“It will be.” Without another word, I resumed my walk at a slower pace and ignored the fact that I could see Jett in my peripheral as I walked away.
I headed straight for the sports building. I didn’t look behind me to see if they followed; I suspected they would, and it pissed me off even more. I was not a fragile damsel in distress.
Okay, I had maybe acted like a fragile damsel in distress, but that didn’t mean that I was one.
Dumping my stuff in the locker beside the gym, I shrugged off my coat and changed my shoes. Retying my ponytail, I took a deep, calming breath, smoothed my hands down my thighs, and headed into class.
There were several tables laid out throughout the room, and I groaned inwardly when I saw Denzel talking to Jada.
Shit. Two people I didn’t want to see.
My professor saw me before they did, and I turned to Dimitri. “Morning.”
“You look tired,” he said immediately. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” I tried for a smile and knew I failed. “Spent too much time on the nutrition spreadsheets.”
“It’s a good assignment,” Dimitri said enthusiastically. “Difficult because the serious athletes already treat their bodies like temples.” He jerked his head back to indicate Denzel. “And then others think vegetables on pizza count as your five a day.”
My laugh burst out of me before I could stop it, and Dimitri beamed. “That’s better,” he said fondly. “I thought pop quiz physical-style today.”
My laughter turned into a groan. “Why would you lull me into a false sense of security like that? Thinking you were a nice professor?”
“Because I’m evil,” he said with a grin. More of my classmates were behind me now, and I turned to share a look of commiseration with a guy in my class. “Did you all hear? Pair up, pick an athlete, we start in five minutes.”
“Me and you?” the guy suggested, and I nodded. I didn’t mind who I got. “Who we taking?” It was a mix of volleyball and basketball players, and I knew who I didn’t want. “The point guard took a fall on Saturday. He’s been hiding it, but his ankle’s giving him issues.”
“Really?” I asked as I started to walk to the poor victim of my morning.
“Yeah, saw it happen, been watching him ever since,” my partner said, then hesitated. “I’m not saying I have been, but if someone saidstalker, I may not be as innocent as I would like to claim.”
I grinned at him as we stood in front of the athlete in front of us: six-eight and a bad ankle? I flexed my fingers; this was exactly what I needed.
Two hours later, I was happily finishing a mocha caramel latte as I strolled leisurely to the library. Class had been exactly what my inner peace required. My mind had cleared as I worked on the physio of the Saint this morning. My partner had been knowledgeable, and Dimitri had been completely underwhelmed when we aced his pop quiz.
Now I needed some alone time with my spreadsheets to get my assignment back on track. It’s why I had gone to the house this morning. Waking up to find Gray gone and a note telling me he would see me later, reminded me that I hadn’t checked their fridges. I’d been away from my project for a few days, and Dimitri’s quip about Denzel eating pizza had been my same fear when I woke up this morning.
I hadn’t expected to overhear my boyfriend — weird that it didn’t feel weird saying that — and best friend joking about pregnancies. Gray and I had been careful since we got together. I had condoms at my apartment, and when I was back at home, he had pulled out each time we’d been together. Not ideal, and he had laughed that when the time came for him toreach his orgasm, his body was screaming at him to dig in deep, not pull the other way.
I’d changed from the pill to the shot after the miscarriage, but still, it made me nervous, Gray coming inside me. I hadn’t been ill — I hadn’t even had a sniff of a cold — but the thought of him being let loose in there made me squirmy.
As I tossed my empty coffee cup into the recycling and entered the library, I realized the idea of it wasn’t as abhorrent to me as I thought. Selecting a seat in a reclusive part of the library, I set up, but my mind had one track, and it was the track that led to me and Gray, naked in the bedroom with him coming inside me.
I dropped my head into my hands.Oh my God, did I have a fetish?
Gray liked to wrap his hand around my throat; it really got him off. Was my kink him getting off inside me? My other partners had worn condoms, Ash included, but it felt fundamentally wrong for Gray to be covered when he was inside me. I wanted him flesh to flesh, I wanted to feel him spill either inside me or on me.
“Hey, you.”
I jerked up in surprise as Ava grinned at me with Mia beside her. Mia snorted at whatever my face said.
“Three guesses for what you were thinking right now!” she teased.
I was so flustered I couldn’t even lie. “Um . . .” Licking my lips, I decided to just own it and gave a half-hearted shrug.
“Nice.” Mia high-fived me, and I thought it was slightly odd, but I went with it.
“We saw you come in, but you looked lost in thought,” Ava said as she crouched at my one-person table. “You want to be alone, or do you want to sit with us?”
