by Billie Dale
Ducking back in the shower, taking a breath to control the urge to replace his hand with mine hoping he didn’t hear what I did but a small piece of me hoping he did and that’s why he is out there holding himself.
I yell out like I don’t know he’s there, “Kohl, I need a towel,” I shout.
Without a word, a white little towel appears through the curtain. Drying off in the stall, I peek out again to make sure he’s gone, he is. Coming out, I slip my pants and shirt back on leaving off my wet underwear. I notice a pair of black socks sitting on the bench. He brought me socks, I think with a smile.
John Cougar’s Hurt So Good is blaring through the speaker when I enter the weight area. Now there’s an accurate song for the moment.
He’s covered in sweat, droplets running down his chest while he pulls down a ton of weight attached to the lateral pull bar. Another rush of desire pools between my legs. Great, now the crotch of my pants is wet. I need to find an outlet for this issue. Something that will work off some of this sexual frustration.
“Can you show me how to use some of this stuff?” I asked waving a hand toward the machines.
His eyes meet mine, filled with blue fire darkening to the point of storm clouds, “You want to work out?”
“I’m kind of itchy in my skin right now and I need to work out some aggression,” pointing to the elliptical machine, I ask, “Is this thing hard to use?”
He hops on the pegs and shows me how to get the machine going, instructing me to start with no incline and push until my legs are jelly. The song Batdance starts to play providing me with a good groove, slowly I start to push the foot pads making the machine move. Kohl moves to another weight machine while I begin to exercise for the first time in my life. After four minutes, my legs feel like goo but I keep pushing. After ten minutes, my endorphins kick in while Journey sings about believing.
My legs are jelly, I’m dripping sweat in places sweat shouldn’t be but with each push of my feet all my stress begins to melt away. The entire viral photo incident, the hateful words, my self-hate and the ache I carry over my mom disappear into the music and sweat. My mind clears as I lose myself in the peace that settles over me.
A hand grips my shoulder startling me from my revelry, I lose my balance on the machine and fall off to the side landing with a thud on a rock-hard body.
“Oomph,” I say, throwing my body off to the side to get my weight off him, landing on the floor next to him, flat on my back, spread eagle.
With a smirk, he jumps to his feet. Reaching out his hand he offers to help pull me off the ground. The moment my hand interlocks with his, a jolt shoots up my arm. He must get zapped too because he pulls his hand back dropping me back on my ass. Forcing my body off the ground, when I stand my jelly legs give out from under me sending me careening into his solid bare chest, his arms caging me to stop my fall. I breathe in his scent, an intoxicating blend of vanilla and sweat. Moving me to a nearby bench, he hands me a bottle of water.
“Every muscle in your body is going to hurt tomorrow. You seemed in a zone, what were you thinking?” he asks.
Panting heavily between sips of water, “I wasn’t thinking, my mind was calm and clear. It was bliss. I may need another shower now though,” I joke, sweat soaking through my sweatshirt. “Does someone have a really big t-shirt I could put on?”
“Here, put mine on or take your sweatshirt off. Not like I haven’t seen it before,” he jokes with a devilish grin, tossing his shirt in my face.
“Your shirts don’t fit me and I will not take off my shirt, you haven’t seen this in all its glory,” I insist, waving a hand over my body, a flush filling my cheeks.
“Oh contraire, I have seen it, I just haven’t had a chance to enjoy it,” he smirks. “My shirts fit you fine. Put it on,” he commands and for some reason, his order sends a pulse through my veins throbbing between my legs. “How’re your feet? Using the elliptical that long in socks probably wasn’t wise.”
Hobbling behind a machine, feeling the muscles pull in my thighs and calves, I pull my sweat-soaked shirt off and slide his t-shirt on. His sweet smell filling my nose when it passes my face. It’s skin tight, of course, but it’s dry and cooler. Resuming my seat on the bench, holding up each leg I analyze my feet, “Ironically, they’re in good shape. My whole body feels a little sore but my feet are fine.”
A huge smile breaks across his face, he winks at me before his eyes move down to rest on my chest. His flirty ways and his reputation are battling in my head.
“Why do you do that?” I ask, covering my chest with my arms.
Crinkling his brow, his smile dropping to a small grin, “Why do I do what?” he answers confused.
“Flirt with me. Make comments about my body like you enjoy it? I mean, come on, Kohl; look at me, this is not attractive. You have gorgeous women throwing themselves at you, you would never want someone like me.”
His eyes flare for a second before they soften and melt into mine. “I’m only going to say this one time. So, listen and listen well. I flirt with you because I love making you blush and it’s sexy as hell. You are sexy as hell. I will be the judge of what I find attractive. Size doesn’t matter to me, what matters is on the inside. Now, if you are offering to strip down and stand before me naked I’ll point out the parts I like the most. Everything about you is amazing inside and out.”
His truthful stare is too intense, his words too good to believe, the conversation more than I can handle even though I’m the one who initiated it. Averting my eyes to a spot on the wall over his shoulder, I make a quick subject change, “Didn’t you promise me coffee and chocolate if I came here tonight?”
“Too much snow,” he shrugs, “Best I can offer is water and a protein bar,” he says giving me his million kilowatts smile that lights his eyes like a kid on Christmas morning. His eyes roam shamelessly across my chest, “I like you in my clothes,” he adds moving back to continue lifting weights.
I watch sweat glisten over his chest, the occasional drop traveling from his hairline down the ridged planes of his chest before meeting its end in the waistband of his low riding shorts. I long to travel the path of that drop of salty liquid, my tongue snaking out to lick my lips in anticipation. His eyes track my tongue, his muscles tick, and his nostril flare.
Watching his muscles flex and pull, his words replay in my mind. Shaking my head, I know this is nuts. I’m naïve but not stupid, Kohl Black can have any woman he wants. There’s no way he wants me. There is no way I’m reading his body right no matter what he says, no way I see lust when he looks at me. No way he’s flirting with me. Something in the potion I put in my coffee this morning has made me delusional.
* * *
Kohl
I can feel the touch of her gaze and it’s not helping to stop the blood rushing south, her eyes lidded with heat eating up every piece of my exposed chest. Her tongue continually licking her lips, her teeth clamping on her bottom lip. I want to nip that lip and the lower ones too. I need a cold shower in the worst way.
While she rests I push my body on the machines, doing anything I can to keep my mind from replaying the sounds she was making while she showered, the way she glistened when she finished on the elliptical, her heated flesh making her sweet fruity scent permeate each breath I take. Watching her tits jiggle and shake with each step is exquisite torture and makes me think of what she would look like riding me. All her flesh and curves bouncing up and down above me, with her enormous fun bags in my face, fuck my dick is so hard I’m light headed from the blood loss.
My mind is stuck on a train with only one stop. Stuck at the station of Tensanne, wondering what moans I could draw from her lips, all the ways I could make her sweat. The many, many ways I could play her body with my fingers, my tongue, and my cock. I could dominate her body, making her scream until she’s hoarse. A body she hates. A body that I can’t get enough of.
Her eyes are still eating up my skin, her face showing her desire with every blink o
f her melted chocolate eyes. She’s killing me, I need to find a safe subject.
“What are you majoring in?” I ask, continuing my lateral pulls.
She’s in deep thought about something, shaking her head she responds, “Cognitive Psychology and Brain Science.”
“That’s a very specific area of study; most sophomores are more generalized. Is there a reason for your field of choice?”
“It’s the study of what makes us remember some things and forget others. The study of traumatic brain injuries that affect memory or lack of. My mom, she has some memory issues. I want to learn all I can about why and, someday, find a way to return what she’s lost,” her eyes glossing over with tears she sighs.
Stopping my repetitions, I move to sit next to her on the bench. “Is she sick?”
“No, she was in an accident a few years ago. Head on collision with a drunk driver. She was in a coma for months. When she woke up, she couldn’t remember any of us or her life before the accident. She still knew who she was and how to do all life’s essentials like talking and eating but we were all erased. My dad, me, her life with us, all of it gone,” she laments, sadly, her mouth formed into a deep frown and sorrow filling her eyes. A need to reach out and hold her, to protect her fills deep within me unsettling me, making me ache.
“Plus, she suffered a shattered hip that left her with foot drop on the right side and a shattered pelvis that has led to back problems,” wiping a tear from her cheek. She takes in a huge breath, blowing it out she continues, “My mom was my best friend, my cheerleader. When the world kicked me, she picked me back up, dusted me off and made everything okay. No matter how bad it was. Now, I’m a stranger to her. The warmth that used to light up her eyes for me is gone. She couldn’t come home with us; she couldn’t live with people she didn’t know. She started her life over and left us with the broken pieces. I don’t have security anymore. I don’t have a person who’s always in my corner. The one person in this world who loves me, no matter what I do. We were so much alike. Built with the same eyes, hair. She understood what it felt like to be me.”
She’s breaking right beside me, I can’t fight my urge to touch her anymore, placing my arm around her shoulders I pull her to me in a sideways hug feeling her body shake with each sob, “Why? Why can she remember everything but us? It’s not only me, she was the one who could bring my dad to life. He’s like I am. Awkward, smart and socially inept; but she made him normal and warm. Without her, he’s just a shell, a robot without feelings. I went from parents who were my rocks to nothing but loneliness and cold,” she cries burying her head in my chest.
Suddenly, she stops her tears, wiping her face with her hands she shakes me off, with a grim set to her lips, “I will find a cure, I will get my mom back,” ending with a whispered, “I hope.”
She’s too young to be so troubled. I would be lost without my parents’ support. She’s a lamb in this world of wolves and they’ve already chewed her up and spit her out. I need to help her; I need to be there for her. I can’t explain why I’m drawn to her but I need to be in her orbit.
“I believe if anyone can fix it, you can. I know you don’t know me very well. I know you don’t trust me but I want to be your friend, Ten. I’ll be your cheerleader. I’m not nearly as smart as you but I promise I will help you pick up any pieces you lose and try to put them back in place.” I tell her hoping my eyes convey how badly I want to be a safe place to land in her life.
Squinting her eyes at me, “Why, Kohl? Why do you want to be my friend? You can have anyone you want, there are any number of women lined up to be your ‘friend’. Why do you want to be friends with someone like me?”
This girl has no idea how great she is. She is truly a broken little girl on the inside. Grabbing her hand, I drag her to the wall of mirrors, “Look,” I demand taking her chin and making her eyes meet her own in the mirror, “What do you see?”
Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she says, “I see fat. I see ugly. Behind me I see perfection but it’s hidden by my massive body.”
“I’m not perfection, far from it. Like I told you before, you are sexy as hell. When I look at you I see beauty. I see intelligence dripping out of your pores. You have amazing eyes, shiny sexy hair, a cute dimpled smile in a wonderful round face. But that’s just the surface. I see a warmth inside you, a huge heart. A heart that has been trampled on when it should have been cherished. You are a sublime person, Tensanne Craig. In our short time together, I know you are one of the strongest people I have ever met and I know whatever you set your mind to you will accomplish,” I say pouring my heart into my words, hoping she feels each one. “Plus, you really have a great rack, like the best tits I’ve ever seen,” I joke, deterring some of the seriousness and attempting to hang on to my man card.
With a small sad smile, she turns to me, “Why are you not perfection, Kohl? You’re sweet, popular, smart, amazing at basketball and you seem like an all-around good guy. That’s pretty perfect to me.”
Squirming under her scrutiny, I give her my truth, “I’m a dick most of the time. I struggle in most my classes because I’m too lazy to put the effort in. Yes, I’m a great player but I work twice as hard as everyone else on the team to prove I’m great. Not only do I have to be amazing on the court but I must keep my grades up or I lose my scholarship. I’ve been known to use women, I spent my freshman year fucking my way through the female students, drinking too much and just being a shitty human being. I would have been one of them sharing the photo of you.”
“Why are you different now?” she asks, unfazed by my confession.
“To be honest, I don’t think I am. Or, I wasn’t until I started talking to you. I noticed you in class, you intrigued me. Then I noticed Chase circling, I heard some of his plans. You should hate me; I didn’t stop him. I felt so horrible for you when the picture went viral. I felt guilty for not doing anything to stop it. I never feel guilty for anything that I’ve done but I felt it for you, for something that wasn’t my fault. I wanted to make it right. I wanted to make you right.”
Fury rises in her eyes, “So, I’m a charity case? Something to make you feel better about yourself?”
“No, never. I can see the goodness in you. I’m hoping some of your goodness will rub off on me. Something clicked when your photo went viral, a switch flipped in my brain. I knew I wanted to be a better person, I wanted to get to know you. I need you to accept I like being around you.”
Her fury fades, a small smile tilts her lips, “Let’s start over. I was stupid, you were stupid, let’s be smart together. I’ll help you with keeping your grades up, you help me with working out and becoming more social and secure in my own skin,” Checking the clock on the wall, she says, “It’s late but, starting tomorrow, we will begin operation make Kohl and Ten better people.”
Nodding my agreement, I’ll call it whatever she wants to call it if I get to keep being around her. I should be worried by the depths that I’m willing to go through to make this girl mine but when I look at her she is surrounded by a white glow and I feel this magnetic pull to be near her. I have a warmth that fills my heart and I somehow know where she is, is where I need to be.
I wish I would have approached her before Chase. She was open and trusting then, she hadn’t built her walls up yet. I was a dumbass for waiting and Chase Masters left a trail destruction in his wake.
Collecting our belongings, slipping my coat over my bare skin we trudge into the ass deep snow. Campus maintenance has plowed the sidewalks clearing us a path. Hunkering together we walk back to her dorm.
Grabbing her phone to text myself her number I see she has a ton of messages from Ronnie, “You have a few messages about your safety. Judging from the use of all capital letters I’m guessing she’s not happy.”
“Damn, I forgot to let Ron know I made it safely,” fretting she worries her bottom lip with her top teeth. She needs to stop doing that, all think about kissing her and sucking that lip into my mouth. “I gotta
get upstairs before she sends out a search party.”
Sending a text from her phone to mine, I lean in and kiss her cold cheek, “I’ll text you tomorrow and we’ll figure out what we want to do.” Fighting the urge to dive in again and take her mouth I watch her until she is safely inside the door.
Excitement fills me from my head to my toes. I loosened a few bricks in her wall tonight. With a pep in my step and a goofy grin plastered to my face, I plot my next moves all the way back to my dorm.
Chapter Ten
“I’m not fat, I’m fluffy.”
—worst t-shirt saying ever!
Tensanne
“OH, OUCH. OH, my God,” I moan, every muscle in my body screeching in pain. Breathing is painful.
Ronnie sits on my bed, placing her hand on my forehead. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” she asks her face etched with concern.
“No, but did you get the license number of the truck that hit me? Fuck me, even my hair hurts,” I groan.
“What the hell are you talking about? Did Kohl do something? I swear to Jesus, I’ll kill him,” she rants, patting her hands along my arms searching for injuries.
“No, I decided to try out the elliptical machine last night and now I’m sore,” I say pushing her hands away, feeling pain in muscles I didn’t even know I had. My thighs are screaming, my calves are cramping, my butt hurts. Holy shit, why do people do this?
Her eyebrows arch up to her hairline, “You worked out?” she squeaks.
“Don’t sound so shocked Ron. It was a great release. My mind went blank, all the stress left me. It was great while I was doing it but I’m regretting that decision now,” I whine attempting to sit up again feeling agony in my abdominal muscles, I flop back on the bed with a whimper.