Wicked Tease: A Bad Boy Next Door Novella

by Aubrey Irons

  “It is.” I shrug, giving a dramatic sigh. “It is, in fact, my life’s goal to follow you around getting under your skin. How am I doing with that, by the way?”

  And there it is; there’s my problem. As much as I want to forget about Addy and just move on with what I should be doing as a young, charming, unfettered college freshman with access to alcohol and willing coeds, something always pulls me back. Something always gets me to bite at the bait, and something always has me trying to get one last line in instead of shutting my mouth and just walking away.

  Somehow, it’s impossible for me to walk away from this fucking girl.

  “How did you even get into this school?”

  “Because I’m a genius.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “So who’s this date?”

  “None of your business, that’s who.”

  “Yeah but you’re just dying to make it my business, aren’t you?”

  She looks like she’s about to say something but she stops and purses those pink, perfect lips for a second. She narrows her eyes at me, like she’s judging the situation before she finally smiles coyly.

  Well, Addison Tanner’s version of “smiling coyly”.

  “His name is Jamie.”

  “Told you that you'd be dying to tell me. He sounds like a douche.”

  She rolls her eyes. “For your information, he’s the president of the student union, actually.”

  I laugh. “That fucking senior from orientation? The dickwad who wouldn’t stop telling people who his father was?”

  Her lips purse together, and I snort out another laugh.

  “Well, I’m sure Senator Tanner would approve of your exquisite choice in pedigree dating.”

  “Still pouting that I didn’t sleep with you, huh?”

  I blink in surprise at her actual zinger of a line as she grins triumphantly at me.

  Okay, didn’t see that one coming.

  “I don’t pout, princess, and I also don’t make a habit of sleeping with desperate, half-blacked-out drunk girls.”

  Her jaw drops.

  Shit.

  “Fuck you, Cole.”

  Yeah, that one I might deserve.

  “You want to know how you’re doing with that goal, Cole? You want to to know you’re doing with following me around getting under my skin?”

  “I mean, if you want to give me a sliding scale or whatev-”

  “You’re doing great, asshole,” she spits at me. “Congratulations, you’re doing great at it.”

  She turns sharply on her Margaret Thatcher pumps and marches away.

  I don’t follow her this time.

  There are tons of hot, ready, and available coeds at this school, most of whom would be more than willing to spread their legs for me with the right charm, the right line, the right grin.

  As opposed to storming away from me like Addison Tanner.

  But then again, she was always different.

  Chapter 3

  Addison

  He doesn’t follow this time, and I hate the part of me that wishes he would. It’s the part of me I tried to cut loose years ago, and the part that just won’t let go.

  But I have to let go of that. We’re not kids anymore, and whatever…thing we had back then was over a long time ago, even before that disastrous kiss. We’re adults now, in college. Granted, at LSU, as opposed to Harvard or Columbia, both of which I got into. But then again, this is an election year for my dad, and with his whole platform being centered around education and “keeping Louisiana Louisiana”, it almost wasn’t even a surprise to find out he wanted me to come here instead.

  I’m closer to home, I guess.

  And it’s not like LSU is a bad school either. The political science major is really well-reputed, and if I somehow get some free time for electives, they’ve got an amazing art program, too. I got a dorm room with a really decent view of the quad, and even found some really awesome girls to hang out with at freshman orientation.

  Overall, I made peace with the fact that I was in Baton Rouge instead of Boston or New York, and decided this was actually going to be fine.

  That decision came about five whole minutes before I bumped - actually, physically bumped - into Cole freaking Grady.

  “Of all the gin joints, huh, Tanner?”

  That grin - the supremely confident grin, the deep dimples on his slightly scruffy cheeks, the crinkle around his dark brown eyes. That perfectly - I mean perfectly mussed flop of brown hair cut short on the sides and swept to one side. People pay a fortune to get their hair to do what his does, and Cole freaking rolls out of bed looking like that.

  It’s really just one of a laundry list of unfairly attractive and dangerously tempting things about him.

  And they’re all here at LSU, right here in front of my face. Not in my rearview mirror haunting that one night where he belongs. Here, taunting me.

  “Addison!”

  I whirl, half-expecting and half-hopeful.

  It’s not him, it’s Jamie Hopkins, the aforementioned “fucking senior dickwad”.

  I frown again, determined to force Cole and his obnoxious name-calling and petty jealousies out of my head. Because like I keep telling myself, we’re adults now, and this is college. And it’s high time I accept that regardless of his presence here, I have every right to be a college student.

  And that includes coming to student-faculty functions with Jamie Hopkins.

  “Glad you made it!”

  He grins at me in this way that is the polar opposite of Cole - a smile thanking you for your votes, where Cole’s hints at something dangerous. It’s cheesy and practiced, where Cole’s is wicked and spontaneous.

  The scoundrel versus the politician.

  I quickly shake my head again, trying to clear the ridiculous comparison. I will not spend my evening, or my four years here for that matter, comparing reasonable, appropriate guys to a little shit like Cole Grady, who I never even had anything to speak of with anyways.

  “I did!” I force a smile to my face and glance around the living room. This whole party was a lot more crowded when I first arrived. At one point, there was even a DJ playing thumping music in the ballroom.

  “Let me guess,” Jamie taps his chin thoughtfully before pointing at me. “Margaret Thatcher.”

  I grin. “You got it!”

  “Addy, did you seriously come to your first college Halloween party dressed as a librarian?”

  I didn’t just decide to dress like the former Prime Minister of Britain. At our last student body government meeting, we all decided to make a list of our favorite and most influential world politicians and historical figures and then draw from a hat to dress as them for the function.

  Jamie is very obviously JFK.

  Jamie with his tall, stately, clean-cut and put together look. Jamie with his private school polish, Jamie who’s already interning for a Louisiana congressman.

  Straitlaced, appropriate, charming, and most certainly Senator Tanner-approved Jamie Hopkins.

  “So?”

  He raises a brow, gesturing at his sixties style blue suit, complete with wingtips and an American flag pin.

  “Any guesses?”

  “Hmm,” I furrow my brow, tapping my chin in the same way he just did before opening my mouth for possibly the world’s worst Kennedy impression of all time.

  “Ask nawt what you cahn do for your country, ask what you-”

  I stop abruptly at the blank expression on his face.

  “I’m JFK.”

  I cringe at myself. “Yeah, no, I- never mind.” I plaster a smile across my lips. “Great costume.”

  “Thanks. I figured fake blood on the side of my head might be a bit much.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, it would have been a dead giveaway.”

  Jamie frowns, and I cringe again.

  God I’m bad at this.

  He seems to push it aside though as he leans close, smiling that elected official smile at me. “What if we got s
ome drinks and went somewhere a little bit quieter?”

  He smiles at me, his eyes moving over me in a way I can’t altogether not like. And I’m not a total idiot - I know full well what “let's go somewhere quiet” means, especially when we’re standing in a room of people having conversations at perfectly normal loudness levels. And while part of me feels like I should be incensed by the insinuation, the other part knows that clean-cut, charming, well-connected Jamie Hopkins is exactly who I should be associating with. He’s the sort of guy I should be going to parties with, and flirting with. The sort of guy I should be “going somewhere quieter” with.

  “I-”

  “There you are!”

  Oh you’re kidding me.

  I whirl at the sound of Cole’s voice behind me to see that smug, arrogant grin spread across his face.

  “Hey, I found one of those heavy-flow tampons you were looking for earlier.”

  My jaw drops as I just stare at him. Something twinkles in Cole’s eyes as he looks past me at Jamie.

  “Kennedy?”

  I’m still turned toward Cole, staring murder at him.

  “Uh, yeah,” Jamie says quickly.

  “You should’ve gone with some fake blood. Really would have made it a dead giveaway.”

  Cole cracks up at his own joke, ignoring the lasers lancing out of my eyes at him. I’m shaking I’m so mad, my face bright red and my hands balled into fists as I force myself to take a breath and turn back to Jamie.

  “I’m sorry for my retarded friend here, I think he’s been drinking.”

  “I’m totally sober actua- fuck”

  He hisses as I stomp backward with my heel on his foot.

  Jamie laughs. “Well, I actually need to do the rounds and say hi to some of the other student body heads anyways.” He smiles at me. “We’ll meet up later?”

  “Yeah, I’d love that,” I say quickly.

  “Nice to meet you, uh-”

  “Bender.” Cole sticks his fingerless gloved hand out. “John Bender.”

  Jamie smiles. “Right. Well, nice to meet you. I’ll see you soon, Addison.”

  “Hey, my man, I think I might’ve seen some suspicious characters on a grassy knoll outside, so, you know, keep your head down.”

  Jamie frowns and nods in a confused way before turning and making his way out of the room.

  “I miss him already.”

  I whirl on Cole, my cheeks bright red and heated and my fists clenched at my sides.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “That sounds fairly rhetorical.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  “Oh, right, clearly.” He clears his throat. “Look, let me go get you a drink instead of that guy.”

  “Oh, he can’t, but you can?”

  “Yeah, basically.”

  “You’re ridiculous. Dare I even bother asking why you think so?”

  “Cause I’m not going to slip something into it like that fucking creep.”

  I roll my eyes. “Creep? Cole, he’s the head of the student body. And do you have any idea who his-”

  “Oh my God, princess, do not say it, please.”

  I bristle. “What?”

  “Do not tell me I don’t know who his father is. You’re right, I don’t, and I sincerely don’t care.”

  “Jealous much, Cole?”

  He laughs. “Of that tool?”

  “You know, just because he’s career-motivated and comes from a family of connections, it doesn’t mean-”

  “Addy, please, that asshole has ‘privileged predator’ written all over him.”

  I laugh.

  It comes before I can help it. And it’s only for a second before I snap my mouth shut. But it’s enough.

  It’s enough to put a crack in the wall I’ve just been trying to put between us.

  Cole grins. “Look, come have a drink with me, Tanner. One drink. Think of it as an apology for the whole phone thing the other day. I owe you.”

  “You owe me more than a drink. You owe me cleaning up my record.”

  He laughs, one hand reaching up to push his fingers through his hair. “You know this isn’t high school, or the fucking penal system right? We had to come in for office hours and do paperwork sorting. Believe me, no one gives a shit after that, and there definitely isn’t any sort of record. In any case, I’ve been feeling bad about the whole thing.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  His eyes twinkle at me as his dimples deepen.

  “And anyways, we can’t drink here,” I say primly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re not twenty-one?”

  He rolls his eyes before grabbing my hand and pulling me from the room.

  “Cole-”

  “Trust me, princess,” he tosses back over his shoulder as we move through the thinning party.

  It’s the contact that does it. It’s my hand in his, and feel of his pulse and his skin against mine that brings the lie right to the surface.

  The lie about who made the first move that night.

  Because the horrible truth is what happened that night is the opposite of what I keep trying to convince myself of. It’s the opposite of what I keep telling myself in order to recover a little of my pride.

  Cole didn’t kiss me, I kissed him.

  I kissed Cole Grady that early summer night, and I’ve been trying to get away from him ever since.

  Chapter 4

  Cole

  “Here.”

  “What is it?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s beer, princess. Welcome to college.”

  Addy takes the red plastic cup from my hands and sniffs at it before she slowly takes a sip and immediately pulls a face.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks,” she grumbles.

  We start to stroll through the huge mansion. The mansion that somehow has people partying all throughout, but we're mostly isolated. The farther we get from the ballroom, the less people we encounter.

  “So you came out to a party tonight all by yourself?”

  “Function,” she says again, as if it’s principle for her to correct me.

  “And no, I came with my friends Veronica and Zelda.”

  “So where are these friends of yours?”

  She takes another quick sip of beer. “I actually have no idea.” She frowns as she glances around. “I have no idea where anyone is, actually.”

  “I caught Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf heading upstairs, we could try there?”

  She gives me a look and I grin at her. “Just messing with you, Tanner.”

  We move into an empty parlor room, and I immediately head toward the vintage stereo system and record collection in the corner.

  “Let’s put some music on, this is weird and entirely too quiet.”

  Addison gives me a worried look. “We can’t just put music on.”

  “Are you serious right now? Addy, yeah, we can.” I grin. “Besides, we can't even hear the music from here since the ballroom's so far away. You seriously need to lighten up.”

  “I’m plenty lightened up, I just don’t think we should just mess with Professor Henderson’s record collect-”

  I know we both hear it, because she stops mid-word.

  “What was-”

  “Shh.” I hold a finger to my lips, grinning, because I’m pretty sure I know exactly what we just heard. And a second later, there it is again - the very distinctive sound of a girl moaning from somewhere upstairs.

  And Addison Tanner’s face goes bright red.

  “Oh my God, please put some music on.”

  I laugh as I quickly skim through the shelf and yank two out, turning to present them.

  “Pixies, or The Replacements?”

  “Pixies.”

  I raise a brow. “Oh, we get to college and suddenly you’re into eighties post-punk?”

  Addison flips me off. “I’ve always liked the Pixies, thank yo
u very much.”

  The moan comes again, this time high and drawn out, followed by a guy grunting.

  “Someone’s having a good time,” I chuckle.

  Addy’s jaw drops as her face turns a shade of red I wasn’t even sure was possible.

  “Oh my God, please put some music on.”

  I smirk. “Fine. Name me one Pixies song and I will. And not the one from the end of Fight Club, that’s definitely cheating.”

  The moan comes again, staggered and choked, and Addy shakes her crimson face.

  “Okay! Fine! Uh, Bone Machine.”

  My brow shoots up, and for second, the pink fades from her face as she smirks smugly at me. “Is it so shocking that I listen to music?”

  I grin as I turn toward the record player. “No it’s just shocking that you listen to good music.”

  “Har har har.”

  I drop the needle and turn as the guitar riff comes in. “Last I remembered, you were obsessed with that godawful Smash Mouth song from Shrek.”

  “That was fifth grade,” she mutters.

  “Fair enough.”

  The music starts to crescendo as the lyrics come in, and I take a big gulp of my drink as I start to bob my head.

  “C’mon, Tanner, let’s dance.”

  She folds her hands across her tweed jacket. “Uh, no way.”

  I ignore her as I bob and shuffle her way, swaying my hips exaggeratedly until that tight-mouthed look on her face finally cracks into a grin.

  “There we go!” I hoot as she finally smiles. “C’mon, dance and live a little.”

  “I’m good just watching you make a fool out of yourself. Besides, this jacket is too tight to dance in.”

  “Then take it off.” I shake my head at her. “Look, you want to continue insisting you can’t have a fun time, be my guest. But I sincerely think it’d be good for both your health and your overall college experience to just let go a little bit. I mean, you used to be fun, princess.”

  “I’m still fun, thank you very much!” she shoots back.

  “Well?”

  The music is still rocking, and I’m still bobbing my head and moving my hips as I hold her gaze, not letting it go until I get an answer. And finally, she cracks.

  “Okay, fine,” Addy mutters, setting her beer down on the side table and unbuttoning her ridiculous old lady jacket. She shrugs it off and carefully folds it across the back of the sofa before turning back to me with her hands on her hips.