The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #3)(15)
Author: Artemis Hunt

“Studying is so blasé,” Brian said. “So . . . if you’re not doing anything else tonight, I was thinking we could grab a movie . . . and dinner. Just the two of us.”

“Movie? D-dinner?” Adie was still the color of beet.

“Yeah.” Brian glared at Goldie, who was making faces, and directed this to her. “You got a problem with me taking your cousin out?”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Now where were we?” Brian flitted back to Adie. “Pick you up at eight?”

“Yes,” Adie gushed, clearly unable to believe this was happening to her.

“Where do you live?”

Adie told him. She apparently shared a room with Goldie, the sophomore that Warwick was interested in but wouldn’t give him the time of day.

“OK, see you later.” Brian gave her one of his patented smoky looks that was meant to say much more than it really did.

He uncurled himself and got up, feeling the scorching gazes of both girls in his back. He wondered if his snub was having its desired effect on Goldie.

*

Brian arrived exactly on the dot to pick Adie up at her dorm room. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she had made an effort to doll herself up. She wore a green dress that reflected the overhead fluorescent. She had put on green makeup as well, and thankfully not green lipstick to match. Brian couldn’t abide girls who decked themselves out in strange colors.

Goldie was also there, and more than a little surprised herself, as if she was hoping to see her cousin being stood up. She’s a right bitch, that one. He wondered why Warwick was so interested in her. But now, to earn his five hundred bucks and keep his rep intact, he had to play smooching lothario.

“Wow,” he says engagingly, “you look great.”

It wasn’t completely a lie.

Adie stared at him. Like – really, really stared. He had naturally made an effort to look good himself. Sexy good, the way he knew he would if he put on just a black wife beater and blue jeans, and donned a simple white shirt over the former. And of course, with his height, he cut quite an imposing figure at the doorway.

Goldie stared at him too, but with a tinge of envy. Right after he leaves with Adie, Warwick was going to call Goldie in her chagrined, lonesome state – a plumped chicken for the taking.

For Goldie’s benefit, Brian proffered his arm to Adie. After a moment’s hesitation, Adie took it.

“Don’t wait up,” Brian said cheekily to Goldie.

He dashed Adie off to his car.

Oh yeah, his car. It was a Corvette. Yet another iron filing to his chick magnet allure.

Brian didn’t do dates very often. He usually got to first base in record time, and then on to the second, and the third with the rapidity of a freight train. So he found himself in an awkward situation after the movie – when he actually did have to try to make conversation . . . with a girl.

He took Adie to this nice Italian eatery all done up in green, white and red. They ordered pasta and scampi, and Brian even broke out a bottle of red. It was nice . . . if he didn’t have to rack his brains to think of what to say next. Adie was as shy as a dormouse. So it was up to Brian to come up with the topics.

He started with class, and the professors. After about an hour, he was down to classroom gossip – which he always found embarrassing. But it was easy to talk to Adie. At least, he talked, and she listened. She never took her eyes off him. She blushed every time he let out an expletive, which was often.

After dinner, he drove her back to her dorm. This was the cruncher.

As foretold, Goldie would not put out for Warwick. She had returned early to the room, and was in the midst of tweezing her hair or whatever girls did in the privacy of their rooms.

Just outside their closed door, Brian slammed himself against Adie and kissed her. It was one of his voracious kisses – all tongue and hands around the waist and back and everywhere else. The first base kiss usually rapidly escalated to whatever the girl wanted – and it was usually everything he had to offer.

Adie seemed surprised. Jettisoned out of her wits, more like. Stunned, she let him kiss her. As he came up for air, she seized his face and kissed him instead with a passion that astounded him. Just when he was all over her, she was suddenly all over him – groping, sliding, grabbing. She obviously wanted him more than she had let on.

Brian managed to get a word in. “Your roommate?” he panted.

It wasn’t completely an act. Adie’s fervor did get him worked up, and he could always get it up for anything young and female.

“What about her?” Her eyes were bright and wide.

“Think you can persuade her to go someplace else?”

“I’ll try.”

Adie unlocked the door and pushed it in. Goldie was sprawled on her bed, reading something on Anthropology. She looked up irritably.

“You’re late,” she said, and added, “Oh” as soon as she saw Brian.

Adie said to Brian, “Do you mind waiting outside while I talk to her?”

He nodded.

He waited while they discussed something – him – behind a closed door. The discussion escalated into an argument, judging from the raised voices. They were practically fighting over Adie’s right to f**k. He was right. Goldie was a bitch. Good luck to Warwick, who had a hard-on for her like no other. Brian wondered why. He would f**k Goldie all right – she was hot. And for him too, by the looks of it. But he wouldn’t have liked her.

After ten minutes of this, Adie opened the door sheepishly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “can we go to your place instead?”

Brian was nonplussed. Of course he lived off campus, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to make a big show out of it in front of Goldie, so that Warwick could zone in for the kill. Besides, this was interfering with his right to f**k wherever he chose.

“Screw this,” he said, grabbing Adie and pushing his way through.

He entered the room. Goldie glared at him.

“You’re not turning me out of my own room,” she declared.

“Why? Because it never happened to you?” he said. “Fine, then we’ll f**k right in front of you.”

He began to strip, making a big show out of it. Adie was mortified. Goldie was fascinated. Brian was an exhibitionist. He didn’t mind showing his dick to anyone who cared to admire it. He had a magnificent body, and he was all a-OK for flaunting it in the locker rooms, the swimming pool, the beach . . . and hell, everywhere he could get away with it.