On the Rebound

by L A Cotton

  They knew.

  My heart clenched.

  I could still picture the crushed expression on Joel’s face as realization dawned on him. He didn’t deserve to be in the middle of this thing, but my selfishness, my desperate need to surround myself with good, trustworthy people, had outweighed my desire to protect them from the truth.

  You should have told him.

  It was too late now. There was no going back, and something told me, a line had been drawn tonight between me and the team.

  Callum was their teammate, one of their leaders.

  And I was his estranged sister. Someone he clearly didn’t want in his life.

  God, what a mess.

  But I’d never expected to come to SU and be completely and utterly shunned by him. It was as if I didn’t even exist. What the hell was I supposed to tell Joel? The rest of the guys? ‘Oh, by the way, I’m Calli, Callum’s long-lost sister. Nice to meet you’.

  I didn’t want to infringe on his life, to burrow my way into his team, and steal his friends. That was never the plan.

  Yet, here I was.

  With a heavy sigh, I made my way up the stairs of the building and slipped inside. Tomorrow, my anonymity would be gone. Victoria and Kira would tell their friends, Joel and the guys would let the cat out of the bag at practice, and I’d no longer be Calli James, freshman, and quiet girl just looking to survive college. I’d be Calli James, Callum James’ sister. I’d be a question on people’s lips, a puzzle they wanted to understand.

  I passed a couple of girls in the hall, feeling their heavy stares follow me.

  They don’t know yet, they can’t.

  But when I arrived at my door, I saw the source of their interest. “Zach?” I gasped, my heart lurching into my throat.

  He was leaning against the wall, his head tipped back, and hands tucked behind him.

  It hurt so much to look at him. From his dirty blond hair to his sharp jaw and defined cheekbones, his broad shoulders and tapered waist. He was beautiful enough to walk on the runway and rugged enough to be a basketball player.

  I hated to admit it, but basketball looked good on him. It always had. Right since that first time I saw him at school, wearing a Vipers jersey. He wasn’t supposed to like basketball, let alone be good at it. But he was.

  I guess Messiah blood ran in his veins after all.

  “We need to talk.”

  “No,” I said, standing my ground. “We don’t.”

  He let out a heavy sigh, scrubbing a hand over his slightly stubbled jaw. “Yeah, we do.”

  “So you can apologize for being an ass? Or maybe for assaulting me on the Ferris wheel?”

  “Assault?” He scoffed, arching a brow. “You were begging for it.”

  “I was—” I stopped myself. “I’m not going to do this with you, Zach.” I was tired. Exhausted from the constant push and pull, and hot and cold.

  Zach didn’t want me. Not the same way as part of me still, after all this time, wanted him.

  “You should go.”

  “I’m not leaving, Calli. Not until we’ve talked.” He pushed off the wall, taking the air in the hall with him. I edged backward trying to keep a safe distance between us. If he touched me, I’d break. And I couldn’t break, not now. Not here.

  I’d already cried enough tears over Zachary Messiah.

  He didn’t deserve anymore.

  I turned my back on him and scrambled to retrieve my key card from my purse. I needed to get away from him. But the second I got the damn thing open, Zach was there. His arm went over my head, his palm flattening against the door.

  “Calli, please...”

  I glanced up to look at him, a slight gasp forming on my lips as his dark gaze pinned me in place. “No. Go away, Zach, I mean it.” I slipped into the room, releasing the breath I’d been holding and slammed the door in his face.

  Tears collected in the corners of my eyes as the weight of tonight’s events hit me for a second time.

  They knew—they all knew, and it was Zach’s fault.

  The door flew open and he stood there, breathing harshly.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I barked.

  “She died? Fiona, she—”

  “Don’t. Don’t you dare say her name.” My body began to tremble, the grief I fought so hard to keep suppressed crashing over me in great powerful waves.

  “You never said anything.” His expression was softer now, glittering with sympathy. Zach didn’t move, just stood there watching me.

  Always watching me.

  “I’m not going to do this with you,” I whispered, barely able to look at him as silent tears streaked down my face.

  Zach crossed the room, his long muscular legs eating up the space between us. I had to crane my neck to look up at him, to see deep into his eyes. “Talk to me, sweet pea.” He cupped my face, his knuckles skimming my cheek as he brushed away the tears.

  “I can’t, not anymore.” A sad sigh escaped my lips, pain breaking my insides apart.

  His expression darkened. “But you can talk to Molineux and his sister? They don’t know you like I do, Calli. They don’t know your mom and what she was like. She was a good person.”

  “Yeah,” I choked out, forcing my gaze away from him, “she was.”

  Zach slid his fingers under my jaw, tilting my face back to his, refusing to give me space. I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to do this. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not now, standing in my dorm; not at SU fulfilling his brother’s shoes. It was like some sick joke. Some warped nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

  “Give me your eyes, sweet pea.” His voice was a soft caress, trying to coax me back to him.

  “You hate me remember?” I said as my eyes fluttered open, the words cracking my chest wide open.

  “Yeah, well, I hate seeing you with him more.”

  A bitter laugh crawled up my throat and came out all strangled and wrong. “Between you and Victoria, you did an excellent job in making sure Joel never speaks to me again. So, congratulations, your mission was a success.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Not what? True?” I mocked. “We both know it is. Victoria clearly hates me for some unknown reason. Probably because she figured out Callum is my brother and I know you. She already lost Declan; she doesn’t want to lose you too.” I jerked back, clapping a hand over my mouth.

  Zach ran a hand down his face, his eyes narrowed to thin slits. His anger was palpable, swirling around him like a dark, dangerous mist. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter. This... me and you,” I shook my head, “I think we need to just stop. We clearly can’t be around each other without acting crazy. I’ll stay away from the team and you can stay away from me.”

  It was for the best.

  It was stupid of me to think I could ever be around Zach and not completely lose all sense of reason. He was still inside me, wired into my make up somehow. There was too much unresolved crap between us to just forget.

  Blood roared in my ears over the deafening silence. Zach didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything. Just stood, watching me. Searching my face for answers I didn’t have.

  Answers I couldn’t keep looking for.

  “Zach, I—”

  “You think you just get to decide we’re done? I didn’t ask to be here... I certainly fucking didn’t expect to find you here. But you think I can just walk away?” His lip curled as he started to edge forward.

  I inched back, trying to keep a safe distance. “Zach, please...”

  He reached me just as my back hit the wall. The air crackled around us, thick and heavy with the sins of our past. Sins I still didn’t fully understand. But I realized now, maybe I didn’t want to. Too much time had passed, and we weren’t the same people anymore. I was broken, lost and fighting to keep my head above water every minute of every day, and Zach was cold, cruel and closed off. He was a menace to my heart, and I had to let him go.
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  If I was going to survive my time at SU, I had to walk away and never look back.

  “Just go, Zach, please,” I said, pressing my palms against his hard chest. His eyes dropped to my hands, before slowly lifting to my face.

  “I can still remember what it felt like to be inside you, Calli. To take you hard and fast against that wall, to lose myself in you.”

  “Don’t...” I squeezed my eyes closed again, inhaling a ragged breath. I didn’t want to remember that night last Halloween.

  “Don’t you remember, sweet pea?” His lips brushed my cheek, moving to my ear. “Don’t you remember how good it felt? How much you wanted it?”

  “Zach...” My fingers curled into his baggy tank top as I smothered a whimper.

  “Look at me,” he moved back, “give me those eyes.”

  My lids fluttered open, and I was swallowed up by two black orbs glittering dangerously in the dark. “There she is,” he said. “My sweet little liar.”

  “Zach, I—”

  “Why can’t I just let you go?” He said it like I was a curse he needed freeing from. Like he wanted me to say something that would break this tether between us. A plea on his lips.

  “You never forget your first love.” I gave him a sad smile, my heart galloping inside my chest like a band of wild horses.

  “Love?” He laughed and it was so full of bitterness and pain it made my chest constrict. “Do you know what you taught me about love, Calliope? It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.” His fingers traced down my face to my neck, wrapping gently around my throat. “You’re under my skin, Calli. Buried in my fucking soul and I hate it... I hate—”

  “Say it.” I hissed. “Go on, tell me how much you hate me. Say it.” I slammed my hands against his chest.

  Zach staggered back a little, snagging my wrists. “Don’t fucking push me, sweet pea. You might not like the outcome.”

  “What are you going to do? Hurt me?” I snarled the words, lost in a riptide of anger and pain and regret. “You’re a coward, Zach. You were a coward then and you’re still a coward now.”

  Whatever I’d done to hurt him, he could have talked to me about it. He could have just told me so I could have tried to fix it. I’d spent three years questioning what went wrong. Why my best friend, the boy I loved more than anything in the world, turned his back on me.

  And he still couldn’t tell me.

  “Well?” I spat. “I’m waiting.”

  Zach’s jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.

  When it was apparent he wasn’t going to answer me, I let out a quiet laugh. “You’re a coward, Zach. You broke my heart, you ruined us, and for what, huh? You can’t even tell me, can you?” A sad smile tugged at my mouth. “All this time and you still can’t find the words to tell me what happened.”

  I went to walk away, but Zach grabbed my arm. He looked murderous, his eyes burning with contempt. “You want to hurt me?” I stepped into his big imposing body and pushed up on my tiptoes. “Take your best shot.”

  Nothing could hurt me the way Mom’s death had.

  Not even the boy I’d once wanted forever with.

  My challenge hung in the air.

  A beat passed, the air so thick I couldn’t breathe.

  “Fuck, I want to,” he confessed, anger flaring in his eyes. “I want to hurt you so bad, Calli. I want to dirty your soul the way you dirtied mine.”

  My body trembled at the dark intention behind his words. But there was something else in his expression... hurt... longing... regret.

  “Zach, I—”

  His mouth crashed down on mine, hard and unrelenting. I grasped at his tank, fighting to hold on as he devoured me with hot dirty kisses, the kind of kisses that you felt all the way to the tips of your toes.

  “Fuck,” he growled, the sound vibrating in his chest. “Why does this always feel so good? It’s not supposed to feel good.”

  A thrill shot through me at his words, but it didn’t change the fact that we were both broken. Irrevocably changed by the trauma we’d both faced. I wanted to believe that was the tether still linking us, but it was more than that.

  It was him.

  The boy who used to see me despite the fact I lived in my brother’s shadow. It was the boy who hid with me in the treehouse and shared his hopes and dreams and secrets. The boy who gave me my first kiss, my first big O, the boy who took my V-card on a blanket under the stars after Homecoming.

  My soul remembered, even if my head and heart knew we wouldn’t survive Zach again.

  But it wasn’t enough to make me push him away.

  I would give myself this.

  One night.

  One final time with the boy who would be forever etched on my heart.

  Zach picked me up with ease, sliding my slender body along his as he carried me back to the wall and pressed me up against it. His hands were everywhere. In my hair, tracing my curves, squeezing my ass. I loved his passion, how hungry and desperate he was. Even caught up in his anger, Zach made me feel wanted. He made me feel like the center of his universe.

  And I both loved and hated him for it.

  “I want to fuck you until Molineux is nothing more than a distant memory. I hate that he touched you.” Zach pressed his brow to mine, trapping me there. “I can’t stand the thought that he kissed you.”

  “I hate you,” I gasped, knowing that I couldn’t resist him.

  “I know, baby, I know. And I hate you right back. But it doesn’t stop you wanting me, does it? It doesn’t stop you getting wet for me. Every. Single. Time.” His hand dived between us, finding the hem of my skirt. Zach didn’t wait for permission or give me a chance to catch my breath, he just hooked the material aside and pushed two fingers inside me, stealing the air from my lungs.

  “God...” I cried, so overwhelmed by his touch.

  “Not God, sweet pea. Messiah. And you will fall at my feet.”

  My eyes snapped to his, narrowing.

  “There she is,” he chuckled, “my little fighter, my little warrior.”

  Zach continued working me with his fingers, sliding them back and forth through my wetness. “Did you let him touch you, Calli?” He drawled against the corner of my lips. “Did you spread your legs and—”

  “Like you haven’t slept with hundreds of girls,” I hissed, my chest heaving between us.

  Zach kissed me again, with deep punishing strokes of his tongue as if he was trying to swallow my words and take them for his own.

  Why did he have to be like this with me?

  Wanting me… desiring me… always taking from me.

  And then abandoning me, just like everyone else.

  The frustration wasn’t only building in my body, it was unfurling from my heart and mind. I felt it rise from my throat and spill out in my words.

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU.” Tears flowed down my cheeks. Zach felt them, breaking the kiss. He stared at me, his fingers still inside me, his expression giving nothing away.

  God, I wanted to know what he was thinking, I wanted to know everything about the boy I’d once known better than myself.

  “Yeah, there have been other girls. More than I can count.” His words rattled inside of me. Vicious brutal lashes over my heart. “But they were never you, Calli. You’re in-fucking-here,” he tapped his temple. “And now you’re here, at SU, and I don’t know how the fuck to deal with that.”

  “Talk to me... please, just talk to me.”

  A flash of something filled his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “Is that what you want, sweet pea? To talk?” Zach leaned in close again, licking up my tears. “Or do you want me to give you what you really want?” He dragged his fingers out of me and rubbed my clit in slow torturous circles, pausing the second my body began to shudder.

  “Tell me, Calli,” he taunted me, a wicked grin plastered on his face. “Say the words.”

  I looked him dead in the eye and gave him a little smirk of my own.

 
“Make me.”

  Zach

  I’d already noticed the difference in Calli on campus, but seeing the challenge sparkle in her eyes made me wonder if we were more similar than I gave her credit for.

  I pinched her clit and her entire body shuddered. “You like that?”

  She moaned, nodding. Her eyes were barely open as she lost herself to the pleasure. I wanted to devour her. To own every single part of her. It was some deep-seated need to control her. To hold her emotions, her happiness, in the palm of my hand, the way she’d once done with mine.

  I would have done anything for this girl.

  Any-fucking-thing.

  Seeing her again made me realize I wasn’t over her. That all this time, I’d been lying to myself. Ignorance was bliss. But now Calli was here, at SU, and I couldn’t keep the lock fastened on those old feelings.

  “Zach.” My name fell from her lips in a breathy sigh.

  “Come for me, sweet pea, now.” I curled my fingers, rubbing deep inside her as my thumb circled her clit. She cried out, clinging to my body as she shattered apart at my touch.

  “God.” Her head hit the wall as she swallowed, trying to catch her breath.

  I needed inside her. I’d never needed anything as much as I needed to feel her warm heat wrapped around me.

  Calli’s body was lax in my arms as I carried her to the bed, laying her out before me. “Look at you,” I drawled.

  She gazed up at me heavy-lidded and lust drunk. There was something else in her eyes too, something I chose not to acknowledge.

  I made quick work of stripping the clothes from her body before removing my own. Calli’s eyes flared when they landed on my dick, hard and ready. Palming myself, I pumped a couple of times, biting down on my lip to stop a moan from escaping.

  “You want this?” I smirked. “You want me to ruin you?”

  She nodded. “Take your best shot, Messiah.” Damn, those words again.

  The challenge.

  She was so different.

  Harder.

  Sassy.

  Distant in a way I didn’t like.