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“No!” I shrieked. “We were just-”

“Don’t wanna know!”

Maddy giggled, a shit-eating grin on her face. “Hi, Vaughan.”

He stuck his arm up from his spot on the floor and waved.

“King, pull your pants up. I don’t want to see your junk when I open my eyes.” Jackson looked ridiculous with his hand over his eyes, and I thought it was quite ironic having them walking in on us when Maddy told me I’d walked in on them at least twice last year.

Payback’s a bitch, big brother.

I righted myself, brushing my hair from my face. “I wasn’t expecting you,” I told Maddy.

“Obviously.” She smirked, and walked past me in to the kitchen.

Vaughan stood up, and winked as he pulled his pants back on. His cock was still at half-mast and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. I had to admit he looked sexy in his flustered state.

“I guess I’d better get going.”

I blushed furiously when we walked past Jackson who, to my surprise, was calm under the circumstances. I expected him to flip a lid. I shut the front door and ended up walking Vaughan to his truck. He gave me a chaste kiss, and grinned at me as if we hadn’t just been caught having almost sex on the kitchen counter. “I guess this means you’re going on a date with me, huh?”

“Depends,” I stretched on to the tips of my toes. “Will you put out this time?”

Something about Vaughan made me want to spar with him.

He gave me chaste kiss and then turned towards his truck. “Go on a date with me and find out.”

JACKSON GLOWERED AT me the entire time we ate and I pretended not to notice. I didn’t have to explain myself to him. What I did in my private time was my business, although I strongly suspected it had more to do with who I was doing.

“It’s rude to stare, Jackson.” I kept my gaze fixed on the television, but I saw Maddy elbow Jackson in my peripheral.

“You can’t be mad at her,” she told him, “she caught us a few times too.”

“And it’s a good thing I don’t actually remember it,” I quipped. “Maddy told me you had your pants around your ankles with your bare ass in the air. Not something I’d like to have stuck in my head.”

He mumbled something unintelligible and didn’t say another word about it. When he left, I disappeared into my bedroom. Maddy found me in the middle of my bed, making notes for my next publishing class. It was all I could do not to think about Vaughan and our almost sex.

Maddy dropped onto my bed and we both bounced. I felt her eyes boring into the side of my face, but I carried on with what I was doing a while longer before I acknowledged her.

“Spit it out, Maddy.”

I looked up and she grinned. “So you and Vaughan, huh?”

I shrugged, hoping that she would buy my attempt at impassivity.

But of course I failed miserably. Maddy could read me far too well.

She brushed her curls out of her face. “C’mon, don’t make me beg for details. You can’t tell me you slipped and grabbed his dick for support.”

The truth was what had happened between me and Vaughan was still lingering and I wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t want Maddy, or anyone else, to think I was a floozy. I’d never been the type of girl to behave in a way considered to be promiscuous, but being with Vaughan made me want own my sexuality. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was when I was with him and that was as frightening as it was perplexing.

“He took me for lunch to a diner called ‘Heels on Fire’ and when we got back here I kissed him.”

Maddy’s expression was a mixture of pride, excitement and surprise. “Do you like him?”

“I’m not entirely sure what to call my feelings for him.” I snapped my textbook shut, and dropped my pen. “When I’m with him it feels so right, but then he drives me crazy and I end up doing something humiliating.”

“Like run across the ice rink, even though you hate the ice, just because Liam accidentally hit Vaughan?”