Page 74 of Fake Dating Adrian Hunter
“Verena, are you all right?” Darius asks.
I’m too angry to answer him. Too pissed off at Adrian for talking to Jannah when he knows how much she hurt me.
“Maybe you’ve had too much to drink?” Darius says. “Let’s sit down for a bit.”
He takes my hand, but I pull free of him and push through the circle of guests. As soon as I’m out of the crowd, I march right up to Jannah and rip her filthy hand off Adrian.
ChapterTwenty-Four
“What iswithyou?” I shout at Jannah.
Dozens of eyes in the cocktail lounge snap to the sound of me roaring over the stripper music. In the back of my drunk mind, there’s a tiny voice that warns me not to make another scene at Tory’s wedding, but anger is writhing in my veins, and I can’t stop myself.
“Is it not enough that you already stole one of my boyfriends?” I continue. “Now you have to steal a second? I’ll say this only once, Adrian ismine!If I see you talking to him one more time, I swear there will be hell to pay. Go back to your own trash and sleep in the mess you made.”
I grab Adrian’s hand and tug him along with me. I don’t know where we’re going. Out of the lounge somewhere. Down to the beach, which seems to be my go-to place when I’m drunk and making a fool of myself. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and I’m on the edge of a panic attack because I’m only now realizing how crazy I just acted.
“Verena, calm down,” Adrian says.
Fuck! Why am I still holding his hand? I should run away and hide in the ocean.
“Not the ocean again,” Adrian says, seeing where we’re heading. “I’ve had too much to drink. I won’t be able to pull you out of the water this time.”
I come to a stop when we’re at the shoreline, clawing my hands through my hair. “I can’t believe the nerve of that little homewrecker. She had her hands all over you.”
“She did not. We were only talking.”
“I saw the way she was looking at you. Why does she have to talk toyou, of all people? Go and find some other guy. I won’t have her do this to me again. I hate her! I hateyoufor talking to her!” I shove Adrian in the chest, but he’s so strong that he doesn’t even step back.
“I hateyoufor sleeping with me last night!” Adrian raises his voice, and suddenly, we’re in a full-on yelling match. “How could you be with me in such an intimate way, then end up spending the night with Darius? Don’t even get me started on this afternoon when I came searching for you at his bungalow. Did you have sex with him?”
“You have no right to ask me that question!”
“I have every right afterwehad sex. You know what, Ihatehim. I hate that he showed up last night and how you slept in the same bed as him. I hate how he answered the door in his towel, and that I had to watch everyone cheer you two on while you performed the most intimate dance I’ve ever seen. Last of all, I hate that I had to resort to flirting with Jannah for you to take any fucking notice of me!”
I’m about to shout back something in my defense but stop short when the last part of his speech registers with my drunken mind. “You were flirting with her on purpose?”
“You seem to have no care factor for when I’m around Isabelle, so I had to play dirty.”
I catch onto his meaning quickly.
Adrian played me.
Here I was, thinking I was smarter than him. Thinking that I was winning. Then he pulls the dirtiest trick out of the book and getsmeto be the one who snaps under the pressure. His tactics are cruel, playing on my Jake insecurities, but I’m more furious at myself for falling for Adrian’s game.
“What iswrongwith you, Adrian? No, you know what?” I start marching through the sand, back to the resort. “I don’t have time to listen to some psychoanalysis of what messed up shit goes through your mind. It will take a million years to understand how sick you are in the head. You need help.”
Adrian runs after me. Before I have a chance to ward him off, he grabs my waist and spins me around, pulling my body tight to his. In the shadows of the night, I can’t distinguish much, but one thing is clear from the intensity in Adrian’s eyes. He’s livid, yet overcome by desire.
“Did you mean it before, when you said I’m yours?” he asks. “Or was that just in the heat of the moment?”
I glare at him, my chest rising with jagged breaths. “I meant it.”
Without wasting another second, Adrian’s lips crush down on mine, hot and desperate. I contemplate kicking him in the crotch because I’m so pissed off about Jannah, but the drunken side of me finds this moment too raw and sexy to cause damage to such a valuable appendage.
“Say it again.” His voice is husky. “I think it might be the hottest thing to have ever left your mouth.”
“You’re mine.” I kiss him harder,angrierthis time. I pull him closer to me, so close that my lips probably bruise, but I can’t get him close enough. “I hate you so much. You’re mine and I’m never letting go.”
