by Jenika Snow
“Hey.” There was a moment when he didn’t think she heard, but finally she moaned and rolled onto her back. Her tits swayed from her movements, and he turned away, feeling disgusted with himself. “You need to leave.” He felt fucking dirty, and needed a hot as hell shower. Scrubbing his hand over his cheek he felt stubble cover his skin. His mouth tasted sour, and he tried to remember if he threw up. He had certainly drunk enough that it was possible.
When the chick beside him didn’t move he said again, “Hey, you need to leave. I have shit to do.” She looked up at him from her rat’s nest head full of hair and narrowed her eyes.
“You asshole. Are you seriously kicking me out right now? I just got up.”
Not his problem. Cracking his back and feeling his muscles protest at the movement, he searched around for his clothes. His boxer briefs and jeans were in a heap on the floor at the end of the bed, and he picked them up and quickly put them on. When he was half-dressed he turned around and looked at her. She was spread across the bed, the sheet completely gone, and her legs spread.
“Come on, how about a little morning fun?” She moved her hand down her concave belly and started playing with herself. Alex made a grunt of impatience and pointed toward the door.
“No. I told you I have shit to do.”
Her lips flattened, and she pushed herself up, completely unconcerned about her nudity.
“What kind of guy turns down sex?”
“The same kind of guy that brings random chicks home to fuck.” He was being a prick, but he was hung over, pissed at himself for what he had done with this girl, and even more pissed that he disrespected Mary the way he had. No amount of reasoning could make him feel differently on the latter. He had pushed her away to make her see what a douche he was, but he still felt like a prick.
“What kind of girl do you think I am?” Her voice was outraged.
“The kind that goes home with a random guy to fuck.” He used the same phrase on her as he had on himself. They were the same, no matter which way they looked at it. He felt like throwing up, and he wanted her out of his house so he could do it in fucking peace. He really didn’t have anything to do today, well, not anymore. After pushing Mary away he didn’t have tutoring today, and aside from maybe going to the gym to work out the toxins from his body, he was going to sit his ass on the couch and do absolutely nothing. No studying. No football. No Mary. He had practice Monday, and although he wasn’t playing in games until he got his grades up, his still worked out with his teammates.
“You are such a bastard.” Her anger was tangible, but he wasn’t in the mood for it. He scrubbed a hand over his face again, needing a shave as bad as he needed a shower.
God, he had a fucking headache. He rubbed his temples, just needing her to leave.
He heard her mumbling profanities about his manhood under her breath, but he didn’t say anything because she was right. “Fuck you, Alex.”
He lifted his hand, and thanked whoever had helped him out that she was finally leaving. The sound of her wrenching the bedroom door shut, and then her angry, loud footsteps proceeded her slamming of the front door. Seconds later her tires squealing out of his driveway had him breathing out in relief. He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his forehead in his hand. He needed a gallon of water and some ibuprofen. There was a knock on the door, but he didn’t bother looking up.
“Yeah?” His voice was muffled, but whoever was on the other side heard him because the door creaked open.
“You like look shit run over twice.” Racer’s voice was amused, which further pissed off Alex. He lifted his hand and flipped him off. Racer chuckled. The smell of meat had Alex’s stomach roiling.
“Fuck off, Adam.” Alex mouth watered with the threat of spewing up whatever was left in his stomach, but he swallowed roughly and forced himself to keep it down. “What time is it anyway?”
“It’s after one, fucker. I made some burgers if you want.”
Alex clenched his teeth at the foul words. Just the thought of food had him ready to puke.
Damn he had slept half the day away, although he had no clue what time they had gotten home.
“Dude, please. Shut the fuck up about the food.”
Racer chuckled again. “Well, I can make you some eggs, you know with the really runny centers. Or I can get you some slightly undercooked sausage, you know, to help settle your stomach.”
Alex grabbed a pillow and chucked it at Racer.
“Fuck you, Adam.”
Nausea slammed into him, and Racer laughed loudly before darting out of the room. Alex stood and quickly walked to the bathroom, threw open the lid, and puked until he started dry heaving. Well, shit, he couldn’t remember the last time he had thrown up.
He flushed the toilet and stood, bracing himself on the edge of the sink. When he glanced at himself in the mirror he winced at how nasty he looked. Dark circles under his eyes, his hair standing up every which way, and the five o’clock shadow from hell. His mouth tasted stale, and every part of his body ached. He had really fucked things up with her, but it had been for the best, because her wanting him was not only like a dream fucking come true, but also bad news. In the end he would hurt her, because that was what he was good at doing. Hell, he already had hurt her.
****
Mary knew this was a bad idea as soon as she made up her mind, and that feeling of dread continued to grow when she got in her car, drove to Alex’s house, and now stood at his front door waiting for someone to answer. Her heart thundered hard in her chest, and her mouth had gone dry. Her anger still simmered below the surface, and her damn arousal was making its way through her body. The front door swung open, and she was struck speechless when she saw it was Alex in nothing but a pair of loose, low hanging sweats, and a towel slung over his wide, muscular shoulders. There was that dark, delicious ink that started on his right arm and wound its way over his shoulder and disappeared to his back. She knew that the wide expanse of his back held those intricately dark lines that swirled, twisted, and were sharp in contrast to his golden, hairless skin.
“Mary? What are you doing here?” She snapped her eyes to his and felt her cheeks heat. No doubt he just caught her checking him out. The way his jaw clenched, and the dark look that crossed his face had her nervousness leaving and anger replacing it. This had been a bad idea, but she was here now, and she would make her intentions perfectly clear. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and the way his abdomen clenched, showing off his six-pack, and the way his biceps bulged had instant heat pooling between her legs.
Don’t get caught up by the pretty, sparkly things, Mary.
“I’m going to be perfectly honest. I am only here because I need you to still go with me to my sister’s wedding. If you weren’t my last resort I would have been happy to never see you again. The truth is I don’t know any other males that don’t have a girlfriend, or who I would even think would entertain the idea of going with me.” Some of what she said was a lie, but not quite, and of course she wouldn’t tell him that. He ground his teeth, but other than that he gave no outward reaction. “You’re a dick, plain and simple, and I don’t want anything from you aside from being my date. I’ll still tutor you as long as you agree to go with me.”
A beat of silence passed before he answered. “Are you serious?”
“I guarantee I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” She remembered last night, the hurtful way he made her feel, and the way he looked at her so unapologetically that her heart had twisted. “I want nothing else from you. This is just a business deal. I’ll help you pass your class, and you go with me the weekend after next. When everything is said and done we can go our own ways, without having to ever think about each other again.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, and with each passing second she grew more and more uncomfortable. After thinking about all of this before she left the house, she honestly hadn’t thought about wh
at she would do if he turned her away. She supposed she could just go dateless and deal with Margo and her mom, which was a lot worse than it sounded. He could appreciate a simple business deal, one that would benefit both of them, surely.
“I can always ask Adam if he wants to go with you.” He cocked his eyebrow, and she curled her hands into fists. Oh, she had thought about Adam, albeit only for a moment. He may be big and muscular, but he was far too charming and nice, and no doubt would be a perfect gentleman. How sad was it that Mary wanted the complete opposite when she was around those snobs?
“Adam is too nice. I need a guy that is an asshole, knows it, and doesn’t care.” The dark look that covered his face had pleasure filling her. Good. She was glad she got a little reaction out of him. “I’m not holding a gun to your head. You either will or you won’t, but I’m not going to stand here all day and wait for you to make up your mind.” Mary was pretty proud of herself for having a steady voice and not flinching under his unwavering glare.
“For as smart as I know you are, I am surprised to see you on my doorstep.”
Why was he acting like this? No, she knew, because he was a pompous fucker. The Alex she had met just last week, the nice one that smiled at her genuinely, and spoke softly to her, was not the guy standing in front of her.
“Are you in or not? I don’t have time for this shit.”
He lifted a dark brow at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Damn him for still making her want him after the way he acted, and damn him for thinking this was funny. It wasn’t, and she would make a point that not all women were mindless twits when it came to him. He stepped away from the door, held it further open for her, and gestured for her to enter. Mary didn’t look at him as she stepped into the house and stopped once she was in front of the stairs.
“We can do this in the kitchen.” She turned, looked at him, and narrowed her eyes when the corner of his mouth twitched again. “You need to take this seriously. I’m not the one failing a course and having my football season threatened.” That had his smirk vanishing and his jaw clenching.
“You came here, don’t forget that. You need me as much as I need you.” They were in some kind of stare off for a long while, and it was only when Adam stepped into the entryway that she looked away.
“Hey, Mary.” Adam was all smiles as he stared at her.. Yeah, he blatantly checked her out on occasion, but he was a genuine guy, unlike some guys she knew. “You look nice today.” Mary would have thought that was some kind of sarcastic stab at her clothing, but there was no asshole-ness coming from him.
“Thank you.”
She purposefully made sure to dress in the rattiest jeans and t-shirt she had, ones reserved for cleaning the house. Adam turned his attention to Alex. “Dude, you’re going to break your teeth if you grind them any harder.” With that Adam sauntered out the front door, leaving the two of them alone once more.
“All right, let’s just get this over with.” She headed into the kitchen and started getting the books and notebook out of her backpack. Alex came in a few seconds later and went over to the fridge.
“You want something to drink?”
Without looking at him she said, “No, I’m good.”
This was awkward, but she could handle an hour at a time in his presence. She sat down and focused on the things in front of him. If she didn’t the smell of him freshly showered, and the sight of his ridiculously ripped chest with that defined cut V of muscle leading below his pants, would have her flustered until she couldn’t form a coherent sentence. She lifted just her eyes when he bent over and reached for something in the fridge. The sight of his toned back was impressive, especially those muscles right under his arms, but that wasn’t what had disgust moving through her. Three long scratch marks lined his lower back, scratch marks that a woman would have given him when he screwed her. He made his way back to her, pulled out the chair across from her, and sat down. Mary had lowered her gaze before he knew she had been staring, and pushed images of exactly what he had done last night out of her head. It wasn’t her business, and what Alex did, and who he did it with, was no concern of hers.
“Listen, about last night—”
Oh, hell no. No way was he going to apologize for the shit that went down, and what, right after he fucked some girl, most likely a random one? Honestly she was glad he had said the things he had to her last night. It reminded her that Alex wasn’t for her, and never would be. She held her hand up, stopping him from continuing on with that. Finding all of her strength, and not about to let him smooth things over as easily as he probably did with a lot of thing, Mary looked him in the eyes.
“There is no need for apologies, Alex.” His big, wide chest rose and fell as he inhaled deeply. “I’m here to help you, and because I need your help in return. Besides, it looks like you had plenty to occupy your time last night after I left.”
Why did you say that? God, she needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. She lifted her eyes to him, saw the confused expression on his face morph into one of embarrassment, anger, and what? Was that regret? He cornered her, literally and in the figurative sense. Growing up she had met a lot of people like him, ones that thought about themselves, didn’t care what others felt, and had blinders on. Well no more. They had made an agreement, reached an understanding, and that was it.
“We are using each other, and that is all.” She was stronger than he gave her credit for. “Now, can we just move past last night, get this over with, and then we both can forget the other existed?”
He clenched his jaw again and held his hands in tight fists on top of the table. His whole body grew taut, and his muscles flexed and bulged beneath his skin. Well good, she was glad she was pissing him off, because he deserved to be just as angry as she was.
“Wouldn’t have thought you had a mouth like that on you, Mary.” The way he said her name gave her chills. He looked ready to explode, like he was barely hanging on to his control. Maybe she should have been frightened, but all she did was thrust a book at him and tell him what page to turn it to. Mary forgot about everything else and started going over the material in the book. For the next hour Mary didn’t make eye contact with him, but she sure as hell felt his stare all the way through her, and because of that she was even more determined to keep her distance. That was easier every time she thought about those scratches he wore.
****
Alex stared at Mary sitting on his living room floor. It had been a week since she had come to his house, surprising the shit out of him, considering the douche-bag way he acted toward her at Tainted. Her mouth was moving, but all he could concentrate on was how fucking hot she was. He still felt shame that she had seen scratch marks on his back from the night of sex he didn’t even remember, and although it had been seven days since that happened, he still felt gross about it, and ashamed that he had worn the damn things like some kind of scarlet letter. Then his thoughts morphed into the night he’d had her pressed against the wall at Tainted. He could still smell her, that underlying scent of sweat mixed with the light, floral perfume she wore. He had been so fucking hard, and just thinking about it now made him harder yet. Even now, when she only wore a pair of shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt he found himself shifting on his seat, trying to alleviate his hard-on.
“Alex, are you even listening to me?” He snapped his eyes from where he had been looking: at her perfectly rounded breasts. Her attitude over the last week had been icy, but she was slowly starting to talk to him in a voice that wasn’t monotone and filled with distaste.
“What?” Fuck, his damn voice cracked like he was some kind of teenager going through puberty. He cleared his throat and leaned forward so he was resting his forearms on his thighs. “I’m listening.”
No, he wasn’t, but she didn’t need to know that. Over the last week he had caught on to the basics of what this class was really about, and knew he had been so off about the subject matter that he was actually embarrassed by the fact.
�
��Yeah?” She crossed her arms and arched a perfectly shaped dark eyebrow.
Shit, he really wished she wouldn’t do that because all it accomplished was plumping up her breasts, and showing him a nice shot of cleavage. When he didn’t answer and was finally able to tear his gaze from her chest, it was to see her blue eyes snapping with challenge. When she didn’t tell him to fuck off and keep his eyes to himself, he felt a little high, and decided to see how far he could push it. It was a dumbass move on his part, seeing as she was just now starting to talk to him in a not tutorial way. He let his eyes travel down her legs, and stopped when he saw the fabric of her shorts gap at the junction of her thighs. Fucking hell. Rubbing his hand over his jaw he averted his eyes, knowing that he was just working himself up for no reason, and if he didn’t get his arousal under control she would no doubt see the wood he was sporting.
“Yeah.” He looked at her again and smirked. “You were talking about the rise of proximity in underdeveloped countries.” She didn’t show any reaction, and he was pretty damn proud of himself for being able to pull that answer out of his ass when his thoughts had been on much more pleasant things. He had seen her the past three days in a row, and only had one more week of tutoring before he was going with her to her sister’s wedding.
Every time he saw her he found himself wanting her that much more, and each time she looked into his eyes he wanted to tell her he was sorry for the way he treated her at the club, that he had acted like an ass, but that he had tried to make a point, that he was worthless when it came to being the kind of guy a girl like her deserved. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but every time the words came forth she would look at him, shake her head like she knew what he was going to say, and finishing talking about a subject he could care less about. He just wanted to know more about her, and found himself aching to ask her where she came from, if she had any siblings, and other things that he had never cared about when confronted with the opposite sex. He was in uncharted territory right now, and had no idea how to navigate when it came to trying to be a decent guy, and not one that was just looking for another one-night stand.
