The Bet (North Woods University 1)

I can feel the heat of her pussy through the denim of my jeans, so close, but yet so far away. I’ve wanted her body more than anything the last couple of days, but I can’t do this right now. Whatever she’s attempting to cover up is bigger than I thought.

“Fuck,” I hiss, pulling away, her teeth sinking into my bottom lip to stop me. If I don’t stop her now, then I’ll forget all about asking her what her problem is, and though that’s her intention, it’s not what I want. Unwinding her arms from my neck, I push her back a bit, noting the frown forming on her lips.

“You don’t want me?” she murmurs, and the look in her eyes kills me.

“I do. I want you so bad, my cock is literally begging me to sink inside you, but I want to make sure you’re okay above all else.”

She shakes her head, sending a tumble of blonde curls across her face. When she tries to pull away, I grab her by the wrists and she winces, actually winces as if I’ve hurt her when I know for sure that I didn’t.

I wasn’t even grabbing her that hard.

“Jules?” She tries to pull away again, tears in her eyes, her bottom lip quivering, and I know something is seriously fucking wrong. I release her wrists but grab her hand and pull up her sleeve. Worry gives way to blinding fury.

“What the fuck?” Tears are now running down her cheeks and her lip shaking has turned into whole body shaking. Panic claws at my insides, what the hell happened? I don’t let go of her hand, I just stare at the bruises around her delicate wrists.

Blue, black and already yellow in some places tell me this happened recently.

“Who did this?” I question, my voice a whisper of disbelief. When she doesn’t answer me, I curse under my breath.

“Jules, you need to tell me what happened.” I look up, her lips are pressed into a hard line and she keeps shaking her head. It’s like she’s shutting down and I can’t fucking have that. Why is she so scared of telling me? Then it clicks… like a puzzle piece finding its home.

“Did Cole do this? Is your other wrist bruised like this too?”

Before she can answer me, I snatch her other hand and pull up that sleeve as well, finding the same marks on that side. My imagination takes over, her silence only fueling the horrible scenarios running through it.

“Jules, if you don’t tell me what happened…I will assume the worst and then I will go and find Cole right now and break his fucking neck. He touched you and that’s a worthy enough cause.” My response gets her attention and suddenly she’s reeling.

“No, no, no, this is exactly why I didn’t want you to know!”

My brow furrows. “What the hell? Why? Because I would protect you? Kill him? Destroy him?” Fury burns deep in my veins…he’s going to pay for hurting her. I swear he hasn’t seen the last of me yet.

“Yes! Because I knew you would go and do something stupid. I knew you would want to go and kill him or at the least beat the crap out of him.”

“And what’s the problem with that? He touched you, he left fucking bruises, Jules, he literally squeezed your wrists so hard he left bruises and you expect me to just let him be, to not fucking kill him? You’re insane if you think I’ll let him get away with this.”

“The problem is that you’ll end up in jail or worse, get yourself killed,” she whispers, and I shake my head at her response feeling too many emotions all at once.

“I don’t give a fuck. I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life if I have to. He shouldn’t have fucking touched you.” I didn’t know what Cole’s obsession was with her, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out. In my eyes, he was as good as dead.

“And what about me? What’s going to happen to me if you go to jail? You would just leave me like that?” Her words hit me like a bullet to the chest, searing through the tissue and muscle, leaving behind a gaping wound.

It hadn’t really occurred to me that she’s just as scared of losing me as I’m scared of losing her and somehow that realization has me crashing back down to Earth. I can’t do something that’s going to cost me, her, not when I just got her back, but I also can’t just let Cole get away with putting his hands on her.

“Did you go to the police or at the least campus security?”

She shakes her head. “No, I just want to forget about it. I don’t want to have to tell them what happened over and over again. I just… I just want to forget…forget it all.”