Page 108 of Rules of Association

Clearing my throat, I felt my cheeks start to burn. “I don’t have one.”

“Bullshit,” she answered without hesitation.

“No, not bullshit. I don’t have a girlfriend, Ceci. I don’t even know where you got that idea from.”

Blinking at me with the most puzzled look on her face, I realized she truly believed this craziness she’d made up in her head. It showed now as she contemplated the truth of what I was telling her, weighing it against the earnestness of my expression.

In a quick move she reached a hand forward and swiped my cell from my front pocket. Stabbing a few buttons, she put in my code and went straight into my text messages before handing it over to me. Straight to a conversation I’d had with Tine weeks ago. A conversation about a girl.

Watching me read the messages Ceci waited impatiently for some kind of reply. Her arms crossed over her chest, her body bouncing slightly like she was tapping her foot or something.

I peeked at her. Her hair was pretty today. Curled and long as it cascaded down her shoulders. Her little blue tank was that fancy material that looked like silk and she had on a matching blue skirt that made her look innocent in a way I knew she wasn’t.

She looked like a little blue angel. An angel of hell, but an angel nonetheless. And all the while she sported her pouty little face and red ass cheeks and that fucking frown, I felt this massive growth bubbling in my chest. It was immature and so not cool, but damn was it there.

Because Ceci was jealous.Whether it was about Ria specifically or about the thought that I had a girlfriend, she was jealous about it. And her little tantrum today was a result.

Flipping the phone back her way, I simply shook my head. “These are all hypothetical. About a girl theythinkI’m seeing whenever I’m withyou.”

Her eyes fluttered around my face and back to the phone. “But you went on a date on my birthday.”

“I spent the day with you on your birthday, what are you talking about?”

She shook her head, “Fine, the night before my birthday if you want to get technical.”

Pausing I thought about what the hell she was talking about and…oh my God. Shaking my head I tried not to roll my eyes as I said. “You asked if I had a date that night and I only agreed because I still had to go out and pick up your gifts.”

She was still blinking at me like she was dumbstruck. Like she was rewiring everything she believed about me. Damn. I shook my head. Had she been thinking I had a girlfriend since her fucking birthday?

I moved to her, stepping right into her space and taking the side of her face in my hand. I made her look at me. “Is that why you’ve been acting like this all night? Because you thought there was some girl I wasn’t telling you about?”

Gazing up to me she nodded, looking dazed as she blinked. Damn, I wanted to kiss that look right off her face. Instead, I just got close enough to. Causing her to puff out a surprised rush of air as I lowered my voice to a hoarse whisper, speaking directly into her breath. “You’re my only girl, Cee. That what you want to hear?”

“That’s not true,” she whispered back. I could hear her swallow roughly as her eyes trailed from my lips to my face and then up to my gaze. “You have other friends that are girls. You have Ria and Sandra and—”

Leaning forward I nipped the side of her face, just under her jaw. A quick motion. One that shut her up entirely. Still my voice remained low. “They are girls, but they’re not mine, Ceci.”

“They’re not?”

“No.”

“And I am?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I chuckled, but it was an incredulous sound. A relieved one too. She wasn’t so mad anymore. I heaved out a long breath, chuffing. “All that shit, and it was this easy all along?”

Shrugging, she relaxed slightly into my hand cradling her face. “I guess,” she sighed, all blasé sounding.

Shaking my head I couldn’t help but scoff. I couldn’t help my body from walking her back against the wall again. From flattening her there and leaning into her warmth and feeling her against me right there in the closet.

I looked at her then. Wide-eyed and shocked and, whether she knew it or not, obedient to my every demand under the cover of this closet. So goddamn head strong and confrontational and bratty and now she wanted to shrug it off like it was another fucking day. Yeah, no.

No.

Thumb under her chin, grip around the back of her neck, I used it to tip her head back. The slope of her neck was almost as pretty as her pink little mouth. Almost as pretty as the rest of her body sheathed in her one and only color. Almost as pretty as the rest ofher.

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