by Aubrey Irons
“Damnit, Dalton!”
He hoots as he yanks his briefs back up over his very sculpted ass and struts over to the table and chairs by the pool. “C’mon, have a drink with me.”
I sink down in the water. “No way.”
He slumps into one of the chairs and kicks his feet up on the table as he grins at me. “Let me guess, you’re a college freshman and you’ve managed to never drink before.”
“That is not true,” I lie.
“Sure it’s not, darlin,” he drawls, flashing that damn farm-boy grin at me.
That will NOT work on me, I growl to myself.
“Will you just get out of the pool before you turn into a prune?” He holds up a towel and waves it at me. “I’ll even close my eyes if you’re that bent out of shape about that goofy one-piece you’re wearing.”
I groan as the heat flushes my cheeks. I grit my teeth - I will not let this boy get under my skin like he seems to be hell-bent on doing. I am not effected or “taken in” by his charming little bullshit act that seems to work on everyone else.
And that’s why I get out of the pool. That’s why I shrug and step out, heedless of whether he’s looking or not, to go have that drink - because I will not let him under my skin.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
8
Dalton
You get a lot of shit as king when you leave the court early, let me tell you.
But the party tonight back at the football house was damn boring. I mean, the booze was flowing, your’s truly was at the center of attention where I do so love to be, and the girls were going gaga over me with mouths open.
Except somehow, for some damn reason, it bored me. And I was bored because I couldn’t focus straight, and I couldn’t focus because I couldn’t get my mind off that sassy, annoying brat of a girl back at Mom’s house.
Hailey.
The girl that won’t go gaga over me, the girl that won’t give me the time of day, and the girl who most certainly does not place me at the center of her attention.
I’ve learned to play a certain kind of male-and-female game my whole life - or at least, my life since I realized my arm was a Goddamn laser-guided cannon that could send footballs as far and as deep down a field as I wanted.
And Hailey isn’t playing that game. Hell, Hailey doesn’t even care to know the rules of that game.
She’s not hanging off my words, or laughing unreasonably hard at dumb shit I say, or fawning all over me, or any of the other utterly predictable shit women have been doing around me ever since I picked up a ball. She’s not all painted and dressed up either like some sort of show-dog begging for attention, which is more than I can say about pretty much every girl at that party tonight.
She’s Hailey - Hailey who doesn’t care about football, doesn’t care that I play it, and doesn’t seem to care much for me at all.
Which is uncomfortably refreshing.
I lie about closing my eyes, of course, and instead I openly watch her as she climbs up the steps of the pool. And at first, I’m doing it just to be a dick since that’s just the kind of swell guy I am, but the second she slides out of that water, my reasons rapidly change.
Well, shit.
Because if I thought Hailey Garrison looked good in a summer dress, or in jean shorts and a tank top, let me just say none of those things hold a fucking candle to her in a bathing suit.
I can feel my cock throb between my legs, and I frown. I mean, her suit leaves everything to the imagination - it covers half her damn body for fuck’s sake. I swim with girls in thong bikinis, or no bikinis at all for that matter, and yet there’s something extremely sexy about her in that damn one-piece.
Maybe because a one-piece bathing suit has literally never been hotter in the history of modern swim technology than it is hugging Hailey Garrison’s tight little body as she pads across the patio towards me.
I let my eyes roam hungrily over her, up the porcelain skin of her legs, over her hips, and up her toned body. I mean shit, it’s not even like she’s got this big rack like most of the girls I’ve ever gone after. Hailey’s downright small up top, and yet there’s something mouthwatering about those tits.
And my cock seems to agree, by the way it starts to grow in my jockeys.
“You done?”
I blink and jerk my eyes away from the points of her nipples clearly poking through the dark black of her suit, up to her face and grin - busted.
“Don’t suppose you want to jump back in and walk over here one more time, huh?”
She rolls her eyes as she snatches the towel out of my hands. “You’re gross.”
“So…is that a yes?”
Hailey groans as I grin at her, turning away to wrap the towel around her waist.
The grin fades from my face the second she turns.
Get your shit in line, dick, I think to myself, adjusting the now half-hard cock in my wet briefs before wrapping my own towel around myself. I sit back into one of the patio chairs and pat the one next to me.
Hailey eyes me warily.
“Aww c’mon, red, what do you think I’m going to do, tackle you?”
Her cheeks blush a deep pink and I laugh. “See, I knew you had a dirtier mind than you let on.”
She rolls her eyes and makes a face. “Yeah, I’m going inside.”
“Hey, hey, I’m only kidding, darlin.” She stops and turns back to me.
“C’mon, sit with me.”
She glares at me for second, like she’s mulling it over.
“I’m on my best behavior, I swear to you.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s a low bar?”
I laugh, but she lets out a sigh and slides into the chair next to me. I reach behind me for the bottle of Fireball I left the party with and slide it her way across the table.
Hailey makes a face. “What the heck is that?”
“Red-hot whiskey, it’s delicious.”
Her nose wrinkles in this not altogether unattractive way. “It looks awful.”
I grin. “Sorry, I know a seasoned imbiber like yourself probably has much more discriminating tastes.”
She stiffens a little and then shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Eh, it’s fine.”
Lord is she a bad liar.
A damn cute one, but still terrible.
I grab the bottle and tilt my head back to take a swig, feeling the cinnamon-whiskey liquid burn down my throat. I smack my lips dramatically as I set it back down on the table, pushing it her way.
Hailey eyes it warily.
“Hey,” I shrug. “I get it, you’re daddy’s girl, you play by the rules.”
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s really not going to work.”
I grin. “And what’s that, darlin?”
She looks down her glasses at me in this hilarious way that sort of makes her look like some sort of librarian.
A distractingly sexy librarian, I might add.
“You’re trying to get under my skin.”
I cross my arms across my bare chest and lean back in the chair. “Trying? Oh I think I’m straight-up succeeding.”
“Well, you’re not.” Hailey snatches the bottle up, brings it to her lips, and tilts it back. She coughs almost instantly, dropping the bottle back to the table as she chokes on the gulp of whiskey, her eyes watering.
“Shit, you alright?”
She frowns and waves me off, coughing once more before looking up at me with this totally forced look of ease on her face.
I laugh. “I thought that it wasn’t working?”
“You getting under my skin isn’t, me having a drink is different.” She shrugs and grins at me as she slides the bottle back my way
I take a quick sip, keeping my eyes locked on hers as I do before setting the bottle down and sliding it back.
I’m suddenly regretting my choice of swimwear as the wet cotton of my boxers sticks to my skin. Regardless of my paid endorsement of this very brand, they’re not the mos
t comfortable thing. I frown as I reach under my towel and start to yank the soggy wet briefs off.
“Oh my God, what do you think you’re doing?”
Hailey starts to get up from the table, but I shoot her a look. “Not sitting around with wet briefs creeping up my ass, that’s what. Relax, I’m keeping the towel on.”
She snorts out a laugh as she reaches for the bottle of Fireball.
“You’re more than welcome to join me, you know.”
Hailey rolls her eyes, even as her cheeks blush red. “I’m sure I am, but I think I’ll pass.” She takes a second swig of the whiskey, not quite choking so hard this time.
“You sure?”
She swallows quickly, her eyes darting to mine. “Um, yes, quiet sure.”
I grin, pulling the briefs the rest of the way off my legs from under the towel and tossing them behind me. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She blushes again and looks away. I decide right there that this girl looks entirely too good when her cheeks go pink like that for me to worry about crossing any lines.
I look at her. “You can ask, you know.”
“Ask what?”
I shrug. “About the rumors.”
Hailey wrinkles her nose adorably. “Eww.”
I laugh. “I like how you knew exactly which one I was talking about.”
She frowns, straightening up in her chair. “I did not, I just figured most of the rumors about you are gross.”
I arch a brow at her as I take another pull of whiskey. “But you had a pretty good hunch which one I was talking about.”
She blushes again, looking away and pushing a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “Maybe.”
I chuckle, feeling bold, and reckless. Feeling like I really like pushing this girl’s buttons. “I bet you’re dying to know.”
She looks at me skeptically and quickly shakes her head, “Nope.”
“Liar.”
I see her swallow thickly as her eyes dart to mine, her long lashes blinking quickly behind her glasses. I can see the curve of her breasts against the suit, the hard little buds of her nipples poking through. And when she blushes again and bites her bottom lip between her teeth, I can feel my cock start to lengthen, bare under the towel.
Blood roars in my ears as I imagine those soft, pouty lips of hers opening up and sliding over my cock. I picture kissing them, bruising them with my own. And I picture watching them part in this delicious “O” shape as I make her come with my fingers, my mouth, and my cock.
Fuck.
This is going to be a problem. Because without even looking where I was going, I’ve suddenly moved way past “making her squirm” into outright lust.
And it’s making me very, very hard.
I’m still not thinking as I turn in my chair, sitting casual as I lean towards her.
“You’re not remotely curious about it?”
She blinks quickly, shaking her head. “Not in the slightest.”
I know she’s lying, but she’s doing it better than any “playing hard to get” girl I’ve ever met.
I grin at her, “I call bullshit.”
She bites her bottom lip again, eyes darting across my face as she struggles to maintain that carefree look. “Call it what you want, but I have no interest in your…”
She shakes her head, looking away.
“Cock?” I finish for her, winking as her eyes dart back to mine and her face goes bright red. “You can say it, you know - it’s just a word.”
“Dalton,” she rolls her eyes at me, shaking her head and smiling this patronizing smile at me. “I have no problem saying the word cock.”
Aaaaaand I’m hard.
Rock. Fucking. Hard. It’s like the sound of that word coming from her innocent, pure mouth has the blood flowing directly into my dick.
She smiles at me. “I just have no interest in yours.”
I grin and lean close to her, watching her inhale sharply as I do. I reach my hand out towards her, and she stiffens before I grab the bottle of Fireball out of her hands. The entire time I keep my eyes locked on hers, watching her blush as I take it back and pull a big swig.
“Why, because of our parents?”
Yeah, I am very far past just trying to get under Hailey’s skin. But I don’t care anymore, and I’m not sure I could stop at this point even if I did.
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Oh my God, for so many reasons, but sure, that’s a big one.”
“We aren’t related, you know.”
“Dalton,” she smiles that fake sweet smile at me. “We could be strangers and I wouldn’t want to know anything about you like that.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “Ouch, baby!”
She just shrugs, still smiling at me in that patronizing way that’s somehow teasing me.
“Because I’m a football guy?”
“One of the reasons.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, in your very extensive dating life you just prefer to stay away from guys who can actually pick you up and toss you around?”
Hailey goes absolutely crimson, quickly looking away before her eyes dart back to mine. “I actually have a boyfriend, thank you very much.”
I suddenly sit up straight.
Well, shit, that’s news.
I also don’t believe it for a second.
I raise a brow at her. “Oh really?”
“Really,” she says primly, sitting there with her head high as she casually reaches for the bottle.
“Well now, that’s news now isn’t it?”
Her eyes look up and to the side, in that way people do when they’re outright bullshitting you. “Yeah, he’s at Columbia right now, where I should have gone.”
I grin. “Instead of being stuck here with me.”
“Pretty much.”
I chuckle as I lean back in my chair. “Well, he’s a very lucky boy to have such a pistol like you, darlin.” I grin. “And does this mystery man have a name?”
“Paul.”
I nod, like I’m chewing it over, before I lean forward again. “Well, I guess Paul wouldn’t like it very much if he knew we’d been sitting here talking about my cock.”
Hailey goes red again as she rolls her eyes. “We are not talking about your penis-”
“Cock.” I suddenly lean in close to her, loving the way she sucks in her breath sharply and the way her bright blue eyes dart to mine, blinking rapidly.
“My cock, darlin,” I growl.
“Fine,” she spits back. “And no, he wouldn’t - not one bit.”
I grin at the way she says it, like I should be worried about her bullshit fake boyfriend.
“Well, in that case, I guess I better leave you alone then.”
“Probably.”
“Because I totally wasn’t just getting under your skin.”
She starts to grin but I watch as she quickly hides it and shakes her head. “Not at all.”
I roll my eyes and get up to walk away towards my guest house with the bottle in my hand. I get about three feet when I grin and call back over my shoulder. “Goodnight.”
She looks up, presumably to say it back, and it’s right then that I let the towel drop as I walk away from her.
“Dalton!”
I let out a hooting laugh. “Sweet dreams, darlin.”
9
Hailey
After that, there is no way I’m staying at that house.
I can feel the flush from my first foray into drinking buzzing through me like a live-wire as I change back into my clothes from earlier. And part of that is the illicit thrill that comes from doing something bad like drinking. But I know - as much as I pretend it’s not - that another part of it comes from him.
The real “something bad”.
We’re basically across the street from campus anyway, so I head back to the dorms on foot, ignoring the sound of music blasting from his guest-house apartment above the garage as I traipse up the driveway.
A
nd it’s not until I get back to my room that I finally meet my own eyes in the mirror above my vanity, rolling them at my flushed face.
God, did I seriously just MAKE UP a boyfriend?
I cringe at my own ridiculousness in the mirror, shaking my head. Yes, yes I did just do that. I mean, Paul is a real boy, who I really did go on two dates with this past summer. But he’s not, nor has he ever been, my boyfriend.
And I’m ninety-nine percent sure Dalton knows that, because I am one-hundred percent sure I’m not nearly as good a liar as I think I am.
I toss my clothes off, knowing I should shower the chlorine off, or brush my teeth for that matter. But I’m still too buzzed and still too embarrassingly wound up to think about anything but curling up in my bed and pretending like I didn’t just horribly embarrass myself in front of Dalton.
I close my eyes, trying to force sleep to happen out of sheer will alone. But I only make it three minutes before I groan and turn over onto my back, knowing it’s just not happening. My thoughts are still going at a million miles an hour, going over every minute of my bizarre night with Dalton Cole.
‘I bet you’re dying to know.’
I feel a warm flush creep up my body at the memory of it - his piercing blue eyes, that cocky, wolf-like grin flashing across his criminally attractive jaw.
…Knowing he’s not wearing anything under that towel that’s hanging precariously off the grooves of his hips, and knowing the pool isn’t the only thing to blame for the wet heat between my legs.
I bite my lip in my bed as the image of that bulge in his jockeys as he pulled himself from the pool comes creeping into my head.
No, no freaking way.
It was a shadow, or…something. I mean it’s a myth, of course. It’s all part of his press image to get him on magazine covers and to make him sexy enough to sell underwear.
…I mean, no one really has a peni- a cock - that big.
I’ve seen all of one, once. That would be the aforementioned Paul - the boy I knew from my model U.N. class. Paul who was always sweet, Paul who was smart and going to Harvard in the fall.
Paul who was the first person I thought of when I decided there was no way I was going to college without ever having had sex. It’s not like I thought I was missing out on anything, or felt any sort of pressure. It’s just that I knew perfectly well that sex was going to be everywhere at school, and I didn’t want to be distracted by it.
