“Tomorrow, we go back to hating each other.” She yanks her shorts up abruptly.
The muscles in my back contract as I stand and shrug. “Who said I don’t hate you right now?”
An awkward pause of silence hangs between us. She doesn’t know what to do, and I’m trying not to let my emotions get the best of me.
She points at the lounger. “You can sleep there if you’re desperate, but don’t think this is going to be a regular occurrence. And if you come near my bed—"
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll mace my ass,” I finish for her.
Her eyes flare as I tug off my sweatpants and toss them aside, revealing my cock. She breathes too loudly, and I stroke it once while she watches.
“I’m gonna jack off in your shower first,” I tell her. “Want to watch?”
She’s still standing there speechless when I head into the bathroom. Using her bar of soap, I then jerk myself off all over her loofah.13KailaniI watched.
Clearly, something is deeply wrong with me. Because even when he comes back out and puts on his sweatpants and climbs into my bed, I don’t kick him out.
I could, and I should. But I don’t.
We both lie there, staring up at the ceiling. The Mace canister is curled into my fist like a lifeline, but it doesn’t feel so necessary anymore. The more I’m around him, the more it makes me question what the hell even happened between us. Maybe it was all just a bad dream, and I’m insane. It’s easier to justify it away because the alternative means that some twisted part of me is still attracted to him. And if that’s true, that weak fragment of my soul wants more than anything to feel his touch again.
“How did you get those scars on your arm?” I whisper into the darkness.
Landon turns his head, and I can feel him staring at the side of my face, but I don’t trust myself to return his gaze.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
His response hurts, so I pretend it doesn’t by rolling onto my side, leaving him to face my back.
“Whatever.”
At this point, I don’t have much faith sleep will come, especially while he’s here. But when he curls his body against mine and slings his arm over my waist, I melt into him.
“I still don’t like you.” He breathes into my hair.
“Just don’t talk,” I reply crisply. “It’s so much better when you don’t.”
I feel his smile against me, and secretly, I smile too. Something is definitely wrong with us. We fall asleep like that, and the terrible truth is, I’ve never slept better in my life.“Your timing is off, Alexa.”
She jerks her eyes up to mine, flinching as if I slapped her. “What?”
What the heck is her deal? Why is she so skittish around me?
“You’re a second behind everyone else. Just want to make sure you’re okay.”
She nods, but I don’t believe her. More and more, I’ve noticed that she seems distracted at practice, particularly with Audrey gone. It’s like some of these girls don’t know what to do without their fearless dictator around to give them orders.
“Well, if you need to talk, I’m here,” I offer lamely even though I know she’s one-hundred-percent team Audrey.
She blanches, and my offer only seems to add to her distress. But there isn’t time to contemplate the reasons for that now because Coach is calling us out onto the field for the halftime performance. It’s amazing what a difference in energy there is without Audrey here to torture everyone with her evil glares and catty remarks.
The crowd goes wild for us, cheering us on as we perform the routine flawlessly. It makes me feel alive, and instinctively, my gaze drifts to Landon’s across the field. His hair is damp and messy in that sexy way, and I finally understand what the authors in my favorite books mean by panty meltingly hot. That’s exactly what Landon is right now. His beautiful, powerful body is pure catnip to all the feline eyes in the stands tonight. Or basically anyone with a pulse and functioning retinas. When he catches me staring, he smirks, and I turn away quickly as we return to the sidelines to watch the game.
He left this morning before I woke up, but my sheets still smelled like him. His warmth lingered on my skin when I washed myself in the shower. When I closed my eyes and touched myself between my thighs, I replayed the scene of him under the hot spray the night before, bracing himself against the wall with one hand while he stroked himself with the other.
He blew his load on my loofah just to be a dick, and the diseased little fiend at the helm of my insanity refused to throw that away either. Now all I can seem to think about is how the hell I’m going to navigate the rest of the year when I’m so twisted up inside.