Chapter 4
SEPTEMBER 9 – TUESDAY 4:05 PM
T heo
Bending over, I pulled up my swim jammers and felt Liam’s gaze on my body. He was across the room, but it didn’t matter. His eyes felt like a heat-seeking missile and always had the same effect. I could want to run him over with my car or be so hurt that looking at him made my chest ache, and yet…I still fucking loved him.
Maybe Blake wasn’t the only one with an addiction problem. Mine just came in the form of a six-two asshole. Ignoring him, I grabbed my towel, tossed it over my shoulder, slammed my locker, and walked out.
A shiver raced down my spine, and even though he made no sound, I knew he was following me. Suddenly, I knew what it felt like to be stalked through the jungle by a predator. Even though I wanted to look back at him, I kept my eyes trained forward, and I’d never been so happy to see Nash’s pissed-off face.
“Hurry the fuck up, you’re late,” he barked.
“Nash, I think I can control my practice,” Coach Stevens said, and Nash crossed his arms, the slap of his foot on the damp poolside speaking as loudly as his voice. “But Nash is correct. You’re five minutes late, so you’ll have to do an extra four hundred meters after practice.”
Liam stopped beside me. “Easy,” he said.
Coach smirked. “For every minute that you were both late,” he said, and I glared at Liam. “We are going to start with an ab blaster workout that will take us to the forty-five-minute mark, and then we will finish with sprints. Theo and Liam you can do the extra at the very end.”
“Yes, Coach,” we said together.
“Okay, pick a lane, let’s go.”
Coach blew his whistle, and we took up our usual spots. I dove in, wanting to forget everything for a little while. Swimming hadn’t been my first choice of sport when Nash had insisted we all join the team, but now I loved being in the water.
Liam was in the lane to my left and Blake was on my right, but instead of focusing on either of them, I worked on my stroke and found my rhythm. By the time I was done with the opening warm-up, every worry had been washed away and was blissfully somewhere in the pool.
This was the closest I’d get to downtime from now until the end of the year, and every second was precious. Coach blew his whistle again, and I immediately started into the dolphin kick for another four hundred meters before switching directions, pushing off, and streamlining for distance.
The whistle blew again at the end of sprints, and Coach waved us over, a scowl on his face. I glanced at the massive clock on the wall and couldn’t believe that practice was already done despite the fact that we were all panting hard. Reaching up, I hung on the edge of the pool.
“Am I leading a geriatric swim class? What the hell do you think this is? A fucking tea party? The first meet is in three weeks, and if you swim like that, you can forget about getting a sniff at the championships. All of you get out of here. Liam and Theo, start your extra laps.”
Everyone except the two of us got out of the water. I watched the rest of the team leave and wouldn’t have been surprised if Liam had purposely arranged this private pool session with me.
Shit. Fixing my goggles, I turned and pushed off the wall, determined to finish before Liam. Of course, my efforts were futile. When it came to racing vehicles, I could wipe the floor with Liam, but physically, he was a machine and could keep going and going like that fucking bunny in commercials. With each lap, he pulled ahead a little further, and even as I pushed as hard as I could on the final lap, there was no catching him, and I could feel my leg tightening up.
My chest heaved as I grabbed the ledge and looked up at Coach, who was staring at his stopwatch. “That was much better. Bring this effort tomorrow.”
We nodded as Coach walked away. Liam glanced at me and then pushed himself up and out of the water like fucking Adonis had emerged beside me with water streaming down his muscled body.
Nope, I wasn’t doing this to myself.
“What are you doing,” Liam asked as I turned to do another lap.
“What does it look like?”
Pushing off, I loved that I was in the pool alone. There was no other noise than the sound of my body slicing through the water in a perfect rhythm. I swam until I had to get out or drown. My arms shook as I climbed out of the water and collapsed on the deck, staring at the ceiling before I attempted to stand.
Thoughts of dinner and my study date with Ren finally peeled me off the ground.
The locker room was quiet when I walked in and sighed, relieved. My quota of Myles’ and Blake’s sideways stares and Liam’s heated looks was officially filled. Turning on the shower, I stripped and braced my hands on the wall as the hot water rained down on my shoulders and back.
When my brain came back online, all the same questions resurfaced. Was I being too harsh with Liam? Was he right, and Ren had changed me to the point that he didn’t recognize me anymore? How the hell did I fix us and keep him at a distance?
The hair stood on the back of my neck a second too late for me to react before Liam pressed me up against the cool tile. I groaned as his body molded to mine, his fingers gripping my hands and holding them above my head, silently ordering me to remain still.
“Fuck you’re sexy,” he growled against my neck before he bit down hard enough that it would leave a mark. “I can’t resist this ass.” He rubbed against me, and it became the struggle of a lifetime not to crumble and cave under his touch. He knew what he did to me, and it gave him way too much power.
“Why do you keep doing this,” I asked, sucking in a deep breath as his hard cock slid between my ass cheeks. “I’m trying to keep distance between us.”
“Is that what you really want? Distance,” he asked, an irritating challenge to his tone, daring me to say yes.
“You know what I want,” I said, cagily sidestepping around the answer.
Liam chuckled, and the normally sensual sound only angered me. Nothing had changed. If anyone walked in here, he would jump away from me, and not because he didn’t want to be caught having sex. It was having it with me that bothered him.
“Get off of me, Liam.”
He shocked me when he put a little space between us. It wasn’t much, but at least my brain wasn’t misfiring. Liam released my hands, and I turned around, hating myself for loving him. For wanting him. For craving his touch as much as I did.
“Why are you doing this to us? You so clearly want me,” he said, looking down.
His hungry gaze made me shiver, but I refused to play his game. He licked his lips and reached for my cock, but I grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
“You make me feel like I’m only good for one thing.” I shook my head at him and then pointed at my cock. “Is this it? You like my ass and ordering me around? You can go to a private club if all you want is sex or to fulfill whatever fantasies I do.”
“That’s not fucking true, and you know it,” he growled.
I figured he’d storm away like all our other arguments, but with Liam, you never fully knew what he was going to do. He managed to take me by surprise again as he grabbed me and crushed our lips together, pushing me against the wall.
The searing heat melted my fragile resolve, and I grabbed his waist, holding him tightly. He thrust his hips, and our cocks rubbed together while the world faded to nothing but static and him. The water warmed our skin, and his possessiveness came out in a growl as he continued to grind against me.
“Open for me,” he ordered against my lips.
This was how he got me to give in every single time. He knew there was no resisting him like this, and as soon as my lips parted, he deepened the kiss. Liam’s hands slid around to my ass, and I shuddered as he pulled us so tightly together that it was like he was trying to make us one person.
Breaking the kiss, he rested his forehead against mine, our chests rising as fast as they had after the sprints.
“I need you, Theo. You know that,” he bit out aggressively as if admitting any emotion pissed him off, which it probably did.
“Then stop treating me like a dirty secret and give Ren a chance. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t need to love her.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. For just a moment, I thought he was going to agree, but the sound of the locker room door opening burst the bubble of honesty we’d managed to find.
Laughter from what sounded like the football team filtered into the shower area as the guys came in to change for practice. Liam jumped back like my touch burned his skin. And just like that, my hope was crushed as reality punched me in the face.
His eyes locked with mine, and I could see the conflict in his dark amber depths. A rare occurrence to see what he was thinking written all over his face. Part of him wanted to say fuck it and continue, but there was another side. A side that held back and refused to acknowledge who he was and what he wanted.
I didn’t give a fuck who knew that I loved him and Ren. I’d yell it from the top of the school if they asked, but Liam just couldn’t do it. An air of indifference rose around him like a castle wall rising into place and I was once more on the outside in the cold.
“I guess you just answered your question. Go look in a mirror, Liam. You’ll find what you’re looking for, and you don’t need me to spell it out. You’re not stupid, and you know me better than anyone, so you must know what it does to me every time you act like this. Yet, you don’t care, at least not enough.”
Liam didn’t say anything, but his eyes were fierce, the anger in them, his go-to whenever he was uncomfortable.
“Fine, you want me to spell it out for you. Your actions are as painful as if you pulled a gun and shot me. I can’t keep doing this. I just can’t.”
“Fuck,” he swore under his breath as the sound of lockers opening and closing in the changing area got louder as more guys arrived.
Dismissing him and the conversation, I turned and pushed the button on the soap dispenser.
The football team was still suspicious of us and our possible involvement in the death of their old captain, Axel, so we tended to avoid each other. It was safer that way. We didn’t need to bring the wrath of the Curators down on our heads by getting into a full-out war inside the school.
I didn’t hear Liam leave, but it was as if he’d brought the heat to the room and just as quickly stolen it again despite the hot water. There was so much pain and scarring now from him cutting my heart open again and again that sometimes I wondered if it would ever heal. Was there really anything he could do at this point to rebuild my trust? Who was I kidding? He could do it with a snap of his fingers. That was his power and my weakness.
Liam thought Ren was a disease that had infected us and was destroying what we had, but in reality, his fear was the disease.
I’d been living with the way he wanted things and ignoring my desires, just happy to get his table scraps and make it through another day. Ren had become my cure, the medicine I didn’t know I needed. She’d woken parts of myself that I’d suppressed so long ago that I forgot they even existed.
The worst part of all of this was that it was becoming painfully clear that no matter what I did, the barbs of my love for Liam would remain embedded. The harder I tried to tear them out, the longing would only get worse. I was doomed if I did or if I didn’t at this point. Leaving him for good would be like ripping my chest open and handing him my heart. But staying with him when he was so obviously embarrassed by me…well, that was a death of another kind, and my soul couldn’t take anymore.