by Grace, Hazel
I gasp, tugging my hand away, but Colson keeps a firm grip around my wrist, guiding my touch up and down his shaft.
Holy fuck.
“What’s not funny,” Colson growls, “Is that my dick still has the same reaction whenever you’re around. I wonder if your pussy does the same around me.” I step back, hitting my head against the wall and rattling a picture.
“Don’t...”
He cocks his head to the side. “Are you saying no?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you want my fingers to circle your pretty clit?” I half ass shake my head, my legs clenched together to relieve some of the ache, but it just continues. “You look tense.”
“I’m not,” I retort, squaring my shoulders and trying to steady my breathing.
He counters my retreat again, pressing his chest against mine. In my white heels, I only reach his nose, so my gaze is right at his neck, where I see him swallow.
“I didn’t get to enjoy your pussy as much as I would’ve loved to, Bases,” he mutters. “And now, the once naive city girl is fucking two guys at the same time.”
Now, I swallow, not wanting to explain that it wasn’t exactly what he thought. Yes, I’m screwing Jake, we have an agreement—casual. That’s all we both want. But he was a distraction that turned into a continuous thing to take my mind off the past. Off him. And I needed that distraction more than ever now.
But I wasn’t fucking Myles.
“Are you chastising me?” I croak, sounding like I have a sore throat because my heart is in it. “I remember you being known for that.” Colson smirks, continuing his slow torture on me and himself.
His fingers tighten around my wrist while his breathing becomes heavier, hotter. I can feel his thickness against my hand twitch under my touch, and I want to feel him. I want the soft skin of him wrapped around my fingers just so I can watch his eyes roll back.
“That was a long time ago,” he retorts, his tone floundering. “This isn’t you. It doesn’t fit you.”
I peer up at him, his amber eyes look gold now, glistening in what looks to be starvation. “You don’t know me anymore.”
“Did I ever?” I bite the inside of my lower lip, forcing back the tears that are burning my eyes. I’m letting him take me back there. To the guilt I’ve buried myself in for years.
“Does it matter?” I counter, flattening my fingers so he doesn’t get as much brushing from my hand along his shaft.
“It mattered.” He lowers his head to mine. “Back then, it mattered.” I despise every fiber of my body that clings to what he’s saying. The whole situation is causing memories to come crashing in, making me want to go back to a time when Colson was mine and I was completely his.
But everything got fucked up, and we can’t go back. He can’t stand me after what I did, and I can’t help but feel like if roles were reversed I’d feel the same.
It had been a mistake, a really big one, and it wasn’t done intentionally. With Colson, I couldn’t fix it, no amount of words and pleas would gain his forgiveness. Once you hurt him, he was done with you forever. I just had to accept that hard fact and the way his words stung me every time he reminded me.
“I bet,” Colson whispers along the side of my face. “I can make you come harder than the Abercrombie model ever could. You’ll be screaming my name before I’m done.”
“Colson.” His name is a breathy pant, and for the life of me, I can’t stop him. I’ll never fully get him out of my system, but I can’t handle his torment right now. With Dad’s business and the money I need to bring in this month so I can register for my next semester in school, I just can’t.
“Hm?” His lips brush my ear, sending current of want and need everywhere. I crave everything he’s offering. Things we never did and had. A life that was destroyed before it ever began.
“I can’t…”Colson gently lets me go, out of pure mercy or maybe he believes me when I say I’m over this. Either way, I’m slightly grateful that he is listening.
“Just let me know if you change your mind,” he transmits. “Because I’m going to be around here for a long ass time. I’ll wear you down eventually, Bases.”
His face is impassive, and I hate that he can do that whereas I’m on the verge of melting into a puddle of nerves.
“You’ll be the first one to know,” I murmur, rubbing my hot palm along the fabric of my dress. His eyes trail my movements while slowly lavishing my body. His gaze feels sweltering, nerve-racking and violating. My mind can’t land on one description of how it feels as he takes me in, comparing who I am today to who I was then.
“You still with that doctor?” he asks me, his attention on my chest.
“Yes.”
He exhales a silent puff of air. “You always dated fucking idiots, Bases.”
“I dated you, didn’t I?”
He snaps his focus to my eyes. “I didn’t say I wasn’t included.”
“At least we’re in agreement.”
“Sure, smart ass.” He glances down the hallway, looking it over again, but keeps his stance close to mine.
I force my next words out. “I didn’t know...that night. I’m sorry.” He slowly turns his head back to me, his mocha eyes pinning me to the wall.
“I’ve already heard your apologies a million times, and as good as they were, Bases, it wasn’t what I needed.”
Needed? What did I forget to do?
I only texted him over a thousand times, searched for him at his home, and begged Ben to tell me where he was.
“What did you need?” He lowers his head, inches away from my nose, so I can inhale him deeply without looking obvious. His woodsy cologne hasn’t changed, I still remember it from high school.
“Let me know if they take my offer,” he says instead. “And the chandelier goes.”
And just like that, he leaves me alone in the hallway, my body missing him instantly. And if I wasn’t in a mind fuck before, now my thoughts are racing to a decade ago.
I couldn’t change what happened. What I was lead into believing that night. All I know, after all these years, is that this was the last time I apologized to Colson Hayes.
Because it was absolutely pointless.
We were done.
Present day
I’m resorting back to my old ways, although, back then I didn’t know they were habits. I wiped out the shitty memories of losing my dad and replaced them with fucking girls in high school to feel a temporary high. The only thing though, is it didn’t last long until it didn’t last at all.
That was until Sawyer walked in and flipped my gloomy little world, filling it with a bright moon and even brighter stars. She rained sunshine onto my asshole persona that I hid behind to keep myself from grieving. She made being the normal me comfortable, accepting the way I was because she could heal it, fix it, love it.
That last one, though, didn’t happen. We never got around to saying those words.
I could only imagine how much more of a fucking idiot I would’ve felt like if that had happened.
Ben practically skips next to me, extinguishing my thoughts as I elbow him in the side to knock it off. If he wants to be taken seriously as a coach, he needs to remember that we didn’t walk around like we had rainbows shooting out of our asses and that this shit wasn’t easy.
Getting a baseball scholarship was hard work, requiring an abundance of time and will power. Something half of these little shitheads haven’t learned yet.
“This is the team?” Ben asks me, stopping short of the infield to watch the guys warm up. I take in my guys, junior me’s, all full of testosterone, thoughts of what girl they were going to fuck next, and a bunch of gas. A fraction of these little pea brains don’t know what lies ahead for them. If they wanted the big dream, they had to outdo the best of the best.
“Yep,” I deadpan. Ben stays silent, and when he doesn’t say anything for a few moments, I peer over at him. “What?”
“They look….puny.”
&nbs
p; I furrow my brows. “What did you want, a bunch of Derek Jeter’s on steroids? You looked like the kid over there in the red hat.” Josh was an average height kid with chunky arms and a bubble butt. The guys called him “Bubbles” because they were a bunch of clever assholes, but he could hit like a fucking beast.
“Were we that size?”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“Geezus,” he mumbles. “Are they good?”
“Average.” I point at my third baseman. “The kid in the green shirt is Harris, he’ll get picked up. That little fucker could give me a run for my money with how fast he throws.”
Ben nods toward the field. “How about that tall ass kid?”
“Kyle plays catcher.”
Ben snaps his head to me. “Catcher?”
“Yeah. Because he can whip the ball over the batter’s head on a foul.”
Ben chuckles and shrugs. “Alright, Coach, introduce me to the team then.” We make our way over to the field as all the guys give curious glances toward the new man approaching. I announce that he’s my assistant coach, and there’s some grumbling at the possibility of getting gripped at more during practice. If I know Ben, he’ll enjoy the hell out of it.
When we’re done with practice, I tell the guys to round up, giving them a pep talk about their first game coming up. I try my best to be encouraging, it wasn’t my strong suit, but Ben fills in where I’m lacking. The guys follow each other to the locker room to go pack up and head home, which leaves me with my pending issues of selling Mom’s house, getting my own, and moving here permanently.
The need for Sawyer—no—the want of Sawyer’s pussy has become clear that it’s something I’ll take, discard, and move on from. It was something I worked toward, I earned the damn thing. I never cheated on her, talked to other girls, shit, I never even looked at other females. I wanted to earn it. That, and her trust.
I just fucking forgot that she needed to gain mine in return.
“See you at our practice tomorrow?” Ben chimes, gathering his gear and shoving it back into his bag.
“Yeah, man, six, right?”
“You got it,” he says, heaving his bag over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, man. And thanks for grabbing me this job.”
I give him a weak smile. “Not a problem.”
My eyes can’t stop sauntering over to home plate, where Sawyer practiced so hard on those inside pitches, focused on the ball while I stared at her ass and thighs the whole time. The way her breathing would hitch when I got close to her, smelling her flowery perfume that she probably got at the mall a few towns over.
She wanted me even then, she just didn’t know it yet. I guess I had always wanted her too. I wanted to own her for a little while, conquer something that wasn’t supposed to be. She deserved things I wasn’t in a place to give her at the time, but dammit, I tried. She was a force pulling me in, and I sank deeper into who she was.
And fuck me, I’m starting to feel that familiar pull again.
But I’m older now, shit happened, she’s fucking two guys, and I’ve been fucking with her sister and assistant. It was a warning to just stay the fuck away from me. I’m back not for her, but for myself. Not to rekindle shit or pick up where we left off. I filed those memories, hid them somewhere in the back of my mind so that it didn’t turn my stomach and seize the heart that was tumbling into love.
I’ve never given myself to anyone like I had her.
But I tried, once.
I clench my eyes closed and shake off memories of her, two years ago when I was almost happy with someone else. Where I tried to continue moving forward like a normal human being.
But Sawyer fucked that up too. She picked up my heart and destroyed it.
And I wasn’t done making sure she remembered I wasn’t the one to fuck with.
Ten years ago
“Watch where you’re fucking going!” I stumble forward, my Calculus book sliding across the tiled floor of the hall while I catch myself from face planting. “Stupid bitch.”
When I regain my footing, I turn to two girls, both brunettes, glaring at me like I just said that Howie from the Backstreet Boys was the ugliest one in the group.
He kinda was.
“You hit me,” I retort, adjusting my backpack. The taller one looks me up and down then scoffs.
“Not how I saw it. Who knew that Gavin would date such an idiot who can’t even walk.”
“She must put out easy on the daily,” the other one says. She leans forward, her small boobs peeking through the top of her spaghetti strap shirt.
“We should be thanking her though, Darlene,” the first one retorts. “She left Colson Hayes wide open for business.”
I snort. “Go for it. And good luck.”
Darlene flips her hair over her shoulder. “Don’t need it.” They think they’ve rattled me when they haven’t.
It’s been a common occurrence since Gavin announced to his friends that we were dating, and it spread like wildfire around school.
It’s the least of my worries right now.
The fact that I’m serving my first detention and missing out on Friday’s game takes the cake.
“Don’t you ladies have somewhere to be?” Gavin voices from behind me, appearing at my side.
Darlene smiles brightly. “Just talking with your girlfriend before class.”
“More like fucking with her before class,” he chides. “Get the hell out of here before I make the rest of your school year a fucking joke.”
Both girls abruptly turn around and walk away, just like that.
“You alright?” I look over at Gavin, who seems sincerely upset. He’s wearing a frown while his eyes glisten in apology.
“I’m good, don’t worry about me, that was nothing.”
His frown deepens. “There’s been more?”
To tell or not to tell, that is the question.
I scratch my forehead with my index finger. “No, everything is good.”
“Then why did Taylor say you had detention after school today?”
“I…” My mind scrabbles for an excuse, a lie. And for what? To protect his jerk of a best friend who framed me?
“It was Colson, wasn’t it?” he sneers. I avert my gaze, this is going to cause a fight between them, and I don’t want to be in the middle, nor do I want to be the reason.
But I didn’t start it, he did.
“Yeah,” I finally admit. “I think he told Miss McMahon that I forged a paper for Mr. B’s class.”
“Forged? What do you mean?”
“He somehow got a hold of my original paper, and I think he replaced it with his to make it look like I took credit when I didn’t deserve it. Like I copied or something.” Gavin’s face turns murderous, his hand raking his light hair.
“This motherfucker…”
I touch his arm. “Please don’t fight about it. I don’t wan—”
“He’s fucking with my girlfriend. Don’t tell me not to worry about what he’s doing to you.”
I inhale deeply. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen because it would mean that everything Colson said was right, I’d ruin everything. Their friendship, their baseball scholarship—everything.
I’d never be able to live with that.
“It’ll be funny later, right?” I voice. “We’ll be laughing about this in a week.”
“Fucking dickhead thinks he can use the principal's pussy to fuck with my—”
“He’s really fucking her?!” Gavin’s eyes widen and so do mine.
Normally, I don’t swear, nor do I talk so crudely, but holy crap. Colson actually has the courage to screw the head of the school?
Oh my God...I’m dead.
Gone.
I might as well just pack up my locker right now because I’m going to be expelled in the next few days with Colson’s speed.
“Yeah,” Gavin confirms quietly. He clasps my hand and squeezes. “But don’t worry about it, I got this.”
“List
en, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
He chuckles. “Sorry, babe, but that ship has already sailed. If I could impress you with the number of detentions I’ve had, I’d tell you.” I smile, and he kisses my forehead, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Let me walk you to your next class, and I’ll buy you some ice cream after practice.”
“Detention remember?”
“Then meet me at the field after school, and we’ll go to King Cone.”
“How about I meet you at your car?” Gavin halts, which makes me turn around to face him.
“Shit, how much has he fucked with you?”
My brows furrow. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re avoiding him, and he been giving me shit for weeks.”
“He’s nothing I can’t handle,” I reply, not feeling at all confident in that statement. Especially since now it’s been confirmed that Colson is sleeping with Miss McMahon. “If I dodge him, it’ll make both of our lives easier.”
“How are you going to do that, Sawyer?” Gavin solicts. “You’re my girlfriend, he’s my best friend. We share the same field for practice.” The one-minute bell rings then, warning me to get to class.
“It’ll be fine,” I assure him again so he gets going. “I’ll see you at your car.” Gavin shifts his weight, turning his face away from me in annoyance. And I’m not sure if it’s because of me or the situation.
“Alright, babe.” He turns back and kisses me softly. “I’ll see you then.” Striding away from me, I watch him grip his hands into fists before turning a corner.
I need to come up with a plan, something that Colson will agree to. Anything except breaking up with the guy who treats me like a princess.
* * *
Taylor: I have a plan.
I glance up at Mrs. Yemin, who’s monitoring us in afternoon detention, leaned back in her chair, reading a copy of Vogue. Rule number one, if she found us with a cell phone, we’d automatically serve another day of detention.
I’m not doing that.
Me: What is it?
Taylor: You want to get rid of the Colson problem, right?
