“Yeah, and we did it again this morning.” Scott stretched his arms over his head. “I could get used to this.”
Hearing him say that, and hearing the confidence that a night with a pretty girl had given him, I was afraid Marley was going to hurt him. She was wild, and Scott was as docile as they came. I didn’t think she’d be interested in him for more than a one night stand, and that would bother him. I could already see that he was invested, because I knew how what he was feeling went. I’d been the same way with Brooke, confusing my feelings of lust and the fact that she was the girl to take my virginity with so much more than they actually were.
To her, I was probably just a summer fling, but to me, she was everything. It was why she’d been able to hurt me so badly. I was completely invested in her, in us. But now that I knew what it was like to truly be in love, I knew what I had with Brooke was a lot of smoke and mirrors on her part and a lot of hope mixed with the fact that I was enamored with her on my part. It wasn’t anything like what I had with Cassie.
“That’s great, man,” I told Scott, because I knew anything I said to caution him would fall on deaf ears. If I told him Marley was going to use him, he wouldn’t believe me. He had to learn on his own.
“So, we’re thinking about getting breakfast?” Marley said then, appearing in the doorway. Her arm was extended up the doorframe, her chest on display in her little purple tank top, and I could see the lust in Scott’s eyes as he looked at her. He was already addicted. “You boys in?”
“I’m starving. Like, seriously hungry,” Scott said, and Marley grinned at him.
“Me too. We worked out hard last night, didn’t we, baby?”
He grinned back at her. “And this morning.”
“We can’t forget about this morning,” she said, as she released her hold on the doorframe and stalked toward him, covering his body with hers before she started kissing him.
They were soon lost in a moment, probably forgetting I was there, so I slipped out of the room before things turned from PG13 into R rated, which I was fairly certain was going to happen. The last thing I wanted to see was Scott’s bare ass.
I closed the door behind me and walked back into Cassie’s room. I could hear the shower running in her adjoining bathroom, so I closed the door to her room, stripped down and walked into the bathroom.
She jumped when she saw me, but then a wide smile slid across her face. She opened the glass door and let me step inside with her.
“Well this is a nice surprise,” she said as she slid her hands up my arms.
“It’s a three-fold tactic,” I said, and she looked at me in amusement. “One, Marley and Scott are about to have sex again, and I want to drown out the noises they’ll no doubt make.”
She smiled. “Good for them. And good for Scott. But good call. I don’t want to hear that either.”
“Yeah, I know. He seems happy, but I have a feeling this is going to end badly for him.”
Cassie shook her head. “Marley said she really likes him. She thinks he’s funny and cute and brainy. She keeps talking about how he makes her laugh, and how he’s really adorable. I think you might be wrong. You haven’t seen them together all week. I’m actually not surprised that this happened.”
“We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath.”
I’d believe it when I saw it for real.
She shrugged. “I guess we will see, but I’m rooting for them.”
“Me too,” I told her, even though I was skeptical as hell.
Cassie stepped closer to me then, so her wet, naked body was flush against mine. Damn, why did I never have a condom when I needed one?
“So what were your other two reasons for coming in here?” she asked.
“Well, I needed a shower, but more than that,” I said, as I sunk to my knees and looked up at her. “I came to return the favor I owe you.”
She grinned at me. “I can’t think of a better reason for you to have surprised me. Do your worst.”
I reached out and stroked her a few times with my thumb, watching the expression on her face as she started to relax into my touch. Her eyes closed and then opened slowly, she swallowed hard, and when my mouth descended on her, her hands shot out to either side of the shower, bracing her as her head fell back. I moved both hands to her hips to hold her in place while she started to writhe in my grip as I slowly tortured her.
“Jared,” she cried out through a moan, and I’d never liked the sound of my own name so much. “Oh, God!”
Jesus, the sounds she was making were practically my undoing. I’d never wanted her more, and I wanted everything with her. This wasn’t nearly enough, and we both knew it. I told myself all in good time. She was mine. I could have her whenever I wanted, and we’d get to the main event eventually. This was only the beginning.
“You didn’t perhaps steal a condom from Marley, did you?” she gasped out suddenly, and I pulled back and looked up at her, enamored by the look of sweet anguish on her face coupled with the water from the showerhead streaming down her naked body. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
“I think I get the award for the world’s biggest dumbass today. Seriously,” I said as I slipped my finger inside her, wanting her to keep riding the high she was on and simultaneously trying to mask my stupidity in her eyes.
I should have borrowed a condom from Marley. Dammit.
She just grinned. “What you’re doing now is just fine. Trust me, I’ll be alright.”
Yeah, but I won’t be. I was so turned on I was about to shoot my load all over the shower floor – and it was all my fault.
Keeping my finger inside her, I slowly rose to standing. She smiled as she snaked one arm around my neck and kissed me. Her other hand slipped between us and wrapped around me, stroking me with sweet, torturously wonderful strokes.
“For the record, I’m going shopping today, and I’m buying a lifetime supply of condoms,” I said against her lips as she smiled. “We’ll never be without them again.”
“Sounds great to me,” she said, as I lowered my mouth to kiss her again and we both sought release like a couple of inexperienced teenagers.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cassie
Jared faced forward, a slight smirk on his face as he rested his hand on my bare thigh in chemistry. I tried to mask my own smirk and actually pay attention to what Mr. Graves was saying, which was uber-distracting with my new boyfriend sitting so close to me. Memories of what we’d done early that morning before class made my stomach twinge in sweet remembrance as the minutes on the clock ticked by in an excruciating fashion. Class had literally never seemed so long.
We’d been together for almost a week, and we’d barely spent any time apart. True to his promise, Jared had replenished his stash of condoms, and we’d made a serious dent in them over the past few days. I felt bad that I’d been ditching Marley to see Jared every night that I wasn’t working, but I didn’t think she cared. She spent most of her time with Scott. It was truthfully the happiest I’d seen her in months, so I didn’t question it. I knew exactly how she felt.
“I like this skirt,” Jared said, leaning over to whisper in my ear.
I smiled. “I wore it for you,” I said in referenced to the short pink bright skirt I’d picked out that morning because I knew it made my legs looked killer.
“You’re torturing me,” he whispered.
That made me smile even wider. “Totally the intention.”
He squeezed my thigh playfully, and I giggled.
“Mr. Lansing? Ms. Witter? Did you have a question about the lecture?” Mr. Graves asked then, and I froze.
But Jared seemed to be as cool as ever for some reason, not even bothering to remove his hand from my thigh.
“No, I was just telling my girlfriend what an interesting element Uranium is,” he said, and I was shocked to realize he’d actually been paying attention to the lecture. But more than that, he’d just announced who we were to each other to our en
tire class. Not that any of them cared, but Jared never spoke up in class. This was a completely new, confident side of him. I liked it.
“Were you now?” Mr. Graves questioned, not convinced Jared was being forthright with him. He was right. “And what, pray tell, is the thing that you find most interesting about Uranium, Mr. Lansing?”
“That it was used in early photography,” Jared said, and I had no clue where he was pulling that from.
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Mr. Graves started to say something else, probably wanting to probe to see if Jared was bullshitting him, but an alarm suddenly sounded overhead, and I looked up to see the fire alarm flashing a bright red light, but the sound was different than what I was used to hearing. This was three short blasts, a pause, then three short blasts again. The sequence continued as students looked around confused.
Mr. Graves wasted little time walking to the back of the classroom and locking the door. He peered outside through the small window looking for something, the apprehension and tension on his face evident.
“What’s going on?” I asked Jared, and he just shook his head, his eyes on Mr. Graves.
The phone on his desk chose that moment to ring, and he crossed the room to answer it. His hand poised over the receiver, I noticed he hesitated for a few seconds before picking it up.
Chatter around the classroom kept me from hearing what he was saying, but I could see the tense look on his face. Just then a loud noise from outside made me jump.
“What was that?” I asked as I watched all the color drain from Jared’s face.
“Nothing. I’m sure it was nothing,” he said quickly as his arm went around me and pulled me against him.
“Jared, you’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, but he wasn’t telling me the truth.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Mr. Graves said then. “I need your attention please. The campus is on lockdown at the moment, and we have been asked to stay in here until we get the all clear from the administrator in charge. Please don’t panic, and please remain in your seats.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. Lockdown? Why was the campus on lockdown?
Jared’s arm around me tightened, so I turned into him, letting him pull me against his chest.
“Not again,” he whispered, and I wasn’t sure he even realized he was speaking out loud.
“What do you mean not again?” I asked in horror as the puzzle pieces started to come together.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “We’re fine.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t gloss things over for me. You think that noise was a gunshot, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said quickly, but he sounded so certain that my blood ran cold.
I could feel Jared’s chest rising and falling rapidly, his breath coming in shallow bursts, but I didn’t know what to say to comfort him. The best I could do was curl up against him and pray that he was wrong. We were both paranoid after what had happened to us. Our first instinct was to think the worst, but we also had good reason to. The campus was on lockdown after all.
After two hours of near silence, I was starting to lose it. I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for, but we’d seen policemen walk by our classroom several times. We hadn’t heard any more of what we thought were gunshots, but that didn’t mean anything. The campus was huge, and the buildings were spread out.
My heart nearly leapt out of my throat as the phone on Mr. Graves’s desk rang once more. He picked it up, and every student in the room listened to his side of the conversation. We were all sufficiently freaked out at that point.
“Yes. Yes. Okay, thank you. I understand. Thank you.” He set the phone down and turned toward us. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your cooperation during this time. The police have declared the campus safe, and you are all free to go.”
All around us, students started to pack up their bags, more irritated with having to stay in class longer for no apparent reason. None of them had a clue what could have happened if there had been a real threat. The administration was right in doing what they had to keep us safe. Regardless of the outcome, I felt better knowing that there was a plan in place so history didn’t repeat itself.
I separated myself from Jared for the first time in more than two hours and started to put my textbook and iPad back into my backpack. When I looked up at him, he was staring straight ahead, shaking his head.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“I hate this world,” he mumbled.
My heart sank as he said that, but how could I argue with him? We lived in a world where people hijacked planes and dropped bombs on innocent civilians and randomly gunned down people they didn’t know for reasons beyond my understanding. It was sick, and we were powerless to control any of it. I couldn’t remember ever feeling more helpless in my life.
“I know,” I said solemnly, my hand going to rest on his shoulder.
Then he started to wordlessly pack up his things. I looked up at the front of the room where Mr. Graves was turning off the overhead projector and unplugging his laptop. I walked up to him and stood there for a few seconds, wondering if he was going to notice me.
“Yes, Ms. Witter?” he asked tersely, confirming my suspicions that he wasn’t fond of me. With good reason too. Jared and I spent more of class time joking around with each other than we did listening. But I was hoping Mr. Graves wouldn’t hold that against me now.
“Um, Mr. Graves?”
“Yes,” he repeated impatiently, looking up at me.
I swallowed hard, my mouth feeling so dry. “Why did they lock down the campus?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, Ms. Witter,” he said as he started to pack up his things again.
“Someone had a gun, didn’t they?”
He froze and looked up at me. “Why would you say that?”
I swallowed again, wondering why the words were so hard to get out. “Well, I heard that loud banging noise right after you locked the classroom door.”
He looked at me speculatively for a few seconds. “Coleman College,” he said then, recognition dawning in his eyes as they softened. “You were a student there?”
“Yes sir. I was. I mean, I am.”
He nodded. “I knew I recognized your name. You and Mr. Lansing were involved in what happened back in January, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m very sorry you had to go through something like that, but I’m glad you’re both safe. Even though neither of you has a very promising future in chemistry, I can see you’re both very bright individuals.”
I smiled a weak smile at his attempt at a joke/compliment. “Thank you.”
“For your own peace of mind, no one had a gun on campus today. What you heard was probably a car backfiring. The lockdown was due to a bomb threat that ended up being the prank of some teenagers. The police have assured us that there isn’t anything to worry about.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Thank you for letting me know.”
He nodded. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through earlier this year. I would assume it’s not easy to rebound from something like that, and the fear probably never goes away, does it?”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”
He walked over to his messenger bag that was sitting on his desk chair. A few seconds later he came back to where I was standing. He handed me card.
“My wife, Theresa, she’s a counselor. She helps people who’ve been through traumatic situations. You should give her a call.”
It wasn’t the first time since the shooting that someone had offered me the name of their shrink.
“With all due respect, Mr. Graves, I’m not sure that’s going to help,” I said as I started to hand the card back to him.
He put his hand up to refuse me. “Keep it. You never know when you might need to talk to someone.”
“Okay,” I said, figuring I’d humor him. H
e’d been nice enough to tell me what had happened that day, which I was sure he wasn’t supposed to do, but it had honestly eased so much of the tension I was feeling. “Thank you.”
“Sometimes it’s okay not to be brave, Ms. Witter. There are times in our lives when we all need help, and it’s okay to ask for it.” With that, he slid his laptop into his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Take care. I’ll see you in lab tomorrow.”
“Bye.”
I watched him leave the room before my eyes darted back to Jared who was standing rigidly by our table, his backpack slung over one shoulder, a vacant look in his eyes as he stared at a spot on the floor. I walked over to him, wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him. His arms slid around mine as he rested his chin on the top of my head, his body slacking against mine.
“It was a bomb threat that turned out to be nothing but a prank,” I told him, because I figured the peace of mind would help.
“Great,” he said tightly.
I looked up at him. “It is great. What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “Everything. This is exactly what I was talking about – the fear. Cass, you don’t know what it’s like, because you can’t remember–”
“Hey, that’s not my fault,” I protested.
“I’m not saying that,” he said in that quiet, calm way of his. “Truthfully, I don’t want you to remember everything. I’m grateful every day that you don’t know what it was like watching people die all around you. The sounds you heard the night of the fireworks, just imagine the visual images that go with them. I can’t get those images out of my head for anything.”
I squeezed him tighter around the waist, hoping to bring him some comfort, but I knew there wasn’t a lot I could do.
“You should talk to Marley,” I suggested.
“Why?” he asked, looking down at me.
I wasn’t sure he was Marley’s biggest fan. Even though she seemed to have been making Scott fairly happy over the past week, we hadn’t talked about it, but I wasn’t sure Jared trusted her.
“Because she knows what it’s like. She saw her boyfriend get killed when he was trying to protect her. She’d be dead if it wasn’t for Aiden.”
Paper Airplanes Page 29
