I picked her up, her legs curling around my waist, and turned us around, the shower water rushing over our skin as I carried Angel under the jet spray and pinned her up against the tiles. I supported her with one hand under her ass and gripped the base of my shaft in the other.
“Do you have protection?” she asked, looking wide-eyed at my solid length caged in my fist.
I was impatient to bury myself inside her and give Nicky something to fucking chew on, but the shower room where any fucker could walk in wasn’t going to be it. If O’Hara came in here, I’d be off the fucking team quicker than I could get my dick down.
“I’m not going to fuck you,” I said, my fingers playing on the trim of her thong. “Not today. Not in here.”
“Okay,” she said, without argument.
My dick pressed up against the inside of her leg, the pink head reaching for her bellybutton, and she stretched her thong to the side, showing me she was ready.
“Let me,” I said, and ripped the fragile thong from her legs, yanking it free till it fluttered to the floor.
“Anyone would think you’d done this before,” she said with a cute-ass smile.
“Not like this and not with anyone like you.”
It was true. There was something about her. She was a pain in my fucking ass, but my dick was evidence of how much she had snuck up on me and I wanted her. I wanted her bad.
She cupped her hands around my neck and I lifted her higher up my stomach so she was hovering just above my hard-on, ready to slide right onto it with one minor movement.
“I’ve got you,” I said over her ragged breathing.
She nudged her nose against mine. I tilted my head so that our lips were touching, slippery from the water. She opened her mouth to let me in and my tongue swept over hers, sweet and light, then faster and more demanding. I leaned down to keep her lips on mine, and lowered her to the floor, her back grazing against the slick, tile wall and then I nudged her thighs apart with my knee. When she obliged and her legs parted, I lightly pressed two fingers to her warm entrance, my thumb brushing up over her clit. She gasped in my mouth and I smiled against hers.
I kept my movements unrushed, maintaining a slow, steady rhythm as she tore her lips from mine and buried her head into my chest, her heavy breathing a giveaway of how much she was fighting to control herself.
“Angel,” I murmured, taking my hand from her waist to grip behind her neck.
She pressed her mouth against me, a drunken murmur humming against my skin. I dipped a finger inside of her. She grabbed my biceps and I followed it up with another finger, my thumb still stroking her hard nub. I felt her clench around me and I coaxed her orgasm out of her with a few more lazy strokes, the pad of my thumb gliding easily over her satiny skin, wetter from her own arousal and the shower water.
“Let me see you.” I eased my chest back and tipped Angel’s face up to look at me, catching her in my gaze before she exploded around me, her amber eyes fluttering closed as she pulsed on my fingers. I plunged in a third while she was open and relaxed, feeling greedy from this small taste of her. This would never be enough. I’d have to fuck her sooner rather than later.
After several moments I let Angel free, onto wobbly legs. I was so hard it was painful, so I turned my back on her and reached for my shower gel, finishing off my interrupted shower. I could hear her behind me, rescuing her sodden clothes from the shower floor and I shut off the spray, ignoring the way my dick was waving at me.
“I’ve got a spare towel in my locker. Dry off and I’ll take you home. Did you bring your car?”
“No,” she said, holding her wet clothes in front of her naked body. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at me. Bit late for shyness after what we just did.
“Angel, I just made you come. No point in covering up now.”
“Julian, I don’t want you to think that–”
I cut her off. Nobody wanted to hear the rest of that sentence. “I don’t think anything,” I said, stalking past her in full-frontal and strode to my locker with her trailing behind me. I flung her a towel. “You can wear one of my jerseys, it’ll be long enough to cover you. Your clothes are too wet to put back on.”
“I’m not rebounding with another rebound,” she said when I turned my back on her and wrapped a towel around my waist.
Man, she was a fucking piece of work. Just when I was starting to be able to stand her.
“You think I’m a rebound? Not even close,” I said, sliding a T-shirt over my head. I dropped the towel and pulled on sweatpants, then sat on the bench to put on a pair of socks.
I looked up as Angel covered her body in the towel, regret fresh in her eyes. What the fuck did she have to regret? She came looking for me. She pulled her panties aside. For me. And now she regrets it. Fucking nerve.
“You won’t tell anyone will you?”
I stopped, dropping my sneaker to the floor. “Not if you don’t want me to,” I said, over the top of an irritable sigh. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
The air released from her chest was pure relief. “Okay. Good.” She turned and started for the other side of the lockers where she could dress in private, even though I’d just felt the lining of her inside walls. “Oh, and Julian?” she said, stopping just short of the lockers.
I looked up. “What?”
“This won’t happen again. I don’t know what the hell came over me, but this was a one-stop-shop.”
Yeah, right, I thought. That was only just the beginning.
I smiled. “Sure.”
<>
Wednesday night we skipped Kit’s for a party over at Kappa Sigma. Didn’t stop her finding me though, and she had stepped through the front door with Katlyn and Emma pretty much right after us. She sat on the counter behind me next to one of the kegs, her arms snaking around my neck, choking me while I tried to take a drink.
“Fucking hell, Kit. You’re strangling him.” Nicky side-eyed a sexy brunette as she walked by, and threw her a wink when she second-glanced him from over her shoulder.
Kit’s arms loosened and she shifted forward, tilting her head to the side, nuzzling her lips into the hollow of my neck. I dodged my head the other way. “For fuck’s sake, when did I start wearing a scarf?”
Nicky pulled up his eyebrows and then walked off.
Kit went quiet for a while, her hands coming away from my neck to knead the knots at my shoulders. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to shout at you.”
“You wanna go find an empty room?” Kit’s legs wrapped around my thighs.
She was wearing a skirt and I could feel her heat through my T-shirt. She edged closer, pressing herself into me. I put down my drink and turned around, her knees nipping together as I stepped back. She cinched the material of my shirt between her fingers and tugged me closer, breaching the gap. Her legs re-opened for me and I reached a hand along the smooth inside of her thigh, with my body as a guard, covering her. My fingers touched her damp, bare skin and her eyes glazed over.
She wasn’t wearing any panties.
Ah fuck.
I grumbled low in my throat and took my hand away. If I moved quick enough everyone would see what she had buried between her legs.
“So… upstairs?” she said, flattening her hand over my stomach.
I picked up my untouched beer. “Not tonight.”
The skin above her eyebrows crinkled with my decline to screw her. “What’s wrong with tonight?”
I was sporting a semi after I’d felt she was wearing nothing under her short skirt, but I wasn’t in the mood for anything else. I was fucked from a two hour practice, and I was facing the same shit in the morning. “I need to take a piss,” I said, pressing Kit’s legs together so I could get away and still leave her with some of her modesty.
I wasn’t feeling it tonight, just like every other night that involved her lately. I was struggling to finish one bottle of beer and it was warm by the time I took my last drink. I left the empty bottle on the b
ottom step on my way back downstairs to tell Nicky I was out of here, when I saw Jordan slide the patio door closed behind him and two preppy-looking frat boys.
My eyes started an immediate stakeout of the room. If he was here, she was here. I’d be surprised if Jordan could take a shit in peace without Angel wanting to know how big, where, and when.
I couldn’t see her anywhere, and fifteen minutes later I made up my mind I was leaving. I was about to make a break for it when Nicky jumped over the back of the couch, landing me back in my seat. He shoved a beer at me, leaning in with a sly smile. “Guess who just showed up? And drunk as a fucking skunk.” I started to tell him I didn’t care. “Angel O’Hara.”
I took the beer and shook my head. “That’s not her name, and I’m not you. I prefer my women conscious.”
“You can kiss goodbye to your Rover, Seven. If you haven’t fucked her by now you never will. You are turning into a fucking pussy.”
“We’ll see who’s a fucking pussy.” I got up off the couch and let Katlyn take my seat. Nicky got right on it, slobbering all over her like a dog.
I didn’t leave like intended. Not when I saw Kit with Marilyn and Angel. They were talking in the corner by the stairs and it looked too fucking serious for a party. I thought I knew Kit pretty well, but how much I could trust her was something else. Especially when she had been drinking and I’d not long ago turned her down.
Yeah, leaving looked like the best thing right now.
“Julian!”
Too late. I wiped the exasperation off my face and turned around. “Marilyn, what’s up?”
She ushered me over, her eyes half-closed and her drink spilling from her cup. “Come here a sec.” I started to walk towards them, brushing past a crowd off people. Angel’s expression was guarded, defensive even. “Who invited Jordan here?” Marilyn asked with a serious attitude, all pissed like it was my fault.
I smirked. “Maybe someone forgot to call Pest Control.”
“He’s upstairs,” Marilyn stormed on, more drink spilling to the floor, “in bed with another girl.”
I looked at Angel. Weakly, she said, “They weren’t doing anything.”
“Not my problem,” I said, staying neutral. “I was leaving anyway.”
I left them to it. I wasn’t getting involved in that. How much worse did things have to get before Angel woke up and saw what he was really like?
I cut across the lawn outside, where someone had set up a slip ‘n slide, even though it was fucking cold, and I realized that there was nothing neutral about the way my fists were clenched at my sides.
“Julian, wait!”
My fists clenched tighter at the sound of Angel shouting out my name. I turned around as she stumbled over the slide, slipping onto her ass to a round of cheering and beer-sloshing. I groaned and went to help her up, ducking to pick her up off the soaked grass.
“You okay?” I asked, when she winced at my hand on her arm.
She scooped her hair behind her ear, snatching her hand away quickly. “I think I sprained my wrist. It really hurts.”
I sat her down on the nearest wall, away from everyone else. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
I raided the scarce freezer inside the frat house, taking a bag of frozen sweetcorn.
“I know what you’re doing.”
Kit was blocking my exit.
“Making Sweetcorn fritters? Get out my way, Kit.”
She gave her head a subtle shake. Her icy-blue eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed with a pink tinge. It was hard to ignore how hot she looked when she was angry. But she needed to get out of my fucking way.
“I saw her fall, and I know why you’re helping her. Since when were you a knight in shining armor? Your suits rusty, you should really polish it.”
“Move, Kit.”
“Did you call off the bet?”
“There’s no bet.”
“She loves Jordan.”
“Help convince her that tonight?”
Kit’s gaze dropped and I sneered as I walked around her, bending down so she could hear me clearly. “That’s what I thought. You’re a great friend to Angel, really. But I see right through you.”
15: Angel
THERE WAS A LOUD buzzing in my head, an unfiltered white noise that refused to quieten down. I sat on the wall where Julian left me, cradling my wrist in my hand, immune to the laughter from the other side of the lawn.
Jordan had fallen asleep in bed with someone else. I didn’t see who—I wasn’t sure it mattered. So, yes, Jordan and I were officially over. His words might have been incredibly unclear, but lying next to another girl? The visual was affirmative. I felt cold—maybe from the weather.
“Got you this.” Julian sat next to me, straddling the wall, his whole body facing my direction. He pressed a frozen bag of something against my wrist, until I took over, holding it for myself.
“Thank you,” I said. I was starting to get a headache from how much I had drank earlier in the night. Turning up on Greek Row wasn’t planned, we winged it, last minute after a text from Kit.
Now I wish I’d stayed home.
It was too much, resisting the urge to lie down, so I gave in for a split-second, letting my body sway to the side. I was drunk, it was the only reason I hadn’t overreacted when I saw Jordan, and kept some semblance of my cool. Julian caught me before my body collided with brick and dragged me up into a straighter position, my back flush against his chest, between his open legs.
The ice-cold bag fell away from my wrist and Julian’s arms came around me, slapping it back against my skin, eliciting a wave of goosebumps from the chilly compress.
I looked down at his arms when they didn’t pull away, his tan skin against mine, holding the pack as if he genuinely gave a damn. I think I might have snuggled closer against his body, I was too dizzy from the alcohol to know for sure, or act embarrassed.
“I didn’t want to come tonight,” I said, mainly to myself. “Kit talked me into it, and Marilyn can’t say no to a party.” My eyes started to close, and then I was spinning. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would throw-up. “Why does he do this to me?” I didn’t think I’d said it out loud, but then Julian spoke.
“Because you let him.”
I took the longest breath. Sighing, I opened my eyes. “I don’t want to act this way, or to care as much as I do. But I don’t know how to be any different. I’ll never be good enough for him. Never.”
“You’re looking at it wrong.” Julian’s fingers started in a soft trail over the goosebumps raised on my arm, his warmth gradually making them fade. I felt like I should feel awkward or uncomfortable, but I didn’t. I was warm and content. “He’ll never be good enough for you.”
I frowned. Julian’s fingers stopped, like he was waiting for me to bite his head off, but I smiled, knowing he couldn’t see me. And then the spinning reached a level out of control and I jerked forward, leaning over the wall, emptying my stomach onto a dark patch of soil that may have been the early stages of a blossoming flowerbed. “Oh god, don’t look,” I warned, wiping the frozen packet of veg across my mouth. “I’m disgusting.”
“You’re not disgusting, you just need to go to bed. I’ll take you.”
I shifted my head to the side so I could see him. He looked different when he wasn’t so smug. Or maybe he looked different because we had fooled around, and he was no longer just Julian, my irritating partner in Sociology. “That was why I came out here, for a ride.”
A dark, transient look flashed in his eyes. “I’m parked round the corner.”
I looked at him longer, his expression once again evenhanded. It wasn’t just the smugness, or the fact that I had let him touch me in places I really shouldn’t have—he was different. “You cut your hair,” I said, dropping both my legs to the other side of the wall so I could reach out a hand and touch his short hair. It suited him. I mean, I liked his hair just fine before, all tousled and downright sexy, but this shorter, close-cut was to
tally bad-boy.
“Guess I am human. I need a haircut just like everyone else. It gets too long.”
I let my hand fall away when Julian narrowed his eyes, his lips curving in the silhouette of a smile. “I’m hungry,” I said. My stomach was hollower than an empty pit. Breakups should be recommended as the faddiest and most successful of all diets, because Jordan had made sure I could hardly eat a thing.
“I need grease.” I yawned, tiredness flooding my body. Standing up, or moving, suddenly looked like an unachievable task. “Lots of it.”
“I can stop by Five Guys if you want. It’s downtown, but it’s good.”
“Sounds perfect. I am so hungry I could eat you.”
Julian’s gentle smile swerved onto a more dangerous route, a shadow bathing his eyes. “Careful what you say, Angel.”
It seemed to take an age to walk to the car. But once we got going, the humming of the engine and the heat from the radiator wrapped me in a sleepy cocoon. I snuggled in next to the car door, the street lights blending together, whizzing past in super-speed. The glass was cool on my burning cheeks.
“Will Mia be in?” Julian asked me, as we bombed it down the highway.
“She was studying, so yeah, I guess so.” I side-glanced Julian, a loose smile on my lips. “Why? Were you hoping to get lucky?”
His look was smoldering and heat rushed into my cheeks, a lighter-than-air sensation rising in my tender stomach. What was happening?
“Not tonight, Angel.”
“What if I want to?”
“You’re drunk.”
My fingers started to tingle. “So?”
Julian’s husky laughter was like gravel cutting through silk, but I didn’t know what he had to laugh about because I was being one-hundred percent serious.
“So, I don’t take advantage of girls when they are hammered.”
“I would hardy say I was hammered.”
“I don’t care. Not happening, Angel. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
“Uh-huh, whatever.”
“What happened to one-stop shop?”
Falling for Seven Page 16
