by Jordan Grant
As the flush continues down my neck and across my collarbone, I duck my head and disappear into a throng of students.
19
Ian
Practice went to shit last night before bursting into flames. Twelve hours later, I still feel the burn.
I have taken three scalding showers, used two ice packs, and chewed ibuprofen like they were breath mints, but my calves still feel like someone ran over them with a dump truck. My thighs quivered, actually quivered, when I climbed out of bed this morning. I stumbled to my bathroom like a newborn calf and popped a pill out of the stash under my sink.
Everything hurts. Sitting hurts. Walking hurts. Existing hurts.
Double drills.
Triple fucking sprints.
Then an hour and a half of alternating running the bleachers with burpees.
Every fiber of my being wants to climb back into bed and hibernate the pain away, but I can’t risk the old man finding out about an unapproved absence.
All because Coach said we needed to—and I quote—“get your heads out of your asses and focus on the game.”
Well, I hate to break it to him, but it’s a little hard to focus when your defensive line is talking about railing your girl.
The bastards know I staked my claim weeks ago on the first day of school, but what hot-blooded man could resist fantasizing about her perfection. So last night, they stuck a toe in the water and when I didn’t react—when I exhibited the tiniest vestige of self-control—they cannon-balled into the freakin’ deep end.
Thompson said he was going to show Harlow his lake house—a.k.a. his fuck pad—before humping the air like some ravenous dog and moaning his own name.
Bassett forgot his place and announced his plan to bend her over the hood of his convertible until she, quote, “creamed.”
Gallagher found his missing balls and told the entire team, “I guess we should show Beckett how it’s done and pound that pussy into next week.”
He got a laugh, but less than two seconds later, I made sure he fucking paid for it. Thompson and Bassett too, they all paid, even as Everett tried to tear me away. But then Coach made us all pay, and now I’m walking like a gimp because of it.
I shove my books inside my locker and turn to head to the cafeteria, stopping when I spot her. She is across the hall, inside a classroom.
Damn, she looks good enough to eat. At the sight of her, I remember the taste of her sweetness—honey and a pinch of salt—and the scent of her—fresh-cut granny smiths.
My own personal apple pie. My cock rises to the occasion.
Down, boy.
She doesn’t see me, and I watch as she waves to Victor “Vic” Rothschild as he walks to the door. The prick smiles his best heart-stopping grin, the light reflecting off his shiny canines. I want to punch the bastard. I want to make him bleed.
The mother-fucker is so fake, the Department of Justice should arrest him for counterfeiting.
He may be a pretty ray of blonde sunshine on the outside, but inside, he’s a hunk of rancid meat. Everyone knows he beat the shit out of Chloe Ellwish in eighth grade for refusing to suck his dick. She abruptly transferred out of state, and he went on living life like nothing ever happened.
My fists clench at my sides as the beast inside me roars, tugging on its chains, but we have a game on Friday, and Coach will bench me if I slam my fist into our linebacker’s pretty face.
All thoughts of my dumbass defensive line flee my head like a junkie scrambling from a crime scene. Rage fills me to the brim and spills over, hissing as it hits hot coils, when I see her smile back at him. She buys Vic’s bullshit.
I stalk forward, seeing only her. Kids dart away out of my way, but I barely notice their blips on my radar. My gaze never wavers.
Vic continues on his way out of the classroom, picking up speed when he sees me headed straight for him. Stormy still has no idea of the train wreck headed her way. She’s busy doing something with her books. It looks like she’s arranging them in alphabetical order, putting them in piles and then grabbing piles and putting those piles on top of other piles.
What the fuck?
I step inside the room and reach behind me to shut the door. My fingers flick over the cold metal of the lock as it latches in place. I don’t lock it because I fear getting a demerit if we are caught. I do it solely to avoid the interruption.
I am not feeling charitable, and I definitely don’t share. This isn’t a fucking community food bank.
“You’ve been avoiding me, Stormy,” I say, the words coming out deep and dark and growled.
She jumps, shrieks, and sends a pile of books toppling off the desk to the floor, in that order.
“What the hell?” She isn’t looking at me. The question isn’t even directed at me. She’s picking up her stupid books.
My bad mood sours further. As much as I like her kneeling in front of me, I am annoyed.
I am losing patience.
I can’t play this game much longer.
Hot, up close, and personal one minute as she kisses me like she wants me to tear off her skirt and fuck her hard. Cold and distant the next, like we are nothing more than passing strangers.
I need it to end.
My sanity needs it to end.
I. Need. Her.
“Dammit,” she murmurs as she stands, the stupid pile of books in her hands.
Why. The. Fuck. Won’t. She. Look. At. Me.
My patience is hanging on by a miracle and a thread. My eye twitches, a tic normally reserved for my father when he decides it’s necessary to scream at me, an all too frequent occurrence that always occurs in private.
Harlow brushes that captivating black lock of hair behind her ear and resumes examining her books.
“I don’t have time for this, Beckett.” She glances at her watch before frowning at her books. “I have Calculus in five minutes.”
I stalk toward her until the leather toes of my Testoni loafers brush against her regulation-approved black flats. Then she finally looks at me.
Fuck me.
I want to lose myself in her blue eyes. I want to drown in their arctic depths and then float lifeless, carried away by the tide.
The pulse point at the base of her neck jumps wildly as warmth blossoms on her cheeks.
“Hmm?” I question. I’m not really paying attention. When did I start playing with her hair? “Back to last names then? I am truly touched.”
“Don’t pretend to be offended,” she scoffs with a massive eye roll. “You don’t even call me by my real name.”
I laugh wryly, but inside I wonder how long until this game we are playing isn’t fun anymore? How long until one of us breaks?
“I keep thinking about you,” I say. Her hair feels like silk as it falls through my fingertips. I could stand here all day, just letting it cascade across my hand. “You’re like a virus, always worming your way into my brain.”
She stares at me, and that makes me second-guess everything. Maybe it is just a game to her and nothing more. Maybe I’m the only one in too deep.
I watch as her neurons spark. She’s exuding enough brain power to restart the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
But no, it can’t just be a game to her. I’ve heard her breath hitch when I stand too close, invading her personal space. I’ve memorized the way goosebumps bespeckle her flesh when I run my fingers across her forearm. She reacts all right. She may not want to and it may piss her off, but she definitely reacts.
Still, she’s not saying anything. She’s acting like three days ago, when she cried in my arms, didn’t happen, and I refuse to pretend along with her.
“Do you know why I left English early today?”
She shakes her head, and I lean in, letting my breath fan low against her throat.
“I left,” I say, “because every time I look at you, I remember the taste of your lips and the feel of you pressed up against me.” Her pulse flutters wildly.
“Do you want me to tell you whe
re I went?” I continue, catching a glance of her white knuckling the desk. Her eyes are glossed over as she nods.
I lean in farther so that my lips brush against the line of her jaw. “I went to the restroom, across from the one I found you in. Do you want to know what I did in there? I have to warn you though. It’s very naughty.”
She moans, and my dick is like an iron pipe in my pants as her eyes close and she nods.
“I fucked my hand in that bathroom, Harlow. And the entire time, I imagined it was your perfect mouth around my cock.”
God, I’m so hard it hurts. I want to bend her over this desk and pound into her.
She bites her bottom lip and blushes, turning as red as a cherry tomato aka what girls at this school call dinner. She swallows, but a tiny moan escapes her lips before she manages to silence it. She trembles, and although she can pretend all she wants, I don’t have to touch her to know she’s wet for me.
“Well, that sounds unfortunate for you,” she says eventually. “Having a sexual experience with a wad of toilet paper.”
I smirk. Ah, there’s that smart-ass mouth I love.
I lean forward, which forces her to lean back until she sits on the desk.
“Are you volunteering to expand my horizons?” I ask. "Enlighten me?"
Her eyes flit to the door like she’s hoping someone will come inside and save her. No such luck, sweetness.
Emotions scroll over her face like quickly skimming the pages of a book. Except I don’t skim. I read every last one. Confusion. Regret. Desire. I latch onto the last one.
I run my thumb over her bottom lip as I bring a hand to her waist, just above her hip bone. I massage her there, my touch gentle but firm.
Her breath hitches as I continue my massage. Her eyes roll back in her head as she arches beneath my touch.
“This isn’t a bad thing, Stormy,” I breathe, letting the words heat her lips. “We could make each other happy. We could make each other feel very good.”
“I…I…” she begins. I lower my hand slowly between her legs, pressing her skirt against her flesh as I cup her.
“You what?” I say, lazily making circles over her tights and around her clit.
“I…” Her eyes pop open, and I press harder. She moans and they close again.
“You what?” I say, dipping the thumb of my free hand into her mouth. She laves her tongue over it before clenching it between her teeth, and it is so fucking hot. My dick is rock hard.
“I…” she mewls.
I withdraw my hand, and this time, her eyes pop open and stay open. Her gaze is wide-eyed, confused, but it quickly narrows to murderous.
“I wouldn’t want you to share a sexual experience with that desk,” I say. “That doesn’t sound much better than a wad of toilet paper.”
“You are such a dick,” she spits, hellfire and brimstone igniting her gaze.
“I do have one of those,” I muse, leveling my gaze at her because as fun as this has been, my zipper is trying to tattoo itself on my dick.
I lean in and brush a kiss across her beautiful forehead. “I want to bury myself inside you until I find the meaning of life.”
Her breath hitches at my words, but I don’t kiss her on the lips. Because if I taste her, then our first time will be in this classroom, and that’s unacceptable. I want her in my dorm room so I can memorize of every inch of her skin, so she can ingrain her scent on all of my things, so I know what she looks like sprawled naked across every piece of furniture, every countertop, every inch of my floor.
I shove away from her and head for the door. When I leave the classroom, I walk straight into the bathroom.
20
Harlow
I stand on the tips of my toes, stretching for a book just out of my reach. Raven recommended it for Adaptive English, but it’s on back-order online and borrowing hers is not an option as she decimated it with highlights and her own version of shorthand.
I have avoided Ian since the classroom, um, incident four days ago, but I can’t hide in my dorm all weekend, despite my self-preservation instinct telling me I probably should.
My self-preservation instinct also tells me I probably shouldn’t be thinking about the beautiful incubus or how my self-control doesn’t just fly out the window when he’s near. It flies out the window, catches a ride to the nearest airport, and then gets a one-way ticket to the City of Good Luck, Bitch! Welcome to Good Luck, Bitch! where loss of dignity is a house special.
Not that I am good at listening to my self-preservation instinct anyway because…I need this book, damn it. Ian’s notes may be good—with some prodding, I might even admit they are very good—but I could use all the help I can get.
Elements and equations, I understand. I can free-hand the periodic table in under two minutes flat. But Adaptive English is like trying to learn an entire language in a semester, and it’s proving to be my biggest challenge yet. The thorn in my side—well, er, at my back—isn’t helping. Ian uses each of Ms. Edmonds’ lectures as an opportunity to level up his trolling skills.
As I stretch a little farther, willing my fingers to grow another quarter of an inch, Archie arrives at my side and grins down at me. He’s dressed casually—well, casual for Voclain’s student body—in a long-sleeve, white henley tee with navy blue sleeves, khaki chinos, and a pair of what appear to be men’s Ugg boots. He looks like the messy version of a J. Crew model, and by the smirk that flaunts his dimples, he knows he pulls it off.
“Need some help, shortstop?” he asks. “Maybe a camera so you can remember me this way forever? A cardboard cutout perhaps?” He shakes his head and gifts me a wink. “No, that won’t do. I think we’d both prefer the real thing.”
Heat pops to my cheeks and spreads until my face is on fire. Still, a laugh bursts from my lips as I shake my head.
“I’ll just…I just…I need that book,” I manage, lifting my chin at the book and rocking back on my heels.
Archie reaches above my head, and I realize too late that I should have moved out of his way because he is dangerously close.
The front of him brushes against the side of me, my shoulder sliding across the plank of his chest. He is warm and solid, and my fingers—cold from forgetting a jacket on the way out of my dorm—want to reach out and soak up his warmth.
He smells just as fantastic, like vanilla ice cream. I am sure no one smells this naturally delicious. It must be some ridiculously expensive body wash he uses. My eyes nearly roll back into my head. I want that ice cream to melt so I can lick up every single drop.
Jesus, it has been a long time since I had a boyfriend. Too long…
Well, fine, I’ve only ever had two boyfriends if you count Jimmy Daniels inviting me to homecoming last year, which I do, and Conner Everling in the ninth grade. But how long has it been since I’ve been on a date, held a boy’s hand, or laid down on the grass next to him and stared at the stars? Not unless you count that drunken night with…I shake the thought away. It doesn’t count. The point is something inside me yearns for the personal contact, the touch of another.
Yes, that must be it. I’ve lost my mind. People go crazy when they are alone. Just look at Tom Hanks’ character in Cast Away. Somebody please call a doctor because I have a bad case of need-a-boyfriend-itis.
Too bad all of my available options at the moment, though admittedly have-I-died-and-gone-to-Heaven gorgeous, are off-limits. What’s that phrase? If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Well, this girl plans on standing until her feet crack and bleed and her knees give way.
Need-a-boyfriend-itis isn’t fatal, right?
“Harlow?” Archie says, snapping me back to reality like I just free-fell and reached the end of my bungee cord. My eyes pop open at his words.
I should not have opened my eyes though, because Archie stares down at me, and the look on his face spells triumph in bold, capital letters. Oh, no. He knows what I was thinking.
“You’ve been coming to the games with Raven a
nd Everett,” he says with no room for argument, his eyes colored like tropical waters kissed by sunlight. “Will you come on Friday? I could use a good luck kiss.”
This feels different from the flirtation in Chemistry because right now, it is just him and me in this deserted corner of the library.
It’s personal. No, that’s not right. It’s damn-near intimate, like lovers whispering to each other in the dead of night.
“I…” What am I going to say?
As I stumble over my words, Archie leans in and runs the back of his tanned knuckles down my jawline. I swallow hard, willing my lungs to remember how to work.
We are too close. I should tell him to back away. I should back away.
He could kiss me. I could kiss him. We could...
“Archie,” I manage with a throaty croak, “everybody knows you are with Ivy.”
Archie full-on smiles. He shakes his head slowly, sending his dirty blonde curls swaying gently. His expression becomes serious when he says, “No, I’m not. I haven’t fucked her since the day I first saw you.”
The revelation steals the breath from my lungs.
“I can’t do anything about Molly,” he says, and, to his credit, he does actually look sorry about the fact. “But I like you, Harlow. I know I’m not your first choice, and that’s okay.” He leans in so close I have to tip my head up to look at him. “I’m not promising you a happily ever after, beautiful—I honestly don’t know if I’m that sort of guy—but I can show you a good time.”
I stare at him, lost in clouds of vanilla and his coquettish grin. Maybe I should take need-a-boyfriend-itis more seriously because I’m suddenly in need of a cold pack for my feverish forehead and about a thousand more for my body.
“Are you two going to get it over with? Or do I have to watch you eye-fuck each other all damn day?” Ian growls, stalking down the aisle to stand behind me.
I yelp, my arms flying and knocking the book from Archie’s hand. Archie laughs, shaking his head.
