Co-Ed(57)

What more could a broken man ask for?

Than to be needed.

By someone like her.

I kissed her hard and dove my hands into her hair while she swirled her tongue around mine like she was trying to taste every angle. The sweet smell of her soap filled the room as I tugged her underwear down with my fingers over her clean skin, past her thighs, past her knees. She kicked them away as we stumbled to her small twin bed.

I drew out the kisses longer and deeper until I noticed the red skin around her mouth from my scruff. I didn’t care. I wanted to mark her. Wanted the guys to see that she was mine. She would always and forever be mine.

My body flexed over her as I pulled my jeans off and discarded them on the floor. I crawled onto the bed and felt too protective of this girl.

“You’re so brave.” I tucked her hair behind her ears and nuzzled her neck. “So fucking brave.”

“I’m not,” she said through tears. “I was so scared, and I felt so stupid that in those last few seconds when she was holding the needle close to my skin, I just… I thought of what could have been.”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“But we do…” Shawn gripped my neck and pulled me closer. “…because all I saw was you. All I see is you. Us. And for a few seconds, I felt fine, because I saw you.”

Tears filled my eyes. “I don’t deserve your final seconds.”

“And what about the next few minutes? Hours? Days? Months? What about now, Knox?”

Her breath hitched as I ran my hands up her ribs, touching her skin, causing goose bumps to erupt all over the most gorgeous brown I’d ever seen. “Now, we can stop counting.”

“Because you can’t count that high?” she teased.

I laughed because her comment was so unexpected.

And when she joined in, I breathed a sigh of relief.

A shiver ran down her body as I kissed her again. I rubbed the slim dip above her hip and kissed her there too. And when I saw the mark from the tourniquet on her arm, I kissed that.

Her eyes glimmered as our mouths met again, slow and fast, fast and slow. No more words were really needed as I urged her forward, first with my fingertips then with my tongue, as I tasted her on my lips and made sure she knew that this was more.

It would always be more.

Her eyes fluttered open when I pulled her to a sitting position, laid down on my back then tugged her on top of me.

I held her breasts, squeezed as she eased onto me and took control. I gave it to her the way she needed it on a day when all control had been lost.

With each thrust into her body, I knew I wouldn’t last long. I’d almost lost her. I just wanted to claim her again. Every dormant part of my body that had been shut off to this emotion awakened.

She was mine.

Her lips quivered with passion as she gripped my hand and pressed it against the pillow, her body moving faster. I held on to her until I felt her muscles tense. Until the searing heat between us exploded. Her spasms hit me so hard and fast that I went over the edge with her.

She fell against my chest, and wet tears slid down my skin. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I didn’t save you. You… saved me. Actually, you saved us.” Her body felt heavy against mine.

An hour later, I snuck out and told the guys she’d crashed. The food had grown cold. Slater returned to the room, but the scowl on his face was replaced with relief as he watched her slow, even breathing.

“I just can’t b-believe it,” his voice cracked. “I blamed you so much. I—”

“I blamed myself too. I still do. We still went wrong in so many ways, man. I think I need to contact Wingman and let them know that freshmen are too immature to take on clients. We’ll train them and wait until they’re juniors. It was like a God-complex, knowing people would pay just to be with us, and while we made a shit-ton of money, the lines were too blurred for eighteen-year-old horny guys… and I don’t think Wingman ever took into consideration the jealousy of other clients.”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

A chill hit the room.

I pointed. “Did you leave the window open?”

“Dude, you know these windows don’t open.” Slater frowned just as something crunched under his foot. With shaking hands, he picked it up from the floor. It was a picture of him and Sophie, one that hadn’t been there before.

I grinned. “She looks so happy with you here.”

“Yeah, and I look like I’m sexually confused standing with that stupid unicorn I won her at the fair.”

“She didn’t choose to leave this life, man.” I put my hand on his back. “Maybe it’s time we all moved past it and remembered her for the good, not the bad.”

“Yeah. Thanks for…” He swallowed hard. “…just thanks.”

I moved to grab the door when Shawn moaned in her sleep, “Stay.”

Slater rolled his eyes. “Just make sure I’m out of the room when you start doing all the touching.”

I laughed. “I promise.”





Chapter Forty-One


Shawn

I woke up to moaning.

Not the kind I was trying to get used to, more the irritated kind. It was enough to make me curious. Besides, Slater wasn’t in bed, Knox had left at some point, and the unicorn was creepily staring at me from the foot of my bed like some weird guard dog with pink hair.