Chasing Ella (Love Ever After 1)

Without hesitation, she says, “On the lawn at the Quad our freshman year. You were with Bash and Clay, throwing around a football.”

“Were you joking about knowing what I had on that day?”

She shakes her head. “Nope, I never joke when it comes to you. Plus, you made it hard for me to forget.” I chuckle, and she keeps going. “For starters, you weren’t wearing a shirt, and as I said, you are hard to forget. You’re—”

“Charming,” I add with a cheesy grin.

“Sexy. Hot. Take your pick,” Ella says. “But I don’t think of you that way anymore.” Pretending as though she hurt my feelings, I hold my hand up to my heart, and she covers my hand with hers. “You know what I mean, Shawn.”

“No, I don’t. Do tell.”

Ella lets out an exaggerated sigh, turning her head to face the opposite direction before she refocuses her attention on me. “Are you going to make me say it?”

I bob my head.

She grunts, annoyed with me but not defeated. “For the record, I still think you are hot, and you were wearing navy basketball shorts and no shirt that day. I almost tripped over my feet to get a second look at you.”

“I wish we had met back then,” I say, stroking her cheek with my fingers.

“We were different people back then. I doubt things would have worked out between us.”

“I don’t,” I say, meaning every word. “I had this gut feeling about you that would not quit, and I still have it.”

“I know what you mean,” she whispers. “But I know you differently than I did before. Before, you were just another hotshot football player. Well, you are still that but…different. Like everyone else at this school, I had only heard things about Finch. But I know Shawn now. There are sides to you that other people haven’t seen. You opened up to me in ways that have shocked me, and I did the same with you. Around you, I feel safe, something I hadn’t felt since my father was alive until I met you.”

“True or false?” I ask her, and she scrunches her eyebrows in confusion, waiting for me to continue. “You like me as more than a friend?”

Because of how nervous and shy she c

an be at times, I thought this would be the best way to put Ella at ease without forcing her to do much talking. I didn’t speak much when I was a kid, especially after my dad left, and my mom played this game with me to get me to come out of my shell.

Ella bites the inside of her cheek. “True.”

“True or false? You think about me when we’re apart.”

Her cheeks redden from my question. “True.”

“One last question,” I say, palming her back with my hand to bring her closer.

“I think you ran out of questions,” she says with sarcasm in her tone.

“No, I didn’t. The last one, I promise. This one is the most important.”

“Ask away.”

“True or false? You want me to kiss you.” Our lips are so close they almost touch, and when she nods and says, “True,” I don’t hesitate.

With one hand on her back and the other grasping her face, I brush my lips along hers, taking her bottom lip in my mouth to suck on, before I slip my tongue inside. If she hadn’t confessed, I would have known she was the masked girl from this kiss alone.

I don’t care that we’re in the library or that she’s my tutor. I’m not about to lose my Cinderella all over again. Ella has always been mine, and now I’m claiming her up against the bookshelf, unable to stop myself from devouring her in public. My hands move at a feverish pace, as our tongues work in harmony together, making it impossible to stop myself from exploring every inch of her gorgeous body.

Sliding my hand further down her back, I grab her tight ass, and my cock grows harder with each groan of pleasure from Ella. She moans my name into my mouth without breaking the kiss, threading her fingers through my hair. I let it grow the last few weeks, giving her more to grab hold of, as we deepen the kiss.

The book that was in her other hand falls to the floor with a loud bang, but that doesn’t stop us. Nothing could deter me from making up for all the lost times with Ella. She hooks her leg around me, digging her heel into my ass. I grab her by the hips, lift her up, and shake a few books that crash onto the floor in the aisle behind us.

Ella peels her lips from mine to laugh. “Shawn, we will be in so much trouble if someone finds us up here.”

“Are you saying you want to stop? Because I think your mind and body are in disagreement.”