The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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She rolled her eyes and flopped back on the couch, as if she hadn’t just demolished this poor girl’s romantic hopes and dreams.
The girl looked at me and then back to Cora. I saw her mouth tighten before she uttered “bitch” and stomped out our front door. I upped her points even more when I saw she had her panties from the night before sticking out of her back pocket.
Without looking up, Cora held her hands up over her head and extended seven fingers in the air. “She didn’t even have any fight in her. I would’ve given her at least an eight if she had told me to fuck off or get bent. Anything.”
I shook my head. “You were kind of a bitch.”
She snickered. “Gotta find my fun somewhere. What do you give her?”
I was about to answer when another figure came out of the room. You’d think that after three months of running into him coming in and out of the bathroom we shared, or catching him running around without a shirt on while he was getting ready to go out, or even watching him dance around half naked onstage I would have built up an immunity to seeing Jet Keller’s bare chest.
But as he made his way down the hall, pulling on a plain black T-shirt, I forgot every single thought as my mind blanked, just like it always did.
After the disastrous incident outside my apartment last winter, we had developed an odd sort of friendship. I knew what boundaries I had to keep Jet within, and he treated me like I was some kind of virginal goddess he wasn’t allowed to mess up. That was working for us, sort of.
When Shaw had ultimately decided to go live with Rule and Nash, Cora and I had worried about who was going to take up her share of the rent. Luckily, the girl Jet had been living with went bat-shit crazy, and dumped all of his stuff on the lawn while he was on his last tour, not mention she found someone else to take his place when she got lonely. He ended up homeless and in need of a place to crash, so here he was. I saw him every day and spent plenty of time just hanging out with him.
But still, the sight of those abs, the ink that covered them and the twin hoops through his nipples turned all my good intentions and strictly marshaled thoughts to all things sexy and naughty, where they clearly didn’t need to be. When I looked at him I had a hard time remembering the rejection and what I should be doing and instead let his wicked grin ruin all my self-control.
I averted my gaze and ordered myself not to inhale when he leaned over me to snag the other half of my untouched bagel. I wasn’t allowed to go around sniffing him, even if he smelled like temptation and rock and roll.
He lifted a dark eyebrow in my direction and motioned toward Cora with the bagel.
“What kind of havoc are you two wreaking in here? I heard the front door slam all the way from the back of the house.” He stretched his long legs, clad in supertight black jeans, out in front of me and I wondered again how he got into them. I had never seen a guy wear such tight pants, but they worked for him. I spent an obscene amount of time wondering how to get them off of him.
“Cora was just wishing your latest conquest a safe trip home.”
He paused before biting into the bagel and focused his eyes at the back of Cora’s head. “What did you really say to her?”
We could see Cora’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter, but she didn’t turn her head around. “Nothing. Well, nothing that wasn’t true.”
He took a big bite out of the breakfast treat and narrowed his eyes. They were so dark it was hard to tell where the iris and the pupil met.
“I think you’re just pissed Miley Cyrus copied your haircut and you’re taking it out on innocent girls across the land.”
Surprised laughter shot out of me as Cora jumped to her feet and hurled the nail polish bottle she had been using at Jet’s head. Luckily, he had good reflexes and caught it in the air before it smacked him in the face or broke all over the wood floors.
“I’ve had this hair forever! It’s not my fault she decided to be rock and roll all of a sudden.” She huffed out of the room and I shared a grin with Jet.
“She’s sensitive about that. Be nice.”
“It’s not nice that you two have a sliding scale for every girl I bring home, either, but you don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
I didn’t have an answer for that so I turned back to my computer screen.
“One of these days there’s going to be a ten and you’re not going to know what to do with yourselves.”
I was surprised he was aware of what we were doing. That didn’t speak too highly of his respect for the girls he brought home with him on a regular basis.
I tucked the ends of my hair, which was now styled in a short, sleek bob, behind one ear and looked at him over the top of my glasses. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it now that I knew he was in on the game.
“Why didn’t you say something, if you knew what we were doing? ”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and I watched as his mouth turned down in a frown on one side. Jet had an expressive face. I think it came from trying to project his every feeling, his every passion, to a crowd of people while he was onstage. I knew the half frown well—it meant he was thinking about something he didn’t particularly want to talk about. I always wondered what put it there.
“They get what they come for and then they go home satisfied. If they have to tangle with you two knuckleheads on the way out, I just figure that is part of the price of admission.” He cut his look back up to me and frowned for real. “Where were you last night? Everyone came to Cerberus and hung out for a few hours. Shaw said you were supposed to meet us there, but you never showed.”
I cleared my throat and fiddled with the handle on my coffee mug. “I was on a date with Adam. He didn’t want to go, so I just had him drop me off here and I did some homework I’ve been putting off.”
I saw his eyes widen and the gold rings flashed bright and clear. Jet wasn’t a fan of Adam, and Adam hated that I lived with Jet with every fiber of his being. I tried to keep the two of them apart, a task that was getting harder and harder now that Adam was pushing for us to be more than casual dating partners. We had been seeing each other for about four months, and logically I knew it was time to move one way or the other, but something always stopped me.
“Of course Adam didn’t want to go. When does that dude ever do anything you want to do? Geez, Ayd, how many freaking operas, ballets, and boring-ass art exhibits are you going to let that moron drag you to? Why can’t he just come and meet your friends and chill at the bar for a minute?”
We’d had this conversation more than once, so I just sighed.
“My friends intimidate him. Rule and Nash don’t exactly scream ‘welcoming committee’ and you and Rowdy take way too much pleasure in making fun of anyone and everyone that you don’t like. It would be awkward for all of us, so I would rather avoid it altogether. Adam is a nice guy.”
I told myself that at least ten times a day. Adam was a nice guy and he was far more suited to a secure future than a guy who planned to play heavy metal for a living. Not to mention Adam didn’t make we want to lose control and throw caution to the wind at every turn, not the way Jet did.
“We’re your friends, Ayden, and Shaw is your girl. If this guy plans on sticking around, don’t you think he needs to suck it up and get used to all of us? Or are you planning on just ditching us for the upper crust as soon as you can?”
There was something in his tone that spoke to a deeper conversation than the one we were currently having. But as usual, before I could probe further, he decided to change the subject to something he obviously deemed safer.
“Besides, if he didn’t want Rowdy and me to clown on him, he wouldn’t wear a damn sweater vest everywhere he goes. Who even owns a sweater vest anymore?”
I