“I want you all to be thinking about your case study,” Professor Schneider said on Wednesday morning, a click of her mouse pulling up the requirements on the screen at the head of the class. “It feels like the end of the semester is far away now, but it will sneak up on you, and I will tell you now that I’ll know if you procrastinated, and your grade will reflect it.”
My tired eyes bounced over the text on the screen, though I didn’t register much. Social Media as a Mass Communication was the furthest thing from my mind, especially after a late night working on the upcoming team auction.
Charlotte had me cold-calling everyone in the community she could think of who might be willing to sponsor or provide date itineraries for the auction. And as if that wasn’t draining enough, she then told me I needed to select the charity for the proceeds to benefit and have it on her desk by morning.
It could have been an easy task, if I was lazy and didn’t care about every tiny aspect of my job. I could have Googled charities in Boston and selected the first one that popped up. But since I was addicted to knowledge and detail, I not only searched charities in the area, but also how much of their funding went toward their goal, how many other national sponsors they had, what their output of help in the local community was, and how their ideals matched up with that of NBU and the team.
I hadn’t landed on a decision until well after midnight, and though I passed out as soon as I got home from the stadium, my alarm went off only six hours later.
Early classes were a bitch.
“The quiz on chapters one through five is now live in your online portal. You’ll have until Friday to complete it. See you all next week.”
With that, textbooks and laptops snapped closed, the shuffling of bags the first sound that filled the room before soft talking followed it. I packed up my own things in silence, glancing at my watch that read ten AM and thinking it would be a two-coffee kind of day.
With my messenger bag lugged over one shoulder, I dragged myself out of the classroom and the College of Communications building, the warm morning defrosting my limbs frozen from the air-conditioning. I was on auto-pilot as I shuffled toward Rum & Roasters, pushing through the door just as a yawn stretched my mouth open.
I stood in line like a zombie, ordering a caffè Americano with an extra shot of espresso. I had the life-giver cupped between my palms as I walked toward my usual table.
Only to find it occupied.
Shawn sat bent in my usual chair, one ankle balanced on the opposite knee, guitar in his arms and brow furrowed as he thumbed the strings quietly. His dark hair fell into his eyes slightly, and the way the morning light was streaming through the windows washed him in gold. He looked like the cover of a soft rock album, and when he flicked his hair out of the way and looked up to find me standing in front of him, the sexiest, smoothest smile spread on his dusty pink lips.
“Well, good morning, Angel.”
I flushed, glancing over my shoulder as if I wondered if it was me he was talking to. When I looked back at him, he chuckled, setting his guitar to the side.
“You’ve got a halo right now, the way the light is coming in,” he explained.
I smiled. “Hiding the horns holding it up, no doubt.”
Shawn gestured to the seat across from him.
I took it hesitantly — mostly because I was debating if I was too tired to even hold a conversation, let alone a flirty one with intention. But one sip from my espresso had me optimistic that I could turn it around.
What would Clay do?
He’d tell me to suck it up and play the game, that’s what.
I hadn’t seen Shawn since the party on Saturday night, and my stomach flipped the longer he watched me with a curious gaze.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. You just… forgive me if this is too forward, but you look beautiful right now.”
My cheeks were hot enough to rival my coffee as I looked down at my hands. “I highly doubt that, considering how tired I am at the moment.”
“Late night?”
I sighed. “Very. I’m working with my boss on an upcoming charity event for the football team, and it’s taking more time and energy than all of my classes combined.”
“I still can’t get over you being in public relations,” he assessed with a smile.
“What would you peg me as, if I hadn’t told you otherwise?”
“Librarian.”
I laughed. “It’s the glasses, huh?”
“Among other things,” he said, and his metallic eyes slid down the length of me, brow arching as he took in the eclectic blouse I’d paired with my old jean overalls. They were baggy and hid more than they revealed, but the way his eyes careened each inch, it felt more like I was in a bra and panties.
I cleared my throat, taking a sip of my coffee. “So, do you sleep in the back of the store here, or…?”
He ran a hand back through his long hair, crossing his ankle over his knee again before pulling the guitar back into his lap. “I’m working on a song, and I was a little stunted in my dorm, so I thought a change of scenery could help.”
“Has it?”
“Sadly, no,” he confessed. “There’s something off, but I can’t figure out what.”
“Play it for me.”
His eyes shot open. “Yeah?”
I just smiled, sipping my coffee, pretending like this was totally chill and cool and like I wasn’t freaking out internally that Shawn Stetson was about to play an unreleased song for me.
He cracked his neck, sitting up a little straighter and clearing his throat before he began.
The intro was soft and slow, smooth chords peppered by brief taps of the heel of his palm against the box of his guitar. It was percussion and strings all in one, the beat seductive and alluring.
I nodded my head in time with it, hips moving subtly in my seat. When Shawn glanced up at me, his eyes froze on that little hip movement, and my neck heated at the lingering gaze.
I couldn’t wait to tell Clay.
He’d be so proud of me, how I’d walked right up to Shawn at the table, how cool I’d played the whole thing. I was becoming a natural — or, at the very least, I was leaps and bounds ahead of the girl who couldn’t even hold Shawn’s gaze across a crowded coffee shop just a few weeks ago.
I was still thinking about how excited I was to tell Clay when Shawn started singing, his voice rough and edgy, smoky like a brush fire.
“I like
the moon
when it bleeds
through the window
and paints your flesh.
I like
your legs
when they’re spread
and you’re burning
for me, babe.”
I nearly choked on my coffee, but somehow managed to cover it up and hold my composure as a smirk creeped up on Shawn’s devilish mouth.
“I like
the mountains
of your breasts
when they’re swelling
and peaking
and aching for my mouth.
I’ll give
you what
you want if you
just open up and say
that magic word.”
There was a break in the chords, the heel of his palm beating on the guitar in time with the tap of his fingers in a fluid percussion before he launched into the chorus.
“Beg for me, baby,
scream out my name.
Get on your knees for me, baby,
let desire
erase all the
shame.”
Before he could continue, I hopped out of my seat, tilting the last bit of my espresso down my gullet as Shawn abruptly stopped playing.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry. I just realized the time!” I hid my flushed cheeks as I slipped the strap of my bag over one shoulder. “The song is really great. Truly. Very sexy. Can’t wait to hear it live.”
Shawn set his guitar to the side and stood. “Giana,” he tried, but I was already rushing toward the door. I tripped on the leg of a table, windmilling forward before I balanced and did a little spin to keep from running into one of the baristas carrying a tray of dishes.
“So sorry, I’m going to be late if I don’t get going. But I’ll see you soon!” I threw behind me.
“Wait!”
I stopped, heart thundering, turning with a flush I knew was too furious to hide staining my cheeks.
Shawn ran a hand over his hair. “Can I… would it be possible for me to get your number?”
The blood drained from my hot face.
It was working. Everything Clay and I were doing… it was working.
And for the first time, I realized the implications of that.
Swallowing, I held out my hand, typing my phone number in quickly when Shawn pressed his phone into my palm. I gave it back just as quickly, forcing the best smile I could.
“I’ll text you,” he promised.
I threw a wave over my shoulder as I turned, trying to keep my smile calm and collected. But the way he stood with his hands in his pockets, one brow arched, told me he saw right through the act.
It also told me he liked that he’d ruffled me.
When I pushed through the doors and out into the heat growing thicker by the minute, I smacked my palm against my forehead, dragging it down my face with a groan.
I might as well have had I’m a virgin! flashing on my face in neon lights.
Embarrassment faded into shame, and just as quickly into panic, as I raced across campus, my pace growing practically to a gallop.
What the hell did I think I was doing?
Here I was playing this… this stupid game with someone so far ahead of me it was unreal. Shawn was a musician. A hot, talented, male musician. How had it not occurred to me that he’d likely fucked a dozen girls, if not more, by now?
And I?
I hadn’t even gone to second base.
I was all but sprinting when I made it to the stadium, the espresso kicking through my pulse like a war drum. I flew through the metal doors, down the hallway, swinging into the cafeteria only to find that the team wasn’t there yet. I glanced at my watch again, squinting as I tried to remember Clay’s schedule.
Weight room.
A little hop had me switching directions and power walking in the opposite direction. I didn’t think about what I would say, or about the consequences of what I was about to ask as I ripped open the weight room doors and hurdled inside.
Loud rap music assaulted me as soon as I did, but it was no match for my heart thundering in my ears as I scoured the room until I found Clay. He was on his back, a bar saddled with heavy weights across his chest as he heaved a breath and pushed it up toward where Holden was spotting him.
With one last deep breath, I made a beeline for him, ignoring the players who arched their brows at me as I passed. Holden helped Clay rack the bar just as I approached, and he’d no sooner sat up on the bench before I was wrapping my hand around his wrist and tugging him off it.
“I need you.”
Clay
Giana’s grip was mighty fierce for how small she was, and she all but dragged me through the weight room as my teammates watched curiously. I followed her with an amused smile, shrugging at the players who tilted their chins at me as if to ask, “What the hell is going on?”
Coach Dawson slammed a hand hard into my chest before we hit the doors.
“Training isn’t over,” he said — more to Giana than to me.
“Sorry, Coach. We need Johnson for a quick podcast interview. He’ll be back in fifteen minutes or less, I promise.”
She held her shoulders back as she said it, though I didn’t miss the thick swallow in her throat as she stared up at him. He was at least a foot-and-a-half taller than her, and three times as large. His brow furrowed, a heavy sigh leaving his chest before he took his hand off mine.
“Ten minutes,” he conceded. “You’ll run laps for every minute after.”
I nodded, and then Giana was tugging me out the door.
“So, what podcast is this for?” I teased, knowing damn good and well this had nothing to do with public relations.
Giana ignored me until we walked past a training supply closet, the door of which she wrenched open before shoving me inside.
It was pitch black when the door shut behind us, the silence almost deafening compared to the raucous noise of the weight room down the hall. Giana’s breathing was heavy in that quiet, like a caged animal.
“The light should be—”
I went to reach for it, but Giana smacked my arm down, which told me she knew exactly where it was, too.
“Leave it,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to say this if you’re looking at me.”
“Say wh—?”
“I want you to fuck me.”
The words rode out on a breathy, high-pitched plea that jarred me to the core. It was like a fist to the gut and a mouth around my cock at the same time, both excruciatingly painful and delightfully shocking.
I ignored the beast inside me that fired up at those words, suffocating the wild need for me to grant her wish right now, right here in this fucking closet. A slow inhale and equally slow exhale were all I could manage before I spoke.
“Uh, Kitten, I don’t think—”
“No, I mean it,” she said, cutting me off. “I want you to take my virginity, Clay.”
I was thankful for the pitch black of that closet as I bit my knuckle, stifling a groan at how sinfully sweet it was to hear those words from her lips.
“I’m going to need a little context here,” I finally croaked, that monster inside me getting harder and harder to contain.
There was a long sigh, a shuffling of feet followed by a soft curse that told me she probably walked right into something. “Shawn is experienced,” she said. “He’s probably had sex with more girls than I’ve even met in my lifetime. I mean, he even walks with sexual swagger. He practically drips sex appeal.”
I wrinkled my nose, again thankful for the dark that covered my not-so-subtle disagreement with every word she just said.
“When I finally get my chance with him — if I get my chance — I don’t want to be so bad in bed that he laughs or takes pity on me or… or… walks out completely.”
Those last words were almost like a shocked cry of realization that that was a possibility.
“He won’t walk—”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like to be an almost twenty-year-old virgin because you probably lost your virginity when you were sixteen.”
My mouth shut then, because she was right.
“Please, Clay,” she said, and I felt her small hands reach for me, wrapping around my forearm and squeezing. “I need your help. Please. Please.”
This girl is actually begging me to take her virginity in a dark supply closet right now.
“Teach me how to kiss, how to make a man feel good,” she whispered. “Teach me how to do it all.”
I let out a low hum of a groan on my next exhale because fuck me, it wasn’t okay how much that turned me on.
My heart picked up its pace, thundering like a dozen stallions as I mulled over what she was asking. Every warning sign and bell and whistle was going off like a chaotic symphony inside me for even considering it. Fake kissing and heavy petting was one thing, but to strip her down, to take her for the first time…
That was an entirely new ball game, one I wasn’t sure either of us was equipped to play.
“Clay,” she whispered when I didn’t answer, and her hands crawled up my chest, fisting in my shirt. “There’s no one else I trust. Please.”
I closed my eyes at the sound of yet another plea, gut wrenching and chest caving in because I already knew before I answered that I wouldn’t deny her.
I couldn’t — not when she was asking me for help.
Swallowing, I reached behind her and flicked on the light. We both blinked at the brightness, but then her Caribbean-blue eyes locked on mine, her breath just as shallow as it was when she dragged me in here.
But she didn’t waver.
She didn’t cower or back down. She didn’t shy away. She didn’t take it back. She looked me right in the eye and asked again, silently, for me to be the one to take something I knew was more precious to a woman than I would ever understand as a man.
I rolled my lips together.
And then, I nodded.
Her relieved sigh came like her first breath after being underwater for years. She threw her arms around my neck, and I closed my eyes as I caught her, warning zipping down my spine like an electric shock.
“Really?!” she squealed, squeezing me tighter. “Thank you, Clay. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I just buried my face in her neck where I held her, hoping like hell she knew better than I did what we both could handle. It was more disbelief than anything else that washed over me the longer we stood in that embrace.
I’d agreed.
I was going to take her virginity.
Against every obvious red flag telling me this was a bad idea, I couldn’t say no.
Somewhere deep inside me, that wild creature I’d tried so hard to tame smiled in victory…
And anticipation.
