I take my ice cream cone and swipe it across Clark’s nose. His eyes widen at my playful act.
“I didn’t know you had it in you, bunny,” he says. Then his eyes narrow and he smirks. “Better run fast.”
I screech and take off running down Main Street with my nearly finished ice cream cone in my hand. I hear Clark behind me. I haven’t full-on sprinted in a long time and I don’t make it far. I get all the way down a side street and, all of a sudden, I’m jerked back against Clark’s hard body.
I screech and start giggling.
“I got you now, Megladon,” he whispers in my ear. I shiver and am about to turn around and kiss him when a bright light shines on our faces.
“You OK, miss?” a man says. I squint and realize it’s Chief Tucker Beckley.
“Chief Beckley?” I ask.
He lowers the light and approaches us slowly. “Megan Lennox? And…Clark Moore?”
“That’s us,” Clark answers. “Sorry, we were being silly.”
“That’s alright. I heard a scream and…well, I went into cop mode.”
I giggle. “That was me. But no worries, all is good here.”
“OK, then. You kids have a good night and stay out of trouble,” he says as he tips his hat and walks toward Main Street.
I turn around and slap Clark on the chest. “OMG! Nice going, asshat! You practically got us arrested.”
He pulls me against him and looks into my eyes. “I’d be willing to get arrested, but it better be for something more than grabbing you around the waist.”
And with that, he leans down and kisses me.
It starts off gentle and slow, but then within seconds, it’s hard and fast and inappropriate for the sidewalk. Clark walks us behind some shrubbery.
“Clark, let’s not trespass.”
“It’s Garrett’s house, don’t worry about it,” he says as he continues to kiss me.
“Children? Keep it PG-13,” a voice calls out from the neighboring house.
I jump back and look around. Squinting, I make out two men on the front porch.
“Hi, Ethan. Hi, Sam,” Clark says with a groan.
“Good evening?” one of them asks.
“It was…” Clark mumbles. “Yep. See you all later.” Clark grabs my hand and drags me back to the car.
“We’re heading home now,” he adds.
“Geez, it’s no big deal,” I lament.
He turns and pins me against his car. “Let’s just say, I want to do dirty things to you that quite possibly would have gotten us arrested. So, get in the car, bunny. And buckle up.”
My eyes widen and I follow his command because some part of me likes this authoritative Clark and I’m equally turned on and weirded out with my response all at the same time.
Chapter Twenty-One
Clark
I pull up to the sorority house so that Megan can grab a few things.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she says as she goes inside, leaving me on the front porch to wait for her.
As the door is closing, I notice how dark it is inside.
“Where is everyone?” I ask with a hand on the door.
“Oh, uh, some party. It’s fine. I’ll be quick,” she assures me as she heads upstairs.
Something about the sorority house being this dark puts me on high alert. I’ve never seen a sorority house with all the lights out, ever, not once in three-plus years. I step inside and shut the door, as my instincts tell me that something isn’t right.
I listen but only hear the rustle of what I assume is Megan in her room. I flick on a light switch and freeze.
Written on the wall in spray paint are the words, “Die Bitch.” The place looks ransacked.
“Megan!” I yell with my thumb hovering over the emergency call feature on my phone.
“I’m up here,” she answers. Her calm voice soothes me as I slow my pace and round the corner into her room. Her room looks trashed.
“I bet it was fucking frat pledges pulling a prank,” she says with a huff as she tries to find what she was looking for.
“I…let’s get out of here and call the campus police,” I urge. “It’s ransacked downstairs too.”
“Really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
I look around her room. It’s messy but nothing looks destroyed aside from her bedding that has been shredded.
“Come on. Grab your things. You are staying with me,” I command.
She stops and looks over at me. “You need to calm down.”
“I am calm,” I say through gritted teeth. “We should get out of here and call the police.”
“You are overreacting, seriously. I mean, don’t you remember last year when our rooms got trashed because ‘your’ brothers decided to pull a prank?”
“This…feels different. And it definitely wasn’t my fraternity.”
“Whatever, you need to chill. We can call the police in a bit,” she says calmly.
I yank her from her room and down the stairs. She protests and tries to get out of my grasp.
“Damn it, Clark! Let me go,” she squawks as I close the door behind us.
“Call them now!”
She holds out her phone and presses the number for the campus police. “You OK now?” she asks in an annoyed tone.
I lean against the pillar of the front porch and listen as she explains that her sorority house has been vandalized. The cops tell her to wait there and that they are sending over a car.
She presses end on the call and looks at me. “Happy?”
“Yes,” I reply in a bitter tone.
She groans. “Just go home. I’ll talk to you later. I need to handle this,” she says as she leans against the pillar on the other side of the porch. We both stare at each other. I want to yell. She’s the most frustrating woman that I’ve ever known, and I have three older sisters, so that’s saying something.
“Fine,” I say in my most annoyed voice.
“Fine,” she retorts.
I see a campus cop car roll up and I watch as Megan pushes off the pillar and walks toward them. I follow her a second later. She’s already explaining things to one of the two officers.
I look at the second one. “Do you need a statement from me or anything?” I ask.
He shrugs and asks what I saw. I tell him and he essentially dismisses me.
I look over at Megan but she’s now leading the first officer up to the house.
Fuck it. If she doesn’t want me here, then I’ll go home. I storm back to my car and drive home, blaring my music and glaring at students who are walking past my car like some sort of petulant teenager.
By the time I get home, I’m beyond fucking pissed. I’m pissed that Megan didn’t take the threat seriously. I’m pissed that she blew off my commands that were meant to keep her safe. I’m pissed that she’s pissed. I pound my steering wheel in frustration before turning my car off and heading inside. I’m thankful to find the apartment empty. The guys must be at the frat party. I decide to hit the small gym in the basement of our building. This building doesn’t have much, no pool, no fancy party rooms, no security guard, but it does have a laundry room and gym, and right now, I need to run or bench-press or something, anything to get my mind off the irritating woman that I want to kiss some sense into but also want to scream at for being such a stubborn ass. Maybe this isn’t going to work after all.