Falling for Seven Read online

  He sighed, aggravated he had been disturbed from his afternoon snooze. “I don’t know, getting married and having Kids.”

  “Good enough,” said Marcus. “And is this what you would consider the norm in your own opinion?”

  “Fuck, no.” The class burst into laughter and Marcus raised his hands to quiet everyone down. “Go on, Mr. Lawson.”

  “God put me on this earth with a dick in my pants and cum in my balls. He put women on this earth with tits and a hole and his plan was for me to taste them all. Why would he make the female body so tempting if the idea was for us not to stray? He knew what he was doing when he created those curves. Even women are enjoying other women. It’s a beautiful thing. I don’t want to have to bring up Adam and Eve, but I will.”

  I looked at Julian. In his own disgusting way, he had a point.

  “I see what you’re saying,” Marcus said seriously. “And you’ve made some valid points.” He was so devoted he had managed to skim right over Julian’s dirty mouth. “But I’m afraid you’ve gone onto a whole other topic of debate. But the female relations, now that was once classed as a taboo.”

  “You hear that?” Julian said to me. “I’m like Einstein.”

  “So, Julian, you don’t believe in monogamy?”

  Another worn-thin breath. “With the right girl.” Julian levelled me with a look that made my heart stutter, his deep-blue eyes sliding toward me only just visible under his cap, but enough that I felt his gaze in every part of me. “Yeah, I could go for it. But, you know, she’d have to be hot as fuck and interesting as hell. I get bored easy.”

  Done with Julian, Marcus decided to pick on someone else. I looked away from him, wondering what the fuck had just happened.

  Twenty minutes later my phone buzzed silently in my pocket and I pulled it out to find a message on my screen.

  Jordan: Can I come over tonight?

  My stomach flipped and I nipped the corner of my bottom lip with my teeth to keep from yelping how ecstatic I was.

  Me: Sure. I’ll be in after six.

  I looked up and caught Julian watching me. My euphoria nosedived at the prospect of what he was thinking. Since when did I care what Julian thought? And since when did I care enough that the hypercritical look in his eyes had me questioning myself?

  Just before class was about to end and I was gathering up my books, Julian said, “You want to work on our paper tonight?”

  “I can’t,” I said, locking my phone, the screen switching to black.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I have plans.”

  “With?”

  “Someone else.”

  “Cancel.”

  “No. We can do the paper another day. It’s not like you actually care about it. Besides, I know you have practice tonight.”

  “I’m free tomorrow.”

  “I have to go shopping tomorrow.” I checked to make sure Marcus couldn’t hear our exchange in the silent auditorium.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m shopping for a formal dress. You don’t want to come for that.” I showed him a broad smile. “I don’t want you to come for that.”

  It was too late, I had already given him the go ahead for any sexual innuendos. “Angel,” he said, his gaze sliding over me, slowly up and down my body. My name was like silk on his tongue. “I would love to come for that. In fact, you can count on it.”

  <>

  I sat on the steps outside of the dorms, waiting for Jordan. My phone lit up in my hand.

  Jordan: Be there in 5

  I put my cell down and shifted farther back on the step, the cold stone seeping through the material of my jean shorts. I done a sweep of the street, my blood dancing through my body, waiting for Jordan. He brought out the worst of my anxiety. With him I was always anxious, always waiting.

  There was only a few people around in the fading twilight. Almost everyone would be on Greek row by now, starting the rest of their night.

  Ah crap.

  Nicky, Dan, and Julian turned the corner and as soon as they were on the same street as me, Nicky spotted me standing there. I looked away, the breeze blowing my hair around my face and shoulders so I wouldn’t have to look at them. It didn’t matter, of course. I could already hear them.

  “Yo, pretty girl.” It was Nicky.

  I turned to face them as they got nearer, showing off a defeated smile that masked my true outrage. I was anything but happy to see them. I was distraught.

  “What you doin’ sittin’ out here?” Julian asked me with a wariness in his eyes. “I’ll meet you at Players,” he said, giving Nicky and Dan their cue to leave.

  “Whatever, man.” Dan patted him once—hard— on the back, and left with Nicky.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked me like he didn’t already know who ‘someone’ was.

  “Go with your friends,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m with my friend. Who you waiting for?”

  I was growing restless and irritated at his refusal to just go away. I skimmed over the fact that he had just called me his friend. I didn’t want him here.

  Right at the worst possible moment, Jordan’s Golf rounded the corner, his headlights lighting Julian’s well-carved cheekbones and furiously passionate blue eyes. I let out my breath when he kept on driving, looking for a space to park and the taillights faded farther down the street. But Julian wasn’t as big an idiot as I thought he was. He’d seen him and he turned his angry stare onto me, his jaw tense. “Seriously?” he said.

  “What?” I said non-committedly, acting like I had no clue who he was talking about.

  “Don’t do that. You are a shit fucking liar.”

  “What’s it to you? Do I rag on you about who you are sleeping with?”

  “Call me crazy. I assumed you’d come to your senses.” Julian wrapped both of his hands behind his head, his humorless laugh swept into the passing breeze. A storm was brewing and not just from the sky. Julian looked ready to erupt.

  “I won’t fight with you about this.”

  “You think I’m just going to sit back and let him have you?”

  “Whoa,” I said, rising to my feet. “Who said anything about having anyone? Me and you, we are a rare form of friends at best, and honestly, you make that challenging enough. You were made to share your seed, remember? Your words not mine.” I picked up my cell from the step and started to walk away to meet Jordan. Why should I defend anything to him? He certainly never needed to.

  “He didn’t care that you let Nicky grope you in front of everyone. He couldn’t give a fuck about you. When would Jordan have called it enough, huh? When Nicky’s dick was in you?”

  I spun around, my fist thumping against his chest. “Don’t talk to me like that. Do not speak to me that way.”

  “I bet he does, though. He doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as you, never mind touch you. Does he even know anything about you?”

  “Do you?” I spat. “No, you know nothing. Not a damn thing.”

  “I know more than you think.”

  “Go use your line on someone else. I’m so far past interested I can barely hear you anymore.”

  I thought he was about to argue with me, but he pursed his lips and then turned his back to me. “Fuck this,” I heard him say as he moved further away.

  <>

  I lay in Jordan’s arms in my twin bed wearing nothing but my bra and a thong. Dodgeball played on the DVR and we had done little more than kissing, but I was wrapped in a pillow of contentment. His rough chin nuzzled into my neck and I felt his arousal pressing into my back. His thick, dark hair tickled the side of my face and I sighed into the hard muscle of his arm.

  My insides were churning, though, and no amount of cuddling could get rid of it. I couldn’t get Julian’s face out of my mind. Julian was the type of person who acted before putting in any consideration or thought. I expected him to one day kick the shit out of Jordan if he was given the chan
ce.

  “I couldn’t imagine ever not being able to lie here with you,” Jordan said against the shell my ear. “You feel so right next to me. I like being with you too much.”

  I felt his smile at the nape of my neck and my gaze snagged on his empty plate sitting on my desk from where I had heated him some dinner. That was the norm, even when I lived at my dad’s, I always made him food. Anytime he came over I was ready with the snacks he loved the most. I could see why I was so hard for him to let go. I was like his freaking mother.

  I frowned.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, glad I couldn’t see his expression. We were happy now, lying here together. But how long would that last? What was going to happen after he went home? Julian had made a bigger dent in my already chipped-away surety of my time with my best friend.

  I turned to my other side to face Jordan. His jaw was covered with a fine layer of stubble and his brown eyes were heavy with a sexy tiredness. I felt the tell-tale squeeze on my heart that I was going to struggle deeply if he was planning on cutting himself out my life again.

  “Can’t we just hang out?” he said, his hand rubbing up and down my arm.

  I didn’t get him. He couldn’t be without me, but he didn’t want to be with me.

  “What, and hang out with other people at the same time?”

  “I just want to have fun,” he said. “But I want to have it with you too. You’re still my best friend. That never changes. But I want to go to bars. I want to go out and party.”

  “I never stop you doing those things.”

  “I know you don’t. But a girlfriend is too much for me at the minute. I hate saying this to you, but I don’t want one.”

  My expression evened out to reflect the emptiness he had just filled me with. I was going to cry. I was going to fucking cry while he lay in front of me dry-eyed, cutting me with the sharpest brutality only he had perfected. He was being honest. I should respect him for it, not hate him.

  Jordan sat up, loosening his hold on me. “I’m going to get going,” he said. He kissed the top of my head and I still felt the rippling shiver from his lips on my skin.

  He crawled on top of me to get off the bed and pulled his T-shirt over his head from off the floor. “You okay?” he asked, sliding his feet into his sneakers.

  “I think I’m coming down with something.” The lie was like lead in my stomach. The truth would be too much for him, and it wasn’t like it would make him stay. He was gone. He was gone from the beginning. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  He went for his jacket that hung over the chair and I pushed back the covers, reaching to stop him. “Could you leave that?” I asked, shy from my stalker-ish request. “It smells like you. I’ll give it back. Just not tonight.” I brought the cold, silken material to my chest.

  Jordan wasn’t sentimental, not in the slightest. He was selfish but in a really weird, appealing way. “Yeah, sure.”

  I couldn’t see him out. I couldn’t get out of bed, and the word ‘goodbye’ was like an adhesive sealant on my lips. But Mia and Marilyn would be back any minute. They had granted me the time alone that I wanted and both found other places to be, but they wouldn’t stay out all night. Facing either of them held no appeal so I got dressed back into my jean shorts and shrugged on Jordan’s jacket over a short-sleeve, eyelet button-down.

  Skating always settled my anxieties but the rink was closed, so I walked instead to get a better perspective on what had all gone gate-crashingly wrong. But the farther I got from the student villages, the angrier I was inside.

  I was angry at Julian for abusing my weak spot and constantly throwing it in my face. No one ever made him feel bad. No, not King fucking Julian. Saintly number Seven. He could do whatever he wanted because he was a guy—a footballer—and the rules didn’t bend as far as him. He was exempt from any judgement because he knew how to throw a fucking pig skin or make a stupid tackle. Okay, maybe he didn’t tackle, but so what? I was fucking pissed here. My walking had turned into a march and before I knew it, I was bulldozing right through the glass doors of Players.

  I found Nicky at the bar with Dan. “Where’s Julian?” I asked, breathless. I was sure I looked like a raging bull to them. Well I was certain when they both exchanged an amused look.

  “He went to the field to practice,” Dan said, his concentration slipping lower and lower, away from my eyes.

  Nicky drank his beer, his eyes cast down to my chest. I looked down where my shirt had come undone and where Nicky’s attention was firmly lodged. “Ugh,” I said, fastening up the two loose buttons. “Will he still be there?”

  “Who?” Nicky was too engrossed with my chest.

  “Julian. Will he still be at the field?”

  He shrugged, concealing a smile behind his beer bottle. “Go have a look. Might see something there you like.”

  I got to the stadium in less than fifteen minutes despite the size of the sprawling campus, powering off of pure adrenaline. The floodlights indicated that the field was empty and I ran through the tunnel, letting the double doors crash against the wall as I stormed into the changing rooms.

  There was no one inside, but I heard the running water from the showers and I was beyond caring whether or not it was Julian or someone else in there. All I saw was red, blinded by my own anger. I passed the lockers and kept going till my flats were squelching over wet, ceramic tiles. Julian’s bare ass was at the farthest end of the shower room, his head ducked under the spray and his wide arms corded with muscle pushing through his soaking wet hair. He never heard me come in here and I used the sneak attack to my advantage. I put my hand on his shoulder and when he turned around, I raised my palm in the air to slap him hard on his smug, interfering face.

  He was quicker, and he grabbed me by the wrist before my flesh could make impact on his.

  14: Julian

  “ARE YOU CRAZY?” I BARKED, stepping out from under the hot spray of the shower. One look at her over-sized jacket had me sneering. “That his?” I asked, with a firm grip on Angel, my big hand swallowing her delicate wrist.

  “How dare you make me feel bad!”

  She tried to wrestle her arm free but I wasn’t budging. The water seemed to pound twice as hard with her here, bouncing off the floor and soaking her bare legs and shoes.

  “You have no right to any opinion on any part of my life. You say we’re friends, but friends don’t make friends feel bad. Tonight shouldn’t have had anything to do with you, but you made it all about you. Are you happy? Tonight was shitty enough and you iced the whole damn shit cake.”

  My attention dropped down to her chest and her undone buttons. I wasn’t even going to mislead her into thinking I was listening.

  “You done?” I asked, looking into her eyes, hot with fury. “Why are you here, if you were with him? Did you ask yourself that? You left him to be in this shower with me.”

  “I am not in the shower with you. I’ve said my piece, and I’m leaving.”

  “No you’re not. You’re not going anywhere.” She pretended not to notice my growing erection, but I was buck naked and her temper was shamelessly turning me on.

  I secured her wrist tighter in my grip with a slight pull and drew her against my stomach. Her clothes were drenched, but they wouldn’t be on much longer anyway.

  “I can’t stand his clothes on you,” I said. “Take that jacket off.”

  When she didn’t move, I pulled the wet cuffs over her wrists and yanked the whole thing to the floor to drown and die. “Now lose the shirt.”

  Her eyes widened at my bare-faced instruction.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Take it off. I’m sick of playing games. Get the fucking shirt off before I rip it off.” She was staring at me, her brain still playing catch up. I was sick of waiting and I tore at the shirt, the buttons popping like crazy, skittering over the tiles. I worked the sleeves down her arms, the wet material lost to the shower floor. I plucked at the button on her shorts and then
her legs were moving, helping me to get them off. She wanted this as much as me, and it was her lucky day, because she was going to get it.

  Suddenly, she couldn’t get naked quick enough, kicking her shorts from her ankles to soak in the pooling water at our feet.

  She unfastened her bra and let that drop, too. My eyes were hooded, mesmerized by her show of flesh. Her tits were just enough, two perfect handfuls I couldn’t wait to try.

  I let loose the bun on top of her head, the tenderness foreign amongst all my hurried aggression, but I wanted to take my time with her. Her hair fell down around her shoulders and I weaved my hand through the strands, grabbing a fist full of fake-blonde waves to guide her head backwards.

  Supporting her with my hand around her waist, I dipped her lower, leaning over her soft body. I brushed my lips over her stomach, then in-between the curve of her breasts. The steam from the shower was a few degrees above warm, but Angel shivered in my arm and I raised her up slowly, her lips lingering millimeters from mine, her nipples hard and sensitive against my chest.

  “You underestimated coming in here with me. If you don’t stop me…” I let that one go. “Anyone could walk in.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, an inch more than a whisper. She lay her palms to rest against my pecs, her hands still as my chest lifted with my breathing under her fingers.

  “Have you done this before?”

  “Had sex in a locker room?” She laughed nervously. “No.”

  I wound my fingers in the string of her thong, my hands stilling on the skin of her narrow hips. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “No.” Her tone was flimsy, hardly concealing her urgency. It was going to take better convincing on her part if she wanted me to let her walk out of here untouched.

  “Touch me.” She was breathless.

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  My dick answered.

  “Angel, you have no idea how long I have waited to hear you say that.”