As more students filtered in…
My anxiety dissipated.
And anger quickly took its place.
Anger at myself.
Anger at the students around us who were most likely tweeting about the hand-holding and saying nasty things about a girl they, no doubt, assumed had paid for the favor.
Fuck.
That was where my sexual hiatus left me.
With the one girl who didn’t pay me for it.
And an entire campus who thought she did.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Shawn
My neck heated as notifications started going off on my phone. Twitter and Instagram pictures with me tagged in them, and some with a giant question mark over my head. As if they were confused.
That made two of us.
Another tweet came through.
Forget tasting the rainbow. @KnoxT just wants a bit of chocolate milk. Too bad she’s a client.
The next one was worse.
Wonder how much @SoftballShawn paid him to hold her hand. Anyone else having flashbacks from 3 yrs ago?
Three years ago? What the heck happened three years ago?
My phone buzzed again. Leo swiped it from the desk and slid it into his pocket then wrapped a protective arm around me and whispered, “It’s just campus gossip. They’re bored. Don’t take it to heart.”
“Kinda hard not to.”
He squeezed.
Knox’s eyes roamed the room before finally locking on mine.
I’d never quite understood the whole dream people always said they had on the first day school where they imagined themselves standing in front of everyone naked. At least, not until that point. Now, I felt exposed, watched, judged. I felt myself being weighed and found wanting.
I felt my eyes burning with unshed tears as I thought back to my last university and the guy I’d left there after being told that he loved me — but not enough to stand up for me to his own father.
My skin… it was a problem.
“White boys don’t marry mixed black girls.”
His dad’s exact words.
Oh, I was good enough to date, but marry? No. It was just a phase. Get the wild out of your system and all that.
His words had stung so badly that night when I’d heard their hushed conversation and when Jack said nothing then ended the conversation with, “I understand, sir.”
Only to dump me the next day.
The emotional knife had sliced deep.
I had run away from the pain to start new, but somehow that pain was finding its way back into my consciousness. It wasn’t my fault. No, this was their problem. Why did it always have to be about race?
If they saw my heart, it beat the same.
I still bled.
I still wanted.
A tear slid down my cheek.
Leo reached out and snatched it away with his free hand and cursed under his breath as Knox slowly walked around the desk and made his way up the stairs to where I was sitting.
The room quieted.
A muscle in his jaw tensed as he finally gripped the table in front of me with both hands, leaned down, and kissed me soundly on the mouth.
I sighed when the comfort of his hands cupped my face with such tenderness another tear squeezed out before I could stop it.
He pulled away. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” I whispered.
He leaned back, cleared his throat. “Girlfriend. Any questions?”
Everyone was silent.
“Great, since that’s cleared up, open your books to Chapter Five…”
And that was it.
The girls in the room had wide eyes and shocked expressions.
And the guys? They didn’t even seem fazed.
Nobody was staring anymore.
Well, nobody worth mentioning. Jessica’s stare bored into me from across the room.
Her eyes zeroed in with such hate that I almost slid down my chair in an effort to hide. What was wrong with her?
She finally snapped her attention away and raised her hand to answer a question. Knox refused to call on her, which probably just pissed her off more.
“Ignore her,” Leo whispered. “Every once in a while, we get the obsessed crazies. Just chalk her up to one of them. She’s been in love with him ever since starting with us three years ago.”
“Three years.” I gulped. “I think it’s about time I ask what happened three years ago that has this entire campus losing their minds, her included.”
We were supposed to be reading.
Leo cleared his throat and shook his head just as a shadow cast over our table.
Knox leaned over and said, “Do I need to separate you two?”
“Couldn’t if you tried,” Leo smirked.
Knox just rolled his eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He reached out and touched my shoulder. “Wait for me after class.”
Then he made his way back to his desk.
“Teacher’s pet,” Leo hissed under his breath.
I kicked him.
“Think he’ll spank you later?” He grinned. I rolled my eyes as he leaned in and whispered, “Think he’ll let me watch?”
I kicked him again, and he burst out laughing then started coughing to cover up his laugh.
“You know, Leo, I can’t wait for the day some unsuspecting girl slaps your ass and makes you beg.”
He groaned. “I love it when they beg. From your mouth to God’s ears, Shower Girl.”
“You’re impossible.”
He put his hand over his heart. “Thank you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Knox
It was the longest class I’d ever taught in my entire life.
A sharp ache was banging between my ears as I finally dismissed class and waited for everyone to trickle out.
Naturally, Jessica just had to be one of the last ones. I hadn’t given her any of my attention, any of my time.
“Knox?” The way she said my name had my skin crawling. What the hell had I been thinking kissing her just to shove the girl I really wanted away? I shuddered at the memory of her touch and glanced up.
“What?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like a bark, but it had come out aggressive and a whole lot of pissed-off.
She took a step back, her face blank before a forced smile appeared. “So, I’m hosting a party this weekend, just a few friends. Do you think you’d like to come and—”
“No,” I cut her short. “I’m good. Thanks for the invite.”
“But—”
I sighed and dropped the papers from my hands. I slammed my palms against the table. “Leo, take care of this.”
I knew he was hanging back with Shawn, so I was killing two birds with one stone.
Leo took the stairs two at a time, but not fast enough to keep Jessica from losing her shit and saying, “Her? Out of all the girls you’ve been with, me included, you choose a girl who probably doesn’t even know who her daddy is? Come on, Knox, you’re better than that!”
“Enough!” I roared. Blood pumped through my veins, making my fists clench and unclench. Never had I wanted to hit a woman so badly in my entire life. I breathed in and out at her wide-eyed expression. “Say one more word, and I’ll cheerfully ruin your reputation. We keep records of everything, and I’d rather take you down with me and end Wingman, Inc.’s presence on this campus than hear one more word from your bitchy mouth.”
She paled.
She had reasons to.
She was one of the clients who’d asked for a little extra, a client who’d often used her time with us to confess all the horrible things she’d done to girls in competition with her. She’d bragged, and we’d recorded everything for safety reasons. Granted, we were never supposed to expose secrets — it was part of our jobs — but I’d rather be tangled in a lawsuit with the bitch than have to deal with one more word from her nasty mouth.
“Fine.” She licked her lips, and her eyes flickered t
o Leo as he casually wrapped an arm around her and led her to the door.
“I ever tell you that time I was in bed for three days?” He laughed, the door clicking shut behind him.
And then there was Shawn.
Beautiful. Sexy. Shawn.
With her messenger bag over one shoulder, her beanie hung low over her eyes, and her hair spread out across her shoulders like a fluffy velvet blanket. It was hard to look away from her gaze, as if she held some sort of power over me that was inexplicable.
“Listen, Shawn, I’m so—”
“Stop.” She dropped her messenger bag, walked slowly to the door.
I hung my head.
She pulled the blinds and locked the door then turned.
I waited for her to cry, to tell me it was my fault, that she hated the attention, that I wasn’t worth it.
I hadn’t expected her to come back.
But she did.
She walked back to me and grabbed the front of my shirt, jerking me toward her. Our bodies crushed together as her mouth met mine in a soulful kiss that said way more than I could with words.
“Thank you,” she breathed between peppered kisses and sliding tongues, between hurried hands and the rustle of strained clothing between us. “Thank you,” she said again as the line blurred more between right and wrong, secrets and lies.
And I let it blur until all I saw was us as I gripped her by the ass and set her on the desk, as I wrapped her muscled legs around my body and jerked the beanie off her head. I tossed it into the air in an effort to grip her hair without any sort of obstruction.
“I’m not good at this.” I stopped what would have been another kiss in a series of hundreds of kisses that would have led to sex on the desk of the professor she hated. In a class she wasn’t passing. In a world that wasn’t fair. In a time when it should have been.
She beamed, still clinging to the front of my shirt. “I think you’re great at this…”
“You know what I mean,” I whispered. “I’m not good at the after, the part where the guy tells you he’s good, that he won’t walk away. I’m not the hero, Shawn.”
“Yeah? Well, take it from me. Heroes are disappointing and oftentimes weaker than the villains.” She shrugged. “Give me the villain ready to flip off the entire world in an effort to prove a point any day. Give me the guy willing to take down the world for what he believes in. I want that guy.”
“It was wrong. It is wrong. The way you’re treated for being with me.” There. I’d said it. The elephant had appeared, and the room tensed again. But her eyes never once left mine as she brought her mouth closer until I could taste her, until my body pulsed with the need to do it again, until she was all I could taste.
“Knox…” Her voice wavered. “…I know what it’s like to be treated unfairly.” She licked her lips and let the words float into the air, let me absorb them as I took in her brown skin and jet-black hair. “You ignore it the best you can and prove them wrong the only way a fighter knows how.”
I sighed. “That’s the fucking problem, Shawn.”
“What?” Her eyes searched mine.
I wanted to close her off, to keep the truth locked down just a little while longer. “You’re innocent,” I breathed out. “I’m not.”
She sighed.
I expected her to press me further.
Most girls would.
Instead, she just kissed me again, as if it would solve all my problems, all of our problems. And in that second, I forced myself to believe it would. I convinced myself that as long as I had her, I could ignore the demons I hadn’t yet dealt with. I could ignore what was causing my gut to clench every single time I saw the look in her eyes.
The look of trust I didn’t deserve.
With a moan, I deepened the kiss, desperate to forget, to lose myself in her. I was suddenly thankful she’d decided on wearing joggers as I first pulled off her shoes, next her pants, and kissed her backward toward the locked door, the closed blinds, with the sounds of students laughing and talking just a few feet away from us.
I pressed her back against the door. “Shhhh.”
“Are we really doing this. Another door?” Her voice had a bit of thrill in it as she reached for the button of my jeans.
I rubbed myself against her and kissed the crook of her neck then moved her hair aside and nuzzled lower.
“That must be my answer.”
“Or this…” I shrugged my jeans down my hips and teased her entrance. Damn, she was so wet and ready for me.
She sighed into my mouth, “Good answer.”
“The best.” I reached into my pocket to pull out a condom.
“Pill.” She kissed me hard enough that I had to grab her to keep from stumbling backward. She used the angle to slide along my length like I was a fucking ride at the fair. Her inner heat seared me then she clamped down with her muscles down there, driving me wild with need.
I liked it.
I liked it too much.
With a moan, I felt my balls tighten as the world stood still, and I became aware that it suddenly wasn’t about sex to me.
Maybe it never had been.
It was about her.
I thrust forward in anticipation. She opened to me, accepted me, trusted me. It was beautiful.
It was something I’d never had with another soul.
Her eyes closed as I moved.
My heart soared as she mouthed my name.
Fingers toyed with my shirt as our mouths met, our bodies moving in a slow cadence while the world didn’t even know what was happening, or what to listen for. I felt the shift in the universe and knew this was different. She was different.
The ending would not be the same.
A heavy silence descended between us as I pressed feather-light kisses to her jaw, the sweet taste of her skin driving me to the edge as we both spiraled out of control. She writhed against me as I sank deeper into her, my thrusts coming faster and faster. A fury of pleasure hung between us, and my pace quickened. She gripped my shoulders, throwing her head back against the window of the door. The blinds moved a bit.
I glanced at them, but from what I could tell, they still blocked out the rest of the world. I didn’t pay them any further attention.
I was too lost to think clearly.
Too lost to realize…
That someone was there. Someone was seeing enough to destroy both of us.
“Knox, I can’t,” Shawn panted. “I can’t hold on—”
“Not your job.” I found her mouth, got her there, and followed closely behind, my tongue wild, my body completely unleashed.
While. Evil. Watched.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Shawn
“I can’t believe I agreed to this.” Knox took a swig from the flask of whiskey that Leo had so graciously prepared while Finn filmed.
“Trust me?” I giggled, holding up the pair of scissors in my hand.
“I think I need more alcohol.” Knox stared at the scissors and lifted the flask to his lips again. “Maybe a truck full?”
“It’s not like your hair holds power.” Leo grinned. “I say we buzz it all off.”
Knox actually paled.
“Good idea.” I winked at Leo. “But don’t worry, Knox. We’ll save you a lock to put under your pillow when you cry yourself to sleep.”
Finn burst out laughing. “See? This is why I love her.”
“Competition,” Leo coughed into his hand.
Slater walked in on the chaos and stared. “Why does she have scissors?”
I snipped the air. “Art project. I’m taking a jackass’s hair and taping it to a poster. I’m pretty sure if I tell everyone whose hair it is, I can make at least a grand for books next year.”
“Girl has a point.” Finn looked impressed.
Slater just narrowed his eyes harder. “You said the only reason you would ever cut your hair…”
The room went silent.
“Who’s the unlucky girl?” S
later asked, his eyes finding mine, searching, waiting for me to deny him.
In all honesty, I thought he knew.
The minute Knox had dropped the girlfriend word in class, it had been buzzing around campus. Then again, Slater ignored all gossip and refused to have any sort of social media.
It was weird.
Guys like him…
The good-looking, nice ones, you’d think they’d be all over Instagram, but whenever I mentioned it he became really quiet.
“So, she isn’t here to do the honors?” Slater asked the room.
What? Did he want one of us to say it?
“Actually…” I cleared my throat.
“She’s my girlfriend.” Knox just blurted it out into the universe, as if it was going to lessen the blow as Slater stared him down. “I mean, I like her. I really like her. We’re together. Now.” Knox always oozed confidence; I had never realized a chink in his armor even existed.
Until now.
When he shifted on his feet.
Slater hung his head and whispered, “You promised.”
“This is different.”
“Is it, though?”
Finn and Leo wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“What am I missing?” I put the scissors back on the table and waited. Nobody would look at me.
Finally, Slater said, “Maybe ask the guys who gangbanged my sister before she overdosed on heroine. Maybe ask her dealer, who’s still in this room. Maybe ask the guys who helped end her life. Or maybe, just talk to the guy she was trying to get over the night she took a lethal dose, the guy whose number was labeled boyfriend on her phone.”
He slammed the door.
Blanketing us in a tense silence.
Nobody spoke.
I could hear my own heart beating.
I tried to convince myself it wasn’t true.
But why else would Slater be that angry? That offended at them? What they did for a living? Why else would he…?
“Is that why he quit?”
“Yes,” Leo answered. “He didn’t want to be associated with ‘murderers’, his words, not ours.”
“And her dealer?”
Finn sighed. “I was dealing on the side. I was a bored rich kid who ran in the wrong circles until these guys. I thought — I thought it would help her anxiety. I gave her Xanax — that’s it — but I put her into contact with the guys who could get her heavier stuff. I just didn’t know that until it was too late.”