All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

I’m making tortellini Bolognese because I figure since he’s an athlete, his diet is probably pretty carb heavy. And Bolognese is a sauce I used to help my mom make all the time. She used to spend hours on that sauce, letting it simmer and steep in flavor. She’d be horrified to know that when I make it these days, I’m usually done in a little under an hour.

I focus on the vegetables first. Chopping and dicing my way through onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. It takes a little while, but eventually the motions of my hands and the concentration finally push the thought of Mateo (and his mouth and his hands) out of my head for the first time in days. By the time I toss the vegetables in the pan with olive oil and a little butter, I’ve lost myself in the task. I’ve made this dish often enough that I don’t even have to look at the recipe. I move on from the vegetables to the meat. Mom makes hers with ground beef, pork, and veal, but on my college-student budget, I’ve settled just for ground beef.

I think of Mateo again, but this time I’m calm enough to do it objectively, to wonder what’s made me so nervous in the first place. It’s not that he’s coming over or that I’m cooking for him. It’s more about what happens afterward.

Dylan texted just before the makeup debacle to say she was staying the night at Silas’s again. The words caused a stab of regret . . . until I realized what they meant. An apartment all to myself with Mateo. No one would be coming home to interrupt us. And after what happened in his truck earlier in the week, I was practically suffering withdrawals from his hands and his mouth and all of him.

How is it that I could be addicted to him already? That I could crave him this much? I don’t know, but I do know I’ve never had this kind of physical connection with anyone. And maybe he is dangerous. Maybe he’s a much bigger catalyst than I bargained for, but I’m willing to risk it. For the orgasms. And okay, the laughs and the companionship and the adventure, too. And for him. That indefinable, overwhelming, annoying, and endearing thing that is just Torres.

I’m ready to sleep with him.

The thought hits me out of nowhere and has my heart behaving erratically again, so I force my attention back to my sauce.

I’ve finished adding the milk and tomatoes and spices and have left the sauce to simmer while I clean up when the knock comes at the door. My hands are covered in the remnants of my ingredients, and my stomach swoops so low I could swear it settles somewhere around my knees. I nudge the sink faucet with my forearm and start washing my hands as I call out, “Come in.”

I hear the door open, and I close my eyes and take a few quick, steadying breaths as I soap up my hands. I tell myself to open my eyes. That he’s going to come around the corner any second, and I’m going to look ridiculous washing my hands with my eyes closed, but everything inside of me is in a frenzy. And I know . . . know that “butterflies in your stomach” is just an expression, just something parents say to their kids, but all the same, I could swear that I feel every flap of their wings.

My eyes are still closed when I feel the buzz of his presence at my back, then his large hands settle onto my hips, curling around to stretch across my lower belly. I feel something ghost over the skin at my neck. His lips? His nose? And then he murmurs against my ear, “Something smells delicious.”

I swallow, fighting off a shiver. This is . . . it’s . . . so strange. And yet, somehow not. It shouldn’t feel natural to have him in my house with me while I do everyday things like cook. He’s from this other world, and in my head he’s so intertwined with the list that is so not me. He shouldn’t fit here.

But I’m learning that the difference between what should be and what is matters very little where he is concerned.

“I’m making tortellini,” I tell him, belatedly realizing I should have asked him if he had any allergies or dislikes or—

“Sounds great.”

I finally open my eyes as he wraps his arms fully around my middle and noses some of my hair to the side to kiss the corner of my jaw.

“Do you need me to do anything?” he asks.

Make me feel like you did the other night. Put me out of the misery I’ve been in the last several days without you.

“No, the sauce is pretty much done. I’m about to put the pasta on to boil. When that’s done we’ll be good to go. I might throw together a salad.”

He turns me around and presses me back against the sink. “So what you’re telling me is that we’ll have a little time to kill while the pasta is cooking?”

He leans down to kiss me, but I put my hand up to block him. “I haven’t put the pasta on yet.”

“Well, do that so we can get to killing time.” He punctuates the command with a swat to my bum, and I gape at him.

“You did not just do that.”

“I did. And I liked it.” He rubs his hands together like some cheesy movie villain and says, “In fact, I think I might want to do it again.”

I dart away from him, spinning so that he’s nowhere near my ass.

“You stay there,” I order, opening the fridge to get the tortellini. Even though inside I’m thinking, Screw the pasta. Screw everything. Clearly I’m not the only one craving the next course after the other night, and I’m so very tempted just to abandon dinner to drag him back to my bedroom.

“You’ve got one minute, woman. And then pasta or no, I’m coming for you.”

My heart thumps with nerves or anticipation or something else I can’t identify. Something that has only ever happened with him, so I don’t know what to call it.

I start opening the package of tortellini and say, “I can’t put it in until the water is boiling. And even then, I’ll still have to stir it occasionally.”

“Fifty seconds.”

“If I don’t watch the pot, they could stick to the bottom or stick together.”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“Torres!”

“Five-second penalty. It’s Mateo to you.”

I glare at him, and rush to fill a pot with water. By the time I put it on the stove, I only have a few seconds left. I get the burner turned on, and then I’m practically tackled by a six-foot-two (maybe six-foot-three) overgrown child. He crowds me against one side of the archway that separates the kitchen from the little dining nook, and his hands slide unabashedly down to cup my ass. He kisses me, but I break away, turning my face to the side so I can laugh.