by Maya Hughes
His heavy leg settled over mine, and he wrapped me in his arms. I didn’t feel stifled or caged in; I felt warm and safe. I could say or do anything with him, and he’d be right there beside me, ready to go.
“Give me twenty minutes, and we’ll get to work on finishing that box.” His voice was laced with sleep already.
“We don’t have to finish them all tonight.” I yawned and snuggled in deeper against him, wrapping my arm around his draped across my chest.
“I know we don’t have to, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. Just give me a little bit.” My yawn triggered his, and my eyes drooped. Just needed to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest up to see what he had in store for me later. I couldn’t wait. I might even have a few tricks up my sleeve.
17
Declan
I woke up, running my hand across the bed beside me, and my eyes snapped open when my hand hit cold, empty sheets. I shielded my eyes against the morning sun pouring in through the open blinds in Mak’s room. Sitting up in bed, I ran my hands over my face.
I glanced down at the nearly finished strip of condoms on the floor and broke out in a lazy grin. She’d absolutely worn me out, and I’d never fallen asleep more satisfied.
We’d had almost made it through the whole box. Waking up to Mak sitting on top of me, grinding her hips in circles with my cock firmly embedded inside her silky smoothness had to be the best all-time way to ever open my eyes in the dead of night. I would make it to eight a.m. classes no problem if she were my alarm.
Gazing up at her as she rode me, taking the pleasure that she didn’t seem like she let herself enjoy much, made me want to never leave that bed. I’d cupped her breast, holding her pert and plump mounds in my hands, pinching and teasing her nipples.
Her short, sharp gasps and clenching core had sent a shuddering shiver down my spine. I toyed with her clit while she threw her head back, calling out my name with her hair wild and sexy, flowing around her shoulders. It was an image burned into my brain. I sat in bed for a few minutes listening for any movement outside the room. Where is she?
Picking my boxers up off the floor, I slid them on and knocked on her bathroom door. No answer. Concern warred with disappointment that she wasn’t there beside me in the bed.
I opened it, and there wasn’t anyone in there. The bedroom door clicked and creaked as I swung it open and tiptoed out into the rest of the apartment, not wanting to wake her roommates—not that we’d been thinking about that last night. Maybe she’s out there?
“Dude, I’ve got a bruise on my ass in the shape of a handprint.”
Nope, only her startled roommate whose eyes got wide as saucers as she saw me pop out of the end of the hallway. She quickly shoved her skirt down that she’d had hiked up, craning her neck to see the handprint bruise.
“Hey.” A little thrown by how aware I was of being a kind of exposed, I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest. Not having a shirt on in front of someone had never even occurred to me, but for some reason in my boxers, with Mak’s roommate there and Mak nowhere to be found, it felt weird.
“Hey. You’re Declan McAvoy.” Her roommate had her hand wrapped around a mug and took a sip of coffee. The life-giving smell called out to me, but I didn’t have time for that.
“Yes, I am. Do you know where Mak is?”
“She went out. She said running and studying and stuff. She had her backpack.” She rubbed her eyes and yawned, still wearing her clothes from the night before.
“Right, thanks.” I turned back down the hallway, running my hands over my face. This was not how the morning was supposed to go.
“Do you want some coffee?” her roommate called down the hall after me. My concern turned into something else.
She was gone. From her own apartment. I checked my phone and there were no messages or missed calls. After sending her a quick message, I searched around the room thinking maybe she’d left a note, but once again I came up empty. What the hell?! Who sleeps with someone and just walks out on them in the morning like that?
All the times I’d done that in the past came flooding back to me, but this was different. With us it was different. I snatched my shirt and jeans off the floor and got dressed. Grabbing the rest of my stuff, I triple checked the room, not believing she’d seriously ditched me.
I left the apartment with an audience of two. Her bleary-eyed roommates waved to me as I walked out the front door for my walk of shame. With each step away from her door, I felt like everything that had happened the night before was being erased. The cool fall air blew around me, and I crossed my arms over my chest, determined to get answers.
My mind raced as I rushed across campus. Was it bad? Is that why she left? I’d made sure to make her come even though she wouldn’t let me go down on her. She’d been into it. We both were. More than I’d ever been into anyone before. Did she freak herself out? Hell, I was a little freaked out by those tender feelings and the comfortable way she felt with her hair tickling my chin, but I wouldn’t have just run out on her.
Without meaning to, I ended up outside her study room. My shoulders slumped as I peered through the small window beside the door. Empty. The rest of the floor was deserted.
When I finally got back to my place, I knew the pit in my stomach wasn’t from the beers; it was because I had it bad for Makenna, and she didn’t even want to stick around after we slept together. Maybe there was another reason. Maybe it was all a mistake. Hopeful, I sent her another text and waited for her to reply.
And waited…
18
Makenna
Waking up in stages, I cycled through about fifty different emotions before realizing exactly what I’d done. Declan McAvoy was passed out in my bed. Not from getting too drunk and sleeping off a bender, but from sex-haustion. Shooting up in bed, I tried to run my hand through my rat’s nest of a hair horror on top of my head.
Flashes of the night before bombarded me. Him running his hands through my hair, my hair wrapped around his fist as he took me from behind. I dropped my head into my hands. I’d never been that out of control before. Wanton and ready and needy. He did that to me, and it scared the shit out of me.
I was sore in places I hadn’t even realized could be sore. Sliding out of bed, my muscles screamed at me like they never had after a long run. I searched the floor and found my clothes from the night before. Intertwined with Declan’s on my floor.
As gingerly as I could, I untangled them and got my pants on, wincing at the ache between my legs. For a split second I entertained brushing my teeth or something, but the risk of him waking up was too high. My breath hitched as a skin-tingling memory from last night had me gripping the edge of my desk.
I could still feel him everywhere. And he felt good, but this wasn’t what I needed. Maybe I’d needed it last night. I must have because there wasn’t anything other than a fire that could have kept me from wrapping my legs around his hips and demanding he fuck me.
Attributing it to a severe lack of sleep and way too much stress, I was totally over the hump now. You know you’re not came a small voice at the back of my head. Even standing at the end of the bed, where he was sprawled out with his hard, muscled ass peeking out from the sheets, I wanted to climb back under the covers beside him.
I wanted to slide back into his arms and pretend running away had never crossed my mind, but I couldn’t. Attachments were the last thing I needed, and definitely not with him.
Being as quiet as possible not to wake him up, I packed my bag and raced out of my room with my shoes in my hand. I stopped short when I spotted Fiona standing in the middle of the kitchen in her outfit from last night.
“Hey. Did I send you a text last night?” She glanced up over her soup bowl–sized mug of coffee. Her voice sounded like she’d been gargling shrapnel.
“Hey. And no, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because drunk me keeps fucking deleting all my texts and my contacts. So I’ll start getting a
ll these weird messages and I have no idea who is sending them and what they are talking about. It’s really annoying.” She glanced at me with bloodshot eyes.
“What are you doing up so early?” I’d pieced it together, but maybe she hadn’t just gotten home and passed out in her clothes instead.
“I just got in. Your auto coffee maker setting was running, so I grabbed some before I pass out for like an hour and then get to brunch with my parents.” She rolled her eyes and choked down another gulp of the steaming-hot coffee.
I hadn’t expected anyone to be up. Glancing back at my room, I debated telling her Declan was there, but that would have brought up a whole host of other questions.
“I had a friend over last night, but I need to get going. I’m going for a run and then studying, so I’ll see you later.”
Bolting from the apartment before she could ask any questions, I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life until I hit the edge of campus. I’d thought about taking my car and driving somewhere, anywhere, maybe even going home, but doing that would almost be like admitting defeat.
Like I needed to separate myself to handle what had happened between me and Declan. I was fine. It was fine. We’d both blown off some steam, and everything would be okay. He had to do that kind of thing weekly. It wasn’t a big deal.
That small voice was back, trying to tell me it was, and kept bombarding me with flashes of the night before that had me standing in the middle of the walkway with a shiver racing through my body and a tingling in my decimated vagina. It was going to need at least a week of bed rest after this. I was surprised no one asked where my spurs were, because I was pretty sure I was walking like a cowboy.
Walking across the grass on the quad, I felt like everyone knew what had happened. I’d had dirty, wild, nonstop sex with our very own hockey superstar.
How had I let things go that far with him? Was he hot? Yes. Sexy? Absolutely! But to sleep with him? Not only once, but like five times or however many condoms were in that box. I’d had that box for over a year, and in one night we’d nearly demolished it.
It was definitely the most irresponsible thing I’d ever done. Sure, we’d finished the midterm and I’d turn it in a little later, but still…
Sitting in the deserted dining hall that smelled like a mix of barbecue sauce, chicken fingers, bacon, and cinnamon, I stared at the worn wooden table in front of me. I decided carbs were the way to keep that little voice at bay. Stuff my face with syrup, bacon, and other breakfast foods and the night before would melt away.
I resisted the urge to bang my head against the table. I’d slept with Declan last night. The hard planes and muscular bulges flashed in front of me. I squeezed my thighs together making me completely aware of the soreness and aching that warred for dominance.
All my belongings were piled on the table in front of me. It looked like I was a little kid getting ready to run away from home. I should have gone to my study room, but that would be the first place he looked for me. Why was I running again?
Oh yeah, because Declan was not the kind of guy to have warm, fuzzy, wake-up-in-your-arms-and-want-to-snuggle-in-deeper kinds of feelings. He was the wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-so-we-can-bang-one-more-time-and-then-he-sneaks-out-at-the-break-of-dawn kind of guy. I figured I could beat him to the punch. Get out before he did.
My phone pinged, but I refused to look at it. There was only one person who’d be texting me this early, and avoiding him meant texts as well. Probably checking to make sure I wasn’t going to screw him over for our class.
The dining hall staff loaded up the buffet, and I dragged myself out of my chair. I grabbed a damp tray from the stack of always-wet trays beside the breakfast foods. This time of day there weren’t that many people around. A few freshmen who were still used to waking up at high school times and ate early, people who’d been out all night and needed solid dining hall food to help them sleep through their hangovers, and me.
My stomach was fine from the only beer I’d had the night before. My lightweight status was still firmly in place. Bacon and carbs wafted from the kitchen out to the food lined up under the heating lamps along the buffet line. I snagged French toast sticks, bacon, and orange juice and waited for eight a.m. That wasn’t too early to call a college-aged person on a Saturday morning, right? Wrong.
“Who died?” Her groggy voice on the other end of the line told me maybe it was a hair too early.
“No one died, Avery. I just needed to talk.”
“And you couldn’t text like a normal person? What the hell, Mak? It’s like five in the morning.” Avery’s bleary-eyed voice came through even over the phone.
“It’s eight in the morning.” I dipped one of my crunchy sticks into the syrup and took a bite.
“Eight, five, whatever. I worked last night and didn’t get home until five.”
I winced. I forgot about her crazy shifts while she was in community college. “Sorry.”
“I’m up now. Spill to me what happened that warranted an eight-in-the-morning honest-to-God phone call, and then I can go back to bed.”
“I had sex with Declan last night.” I blurted it out louder than I’d intended, and a few people on the other side of the dining hall looked up.
“Declan who?”
“Declan McAvoy.” I cringed, waiting for her response.
“Declan McAvoy?” She said his name like it was in a foreign language.
“Yes.”
“The Declan McAvoy voted Biggest Flirt back in high school?”
The bits of shame grew by the minute. “Yes.”
“Did he drug you or something?” Her voice got higher, and I could almost hear her going to battle stations. All hands on deck for ball removal!
“What? No, of course not. We were both into it.” I had been into it. Probably way too into it.
“Really?” The confusion in her voice mirrored the confusion swimming around my head.
“Absolutely. It was a hundred percent consensual.” Even more if that were possible. I’d even said please. Ugh!
“In that case, fuck yeah! I’m glad. That’s so awesome.” She yawned big and loud.
“What do you mean, awesome? It was a huge freaking mistake. You know him.”
“I mean, I knew him back in high school, and while he could be a bit full of himself, he was never a bad guy. You two just loved to fight. Both of you were button pushers.”
“I was not.” I dropped some of my syrup on the table. Declan was the button pusher. Ice Queen, Mak the Knife, Books, Specs, all his names for me back then. Needling me. But I had to admit they didn’t bother me as much as they had before.
“You totally were. I saw it even back then. He’d get all worked up about the stuff you’d say, and Em would have to tell him to calm down.” Her voice caught when she said Emmett’s name. It was the first time I’d heard her say it in a long time.
“I forget you used to hang out with them all the time.”
“It was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it?” She had a far-off sound in her voice. I’d been there when everything went down. When the couple of the decade, Avery and Emmett, broke up at the end-of-the-year party. Emmett had shattered his front door, and Avery had looked like she’d had her heart carved out of her chest. It took her almost a year to tell me what really happened that night, and I still wasn’t sure I knew all of it.
“It feels like it.” I’d seen her over the summer, but not enough. She’d been shuttling Alyson to her various summer enrichment camps and working.
“I, more than anyone, know how different things can be and how much a person changes after high school. Things back then seemed simple, but they weren’t always.” She got that faraway sound in her voice before clearing her throat. I still didn’t know why she’d let him believe she cheated, but whenever I brought it up, she said to leave it alone.
“Now on to the most important question…how was it?” I could almost hear her rubbing her hands together, eager to get the dirt.
“Of course. The stories about Declan were legendary.”
And there was part of the problem. His reputation had preceded him ever since freshman year of high school, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the memories. And that’s all there would be from now on, the memories from that night.
“It was mind-blowingly good. I can barely walk.” I laughed at the soreness in my muscles as I mopped up some of the syrup with my bacon.
“Hell yeah! That’s what I want to hear. Nothing worse than a hot guy who doesn’t deliver.”
“You’re glad? Declan may have done permanent damage to my lady bits.”
Avery’s bark of a laugh shot out of my phone so loudly I had to pull it away from my ear.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine. No, I’m glad you got to do something a little crazy for once. And no, leaving Stanford doesn’t count. Are you going to see him again?”
“We’re study partners for the rest of the semester, so I don’t really have a choice.” That reality came crashing down onto my chest like a heart attack waiting to happen.
“I don’t mean like that. I mean like last night. You going to let him show you all the tricks he has up his sleeve?” I knew she was waggling her eyebrows even though I couldn’t see her.
“The best course of action will be to pretend it didn’t happen.” I finished my breakfast and dumped my stuff, stashing the tray on the conveyor belt next to the kitchen.
“Come on, Mak, don’t be like that.”
“Like what?” I held my phone in one hand as I slung my pack onto my back.
“Running away from your life.”
“I’m not. I’m protecting it.”
“You’re not. You’re hiding. You can’t always live for other people. Sometimes you need to live for you.”
