by Grace, Hazel
“Okay, I’ll start on it and text you about—”
“We can talk about it at school,” she exhorts quickly. “I’ll just see you on Monday, okay?”
Fuck. She sounds hurt.
Sawyer starts to scooch out of the bench seat as Gavin stands up to let her out, wrapping his arm possessively around her waist the moment she stands.
“See you later, buddy,” he says with a smirk. They leave together, and Sawyer doesn’t send another look my way.
It’s better this way.
We can’t get too involved in each other’s lives because we’d find ourselves sinking in a pit of quicksand.
And I’m not about to drown and forget my way out of this town.
Present day
Everything has been quiet for days. No text messages from Skylar, they suddenly stopped the day Sawyer found me fucking Veronica. Sawyer more than likely told her what transpired, and she finally decided to leave me the hell alone.
Good, killed two birds with one stone.
If Sawyer thought she could back out of a bet I won, then I’d win another way. I’m done losing shit to her. Not only did she ruin my baseball career but also my almost engagement with a woman who would’ve loved me forever.
Twice.
Twice she made my heart seize in my chest to the point of it being painful.
I couldn't bring myself to mention it when she came over to my house the other night, but I want to know why and for what. Why would she go out of her way to find me and what was she going to do?
It ruined me.
Everything I built in another relationship was shattered the day my eyes fell on her body again. I couldn't look at Annabelle anymore. Not without seeing Sawyer’s face and hearing her voice in my head. I was living a lie, cloaked with another shade of hair and eyes.
So now...now, I’m done.
I’m done waiting.
I’m done silently pining.
I’m done obsessing over a woman who doesn’t know what kind of power she wields over me.
It might take longer for me to fuck her now, but I’m willing to wait.
Shit, I’ve waited this long.
I sigh in relief once practice is finally over. My guys have been annoying the fuck out of me all day, and I’m not in denial on why. It’s just not how I want to coach my team, with thoughts of Sawyer bombarding my mind and what I did to her to prove a point.
It was a dickhead move, the worst I’ve done to her. But trust me when I say, she’s done worse.
I promised Coach Anderson today that I’d help him load the shit from his office into his truck. When I get there though, he’s already all loaded up, saying he’ll be back, needing to turn his keys in to the office. He returns moments later with tears glistening in his eyes.
So, I take his keys for him.
Entering the empty front office, the secretary types brutally away at her keyboard, ignoring me until I clear my throat. She doesn’t look up from her screen, just extends her arm to drop the keys into her palm.
So, I drop them on her desk.
Her eyes shoot up to me then, unamused and irritated.
“I don’t work under you,” I tell her. “Acknowledge people when they approach your desk. Geezus Christ.” Turning on my heels, I make my way out until a familiar chuckle fills my ears.
I halt, hearing it again but more clearly. Slowly, I turn around, watching Sawyer walk out of the principal's office with a gray-haired man on her heels. She turns around to face him, shakes his hand, and they talk amongst each other in a low voice.
And he’s still holding her fucking hand.
It brings flashbacks of Principal McMahon and how we used to do more than that. I spent a lot of time under her desk and she on her knees.
Principal I-don’t-know-his-name-nor-do-I-give-a-shit smiles down at her, towering over her curvy frame. I know he has a perfect view of her tits right now, which triggers the crazy shit I do when another man is eye fucking what’s mine.
I stride toward them.
Mindlessly and stupidly, I close the distance, ready to end whatever isn’t going to happen when I’m around.
“Hello, Bases,” I say, announcing myself in their space. Her shoulders tighten, dropping his hand as she gradually turns her neck to look. Her eyes land on me in an irritated glare before she turns back to the man in front of her.
“Thank you for the meeting,” she tells him. “I look forward to hearing back from you.”
“It was my pleasure, Miss Boyd,” he returns. His regard falls on me, but he’s smart not to say anything.
The blood in my veins rises to dangerous temperatures because I want to wrap my fingers around his windpipe for using the same moves I pull on women.
Sawyer walks by me, making her way to the door, and I follow like a security guard for Britney Spears, not giving her any space. When we’re out of the stale office, I walk next to her.
“Trying to follow in my footsteps?” I ask, knowing that my prodding sounds like jealousy.
And maybe I am.
Apparently, Sawyer will fuck anyone who isn’t me, which is understandable after the stunt I pulled in her office with Veronica. But even beforehand, shit was the same.
However, I’d consider us somewhat even now.
“Fuck off,” she seizes, picking up her pace.
“Aw, Bases,” I coo. “Don’t get so—” She whirls on me.
“Get what? You’ve been way too much in my space, Colson. So, I suggest you stop following me and leave me alone. Don’t try to start a conversation with me, just do what I said. Fuck. Off.”
“I like being in your space,” I tell her, taking in her soft blue dress that comes above her knees. The fabric that hugs her hips and flat stomach all the way up to her breasts. I meet her forest green eyes. “And I like the way you react when I’m there.”
“Yeah? Get into my space and see what happens.”
“Another knee to the groin, I’m assuming?”
“I don’t know,” she returns in a low, sultry voice. “Try it.” My cock twitches at her request. The way her voice dips, and her eyes wait for my response.
And being the fuckhead that I am, I push it.
“Lead the way then,” I challenge, extending my arm down the hallway. She remains still, waiting for me to speak again, maybe for me to retract my comment. But if she remembers me as well as I remember her, she knows I won’t.
Sawyer locks her eyes on me while she turns around and starts down the hallway. And like the negative side of the magnet, I shadow her.
I take a moment to gape at her ass, as we walk down the same hallways from when we were kids. To hell with fucking Principle McMahon. I would’ve wanted to fuck this Sawyer Boyd in all her mature and lushious appeal.
Rounding a corner, she grabs the doorknob of the first classroom we get to and opens it. She walks in, leaving it open for me to trail in behind her. I close it gently after I enter, not bothering to turn on the lights because I like the way the sunlight reflects off the white walls and floor tiles playing against her skin.
I remember a similar scenario, but it was with a timid and quiet Sawyer Boyd, not the fierce and pissed off redhead before me now. At that time, I didn’t know how much I would’ve wanted her. I wish I could tell my past to stay where I was, focused, determined to keep moving forward towards my dream.
I was an idiot then, and I’m an idiot now because I got burned, and yet here I am sauntering down the same path again. But when Sawyer’s ass perches on top of the empty teacher’s desk, arms crossed waiting for me to get closer, I do. The invisible pull between her and I is still real, still there.
Her legs widen for me, inviting me to settle myself in between them.
“What are you doing, Bases?” I ask her, my tone a husky octave that I don’t bother hiding. She peers up at me, those fucking green eyes piercing right through me like they’ve done a million times before.
“You wanted me here,” she remarks. “Our bet,
remember?”
“You reneged on that.”
“I’m here to pay up.” Her hand touches my stomach, and a violent wave of lust hits my cock. And since it doesn’t remember how Sawyer acted before, my mind advocates instead that she’s still not willing to give me what I want.
Her.
“You’re offering yourself to me now?” I press, as her hand slowly finds its way to the button of my jeans.
“Yes,” she breathes. “It’s about time, right?”
Bullshit line.
“Are you suffering from short-term memory loss,” I point out. “Because you found me banging your—” She jerks me toward her by the loops of my jeans, her fingers brushing my abdomen.
“You want to live in the past?” she implores. “I’m more about the present.” Her fingers glide down to find my now bulging erection.
And she rubs it.
Geezus fuck.
My eyes close on their own accord, and I clench my teeth to keep a growl from leaving my lips.
As much as I’d love for this to be real, I want an eager Sawyer hankering for my cock. Not the cool and collected woman perched up on a desk, offering herself like a pig on a spit at a pig roast.
I mean, let’s be real, she isn’t the most outspoken person when it comes to asking for sex.
Maybe she does with Dr. Pussy-Whipped and Abercrombie?
I thrust those ideas out of my head.
Mainly because I know that Sawyer wants to make a point, to show me that my office performance didn’t bother her. Her knee to my dick confirmed that it did. The whole ordeal backfired on me when my first reaction was to comfort her as she stomped off down the stairs.
They say old habits die hard.
Mine are like the walking dead that just won’t fucking die already. It’s a rerun playing over and over again, and my raw feelings for Sawyer need to disintegrate into thin air and never resurface again.
Sawyer’s fingers graze the skin of my hand and wrap around my palm, guiding it toward her exposed thigh. Her flesh is warm and soft as she pulls it underneath her dress.
“Do I need to guide you the whole way?” she seeks, looking up at me.
I wish she’d stop doing that. The way her eyes glaze over in fake lust and want.
I bet she wants me to do the same, to stop messing up her little dates with Dr. Pussy-Whipped and the Abercrombie wannabe. I bet she wants to be able to cohabitate in this town without fear of turning a corner to find me waiting there to fuck something else up.
Veronica told me her father suffered two heart attacks within the last year, and she put off school to help out. I’m not going to deny that a twinge of happiness spread through my chest when it sounded like she didn’t end up any better than I did. But it did nothing to take any of the ache or want away.
It just increased it.
The more women I fucked, the more my dick protested for the one woman who held its little dream in her hands.
My fingertips brush mindlessly across her flesh as my jaw locks into place. This isn’t going to end well, and I’m trying my damndest to endure this petty bullshit Sawyer is trying to pull. I’m fighting a battle from both sides here, my traitorous cock yearning to be deep inside her and the sexiest woman alive coaxing me to leave her the fuck alone.
“You can stop now,” I force myself to say. “You didn’t major in drama class the last I heard.”
“And what did you hear about me, Hayes?” Her fingers return to my jeans as she torturously starts undoing the button to them.
“That you went to school to be a teacher.”
“I did and am, school starts next week.”
“Shouldn’t you be done by now?” My zipper slowly slides down, and my body sends a wave a goosebumps throughout my entire being.
She lets out a soft tsk. “I should be, but I couldn’t concentrate much in college, and then I started to change my mind just to go right back into it.”
“You’ll be a good teacher,” I say honestly. She bites her lower lip, not looking interested in my comment or what the hell I have to say. Her focus is targeted on my groin, and I’m starting to resent that I followed her in here.
With my hand still curbed on her thigh, it itches to move upward to her pussy just to see if she’s wet for me.
I bet she is, but I’m not going to cave to my temptation. One touch and this will end as quickly as it began in the way that I didn’t want it.
I crave to hear my name off her plush pink lips as I build her into an epic orgasm. For her nails to dig into my triceps and back as she moans in pleasure at my cock deep inside her. I demand to have my name truthfully off her lips. I want her clinging to me, mouth on mine, the satisfied and haggard look in her eyes after we’ve fucked a million times.
But I beg my good sense to stay grounded to what’s really happening here.
“Why are you hesitating?” Her question sounds as serious as a nun. To another man’s ears, it would sound sincere, but I’m not any other man.
I was the boy who terrorized, scolded, and protected her in my own fucked-up way. The only way I knew how to. My eighteen-year-old self wouldn’t know what to do in this predicament, and neither does my current self.
“Because we both know you want nothing to do with me, Bases,” I mumble. “I’m just trying to figure out what game you’re playing.”
“No game,” she retorts, observing me now. “You’ve wanted to fuck me for—” she cocks her head to the side. “—how long now?”
“Long enough,” I deadpan.
“And here I am, offering myself to you, and you’re just standing there like you don’t know what to do.”
“Because we both know this isn’t real.”
“No?” She pushes further back on to the desk, the sides of her shins grasping the sides. Slowly, she pulls her dress up her thighs, exposing more of her tan skin.
She doesn’t say another word but keeps her attention latched onto me, grazing the inside of her thigh with her fingers to the apex of her pussy.
I swallow.
She isn’t going to do this.
I know Sawyer Boyd.
But when she lifts her dress with her other hand so that I can see the lacy white panties she’s wearing, self-doubt starts to kick in.
I’ve wanted this woman for over ten years of my life, and I’ll be damned if the only time I get to fuck her is in an empty classroom of the fucked-up school we used to go to.
My cock strains in my jeans when her index finger rubs her clit slowly through the lace. My restraint is on its last leg as a soft little moan leaves her lips. I want to capture it in my mouth, between my teeth, record it to memory so I can always listen to it.
Because Sawyer and I will never be what I dreamt in my head; my intuition was right, we weren’t good for each other, and I stepped over the line just to continue to burn alive at the reflections of her.
Sawyer continues her torturous movements while I remain stone silent. I’ve stood in front of temptation before and lost, but this time, I was going to face it like a convict in front of a firing squad.
“Think it's real now?” she asks me, pushing her panties to the side and exposing her pink pussy as she works her clit again. She leans back on the palm of her left hand, working herself as her eyes close.
This is what she looks like when she’s alone, possibly in her bed, playing with herself, and I have a front row seat.
Another mewl sounds in the room, and she opens her eyes to look at me.
“You need to stop,” I bleat.
The corner of her lips quirk. “Hm...you want me to stop?” She pulls more of the white lace away, and I’m about to buckle to my knees.
She’s wet, her pussy glistening for me to lick clean. The way her lips are forming an “O” to her fluid movements, I’ve never been so hard in my entire life for anyone but her. For Sawyer to be mere inches away from me, ready, waiting, and perfectly sexy in every way on a desk of the school we used to fight each other in, I�
��m not sure how much I can fight my body into staying still and sticking with the original plan.
We’re not going to fuck Sawyer Boyd for the first time on desk that looks like it belongs in a museum.
But this is nothing like Principal McMahon.
She became an easy hideaway from what I really wanted in high school. The fact that I could never have Sawyer slowly ate at me for longer than I should’ve let it. No wonder I became more of an asshole my senior year.
“Bases,” I half warn, half plead. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She perks one of her brows. “Playing with my pussy in front of you on a desk?” I half ass roll my eyes.
I will fuck this woman to kingdom come if she doesn’t stop what she’s doing right now.
“God...shit,” she groans. “I’m going to come…”
“Fuck,” I growl, clenching my hands into fists.
I can have her right now.
Right now.
Take your dick out and just—
Sawyer cries out softly in exaltation, shaking at her release as she slowly goes limp on top of the desk. She tilts her head back, blowing out a relieved, satisfied breath, her long red hair falling with it.
I watch her lazily straighten, pulling her dress down as she hops off the desk. I’m in a trance of what-the-fuck-just-happened because I can’t stop staring and chastising myself for not taking what I wanted and be done with it.
But not like this.
“Looks like you lost your chance,” she concludes. “And there won’t be a second time that you see me come.” She hits my arm with her shoulder and strides from the room.
I don’t turn around to look at her, still replaying her words and the previous scene in my head. She can say what she wants, determine whatever she thinks is not going to happen from here on out.
But little does she know that she just created a worse version of me. More sex-craved for her than before.
Ten years ago
Leaning along the wall at Liam Thompson’s house party, I watch Gavin and some of his buddies play their millionth game of beer pong. They’re all drunk, have been for hours, over their victory with Churchill High. Gavin was over the moon, peppering me with kisses and swinging me up in the air like they had won the World Series. I was hoping that we’d hang out, just the two of us to celebrate, but all the guys wanted to commend their win here.