One More Step

by Colleen Hoover

“I got an A.” I open the classroom door and hold it for her to walk through. “You?” I hook her around the shoulder and pull her to one side of the busy breezeway to keep her from getting plowed over.

  “B plus.” She groans and sets her jaw stubbornly. “Should’ve been an A. I studied so hard.” Her gaze darts to mine. “Did you even study? How does this stuff come so easy to you?”

  My brain works in fucked up ways. I did well in school so my stepdad didn’t have another reason to smack me around. Not that he needed one. Or, maybe all those hits to the head opened up some part of my brain I wasn’t using that made me a goddamn genius.

  “Get your paws off my woman.” Rowan’s boyfriend Carey shoves me playfully from behind. He lifts her off the ground like she weighs nothing and walks a few steps nuzzling her neck. “I missed you.”

  She giggles and squirms. “It hasn’t even been two hours.”

  Her frown from earlier is erased by Carey’s presence. I find it fascinating that two people can have that kind of effect on each other. Women have never provided me with more than a quick and temporary relief—more of a distraction than a remedy.

  “Theodore!”

  I freeze mid-step at the sound of my full name. And I’m not the only one. Carey steps shoulder-to-shoulder with me, his big body radiating tension. The sun lights up a head of thick blonde hair as Emery closes in on us. She looks like a prep-school student body president in her khaki slacks and pale-yellow cardigan, complete with pearl buttons.

  She stops in front of me, and eyes Carey and Rowan curiously.

  “Don’t call me that.” I grip the straps of my backpack to keep from grabbing her and shaking her buttoned up look loose.

  “Isn’t it your name?”

  “Nobody calls him that,” Carey says with a heavy warning in his voice.

  Most people find him intimidating, but she smiles at him as if he’s a puppy. As if his defensive response pleases her.

  “What do you want?” I know she’s after something. She doesn’t strike me as the type of woman who’d waste her time with someone she couldn’t use to further her cause.

  Her eyes come back to me. “You left in such a hurry we didn’t get a chance to exchange numbers.”

  “Why would we do that?” The way we left things, with Coach breathing down my neck, made it obvious there wouldn’t be a repeat of our night together. “You’re hot, but football’s the only thing keeping me out of jail. There’s plenty of pussy that won’t get me kicked off the team.”

  “Spider!” Rowan sounds worried, as if maybe I’ve insulted the woman, but she doesn’t know Emery like I do. She may be soft and delicious on the outside, but inside she’s forged steel and sharp edges.

  Emery crosses her arms at her chest. “He has no power over you or me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. He has the power to make my life a living hell.”

  She chews her pink-glossed lip as if thinking things over. “Okay.” She shrugs. “You’re not nearly as brave as I thought.”

  I smile slowly, all teeth as I bite back the urge to give in to what she wants, to lose my temper and prove I’m the unstable loaded gun she can aim at her dad. “Safe to say, you’re not what I expected either.” I eye her from her pink headband to her leather top-siders, noting the contrast of her virginal look versus how she liked it when I pulled her hair and spanked her ass. She bit and scratched and purred like a kitten.

  She turns her attention to Rowan. “I’m Emery, by the way.” They shake hands politely. “I like your shirt.”

  Rowan grins, clearly won over by the cat in preppy clothing. “Thanks. Most people don’t get it.”

  “It’s a physics pun. Don’t be a jerk. The time derivative. It’s funny.” The pretty psycho grins.

  “Exactly.” Rowan’s eyes light up as if she’s seeing land after months lost at sea. “I haven’t seen you around, are you a new student?” Rowan taking an interest in this chick is not good. Next thing, she’ll be inviting her over for dinner and study dates and I need Emery to stay as far away from me as possible.

  “I am. Just graduated from Pontus Academy in Massachusetts.”

  Mass? That explains why I didn’t know Coach had a kid.

  “Thrilling conversation,” I say sounding bored. “But we need to be on the field in thirty.”

  Her blue eyes register no apology. “Of course. Don’t let me hold you up.”

  “It was nice meeting you,” Rowan says as Carey pulls her along. “I’ll see you around sometime. We should grab a coffee!”

  When we’re far enough away that we can’t be overheard, Carey asks the burning question. “Is that the chick you hooked up with after the game?”

  “Yeah.”

  He chuckles. “You ghosted her pretty hard, man. What were you saying about the team?”

  I bite the inside of my mouth, feeling the pinch and tasting the blood. “Brawley.”

  “What about him?”

  “Emery is Coach’s daughter.”

  Carey stops walking, the news seeming to slam him in the gut and still his progress. “Tell me you’re joking!”

  “I wish I were.”

  THREE

  Spider

  WE’RE HALFWAY THROUGH warm-ups with our strength and conditioning coach when Brawley stomps onto the field. I haven’t seen him since I stood with my nuts in my hands waiting for him to beat me.

  I’m not afraid of him. I’ve taken more beatings than I can count, both on and off the field. I am terrified about him taking away my only outlet—football. He could bench me for the season, for the rest of my career if he wanted to.

  “Web!” He waves me over.

  Carey lifts his chin. “Need a wingman?”

  “Nah, I got it.” I jog to Coach and push my sweat soaked hair off my forehead. “What’s up.”

  “We need to talk.” He heads toward the benches expecting me to follow.

  I do.

  Once there he adjusts his BSU ball cap as if it’s lined with spikes and he’s trying to find the most comfortable position. “About Emery.”

  “I didn’t know she was your kid.”

  He nods solemnly. “I believe you.” He looks around as if to gauge who might be listening, then mumbles, “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

  “I’m not gonna tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.” I’d be an idiot to dig myself any deeper than I already have by banging his daughter.

  His expression pinches, as if he’s not completely comfortable with whatever he’s about to say. “Emery is pissed at me.” He breathes heavily, finally takes off his uncomfortable hat and takes the bench. He braces his elbows on his knees and runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “We lost her mom when she was eight. I was a mess and I didn’t know how to raise a little girl. I sent Emery to boarding school.”

  I grit my teeth together at the thought of a young Emery being shipped across the country by her only living parent while mourning the loss of her mom.

  “I was a shitty dad.” He pops his hat back on his head. “Emery’s angry. She’s trying to hurt me.”

  “Can’t say I blame her.”

  His face reddens and I prep for him to yell in my face, tell me to mind my own damn business, but like a popped balloon he deflates. “Yeah. I need you to stay away from her.”

  In that we agree.

  “Last time I saw her she was a fifteen-year-old kid and now she’s…” He blows out a breath. “We have a lot of work to do to repair our relationship; her using my players to hurt me is a complication we don’t need.”

  I understand.

  What I don’t understand is why I’m feeling strangely protective of her. I know the little kitten can take care of herself—she’s unapologetically vicious. But I also know what it’s like to be young and abandoned by a parent, to be handed over and forgotten. Emery was left to teachers and dorm supervisors to be raised. I was handed over to a stepdad who brought me up with a heavy fist and a bottle of malt liquor.<
br />
  “We clear?”

  I blink down at him seeing him through different eyes. The big intimidating man seems smaller, vulnerable, weak even—testimony to the lovely Emery’s power.

  “Yeah, man. Crystal.”

  He stands to his full height. “Coach. I’m not your man. Now get your ass back to your team for drills.”

  FOUR

  Emery

  THE SUN IS barely up when I walk into Bean Madness, the campus coffee shop. I don’t have any homework due, but I have to catch a ride with my dad to campus every day so that leaves me two hours before my first class. Usually I’d find a spot in the grass to read or listen to an audiobook, but the sun is coming up later and later and the chill in the early morning has me craving coffee.

  “Emery, is that you?”

  I turn around to see the redhead I met four days ago. “Rowan, right?”

  She’s wearing a Bean Madness apron and has her long hair pulled up and out of her face. “Yeah.” She fidgets with a wet rag she uses, to wipe down tables. “What can I get for you?” She makes her way around the counter to the register.

  “Coffee. Black, please.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Black? You sure you don’t want to try a triple fudge brownie mocha? Or a caramel drizzled vanilla latte?”

  “Those sound like sundaes, not coffee.”

  She laughs and pours me a coffee in the biggest insulted paper cup. She hands me the cup and when I hand her my card, she waves me off. “It’s on the house. Consider it your welcome to Bear State coffee.”

  Something warm and wholly unfamiliar expands in my chest.

  “Are you enjoying BSU?” She follows me to a nearby table but doesn’t sit.

  “So far so good.” If I’m not counting the fact that I can’t get a certain rebel football player’s attention. I admit Theodore’s inked skin, piercings and perma-scowl caught my eye. He would be the perfect partner in my plan to make my dad miserable. I didn’t expect, given the explosive sexual chemistry between us, that he’d play hard to get. “I like my forensics classes.”

  “Forensics?”

  I sip my coffee. “That surprises you?”

  She takes in my tailored oxford shirt, the string of pearls on my neck and the satin scarf tied around my ponytail. “You strike me as a pre-law kind of girl.”

  “Nope. I’m mostly interested in how to kill people and get away with it.” I wink, but it doesn’t take away the look of horror in her eyes.

  Some people are so easy.

  “I’m kidding.”

  “I know!” She laughs uncomfortably. “Do you live on campus?”

  “I wish.” The inheritance my mom left was enough to pay for ten years of boarding school tuition, but left me with only a few thousand dollars in my bank account and is the reason I’m stuck living with my dad. I need a job so I can save money and get an apartment, which I was surprised to learn is actually cheaper than living on campus. “Is the coffee shop hiring?”

  “We have a part time position, nights. It’ll include weekends.”

  “That’s fine, I don’t have a social life.” And it’ll get me out of the house so I don’t have to do the awkward dance of silence with my dad at the dinner table every night.

  “Have you worked in food and beverage before?”

  Heat of embarrassment makes a slow climb up my neck to make camp in my cheeks. “No, actually, I’ve never had a job before.”

  “Oh.” She frowns, then shrugs and grins. “No biggie. I’ll train you. It’s not rocket science. I’ll grab you an application.”

  I spend the next twenty minutes filling out the application forgoing all the questions about job experience, and adding my years of community service instead, which includes working in the dining hall of a retirement home. I turn the application in and by that time the coffee shop is slammed with college students and professors. I bury my nose in my Anatomy of a Motive textbook when I feel someone nearby staring at me.

  Well I’ll be damned.

  Theodore Web.

  His dark hair is a little overgrown and curls around his ears in a boyish way that takes the edge off his neck-to-toe tattoos. His body is covered in colorful ink that would take days to explore and discover all the pieces of art on his body. His green eyes are tight, and he uses his top teeth to toy with the ring on his lower lip. His knuckles are white on backpack straps pulled tightly over muscular shoulders and a wide chest.

  He’s every woman’s dirty fantasy.

  And every dad’s nightmare.

  I hold eye contact with him for an uncomfortably long time.

  He finally gets restless and saunters to my table. He doesn’t sit down. “Are you stalking me?”

  “Is my pursuing you in an obsessive manner upsetting?”

  His gaze darts from my eyes to my lips, my hair and not so subtly to my breasts before making the trip back up. “Yes.”

  I close my textbook and fold my arms on the table, leaning into them and tilting my head to look up at his six-foot-something height. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “We had this conversation yesterday,” he growls.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Coach warned me to stay away from you.”

  I bet he did, controlling prick. “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who does what he’s told.”

  His eyes narrow. “How old are you?”

  “How old do you want me to be?”

  “Don’t fuck with me,” he says under his breath. “You told Ro you just graduated. But you were in the bar the night we—”

  “I have a fake.” I smile seductively at the thrill of seeing flickering dread behind his eyes. “I’m nineteen. Don’t tell me you actually care.”

  He runs a hand through his hair and scratches at his jaw dusted in a day’s worth of beard growth. I have an urge to rub up against it and feel the burn against my skin. Lick from his throat to his lips—

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  I uncross my legs under the table, feeling restless and hot. “Like what?”

  “Stay away from me.”

  Do I detect a quiver of unease in his voice?

  “I’m serious, kitten.”

  Kitten? Meow.

  “Promise me.”

  When I don’t answer he turns and storms out of the coffee shop.

  I’ve got him right where I want him. The bad news for him? I never do what I’m told.

  FIVE

  Spider

  OUR TEAM DRAGS ass to the showers after a killer training session. Emery’s obviously getting to her dad in ways that don’t include me because he was in a foul fucking mood. Practice went two hours over, and half the team ended up puking on the sideline.

  The hot water is heaven on my fatigued muscles, and I plan to eat my weight in carbs as soon as the nausea wears off.

  Carey stands at the spigot next to mine. “Rowan told me you ran into Emery at Bean Madness.”

  I drop my chin to my chest allowing the water pressure to pound against my neck.

  “You need to leave her alone, man. If coach finds out—”

  “I know.” I’m fucking trying. Everywhere I look I see her. Between classes, in the commons, I swear she’s following me. “I’m trying.”

  “What do you mean you’re trying? Just do it.”

  If it were only that easy.

  I wish I’d never met Emery Brawley. I wish the night she approached me in the bar wearing that conservative black dress that I’d have brushed her off as a basic, uptight bitch. I wish I never saw the flicker of danger in her eyes, never tasted the rebel that lives beneath her librarian exterior. I wish like hell I could erase the memory of the filthy things she whispered in my ear while I pounded her into her floral bed sheets.

  But I can’t.

  She’s bad for me—an immoral indulgence wrapped in Sunday school teacher’s clothes. Her neurotic personality intrigues me. Am I too far gone, fallen too far that there’s no going back? Am I drunk o
n her deviancy that she’s tattooed on my insides now?

  I finish with the shower and wrap a towel around my waist. Once at my locker I use my towel to dry my hair when a tension fills the room with muttered what the fucks. I turn around and my gaze snags on the source of the disruption.

  Emery strolls through the room filled with a couple dozen naked men as if she’s leisurely browsing through Target.

  “Whoa, sweetheart,” Kaipo says, stepping in front of her in nothing but a white towel. His enormous body blocks her path; she takes a moment to openly appreciate his physique. “You can’t be in here.”

  She tips up her chin defiantly. “Says who?”

  “Says common sense. It’s the men’s locker room. Or did you not see the sign on the door.” He’s teasing her.

  I don’t like it.

  “Oh, I saw it. I just don’t care.”

  He stares at her for a silent moment before his booming laughter echoes through the concrete space. “All right then, honey.” He steps aside with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “Come on in. If testicles make you squeamish, I’d keep your eyes high.”

  “I appreciate the warning.” She sits on the bench in the middle of the room, all of us watching her with our towels held to our dicks. She takes a slow look around the space, not hiding her appreciation for the athletic bodies that surround her. Her gaze snags on mine and lingers until she eventually blinks away. “I don’t suppose any of you fine looking gentlemen would be interested in a date, would you?”

  At least a dozen men pipe up with some variation of “Yes, fucking, please.” Some of them step closer to talk to her, clearly unaware she’s Coach Brawley’s daughter. My other roommate, Loren, holds his hand out to her. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of jeans open at the fly. She takes his hand and smiles hungrily up at him. He pulls her to her feet and with his free hand reaches out and touches her hair.

  “Hands off.” The menacing tone in my voice surprises even me.

  Loren aims a worried glance at me, removes his hands from her, and takes a step back. “Sorry, Spider.”

  I ignore the punk, grab her by her elbow and drag her away from the group of drooling men into a sports medicine room with no windows. I slam the door, lock it, push her against the wall and cup her throat. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”