Abreeze cuts through the quad, cool enough to raise goosebumps and send Blake tucking her chin into her jacket collar.
Her steps are quick, steady, boots scuffing the pavement while her backpack strap slips lower down one arm. I catch myself watching the way her fingers tap against the strap still in place, the same fingers that had fisted in my shirt hours ago, that had pulled me closer, that had?—
I shut it down before my brain goes further.
I will never get it together now. The last thing I need is to be walking around campus with a raging hard on.
Before we left last night, Kai had shoved the sign-in sheets into my hands, muttering something about “good reference material for your project.” He probably thought I’d skim them for a class assignment. Instead, they’ve been burning a hole in my bag ever since.
She hasn’t said much about what happened between us. Doesn’t need to. Not when her mouth tips up every time she catches me staring. Not when her arm rubs up against mine twice in the span of a minute and she doesn’t move away.
She leans into me as we walk. The shift is small, casual, and the contact is barely there.
Mine, my brain supplies before I can stop it.
Somewhere behind us, someone laughs too loudly. A skateboard rattles over a crack in the pavement. The world around us moves on as if nothing in the cosmos has shifted, and I’m at a standstill in time, wondering how I’m supposed to sit through class like I didn’t spend last night memorizing every sound she makes when she comes apart.
My brain’s stuck on loop—her mouth, her hands, the way she’d looked up at me like I was the only person in the world who could ruin her like this.
The feeling is mutual, Blue.
Focus.Think.
Class.
Murder investigation.
Murder investigation.
What in the actual fuck am I doing?
“Okay, so last night was informative,” she says, dry. “Sort of.”
“Hey, we confirmed you're into masks and amazing at giving head. That’s data.”
She glares at me, unamused. “Focus, Casanova.”
“‘Scuse me. I am aone-woman man.”
That earns me a side eye that turns into an eye roll, but I don’t miss the way her lips twitch.
I want to kiss it.
I want to eat her alive.
I want to press my mouth to the hollow at the base of her throat and listen to the little noises she can’t hide. I want to catalog every single thing that makes her breath hitch and use that knowledge like a handbook. I also want to be the person who shows up with coffee and eggs when she’s worked herselfinto the ground again. I want to be the one she steals the blanket from at two a.m.
I want to make her feel good for an hour, for a day, for a life—cook for her, argue with her over goofy shit, hold her while she sleeps, and still be the person who makes her knees go weak with a glance.
I know it’s pathetic that I want all of it, but I want all of it anyway.
We didn’t say much when we got back to the flat. Just stripped off the day, crawled under the covers, and fell into bed as if gravity had more of a pull on us than usual. We were bone tired. Maybe it was the mutual orgasms, maybe the weight of everything catching up to us. Maybe both of those things.
She let me pull her in. Tucked against my chest, one leg slung over mine.
I contemplated whether or not she would have if she’d had a bed of her own to sleep in, and decided I wouldn’t be fixing hers anytime soon. Just in case.
I didn’t even try to sleep for a while. Just lay there listening to her breathe, wondering how the hell I got so lucky. Eating her out until she nearly cried was incredible—no question—but her falling asleep in my arms? Letting me keep her close like that? That felt bigger. Like something I wasn’t supposed to have but got to anyway.
