Turning to Mel, I quietly asked, “Is he flirting?”

She looked over my shoulder and I tried to make out the answer in her face. Her thin lips pursed and her eyes flickered to mine. I saw sympathy in her expression, and my shoulders sagged.

“I can’t say that he’s flirting per say, but he doesn’t look like he’s discouraging the girl who’s talking to him,” she explained.

“Which girl is it?” I lifelessly asked.

“Some blonde girl with big tits in a red skirt.”

“What’s Big Tits doing exactly?”

“Trying to shove said tits in his face.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s talking to Leo across the table and she’s leaning over so that her big tits are in his vision.”

I shut my eyes and breathed through my nose. It was fine. Whatever. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. I knew it would come to this. Women were going to throw themselves at him, and it had happened several times, but I didn’t have it in me to watch. Maybe it was my insecurities that worried I’d see him lusting for a girl that wasn’t me. After all, these girls were beyond gorgeous and had started flooding through the door with the sole intention of seeking him out.

He’d been so carried away with the music, it sort of became his obsession. But now that they had so many songs under their belt, he was a lot more social than ever before, and that feasted on my insecurities.

“Are you guys still sleeping with each other?” she then asked me.

I nodded. “Nothing’s changed.”

“How can he expect you to be okay with this then? He should be pushing these chicks away the second they get a foot near him.”

I chewed on my lower lip and muttered, “We’re not officially together. He doesn’t label us, so I don’t feel like I have any right to tell him he can’t talk to other girls. Plus that just makes me sound like a crazy person.”

“But you guys are together. I see him all over you at your house.”

“Yeah, at the house, not in public.”

“Doesn’t matter. You need to insert yourself at that table right this second and get that chick to back off.”

“But –”

“There’s no but about it. He needs to make you his girlfriend and start warning these bitches away.”

I sighed. “He doesn’t look at it like that. He’s not –”

“That kind of guy, I know,” she interrupted. “I heard him talking to Rome and Jared about it every time they mention their latest fluffs. Says he doesn’t want to label shit, but the thing is, he’s all over you and I bet you he certainly wouldn’t be happy with you chatting with random guys. Or would he?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. At this point I’ll be friend-zoned with sexual benefits ‘til I’m ninety.”

“You’d be a sexy ninety year old,” said a deep voice.

I jumped and turned around, my face bursting into flames when I saw a guy standing there with an empty glass. He was incredibly good looking. Black hair, dark eyes, and a smile that was… ah, well, it was making me a shiver a little.

“Um…” Dear God, then it occurred to me that he heard me.

“Sorry for eavesdropping,” he said, humour dancing in those dark eyes. “But I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes.”

“Oh?”

“Noticed your back was turned.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright. Just wanted a refill of beer.”

I nodded quickly. “Okay, sure.”

I took the glass from him and watched him turn and make his way back to his table where a couple of other guys sat. Melanie burst into laughter behind me and I smacked her arm as I hurried to the bar. So not only did I have to endure some girl shaking her boobs in front of Carter’s face, but a sexy man had to hear me talk about my friends with benefits type of relationship.

This was going to be a long night.

*

I gave the damn man his refill – shunning the heated way he grinned at me – and then I watched Carter and the guys at the table. There were two more girls now, and they were staring at him with the most desperate look in their eyes.

I thought of what Mel said. Inserting myself and getting them to see he was technically taken. Could I muster the courage?

The way one leaned even closer, rubbing her chest against his arm as he laughed with Jared and Leo had me gripping the tray I was holding tight enough to bruise my palms. I glanced at Mel, and when she met my gaze, I gave her a simple nod. She nodded back, motioning to the table, with a lethal look on her face. I rolled my shoulders and headed for him.

Of course he’ll say he’s with me, I told myself. There’s no way he wouldn’t. After all the nights we’d shared – the intimacy so naturally engrained in the way our bodies gravitated toward one another – he couldn’t deny what we were.

As I neared him, my body was jittery and the butterflies inside my stomach danced in circles. This was the effect he had on me, and it was overwhelming at times. He looked deliciously good tonight in his dark jeans and tight blue shirt. He’d taken off his jacket, and his body looked strong and built. You could see the lines of his muscle, and my lust for him just then was magnified by the fact I knew what he looked like underneath.

I wasn’t surprised to hear Jared making everyone laugh at his dirty jokes. He had the gift of the gab, which drew the ladies in. He was a likeable guy and pretty cute. I could see the attraction, but he was too brotherly to me. Leo, on the other hand, with his light hair and dark smouldering eyes, was the biggest playboy of all, and he was already mapping out a girl across the bar for the taking.

I stopped by the table and Carter looked up, beaming at me behind his beer bottle that was raised to his lips. “Hey, Angel,” he said. “What’s brought you here?”

“Came to see how you guys were doing,” I told him, sneaking glances at the girls who were already sizing me up. I would be doing the same, so I didn’t blame them.

“You came at the best time,” Jared told me. “I was about to tell everyone the story about the chick with the third nipple –”

“I already heard that one,” I cut in with a straight face.

“You did?”