Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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I left the library with my blood surging through my veins, my stomach twisted around itself, and my brain so fucked up that I sat in my truck for twenty minutes before my normal breath returned and the steering wheel cleared into focus.
Ellie. Fuck, Ellie.
I almost kissed her. I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted to breathe. Fuck, that wasn't the plan.
One second I was apologizing, and the next I wanted to stuff my tongue in her mouth. For all the wrong reasons, I wanted my mouth covering hers. To taste every soft swell of skin, not a teasing peck on the cheek or soft brush over the corner of her mouth. I wanted her breathless, gasping, melted into me, and her mind so fucked up and delirious that she was obsessed with me.
Ellie wanting me was my end goal. But we went from her considering whether or not to give me a chance to me wanting to take it for reasons that didn't feel like retribution.
I should've taken it, but her on my lap, wearing that baggy, worn sweatshirt with Don't bother me, I'm reading on it, was the last thing I expected.
And I fucking froze. Wasted opportunity, Hightower.
What happened? My plan to build up her flustered state was working. The shit that tumbled out of my mouth about her book worked. Red-faced, eyes shooting invisible lasers at me, and panting, Ellie hid nothing.
If she wanted to speed up my plan by jumping feet-first, then I was all for it. So, I couldn't help myself and widened my legs when she tried to clear them. She was lucky I didn't wrap my arms around her. No, I was. Riling her up was so worth satisfying... until it backfired on me.
Fuck, I couldn't get her out of my mind. The heat in her eyes from me irritating her was nothing compared to her up close, lips parted in soft, quick breaths. Her eyes shifted from round and surprised to her pupils taking over. My restraint crumbled when they lowered to my mouth. The tension was so thick I couldn't breathe. An ache moved between my stomach and my heart, which beat so hard I was surprised she didn't hear it.
Each hard pound was as if my heart jumped at her. Here, take me.
The realization smashed me harder than any sack on the field from a three-hundred-pound lineman. Or a punch from her brother's fist. Maybe I needed that to knock sense into me. She was feather-light, I deadlifted more than her weight for fuck's sake, but her power over me was dangerous.
That's never happened. That's not me.
She made me forget my plan. Fuck, I forgot everything but the details on her face. Now, they were imprinted into recall. The cuts of dark brown around those round pupils. A tiny beauty mark near the left corner of her lip. The angry red flush in her cheeks softened into a pink glow. Alex and Anne disappeared, and the whole fucking world outside that door disappeared.
