Free Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) by Brooke Jaxsen

Skylar for a defensive type. The fact that the guy who had been ignoring me, who had basically kept me on edge, kept me needing and wanting, was getting jealous, was perfect. That was my plan: to make him want me and to be able to deny him what he’d want, the way he’d been denying me and knew it. I didn’t like being Gatsby, looking at his number as if it was a green light across the waters and wondering if I should reach out and contact him, if I should sent smoke signals or wave a flag or do something to get his attention, if I should text or find him on Facebook or send him a Snapchat of my naked breasts to get some sort of reaction out of him. I wasn’t supposed to be Gatsby, I wasn’t supposed to be Ophelia, drowning.
    And Skylar, the Skylar I’d found myself inexplicably drawn to that first night at Club Grit, the Skylar I’d wanted to nuzzle into at the coffee shop and just forget about the life I had at UCBH with, the Skylar that was sour and sweet at the same time? Skylar was now a lion and he practically snarled, “This isn’t about you, Emma. This is about him. DeAndre’s been banned from the club since a few weeks ago. He was found in the closet with a blacked out drunk girl, or should I say, inside of her? She didn’t press charges but he was kicked out of the club, for good. And right now, he needs to leave.”
    “Whatever, dude, you going to make me?” challenged DeAndre. He had guts, challenging a bouncer when he had no bros to back him up, but maybe he’d forgotten that, forgotten that as a bouncer, this was Skylar’s turf. This wasn’t anything goes Pub Night, this was Club Grit, and there were rules that Skylar was paid to enforce, rules he took seriously. If he was going to have DeAndre leave, he was going to have DeAndre leave, and if he had to use force? Well, he was a bouncer, not a negotiator. He knew how to make problems disappear.
    “Yeah, maybe I fucking am.” DeAndre’s eyes widened as Skylar came up and separated us. He took DeAndre by the collar and I followed.
    “You can’t do that!”
    “Yes, I fucking can! It’s my job. I’m a bouncer, not your boyfriend, and I look out for everyone at the club. But, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t hang out with this scumbag anymore, no matter who his daddy is.”
    I looked at Skylar. Was he serious? Dead serious.
    I looked at DeAndre. Was he going to leave? Not a chance in Hell.
    I looked to the VIP. My friends were watching this wide eyed. I half expected Becca to drop her drink. The guy I always saw in the VIP, with lots of girls, the guy from Thursday? He came down the stairs and towards Skylar.
    “Is there a problem, Sky?” he asked.
    “Yeah, boss, there is. You remember the scumbag rapist? From the night you were away on business?”
    “Shit, that’s him? Get the fuck out!” he roared. “Take him away!”
    “You can’t throw me out, she didn’t press charges!” yelled DeAndre, but out of the dance floor came two more bouncers. One restrained each of the guy’s arms and they practically carried him off the dance floor and kicked him out of the club, in the front, so everybody could see.
    I tried to follow the bouncers taking DeAndre away but Skylar held me back, pinning my arms against my side as I turned. I fell for the old “tap on the shoulder” trick, nobody’d done that to me since high school, but it didn’t change the fact I was seething mad. “What the fuck, Skylar? What’s your fucking problem? You get so jealous when I dance with DeAndre but you can’t fucking ask me out on a proper date, or do anything other than be a dick to me? You won’t have me, so nobody else can?”
    He looked at me with the kind of eyes I’d never seen before, not his usual shiny brown eyes but ones that were duller, as if they were clouded by things held back, but that didn’t matter to me. “Emma, it’s not like that.” And neither did that.
    “Except it is, Skylar. It is. The sad thing is? I actually