Read Online Faster We Burn by Chelsea M. Cameron - Free Book Online Page A

can be whatever you want to be.” She leaned in the doorway.
    “I guess I can be your friend. If you want me to be.”
    “I want you to be what you want. You have enough expectations already.”
    She looked down with a little smile.
    “You’re right. And yes. I will be your friend. At least for tonight. What time?”
    “Around six?”
    “Sure.” I waited for her to move, but she seemed conflicted.
    “We can still screw each other if we’re friends, right?” she said.
    She leaned closer and touched my belt.
    “I have absolutely no problem with that definition.” I moved closer to her and I was about to yank her in for a kiss when she took a step back.
    “No. I shouldn’t. I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”
    She skipped down the stairs and I was left with a hard dick and no one but myself to take care of it for me.
     
    Katie
     
    “What are you doing?” Lottie said as I went through my closet, trying to find something that would work for a music “session.” I’d gone to plenty of concerts, but this was totally different. I didn’t think my pink glittery cowboy hat would be welcome. Or maybe it would. I had no idea, which was what made it so hard to choose.
    “Looking for something to wear. Stryker invited me to one of his music things and I don’t know what to wear. Ugh, I have nothing!” I threw everything off my bed onto the floor.
    “You have more shirts than I have books,” Lottie said, getting up to help. “And that’s saying something.”
    “I just don’t want to look like an idiot.”
    “You could never, ever look like that. Well, maybe if you wore this,” she said, holding up a pink shirt that said STAY CALM AND WAIT FOR PRINCE CHARMING. It had actually been a sarcastic gift from Kayla. I’d forgotten that I even had it.
    “You’re the makeover queen. Look at what you did with the red dress.”
    “I know, but it’s one of those things that I can do for other people, but not for myself.” Lottie started folding shirts and putting them back on my bed.
    “You’re overthinking, which means you care. A lot. Stryker isn’t going to care what you wear. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
    “It’s not him I’m worried about.” It was his friends. I knew pretty much nothing about them, except a few of their names and that they played instruments. Other than that, I was shooting blind.
    “How about this?” She found a soft t-shirt with little pink flowers and a grabbed one of my pink cardigans.
    “Super cute,” she said, holding it up to me.
    “Hey, you’re stealing my makeover thunder,” I said, pulling the shirt I’d been wearing over my head and putting on the t-shirt.
    “Here, take these,” she said, handing me one of the only pairs of earrings she owned. “Will had a weird moment and bought me these last Birthmas.” They were dainty drop pearls, and not the cheap ones either. I had a pair that were pink, but I’d forgotten them at home.
    “There. You’re perfect,” she said after I’d added some make up. “Now get out of here, you crazy kid. Have fun.”
    I’d never been nervous going to Stryker’s apartment, so this was a first. I had to park on the street because his lot was taken up by an assortment of cars that all looked like something he’d probably worked on at one time or another.
    My heels clicked on the porch and I took another breath before I knocked.
    “It’s open!” a voice that wasn’t Stryker’s yelled down the stairs. Once I opened the front door I wondered how they’d even heard me knocking because of the noise that came from his open door at the top of the stairs. I wouldn’t exactly call it music. My mother would have been horrified.
    I took my time getting to the top step and poked my head into the open doorway. Five guys and three girls were crammed on and around the couch and on the futon, some of them with instruments, some of them with bottles, but all of them staring at me. Stryker was in the exact middle of it and