by Nicole Fox
So, why did I summon her here?
I spent most of the drive to Finn’s telling myself lies, coming up with excuses for why I had texted her.
I wanted a fight. Simple as that.
But Haley isn’t a fight. I’ll train her, doing my best to keep my hands to myself, and then go home more frustrated than when I arrived.
That has been the pattern of our encounters up to this point—barring the slip of control I had last week.
We haven’t spoken of it or repeated it since.
Plus, if I really wanted a fight, I would’ve gone across town to the wood-paneled pool hall so many of the Hell Princes use as their headquarters. I’d knock a few of them out and finally release some of the energy zinging under my skin.
But not all of it.
Because no matter how hard I want to deny it, some of that energy isn’t my own. It belongs to Haley.
She slipped it to me like an invisible sprinkle of powder in an unattended drink. She drugged me with her presence and made it so damned hard not to think about her.
I know Haley is trash. Anyone who can date a jockstrap like Bumper is beyond redemption. A new zip code can’t change who she is at the core.
But she’s changing something about me at the core.
I need to nip that shit in the bud.
Before it’s too late to stop it.
“Is something wrong?”
Her voice is soft and pulls me from my jumbled thoughts.
She is standing in the middle of the living room where we usually do our training. The furniture has been pushed to the edges of the room for a few weeks now, but I can still see the impressions in the thick carpet where the feet of the couch and the coffee table were sitting before.
Haley looks small in the large, open space. Vulnerable.
It doesn’t make me feel more protective of her. In fact, quite the opposite.
How can this small, helpless girl be the cause of so much? It doesn’t make sense to me.
I’ve spent my entire life being the strongest and the fastest. Physical dominance rules in my world, and now I’m pinned to the mat over some big blue eyes and a soft skin?
Fuck that.
Not if I can help it.
“I thought you had plans today,” she says. “Did your plans get canceled? Is that why you’re…?”
She doesn’t finish the thought. Good.
So many questions. More importantly, so many questions I don’t need to answer.
I don’t owe Haley anything except what I agreed to. “My schedule opened up, and I thought we’d train. The sooner you can fight, the sooner this is over. Right?”
She flinches slightly at the words but manages a smile. “Right.”
I clap my hands together, the sharp sound breaking through the heavy silence of the otherwise empty house. “Then let’s fight.”
21
Haley
Something about Caleb is more volatile than usual. His energy crackles like sparks leaping from a fire. I feel like I’ll get burnt if I move in too close.
His usually graceful, measured movements are harried and rushed as we move through some of the basic defensive moves he has taught me.
After the kiss, I worried things wouldn’t be the same, but he showed up to training the next day like nothing had happened.
Which made sense, I supposed. That’s what he said right after.
Nothing has changed.
And so it didn’t. We spent a few days in the weight room, Caleb stepping into my space only to help me lift the weighted bar back onto the rack. My arms shook and trembled with the effort, but Caleb grabbed the bar with one hand, his muscles barely flexing.
Caleb seemed so normal that I was embarrassed by how flustered the kiss left me.
Clearly, it was nothing. Something normal in Caleb’s life, barely worthy of a second thought.
Yet, my body rebels at the mere sight of him. Whether in the middle of Finn’s living room or across the hallways in Ravenlake Prep. It feels as though my insides are magnetized to him.
I assumed Caleb felt nothing at all, but now, as he grabs my wrist and corrects my form, shifting my fingers and joints into the proper position so as not to hurt myself, I see the strain in his jaw.
His eyes flick from my hand to my body and back again, unsure where to settle. And when he is done, he takes an exaggerated step away from me even though I’m going to have to close the gap to repeat the move.
He has been doing the same thing for the last half hour. We are now over halfway across the room from where we started.
Soon, he’ll hit the wall behind him.
I close the gap with two quick steps and thrust the palm of my hand up towards his nose, twisting my body as I go, ensuring the force comes from my entire body and not simply my arm.
Caleb nods his approval wordlessly and motions for me to repeat the move again.
“What if my arms aren’t free?” I ask, swiping an arm across my forehead to wick away the sweat gathered there. “What if an attacker approaches me from behind?”
“We aren’t there yet,” he says sharply.
“Shouldn’t I understand the basics of everything in case I am attacked—that way I have a chance? Otherwise, I’ll be an expert at front-facing attacks, but be doomed if someone comes from behind.”
I feel I’m making a good point, but I’m also just bored with fake nose jabs. I want to learn something else.
Caleb’s only answer to my question is a quick shake of his head and two words. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Caleb’s brow furrows, and my insides pull towards him so strongly I actually stumble forward half a step.
Daily football practice is turning his skin a tantalizingly golden color. New freckles dot his nose and cheeks and the sun is bleaching pale streaks in his light brown hair.
He was gorgeous before.
Now, he’s something even more than that.
He was my enemy before, too.
What is he now?
He sighs, and I mimic his sigh with one of my own, earning myself a glare that, despite its intensity, sends a warm blush into my cheeks.
“Come on,” I whine, my lower lip pouting out. “You can’t tell me the repetitive nose jabs and eye gouges are fun for you. Teach me something interesting.”
“I’m not teaching you for my entertainment. It’s for your benefit. You asked for this, Cochran.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, Master, but there’s no reason this arrangement can’t be pleasurable for both of us.”
I don’t realize the double meaning of what I’ve said until Caleb’s jaw clenches and his eyes dart towards the floor.
“That’s not why we’re here.”
It’s why everyone thinks we’re here, though. Whispers have been following me at Ravenlake Prep for weeks. Everyone has bought into the story that I’m “servicing” Caleb at his convenience.
I’m a modern-day concubine in their eyes, and I can’t even find it within me to care anymore. Those people were never going to be my friends anyway. I’m just doing my best to survive another year in this town before I get the fuck out.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t at least try to make it enjoyable.
“Do you ever have fun?” I ask, flinging my arms out to the side. “Do you know how to relax and have a good time, or are you always so doom and gloom?”
His face pinches into a frown. “I’m not doom and gloom.”
“Tell that to your face.”
His mouth goes slack before he can compose his features into a neutral mask. “Sorry if I’m not giddy about spending my evenings with a girl who fucked me over once already.”
“That’s it, though,” I say, wagging a finger at him, one eyebrow raised in suspicion. “You said yourself that this is preferable to all the effort it would take to destroy my life. So, in a way, you kind of do enjoy this. Better than the alternative, anyway.”
“Revisionist history,” he says flatl
y.
“It’s more than that,” I continue, unable to stop now that I’ve started. “You play football and like to knock people’s teeth out, but that can’t be all you like to do. That can’t be the only way you spend your time. I mean, what do you do for fun?”
“You know enough about my personal life already, don’t you think?”
The question almost makes me want to laugh. I want to ask if he is serious, but the dark expression on his face tells me he is, and suddenly, the urge to laugh slips away.
If Caleb thinks I know too much about his personal life, then how many people really know him?
He doesn’t want his friends to know about his underground fighting, but I have no idea why. Would the answer to that mystery explain why he can smile with the Golden Boys but is nothing but a growling beast with me?
How much of his life is he hiding away from people, and how much of it have I been able to see?
“Why don’t you want your friends to know about your fighting?”
It’s not the question I intended to ask, but now that I’ve spoken it, I need to know.
A shiver of nervous energy tingles down my spine. I straighten my back to fight it off. “What could be so bad that you’d agree to spend all of your free time with me?”
“An hour a day is hardly all of my free time. Besides, the real question here is, what could be so scary that you’d be willing to risk spending so much time alone with me?”
Caleb pushes himself off the wall and lowers his chin. The room is illuminated by one floor lamp in the corner of the room, and the light cuts sharply across his features, casting his eyes in shadow.
“You’ve seen firsthand how dangerous I can be.”
“You’re not dangerous.”
He tilts his head to the side, the shadows playing across his face, highlighting the sharp planes. “You sure about that?”
Goose bumps rise on the backs of my arms. I nod, but the movement feels wooden.
Am I sure about that?
I’ve crossed him, and I’ve seen exactly what he does to people who cross him. It never ends well.
Still, if he wanted to hurt me, wouldn’t he have done it by now?
My thoughts are so scattered that I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until Caleb responds. “Fists aren’t the only way to wage war.”
I’m about to ask what he means, but before my lips can form the words, Caleb’s mouth crashes over mine. I’m so stunned I don’t react at first. Then, I slam my fists against his chest and stumble back.
“What the hell—”
“You asked what I like to do for fun,” he says, as though that is explanation enough.
“Throw yourself at unsuspecting women?” I spit, trying to gather up anger and ignore the flames being stoked in my belly.
“Unsuspecting, perhaps. But always willing.”
“You don’t ask if I’m willing.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t have to ask. If you remember, I’m the one who stopped our kiss before. You seemed willing enough then.”
My cheeks burn with embarrassed heat. “Is that what that was—just you having fun?”
Caleb’s mouth tips into a half smirk. “I thought I’d make this more pleasurable for both of us. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s what you wanted,” he says, voice silky and soft, taking a step towards me.
I hate that I can’t tell him no.
I hate that I can’t flip him the bird and tell him to take his confidence and shove it.
I hate that my lips burn from their brief contact with his and that my body aches to be close to him again.
Because it is what I wanted.
It’s what I still want.
I lift my chin and narrow my eyes. “No, it’s not.”
Caleb’s face doesn’t change as he moves towards me. He grabs my right arm and pulls hard, spinning me around. Then, his arms wrap around me and pull my back against his chest.
I yelp in surprise and try to buck against him, but Caleb’s arms tighten around me.
“This is what you want, then?” he asks in my ear. “You’ve been grabbed from behind. What do you do now?”
I still for a moment and then let out a cry of frustration. “This is a training exercise?”
Caleb smells as delicious as always, and I feel the rumble of his laughter in my entire body. “I’m just trying to give you what you want, Haley Cochran.” My name sounds like a dirty word when he says it. “So, try to get out of the hold. How would you escape?”
My arms are pinned to my sides so I can’t move. Just last week, this same position nearly made me hyperventilate. I lost all ability to control my thoughts or actions. Memories I’ve tried to forget and shove aside came rising up like billowing smoke, choking me.
Now, however, a different emotion entirely rises up inside of me—another one I’ve tried uselessly to beat down into submission.
But now that Caleb’s arms are around me and I can feel the warmth from his skin, there is nowhere for the feeling to hide.
My lips still burn from our brief kiss, and I know what I want.
I can’t lift my arms, but I have enough mobility to slide my hand around to the space between our bodies. Caleb is confident in his hold, and he doesn’t adjust his grip or reposition as I squirm.
But I feel him freeze the second my hand turns, palm outward, to cup him.
His breath hitches in my ear, sending a shiver of nervous anticipation through me, but I push through my hesitation and massage my hand over the length of him.
He is in jeans, but I can still feel the stiffening occurring between his thighs.
I slide my hand out of the way and, rather than pull away from Caleb, I press myself closer, rolling my hips back.
His fingers tense and tighten on my sides, holding me more firmly in place.
Then, suddenly, my world tumbles out of orbit.
Caleb spins me around while at the same time spinning us both so my back is now against the wall, like he is the moon to my sun.
The light is behind him, casting him in deep silhouette. I reach out to touch his face, but Caleb catches my hand in the air and presses it back against the wall.
“I’m the teacher, remember?” His voice is a low rumble that vibrates through my entire body.
He releases my wrist, but I leave my hand against the wall as Caleb’s fingers slip under the hem of my tank top and slide up over my stomach. His palms massage hot lines over my ribs until his hands settle over my breasts.
My chest is heaving. I’m breathless and overwhelmed, but never once uncertain of what I want.
“Touch me.”
The words sound foreign to my own ears, but I know they are mine.
Caleb groans at the command and presses his hips to mine, fitting our lower bodies together until I can feel the ready length of him.
I haven’t been with anyone since John. I haven’t been touched this way by anyone since him, and I am ready to sever that last connection to him. Yes, I’m attracted to Caleb, but even more than that, I am ready to finally step out of the shadow of John and into something else …
With someone else.
Caleb pulls my tank top over my head, tossing the thin material over his shoulder, and then bends down to press his full lips to my collarbone. Then his hand slides between us and snaps open the button of my shorts.
I reach for Caleb’s waistband to do the same, but once again, he grabs my hand and pins it to the wall.
I open my mouth to argue, but I’m met with punishing lips and a curious tongue.
The taste of him fills me, and I sigh at the perverse reality that everything about Caleb is alluring.
He uses his body for violence and punishment again and again, but everything about him draws you in.
Fists aren’t the only way to wage war.
As I yield my body to him inch by inch, I understand what he means now. What we’re doi
ng is a type of warfare. It’s another form of physical dominance and with every sigh and roll of my hips, I’m letting Caleb claim ground.
I have to claim some of my own.
I wrap my hand around his neck, curling my fingers in the silky hair there, and pull him closer. His mouth is an angry slash over mine, but I suck on his lower lip and nip at the corners of his mouth with my teeth until his mouth softens and slows until it feels like an extension of my own, as easy as breathing.
I feel I’m winning something—slowing him down enough to force him to enjoy the connection and … remember me?
I don’t need this to be a love connection, but I need Caleb to recognize me as more than a meaningless fuck.
However, just when I begin to think I may be winning control, Caleb’s hand slides inside my shorts and his finger smooths over my center.
Every nerve in my body catches flame.
I gasp into his mouth, and I feel his lips tip into a smile.
He pushes aside the delicate material of my panties and when he smooths over the damp evidence of my arousal, I lose all the ground I just gained.
Caleb knows how much I want this. He has the proof of it on his fingers. Armed with that, he advances and takes no prisoners.
Caleb slips his fingers inside of me.
I arch my back, tipping my hips to let him take more of me, and he does so greedily. Caleb adds a second finger and then angles his thumb up to circle over my center.
A knot of desire and need twists in my stomach, clenching all of my muscles.
If Caleb wasn’t pinning me to the wall, I’d drop to my knees.
“Come for me.”
His voice is hoarse. I can feel the hard length of him against my inner thigh.
I remember all at once that he is part of this, too. With John, there was hardly ever time for me to think about anyone except John. I was never given the opportunity to be selfish.
Now that I can be selfish, however, I don’t want to be. I want Caleb to feel the way I’m feeling.
To be lost in the sensation of what I can do for him.
As Caleb plunges his fingers in deeper and draws earth-shattering circles over me with his thumb, I pull together enough brain cells to slide a hand between us and reach inside of his shorts.
