looks like I shoulda gone out with you guys,” the roommate said as she eye-fucked me without a modicum of concern for her unconscious roommate.

When she opened the door wider, I saw a lump of a guy sitting on the couch staring at the TV. Cass gestured down the hall, and I followed her until we reached a bedroom with a startling number of stuffed animals.

“Vick has a thing for stuffed animals,” Cass said unnecessarily as I laid her friend on the double bed. “I’m going to get her something to drink.”

I nodded and looked around the room. Such a stark difference from the room at Cass’s old apartment. Irving had sent me the pictures. No stuffed unicorns or pink teddy bears. It had looked like a sixty-year-old accountant had lived in her bedroom. When Cass came back a few minutes later with a sports drink and a small trash can, the blonde with the sour face was a few steps behind her.

“You guys need anything?” she asked in a voice that was like nails on a chalkboard.

Cass gave her a brief, disbelieving look as I shook my head.

“I’m Amber, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand to me.

I shook her hand and pulled back. I
almost
felt bad leaving Blake here with this man-eater, but considering I had given him some of his biggest contracts, he owed me.

“You want anything to drink? I’ve got Red Bull and vodka, Jack and Diet Coke, Corona …”

“That’s all right,” I smiled.

When she finally left, Cass looked over at me and shook her head.

“Speaking of females who would fuck you in a heartbeat,” she said under her breath.

“Lovely? Did I ever say I had no standards at all?”

She smirked before rushing over to help her friend sit up when the girl groaned.

“Vick? You okay?”

I smiled when I heard a knock at the front door of the apartment. Blake was early. Limey bastard. I reached the door just as the sour-faced girl swung it open. Her expression said it all.
Jackpot
. Blake’s expression was classic when he looked over her head at me. I struggled for a moment to remember the girl’s name.

“Amber?” I said, which caused her to grin widely. “He’s with me.”

When she reached up and traced her finger over Blake’s pec, I made a small effort to hide my grin.

“Cass never told me she was hiding such good-looking friends,” she said coyly.

I looked over at the loser on the couch and felt a fleeting moment of pity for him. On second thought, hooking up with this girl was on him. I gestured to Blake, and he began following to the friend’s bedroom.

“
That
had better not be the reason I’m here, mate,” he snarled in a low tone.

I walked into the bedroom and pointed at the drunken girl, who was currently bent over the trash can. Cass looked up with a wry expression. Then she saw Blake and laughed.

“Do you owe James money or something?”

“Is the redhead the reason I’m here? If so,
I
owe
you
, mate,” he whispered.

I gritted my teeth.

“Cass, this is Jasper Blake, personal protection expert. Blake, Cass is …” I stopped myself before I could say
mine
. “Cass’s friend is in need of assistance.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Jasper,” Cass said.

I felt a flare of jealousy as he walked over, took her hand in his, and kissed it.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

“Cass’s
friend
Vicki needs someone to keep an eye on her,” I said, gesturing toward the blitzed girl.

“Hold up, mate. You brought me here in the middle of the night to watch some bladdered girl? You must be bloody daft. This is going to cost you.”

“When has payment ever been a problem,
mate
? And this bladdered girl, as you so genteelly referred to her, has a rather unpleasant ex-boyfriend who happens to be keenly familiar with a certain schedule-three controlled substance. Cass here doesn’t want to leave her alone.”

Vicki sat up suddenly, and her biggest assets certainly didn’t escape Blake’s attention.

“I just need you to get her through the night. Then it will be me who owes you.”

“Anything for my old mate,” Blake said cheekily.

It was good to know that a pair of awesome tits could improve his mood so drastically. I reached for Cass’s hand and began to pull her from the room as Blake followed us.

“Is she going to be okay?” Cass asked.

“Blake is the best,” I assured her before hanging back to have a word with him.

“You want the bloke dropped in the desert with his willy hanging out?” Blake asked quietly.

I shook my head.

“But by all means, if he shows up here, you can make it clear to him that the girl is off limits.”

He nodded.

“I’ll make sure it’s sorted. What’s the story with the little redhead? Is she up for grabs when you’re done with her?”