33. king
CHAPTER 33
KING
NO PRIDE, NO SELF RESPECT
I was done with Willow Pruitt.
The deadline to transfer classes already passed but I’d move on from my coach’s stepdaughter. The kind of obsession I had with her wasn’t healthy for either of us.
I put everything I had into practice and grabbed a protein shake with the guys before class. It was a new day. A clean break.
A message popped up on my phone and I froze. It was from my mom.
Mom cell
who is willow…?
Relief flooded through me that she didn’t have an emergency. But how was I supposed to tell her about Willow?
Mom cell
why does j keep asking about her…?
There were a million things I could say to describe Willow but keeping my distance meant keeping my distance in all ways.
me
Coachs daughter
Mom cell
j seems to think willows coming to her birthday…
is she…?
me
No
Ill talk to jazz about it
Somehow, my little sister formed this immediate connection with Willow, and I could pretend like I didn’t understand, but I did. When Willow gives you her full attention, it’s impossible not to fall in love with her.
Distance, King. Distance.
I made my way up the stairs to the entrance of the comms building when a familiar voice stopped me.
"You’re not going to hold the door open for me?"
Glancing over my shoulder, it took me a few seconds to realize what I was seeing.
Willow, in a lacy tank top—leotard—bodysuit, whatever the girls called it. The thinnest piece of fabric that held her so tight, I could see every inch of her curves, down to the dip of her hips. The lace was cut in half-moon pieces, cupping Willow’s breasts, forcing all attention on them. Her black jeans brought out the shape of her legs as she walked up the stairs, stopping everyone’s path as they stared.
She smirked at me, the sexiest smile I’d ever seen.
My empty cup hit the ground.
Holy shit .
I was wearing jeans for fuck’s sake, but my cock stiffened like she stroked it. I gripped the door. What was the trick that Zariah mentioned the hockey team swore by?
Flex your thighs. End your boner .
Seconds counted down while Willow came closer. I flexed my thighs and nothing happened. I was just some asshole, squeezing my muscles for no reason.
Willow motioned towards the cup. "Didn’t anyone teach you not to litter?"
I dropped down without thinking and Willow’s fingers stroked my hair. It took everything in me not to lurch forward.
My eyes flashed up to hers and she smiled down at me. "I like you in this position, King. Can’t fuck me over if you’re on your knees."
What the fuck? What the actual fuck ? —?
It was amazing I could still stand, considering all the blood in my body directed towards a single central source. No brain power. No thoughts. That was the only explanation I had when Willow slid off her backpack and handed it to me.
And I took it from her.
"Might as well put you to work." She shrugged and breezed through the door.
What the fuck just happened?
With Willow’s bright pink backpack in hand, I followed about three feet behind her, dazed and pretty fucking confused. Because what the fuck was that? What the fuck was this?
"Do you like the look?" she asked playfully. "What do you think? Too modest?"
I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t offer two fucking words if someone put a knife to my throat.
Willow snapped her fingers for the door, and I opened it. I didn’t even actively make the decision, it just happened. My whole body burned.
She tapped her chin. "Where are we sitting?"
We?
I took my seat and Willow stood in the aisle. "Pull out my chair."
The classes were only full for the first couple of days while everyone figured out if participation points were worth it. Now, plenty of students either dropped or didn’t bother coming in. We didn’t have to sit next to each other.
"Pull. Out. My. Chair."
I pulled out her chair. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Paintball."
"Paintball? I was keeping an eye on you?—"
"And manhandling me."
"I didn’t want you getting hurt?—"
"At first, I thought you were just being an overprotective asshole. but I know better now. You were getting yourself off."
"That’s not?—"
"Lying to me again?"
"—the…entire reason," I finished, swearing under my breath. "I wouldn’t have done it just for that reason."
Yes, I wanted to make sure Willow was safe during paintball, that was my driving ambition when I zipped her up in gear and led her around Ritiler’s Point. I also had a huge, painful hard-on when I touched her. Those things could coexist.
She tilted her head. "I don’t know why you have such an attitude when we both know you’re turned on right now."
Jesus Christ .
I tried not to think about how I could push her into the nearest storage closet, bring her to her knees, and shove my cock in her mouth until I came all over those perfect tits.
Calm down, King.
"You have something to say to me?" she challenged.
My fingers twitched on the desk. It was so easy to rip her panties. I bet her shirt would tear just as fast.
Calm the hell down.
"I did," I muttered. "That’s it."
"I thought this would get a comment out of you, I didn’t think it’d be nearly this fun." She smirked. "Aw, King. You have it bad."
"You have no fucking idea."
Wait. Did I say that out loud?
Did I really just fucking say that?
I definitely did. Nothing else could account for her smug, cat-like smile in the corner of my vision.
"I talked to some of the musicians and they remembered you," she whispered. "They told me about your run-in with the guy on eighty-second street."
Fuck. She wasn’t supposed to find out about that. About the random guy who slipped into the busy bar show and set his eyes on Willow.
"They took him to the hospital," I muttered.
"Oh, I heard."
"He was going to follow you home."
"Aw, don’t want anyone encroaching on your territory? Don’t want anyone else getting in on the fun?"
"He took pictures of you. You didn’t see how he?—"
"Like you don’t take pictures of me?"
My brain stalled.
"Let’s see if I’m right." She held out her hand. "Phone."
This was a step too far.
I froze, like she wasn’t more than a hundred pounds lighter than me, because that didn’t matter. Willow had my balls hanging above a woodchipper and what could I do about it?
It was time for a game-plan.
Throw my phone out of the window, drop it to the floor, crush it under my sneaker. Toss it in the air, hit it with the textbook for a homerun, get the fuck out of class and pitch it down a drain?—
"Did you buy your phone or did the Romans issue it?" she purred. "Hm. If you break it, I wonder if the program goes through your data?"
Oh…fuck.
I placed it in her hand.
"If you were smart, you would’ve changed the passcode—whoops. Guess that’s a high aspiration. Mm…looks like only your friends and Jasmine on your camera roll, that’s so sweet."
My shoulders relaxed. She wouldn’t find them.
"Except Adam talked about this calculator app at lunch, where you can hide pictures, but you wouldn’t run with the first idea you hear, right? You’re smarter than that. "
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
"Huh. You have two calculator apps on your phone? One of them has a passcode. Six digits. Wonder what that could be? What six letter word would you possibly—oh, it’s my name! Guessed it on the first try!"
Maybe I died in a car accident on the way home last night and this was the humiliating punishment in hell. That seemed reasonable. That seemed pretty likely.
Willow clicked her tongue. "Oh, King. "
I was so red, I could’ve melted in with a stop sign.
"Olivia Benson would have your ass in cuffs for these and I’m not even naked in them," she sighed, pleased. "You know that saying, you can tell if someone loves you by how they take pictures of you? I have a new one. You can tell if someone jerks off to your pictures by how they take them."
"You should tell someone about this," I managed.
"I’m stealing a few for my socials. How do you want me to credit you?"
"You need to tell Lawson."
"Why would I do that?"
"Willow, you find out a grown man is stalking you and you don’t get help?" My throat tightened. "That’s not safe, you know that?—"
"You’re seriously going to lecture me on stalker safety when you’re the one following me around?"
My ears burned. "You should still tell someone."
"Nope. I don’t think I will. You’re the dumbass cat who fell into your own mousetrap, why wouldn’t I take advantage of this?"
Shit.
Why am I so fucking hard?
"Tattoos?"
I looked over at my favorite nickname—bad fucking decision—to see Willow with her head tilted, her beautiful curls pulled into two puffs on her head, making my heart pound just looking at her. She was so gorgeous. It was goddamn unfair.
Willow waved a hand over her outfit. "Do you want a picture of this ? If you get on your knees right now and ask nicely, I’ll think about sending you one."
I stared.
She wasn’t just offering me something that made my mouth water. There was a price to pay.
My pride.
My self respect.
Going back on the promise to leave her alone.
If I caved in and asked for the photo, in this outfit that would live forever in the hall of fame of my future jerk off sessions, that was the lowest of the lows. There was no way I could ask for that fucking picture.
Fuck, don’t ask for it.
"Good morning, class," the professor greeted and I jerked back in my chair so fast, it warbled against the floor. "We have health literacy papers to discuss, revisions are non-negotiable."
"Pruitt?" Elijah strode through too, grinning. "So you’re the one who caused the pile up on forty-five."
Fucking asshole.
The possessive feeling hounded me, and I struggled to keep my face clear while he sat on the other side of her. All I wanted to do was yank Willow away from him. Pull her on my lap. Maybe shove his chair to the ground and kick it away.
"Oh my god, did Sloane come over?" Willow whispered to Elijah.
"Uh…what do you mean?"
"There’s a hickey on your neck."
" Shit ."
"Revisions are forty percent of your grade," our professor continued, turning on the projector. "Without them, it’s an automatic fail." He nodded in our direction. "Ms. Pruitt, nice job. First one finished."
Willow flushed with pleasure and pulled out her notebook.
"Teacher’s pet," Elijah muttered.
"Dick on demand," Willow replied.
I pulled out a pencil from my backpack, determined to be normal, like Willow didn’t strip me raw.
"Elijah, that’s the last time you’re doing that," she said.
"Why?"
"Because we’re doing the fake dates thing."
I cracked my pencil in half.
Why was I surprised? She said she was doing it and I already texted June, confirming our fake relationship could go back to where it’d been since freshman year.
Willow was right. We were both doing the same thing, getting into fake situations with different people, and those situations meant absolutely nothing to each other. But it didn’t help how much it tore me up.
Our professor started the lecture and I jotted down notes with half of a pencil like I wasn’t aware of Willow next to me. The shape of her wrist. The way she breathed. How she fidgeted with the guitar pick from her backpack, running her thumb alongside it.
My attention was taken away by Elijah’s hand creeping along the back of her chair. I watched while he picked a piece of lint from her shirt and dropped it behind her.
He could touch her like that.
Fuck that hockey player.
I didn’t realize I was actively glaring at him until he frowned. His eyes darted between me and Willow.
Shit, shit, shit.
I turned my entire body to face the front, determined not to look at Willow again. Because there was Elijah, an all-knowing recognition in his eyes. With questions I couldn’t answer.
"You could come to the hockey thing," Elijah muttered to Willow.
"I can’t," she whispered back, so quiet, I could barely hear her. "I’m going to Austin."
Wait.
Willow was going to Austin with us?
I tapped my broken pencil against the desk. The training camp meant a ton of downtime and very little supervision as long as we didn’t get into dumb shit. Which was exactly what I’d end up doing.
There was no doubt about it.
I’d find myself in Willow’s hotel room.