The Hook Up (Game On Book 1)

by Kristen Callihan

  I jump at the sound of Lambert’s voice. Surely I’m staring up at her like a slack-jawed idiot.

  “Could you repeat the question?” I force myself to ask. I will not look at Baylor, who is likely smiling with smug satisfaction.

  Lambert’s lips twitch. “Do you believe that Plato’s utopia could work in a modern day society?”

  “No, ma’am, I do not.” It’s a short answer, but I’m too aggravated by Baylor’s presence to give a better one.

  “And why is that, Miss Jones?”

  Right. I suppress a sigh and try to look unfazed. “Because, at its core, it is based on the notion of perfection. That perfection is possible. Which it is not.”

  “Hold up,” Baylor cuts in, so fast, I wonder if he wasn’t waiting for an opening that would force me to look at him. “Are you saying we shouldn’t strive toward perfection?” His eyes twinkle, and I know he’s having fun egging me on. “Quite the defeatist attitude, Miss Jones.”

  “I’m saying that it isn’t attainable, Mr. Baylor, because perfection is impossible to define.”

  “I agree with Baylor,” a guy two rows up says. He’s wearing Baylor’s team jersey so I’m not surprised. Baylor’s defender gives me an accusatory glare. “I mean if Drew didn’t try to achieve perfection, we wouldn’t have won two Championships under his leadership.”

  I barely refrain from rolling my eyes.

  “This is true,” Baylor puts in helpfully.

  Ass.

  “There is a difference between trying to obtain a level of personal perfection verses expecting a society to unilaterally live in perfect harmony,” I say. “One relies on a personal expectation. The other is based on the masses following the opinion of one. And who decides? Who dictates this utopia?”

  “Plato, obviously.” Baylor grins at me.

  I glare back, but it’s hard to stay annoyed at his playful attitude. “Never mind the fact that we have virtually no examples of a utopian society thriving in a real world situation,” I say.

  One of the girls who has been mooning over Baylor since the beginning of the semester raises her hand, as if she needs permission to speak. “What about Atlantis?”

  Oh, Jesus Christ in a peach tree.

  I glance at Baylor, and he’s biting his lip to keep from laughing. It’s all I can do not laugh too. I look away before I lose it. But I feel him beside me, and know that he’s itching to let loose, which only makes it worse. It’s so bad that I barely hear Lambert’s response, which is good because I know it would make me laugh. A repressed snort to my right has me turning. My gaze clashes with Baylor’s and we share a look of glee, but it’s short-lived. Suddenly I remember the last time I stared into his eyes. When he was deep inside me, his cock thick and pulsing with his release, and the strangled sound he made as he let go. Heat swamps me.

  It must show. I don’t know how to hide it. His smile slips, as his lips part. On a breath, his gaze goes molten.

  Holy hell, I’m in trouble.

  Vaguely, I’m aware of people rising up around me. Class is breaking up. I can’t look away from Baylor. Not when he slowly rises. Not when he stops in front of my desk and holds out his hand.

  “Come with me.”

  I go, because I cannot ignore this need. But I don’t touch him. The moment I do, it will be over. I’ll jump on him right here and disgrace myself in public. Maybe he knows this because he lets his hand fall and clenches it in a fist, as if he too needs to practice restraint.

  The corner of his mouth trembles. He’s looking me over. I’m the meal and he’s planning how to go about consuming me. We turn as one and walk out of the classroom with deceptive casualness. But inside? Inside I’m burning hot. Again. How is this happening again? My black sweater smothers me, my tight knit skirt scratching the sensitized skin on my thighs. I want these things off. I want skin to skin. I want him so badly, each step is a struggle. Like I’m walking through warm, soap-slick water.

  Though he’s not touching me, Baylor is herding me along, clearly intent on some place to go. We can’t get there soon enough.

  A strangled sound of impatience escapes me, and his pace increases, his hand hovering just behind my back. I quicken my strides as we head for the massive main library that sits caddy-corner to the history hall. People come and go, striding up the wide front steps and under the high columned portico. Oblivious to us. To the thick heat that swirls around me, threatening to melt me the moment I come to a stop. I’m so worked up, I can barely get my student ID out and slide it through the scanner. Baylor does little better.

  A quick, hot look from him, and I’m shaking again, heading toward the elevator. God. I can have him there. Wrap myself around him. Sink my teeth into his firm flesh. Or sink to my knees and…

  The door opens and we step in. And so do three other students.

  My teeth meet with an audible click.

  Baylor stands next to me, his arm barely brushing mine. I feel it to my toes. We don’t look at each other. Don’t speak. He hits the button for the top floor where the rare folios are housed. Library Siberia. A haven.

  Slowly people get off on other floors, and we are left alone. But neither of us dares to move. As soon as the doors open, we burst free of the elevator. We’re walking as fast as we can without actually running. My throat feels raw, the space between my legs slick and my nipples tight and pushing against my bra.

  Baylor’s sneakers don’t make a sound on the polished linoleum, but my boot heels hit with a steady hard click, click, click. The floor is devoid of people, and so quiet that I can hear my own breath coming out in disjointed bursts. We head for the back, to the farthest row. My knees nearly buckle, and he takes my elbow. The touch burns.

  The second we reach the shadowy row, he pulls me in and whips me around to face the bookshelves. Without ceremony, he yanks up my skirt, shoving it to my waist. Rough, determined hands haul my hips back, practically lifting my ass into the air as he gets me into the position he wants me. It’s all I can do not to thank him, beg him to hurry the fuck up and fuck me. My fingers grip the steel edge of the bookshelf and slip a bit from the sweat on my palms.

  His breath is a raw, uncontrolled sound behind me, his heat palpable against my exposed skin. I press my lips into my sweaty wrist and arch my back, giving him a better view. The sound of his zipper going down and a foil packet tearing fills the air. My breath hitches, anticipation clutching low and tight in my belly.

  My panties are wrenched to the side. One stroke of his finger to test my wetness. Yes. Yes. And then he thrusts. Hard. I bite the inside of my lip to hold in my cry.

  So thick. So, so good. So deep that I’m on my toes, my sex pulsing. His fingers dig into my hips, pulling me back down on him, forcing himself deeper still. A ghost of a sound comes from his direction as if he too is swallowing his groan. I can’t take it. He’s too big. Too there. And then he moves, a fast, frantic pumping.

  I close my eyes, rock into his hips, meeting him thrust for thrust. Excitement and lust run over my skin with hot bites of pleasure. All is quiet except for our muffled breaths and the wet slap of flesh against flesh that we can’t control. His jeans-clad thighs press up against the backs of mine as he ruts into me. Because there’s nothing smooth or polite about this. He’s fucking me raw.

  My fists clench, the effort to keep quiet making me shake.

  His hands slide from my hips to under my shirt. His skin is so hot, his palms so wonderfully rough, that I suck in a breath. He slips under my bra, cups my breasts, and holds them as he fucks me. He’s going to kill me. I’m sure of it. I nearly scream when he captures the tips of my nipples with his fingers and tweaks them, plucking in time to his thrusts.

  Holy. Shit.

  My orgasm hits in a series of waves, my sex convulsing and clamping down on his dick. And he loses it. His mouth finds that vulnerable spot on my neck as he wraps his body around mine. The blunt tip of his finger touches my clitoris, and I’m coming again, just as he does.

  Th
oughts scatter like dry leaves until only one remains. I’ll never get enough of him.

  THIGHS SHAKING, BREATH rasping, I close my eyes and try to calm. God. That was… I have no words. My legs are so weak, I might crumble to the floor at any minute. Aftershocks of pleasure have me twitching, holding Anna tighter. I’m not allowed more than a moment to lean against her warm body and breathe her in before she jerks violently, trying to shrug me off. With her wiggling, I slip out of her and suppress a groan at the sudden loss of tight heat, but I can’t seem to move.

  “Off,” she hisses unnecessarily, giving me an elbow to the gut. I know she’s right; we can’t be seen like this. But, damn, a man needs a minute after something like that. I stagger back, tugging the condom off—one out of the five that I’d tucked in my wallet this morning because hope springs eternal—and tie it before looking around in a daze. Where am I supposed to put it?

  She’s glaring at my dick, or rather, the fact that it’s hanging in the wind. I make an annoyed face as I stuff myself back into my pants before zipping up. Spotting a trashcan in the far corner, I toss the condom in the empty bin—yeah, I don’t care who finds it.

  By the time I return to her side, she has her shirt fixed but is still adorably mussed. Breathing in a light pant, she smoothes her hands down her thighs to fix her rumpled skirt. Which makes me want to hike it back up. Then she gathers her hair in her hand and flips the length of it over her shoulder. “This can’t happen again.”

  I snort. “It’s going to happen again. You might as well admit it.”

  With a huff, she pushes a hand through her hair and glares. “No. It. Won’t.”

  “Yes. It. Will.” I don’t want to be an asshole, but I’m not deluded. “I want you. You want me.” A wry laugh escapes me. “Though I think ‘want’ is too weak a word here. ‘Crave,’ maybe. ‘Am insane for,’ definitely.”

  She goes pink, her lips, which I have yet to touch, pursing. I want to. I want to kiss her so badly, my lips actually throb with need. But I’ve hit a mark; I saw her jump when I said ‘insane for.’

  Acting on instinct, I grab her wrist and pull her close, noting that she doesn’t resist. I bring her hand to my crotch, where my hard-on is growing again—all praise the regenerative powers of a needy dick.

  A deep flush works across her cheeks, and damn if she doesn’t cup me, squeezing just enough to make me grunt.

  “I get like this every time I think about you.” I lean in, smelling the warm spice in her fragrant hair and the lingering scent of sex on her skin. “I just had you, and I’m aching to be inside you, to make you come all over again. So don’t tell me it’s going to stop. Not when you’re stroking me like that.”

  Anna snatches her roving hand away. “Okay, fine. You got me. I want you too.” She ducks her head and a tumble of curls hides her face from me, but not her words. “Badly.”

  She has no idea what that does to me. She couldn’t possibly be that cruel. It’s torture not to reach for her, tug her back to our secluded spot for another go. I probably wouldn’t last two minutes, as torqued as I am. But she’s moving now, striding toward the elevators with her swaying walk. I follow.

  “I’m failing to see the problem here, Jones. Let’s go out on a date. You know, like normal people who are into each other do?”

  A sidelong glance is all I get. “Look. I don’t want a relationship. Especially not with you.”

  I pull up short. “Why not with me?”

  “We’re too different.” She stabs the down button and stares at the elevator doors. Dismissed.

  I don’t think so. “We’re the same in all the ways that count.” Why can’t she see this?

  Her back is to me, stiff and unyielding. “I don’t even like you. You don’t like me.”

  Wow. That hurts. Embarrassingly so.

  I lean a shoulder against the edge of the door panel, bending down enough to bring myself into her line of sight. “There’s where you’re wrong. I do like you. A lot.” I glance away, trying not to wince, then force myself to face her again. “I’m sorry if you don’t like me.”

  Again she ducks her head, another flush hitting her pale cheeks. “Sorry.” She shakes her head then clears her throat. “That was a shitty thing to say. I do like you. I just…” She lifts her hands up in a helpless gesture. “I don’t want a relationship right now.”

  Disappointment tumbles into my gut like an unmoored boulder. “Fine. Then we just fuck.” I give her a level look as a bell dings and the doors to the elevator open. “Because any chance you give me, I’m taking it.”

  I’M LATE MEETING Iris and George for lunch. Call it reluctance to face the firing squad. I’m under no illusion that they won’t figure out I’ve had sex with Baylor. I’m horrible at hiding things, and Iris is already suspicious of my sudden disappearance at the party the other night.

  Part of me wants to talk about it. Not about Baylor precisely, because the idea of him discussing details with his friends makes me cringe, and I refuse to be a hypocrite. But I need to process this insanity that’s got a hold of me. I cannot believe I had sex with him again. And in the library of all places. Anyone might have seen. The irony that I’m afraid to be seen with him yet let him fuck me in a public space, twice now, isn’t lost on me.

  Without warning, I think of him kneeling in front of me, his head buried between my legs. My cheeks burn and dark heat licks up the back of my thighs as I walk into the fifties style diner that sits just outside of campus. Good God, I want to turn around, find Drew Baylor, and do it again. I know now that it isn’t the thrill of possible discovery that makes sex with him better than anything I’ve experienced. It is him, the way I react to his body, his touch, his voice. And that scares the hell out of me.

  I like you. A lot.

  Damn it. If only he was someone else. Something else. A regular guy. A nobody like me. But he’s not and never will be. When I think of the public scrutiny he, and anyone he’s with, endures, I want to hide away, run for the hills.

  I take a deep breath instead and tell myself to chill. It’s over. It’s done.

  Iris and George already occupy a booth. As George is facing my way, he spots me first and raises a brow in reproach.

  “Sorry,” I say as I slide in next to Iris. “I lost track of time.”

  “We ordered you a vanilla milkshake, and fries are on the way,” says George. “But you choose the rest.”

  Six feet to Iris’s five foot three, George towers over her, but they share similar features, their Mexican heritage showing in their dark eyes framed by thick lashes, honey-gold skin, and glossy raven black hair.

  The waitress comes with our drinks and fries, her gaze lingering on George. “You know what you want?”

  “Always,” he answers with cheeky confidence that makes the waitress blush, and Iris and I roll our eyes. Not that I can fault the waitress’s taste. George is incredibly good looking. And while I appreciate that on an aesthetic level, I’ve never felt a glimmer of sexual attraction to him. Which is a good thing, as I’d rather have his friendship than a brief physical release.

  We order our burgers and, once alone, Iris turns in her seat to study me. “So…you gonna tell us where you got that exceptionally large hickey decorating your neck?”

  Shit. As if her notice has activated it, a spot where my neck curves to meet my collarbone, starts to throb. Memories assault me, of Baylor’s mouth there, his tongue sliding over my skin just before he sucked hard. I don’t want to know how bad it looks.

  George’s eyes glint as he leans forward. “That’s a beauty. Who’s the guy? Or is it a girl? God,” he puts a hand over his heart, “please say it’s a girl.”

  I toss my napkin at his head.

  “It’s Drew Baylor,” Iris says. “Isn’t it?”

  Cringing, I occupy my mouth by drawing a deep pull of milkshake.

  “Get the fuck out,” cries George with a laugh. “Seriously, ‘Ris, stop playing.”

  The icy glass in my hand lands on the
table with a thud. “Why is that so hilarious?” I blurt out. “Am I such a cow that the idea of me being with Drew Baylor is laughable?”

  A gurgle dies in George’s throat and he straightens. “Are you kidding me? You’re gorgeous. Baylor would be lucky to get near you.”

  “Well, thanks,” I say, somewhat mollified, and at the same time completely shaken. Shit, it’s happening already. The disbelief. The questioning. Why would Baylor pick me? Even I want to know. Which both stings my pride and makes me want to disappear.

  George shifts in his seat, looking irritable at his sudden burst of sentiment. “He’s just not even near your type. And you aren’t exactly his.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, George.

  “Opposites attract,” sings Iris. Then she all but pounces on me. “So it was Baylor? Oh my God, was he as hot as I think? Do the size of the shorts match the shoes?”

  George’s nose wrinkles like he scents something foul. “Can we not go there, ‘'Ris? I’m a guy.”

  “Oh, are you?” She shrugs. “I must have forgotten.”

  He makes a face. “Does that mean you want details of my hook ups?”

  “God no,” Iris and I say as one.

  George laughs, but he’s not deterred. “So was it Battle?”

  I pick up a fry, stabbing it in a pool of ketchup. “Does it really matter who it was?”

  “Yes,” George and Iris say as one.

  “Jinx!”

  “Ha! You lose, 'Ris. No talking until I say your name. Which will be in one hour.”

  “I’m not playing that tired game, boy.”

  “You called ‘jinx.’ That constitutes playing.”

  When they get together, Iris and George act like they are still in the fourth grade. I roll my eyes and sink farther into my chair. Maybe they’ll forget all about me if I refrain from making sudden moves.

  No such luck. Iris’s dark eyes hone in on me like a hunting hawk’s. “You might as well tell us. Better we know the truth than speculate.”

  She has a point.

  I swirl my fry.