by Faye, Amy
Chapter Eight
It wasn't clear what the hell had happened back there. Not to Craig Weston, anyways. Some girl he'd never met had come out of nowhere and just decided to play cock-block.
Well, not that he was going to complain about it. After all, he'd told himself that this wasn't going to be an exercise in going to bed with a girl.
So in a sense, he should be thanking that girl; for keeping him honest, if nothing else. In the moment he'd been furious. Who the fuck did she think she was, and so on.
But now, now that he'd had time to relax a little, it was practically a godsend. He might have to thank her, hell.
Whatever the hell was going through her head, she'd saved him from a fate… well, he wouldn't go that far. Getting laid was certainly far better than death.
But even still, there was some hope for him. He kept his head up and danced. Girls pressed in on him on all sides. It wasn't hard to know which ones were doing it on purpose and which ones were just out there dancing.
The way they turned to watch his eyes, the way that they pressed against him in just the right way. His blood surged. This had been a real mistake. A real god damn mistake.
He would have liked for his hands to move on their own. To say that it was pure reflex. It wasn't. He moved his hands to a particularly delightful girl's hips. She turned and flashed him a wide smile.
Her ass was just the right size, firm, and she pressed it back against him. His cock was already growing hard, and Craig Weston had no doubt she could feel it.
The way she turned to look over her shoulder again, the sly grin, and the way that she rubbed a little more aggressively told Craig everything he needed to know.
The way that the arousal screamed in his ears, he'd have lifted that skirt just a little higher and taken her right there on the floor. She didn't seem nearly so opposed to that idea as he might have expected, either.
His hand came down on her ass in a slap that filled his ears over the noise of the music. The squeal she let out was soft compared to the sound of the speakers, but it was practically all that he could hear. The firm, juicy ass pressed against his jeans was practically all he could feel.
His fingers dug into that ass. Jesus. She did her squats, all right. Every girl had something perfect about them, he thought again. Every girl. This one's ass was on point, and he hadn't even spoken a word to her.
A woman with depth, no doubt. If he learned more about her, then he might find that there was more than just that. But an ass so fine… well, maybe she didn't need anything more than that.
She stands up and presses herself against Craig. His body reacts accordingly, arousal surging through him. His jaw tightens until it hurts.
"You want to find someplace private," she says. There are plenty of places that are private even inside this bar. There's no need to go far. No need at all.
Her hand presses against his hard abs, tracing them through the thin fabric of his tee shirt.
"Say I do," he says back. He wants to sink his teeth into the girl's neck. Right before he slips himself somewhere else.
Her hand traces the lines of his muscles lower. Her hands undo the belt around his jeans, and one of her soft, manicured hands slips inside and grips his hard shaft. The feeling of her skin against him is intoxicating.
"Then follow me."
She pulls her hand out of his pants, and Craig pulls his belt tight again. Just coming down from that already has him on edge. What had been an urge has exploded into full-blown need, and there's nothing that he can do about it except fulfill that need.
She takes his hand and starts walking off the floor. It's not far at all. A few short steps and they're not pressed in any more. She turns and leans in for a kiss. Craig dodges her lips and takes her neck between his teeth.
The nameless girl lets out a gasp. The sound is like a drug. But not yet. It's not private enough. She pushes gently against his chest and he takes the message.
The girl starts walking away again, checking back behind her after a few steps. Craig stays behind a little bit. The way her ass sways, the way it moves… it's hypnotic. Perfect.
He wonders if anyone's ever had an ass so perfect. He wonders how hard she must have worked on it. Whether or not she knows that someone appreciates how much work it must have taken.
There's a brief flash of recognition as some third girl walks up.
Slap!
His face burns with pain. Pain near as bad as the tightness in his pants, near as bad as the pain of not being inside the woman who's stepping right now into the women's restroom.
But Craig's not watching her any more—perfect, hypnotic ass or not.
"What the fuck?" There's a girl in front of him. Short. She's got her hair in a thick braid that's pulled forward over her shoulder. A cute face, an alright body for her size.
She's so small, though, that Craig thinks for a minute he might be able to fit her into a backpack. Perhaps only five foot tall. That doesn't stop her from somehow filling his vision.
She's got a finger pointed right in his face, and she looks like she's getting ready to shout.
"The first time wasn't enough for you, you skeezy son of a bitch?"
Craig blinks. Oh, right. That's who this is. Okay. Recognition surges through him. Now he remembers. This is the same girl who fucked up the last girl he was trying to hook up with.
He's not feeling nearly so thankful this time. Because now it's not about how it was going to go in some theoretical future. It's about a ten-out-of-ten ass that's going to be bent over in a stall in about thirty seconds if this little fucking girl gets the hell out of his way.
"Leave me alone," he growls. "I don't even know you."
"You think that's my problem? You need to leave these girls the hell alone."
"What are you, their mother?"
"You're not listening to me," the tiny woman growls. As her face twists up in a mask of fury, Craig's cock keeps doing his thinking for him.
A girl this size, it might be interesting in bed. He dwarfs her. More than a foot's difference in height. That could make for a lot of interesting stuff, if he's careful. And for such a small girl—he could practically reach around her waist with just his hands, he thinks—she's certainly not proportional.
No, she's a whole lot of woman packed into five-foot-nothing. But she's not bending over in a bathroom stall right now, and she's not ready to suck his cock on the god damn dance floor if he asked her to.
"Get out of my way."
She should have been easy to move, but it wasn't as if Craig was about to push her out of his way. He wasn't about to lay his hands on her. Not that way, anyways, and he wasn't going to do it any way until she seemed like she'd be interested.
"You're not going to go fuck some random woman in the bathroom of a club. She deserves better than that, you smug son of a bitch."
From the way it sounds, she's not interested in that, not right now. And from the way that the other girl looks at him talking to this one, she's not necessarily that interested any more either.
God fucking damn it.
Chapter Nine
Emma Owens was only just beginning to realize how big a mistake she'd made two days later. Right in the middle of preparing for the test, only another day left. It shouldn't have been a problem, and it wasn't going to be.
Four calls. Not one or two or three but four separate people called asking for studying help. She'd only had the fliers up for a day, and already, people were calling.
How on Earth was she going to handle this whole thing for $10 a week? That meant that she'd made $40, certainly, but $40 in order to guarantee four people that she could get them an A? Guaranteed?
And to talk each of them through any sticking points?
The people who called you up and asked to set up a meeting weren't the sort of people who just picked things up from looking through some well-organized notes. They weren't Janey, who just didn't want to pay close attention in class.
They were going to be struggling.
Now Emma was going to be working on four separate people, and ten dollars an hour was the best she could possibly hope for. If this was the level of interest in just two classes, if she expanded to her other classes, then she was going to be hip-deep in tutoring for the rest of the semester, for barely enough money to cover food.
Some sort of extra fee was… going to be necessary. Almost certainly. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that she's going to be a hard case about it. There's nothing right about turning people away when they ask you for help.
Asking for more money meant turning away people who couldn't afford the help, and she wasn't looking to turn a profit—just thin the herd a little bit.
So maybe if they were poor, she could overlook the fee. It's not about making money, after all. Making money was just a happy side-benefit.
On the other hand, the second question burned in her. She'd gone out of her way once to stop Craig Weston's reign of terror. She wasn't drunk; she never drank. But that didn't mean that the heat and sweat and music and the proximity to all that alcohol didn't have a little effect on her.
Maybe she'd been a little out of line. Maybe seeing him had driven her a little nuts. But that left only two options. Either she was wrong to have done it, and she should go apologize, or…
Well, that or she wasn't wrong to have done it. Those were the only two options. She'd considered apologizing. He might have forgotten the whole thing—or he might not have—but that didn't mean that she got to ignore her responsibilities.
If he deserved an apology, she'd have to give him one. But then again, if he didn't deserve an apology…
So between panicking about how she was going to fit three more study sessions into the next four hours, she was panicking about whether or not she should give Craig Weston the apology he might have deserved.
On one hand, he was a scoundrel. There was nothing that any woman could do against his charms. Not as far as Emma Weston had seen anyways. Hell, that almost went for her, too. Almost.
But other girls, they weren't prepared for it like she was. They weren't ready to deal with that level of… unf. That level of man. They thought it would be fun, and they were probably damn well right.
But there's more to life than fun, and if they were being rational, if they didn't have Craig Weston clouding their judgment, making their skin tingle with arousal—
Emma cut off that thought as she felt the heat start spreading through her belly. They would have been more able to deal with the onslaught of his raw sexual energy and resisted his advances.
If they were accepting it of their own free will, then they were enabling the exactly wrong kind of man to go around with impunity. In either case, it was wrong.
But at the same time, the fact that it was wrong doesn't absolve them of responsibility, and if they hold some responsibility, then…
The thoughts turned over in her head over and over. She should, or she shouldn't.
Another thought, though, punctuated the idea that it wasn't wrong of her, and she didn't need to apologize.
If it wasn't wrong, then why wasn't she still doing it? If the girls are vulnerable and he's taking advantage of their weakness, then why is Emma letting him continue his little 'reign of terror?'
Both of the trains of thought lead in the same direction. To the same place. She checks her watch. It's almost four now. If she leaves the library, she can make it to the quad by four, no problem.
Right around now, he'll be leaving practice, and it's well-known that he always walks across the campus on his way back to his dorm. The fact that he rarely gets through the quad without taking a little detour away from his dorm is well known, as well.
So if she's going to find him, it's going to be there. Whether she's going to stop him, or apologize for stopping him, she's going to have to run into Craig Weston some time. And now is the opportune time to find him before another girl has time to make a mistake she's going to regret.
Emma slips her books into the messenger bag and tosses it over her shoulder. It's lighter than normal, but even still the weight takes a moment to adjust to.
The next person she's supposed to tutor isn't going to be here until four fifteen. There's no conflict there; fifteen minutes is plenty of time to get back.
She'll just get over there, do what needs doing, and get back. It should be easy to do, plenty of time, no problem.
Whichever, she'll know what the right answer is when she sees him. When she's in the situation, it won't be a question. The Lord will guide her hand, and she'll be told what the right course of action is. So even though it seems hard to know right now, what she's supposed to do, it's not going to be a problem in the long run.
It's just going to be a problem right this minute.
Emma takes a breath and starts the walk across campus. The conversation plays out a million different ways in her head, every time. She always wins fights in her head. Everyone always sounds very stupid and never has a good response.
But fights in real life aren't like that. She's not as confident in real life as she is in her head. She's not as witty. Not quite as smart.
The other side isn't quite as stupid. They're not quite as slow. They don't walk right into her prepared responses.
And the one thing that never happens in the conversations she rehearses in her head is the one thing that she can expect from any interaction with Craig Weston.
Nobody in her head bores into her with their eyes. Nobody's got that rock-hard body that makes her fingers clench into a fist. Nobody's gaze burns to be touched by. Nobody in her head looks half as good as Craig Weston does on his worst day.
And nobody in her head is coming across the quad right now, his head down, duffel bag hanging from his broad shoulders, a hood up to cover his head.
If you were guessing, you might say that he's trying to look inconspicuous, but Craig Weston has never looked inconspicuous in his entire life, and he's not managing it now.
Emma's insides twist up. It's now or never. Whatever she's going to do, she has to do it now, because every other girl on the quad is noticing him coming, too, and it's survival of the fittest out here.
Chapter Ten
The blood was surging in Craig Weston's ears. He'd put in headphones, to try to block out the constant whine of blood pumping right through him, but it wasn't going to work. Nothing seemed to, not any more. It was just going to be unpleasant, and it was going on two days now.
There had been chances. Opportunities. Nothing that pulled at him like that girl in the club had. Nothing that held him down and made him. And now that he'd had a day without, a second didn't seem as bad. A third. Now a fourth.
From outside the protective bubble of the headphones playing music softly and the hum of head-splitting ache, someone spoke. A woman, of course. It usually was, about now. He'd made it past the first onslaught, the girls who really wanted to see him right god damn now.
But the walk back to his dorm always meant going through some crowded area, no matter where he went, and with a reputation like his, it wasn't hard to justify, you know, giving it a shot.
Well, he was tired of shots. He was tired of having people make an attempt at it. But he wasn't going to tell them so. Because if he ever needed his fix… if he couldn't tell them no…
A voice in his head told him to keep walking. It wasn't worth it. Don't engage them. Don't stop. It's just like an alcoholic. You don't tempt yourself. Don't walk by the bar. Don't go inside. Not even just for a coke.
He stopped. Pulled the jack of his headphones out of his phone. The music cut off. She was as pretty as anyone he'd seen.
"Hey," she said. Soft and low. He'd never seen her before. Didn't know her at all. But that wasn't going to stop him. His blood started screaming inside him, arousal twisting up his insides.
The girl had a pleasantly soft-looking body. The way her clothes fit accentuated her assets, in ways so that nobody would have any questions about what s
he thought her best look was.
She thought that her wide hips—hips that made a man think about what they could be used for—and her tits were defining features of her look. The way that her sweater plunged just deep enough to give hints at them, Craig had to agree.
"Hey yourself," he said. His voice was hoarse from calling plays, and the arousal that was pumping through his body was making it rougher.
Craig was vaguely aware that there must have been some kind of silently-agreed social order to these things. First come, first serve, or something. Because at the edge of his consciousness, a dozen girls slowly turned their attention away.
"How was practice?"
Small talk wasn't Craig's favorite part of this little dance. Never was.
"It was alright." His clothes felt like they were fitting tight. The neck of his tee-shirt, the hips of his jeans. It was a familiar sort of uncomfortable.
"Yeah?"
She doesn't know what she's doing either. She's still feeling things out. As if they both don't know where this ends. It's easier when they're just honest with themselves, when they try to press their bodies up close and he can just decide how he feels about them right then and there.
"Sure, I guess. You want to get out of here?"
The words come out of his mouth easily. He doesn't like to push it. He likes them to push it. But she's not going to. Whatever it is about her, whether she lacks confidence or what, she's not intending to push anything.
So if it's going to happen, then he's going to have to make it happen.
Her face flushes crimson. She's imagining exactly what he's talking about, and she's certainly not deciding against it. Not from the way that she avoids his eyes when she nods. "Sure."
Craig wraps his arm around her shoulder. It's easy. As easy as can be. It always is. Too easy. A voice inside him tells Craig that he shouldn't have done it. That he should let her go. That he should have been the bigger person, whether she wanted it or not.
A big part of him agrees with that feeling. He should have refused, and he feels bad as hell about it, but he can't stop now.
