“We’ve only been dating for two months!” I yelled after him, hoping that he was just trying to yank my chain. Or not really trying but quite successfully yanking it instead.
“Doesn’t make you any less mine!” he yelled back.
“What the hell is wrong with the two of you?” I heard Jason ask Luka as I threw on one of Luka’s shirts and slipped on my sandals.
“He’s a caveman, that’s what,” I complained as I joined them in the living room.
“Shocker,” Jason said sarcastically. “That cannot possibly be news to you.”
“Not really,” I complained.
“Oh quit your whining,” Luka quipped. “We better get a move on or Lexi’s little pool party will be over before we make it down there.”
“Pool party?” Jason asked.
Luka stopped for a moment and tilted his head. “On second thought, waste all the time you want. Maybe we’ll end up missing it.”
“Do you want to come with?” I asked Jason after rolling my eyes at Luka.
“Nah, I’ve got some studying to do,” he replied. “But you two kids go have fun.”
Luka grumbled as we took the elevator down to the second floor, where the workout room and indoor pool were located. This building had the best amenities in town and was the only apartment complex that offered year-round swimming. I always thought it was surprising that so few of the tenants used it regularly.
I grabbed Luka’s hand as we walked down the hall and practically pulled him towards the door since he was walking so slowly. “C’mon, Luka. It won’t be that bad,” I promised. “It’s just Lexi, Drake, and a few of his friends.”
Luka swiped his security card and waved me through the door in front of him.
“Hey, guys,” I greeted Lexi and Drake, who were already in the pool.
“Finally,” Lexi sighed dramatically. “I thought you’d never make it down here.”
“And here I thought you like spending time with me,” Drake drawled, trying to look offended.
Lexi splashed him while we all laughed. “I’ve got a big-ass rock on my finger that proves that I do,” she replied.
Luka threw our towels down on a chair and kicked his flip-flops off. I pulled his shirt over my head, tossed it on top of the towels, and tucked my sandals under the stack since I hated when they got wet.
“Cannonball!” I yelled before jumping in the pool. I’d always loved swimming since I’d grown up spending the summers at the family lake house.
“You’re such a goof,” Lexi sputtered when I came up for air, her face dripping with water.
“And you’re not?” I asked.
“She’s got you there,” Drake said as there was a knock on the door. He hopped out of the pool to let a group of his friends in.
I’d met the first five guys who walked in a few times before when I’d hung out with Drake and his friends. I even beat a couple of them at poker. But I figured that the last guy might be a problem for Luka and me. I knew him well enough to know that he’d enjoy it too.
I flashed the group a quick smile and waved before turning back to Luka, who was already glaring at them all. And they hadn’t even done anything other than say hello.
Lexi swam over to me as Luka climbed out so Drake could introduce him to the group. “I swear to God I didn’t know Eric was going to be here,” she whispered, nervously looking over at the guys. She hadn’t liked him when I’d dated him, and it was clear that her opinion hadn’t changed since then.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “It’s not like I have to hang out with him or anything. There’s enough room for me to stay away from him.”
“Yeah, but without being obvious about it or Luka will know something’s up,” she warned as he walked back towards us.
I managed to make it through about an hour of swimming and horsing around with everyone before Luka honed in on what was going on. I’d just left the pool and was toweling off by our stuff.
“You used to date that guy, didn’t you?” Luka muttered in my ear as he crushed my body against his.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “But I didn’t know he was coming. He and Drake don’t normally hang out, so one of the other guys must have invited him. Lexi would have told me otherwise and I would have warned you.”
“Fuck,” he swore under his breath, looking pissed.
It was the first time we’d ever spent any time around someone I’d dated before meeting Luka. A lot of the guys I’d dated my freshman and sophomore years were older than me and had already graduated. I’d barely dated last year, so that didn’t leave me with many exes for us to run into.
This was horrible timing too. Luka already hadn’t been happy to have me running around in a bikini in front of the guys. The last thing I needed right now was this, but I did have one thing going for me that would make the situation slightly better.
“We didn’t date very long,” I told Luka. “And I never slept with him.”
His eyes glittered dangerously. “Did you blow him? Let him eat your little pussy? The one that belongs to me?”
“Jesus, Luka,” I hissed. “Listen to yourself for a second. That is so damn rude.”
Luka’s arms held me tight against him as he buried his head in my neck. “That better not fucking mean yes or I’m going to have to beat the shit out of him.”
“I know you’ve never really had to deal with this much before because you and Kat were high school sweethearts, but you are very close to crossing a line that you will have a hard time coming back from with me, Luka,” I warned.
“You think this is just the way I would be with anyone?” Luka ground out. “I wasn’t Kat’s first for fuck’s sake. There were guys in high school I’d see in the halls and I knew she’d been with them. Hell, I fucking hung out with someone who’d slept with her before me. It was no big deal. I never even really thought twice about it.”
“Then why are you acting like this?” I wondered aloud, stunned to learn that he hadn’t acted like this when he’d been with his ex for so much longer than we’d been together so far.
“This is about you, Aubrey. All about you,” he growled. “You’re the only person in the world who drives me crazy like this. I’ve never been jealous like this before.”
I didn’t even know what to think about what he’d just admitted to me. “But you trust me, right? This isn’t just because of what she did to you?” I asked softly.
“This has nothing to do with what happened before and everything to do with the way that little shit is smirking while he eye-fucks you,” he swore while he looked down at the ground. “The very idea that this guy’s hands have been on you and I have to stand here without being able to beat the shit out of him fucking sucks.”
I turned my head around to see that Eric was watching us very closely with a smug little grin on his face. “Here’s the thing. You can’t beat the shit out of him because that wouldn’t help anything,” I said, reminding him of something he should damn well already know for himself. “But his hands were never on me before.”
Luka’s head snapped up at my words. “Never?”
“I went on a few dates with him because a mutual friend thought we’d hit it off, but things never went that far. I didn’t even think he was that interested in me because all he wanted to talk about was himself each time we went out,” I admitted.
Luka ran his eyes up and down my body. “Trust me. He was very interested.”
“That doesn’t really matter because I wasn’t,” I pointed out. “And I shouldn’t tell you all of this because the way you confronted me about this pisses me off, but he is being a jerk and pushing all your buttons, so I’ll cut you a little slack.”
I could feel Luka’s body relax as he realized he wasn’t going to be in the doghouse for very long.
“What shouldn’t you tell me?”
“Not only did I never have sex with him, but I never even kissed him. Anywhere,” I stressed, thinking about his mention of a blowjob earlier. �
�And the only place he’s ever kissed me is on the cheek when I turned my head to avoid his goodbye kiss on our last date before I told him I just wasn’t interested.”
“Okay. I guess I can let him live then,” Luka said. “But only after I get to rub in his face that I get to touch you however and whenever I want and he couldn’t even get to first base with you.”
And he proceeded to do just that by lifting me up on my tiptoes and kissing me deeply. His hands swept down to my ass to drag my body even closer to his. One hand crept back up and wrapped into my ponytail as he bent my head back and ravaged my mouth. I was faintly aware of the catcalls from behind us but couldn’t gather my wits as Luka devoured me. Minutes passed with us plastered together before he finally pulled away with a triumphant grin on his face.
“You still owe me an apology,” I muttered once I was able to think clearly again after that kiss.
Luka pinched my ass before replying, “How about I give you a fuckpology instead?”
“What?” I asked, my jaw dropping open in shock.
He grinned at me wickedly and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I could just say I’m sorry or I could show you exactly how sorry I am. In bed. Which one would you prefer I do?”
“Hey, Lexi,” I called out to my best friend.
“Yeah?” she asked.
I grabbed my sandals and shirt and replied while putting them on, “Luka and I have to bail. He’s got practice tonight, and with that tournament coming up after Christmas, he needs to get some rest so he’s in tip-top shape.”
“Rest, hmmmmm?” Lexi teased. “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”
“Oh, there will be resting,” Luka muttered as he grabbed my hand and led me past everyone to the door. “After I’m done with you, you’ll definitely need to take a nap.”
Chapter 10
Luka
That day at the pool might have been the first time I owed Aubrey a fuckpology, but it certainly wasn’t the last. It was possible that she let me get away with a hell of a lot because she enjoyed them so much. They were the shit.
The only problem was that I kept fucking up in the first place. Aubrey hadn’t been far off when she’d called me a caveman because I found myself wanting to drag her by her hair to my cave on a regular basis. Like whenever other guys were around. She was just too damn sexy for her own good, and it was like she didn’t even have any idea of the havoc she wreaked on the male population on campus.
Like right now, for example—standing there, talking to a guy after class who was trying to look interested in whatever they were talking about while also trying to look down her shirt without Aubrey noticing. She could be so damn clueless sometimes, and it drove me even more nuts. I had to mark my fucking territory all the time so other guys couldn’t miss that she was mine. Even from my own damn teammates sometimes and they already knew better than to pull that shit with her.
“Sam,” I growled as I walked up and wrapped my arms around Aubrey.
He looked at me sheepishly, knowing that he’d just been caught staring at my girlfriend’s boobs. “Hey, Luka.”
“You mind if I steal Aubrey away?” I asked, not really giving a shit what his answer was. “Or did you need more time with my girlfriend?”
“Luka,” she sighed and turned in my embrace to look up at me. “We had a pop quiz today and Sam and I were just comparing answers to see if we could figure out if we did well or not.”
That might be what she had been doing, but Sam had been buying time so he could enjoy the view. He was a dog and always had been. He’d gotten into enough fights with boyfriends during the years we’d been playing hockey together that I knew he couldn’t care less if a girl was taken or not. If he wanted to get his dick wet, he went for it no matter what. And I didn’t trust that he cared if the girl’s boyfriend was one of his own teammates or not.
“I’m sure you did great, moya printsessa,” I reassured her as I gave Sam a curt nod and led Aubrey away. Thank fuck it was her last class of the day and I didn’t have practice tonight.
“Then why were you a jerk to Sam?” she asked as we walked to my car. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong, Luka.”
I stopped for a moment and looked down at her. “Trust me. He knew exactly why I was acting pissed off and what he was doing to cause it.”
She rolled her eyes at me and stomped across the parking lot to stand by the passenger’s side door of my car. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and her foot was tapping out an irritated rhythm on the ground. I opened the door for her and she hopped in without saying a word.
We rode to my apartment building in complete silence, and I figured she was just trying to decide out how she wanted to respond. Then she still didn’t say anything in the elevator. Or as she dumped her backpack on the kitchen table before she stomped into my room and slammed the door.
“Fuck, bro. You’re in the doghouse again?” Jason asked. He was sitting on the couch and a grin on his face like he enjoyed watching me get into trouble with Aubrey.
“Sam’s in her Econ class and was chatting her up when I got there,” I muttered.
“Dude, you don’t think he was hitting on your girl. Do you?” Jason wondered aloud. “I mean, Sam will chase just about anything in a skirt, but even he’s got to know you would literally kill him if he touched her.”
“I don’t know. And I don’t really care because he shouldn’t be alone with her anyway,” I growled before stalking towards my bedroom.
“And here we go with the caveman shit again,” I heard Jason say as I closed the door behind me.
Aubrey was lying down on the bed with a pillow over her head.
“I don’t like when you’re alone with other guys,” I started, but I didn’t get very far because she threw the pillow at me.
“Luka, we weren’t alone,” she argued. “I was standing in a public building on a college campus outside a classroom where anybody could walk by. Hell, you walked by and I knew you were going to because I knew you were coming to get me. How in the hell could that count as being alone with a guy?”
I contemplated her words for a moment. “Yeah, I get that you weren’t alone alone with him, but you were talking to him by yourself and he was looking down your fucking shirt to stare at your boobs.”
“He was not!” she gasped. “I would have noticed him doing that.”
“Alexa, trust me. He was absolutely looking down your shirt and I busted him for it,” I insisted.
“But…” she sputtered. “He’s your teammate. And your friend. He wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Yes, he’s my teammate and supposedly my friend, but that doesn’t mean he can be trusted around you,” I argued. “So how about we make a deal that you don’t have any private conversations by yourself with other guys? Save it for when I’m there with you.”
She looked outraged at the suggestion. “Are you honestly sitting there, telling me that I can’t talk to another guy by myself?”
“I just want you to be safe. That’s all,” I reassured her. “There are a lot of assholes out there who see how beautiful you are on the outside and want that for themselves.”
“And I’m a big girl and can tell them no if some guy ever tries anything like that,” she retorted. “I’ve turned guys down plenty of times before.”
I glared at her for that comment. “But you shouldn’t have to because that’s my job.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to never talk to another guy by myself ever again. There are plenty of guys I’m perfectly safe with.”
“Like who?” I asked.
“Drake,” she hissed. “Jason. My brothers. My college professors. The checkout guy at the grocery store.”
I sat down on the bed and pulled her onto my lap, dropping my head onto her chest. “I’m being a crazy man again, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are,” she whispered. “And I don’t really understand why this is an issue for you when you know I’m never going to do some
thing with another guy.”
“How about we make a deal?” I asked.
“What kind of deal?” she answered skeptically, crossing her arms to make sure I knew that she thought I was up to no good.
I rolled her onto her back and raised myself over her body. “How about we both promise to do our best to limit how often we’re alone with members of the opposite sex who are single and we don’t know that well?”
She looked up at me with questions in her eyes, like she was trying to figure out if there was something she was missing in the request. “If it means that much to you, then I guess that wouldn’t be too much of a problem,” she answered softly.
“I know it’s another example of me acting crazy. I get that in here,” I said as I pointed at my head before moving my hand over my heart. “But in here beats the heart of your caveman who would hide you in his cave and never let you out for anyone else to see if he could.”
“As long as it isn’t because you think I would cheat on you or anything like that,” she clarified.
“You’re my girlfriend. We’ve already committed to each other, and I don’t think you’d ever do anything to hurt me like that. It just isn’t in you to do something like that. But I don’t see how it can hurt if we both limit the chances of there ever being a misunderstanding or an opportunity for someone else to try to get in the middle of our relationship,” I said, trying to explain my reasoning and make it sound logical. Or at least better than if I had just said, “I see red every time some dumbfuck so much as looks at you—which happens a helluva lot because you’re so damn beautiful.” I didn’t think that would have gone over well at all.
Aubrey lifted her hands and swept her palms over my cheeks as she moved them to the back of my head and pulled me down so that our lips were almost touching. “I cannot believe I am actually going to go along with this. You owe me. Big time.”
“Well, I’d hate to be in your debt,” I teased. “Maybe I should work it off now.”
“Nope,” she disagreed, making a popping sound at the end of the word after drawing it out.
The Blythe College Complete Series Box Set Page 52