Tease (23 page)

Want to know what happens to Georgia?

Find out in
Wild
, the final book in the Ivy Chronicles.

Available everywhere November 2014.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

About the Author

Sophie Jordan is the international and
New York Times
bestselling author of the Firelight series and Avon romances. When she’s not writing, she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattes preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her kids), and cramming her DVR with true-crime and reality-TV shows.

He took my arm and dragged me through the room. “I told you that you shouldn’t come here,” he said over his shoulder, his voice deep enough that he didn’t even have to lift it over the thumping bass for me to hear.

His long strides moved swiftly, leading us through the press of bodies and out the front door. As if it was his right to touch me. As if his brother dating my best friend gave him the right to interfere in my life.

We stepped out onto the empty porch. Empty because why hang out here when there was privacy inside to do all kinds of wild and wicked things. The type of things one did at a kink club. Things I had yet to learn about. Thanks to him.

I pulled free and crossed my arms across my chest, chafing my hands up and down the sleeves of my cashmere sweater. “And I told
you
not to tell me what to do.”

I tried to look down my nose at him the way I had seen my mother do countless times when squaring off with some mouthy delinquent. My sister and I called it her
principal look.
If she ever used it on us, we knew we were in trouble. But the effect was lost on him.

Yeah, he stood over six feet, but it wasn’t that. Logan had an air about him. A confidence rare for anyone, much less an eighteen-year-old guy. He held himself like someone who knew who he was and his place in the world. And that annoyed me. Why was he so damned self-assured?

I was a mess, but here he stood looking all cool and collected . . . telling me where I didn’t belong.

“You want to explain to me why it’s any business of yours what I do? I mean . . . don’t you have a curfew or something?” It was a deliberate dig. Instead of getting offended though, he grinned. And that grin was devastating. Seriously. No wonder he had such a reputation. Girls must throw themselves at him. His mouth was sexy as hell, too. His lips well-defined, wide, the bottom fuller beneath the top lip.
Oh, the things I bet he could do with those lips . . .

I blinked at the totally wayward thought.

He laughed deeply. The sound sent goose bumps over my flesh and settled in the pit of my stomach. “I’ve never had a curfew.”

Never
? I shook my head, telling myself now was not the time to wonder at his parents’ lack of supervision. My mom firmly believed no good could come of staying out past midnight. When I went home on break my parents still imposed a curfew on me. As if I wasn’t in my second year of college. As if I hadn’t been staying out all hours of the night doing all manner of naughty things. Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t. But I
could
be.

This reminder of my sheltered existence just made me more determined to live my life on my own terms. To do tonight what I set out to do. To stop living such a boring existence. I was almost twenty and I’d been living the last four years like a married woman. School. Studying. Sex once a week.
Shit. Liar
. I couldn’t even be honest with myself. The last year with Harris we maybe had sex every month.

Standing there looking at this incredibly hot guy who had a hell of a lot more experience than I did
and
was younger, only flustered me. I flipped the hair back over my right shoulder, noting that his eyes followed the move, skimming over the long trail of hair before moving back to my face.

I started to walk past him, but he blocked me.

I edged back from the wall of his chest, careful not to touch him. I think Reece mentioned his brother played sports. It explained the breadth of his shoulders tapering down to a lean waist. The flat stomach. I’d glimpsed Reece without a shirt when he stayed the night with Pepper. It was criminal. Logan was in good shape. My gaze flicked over him. Okay.
Great
shape. He was probably ripped under the black thermal shirt he wore. Just like his brother. Ridiculous six pack, defined biceps and all. I swallowed against the sudden thickness of my throat. Shoot me. Was I actually drooling over a guy still in high school?

“That guy you were talking to?” He rubbed a hand over his scalp, dragging his hand over the close-cropped dark blond hair. “Georgia,” he expelled my name on an exasperated breath.

“You don’t have a clue about the things he’s into . . . the things he’ll do to you.”

I shivered a little beneath the weight of his blue eyes. “I can handle myself.”

“Do Pepper and Em—”

“Pepper and Emerson aren’t my parents,” I snapped. “I’m a big girl, thank you very much. I don’t need permission to be here.”

He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering at my throat. “Sure you do, Pearls. You fit in here about as much as bull in a china shop.”

My hand flew to my necklace. The pearl necklace had been a graduation present. For some insane reason the hot sting of tears pricked the backs of my eyes
. I would not cry. He would not make me cry.

“I’m tired of people telling me who I am.” First Harris.
Always
my mother. I lived halfway across the country and she was still trying to tell me how to live my life. Even Pepper and Em.

And now him. This guy who didn’t even know me.

I nodded toward the door. “Maybe I want to hook up with that guy and have him do those things to me. Ever consider that?” I deliberately let it sound like I knew what those
things
were.

“You don’t even know what those things are,” he retorted, seeing right through me. And how did he do that, anyway?? Did I have a sign around my neck that said
TOO BORING TO FUCK
? Harris’s face flashed across my mind.
I need more, Georgia.

I fumed. I could be more. I was
more
.

“Yes, I do. He told me,” I bluffed. “We were talking about it when you walked up.”

His eyebrow winged. “Really? I heard he likes it when the girl dresses up as a dude and puts on a strap-on. You into that, Pearls? I would have pegged you for the type of girl that’s only ever done it missionary style.”

I sucked in a breath. Insulted, yes. Shocked, too. Shocked that he had guessed that about me.

He laughed, nodding. “Yeah. Thought so.”

“Asshole,” I spit out. Another first. I had never called anyone a bad word before. It wasn’t something ladies did.

“Why don’t you go home to your safe dorm room and forget about this place?” His look then was part pitying and part smirk. I could have handled the smirk. It was the faint pity that got to me. I wasn’t pitiable. No way.

How dare he talk to me like
I
was the child? I was an adult. I came out tonight to have a good time. To put an end to my drought and prove to myself that I wasn’t boring. I could be spontaneous. I could be unpredictable.

I could be wild.

Before I could stop and think about what I was doing, I stood on my tiptoes, circled his neck with my hand and pulled his head down to mine.

Sophie Jordan

wild

Sophie Jordan

wild

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