Chapter 33 #3
He’s being gentle this morning. He pushes in slowly from behind and lets me adjust before he moves. The angle is new because the position is new, and it feels really good. When his hands squeeze my ass, I feel so desired and wanted in ways I didn’t know were possible.
“You’re so beautiful, baby.” He leans down and kisses my cheek.
I push my hips up, and he presses deeply inside of me. I moan.
He says, “Tell me if it’s too much.”
I nod. He doesn’t move slow this time. Instead, he’s in and out so fast that I have to hold onto the bed.
My face is in the pillow, moaning. It feels different in this position in the best way.
He keeps a fast pace and then comes all over my back.
He grabs the towel right away and cleans it up as I catch my Camdenth.
He jumps back into bed and pulls me into him. He lets my limbs rest on top of him. We lay like this for ten minutes.
“Do you have a busy day?” he asks.
I nod. “You?”
He nods. “But you know what I always look forward to on Thursdays?” He points at his wall across the room. “Do you see the name on my Thursday block?”
I smile. “You’re excited for our tutoring session today?”
He kisses me. “I am.” He kisses my lips again. “You have no idea how hot you are with your pencils and your textbooks, teaching me about numbers.” He lets out a dramatic groan. “Fuck, you’re really good at math, babe.”
I counter, “You’re really good at hockey.”
He laughs. “That’s not the same.”
“You think?”
He shakes his head. “You’re naturally smart.”
My brows furrow for a moment. Is he crazy? “And you’re naturally really good at hockey.”
He tilts his head. “Yeah.” He smirks. “I am.”
I chuckle. “It’s not like I can become a professional athlete with numbers.”
His fingers play with my hair. “Yeah, but I’m just entertaining, babe. You’re going to change lives as a teacher.”
My heart tightens and squeezes. He means that.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’re going to change lives, too, Bens.
The way you play — it’s not just that you’re good.
You have the strategy, the wit, and you’re a good team player.
You see the whole ice. You’re three plays ahead of everyone else. ”
“You’ve been watching me, huh?”
“I have.” I trace the scar on his ribs without looking at it.
“And the way you are with the guys. Stanley was being a dick to Blue at dinner last night about that drill, and you let him have it for about thirty seconds and then you stepped on it. You didn’t even raise your voice. They just stopped.”
He’s quiet.
“And the way you were with your sister last night. She has been horrible to you and you sat at that island and let her apologize and you didn’t make her crawl. You could have. But you let her keep her dignity.”
He doesn’t say anything for a beat.
“You’re a good captain. That’s the thing. Hockey is part of it, but it’s not the thing. The thing is that people want to be in the room with you. That’s a real thing. You can’t teach it.” I pause. “Cap.”
He rolls with me on the bed, landing on top of me. He kisses my nose. “You think you’re so funny.”
I smile up at him.
He kisses my smiling mouth. “I need to get up and get ready now, but I really don’t want to leave this bed.”
“I have to get up too eventually.”
He groans against my neck.
I laugh and say, “I’ll see you at four.”
He looks at me and smiles. “You’re on my schedule.”
Thursday moves along.
I shower, and then I get dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.
I braid my hair in his mirror. The kitchen has a banana on the counter with a small sticky note on it that says Lucy.
I eat the banana standing at the island.
I pour a small cup of coffee and drink. I feel a little more comfortable today in the silence of the Hawthorne House.
I glance around the living room and notice the stains on the ground, the pushed around décor, and the shoes at the door.
This house has seen some days. It’s fully lived in a way that makes me smile.
I walk to my Topology class, which only takes me twelve minutes. And it’s exactly what I needed to refresh my mind. The proof of theorem 4.3 lives across most of a page in my notebook. Then off to Real Analysis. I take more notes.
I do tutoring desk hours from eleven to one.
Karen is at the front desk when I come in.
We have our normal small talk, and I update her on the student’s progress.
I eat a burger at the dining hall with Gianna and Mara, and then head back to the library.
I do some homework and plan my tutoring session with Benson.
I take the stairs to the third floor and notice that 3B is occupied, so I wait around until the people leave.
When they’re leaving, I jump to my feet and enter the room once they’re gone.
I sit at the table with my notebook open.
I pull out the pencil case, highlighters, and open the textbook to chapter seven.
The door opens at three fifty-six.
I look up and smile. “Hi.”
“Hi, Lucy. How’s your day?” He closes the door behind him, and my heart is jumping wildly in my chest. He’s wearing jeans and a polyester long sleeve that hugs his muscular arms nicely. He smells so nice that I could tear into him right now.
“I had a good day,” I answer. It started off great, and now I’m happy all over again.
He smirks. “Same.” He looks at the things laid out before me and then takes a seat across from me. He places his elbows on the table and glares at me.
My smile falters a little under his stare. “Ready to start?”
He shakes his head. “We have a few minutes until we have to start.”
I look up at the clock. He’s right. I bite the end of my pencil, and he watches.
“Do you always bite your pencils?”
I snap it away from my mouth and blush. I look at it and shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Is it a nervous thing?”
I take a moment to think. “It’s a thinking thing.”
“Hmm,” he hums.
“Why?”
He reaches down and pulls out the pencil he stole from me from our first tutoring session and says, “Why do you think I took this?”
“What?” I ask, surprised there’s a reason. Jocks don’t normally pay attention to detail.
He shows me the pencil and says, “Your bite marks are on it, so I took it.”
My mouth falls open for a moment. “After our first tutoring session?” I ask, not sure I’m following correctly.
He shrugs nonchalantly. “I always wanted you.”
A smile falls on my face, chest warm, heart aching, and then I inhale. I look down at the pencil and then back at him. “Really?”
“What?” He leans back. “You’re surprised?”
I chew my bottom lip, trying to think. I quickly mutter, “If I tell you, promise not to judge me?”
He leans forward for this. “I won’t ever judge you, baby,” he says with a bright, patient, and excited smile.
I nod, looking down. “Gianna,” I swallow, “has always had pictures of you––”
His smiles. “I knew it, Lucy. I fucking knew it.”
“Knew what?” I blush.
“That you liked me before you even met me.”
I try to hide the flustering that’s happening in my chest right now. The pictures of him around my house did not help me in this situation. Not one bit. At all.
He says, “That’s why this was meant to be.”
I look up at him, heart pulsing in my fingertips. Meant to be? I think heat’s crawling up my neck. His eyes travel around my face.
“I think our time is up.”
I look up at the clock and nod. He’s right. It’s two minutes past our starting time.
God, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this man. He’s making me feel things I didn’t know were possible. Everything else in my life has fallen second to him, and I’m scared. I’m terrified, shaking in my bones because of the way he looks at me.
Math. I focus on math. I turn the textbook and read him the first question. But we’re still smiling at each other like we’ve come to a conclusion of some sort. What conclusion? I’m not sure, but I think the answer is swimming around inside my heart.