Page 86 of Wicked Lord

I shook the dangerous thoughts off and snatched a pair of boxer briefs and sweatpants from my suitcase while Lorelei meandered around my room. My fingers trembled while I shoved my clothes on, fighting the urge to storm toward the sexy blond and devour her.

“OMG, Ax, is this you?” She pointed to one of the pictures on a built-in bookshelf on the left. “You’re so tiny.”

Instead of putting a shirt on, I dropped it and moved across the room as if drawn in by the affection infusing her voice. In thepicture, my four older brothers, Jackson, Jeremy, Aaron, and Jenson, surrounded me while we stood in front of our campsite in Yosemite. Even though Jeremy and I were barely more than a year apart, I’d remained significantly smaller than all of them for a long time.

“I was the runt of the litter.”

Lorelei angled her head toward me. “You’re definitely not anymore. You could take all your brothers now.”

My lips curved up. “You think so?”

“Absolutely.” She pointed out another picture of Jenson and me when I was a skinny little thing in middle school. “Is that a black eye?”

“Yep.” I moved closer and reached an arm out to pluck the silver frame from the shelf as unpleasant memories bubbled forward. “Some guys were bullying me at school. When Jenson saw my black eye, he found the culprit and scared him so bad he pissed himself.”

Watching Randall Dearborn wet his pants had been a gratifying moment.

Her smile fell, and those beautiful brown eyes softened. “I didn’t know you were bullied growing up. Did it happen a lot?”

My jaw clenched as the rage bubbled deep inside, the ugly darkness that had turned me into the thing I hated most for a while. It took Peter’s death to force me to shed that poisonous anger.

“Up until around sophomore year of high school, I was smaller than everyone. Quiet and shy too. I was an easy target.” I set the frame back in its place next to a sculpture of a dog I made at camp. “It would have been worse without my brothers.”

Lorelei fully turned toward me, leaning her back against the shelf. “Is that why you’re always taking care of your friends, making sure they’re all okay? And why you always watch out for the smaller frat brothers in Sigma Delta?”

My eyebrow arched as I studied her. “How do you know that?”

She shrugged. “I pay attention.”

My chest tightened with something dangerously close to happiness. Once again, Lorelei had surprised me. Apparently, she’d been paying attention for a long time because she couldn’t have just noticed that during our fake relationship this summer.

“Have you been watching me, blondie?”

When she had to tilt her head back to meet my gaze, I realized how close we were. There was barely more than an inch between us. “You’re kind of hard to miss, Vanderhart. You stick out.”

Something’s definitely sticking out now.

Lorelei’s gaze lowered to the erection tenting my pants, her cheeks flushing. “Oh.”

When the hell had my dick gotten rock hard?

“I’m kind of drunk,” I lied, giving a crooked smirk. “My dick sometimes has a mind of its own when I’ve been drinking.”

This had nothing to do with alcohol. It was all her.

Lorelei’s presence consumed me and threatened to steal all my control.

She let out a nervous laugh and then bit her bottom lip. “I guess I’m a little drunk, too.”

“Oh yeah?” I closed that tiny gap between us, pressing my body into her as a hot tingle raced down my spine.

She nodded, her breaths quickening. “We can’t be held responsible for the crazy things we do while inebriated, right?”

“Exactly.” My knee forced her legs to part, and I rocked my hips into hers, watching her lids lower. “It’s the alcohol.”

Deep down—hell, not even that deep—I knew we were spinning a bunch of bullshit. We just needed a reason, an excuse, and this was it.

The rational part of my brain screamed that this was stupid and would totally screw things up, but the hunger coursing through my veins didn’t care. And that hunger wasn’t only for her body.