His finger was at my core, and waves of desire were spreading through me, like an inferno. Slowly, methodically, he pushed down, and began to rub. Fuck, how was he doing this? His voice was normal. It looked like he was resting his hand on his leg. And he was holding a whole conversation where Wade and the other guys were hanging onto every word he was saying. The girls perked back up, remembering who was sitting at the same table as them.
“Oh, yeah. I get that.” Wade was nodding back.
Cruz gave another shrug, as his finger circled around me. “College was a good play for me. With injuries, you just never know.”
“But didn’t they try to draft you? Or asked you to enter it?”
He didn’t respond right away, rubbing me. “I was approached, yeah.”
A second finger joined, and he began moving more intensely, pressing, grinding. Before a moan slipped out of me, my hand grabbed his wrist.
He was still looking at Wade, but I caught a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then he yawned, the mother fucker yawned. The pounding was between my legs, right where he was touching, and I could remove his hand. So easily. I could do that. No more tormenting.
But I wasn’t.
I pressed his hand harder into me.
He made a strangled sound, and covered it with another yawn. “Sorry. Traveling, and studying. I’m always wiped by Sunday. How about you, man? Do you have plans for swimming after college?”
Wade launched into his spiel about how he found swimming, how it was going on the team, and what he wanted to do after college. I didn’t hear a word of it because Cruz went back to rubbing my clit. I sat there, pretending to study with one hand holding my highlighter, and the other was holding onto Cruz’s wrist.
God. He was so good at that.
Another sweep, another caress. Then he pressed in again, holding, and ohmyfuckinggod, I was coming at the table. My hand clamped down on his wrist, even as my legs quaked, and when the last of the waves subsided, he turned his hand around, linking with mine briefly before pulling his hand free. Wade was talking to another of the guys. The girls were enraptured, so I shot Cruz a look from the side of my eye. He was looking right at me, and grinned, slowly, but his eyes were dark and piercing.
I opened my mouth, an excuse to leave on the tip of my tongue when the back kitchen door opened.
Plop!
A cupboard was opened and closed. Another cupboard.
The sound of the fridge door being opened.
Things, containers were being placed on the counter.
A bag was crinkled.
More crinkling.
A plate.
The sound of a knife or fork moving over a plate.
The click of something I couldn’t decipher.
The fridge was opened again. I was on the end so I could hear everything more easily than the others.
Whoosh! The smell of toast.
I heard more sounds and then the slightest squeak of sneakers against the kitchen tile.
Miles came to the doorway, a plate of toast in hand and was raising a mug to his mouth. He froze, taking everyone in, the mug at his mouth. His eyes went wide. “Ooh–” He choked a little on his coffee before adjusting and waving with the plate, a tiny motion. “Hi, everyone. No clue a whole study thing was happening here.”
“Hi, Miles.” One of the girls, not the one that liked Wade, waved.
Miles saw Cruz and lit up. “Styles. Man! What’s up.” He walked around, and I ducked to avoid having coffee or toast spilled on me.
“What’s up?” Cruz reached back, giving some space between us from the motion, and his hand met Miles’s in a half handshake, half slap.
Miles scanned the table and sat across from Cruz. “Guessing I’m joining the party.” He put his things down and went to grab his bag.
I sighed.
Thirty minutes later, my phone started lighting up.
I saw an earlier text from Gavin and clicked on it.
Studying with Gaynor at the library. What are you doing?
Me: Just saw your text. I’m in for the night. See you in class on Tuesday.
He responded, but I scrolled through the rest.
Tasmin: Can we talk?
Five minutes later,
Tasmin: You were a bitch to me on the phone, and I’d like to know what I did to piss you off.
Five more minutes later,
Tasmin: I’m not trying to be a bother here, but wth?
Ten minutes after that,
Tasmin: Text me back or I’m telling my brother.
That did it.
I hit call and stood from the table, heading up to my place as she picked up.
“Finally,” she griped.
“I was a bitch to you because we’re not friends. I do not want to set a precedent where you think we’re going to be friends. And for you threatening to call your brother on me, fine, but get ready because knowing how he is, he’d chew me out. Threaten me. Then he’d turn right around and tear into you to leave me the fuck alone.”
She was quiet for a second. “I wasn’t talking about that brother.”
Oh. That’s right. She had a twin, who was in a crew, and they were known for handling themselves.
“I don’t know your twin. Remember? Want a go at me, you should’ve stuck with the one I used to fuck.” I ended the call, annoyed. If Tasmin wasn’t connected to people from back home, I might’ve been friends with her. But she was and that’s just how it worked out.
“Who did you used to fuck?”
I cursed under my breath.
I’d left the door open, and Cruz was standing there, my bag in one hand and his in the other.
He came into the room, shutting the door, and put both bags on the couch. He remained standing.
“I grabbed your stuff, told them I’d drop it off on my way home. I’m pretty sure one of those girls is waiting to proposition me when I leave here.” He didn’t come toward me, instead he put his hands in his sweatshirt, stretching it and getting comfortable.
Or he looked it.
I couldn’t read him right now.
I was also remembering that I was still wearing his hoodie.
This was the shit I didn’t want to deal with in our arrangement. But I was dealing with it because I didn’t want to end what we had going, and I didn’t want to think any more on that because I should end it, right now, as soon as possible.
I said, “You know Tasmin Shaw?”
He frowned a little, his head cocking to the side. “I think so.”
“Ryerson is her boyfriend.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s a cool guy.”
“I used to have the same arrangement with her half-brother that I do with you.” My tongue was sticking to the back of my throat. I did not want to talk about Blaise with Cruz. “Except he and I were friends.”
His eyes flickered before a long slow nod. “I see. It didn’t end well?”
I hated this, hated it. But here I was, going personal.
I went to my chair by the couch and scooted back in the corner, bringing my legs up and hugging my knees to my chest. I looked away because I did not want to see Cruz when I said some of this.
“Things are a lot with my home life, and that’s all I’m going to ever say about that, but I use sex to cope with it. Blaise fell for someone, called quits on our arrangement, and well; it was during a really hard time at home. I was losing the thing I used to cope with what was going on, and I didn’t handle it very well. Not because of him, but because I didn’t have another lifeline set in place. If I had, I wouldn’t have cared. He didn’t know any of that and I’m still embarrassed, even a year later, how I reacted. I can be…a bitch to push people away.”