She's Mine - Jenika Snow Page 0,2

than not and tried to use him as his personal punching bag tended to make anyone want to be able to protect themselves.

But those fucking days ended two years ago, right after Reese put up with enough shit and showed his old man exactly how it felt to get knocked around.

A “hardened life”—that's what these little BMA bitches murmured about him. He snorted at that thought. Fuck the lot of them. They’d never know what real struggle was.

He weaved his way through the bodies and headed into the kitchen. He needed a beer and a shot, and not in that order. After getting the shot first and tossing it back, he grabbed a red plastic cup filled to the brim with the amber liquid and guzzled it down. He needed to be drunk to hang out with these assholes. He got another refill, ignoring the way the girls looked at him.

They wanted him for one reason. He was a bad boy, and not like the little rich pricks they hung around.

He searched the party, expecting to see Nate. That rich fucker who was so unlike Reese they should have been enemies, but who had somehow become his best friend. The asshole was loaded, as in his family founded and built the elite Black Mountain Academy. But he wasn’t like the other snobs who attended. Reese couldn’t even place why they clicked, but hell, stranger things had happened in life, like Reese attending a private school for starters.

He even tolerated Nate calling him “Trenton” like the swimming jock Nate was.

After giving up the search to see if Nate had shown up, and not bothering to text him to verify, Reese was about to head out back, maybe smoke a joint and let the chatter of the party fill his head, when he saw her.

She stared at him, this down-to-earth but fucking pretty little thing who stood out just as much as he did.

Keira Sheppard.

The good girl at BMA who was shy and reserved, and who stared at him an awful lot. But he didn’t get the vibe from her she wanted to fuck him because he was the local trash. She seemed more curious than anything else. And in turn, that interested him, even though it shouldn't. Girls were not on his radar. Getting good grades, a recommendation for college, and leaving this fucking town and starting his life elsewhere were what he needed to focus on.

He looked away from her, but he found his focus sliding back to Keira more times than should be comfortable. She wasn’t looking at him now, and he took that moment to just stare, to take in her features. Fuck, she seemed out of place, standing off to the side with her back to the wall, that red cup pressed to her chest. She brought it up and took a sip, and the grimace on her face after she swallowed had him smirking.

She hated it but was trying to fit in.

He should look away, but for the fucking life of him, he couldn’t. And he didn’t miss the guys watching her, checking her out. He was pretty sure she had no clue they were eye-fucking her, but whether she knew it or not, the opposite sex sure as hell noticed her.

And that had this weird feeling slamming into him. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth at the uncomfortable feeling. He noticed a prick looking at her up and down, then saying something to his buddy, who in turn checked her out. He obviously couldn’t hear what they said, but he didn’t have to hear them to know the obscene fucking things they said about her.

He should go up to the little assholes and bust in their teeth for talking trash about her. She deserved better.

I don’t even fucking know her, have never even spoken to her.

That didn’t seem to matter where this possessiveness and jealousy came in. It was definitely misplaced, but not something he’d been able to push away.

He growled low to himself and turned around, heading to the back, because his head was getting all muddled and clouded with shit he shouldn’t be focused on.

Keira Sheppard wasn’t his, and he shouldn’t be concerned what anyone said about her or who she was with.

And as he thought those things, tried to beat that reality into his head, he still couldn’t stop the images of her playing on repeat in his mind.

3

He’d caught her staring at him. More than once. Humiliation was a