By Referral Only

by Lyla Payne

  Cole tensed. “You’re going to want to watch your step, mate.”

  The people around us stopped when Liam called me a whore, and the news that something was going on rippled outward until the entire deck fell silent, except for the band, which provided a strange, lilting soundtrack to our awkward confrontation.

  “I’m not your mate. I’m not friends with any of you rich fucks who think the world belongs to you because your granddaddy’s granddaddy shit gold.”

  “Liam, you’ve obviously had too much to drink. If you want to talk, we can go somewhere private.”

  “No. It’s not like all of your stupid friends don’t know what you are. That you don’t belong here, either, or that you fucked trash like me and liked it?”

  “Liam, for God’s sake, do you have to be such an asshole? We had a thing, it’s over. No one gives a shit except apparently you. Get out, or I’ll have you thrown out.”

  His mouth fell open slightly and his dark eyes widened, betraying his shock at my dismissal. It only proved that he’d always thought he had the upper hand in our relationship, even though I’d never intended to stay. Nausea bubbled over the fact that I’d ever slept with him at all. What a waste of a month and a half.

  Liam looked between Cole and me a few times, then got control of his surprise and shrugged. “You’re welcome to that pussy, mate. She’s a lousy fuck, anyway.”

  Cole’s fist lashed out in the blink of an eye, smashing into Liam’s right cheekbone with a crunch. Liam crashed backward, flopping onto his back and cracking his head on the deck, but not hard enough to knock him out. My hands flew over my mouth but couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped, or the second one over Cole’s surprised look.

  He rubbed his knuckles, and I was glad he didn’t need his hand to swim. I didn’t need every Whitman athletics fan on my ass for ruining a promising season.

  “You want to get out of here?”

  I nodded, even though we were technically in charge of this mixer and shouldn’t leave. The official party ended in less than a half hour, and we’d taken care of the payment. We stepped over Liam, who had struggled into a sitting position but held a hand over his cheek, spitting eye-daggers at the two of us.

  It took every last ounce of self-control I possessed not to kick him in the nuts on my way out.

  Chapter 13

  “Seriously, you didn’t have to do that,” I said for the third time, worrying my lip as his knuckles swelled more with each passing moment.

  “Ruby, I know. Stop. I’m going to be fine, and he deserved it. It actually pisses me off that he ever even had the balls to think he was your equal.”

  I bristled. “Just because he has to work for a living doesn’t mean—”

  “Christ, you’re daft when you want to be. It’s not your money that makes you better than him. It’s your spirit.” Cole pressed a bag of ice that his driver had grabbed from the gas station over his hand, wincing slightly and looking out the window.

  My spirit. Not my class or my money. It was something I hadn’t considered an asset before, or rather, not one that curried value with people other than maybe Emilie and some of my sisters.

  I’d gotten a text from Em as we were leaving, asking if I was okay—she’d been inside with Quinn and heard about Liam’s appearance right as the punch was thrown. Apparently, Quinn picked Liam up by his hair and tossed him none too kindly out into the street. I knew that asshat would be good for something besides laying my best friend.

  For the first time all night, Cole’s eyes weren’t on me. That, combined with the slump of his shoulders, scattered nerves through my belly. We’d had fun tonight, and he’d stood up for me when everyone else was staring like idiots.

  “You’re different than I thought you’d be,” I confessed, wanting to share something personal with him as a way of voicing the thank you that just wouldn’t roll off my tongue.

  He shifted in the seat, turning his entire body to face me in the back of the Town Car instead of just his eyes. Cole had a way about him that made me feel special, like I was worth his total focus.

  “In what way?”

  I shrugged, a little embarrassed now. “It’s what I get for believing stereotypes, I guess, but most of the Lambdas don’t care much about anything but family connections. You, well, look deeper, and it makes me feel….”

  He slid closer to me as the car pulled into the DE parking lot and stopped, idling at the curb. With one finger, Cole asked the driver to give us a moment and raised the partition.

  “It makes you feel…?”

  His handsome face filled my field of vision—the clean-shaven, strong jaw, the light green eyes that filled with more intensity every moment—and the good hand settled on my bare knee.

  The feeling of skin against skin made it hard to breathe, fogged my vision, but I struggled for clarity. “It makes me feel naked. Exposed.”

  The first word felt too charged in this moment. Naked was exactly what I wanted to be, but in a more literal and less scary sense. Quinn would have immediately latched onto the sexual tension, from what I knew of trying to have a conversation with him, but Cole just raised a finger, brushing it down my cheek.

  “And that frightens you? Worries you?”

  “I don’t want to think about what it does to me.” Whether it made me like Quinn Rowland or not, I decided to take a page from his playbook to ease back from this too-intense moment. “I want to think about doing things to you.”

  I looped my arms around his neck and dragged his lips to mine, crushing our mouths together and marveling again at how easily we fit together. Cole didn’t argue with my change of subject, exploring my lips and mouth with his tongue in a way that made me want to know how he’d treat the rest of me. His disposition came across almost gentle in public, but I could tell by the way he kissed that Cole tended toward the wild and maybe even slightly rough in the bedroom, a fact that made it almost impossible to stop the shivers running laps up and down my spine.

  His good hand snaked around my back, gathering me flush against him. I maneuvered my way into his lap, my legs wrapped around his waist, and gasped when his lips left mine and trailed hot kisses along my jaw and down my neck. He found the pulse throbbing in my neck.

  The sensation of his tongue flicking over it made me whimper, a sound I didn’t think I’d ever made before, and my hands dropped to his waist. I tugged his dress shirt free of the waistband and ran my hands up his bare chest, digging my nails in until he growled and went after my lips again. It sucked that he only had one hand—stupid Liam rears his ugly head again—because Cole could only cover half the ground. Heat poured off us both everywhere we touched, and the ache between my legs when it pressed against him made me shudder with delightful anticipation.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed the buildup more than the main event, but this night could escalate as slowly as possible, as far as I was concerned.

  Cole made no move for the zipper of my dress or to reach underneath it, but when one thick shoulder strap fell down to my elbow, he pulled back slightly, staring at the exposed swath of skin that ended at the lacy top of my champagne-colored bra.

  His big hand settled on my naked shoulder and his mouth followed, kissing his way down to the last scrap of material covering my skin. Cole pushed my dress a little farther, but not off, so that he could do some more staring, which made my entire body arch forward, begging for his touch.

  “You look like you’ve never seen a bra before.” I meant to tease him but it came out a little poutier than intended.

  “I’ve never seen you in a bra before.” He grinned, but it looked unsure.

  I loved the perfect way he had of phrasing things. The slight attention to detail made me believe it was me in the lingerie that excited him, not simply the pretty cloth.

  When his palm slid down and cupped my breast through the lace, I almost shrieked with pleasure. I gritted my teeth against the intensity of the feeling as his lips traced the sensitive
curve of flesh that peered from the top, determined not to act like some sex-starved teenager. But when his tongue dipped inside the fabric and flicked against my nipple, I forgot about acting and gasped his name. It encouraged him and he doubled his attention, kissing his way to my other breast and back again, tongue working magic without removing a single piece of clothing.

  Lust like I’d never felt lit every nerve ending, making every tease and lick feel like a jolt of electricity, so that when he made his way back to my mouth it was almost a relief.

  We kissed until I felt lightheaded. It was hard to breathe but I didn’t really want to—what I wanted was more of Cole. This did not seem like a guy accused of being a prude in wolf’s clothing, but when my fingers pulled at the clasp on his belt, he covered my hand with his, stalling my progress. He pulled my arms back around his neck, then tugged the strap of my bra and dress back into place before sitting back, his arm still wrapped tight around me.

  “I have a swim meet tomorrow.”

  The change of direction jarred me just enough to cap my lingering lust, at least for the moment. I avoided looking at how deliciously disheveled he looked; I’d never seen him with his shirt untucked and tie askew before tonight. I wanted to see more of relaxed Cole.

  “I’m not sure what to make of that statement. Do I remind you of swimming, or is this like when you try to think about your grandmother’s waist-length boobs so you don’t finish too early?”

  He looked at me with his serious expression that curled my toes into the leather seat. “I promise that nothing could make me think of my grandmum’s boobs while yours are in front of me, and contrary to what you might be wondering given the recent hit to my reputation, I don’t have a problem satisfying women.”

  Cole tugged me forward, kissing me until all I could taste was the mint and rum, along with the lust crowding the back of the car.

  “I was hoping you might want to get together after the meet.”

  It was pretty clear from the way I was practically panting that I’d love to get together right now, but my heart fluttered at the invitation. That he didn’t want to bang me in the backseat and toss me to the curb wasn’t a surprise, exactly, given his track record—but he knew pretty much all there was to know about my background and he still wanted to see me again.

  I took a deep breath, tamping down the fear clawing my insides to shreds, and then blew it out. Brave. Like Em. “Okay.”

  “Okay? No arguments or protestations?” He smiled, both dimples creasing in his cheeks.

  “Not this time. But don’t think we’re finished here.”

  “Trust me, beautiful girl, you’ll know when you’re finished.”

  Cole walked me to the front door, then gave me a soft kiss on the mouth. I went inside, wondering if he’d meant the comment sexually, a flirtation, as it had sounded at first…or if it simply meant that, like Chaney and the others, I’d know when he was finished with me.

  ***

  Emilie and I had planned on getting an apartment for our senior year, but since she and Quinn practically lived together, I’d either have to stay in the house or find someone else. The nice thing about sisterhood with over two hundred girls was that there were several of them that I genuinely liked, so it might be fun to live with a couple of them off campus. Maybe at the beach.

  Saturday mornings were my favorite time at the sorority house. No one had anywhere to be, usually, and morning was a relative term. Most people managed to stir before noon, but not everyone. Depended on how much fun the night before had turned out to be, and the Lambda Phi mixer had been a hit, even with my display of awesome trashiness toward the end.

  Ginny and Annette had both wandered into my room around eleven. They brought coffee and bagels, so I only pretended to be irritated by their obvious gossip seeking for five minutes before giving in. “What do you guys want to know?”

  Annette ran her fingers through hopeless blonde tangles, her lips widening into a grin. “Well, we’ve just never had two boys fight over us in the middle of a bar before, so spill the details, girl.”

  “That’s because proper Whitman girls do not date boys who fight in bars.”

  “Psh. Details.” Ginny seconded, taking a bite of bagel and watching me with big eyes.

  “I’d been dating Liam—or sleeping with him, or hooking up, I don’t know. A few weeks ago, after the play, he pissed me off so I stopped returning his calls.” I shrugged and sipped the blessedly black coffee. It paled in comparison to the South American beans that Emilie’s mother sent, but it shocked my body awake anyway. “He got drunk, obviously, and apparently decided to man up for the first time in his life.”

  “Which is interesting and all,” Ginny drawled, “but what we really want to know is why Cole Stuart played the white knight in this little scenario.”

  My face felt hot. “He has an overdeveloped moral compass.”

  “Nope, not going to work. Don’t think the fact that the two of you disappeared for a half hour earlier in the night went unnoticed.” Ginny leveled me with a steely gaze, her pre-law training coming out like she flipped a switch.

  “And when the two of you weren’t together, Cole stared at you all night. It was borderline creepy,” Annette added helpfully. “You might as well spill. What’s going on with you two?”

  “More importantly, have you seen his horrid referrals on that ratings website? Plus, you’re the one who told us about him and Chaney.”

  “Doesn’t seem possible, with that face and that accent and everything, but how can a dozen girls all be wrong?” Annette mused, finally unsnarling a mass of last night’s hairdo.

  It didn’t seem possible. It seemed even less so given the off-the-charts heat level in the backseat of his car last night, or the way our hands seemed to seek each other on their own, or how our mouths fit together like pieces of a puzzle. This conversation brought me back to earth, though, and reminded me Cole had secrets lurking behind his gorgeous exterior.

  “I’ve read it. And I don’t know what’s going on between us. I’m supposed to see him again this afternoon, but maybe you’re right. What’s the point of having such an awesome website if we’re not going to use it?”

  “I agree with you in principle,” Ginny said, picking at her cherry red nail polish. “But, I mean, there’s no harm in seeing what all the fuss is about firsthand. I know I’m curious about what’s going on in Cole’s pants.”

  “Or not going on,” Annette giggled.

  I laughed, too, but the tension in my stomach unknotted with the knowledge that I had an excuse to do what I wanted—which was to spend more time with Cole. To my surprise, getting into his pants didn’t necessarily take precedence. His sweet attentiveness to me, the way he coaxed information about my life free with easygoing, dimpled grins, made me comfortable and happy in his presence. But it also worried me.

  We’d spent most of our time talking about me—my family, my past, my hang-ups as far as dating was concerned. The fact remained that he had to be hiding something, and though he seemed to enjoy making me feel vulnerable, Cole kept his own secrets stowed away in stitched-up pockets.

  It scared me that I wanted to know what they were. That I’d somehow gotten tangled up with a guy who was the exact opposite of what I’d gone looking for, and even managed to convince myself he was different, somehow. That it wouldn’t matter what his family thought or whether his frat brothers made rude comments about me after meetings.

  As much as I wanted to be like Emilie, this situation with Cole still terrified me. It would be best to remember that the time we spent together was meant to be nothing more than the resolution to another scheme, and not the beginning of something that would break my heart in the end.

  Chapter 14

  Annette had to go study, but Ginny had offered to accompany me to Whitman’s swim meet. I turned her down because I’d hoped to sneak in and out incognito—after all, Cole had suggested we do something afterward, not that I come watch—and Ginny had the kind
of personality that echoed off regular walls, never mind the kind that surrounded swimming pools.

  I could have called Emilie, but in truth, keeping a low profile while scouting potential talent appealed to me. Like when a big time director snuck in to catch your community theatre performance but didn’t say a word. It was better for everyone that way. If you sucked, no rejection.

  A wash of humid air bathed my face when I pulled open the door to the pool. Inside, a racket that made moot my decision to leave Ginny at home met my ears. Chatter from the spectators crammed into the raised bleachers, along with whistles and starting horns, and shouts from coaches and encouraging teammates as they crowded at either end of the pool, screaming for their guy to go faster. It deafened me, but made blending in easy.

  I surveyed the bleachers, wanting to get off the deck as soon as possible, and spotted a few spots big enough for my skinny ass. A couple of steps had me sandwiched between what had to be someone’s dad—decked out from head to toe in Whitman green and black and jostling everyone with his foot-stamping, fist-pumping gyrations—and a pretty girl with dark red hair. She had on a white Whitman T-shirt and a green and black pompom in her hand, but almost looked too young to be a student. A freshman, maybe.

  We were swimming against Central Florida, whose red Speedos combined with Whitman’s dark green to make the pool deck look like Christmas. The meet had been going about half an hour, maybe, and it took some time to spot Cole among the throng of guys.

  He hauled himself out of the pool, droplets of water clinging to every hard muscle rippling across his back and down his arms. The tanned, perfect skin tapered at his waist and led to better legs than I’d ever seen on a guy in my life. For whatever Cole Stuart wasn’t, what he was included being in fucking amazing shape.

  My heart fluttered as he turned and took the black cap off his head, shaking water out of his ears and tightening the stacked muscle in his abdomen and chest in the process. The flutters turned to hot desire and pooled in my stomach. I tried to tear my eyes away but it took several tries, even when he moved into a crowd of teammates.