Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
WELLS
Ican’t decide how I feel about Kellan O’Reilly showing up five minutes early to our next tutoring session.
I don’t like anything that further perpetuates the idea that he’s actually some kind of good, thoughtful guy.
Because he isn’t. Not that anyone would care if I went screaming all over campus about what a piece of shit he is anyway.
He’s the equivalent of Radford royalty, regardless of which of us has a university building named after their family.
Still, as he walks into my office, dressed in a cherry red Renegades sweatshirt that’s a few sizes too big across his broad shoulders–I didn’t even know they made clothing in that size–and carrying two protein shakes, I lean back in my chair, taking him in.
His dark hair is mussed from the blustery October day, giving him a messy bedhead look that he pulls off too well. I grit my teeth reflexively.
He puts down one of the protein shakes in front of me, smiling at me with his perfect, white teeth. “A peace offering.”
I run my hands along my once clean-shaven face, feeling the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow as I will my jaw to relax.
“Looks like someone woke up on the right side of the bed this morning,” I say, staring at the shake but not picking it up.
It’s probably laced with a laxative. It’s what I should have thought to do to him.
“I hope you brought your econ textbook today.”
He’s already holding it in his hands, grinning like an idiot, when he sits down in the chair across from me. Annoyingly, his long legs are pushed under the desk again, and if I don’t want us to touch, I have to adjust my own position.
Kellan nods to the cup I still haven’t touched. “The protein shake is strawberry-banana. I figured a classic was a safe bet.”
I don’t get him. At all. Why is he suddenly playing nice?
Probably because he’s figured out it’s exactly what I don’t want to happen.
Does he know that I won’t get the same sense of satisfaction from knocking him down a few pegs if he isn’t trying to get back up?
If he doesn’t continually prove to me that he’s still a garbage human?
Maybe I should ask him, considering that was our entire relationship the half of freshman year that I spent at Warwick High. He wailed on me and verbally abused me, and I never fought back. And yet, it never seemed to help. All I tried to do was make myself invisible, but he always found me.
I look up and make eye contact, willing him to give me any excuse to put him in his place. But he’s waiting patiently, his econ textbook open to the review section for his upcoming exam.
I purse my lips and extend my hand to take the book, but instead of giving it to me, he picks up the shake and places it against my outstretched palm.
“I take last-mile delivery seriously,” he says with an even broader smile before he pulls his own hand away.
If I don’t wrap my fingers around the cup, the brownish-red liquid I can see through the clear lid will spill everywhere.
This carpet has seen some things, but I don’t think that even it can survive an onslaught of this magnitude.
I stop myself from clenching my fist so tightly that the cup gets crushed under the force trying to work its way out of me, even though it takes a significant amount of effort.
This dude just won’t quit. Instead of giving in, I look at the shake in my hand blankly before shifting my focus back to him.
“What if I have an eating disorder or something? Pretty shitty of you to try and force food on me.”
My heart starts thrumming faster when I see Kellan rake his dark eyes from my face down to the parts of my body that he can see above the desk that still, blessedly, keeps us at least a few feet apart.
I’m wearing a dark blue henley that exposes the hollow of my throat and the top of my sternum, and I wonder if he can see my pulse thrumming in my neck from the way he continues to draw lines across my body with his intense focus, leaving no inch of me unmapped.
I have the sleeves pushed partway up my arms so they don’t get in the way when I’m typing, and I know that my muscles are clenched, even as my clear discomfort does nothing to stop his probing stare.
His brown eyes bore into me, a sly smile playing at his lips that I’ve never seen before.
Admiration? Respect? Finally, he speaks.
“You can’t have more than ten percent body fat, and I can tell from your forearms and chest that you do a mix of cardio and strength training.
There’s no way you have that body while still depriving it of protein and nutrients. It would be physically impossible.”
He says the words so matter-of-factly, but it doesn’t stop how my body internalizes them, like a flame is licking through my veins, lighting me up from the inside out. And I hate it. But I also love it.
I decide my best path is to drink this goddamn smoothie so he’ll shut up and stop looking at me like that. And he’s right, even if I frown as I admit that to myself. I do consume an inordinate amount of protein to maintain my muscle mass.
Grudgingly, I lift the shake to my mouth and take a long, forceful suck.
I’ve downed half of it, my lips wrapped around the wide straw so that I can lap the last few drops that are threatening to drip down the side.
Kellan keeps watching me as I do it, like he’s getting some kind of satisfaction out of it, too.
He doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn’t take his eyes off of me.
I put the cup down on the desk and lean back in my chair, aware of my growing erection and wishing desperately that I could find some relief.
Where Kellan is concerned, against my better judgment, it doesn’t take much to get me going. “There. Are you happy?”
Though there’s a little color on his perennially tanned cheeks, and I see his Adam’s apple bob with a quick swallow, all he does is nod before clearing his throat and sitting up straighter in his chair.
The next hour passes quickly, as I quiz him on econ concepts and try to keep my ill-advised lust in check. Mostly, that means making myself stop thinking about how good sucking on that straw felt, and how much better it would feel if it was Kellan’s cock.
Going down on a straight, uptight athlete like Kellan would give me just as much control as if the roles were reversed and he was the one getting me off.
He’d be at my mercy. I could drive him to the edge and then keep him teetering on the brink.
His orgasm would be in my hands–in my mouth–and I know that he’d give himself over to me, to the way that I could make him feel.
We don’t talk about anything except what he’s studying. It’s safer that way. For both of us. I don’t need him humanized, and I sure as shit don’t need him discovering who I am at this point.
For the rest of our two-hour session, I pretend like I don’t know who he is either–that he’s just some hot jock who I’m tutoring, who I can imagine I’d bend over my desk if the circumstances were different.
Even if he wasn’t Kellan O’Reilly, he’s still off-limits because he’s one of my assigned students.
And I’ve had these fantasies before, which I find comforting right now.
Kellan isn’t special. He’s just a hot guy with an incredible body who’d be all the better for taking a tumble in the hay with me. Nothing more.
I look up at the clock hanging over the door, shutting the textbook. I’m finally starting to feel like myself again as I push the econ book towards him. “Well, if you aren’t ready for the test now, there’s not much hope for you. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Kellan lifts his brows, like he’s surprised. As if somehow, the last two hours have changed something between us. “I’m sure you don’t get paid extra for encouragement, but damn you’re a real ballbuster.”
This infuriatingly sexy man has zero idea just how hard I could make his balls bust. But I don’t say that.
Because now I’m thinking about the past–how the fact that Kellan was a hockey player all those years ago meant that he walked on water back then, too.
He was a freshman but large for his age–already a starting varsity player on one of the best high school hockey teams in the state.
They would have let him get away with anything.
They did let him get away with anything.
“You’re an athlete. This is all just a formality at the end of the day.
I’m sure the school would never let you lose your eligibility. ”
He stands up from his chair, stretching his arms above his head.
My barb didn’t strike like I’d hoped. If anything, he seems more relaxed than ever.
His shirt rides up, the cut lines of his abs on full display, his happy trail running down the center and disappearing into the waistband of his joggers.
Scratching his stomach, as my eyes remain fixated on the contours of his muscles, he asks absently, “If you hate athletes so much, why do you work at a tutoring center?”
This fucking guy won’t quit. But still, I try to maintain my composure.
“The world doesn’t revolve around the Radford Renegades, as much as you’d like to think it does.
I do everything I can to avoid tutoring athletes, and they’re actually only a small portion of the overall student body who gets support from us. ”
Kellan nods and thankfully stops scratching his stomach so that he can pick up his backpack.
I hope he’ll be out of here soon. Then, he gives me a sort-of confused puppy dog look that I’m sure has the rest of campus falling at his feet.
“So, your problem isn’t with me, specifically? You just don’t like athletes?”