This Boy

by Jenna Scott

  We barely have room to move. I suppose that’s exactly the point.

  “Why’s it empty?”

  Hunter shrugs. “Nobody uses it anymore. Which is why we won’t be bothered.”

  As he pulls me close, a dark thought crosses my mind. I can only think of one reason why Hunter would know all the hidden corners of the school, and it sends jealousy pulsing through me. “I’m not sure I want to know how you know that.”

  Cupping my face, he says, “Shh. You’re so red right now.”

  I scowl. “I had to basically sprint to keep up with you. Your long-legged pace is the equivalent of running for a woman of average height.”

  “I wanted to get here ASAP,” he says with a hint of humor in his tone, but it’s gone when he speaks next. “So we could have more time to do this.”

  Our lips touch. Softly, and then harder, more desperate.

  I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve kissed by now, but it’s to the point where I should be used to it. Yet every time still feels like the first: my heart is racing, my stomach doing somersaults, my insides turning to liquid. I can’t get enough. I wrap my arms around his neck, bringing him closer.

  I can’t believe I’m making out in a closet at school. It’s a rite of passage, I guess.

  Though I have to admit, it’s seriously hot. And Hunter is…handsy. And really fond of groping my ass under my skirt.

  His kisses turn hard and bruising, like he’s starved and I’m a morsel to be eaten. And being the center of his attention is like being swept up in a hurricane.

  I decide to stop being shy and do some touching of my own. But he’s wearing a vest, and his shirt is tight-fitting, unlike mine, so I can’t just slip my hands under to touch his skin. I growl in frustration, and Hunter pulls away, snickering.

  “What are you trying to do?” he asks.

  “Touch you,” I say, reaching to unbutton his vest, but he stops my hand.

  “Tell me what you want,” he says hoarsely.

  The way we are, all wrapped up in each other, I don’t even feel embarrassed when I answer. “I want to feel your skin against mine.”

  I get no warning before his lips and tongue are on mine again. Our teeth click, and as I unbutton Hunter’s vest, he loosens my tie and begins to work on my shirt until it’s halfway open. His handiwork from Friday and the weekend is revealed, and he spends a long moment surveying the red marks all over my cleavage.

  I trail my palm down his hard stomach, relishing the taut muscles under my fingertips and the way Hunter’s breath catches before he starts kissing my neck. My collarbone. My chest.

  “Please don’t give me any more hickeys,” I say before he gets any more ideas. “At least not in places people will see if I wear basically any summer clothes.”

  Hunter traces the lace edging the soft cups of my bra. “Meaning I can do it here.” He tugs the edge down a little and plants his lips over the exposed skin there.

  A jolt runs through me when he sucks, and I arch my back. He kisses every stray freckle on my chest, and every time his tongue comes out, I feel myself tighten. He’s so good at this, every one of his movements adding to the hot wetness between my legs.

  I’m on my tiptoes, my arms around his neck, trying to climb him like a tree. Hunter seems to realize it and lifts up my thigh to pull me closer still. That’s when I find irrefutable proof that I’m not the only one who’s turned on.

  “How are you already hard?”

  “You make me lose control. It’s like every time I see you, I just want to—” He stops to shake his head and smiles at me. “Look at me, telling you how I feel.”

  “Admitting to being turned on isn’t what I’d classify as a vulnerable moment.”

  His grin widens. “So, are you?”

  “Vulnerable?”

  “Turned on,” he clarifies.

  I look down, embarrassed, but I know that if I want him to be honest with me, I owe him the same in return. “Yes,” I whisper, so low I barely hear it myself.

  A glint brightens Hunter’s eye while his hand moves down my thigh. “Do you want me to take care of it?”

  Something in me keeps holding back. What if I let him do more, go further, and then the novelty is over? He says I’m different, but still I can’t quite grasp why. My doubts gnaw at me, souring what would otherwise be the hottest lunch hour of my life.

  “We’re at school, so no. Also.” I take my hand out from under his shirt and place it over his chest. “The physical stuff might be no big deal to you, but it is to me.”

  He has the decency to look chagrined. “I honestly thought you liked it last time I did it. I wasn’t trying to push.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t, but...” I chew on the inside of my cheek, and then say, “I couldn’t understand why you were doing it, other than to mess with me.”

  “I did—I do want to mess with you—but not in the way you’re implying.” Hunter pulls away a little, both hands coming to rest on my waist. “When I saw you crying, I knew it was my fault. And when you reacted the way you did to my brushing away your tears, I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t help myself.” He takes a long breath, eyes straying to the ceiling before coming back to hold mine. “You felt bad. I wanted to make you feel good, and that was the only way I knew how.” His gaze narrows. “I told you to stop me if you wanted to. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I was really confused at first, and then…” God, this is so embarrassing. “Then it felt good. And I was even more confused.”

  “That’s why you pushed me away?”

  I shrug. “It was all too much, too soon. And you wouldn’t even kiss me properly. It didn’t feel right.”

  “I’m kissing you properly now.” Hunter brings our lips together to prove the point, curling his tongue around mine while he strokes my thigh. “So…does this feel right?”

  I grab his wrist. “Slowly, Hunter.”

  He looks down, and huffs out a sigh. “I’m trying, but I don’t know how to take it slow. So just tell me when to stop, or whatever you think will keep me in line. I’ll respect that. Also.” His hand goes around to grab my butt. “You have a really nice ass.”

  He presses himself harder against me for a second, and then he’s suddenly lifting me, so I do what comes naturally: wrap my legs around his waist. His other hand comes up to massage my breasts through the fabric of my bra. “All of you is really nice.”

  I know I’m blushing. “Even though I’m a chub?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody,” I lie, not wanting to bring my mother into this moment.

  Hunter gives me the side-eye. “That’s bullshit. You’re fucking perfect, Milla,” he says, kissing the space between my breasts, and in that moment, I believe him.

  “You can touch me above the waist. Whenever you want. But.” I pause for dramatic effect. “Everything else, you have to ask first. Okay?”

  “Deal,” he says and brings our lips together. It’s slow and measured, and I feel myself sink into it. Into him. Hunter’s solid, and he’s warm, and he’s steady, and I don’t want to let go.

  But when the bell rings, I make myself pull away. “Come on. We have to go.”

  He buries his face in my neck. “I don’t want to. Let’s cut fifth period.”

  I laugh. “As much as I’d love to do that, I have priorities. And it’s not like we won’t be with each other later.”

  “Here I thought you didn’t like hooking up at the house,” Hunter says as he lets me down gently.

  Once my feet touch the floor, I begin to button my shirt back up, and he does the same. “That’s because you’re as shameless as you are tireless and seem to lack common sense.” I fix the knot on my tie and smooth my hair down. “Or have you forgotten your brother almost walked in on us yesterday?”

  “You were the one who started it.” Hunter finishes closing his vest.

  “And you kept it going!” I argue back, but then we’re looking at each other, and
this is such a silly argument to have I can’t help but giggle. As if it’s contagious, Hunter laughs too, and then he’s pressing me against the door again to kiss me one last time.

  Finally, I place a hand on the doorknob and ask, “You ready?”

  With an awkward smile, Hunter waves to the tent in his pants, which I’d been politely trying to ignore. “I think I’ll stay here a few more minutes. Think about baseball. Icebergs. Other cold things.”

  I have to laugh again. “Well, get it under control. I’ll see you later.”

  It’s weirdly flattering to know I have this power. That the effect I have on him isn’t something he can control, just like the way he affects me isn’t something I can control.

  Hunter nods. “Looking forward to it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Camilla

  Midterms are coming up, so to combat my anxiety, I’ve come up with a strict schedule to maximize studying time. Ravenclaw, remember?

  Beyond my usual homework hours, I have a bunch of notes saved to my phone for when I’m babysitting and Harrison is otherwise entertained. Isabel and I made flashcards, too, and I go through them every day during meals. It’s not just my Oak Academy scholarship that’s on the line. My college acceptance(s) are contingent on my final grades senior year, and if my GPA is high enough, I’ll be eligible for much-needed scholarships to cover some of my tuition. Or all of it. A girl can dream.

  As hard as I study, though, it feels like there’s no end to what I need to memorize. Dates, names, major historical events, the scientific method, Spanish words… They all blur together in an endless sea of information. Shockingly, AP Calculus is where I’m doing the best, and it’s all thanks to Isabel. She has a way of explaining math that makes it feel logical, breaking it down into bite-size steps. Unlike my teacher, who spends class trying to get us to wrap our heads around big abstract concepts that don’t seem to apply to anything in real life.

  Unsurprisingly, her parents are pushing her to dedicate her life to numbers and formulas; Isabel being Isabel, all she wants to do is study art and fashion.

  “Don’t get me wrong, STEM is great, and it’d be awesome if that were my passion, but it’s just not,” she explained. “I want to get into costume design.”

  At first, I sided with her parents—I feel like she could be better than Zuckerberg and Bezos put together or go into research and find a cure for cancer. Yet she’s so happy when she talks about all the different eras in fashion, or when she finishes a particularly elaborate costume in her sketchbook. There’s no way I’d want her to pursue anything that didn’t bring her joy. Whatever she chooses to do, I’m sure she’ll nail it.

  There is a downside to my master schedule though. Because I have to stay away from Hunter whenever it’s cramming time or else I don’t get anything done. The handful of times we tried studying together rapidly devolved into steamy make-out sessions, leaving me no choice but to draw a line in the sand and enforce it. Whether I like it or not.

  As great as Hunter is, I’m not going to let him become the center of my world. My independence comes first, and for that, I need to go to college. Not just any college, but a good one, with a degree program that will both challenge me and set me up to secure a solid job after I graduate. The kind of school with a name that makes people pause when they see it on your resume, that gets you job offers on sight.

  So, yeah. No pressure.

  There is one plus side though. My mom and I haven’t been arguing much. Not just because I always have my nose in a book but because she’s been making herself scarce as well. I’m not sure if she’s just working overtime or if she’s trying to respect my studying, but either way, it’s led to things being more or less harmonious at home.

  I adjust my position in my desk chair and try to go back to my Spanish workbook, but these conjugations are mind-numbing, and as for the vocab, nothing is sticking. I think I’m getting a little burned out from my marathon of Español today. With a sigh, I massage my temples. My chest feels like it’s being crushed. I never used to get panic attacks like this. Once in a while, sure, but ever since I started going to Oak Academy, it’s been almost constant.

  The only time I don’t feel that edge of panic creeping up on me is when I’m with Hunter. It’s been a few weeks since we started dating, or seeing each other, or whatever this is, and slowly but surely, he’s made himself a permanent fixture in my heart. It’s not exactly a relaxing time when he’s coming at me with all his intensity, but at least that tension is welcome and wanted.

  Going to the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of juice. I wish he were here right now. If I’m not going to be thinking about Spanish, then at least it should be because I’m having a good time, not because I’m too tired and miserable to study properly.

  A knock on the window in the living room breaks my daydreaming. Even though this has happened countless times, every time I look up and see Hunter on the other side of the glass, my heart jumps. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and as always, looks like he stepped right off the page of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

  It’s like he’s the devil, and my dirty thoughts have summoned him.

  After I open the door for him, I grumpily comment, “You should be studying too, you know.”

  “I have been.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “During the times you so very cruelly force me away,” he finishes.

  Without missing a beat, he scoops me up in his arms and walks us over to the couch, where he sits down with me in his lap.

  “And while I was cramming, I ran across this study…”

  “You ran across a study,” I deadpan.

  “I did. Read it too. And it said that breaks are necessary when you’re working hard. If you give your brain time to relax, it will absorb the information better when you resume studying.”

  “So you came over here to make me stop studying, so that I can actually study better later?”

  “Precisely. It’s in your best interest,” he replies, very seriously. “Otherwise I’m afraid your brain will melt from all the work and no fun.”

  I narrow my eyes. “And let me guess, you want to melt my brain in a different way.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  We haven’t pushed things any further since that janitor’s closet talk. Yet I know that he wants to. I can feel it in how he looks at me, in how his hands linger on my waist, in how he kisses me, in how he marks me all over with those goddamned hickeys.

  What Hunter doesn’t know is that lately, I’ve started to want more too. I fantasize about him constantly, and truth be told, I find myself dwelling on that time he fingered me up against a wall and wondering if it’d feel different to me now.

  He draws an arm around my shoulders, and I automatically sink forward, resting my chin on his shoulder. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be cramming harder, not cuddling. “I still have one more unit left to go,” I say, but it comes out a tired whine.

  “If you really want to keep studying, I suppose I could indulge you.” Hunter trails his hands down my back, squeezing as he goes, making me moan at the massage. The boy is good with his hands, I can’t deny that. I can feel his smile against my scalp as he kisses the top of my head. “We could have some fun with those flashcards of yours.” His hands fall to my hips, and there it is, that weight that tells me he wants more. “You get a question right, you get to take one item of clothing off me.”

  I laugh against his neck, smelling soap and cedar on his skin. “And let me guess, if you get a question right, you get to take one item of clothing off me.”

  “Correct.”

  Ha. I see where this is going, and while it would distract me, I wouldn’t get any studying done. “Playing strip study with you would be an exercise in futility.”

  “Oh? I think that depends on what your goals are.”

  I walked right into that, didn’t I? A sigh bursts out of me, and I take another breath of him. He must’ve taken a shower right
before coming over, he smells so clean. “I need to concentrate,” I murmur drowsily.

  “Okay. Think of it this way…” He shifts me so he can hold my face and force me to look at him. “If you can keep your concentration through a game of strip study, then you can keep your concentration through any midterm.”

  Sure. Or I’d start thinking about him during the exam, and my mind would go completely blank. “Some other day. Right now my brain just needs a quick rest. So…”

  I lean forward and brush my lips against his. When I lick his lower lip, turning more aggressive, he shivers. When I bite it, he groans. Our mouths fuse together, and now my body acts on instinct, as if it’s developed a will of its own. I want to be closer, to feel his heat against mine, but I don’t have Hunter’s boldness or his experience.

  “Milla, you keep grinding on me like that, I…” Hunter’s breath catches, and it sends a thrilling chill down my spine.

  I’m already playing, not with a small fire, but with a full-on blaze. But there’s something to seeing him as out of breath as I am, as desperate as I am, that has me pushing for more, asking, “You’ll what?”

  All of a sudden, Hunter flips me over so I’m horizontal on the couch, back against a throw pillow with him on top of me.

  His kiss is hot and bruising. Our teeth clash at several points, and I’m not sure where his tongue ends and mine begins. Under his weight, I sink deeper into the couch cushions. My legs wrap around his, my hands sliding into his hair, and I drown in all the strong feelings he brings out.

  Hunter frees my lips and moves down to my neck. I actually moan when he licks me there, and my hips helplessly undulate against his crotch. He’s already hard, and my fingers twitch to touch him. I blame it on curiosity, although it’s not the driving factor.

  “Do you want to know what really helps relaxing?” Hunter whispers against my ear. “What will definitely give your head a rest?”

  I have the feeling this is yet another sex trap, but I willingly walk right into it. “What?”