Chasing Ella (Love Ever After 1)

After an awkward pause, he stretches his hand across the table. “Hi, I’m Shawn Finch, tight end for the Strickland Senators and failing yet another class. I like to party and do stupid shit that ruins my grade-point average, and now, I need this beautiful, spitfire girl to keep my dumb ass from failing.”

“I already told you that you’re not dumb,” I counter. “You shouldn’t talk about yourself that way.”

“That’s all you took from what I just said.” He shakes his head, still holding out his hand and waiting for me to shake.

I slip my fingers between his and electricity sparks between us. It’s as if we never had any time apart, our bodies still connected as one. There’s something between us that no one can deny. He knows it. We both know it.

“Ella Fitzgerald,” I finally say, letting go of his hand. The sensation between us is too much for me to handle.

“Definitely not tutor girl,” he says, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Ella.”

“Nice to meet you too Finch.”

“I’d rather you call me Shawn.”

“Everyone calls you by your last name,” I point out.

“You’re not everyone.”

His words take me by surprise, causing my breath to hitch. “Either are you, Shawn.”

“I like hearing you say my name,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “Say it again.”

“Shawn,” I breathe, maintaining eye contact.

The tension between us provokes a deep yearning inside me. I’d love to give into my desires, lunge myself across this table, and admit that I’m the masked girl from the party.

His muscles flex under the black fabric stretched tight across his chest. Like most of the athletes on campus, Finch has on the standard athletics shirt and track pants uniform they all sport to class. Some days it's jeans or shorts, but today, Shawn is wearing black track pants to match the Strickland Senators football shirt. And he sure knows how to wear it.

I have to stop this before someone notices. Breaking eye contact with Finch, I grab his textbook and slide it between us, and then, flip open to the middle of the book. “Shall we begin?”

“Let’s see what you’ve got, tutor girl.” He says it with a cocky smirk and another sexy wink.

“Okay, Finch,” I challenge.

He hasn’t even touched me, and I’m wet and aching for more. I have to pull myself together and act as though he hasn’t gotten under my skin. If he keeps this up, Finch will be the death of me.

How will I make it to the end of the school year with him sitting across from me, giving me those bedroom eyes that weaken me? Finch is like a drug. I get high just from being around him. Can I control myself around him? Do I want to?

Shawn

I swear I’m not going crazy, even though my tutor would rather me believe that I have lost my mind.

Maybe I’m a little crazy. But I cannot shake the feeling that we know each other from more than the tutoring center. When we touched earlier, I felt a spark that danced along my skin. It was electric, an instant connection to Ella I recognized as if we’d already met.

Her name doesn’t sound the least bit familiar, but her eyes are what drew me in. She has the kind of eyes you don’t forget and a smile so kind and hopeful that being around her puts me at ease. While she’s different than most of the girls who run in my circles, I like being around Ella.

She doesn’t stare at me with judgmental eyes. She doesn’t want anything from me or expect me to make her feel important. Nope, this girl wants to help me. And I wish I could figure out a way to help her. I can see right through her shield. I wear the same mask for the world to see, all while hiding how I feel on the inside.

There must be a reason I have searched this long and hard for my mystery girl. I want to believe there’s a purpose to this madness and that the time was not a waste. One look into Ella’s denim eyes was all it took to cause my skin to prick with tiny bumps, awakening something inside me. She has to be the girl. I am almost certain.

We didn’t speak much at the party. Instead, we allowed our mouths and bodies to do the talking. For the past week, I have done nothing but study the female anatomy and traced every curve in my mind, all in hopes of finding my masked beauty. I wonder if Ella is the girl. Only one way to find out.

While Ella sifts through my unorganized notes, trying to match my assignments to the syllabus, I pull out my cell phone from my pocket to look at the picture of the masked girl. The fact I have repeated the same process around campus only reinforces my assumption that I need help. But I have to find her.

Keeping my phone in my lap under the table, I try to get a good glimpse of the girl. It’s hard to tell from this angle if Ella matches the picture. Ella is beautiful in a girl next-door kind of way, with long, blond hair that sits above her full breasts. My tutor is provoking a reaction from me that needs to quit. Semi-hard, my cock lengthens with each flick of her hair or lick of her lips.

Every breath she draws only brings more attention to her tits. Mentally tracing my way from her lips to her chest, I try to think of something else. But I can’t. Her face and body are too distracting.