Page 58 of Notorious Man on Campus

“I’m going to take Willow off your hands so you can spend the night sorting through things with Nyla.” He grins. “You okay with that plan, Nyla?”

“Sounds perfect. Exactly how do you—”

“You let me worry about the details. I’m heading up to your room to change, Brick. Take your time coming up.”

My mind buzzes, speeding like a cartoon character spinning my wheels and going nowhere as I watch him leave. The door shuts behind him and Nyla wraps her arms around me in the same instant.

“Are you angry, Brick? Will you forgive me?”

“I’m not mad at you. I have nothing left in me right now, to tell the truth.” She laughs.

“Same old Brick, then. Completely neutral.” The fondness in her words wrap me in a coat of pure hot pleasure. She’s not even flirting and I’m turned on.

“Not completely.” Her hands scald my back with desire like she’s made of pure sex. Fuck, there’s something wrong with me. There’s something wrong with this. She’s still an untrustworthy female, something she’s proven time and again, keeping secrets and plotting behind my back. I step away from her.

“I thought… never mind,” she says. “I know it’s too much to expect you to turn your feelings around on a dime. But I need to confess a big secret of my own.” Shit. Here it goes. I tense my gut like I’m preparing to be punched. She hugs her arms around herself and takes a breath, taking her time to spill whatever’s on her mind and the tension is killing me. a sharp pain ripples across my shoulder blades.

“Spill it, Nyla.” I growl the words and step into her space, backing her against the closet door because as much as I know I can’t trust her, I want her, so help me. I want to touch her, taste her and fuck her and be with her because… I have no idea why she makes me feel this way.

“I… I’m in love with you Brick.”

Boom.

Those are the last words I expect to hear. I’m dizzy and my breathing stops, my chest tightening impossibly, closing in on my heart until I wonder if I’m going to have a seizure or a heart attack or something. She stares into my eyes and I see the truth there, the deep authentic reality of those feelings showing like they’re being flashed on a jumbotron.

“Are you fucking out of your mind?” My voice is a whisper. It’s the only explanation I can think of , but I desperately want her to tell me no.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter, because I can’t help myself. I adore you, Brick, everything about you, your flaws, your reluctant heart and your generous soul, the way you’re so serious and funny, so responsible and so reckless, so wounded and so strong. All of you. I get you and I want you. If you want me.” She steps into me and wraps her arms around my neck and kisses my jaw. The heady scent of her makes it impossible to think or do anything but capture her mouth with mine, to devour her, to suck her lips into mine and possess every corner of her mouth, taste her sweetness.

She moans and my cock reaches out to her so I press my hips to hers, cupping her ass in my hands and let go of whatever was holding me back. The bands of guilt and fear fray under the warmth of her heart beating against mine and the pulsing heat of her body in my arms. I let my mouth wander across her face to her earlobe and flick it with my tongue, teasing her and teasing my solid rock cock. She moans and I swear the sound makes me twitch to the edge of reason.

“Brick, my god, I want you so much.” Her words are like a flare to the tinder of my self control. But there’s still that feeling that something must be wrong, that it can’t be this easy, this right. There’s a bed two feet away and Nyla willing in my arms, but something blocks me.

“Nyla, we can’t. Not now.” The reality of the night comes back into focus and I can’t believe I put the fact that I have to take Willow to homecoming completely out of my mind as if we were in another world. “You’re dangerous, you know that?” I put some distance between us just in time for the knock on the door.

“Shit,” she says. “I forgot—we need to get ready for the homecoming party. You have to take Willow.” Her eyes are wide and her face pales. Jimmy opens the door.

“You two still working things out? Can I come in?”

“Dooley will be here in fifteen minutes, so I need to get ready,” Nyla says. She has that bright expectant look in her golden eyes, scalding me with her hope. I can hardly breathe with the chaos of need and fear and desire warning in my system, punching my gut from the inside.

“Let’s get it over with,” I say. “Or at least I hope tonight is the end of it with Willow.”

“Oh, it will be,” Jimmy says. “I’ve made it my mission.” I laugh in spite of everything because Jimmy always had that effect on me, on everyone. Taking a deep breath, some of the tightness is gone from my chest.

“Great. Let’s rock this party and make it one SPU will never forget.”

Chapter 27

Brick

Going to homecoming with Willow is even more excruciating now that I know about Nyla and Jimmy. And about dad being sick. I want to be anywhere but here. For the first time in four years, I want to go home to Fox Chapel. To see my dad. To talk to him, really talk to him.

“Look at all the cameras aimed at us, Brick.” Willow smiles and waves as if she’s an actual Queen and the rest of us are her subjects. “We’re a shoe-in for King and Queen of homecoming.”

“Not me,” I say. I won’t be staying and it’s tough to contain myself, to put up with her fantasies even for the next hour, until Jimmy works his magic. I’m not sure what he plans, but I know he can carry it off whatever it is.

After all, he carried off the role of playboy football stud all those years and no one caught on, not even me. I was as blinded by his image as everyone else was. How could I not realize that football didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me?