Page 132 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

I shook my head, avoiding his eyes as much as I avoided his torso. If I looked at him now, I would break and force him down to his knees. I would fill his mouth and throat without regret, all under the excuse that he’d asked for it. But I didn’t want to be that guy.

Not even to Beckett Fucking Partridge.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered hoarsely.

Beckett stepped toward me, a hand shamelessly feeling my aching, throbbing cock. “I don’t see any problems.”

I snorted at his crass sense of humor and moved his hand away, no matter how hard it was to break the contact. Why did he have to be so blindingly hot? His good looks had been annoying me for two years straight. “You’ve never been with a guy, right?”

Beckett rolled his eyes. “So what?”

I nodded. It figured. “Are you gay? Bi? Pan?”

Beckett held a cool gaze on my face. “What difference does that make? You’re horny, I’m game. Maybe we can finally find some common ground.”

I balked at that. “That’s not the kind of common ground we need, Partridge. You need to figure yourself out. And I need to avoid messing around with a bi-curious teammate.”

“Don’t…say that like it’s a bad thing,” Beckett said with seething rage.

“What’s your endgame?” I asked in return. “To fuck me? Because you’re not topping me, sunshine. And I’ll bet you anything you’ve never thought of getting topped. Or what it takes.” I added the last part in a mutter, but he picked up on it, his frown deepening. “I need some air.”

Beckett’s face twisted in scorn. He turned away from me bitterly and marched up to the balcony door. He pulled the white curtain to the side, gazing at the harbor. “You’re gonna hook up with a stranger.”

I wasn’t. The wish to screw around with anyone other than this damned brat had already left me. I only needed to avoid making things infinitely more complicated. “No. But can you tame your jealousy?” The irritation spilled out of me without any filter. “It’s getting old.”

“Jealousy?” he asked in a tight voice. “You flatter yourself, Jones.”

I finished buttoning up my shirt as he spoke. His words were designed to bite but not cut too deep. I took them quietly, then left the room for some desperately needed peace. I filled my lungs with the late afternoon air coming off the lake.

The absolute truth of it was that I hadn’t wished to shame him. But shaming him a little in turning his advances down was infinitely better for us both than using him and getting tangled in confusion. If sleeping with him was half as hot as kissing him had been, there was a real danger of wanting more when he ran away again.

And if he could rock my world and rile up my emotions this much with only his lips, then I was wise to construct walls and protect myself from his influence. The power he would hold over me otherwise was too great and dangerous to imagine.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and slouched against the chilly gusts of wind. It ruffled my dark hair and made my eyes sting and water. The heat still came off my body. My pants were still too tight for my dick. And I was grinding my teeth so hard that only pain stopped me.

I could have been up in my room, getting back at Beckett in all the best ways. But no. I just had to be a fucking gentleman.

And somewhat of a coward.

Chapter Twelve

BECKETT

After pacing the room I had to share with the smuggest, most righteous person on the planet, I did something I never could have imagined a month ago. The fucker had used this as an excuse to leave me hanging — perhaps the correct term was ‘standing.’ Standing at full mast — and spite motivated me more than any promise of riches, orgasms, or fame.

That first time my lips grazed his, the very ground beneath my feet shook. Since then, I longed for another taste. I couldn’t get him out of my head. The thought of what my friends or my uncle or the scouts and agents would think was the only thing stopping me. That and fear. Surreal kind of fear rocked my body, but when Caden was near me, it almost felt like that fear belonged to someone else. When he was there, I could silence the anxiety and surrender myself to the sweetness of his lips.

Damn him and his perfect kisses. I wanted so much more of him that I might go crazy.

To take him or leave him; to plead with him or to hide. My heart had been split in two and even thinking about Caden made the seams rip and weaken. But the merest sliver of memory from our first kiss would light a fire in me. A new wave of determination would lift me up and set me right.

I sat on the edge of my bed — the bed Caden would wrongly claim as his later tonight — and turned my phone in my hands a million times until I worked up the courage to look up some kind of a guide. Obviously, I knew enough about anatomy that I understood Caden’s meaning.

He thought I was confused. And maybe I was. This snarling beast in me wanted to march after him and punch whoever laid a hand on him. I’d always thought I had simply wanted to ruin his fun. Innocently, you know? I’d thought I was messing with him, but I hadn’t realized how much his flirting around was messing with me.

He’d called it when he said I was jealous. Fuck him for having to point that out. And fuck him double for treating me like I’d never had sex in my life. Sure, I’d never done it with a guy — it had never even crossed my mind if we were trying to be precise — and I might not have the skills and experience, but I knew a helluva lot more about passion and pleasure than he gave me credit for.

So, I set out to prove Caden wrong because it was fast becoming my favorite hobby. I unlocked my phone and searched for a guide. Thankfully, it didn’t have any photos, but it had illustrations of anatomy as well as the names of tools I couldn’t get my hands on just like that. But I was in luck because it suggested an alternative that involved disassembling a shower head.