All The Wild Ones | Wildfire Series

There She Goes

NESSA

Beau and I were on a strict Madie-protection detail, as demanded by her boyfriend.

Bren also continued to bother me for picture updates to ensure she was alive and well. It was like she'd been kidnapped, and we were the ones holding her captive, waiting on a ransom.

The latter was my fault, to be honest. I started sending him candid Madie pictures after she came back to campus because his tortured expression when he'd left for Fresno had damn near broken my heart. And now that greedy bastard wanted them all the time.

Regardless of Bren's protectiveness, we'd still have a close eye on Madie. Beau liked to cite Bren's Glock as the reason why we didn't want to mess around with his orders, but he was joking, of course. Beau had a soft spot for Madie just like everyone who had ever met her did.

But the fact that Bren had shown up on campus packing a gun did say something. He was damn near terrified that Madie would get used as a pawn in the game his dad was playing.

The library was as good of a place as any on campus to hide away and get some work done, and so that was where we were tonight. We sat in the corner of the third floor while I stared blankly at my laptop.

This paper on the Protestant Reformation was taking me ages to finish, and I heaved out a sigh in annoyance. But it didn't have anything to do with homework. Beau's curious eyes hadn't left my face for at least ten minutes, and it was making it really fucking hard to concentrate.

"Oh my god, what is it?"

He squinted at me. "You're hiding something."

"I am not."

Not unless a vibrating panties experience with Grayson Everett counted as hiding something.

Then yeah, I was definitely hiding something.

"No, you for sure are," Madie said without looking up from her textbook. Her black-rimmed glasses slid to the tip of her nose, but she just left them there, trying to read something.

"I am definitely not."

Not unless having a date at the gym with a football player counted. In an hour.

Because I was definitely hiding that, too.

I didn't run. Or lift weights. Or own those cute little workout sets I always saw girls wearing around campus. I didn't go to the gym. But watching Grayson run or lift weights definitely had its appeal.

Shit, I just couldn't get his annoying, cocky ass out of my head. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was his smokey eyes. All I could feel was his body pinning me to the door. All I could hear was his hot demands.

"There she goes," Beau sang quietly, following the tune of Sixpence None the Richer. "There she goes again."

"Shut up and drink your bubble tea," I hissed at him, and he looked offended.

"This is chai." He shook his drink in my face, ice rattling in the plastic cup. "Honestly, Nessa. Do you see any fricken bubbles in it?"

I rolled my eyes at him.

"So..." he probed.

I ignored him.

"How's your spicy piano man?"

"He's not my spicy piano man," I drawled while pulling out my phone to check the time.

"He wants to be," Madie sang from the corner, nose still stuck in a book. I used her distractedness to snap a quick picture of her studying and send it to Bren.