CHAPTER THREE
ZINZI
I ran through my schedule in my head as I left my last class for the afternoon. My eleven a.m. coffee didn’t make it through the afternoon and three p.m.itis hit me hard. I had a two hour gap to fill with options to either head back to my room and bore myself silly before my six o’clock class— who sets those? —aim for the bar, which was never a good choice in the afternoon, at least for me, or hit the library.
My lecturer gave me a grand total of three new assignments to complete by the end of the month, so that last was a no-brainer.
Library it is.
I took the next branching path that led past the common where a colorful array of college students lounged on the manicured lawn, studying, chatting…flirting.
My jeans seemed too tight as I walked. The air wasn't muggy but I struggled past the amorous students who filled every inch of the grassed space. My hand clamped tight on my laptop strap as I prayed I didn’t see anyone I knew. However social I might be in marketing class, I certainly didn't maintain many friendships outside my lectures apart from my roommate and a couple of dormmates, and let’s be honest—those were by necessity.
Marketing students and business majors were meant to be one of the party units on campus, but my social life was the equivalent to the history department—dry with a little eruption every now and then. Those came in the form of Dex’s hot-blooded male body once a week to keep any untimely urges in check.
My one regular weekly social date with Dex made him the perfect fuck buddy of choice. He took my mind off everything that left me jittery with the sort of anxiety that would cripple most of the population, and the man could flirt like he was born to the skillset.
And fuck like it, too.
Plus, a once-a-week fuck date with him meant that I didn’t need to pretend to like him hanging off me every other day through the week and be all mundane like everyone else. We filled a need for each other, appreciated each other's bodies, and got the hell out of each other’s way until the next Friday rocked around.
Rinse, repeat.
A message I kept telling my body, my heart and my brain whenever they decided he wanted more out of our hot blooded male of choice. Because that couldn’t be. Dex would break more than hearts if I let him, and I knew firsthand what that felt like, along with a few other things, like stitches.
Never. Again.
Not ever.
My vow against campus players held strong for my last few years at Rippton U. I could hold out a little longer until I graduated.
No matter how many times my roommate herded me to frat parties on the weekends, they just weren't my style. Being in a room full of drunken people in various states of nudity and supposedly easy bantering freaked me out on a deep level. Dancing didn’t favor the uncoordinated, either. Maybe PTFBHBD—post traumatic frat boy heartbreak disorder was a real thing. I snorted and earned myself more than one sideways glance as I skulked around the commons.
Nope. I could handle all that with one person, and one person only.
This girl was purely unsociable, preferring my stats to real people most of the time. I liked measurable data, something quantifiable, the sort I could trust.
Fuck me, I’m a bore. Nerd me up, baby.
I strode past the lacrosse team who surrounded a pair of girls. One laughed, twirling her bleached locks around a red-taloned finger, while the other stood frozen and looked utterly petrified. The boys picked up on her fear and upped their ribald comments that echoed across the open area.
I shook my head. Damn jocks.
Another reason I didn't socialize. The Allstars—read the lacrosse kings and the ice hockey team who lived in the Kingsman frat house on campus, or at least three varsity teams full of self-appointed heroes—took top ranking in Rippton’s social pecking order.
Someone like me sat at the bottom of that ladder, and I was happy to stay right there.
Unnoticed, and unseen.
A wolf whistle filled the air behind me. I looked around cautiously to see who might have earned the attention. Just because I didn’t socialize didn’t mean that I wasn't a curious kitten, after all. Marketing student, you know.
My search yielded nothing except for the attention of a few jocks who eyed me with various states of sneers. I picked up my pace, keen to reach the cool interior of the library and get the hell away from everyone else. Another whistle filled the commons. I hugged my laptop bag tighter.
Please don't be for me.
But I was a nobody by my own design, so that was unlikely to happen. Especially dressed in my biker boots and jeans like I wore every day, paired with a cute little cropped, white knit cardigan over the top. I left my hair out and as usual, it was a mass of messy curls that stuck to everything, including me.
Pushing loose strands back that clung to my face, I ran my fingers through my hair and made it another three steps before someone grabbed my arm. I shrieked, one hand raised in a not-quite defensive measure, wheeling about to land face-to-face with Dex.
Razored dark brown hair hung rakishly across one eye while the rest was cut short. His lopsided smile warmed me the way it shouldn’t since the first day we met at the campus bar, and he wore his typical uniform of a black button down cotton shirt, black jeans and black Converse.
The law department never looked so sexy.
I still hated him.
Repeating that mantra over and over in my head to make sure it stuck while my heart jittered away in my chest, I resumed my pace after glaring at him.
“Dex.”
“Hey.” He fell into step beside me.
"Is this your new scare tactic? Frighten me, so you can come over early?" I snapped.
Or see if you can call my bluff?
A power play seemed his type of thing. Push and push and push and see what happened. See what broke. But Dex wouldn't like the outcome of calling my bluff because he wasn't the sort of guy who liked to lose. Being the star of the law department told its own story.
Funny thing about not liking to lose—because neither did I.
I sneaked a sideways look at him. The bruising might've faded, but the slight yellow patch around his eye was nothing new. At least, not to me. He didn't seem to realize that I could catalog every cut and scar, every new decoration added to his taut body each week. I clocked when he got new ink, let him talk about it if he wanted. Didn’t press if he didn’t. Not my business, though I enjoyed listening to his reasoning if he chose to share.
Going to watch him fight—on my own, no less—had been a huge risk but oh boy, had it paid off. I thought he might have seen me in the crowd on Saturday night, the night after I last kicked him out of my room. I mean, it’s not like I had a social life to schedule, and I didn’t wear a white tee with my boobs busting out the bottom, or gold lamé like the over-primped ring bunnies overpopulating the edge of the cage that he fought in. They all seemed to congregate around the wired shut door, hoping for a quick fuck with a victorious fighter minutes after they left the ring.
No one touched the loser, assuming he could leave under his own steam and wasn't dragged out by a bunch of muscle on hand and planted in a corner to recover.
No, being a ring side bunny held no appeal to me, not even for Dex whose sex appeal skyrocketed as he shook the cage and roared back at the crowd who screamed his name, delirious for his attention.
I didn’t have to do that, because our hate/fuck relationship ensured he returned to my bed once a week to equalize our hormones and provided mind bending orgasms in both directions.
Nor did he give the gold lame crowd a second glance as he took the blood stained money stuffed into his fist and strode away.
No matter how I felt about him at any other point in time, Dex Breaker was mine.
Every one of the women clustered at the edge of the cage mooned over his retreating back. I couldn't have been more pleased at his lack of attention to them as I slipped away before he busted me perving on his bloodied, bruised and sweaty ass like every other female there.
After all, I already knew what he looked like naked and what he could do with the tools creation gifted to him. I’d wanted to see what was marking him up. I knew, really, because there were enough whispers in the Rippton rumor mill about illegal Saturday night fights for cash and favors. Even without many friends I was privy to those. But what I saw in him went well beyond a simple punch up.
Dex Breaker was a god in that cage. Maybe graduating up from a little ‘g’ to something bigger for the one hundred and eighty seconds the door was wired shut. Because it never—not once in the eight fights I witnessed—took him longer than that to leave his opponent unconscious and bleeding on the stained cement floor.
Dex Breaker was brutal and sexy as all get out.
The muscly as all hell object of my obsession bumped his hip against mine, bringing me back to the present where we walked across campus in daylight, not a fighting cage, no dim lights or a screaming crowd to be seen. His name faded from my mind as he stared at me, his humor slipping away in lieu of something more pensive behind the shadows shifting behind his eyes.
“Me, frighten you? Nah, too easy. Anyway, I thought I could walk a pretty girl to class.”
I snorted. “Might want to check your schedule, Einstein. Mine are done for a few hours. I'm headed to the library.”
He thought I was pretty? I mean, I knew that, too. He’d have to. He’d been fucking me for the better part of two and a half years.
“Better yet. Now I've got someone to pass the hours with before my night classes. Nap time?” Dex waggled his eyebrows as he loped along beside me, standing a good foot taller above my five feet and six inches—with my boots on.
“You don’t nap with someone who doesn’t like you,” I pointed out.
His height certainly made him easy to pick out in a crowd. But it was time to put a pin in this social thing he seemed to think we had going.
“I’m wounded.” He faked taking an arrow to his chest—a very defined chest where I knew the contours intimately. The corners of his lips curled up in a sinful smile. “You like the number of times you come on my cock.” His gaze slid sideways, eye fucking me in public without reservation.
Yup, that was Dex Breaker for you.
“Shh,” I hissed, grabbing his elbow and hauling him away from the edge of the crowd who would never have heard him anyway, but my anxiety deluged me in a massive overdose.
“What?” He straightened, the picture of innocence and all that bullshit that never matched up with the picture he presented, and he damn well knew it. “I’m just walking with the girl I love?—”
“Stop. It.” My face flamed at his fake as fuck declaration.
“—to fuck,” he added with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Just walking across campus. With a pretty girl. For a library based nap between classes. Is that so wrong?”
“Your negotiation skills astound me.” I rolled my eyes and realized I still clung to his arm. Detaching my fingers in a hurry I shook them out like I could remove the shape and warmth of him from my hands. Fail . "Okay. No, you’re not. Walking. With me. Or napping. Anywhere.” I slowed my pace and gulped air, praying for brain function to resume. This always happened with him around. Always. Which added to my reserve of hate I kept just for him. “I've got assignments to work on."
I strangled my laptop strap as the catcalls came again. Without conscious thought I slid a little closer to Dex, unashamedly using him as a shield between me and the rest of the world. He glanced down at me, surprise lighting in his eyes. A small smile, different from the one of a moment before, curved his lips. Damnit, either one was too sexy for daylight hours.
And now I was thinking about those lips on my pussy, his lips doing things no lips and tongue should be able to do while I scratched my fingers through his hair and?—
“I can study, you know.” He threw a range of insults and the bird over his shoulder at the Allstars, flipping the lacrosse team off, seemingly missing my beetroot face that felt like it might burn my skin off at a moment’s notice.
“Studying? You? The golden boy who reads something once and remembers all ?” I made a grand show of his abilities, heedless of the audience behind us.
My snark was back on.
Good.
It always came out to play with Dex. He could be the sweetest, kindest man I’d come across, which was the only reason I trusted him in my bed. His smarts outclassed everyone else I knew, and he never bothered to hide it. Reason number two why he got to have a weekly encore session. And that confidence was the other reason I kept up our weekly get together.
It was also the reason I drew a line between fucking and hating and dating. I’d been hurt enough times that I couldn’t let my heart go out like that again. Dex had more than enough nous to twist my heart and my head around then shatter both with the slightest blow.
Points to his favor that he didn’t take home any of the ring bunnies even though we’d never pledged exclusivity to each other.
Yup, I still hated him.
He still stared over my head.
I elbowed him, drawing his attention back to me. That was a mistake. I cleared my throat. "Don't antagonize them. They’re bad enough."
Dex rubbed a scarred hand over his jaw. "They need to be taken down a rung."
My gaze shot up in an alarm, catching and holding his. "Don't get yourself into any trouble. I know you're bored as batshit with your coursework, but come on. Taking on a full team? As if you could do that."
No matter his skill level at whatever fighting game he played, if he touched one of the teams, he’d end up bleeding out on the ground in some remote location. The fight club rumors weren’t the only active ones on campus.
"Is that what you think?" He raised an eyebrow, a cocky little smirk decorating his stunning face.
That’s not playing fair.
"Even you aren’t that fucking stupid." Ignoring my twitching ovaries, I closed my eyes and kept walking for a few steps. My footfalls echoed on alone. I opened my eyes and pivoted. Dex had stopped a few paces behind me. "What's wrong?"
“This. Us.” His intense stare pierced me as he prowled forward, closing the distance between us.
My hands hit his chest right over his heart, the ridges of muscle evident beneath the fine black cotton button down shirt he wore. Always he dressed in black on black. It suited him far too well. Something else I was certain he was aware of. I took a full step backward in a hasty retreat before he stopped, looming over me. A predatory gleam full of sin and seduction lit his hooded gaze.
"What the hell are you doing?" I whispered. “We don’t fuck around during the week.”
We don’t do anything during the week. And sure as fuck never in front of anyone else.
My rules, my game. That’s how we played.
Until it looked like he wanted to change the rules.
Dex pinned me with a hard stare, the dark fire in his eyes present after his fight burning there now. "You don't have a clue what I'm capable of," he groused.
Before I could make a choice to move, his calloused, scarred hands closed around my hips, jerking me into him. His hard body crushed to mine, his mouth searing a path against my lips that ignited desire in me on command. Pleasure unfurled low in my belly as he kissed me like a starved man intent on his final meal. The insults, the banter—that was just how we played. But the moment his mouth touched mine, my defenses scattered. My hatred dissolved at the intimate contact and I sank into his touch, melting against him.
It was like he had trained my body to respond to his whim. And I hated that too, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything about him right now. Not with the way he held me to him—possessive, dangerous. Capable of everything he promised.
And I wanted more of him.
Shots of arousal trickled up my thighs, leaving me a hot, wet mess in the middle of the commons. As though reading my mind, Dex slid hand down my lower back and over the curve of my ass, pulling me into his erection that pressed through his jeans against my stomach.
"We don't do this, Dex," I panted into his mouth, trying to ignore the chatter around us.
They don’t care. We’re just another couple.
But while I sat low on the social ladder, Dex was the polar opposite—adored, emulated. Untouchable. He was never seen with anyone, not even at parties.
…Until right now.
I wanted to snap at him, call him for everything under the sun for destroying the camouflage I spent years putting into action to not be seen. Instead, I clung to his shirt and played with the buttons like I might flick each one open right there and spread my hands across the familiar inked skin canvas inside.
The world shrank to just us then expanded, my awareness of others potentially watching our public display unsettling me until I wanted to hide in his arms—and I refused to do that.
“I want more of you,” he grated the words against my lips, barely letting me up for air as I swallowed his.
My brow furrowed as I tried to follow his train of thought, too heady with his kisses to think straight. "What do you mean? Do you want a Wednesday night, too?"
He had to mean midweek. It couldn’t be any earlier, or his bruises and cuts would be right there on display, and he wouldn’t be able to deny fighting any longer.
He wouldn’t be able to lie to me, still.
I'd never seen anything as sexy or arousing as watching Dex in that cage, destroying the often much older and hardened fighters he took on. I watched him tear through each man who opposed him. He dropped them all and still had enough energy to rile the crowd into a frenzy afterward.
I'd gone home to a little frenzy of my own.
Dex breathed hard against my mouth until we were sharing the same breath. "This, us. I need to see you more than once a week. I want to take you out for dinner. Tonight. And next week. Cook breakfast for you in the morning." He pressed kisses along my jaw, nipped at the corner of my mouth until I moaned softly for him.
This has to stop.
You hate him, remember?
But those lines blurred right now, and I wasn’t sure where I stood under his new terms. Terms that meant he’d treat me like a princess, a possession.
Terms I hadn’t agreed to, not now or ever.
" No. " I found my strength and pushed him away, holding him at arm’s length, though it was nowhere near far enough. "We don't do that, Dex."
His eyes narrowed as I detached myself from his body with effort. "You mean you don't do that." His glance was scathing as he stepped into me, not giving me any chance of reprieve as he stole my ability to breathe all over again. "You’re too damn scared of falling for someone, even when they’re right in front of you."
"What, you?" I lashed back. I can’t do this. Not now, not ever. Not again. Heedless of the eyes that might or might not be watching us fight in the middle of campus in the middle of the afternoon I stared up at him defiantly, clinging to the thin measure of control between us that hadn’t frayed yet. “I've got shit to do.”
With that poor parting shot I pushed him away again. This time, he let me. Some small but critical part of my heart wished he hadn’t.
Dex’s lips were set in a hard, white line, his sexy as fuck features frozen. But it was the disappointment in his eyes that forced me to place one foot before the next in a green mile walk that lasted an eternity. Because that disappointment meant we could go back to hating each other, fucking with no feelings attached.
I couldn't have it any other way.
But despite the coldness I used as armor between me and the searing heat of his gaze at my back, the walk to the library never felt so long.
Or so lonely.