When Sinners Play (Sinners of Hawthorne University 1)

He’s watching us.

And he’s furious.

That’s what I wanted. I should be gloating gleefully in my head. But as Elias nearly bends me backward with his hungry, demanding kiss, I realize that I don’t care what Gray thinks. He could walk out of this room right now and I wouldn’t stop kissing Elias.

Because I like kissing Elias.

And I’m not doing this for Gray anymore.

I’m doing it for me.

My teeth scrape over Elias’s full bottom lip, nipping at him like he did to me earlier, and he groans, splaying one large hand over my lower back as he licks at the seam of my mouth again.

His groan ends on a laugh, and I can feel his smile against my lips. “Fucking hell, Blue. You’re gonna get me in a shitload of trouble.”

Right back at you, I think, but I don’t say the words.

Instead, I just keep kissing him, drawing this perfect moment out as long as I can.

Because if life has taught me anything, it’s that perfect moments don’t last.

And I already know the fallout from this will be brutal.

19

The fallout is brutal.

But not in the way I expect.

After my very public make-out session with Elias at the football game’s afterparty, I expect Gray to redouble his efforts to drive me out of school, to fuck with my emotional state, and to turn the rest of the students against me.

Instead, the blowback seems to happen within the tight-knit group that is the Sinners. When Declan returns from his parents’ place on Monday, I catch sight of him and Elias in a hushed, intense conversation outside one of the school buildings. I’m tempted to try to eavesdrop, but there’s no chance of that. Almost as soon as I catch sight of the two men, their gazes turn toward me, as if I’ve got some kind of flashing beacon on me.

Their expressions are unreadable, and I set my features in a similar mask as I walk past them.

Fuck it. I’m not giving up more than they are, so if they’re gonna play shit close to the vest, so am I.

I sneak up to the second floor landing in the dining hall after lunch to smoke, but Declan doesn’t show. He doesn’t show the next day either, or the next, and I try not to let my unreasonable disappointment in that fact distract me from my mid-terms.

But as the week progresses, I notice something else.

The Sinners have all gone back to ignoring me… but they’re ignoring each other too. A rift has sprung up between the three of them, and I wonder if it’s because of me or something else. I still see them together sometimes, but they’ve stopped eating lunch together and no longer stride across campus as a single united group like they used to.

Cliff seems fucking delighted by the new turn of events, holding court with his two friends, Landon and Adam, as if they’ve become the de facto rulers of the school. He catches my gaze as I walk across campus on the last day of mid-terms and gives me a sly smile, as if congratulating me on breaking up the Sinners.

Something strange twists in my gut, and I look away, passing him by without saying a single word.

I don’t understand the odd knot that’s developed in my stomach, a ball of tension that won’t seem to go away.

It almost feels like guilt, but that makes no damn sense at all. So what if me kissing each of the guys drove a wedge between them? Gray has no damn claim on me, and he’s made it more than clear he doesn’t want one. So I’m free to do whatever the hell I want, and so are Declan and Elias. They’re grown-ass men. I didn’t make them do anything.

“You okay? How’d your Lit final go?” Max asks when I meet her outside her dorm building. Several other girls are lounging outside, bitching about mid-terms or making plans for the weekend.

“Oh. Uh, good, I think.” I shake my head, trying to focus.

“Yeah?” She tilts her head. “You still seem a little out of it.”

“I am.” I grimace. Then I laugh. “I’m honestly a little sad mid-terms are over. With all that damn studying, I stopped having so many fucked up dreams. I hope they don’t come back now that I’m not cramming until three in the morning every night.”