With my heels in my hand, I took off down the street, going to the one place I wanted to be right now. Suddenly, it was all clear to me. Shawn had been right about Chris all along. And if Shawn was right about Chris, I felt like I could believe him when he said that he was looking out for me.
I knew there was a good chance that he’d turn me away from his door. After all, I had yelled at him and told him never to talk to me again, only to show up at his place a few hours later.
Once I got to the entryway, I took a moment to catch my breath and knocked on the front door. I didn’t just want Shawn—I needed him.
Shawn
After running after Alice to warn her about Chris, just to be told to leave her alone, I felt sick. I don’t know why I thought she’d actually listen to me and be grateful.
I should know better than to expect things to go well with girls when I do nothing but use them. I had never been boyfriend material, so I don’t know why I thought Alice would see me that way. I could understand why she chose Chris over me. He was the type of guy to take a girl out for a romantic date and ask her to be his boyfriend. I was the type to hook up at a party and never call again.
I just wanted everything to go back to normal. I wanted to be able to have mindless sex without any commitments. I wanted to be the party guy whom every girl wanted to get with. I wanted to go from girl to girl without catching feelings and experiencing heartbreak. I didn’t know if I could ever return to that lifestyle. Being with Alice made me want so much more.
Compared to my past experiences, Alice was everything I could ever want in a girl. She was smart, nice, and really funny. She was a good listener and wasn’t self-absorbed. Also, she was incredibly hot. I couldn’t leave that part out.
I walked back to my fraternity house and locked myself in my room. I turned off the lights so no one would come looking for me. I just wasn’t in the mood to join the guys in the living room who were talking about their weekend conquests. I especially didn’t want anyone to ask me why I seemed so down in the dumps.
I plopped down on my bed and buried myself in blankets and pillows. I didn’t want to move until morning. Is this what it feels like to be dumped?
It was too early to go to sleep, so I lay there thinking about everything that had gone wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have acted like I did when I saw her with Chris at the seminar. If I had played it cool, maybe I would have had a chance to win her back. She did seem pretty upset when she came to the lake house.
Still, she could have rescheduled with me and explained her situation. She also didn’t have to tell me to fuck off when I was only trying to help. There was no coming back from this. It was over.
I heard a frantic knock at my door, and at first, I ignored it. It was probably just Jack looking for answers to a homework assignment. I held my breath, hoping whoever it was would just go away.
They didn’t.
After about twenty seconds of pounding, I threw back my comforter and stomped to the door. It had better be important.
There, standing in my doorway, panting, was Alice. Her face was glowing and she had a wild look in her eyes.
“What—” I started to ask, but she shoved her way inside and shut the door behind her.
“You were right,” she said breathlessly. “About everything. Is it too late?”
She was standing just inches from me. My brain told me to push her away and never speak to her again. My body was sending me another message.
I inched closer to see if she was truly sending the signal I was getting from her. We were nearly touching, and she continued to look me square in the eye.
Her red lips were parted ever so slightly. I wanted to press mine against hers and never let go of her. I followed my instinct.
Cradling the back of her head in my hand, I bent down and kissed her gently. She returned my kiss, much harder and more urgently. We were really doing this.
Instantly, all sadness and regret about Alice dissolved. Now, I wanted nothing more than to touch her and show her that I could make her feel good again. She pulled at my sweatshirt, and I willingly stripped down to expedite the process.
I ran my hands up and down her naked torso, wanting to feel every inch of the body I had missed for so many nights. I slid a hand into her panties. She apparently wanted me as much as I wanted her.
“Is this really happening?” I breathed into her ear.
“I think so,” she responded, sliding into my bed.
I hovered over her body, and her small, erect nipples grazed my chest. I pressed my lips to her neck, working my way down her body. I stopped when I reached just below her navel.
“Don’t stop now,” she said, so I honored her wish and made my way down further.
She spread her legs for me with desperation and I nuzzled my mouth into the space in between. She gasped as I flicked the slippery folds with my tongue. I lashed my tongue around for a few moments until her reactions were too arousing for me. I wanted a piece of the action.
She grabbed a condom from the clutter of my table drawer and rolled it on me, taking her time and looking me straight in the eye. She squeezed the base of my shaft, increasing the blood flow and making me see stars. I pushed her on her back and entered her, and she immediately flipped me onto my back. I liked it when she took control. It made me know that she wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
Alice ground on top of me while I grasped any part of her body that I could lay my hands on. This girl knew exactly what she wanted, and she knew how to get it. She increased her speed until she tilted her head back and opened her mouth like a fish out of water.
I couldn’t help but break out in a stupid grin once we finished. I knew that I was supposed to act cool, but things couldn’t have gone any better. I was in such a haze from the unexpected sex that I had almost forgotten the reason she was in my bed in the first place. She’d said that I was right the whole time.
While I was typically one to say, “I told you so,” I wasn’t going to spoil the moment by gloating. I didn’t want her to leave as quickly as she’d come.
The way she nestled her head on my chest was comforting, though, so for a moment, we lay together in silence, forgetting that we had ever fought in the first place. In fact, if she wanted to go back to how we were at the lake house the first time around, I would gladly never mention anything that had happened since. I really felt like things would be different for us this time. Nothing was going to get in our way.
Alice
I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to go to Shawn’s place when I could have just as easily gone back to the dorm and curled up in my own bed. I was just filled with too much pent-up energy to go home and stew. I was furious at Chris beyond belief, angry with myself for being so stupid, and grateful toward Shawn for looking out for me.
I went to his house with the intention of thanking him for the warning, apologizing for yelling at him, and leaving him alone. When I got up to his bedroom and saw his messy hair and the surprised look on his face, I wanted to be with him. Before the date with Chris, I had suspected that I would be getting some action afterward. I just didn’t expect it to be from Shawn.
The sex was everything I needed it to be. It was a release of my stress and anger toward Chris, yet still comforting and fun. I didn’t realize how much I had missed Shawn in the brief span of time we were apart. When all was said and done, it was ridiculous to have ever fought in the first place.
Once we were done, I stayed. As long as Shawn would have me, I would stay with him. I didn’t want to be anywhere but curled up in the bed with him. I couldn’t explain why, but it felt so right to be with him.
Maybe it was the fact that he had proven to me that he cared about me and wasn’t just after me for the sex. Stupid games aside, I knew that he was honest to me and wouldn’t intentionally hurt me again.
Catching Chris in the act snapped me out of the sick attraction I had toward him. On paper, he was the perfect guy. Now that I was out of his gra
sp, I realized how manipulative he was. Maybe I was just part of his psychology experiment.
I always thought that he treated me right, but he treated me in the way I wanted to be treated when I needed it the most. He would withdraw from me when he realized that I was an independent person, and then he would turn on the charm when I was feeling ignored or vulnerable. He could mistreat me as much as he wanted as long as he could play up the waterworks or tell me how incredible I was.
I didn’t need that anymore. I was looking for a guy who could be real with me all the time. I knew that relationships aren’t always perfect and that it’s better to have fair arguments on occasion than to wait for validation from a guy who only cared about me when it was convenient for him.
“I’ve missed you,” Shawn said softly as he stroked my arm.
“Me too,” I said. “I suppose it’s about time that we have our talk.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose it is.”
We paused for a moment, both having a lot to say but not knowing where to start.
“I’m sorry—” he started.
“No, I am,” I interrupted.
“Listen,” he continued. “I overreacted when I saw you at the seminar with Chris. I know you were trying to help your future career and you weren’t purposefully standing me up. I freaked out when I should have waited for an explanation. Well,” he corrected, “I should have listened and accepted your explanation.”
“It’s my fault,” I said. “I should have just told you the truth from the beginning. Being around Chris makes me do strange things. I act in ways I normally wouldn’t.”
“But that’s over now, right?” he questioned, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, God, yes. I’m done with him forever.”
“He’s a creep,” Shawn said.
“Oh,” I remembered. “I cannot thank you enough for trying to warn me, even though I wasn’t so nice about it. You were so right all along. I confronted him, and he straight up lied to my face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He got his story wrong and I called him out on it.”
“What did he do?”
I gave a dark laugh. The date was so horrible it almost didn’t sound real.
“Where do I begin?” I said. “I suppose we could begin with the fact that he was over thirty minutes late. Then, once he was present, he spent every opportunity looking down the waitress’s blouse.”
“That’s messed up. Even I wouldn’t do that.”
“It gets worse. After I caught him lying to me, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. He was gone for a really long time, so I thought I’d go and check up on him to make sure everything was all right.”
“Did he leave?” Shawn asked, absolutely on the edge of his seat with suspense.
“Oh, much, much worse than that. I heard strange noises coming from the single stall, so I peeked in there. I found him pants down, screwing the waitress.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouted.
“Nope.”
“I hope you let him have it.”
“Believe me, I did. I also quit his study, and you’d better believe that I’m not going to give him all the work I did. I conducted a ton of interviews and collected documents full of data. Without all of my work, he has nothing.”
“Good,” he said. “I would hate to think any good would come out of this for him.”
“It won’t,” I promised. “Honestly, I bet I could use some of the data to create a whole new study.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Do your own study,” he said. “If you’ve got his work, then why don’t you just take over?”
“I don’t think I could legally do that. He has grants and faculty sponsors already. Besides, I really hate the premise of his project. I don’t think it’s worth my time to study the psychology of cheaters. It just brings back bad memories for me.”
“Can you do a whole new study?” he asked.
It was an interesting idea. I didn’t know if I was smart enough to pull it off by myself. As much of an asshole as Chris was, he was very good at psychology. I still didn’t have quite enough experience to feel confident by myself.
“What could you do your study about?” he asked. It was cute that he was so interested in my work.
“I think it would be cool to do something with psychological abuse in college relationships. I have a ton of data on dating, so I would just need to add a few questions do deal with the control aspect. If I can get the study together and it gets published under the university’s name, I can get a scholarship. That would be so huge for my family and me.”
“You should do it. I would help you, but I wouldn’t know what I’m doing.”
“I bet if I talked to the other people working on Chris’s study, they’d switch over and help me.”
“Be careful crossing him,” Shawn said. “I don’t want you to be too afraid to submit your work, but you should be cautious that he doesn’t do anything to mess things up for you.”
“I’ll be careful. I know that he’s bad news, but I don’t think he’d physically attack me. It’s not like we were officially dating. I wouldn’t be worth the hassle.”
“It’s probably best if you avoid him at all costs,” he said, pulling me closer.
“There’s just one problem—he made me submit a lot of my work to him, and there’s files and files worth of my papers in his office.”
“Can you go at a time when he won’t be there? What if I go with you?”
“That’s going to be tricky. I can only go during the day because they lock the building at night. If he sees you, he’s going to throw a fit. I can almost guarantee that he won’t be there on Saturday afternoon. My bet is he’ll be up all night with the waitress, so he won’t be to the office on Saturday until late, if at all. Honestly, he has no chance of finishing this by the deadline without me.”
“I have a game on Saturday. It’s at noon, so I have to be in the locker room by eight to meet with the coach. I can’t be there to protect you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “It should be fine.”
“I can’t help but worry about you. We need another plan.”
“Would it make you feel better if there was a way I could notify you if something happened?”
“Yes, it would,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll download an app that will warn you if I press a certain button. That means you’ll have to have your phone on you while I’m there.”
“I’ll do my best. Please go early in the morning, sometime before we have to go out on the field. I can’t promise that I’ll have my phone on me then.”
“Okay. It’s all going to be fine,” I said, still looking for some reassurance.
“Yeah, you’ll be all right. Just be aware of your surroundings until things blow over. Also, don’t give him a reason to file a lawsuit because I hear his family is the type to do that.”
“I’ll walk in, grab my work, and walk out. I don’t think he’s even looked at what I’ve done, so he probably won’t even notice that it’s gone.”
“Okay. I’ll feel so much better when this is all over,” he said.
“Me too.”
He looked down at me like he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was thinking.
“What?” I asked.
“Does this mean that we’re, you know . . .”
“Dating?”
“Yeah. I mean, if you want to, then I want to be.” He was getting flustered and red in the face. It was adorable.
“Are you asking me out?” I teased. “Shawn Rider is asking me to be his girlfriend?”
“Yes or no?” he asked, losing patience with my mocking.
“Yes, yes, I’ll go out with you!”
We kissed again for the first time as an official couple. It wasn’t always going to be easy being the girlfriend of the up and coming football s
tar, but it would be worth it. Shawn was so caring and so much fun to be with. I truly felt safe around him.
“Can you promise me something?” I asked.
“Anything. Well, not anything, but you know what I mean.”
“Will you promise to never sleep with another girl while you’re with me? I’d rather you break it off first.”
He looked at me with his eyes wide open and then kissed me on the forehead.
“Alice, I would never do that to you. Could you promise me something?”
“Sure, what?”
“Promise to never stand me up when I’m trying to give you a nice surprise?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m sorry!”
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “I think we both learned a lesson.”
“You’re right.”
We cuddled in his messy room for a few hours, just enjoying each other’s company. Around eleven, Shawn zipped me back into my red dress and walked me to the front door. He offered to walk me to the dorm, but I refused. I could use the extra time alone to process the night’s crazy turn of events.
At the beginning of the night, I truly believed that Chris would be asking me to be his girlfriend, and I was ready to accept. By the end, I was back into Shawn’s arms and couldn’t be happier.
When I thought about it, it would only be a matter of time before Chris ruined everything in our relationship. I was truly fortunate that I had caught him cheating before it was too late.
Also, I’d be lying to myself to say that I was over Shawn at any point from the day I first met him until now. He befriended me at a low point in my life, and even though it started as a game, it grew into a real relationship. I could see us being together for a long time. I would keep him grounded when his ego got too big, and he would keep things light when I got too stressed out with school.
Before I left for the night, we promised not to spend every waking moment with each other—not right away, anyhow. He had football, and I had my classes and new study to focus on. When things calmed down, we’d spend more time together and tell people about our new relationship. We could finally be a real couple.
Lethal Seduction: A CIA Romantic Suspense (CIA Agents Book 1) Page 34