by Ella James
I pull a door open.
“You fucking with me, Drake?”
“No sir.”
“Well... fuck. I can’t believe that. I just can’t believe that you... You’re sure? You sure you’re sure? You got more than one person telling you this, and it’s not a mistake? It’s not your—being paranoid because of... ?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure, coach.”
“I’m gonna keep this to myself. I want to see you both next fall.”
I can hear the words, echoing off lockers. I don’t know why my mind chose to regurgitate them now.
I shake my head.
My gaze rises to my right hand, and I use it to pull the first canister out. I set it on the countertop and get a second, third, and fourth.
I sweep my eyes over the array. The things inside this cabinet are as essential as they are horrible.
I take one of them in my hand and feel the smooth, slick plastic under my fingers. I take the top off and empty its contents onto the granite.
I sift through them. They whisper as I push them around. There are guidelines for this, but I always tweak them. Fuck the rules. Where I am, they don’t apply.
I gather the ones I need into a pile, then put the cap back on. I store the container back inside the cabinet and repeat the process eleven more times.
Then I close the cabinet doors, leaving most of their contents untouched. Those things I will need later, if it gets that far.
Three more minutes in the small room, one long gulp of soothing water and a splash on my hot face, and I’m back in my bedroom.
I rub a hand through my hair, run my fingers over my brows, where want of sleep already tugs at me. Then I hurry down the stairs.
I’ve got an eighth of an ounce in a vacuum-sealed bag under the sink. I toss that into my messenger bag, grab the books and notebooks I need, and let a deep breath out as I shut the door behind me.
Next time I’m here, I won’t be alone. If I play my cards right, I might never be alone again.
Three sharp raps jerk me out of sleep. I shoot up, slamming my forehead against the underside of the study table that dominates my little library room.
It’s the same room I was in with Kellan Walsh, so the first thing I think about after my eyes focus on the green cinderblock wall and my palms flatten out on the rough, industrial carpet, is the feeling of him driving into me. For a heart-racing second, I’m immobilized. Lust is the brightest color mixing on my mind’s easel.
Fear becomes brighter. On the other side of the door, I envision furious police, a snarling drug dog, my mother’s devastated face, a gossipy library monitor who somehow saw Kellan and me fucking like animals on a hidden camera...
I scramble out from under the table and straighten with a wince. I’m dizzier than a kid at a carnival, and my mouth is painfully dry. My hands shake as I try to right my twisted leggings, tug down my rumpled Smuffins shirt, and straighten the big, black shawl that’s doubled as my blanket. I’m not wearing a bra.
I grit my teeth as The Man knocks again. “Just a second, please!”
My Vera Bradley overnight bag sits, unzipped and barfing up my favorite outfits, on the padded bench where Kellan had me in his lap last night. Beside it is my book bag, crammed with my laptop, day planner, and text books. I wrangle with the overnight bag until it’s zipped, tug the shawl away from my body with a prayer that my nipples aren’t hard, and drag my tangled hair into the rubber band around my wrist. I take a shallow breath and pull the door open.
When I see Kellan, my stomach somersaults. He’s wearing a blue and white gingham button-up with a pair of straight-front khakis that look like they were made for his trim hips and long, strong legs. His blond hair looks a little messy and a lot soft. His stubble-shadowed jaw and the gorgeous planes of his face remind me why he has his way with so many girls.
But it’s his eyes that drop an anchor to my soul. Something about the way they fix on my face. There’s concern there, born not of alarm but interest. It makes his gaze soft.
For an intoxicating moment, I wonder what it would be like to be cared for by him. But that fades as I remind myself I’m being unrealistic. Fantasizing. I have the desire to be cared for in this silly, over-the-top, romance novel sort of way... But the guy standing in front of me wants a sex deal. If there’s a real person somewhere underneath his sharp clothes and Spartan body, I’ll never know it.
He makes my panties wet and—yes—he piques my curiosity, but so what?
I break my gaze away from his and cast it down to the grease-stained paper bag he’s holding. Is that for me?
He doesn’t notice me eyeing the bag. He’s too busy noticing my situation. His eyes trail up and down my sore body, checking me out. When they meet mine, they are wide with incredulity.
“You slept here.”
I clamp my teeth down on my lip and let my eyes wander to his shoes. What do I say to him?
“What happened?”
I look from his shoes to my socked feet. There’s a hole above my right foot’s pinkie toe. “Milasy... found the brick.”
In the thick silence that follows, I focus on the motion of my ribcage, moving much more gently than my frenzied mind.
When I get the nerve to look back up, I find his fingers curled around the door frame. “Did you tell her where you got it?”
“No. Of course not.” I wrap my arms around myself. “I’d never do that.”
His shoulders slacken. His face relaxes as he steps toward me. I take a step back into the room, allowing him to fill it up. His husky voice says, “That’s good, Cleo.”
He’s so wide, so tall—and I can smell him. Shaving cream and something earthy; spicy; rich; the way I imagine “warm” should smell. The back of his hand comes up to brush my cheek. “You slept on the floor.” I feel myself flush as his fingers trace the little pock marks the carpet made on my cheek.
“Cleo,” he says, low and taut. His eyes press mine. “You should have called.”
I draw my face away from his hand. Not just because his fingers are making me dizzy, but because there’s something in the tenor of his voice that strikes a painful chord inside my chest. “You’re not my superhero, Kellan.”
He frowns. “You don’t think I would have helped?”
“You already know how I feel about you. You’re a predator, remember? An opportunist. Clearly.” I turn around and lift my book bag off the bench. “I don’t know what to do now,” I say, aiming to fill silence. “I won’t be able to work with you if people know I deal. I’ll have to find a—”
“Milasy’s going to rat?”
“Well, no.” I adjust the book bag’s straps and shake my head. “She said she’d tell people something came up with me. Some other obligation that’s keeping me away from the sorority. I can go to chapter meetings and stuff, but nothing fun. And I had to give her some of my stuff. Like, purses and things. One of my favorite pairs of boots.”
His mouth opens. “She took your things?”
I nod.
Kellan’s jaw clenches. As quickly as I see his anger, he extinguishes it. “That’s bullshit.” Well, most of it. “I can help you get your things back. And I think Milasy will keep it to herself.”
“Why?”
He shrugs.
“She said if I get caught by anyone else—she mentioned you specifically,” I say with a roll of my eyes, “then I’d be kicked out of Tri Gam. She even checked the records that I kept as treasurer. It’s so insulting. I did it on my own. I started my business from nothing. I didn’t steal a bunch of rich girls’ money.”
I raise my hand to cover my mouth, because seriously, I never planned to say all that to him. I cover my whole face with my hand, only lowering it when I hear him laughing softly. “Righteous indignation.” He reaches out and cups my cheek. “You know your face gets red.”
I pull away from his warm touch and lean my butt against the little table. “This whole thing is such a mess. I feel like I can’t deal at all si
nce she knows... and is mad and stuff. But I don’t know what I’ll do without the income. I make a lot of cracks about ‘I need a Coach bag’ and stuff like that, but the truth is I’m not even sure that I could stay here at CC without that money. I get literally nothing from home. My mom and grandmother both think I live off grants. My plan for years has been to have a little nest egg for Mary Claire—for my little sis—before she goes to college, so she doesn’t have to—”
Kellan shakes his head dismissively. “Don’t worry, Cleo. I’ll take care of Milasy.”
“How?”
He grabs my overnight bag off the bench, pulls my book bag off my back, and shoulders them both. He pushes the door open. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”
I’m not sure if that means he doesn’t want to talk here or he doesn’t plan to tell me about Milasy, but I have the strange thought, as we walk through a common area, that Milasy finding the brick has altered the course of my life. I’m not sure how much yet, but without a doubt, it has.
If I’d been sleeping in my room at the house this morning, I wouldn’t have let Kellan in. Not because I don’t want him, but because deep down, I know he’s only using me. For my body, for my business—for both? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care about me. I’m just a means to an end.
And I don’t know if I can handle knowing that when his soft eyes are on me.
I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT—Kellan’s offer. Which may not even be on the table anymore. But if it is... it’s probably too much money to pass up.
Money isn’t everything, of course, but it’s a lot. If money’s never been scarce—if you’ve never helped your mom search every crevice of everything in the house for change to put gas in her ’91 Accord—maybe you wouldn’t understand, but when you have no means, you have no choices. Even something as simple as choosing the high-quality deodorant at the grocery store was revolutionary for me after I first started dealing. Being able to grab a snack I want at a gas station, or buy one notebook for each of my school subjects, rather than a five-subject spiral notebook that would have to work for all my classes.
You know how they say ‘it’s the little things?’ It so is. Like eating cheese. Not the boring, WIC-approved kind, but the good stuff: asiago, halloumi, Havarti. When you have one pair of shoes and it rains, guess what? They start to stink, because you have to wear them the next day, and the next day, and the next. Life goes on, but I don’t like stinky shoes. I like crackers. Do you know how expensive a box of Cheese-Its is? Plus or minus four dollars. What about jeans? I like jeans that fit my curves in all the right ways; not the cheap ones. I like painting on canvases that don’t come from the discard pile behind Michael’s. Almost all my art from high school is on ripped canvas.
But it’s the little things that other people notice, too. They didn’t see my mom working sixty hours a week to make rent on our little house, they only saw the second-hand clothes she bought me. They saw the perma-sweat-stained strap of my one and only bra when it peeked out of my shirt. They could see past my pathetic attempts to dress myself up with my one nice jacket I got for Christmas the year before, or the earrings that belonged to my great aunt.
I don’t want to look second-rate.
I don’t want to always be reaching.
I don’t want to be a cashier, or a gas station clerk, or a mill worker. I’m so close to all my goals, I can’t give up now. Even if I have to spend a couple weeks at Kellan’s illicit river mansion, sticking my ass into the air for him.
It’s not as if I’ll mind that. Sharing my body with him can be done without too much heartache, I think, if I can manage to remember the limitations of our arrangement.
A strand of hair falls into my eyes, and I swipe it off my face. In doing so, I get a glimpse of Kellan, striding a half foot in front of me. He’s got my backpack slung over one muscled shoulder and my overnight bag hanging from the other. I notice, as I pull ahead to walk beside him, that he’s still holding the sack.
My stomach rumbles at the sight of those grease stains. “What’s in there?” I ask.
He looks down, as if he’s only just remembered he’s carrying it. He gives me a small, lopsided smile—a smile that feels distracted, as if he’s only peeking out at me from wherever he is inside his head. “You’ll see.”
He holds his free hand out, and I stare down at his forearm. The skin on the inside of his arm is smooth and pale, softness stretched over taut muscle.
I glance at his eyes. They’re steely and blue. I keep waiting for them to start to seem less gorgeous—and I’m still waiting. He raises his brows disapprovingly, urging me with just that look to take his hand, and me being me, I fold after only a moment.
“Skittish,” he murmurs, closing his fingers around mine.
“What?”
“You’re skittish. Like a deer.”
With a tug of my hand, he steers me to the right, toward a wall of bookshelves stretching from floor to ceiling.
I open my mouth to tell him I’m not a deer. I’m a sloth. It’s my longstanding nick name, from back in middle school, when I was pudgy and took forever getting ready to go places, but I get the feeling he’d give me grief for it. Instead I tell him, “I’m not skittish. I’m suspicious.”
“Don’t be,” he says.
We walk through an opening in the wall of books and toward one of the library’s outer walls. Punched into it is a door I’ve never noticed before. We stop in front of it, and I look to Kellan, who is pressing some numbers into a keypad beside it. It opens with a soft click, and he ushers me into a tiny kitchen, with the same cinderblock walls as the rest of the library’s rooms. These are painted mauve and adorned with half a dozen of those cheesy inspirational posters that always seem like jokes to me.
I inhale the lingering scent of peanut butter and bananas as Kellan releases my hand, shifts my bags down onto the floor, and steps over to the microwave. I admire his broad back as he sets the paper bag inside. My eyes roll from his shoulders to his ass. I don’t want to stare, but I can’t seem to help myself. I’ve seen him at soccer games a few times, and I always noticed his golden god looks, as well as his model-hot mug shot in the school paper... but up close and personal like this—damn. He’s hot enough to take my breath away.
He punches a few buttons, then turns back around to me. I barely jerk my gaze away in time to avoid notice. He smirks a little, and I arch a cool eyebrow as my pulse skitters. “What? You have a sticker on your ass.”
His lips curve into that radiant smile. “A sticker?”
I nod placidly. “Want me to get it off?”
His eyes dance. “Oh—I do.”
“Okay, well turn around.”
He turns around, and... there’s no sticker, of course. When he asks to see it in a moment, I’ll be empty-handed. Before I can stop myself, I draw my hand away, then slap his ass as hard as I can.
I hear him suck his breath in, and he whirls around, his face a riot of intensity. He catches both my wrists in one of his big hands and steers me to the brick wall with his hips. “Cleo.” He sinks his teeth into my neck. He kisses me roughly down to my collar bone, and my body convulses in a shiver.
He bites me again near my throat, and I feel heat swell between my legs.
“I’m going to have to punish you for that,” he murmurs to my neck. He raises my arms above my head and pushes my wrists into the wall.
I giggle softly. “Just getting the sticker off.”
“I’m sure.” He rocks his hips into mine, and his thickness juts against my lower belly. I swallow a moan, unwilling to give him that satisfaction. I clamp down on my lower lip so hard it stings.
“Tonight,” he murmurs.
Then he releases my arms and turns back to the microwave. I’m thrilled to see his shoulders are heaving. I’m breathless and light-headed as I watch his back, trolling my gaze along his muscular arms as he pulls the bag out. So intently am I watching his body, I actually jump when the kitchen door opens and Laura Lancaster, the SGA
secretary, breezes in.
“Kellan!” She smiles. Her perfume permeates the room as her eyes widen. “Kellan’s friend.” I’ve seen Laura around—she’s a Phi Mu who always smells like she bathed in Coco Chanel—and I remember her being friendly. At this moment, she looks excited enough to launch herself into the stratosphere.
I look to Kellan for a clue to how to behave. He’s leaning casually against the counter where the microwave sits, the hand that just bound both my wrists hanging loosely from his pants pocket. “Laura, this is Cleo.” He waves at me. “Cleo, I think you probably know Laura.” He tilts his head toward her.
I nod. “Hey, Laura.”
“Hi.” She gives me a warm smile and then she sniffs the air. “Something smells delish.”
Kellan reaches into the bag and draws out the biggest croissant I’ve ever seen. It’s fluffy and greasy, and it looks like it’s been rolled in sand. Brown sugar, I realize as my mouth waters.
“Want one?” he asks Laura.
She shakes her head and smacks her curvy hip. “My next class is intermediate tennis. My ass does so not need a yummy. But thanks anyway.”
“More for us.” Kellan winks. “See ya later.” He’s flawlessly cool as he grabs my bags, then presses his hand against my lower back and guides me toward the door.
The scent of the buttery croissant makes my mouth water as we step out of the room, back into the bookshelf forest. “Is that cinnamon?” I sigh. “Oh God, I can smell the butter. Gimme!”
He rips off a piece, and we both stop walking as his fingers bring it to my mouth. Taking it from him is surprisingly erotic. Sweat pops out all over my body, so I make a big show of falling sideways, almost into a bookshelf, to distract from my reaction.
“Swoon! Oh holy God, this is the best shit I’ve ever put into my mouth. Where did it come from?”
His lips curve, into a smile or smirk; I can’t tell which, but he’s handsome as hell, and I’m alarmed to find that I’m pleased the smile or smirk is all for me.
“You’ve never been to the Fifth Street Bakery?” he asks as we start moving toward the side door of the library.
