Page 125 of Major Love

I grab my scarf off the coat rack and whip it hard across his pecs.

He blinks down at me in surprise and then his smile widens, his gravelly whiskey-chuckle serenading my ears as he folds his arms over his chest.

“Riley,” I laugh, exasperated. “Seriously, what the hell are you doing here?”

“You’ve been out of town for so long. I had to check that you were okay.”

“I sorted everything out with your manager, and you coming here could restart that stupid headline all over again!”

He gestures toward the vehicle behind him and says, “I didn’t bring anyone with me, remember?”

And, honestly, for Riley that’s probably a big deal, seeing as he’s been chauffeured around with an entourage for the last seven years.

I release a shaky exhale, ready to apologise for my panicked outburst, when another thought crosses my mind and then I’m narrowing my eyes on him.

“Riley,” I rasp slowly, “how did you know that I was here?”

He scratches at the back of his neck, squinting toward the trees as he avoids my eyes, and he mumbles in that country voice of his, “The app’s safe, you know.”

“Oh my God!” I squeal, before smacking my scarf off his chest again. “You installed a freaking tracking app in my phone before you gave it to me?!”

Iknewthat buying me a phone was uncharacteristically thoughtful of him. He’s so used to being the centre of attention that I should have known he had some ulterior motive.

And I bet that the big jerk turned off the notifications so that I didn’t catch him tracking me.

Riley sighs in faux-apology and I roll my eyes as I replace my scarf on the rack, because otherwise I’ll be way too tempted to hit him with it again.

“Sue me, Sunday,” he drawls, stepping onto the mat but not breaching the threshold – and damn right he shouldn’t, seeing as there’s no way I’m allowing him inside Jason’s home.

Riley shouldn’t even be here so, if we need to talk, we can do it away from Jason’s property.

It would feel like a betrayal to invite another man into Jason’s space.

“I wanted to make sure that you were safe. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Uh, you could have trusted the fact that I’m over thirty years old, and that I would get in touch with you if I was in some kind of danger? And a normal friend would have let me know before they started stalking me.”

He grins at that and looks me over. “Come on, Sunday. It’s hardly stalking.”

“Knowing where I am without telling me isdefinitelystalking, stalker.”

But I shake my head and laugh as he rubs his palm down his smile, before tucking his hands in his jeans, obviously cold.

“And, that’s another thing,” I say, because I’m on a roll now. “Why the hell did you say that you were my boyfriend when you arrived here this morning?”

“I thought that guy was your bodyguard or something. Assumed he’d know who I was but, if he didn’t… well, I wanted him to know that I’m important to you.”

My eyebrows hit the porch roof.

Wow, his arrogance is almost as big as his ego.

“And you couldn’t have just said that you were my friend?” I ask incredulously. “Or, I don’t know, a business acquaintance?”

“Acquaintance?” he repeats, before his mouth tilts back up into a smirk. “Come on, now. You’re hurtin’ me, Sunday.”

The only thing that hurts this guy are the tight-ass jeans he insists on wearing, even though they cut his circulation off from dick to ankle.

“Yeah, I bet,” I say drily, before folding my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling the winter chill without Jason’s hands all over my body.

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