I traced her shoulder with my finger. The neckline of her dress. I didn’t want to rush her. Have her think I had a goal for her body. Even though my dick certainly did.
“You think I didn’t get in trouble?” She rolled over onto her stomach, resting her head on her hands, feet kicked up behind her.
I took my knuckle from her temple to her chin. So fucking lovely.
I shook my head. “No. I can’t imagine what a kid version of you looked like, but damn, if anyone had the heart to do anything but make you smile.”
I meant it. She was enchanting. The way she moved was delicate.
“I talked too much. A lot. I had trouble sitting still for a few years there. Had in-school suspension a few times.” Ember put her palm on my chest.
I wanted to say more. Say that it was kind of awesome that she broke some rules. That maybe she didn’t have the world hand her anything she wanted. But her hand was on my chest.
I flexed. Couldn’t help it. I wanted her to be pleased with what she found under my shirt. And then she slayed my balls with a naughty smile. She fisted the fabric of my shirt, pulling it up over my abs.
“Careful, I don’t want you to start something I can’t stop.” It was a real warning. Because she was so special. But there were parts of me that would not hold back. The repetitive lust my mind had for her since I first laid eyes on her. On the floor of a pizza joint. Thinking I was dead.
“You underestimate what I can handle, Sherlock.” She licked her lips.
I felt my eyes roll back into my head as a tsunami of sex hit my imagination. I ran my palm over my mouth. My body tensed. She pulled my T-shirt up farther. My nostrils flared when her soft hand was skin to skin against me.
“Ember.” I was trying to warn her. Promise her. Not rush it.
And then I felt her tongue on my stomach. Licking a pattern. The rainbow streaks, the huge, cat-shaped eyes. The lips that were like a pillow my dick wanted to lay its head on.
I slid out from under her touch, feet on the floor.
I was tremendously satisfied to see the disappointment flit across her face. “Oh no, baby. I got so much more.” I tossed my shirt aside. Ember’s naughty smile was back.
Chapter 21
Ember
MY MOUTH WENT DRY at the sight of Lock in only his jeans. His bare chest was his best outfit. It shouldn’t ever be covered. Lean muscle. He was the kind of strong that running and climbing got a man. He flipped open the button on his jeans and started the zipper.
I stilled his hand. “Don’t open my presents for me.”
His smile tugged up on one side and I got to see a dimple. It was incredible to watch that whatever I said was reflected on his face. I stood up and ran my hands over the edges and ridges that made up his chest. His biceps, his forearms, a few veins there. I put my hands in both of his and kissed his chin.
He leaned down and put his cheek against mine, whispering into my ear, “If today’s a dream, don’t wake me up.”
My sensitive ear and the sentiment made me laugh. I realized this was too fast. If it wasn’t so different than everything else, I’m sure I’d have been rational about it. About him. I looked into his eyes. Limitless. The way they pierced into me. Like they would never look away.
It wasn’t love at first sight, or maybe it was. The tingles. The way I wanted to protect him even though I didn’t know him well.
And he snapped. All the discipline he was showing wasn’t evident until he stopped restraining himself.
The kisses we’d been sharing all day went from sweet to carnal. The way he swept me back up on the bed confirmed the strength in his muscles. He was taller than me, just enough to feel a bit overwhelmed when he put his weight on top of me. I opened my legs and he put his knees on the mattress. His palms ran up my inner thighs as his tongue dipped between my lips. I wanted him between my legs because that’s where he belonged. He took those palms and ran them up my hips, under my dress, and spread his fingers across my stomach.
His mouth moved to my jaw and down to my neck.
There was no more flirting. Lock was determined to take all I had.
It became about feeling. His touch was burning through my body. By the time he had his hand on my breast, I was panting for more. He was working on the buttons of my sundress, and the way we were situated, I could feel what he was offering against my thigh. I heard the groan before I realized it was me.
The banging on my dorm room door startled us both. Lock hopped off of me and walked to the door. “No peephole on this fucking thing?”
He grabbed my lamp off of my desk and stood to his full height. “Who is it?”
His voice was three octaves deeper than it normally was. And I halfway hated myself for getting even more turned on at his protectiveness.
I slipped out of bed. He was overreacting, of course. The knock sounded again. “It’s Wardon. Let me in. Nix wants a welfare check.”
My jaw dropped. I pushed past Lock to open the door. Lock didn’t put down the lamp.
He stood behind me as I opened the door. “Someone better be on fire.”
Wardon looked miserable. He held up his phone. The contact on the top read “Boss.” I assumed it was my brother.
I took the phone and slammed the door in Wardon’s face. “What?”
I heard a sigh on the other side. “You okay?”
“Seriously, Nix?” I flipped the light switch by the door.
Lock put the lamp down and then ran his hands through his hair.
“You weren’t responding to my texts. I wanted to be sure.”
“I was making out with my boyfriend.”
Lock high-fived himself.
“Yeah. This is probably not what I should be doing. My head just went places and I know he has a reputation and everything.” I could hear the clack of a keyboard through the phone; Nix was typing while talking to me.
I sat on my bed and fiddled with the buttons on my sundress. The top four were undone. I wasn’t wearing a bra. Lock and I should have been knee-deep in seriously good sensations.
“You don’t have a good reputation, and I hang around with you.”
Lock was trying to find a comfortable position to sit in. His obvious, huge boner had to be uncomfortable in jeans.
“I shouldn’t have sent Wardon. I’m sorry.” Nix’s voice was suddenly muffled like he’d put his hand over the phone to talk to someone else.
“Is everything okay over there?” It was dawning on me that there was a hint of panic in his voice. Which was rare.
“Yeah. Fine. I just lost track of someone and then I needed to know you were okay. I was thinking there might have been a few hits at once, you know?” More muffled speaking.
“Okay. Well, now that it’s settled, I want to get back to my date.” I winked at Lock.
“Listen, you can hate me all you want, but T will be there in like four minutes. I need her to stay with you tonight. It’s not up for discussion. I’ll let you know when it’s all clear.” Nix hung up and I stared at Wardon’s phone.
After the disconnect, I was looking at my own face, captured on my guard’s lock screen. I must have seemed confused enough for Lock to get curious, because he peeked over my shoulder.
“Wardon’s fucking obsessed with my girlfriend.” He took the phone from my hand.
Before I could protest, Lock opened the window and tossed the phone out onto the pavement. The crunch echoed in the night.
“Your girlfriend?” I bit my bottom lip and wiggled my eyebrows.
“Yeah. We’ve already been engaged, right?” He ran his hand across my collarbone.
There was another lighter knock on the door. I knew it was T. I recognized it from when we were living in the same house. Instead of waiting, she let herself in.
T glanced at the opened window and then to Lock. He seemed to want to explain.
“I had to get rid of that creeper’s phone. Ember was his lock screen.”
T shrugged and raised her eyebro
ws. She didn’t offer her opinion, just walked past me and shut the window. She cast her gaze around the room like she expected to find people hanging out in the corners.
“I gotta stay.” She walked over to the bed Animal had so recently slept in and sat on it. She did not look comfortable. It was twelve thirty in the morning. Lock took the hint that the sexy times were over because he put his shirt back on. I buttoned up my sundress.
Lock’s face said it all. He was curious about T. I didn’t blame him. She was gorgeous and quietly demanding. I liked her a lot. She didn’t feed me bullshit and kept Animal and Nix safe. Animal told me once T was the most dangerous of the three of them. She kicked back on the bed and crossed her ankles.
“Lock, this is T. And T, meet Lock.” I pointed from one to the other. T nodded and looked at her feet just as Lock stuck out his hand. He slid it back into his pocket, unshaken.
I shrugged and pointed to my bed. Lock nodded at it sadly like it was a dead squirrel. Once a happy place, now, it would not have the same joy.
I grabbed my pajamas from my dresser and asked T if she needed some. She turned me down and assured me she wasn’t sleeping.
So Lock and I weren’t even going to get to fool around on the down-low. When I came out of the bathroom, he was already lying on the bed, ready to be my big spoon.
I took the bait. I curled under the covers. He was on top of them. But his arm went around me and his voice filtered through my hair in a whisper, “This is just as good. I really love being with you.”
All the butterflies he kept fluttering around in my belly settled down just like me. His arm was my pillow. It took a while, but eventually, I fell asleep in his embrace.
Chapter 22
Lock
I GLANCED ACROSS THE room to T. She was impassive. Like she could offer to grab me a coffee when she went to get hers or shoot me dead right here. Neither would cause her any hassle. I could be wrong, of course. I had a knack for reading people, but sometimes they puzzled me still. This girl in my arms had a complicated life. I thought I had a surprising background, but when she reminded me that her mother had been killed, I knew we were on equal footing. Hell, at least my dad was still alive.
She had people, though. And that was good, but I needed more information about how they fit into her life. T caught me looking at her and tipped her head like we were two cowboys in a hallway. I gave her a tight smile.
Our day had been bliss. She was so captivating and funny and perfect. I tried to turn my brain off so my boner didn’t wake Ember up by jabbing her in the lower back. It didn’t work so I slid my hips back. I looked at T and she was looking at me again. Clearly, I wasn’t getting any funny business done with her around. And that’s when it hit me. Had she been sent as a specific cock blocker? I glanced around the room as nonchalantly as I could. I didn’t see any obvious cameras.
Then I put my head deeper into the pillow. Obviously, I was allowed to lie here with Ember, so I was going to keep doing that as long as I could. The thin strips of color threaded through her brown hair were tangling together. Even that was amazing. So artsy and craftsy. Different, yet alluring. Oh, I had it bad. This girl was hitting me in the heart like no other girl ever had. Legend style. I was pretty fucked. Because whatever hoops she wanted me to jump through, right now? I would do them all and beg for more.
_______________
I must have drifted off a bit because I woke to T rustling around. When her eyes met mine, I realized she’d made a noise just for that purpose.
She mouthed to me, “We’re good. I’m leaving.” She flashed her phone’s screen at me as well. It looked like it was on the text-messaging screen, with “Boss” listed as the contact.
I nodded and gave her a wave. She locked the door with her own key on the way out.
I put my head back down on the pillow. I was still spooning Ember. Even the back of her head was attractive. I leaned down and sniffed her hair. Amazing.
I was lying in a girl’s bed sniffing the back of her incredible head. I was so, so done. I would’ve made fun of Dice so hard if he came to me saying the same thing. Maybe my nickname of Pussy was actually appropriate.
I didn’t want to wake her because she seemed so peaceful. I did want to, though, as well. My boner wasn’t backing down.
I lay still. After flipping through my phone for about ten minutes, I fell asleep on my back. I woke up with the sun in my eyes and Ember pointing her phone in my face, laughing.
“What? Hey, beautiful. What, are you videoing me?” I propped myself up on my elbows.
She turned the phone. I was snoring in the video like a ninety-year-old dog. At the end of every snore, there was a tiny little scream like I had a dying elf living in my nose.
I snatched her phone away from her.
“I have a deviated septum.”
She was laughing so hard she was holding her stomach and tearing up.
I bit back my smile, trying to stay offended, but I couldn’t. I laughed, too. I used her phone to video her laughing, criss-crossed legs on her bed. Her hair was all ruffled up. It must have been a full sixty seconds of her cracking up. I air dropped it to my phone right away.
After I was sure I had the video on my phone, I drew her in again, shifting my weight so I could pull her under me. That sobered her up. Her gorgeous face this close to mine was making my heart pound.
She covered her mouth and shook her head. I heard her muffled, “Toothbrush.”
I let her roll out from underneath me, but my hard-on was really hoping I’d use it as a peg to hold her in place.
She started brushing her teeth and rolling her hips at me. Teasing. Smiling around her foam from the toothpaste. I hopped up and inched past her slowly, letting my dick drag across her lower back, my own form of teasing.
I put some toothpaste on my finger and joined her. We looked at each other in her mirror. Man, I could be crazy, but she seemed just as excited to be around me as I was her.
Too fast. Too soon. But damn, if this wasn’t love, then I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.
She shimmied around me and rinsed her mouth and brush. I did the same, and then snatched her before she could leave. I held her against me.
“That was the best sleep of my life. With you in my arms.”
She beamed back at me. I wasn’t going to force her to kiss me, but she put her hand on my face. “Same.”
She went on her tiptoes and kissed me. The minty breath we both had was a turn-on. Well, pretty much anything right now would be. My stomach whined like an angry whale.
She put her other hand on my belly and laughed against my mouth. “I guess I should be a better host. Want some breakfast?”
I could do without food, that was for sure, but her stomach grumbled as well. She twisted out of my arms to grab her lanyard with her keys on it. As she led me out of her dorm room, I told her how T had left early after getting a text message.
We held hands all the way to the dining hall. I spotted two of her bodyguards on the way over. They could’ve pointed their guns at me; I wasn’t letting go of her.
Her brown hair tickled my face as the breeze picked up. The colors streaked, though it would help me spot her in any crowd. I held the dining hall door for her and made sure she made it up the stairs without tripping. She helped me grab a tray and made sure I had utensils and a napkin. I grabbed a plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes along with a cup of tea. She had French toast and a cup of cocoa.
I teased her for not liking coffee and she swatted my arm and teased me for my tea. While we waited to pay, she leaned back against my chest like she was mine. I kissed the back of her head. This is what it would be like. This wholesome. To go to this school with her. Study together. Make love all day long. Hell, she had room for me in her place.
It was wishful thinking. I had to be a member of the Cokes and do the things they were going to require of me. But maybe, maybe I could nip up here during the week. Sneak into some classes. Learn. I gave her
the kiss she pouted for. She had swiped her meal card and paid for both our trays before I even knew what she was doing.
“I got it. I don’t eat enough here anyway. Got to use up this card.” She winked at me. I thanked her but really wished I’d been able to pay. I had the money. I told her as much.
She shrugged like having money wasn’t a big deal. And maybe to her it wasn’t. But I felt like I was standing one hundred feet tall with money and this girl letting me hold her hand in between bites of breakfast.
After we ate, we strolled her campus. I took a few selfies of us in nice spots. And more than a few photos of her. There was a group of guys playing acoustic guitars. One with a fairly decent voice was singing along. A group of girls was kicking a soccer ball around. This place seemed like heaven. Even the bodyguards blended into the tapestry of the day.
Her hand was like satin. I rubbed it with my thumb. She kept smiling. And it clicked. This was it. The best day. Her. I wanted the rest of my days to equal this with her.
She drew me down for another kiss right in the center of the quad. I could feel the eyes of all the jealous motherfuckers on the back of my neck. I actually wasn’t surprised when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I finished up my kiss and then turned.
Thrice was there. I was expecting a lecture. Some sort of warning.
Instead, he delivered a frantic, “We need to get inside.”
I joined the bodyguards as we flanked Ember. I’d take a bullet for her. Hell, I’d take a few.
Chapter 23
EMBER
WE WERE GETTING WHISKED back to my dorm, which was fine. But then Bowen sent Lock on his way—not even letting us say goodbye. I really thought it was another false alarm or power play from Nix. Until I saw Thrice put a hand on his gun. This motion, which clearly gave away his cover, set off alarm bells. By the time I was in my room with Wardon and not Lock, everyone seemed calmer. I called Lock and sat on my bed. He answered before the first ring finished.
“Hey, beautiful. They said I had to get out for a while. So I’m going to go home and check on my mom and sister. You okay?”
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