“It’s really not.”
I accidentally/on purpose drop my book and bend over in front of him to pick it up.
Then I glance behind me to see him wincing and adjusting himself.
My work here is done.
The rest of the class chatters and moves around us, oblivious. We barely register on their radar anymore. We’re old news.
If only they knew.
I sit down, and when I turn back to Ethan, he’s crossed his legs and is staring at his shoes, his face still painted with discomfort. And arousal.
It looks good on him.
“I thought we agreed it was a mistake,” he says, not looking at me.
“We did.”
“Then why do I get the impression you’d like to do it again? Right now.”
I whisper, “Even if I do, it doesn’t mean I’m going to. I’m not that stupid.”
“Oh.”
“You look disappointed.”
“Nope. Just … you know … relieved.”
I lean closer so my mouth is right next to his ear. I know what I’m doing. If this were chess, I’d be demolishing his queen right about now. “Relieved I won’t be taking you in my mouth again? Riding you? Scraping my nails down your back as I come?”
In the past, I never really understood why girls play games and use their gender and sex appeal to get what they want.
I understand it now.
Sometimes sex is the only thing that will bring a man to his knees. And sometimes, it does a girl good to know that after losing so much, she can occasionally win.
After seeing how affected Holt is by my words, I sit back, triumphant.
He closes his eyes. Then he adjusts himself again. “Yep. Definitely relieved none of that is going to happen again. So very … happy … about that.”
“Good.”
Checkmate.
It doesn’t escape my attention that he’s hard for nearly the entire lecture.
SIXTEEN
LITTLE ACHE
Present Day
New York City, New York
The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor
I sit up and clutch my chest as sweat and the too-real remnants of his dream-hands prickle my skin. My heart is pounding. It makes all the wrong places ache for him.
It’s the memory of him that really sets my nerve endings into overdrive. The phantom brush of his fingers. The ghostly weight of his hips pressing against my thighs. The soft noises as he rocked and filled and exploded me.
Is it any wonder I have trouble taking things slow with him when he affects me like this?
After a quick shower to cool myself down, I pull out another of his journals. I’m tired and my eyes are gritty, but I can’t seem to stop reading. Getting inside his head is like a drug.
I spoke to him on the phone last night. It’s easier to deal with him when we’re not face to face. When we’re together, he has this way of staring at me that almost has me convinced he can melt my clothing with the power of his mind. It drives me crazy. At least on the phone, I have some insulation. Plus, if his voice gets too much, I can always hump my pillow, and he’s none the wiser.
Not that I’d do that.
Much.
We didn’t talk for long. He wanted to check how I was and apologized for molesting me at dinner on Saturday night. I told him it wasn’t entirely his fault. He promised to try to keep his hands to himself. Certain parts of me booed.
He asked about the journals. I told him I’d almost reached the end of our first year at The Grove, then we both went quiet as if caught up in our own thoughts of that time.
This morning I found all of his journals from our second and third years waiting on my doorstep, along with a bottle of Valium. I think it was his idea of a joke. If I hadn’t felt so nauseated, I might have laughed.
As it is, I’m wading through entries that make me simultaneously weepy and horny. I may have thrown something at a wall about an hour ago. Tristan has understandably been avoiding me.
So far, entries from our second year have been few and far between. Curt. Almost boring. I’d expected long prose passages about how much he missed me while we were apart, but I got the opposite. Like he’d shut down.
Then, I see the entry for the day after the night that changed everything.
February 11th
Last night. Jesus.
How do I even describe it?
Stupid? Yeah.
Beyond amazing? Hell yeah.
The best night of my life? Absolutely.
I’d like to say I have no idea how it happened, but that’s not true. I was drunk but not that drunk. I knew when I sat next to her what I was doing. I knew when I touched her face. When I leaned in to taste those fucking amazing lips I’d been staring at all night.
When she started kissing me back? That’s when I knew I couldn’t stop. No amount of logic or fear could have stopped me then. The tequila was a good excuse, but the truth is, I wanted it. More than anything in my entire life.