Chapter 16 Sev
Sev
“You look hot when you run.”
Weston doesn’t bat an eyelash at my words.
I’ve been running beside him now for a while, and he’s only glanced up at me once, before I fell into rhythm with him and started jogging at his side.
I thought he’d be out making his usual laps around campus around this time, and I was right. He often runs with his bestie, but Rayne isn’t there this time. He’s been silent, trying his hardest to ignore me.
“And you look like someone who’s way too obsessed with me,” he says back, his breath broken up with every footfall as he runs.
His words spark something inside me, because he’s too close to the truth.
I’ve been fucked up about it all week.
I’ve wanted to go to Onyx House every single day since we got back to campus, and it’s been tormenting me, like I have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and both of them have been screaming at me to go to Weston.
And I’m starting to feel like breaking every one of my rules.
To act on impulse.
To tell Weston how I actually feel.
“Yeah, and maybe I’m not afraid to admit I missed you,” I tell him. “Has that crossed your mind?”
He frowns and still purposely doesn’t look over at me. The way he looks now, with the thin sheen of sweat covering every inch of his body, makes me feel like my body is on fire. His loose white tank top has arm holes that are cut super low, revealing the sides of his torso.
I want him bent over for me again.
I want fucking all of him, and it’s been driving me batshit insane all week as he avoids me like I’m a ghost.
“You didn’t text me or stop me after Sellwood’s class,” he says. “Doesn’t seem like you missed me.”
“You didn’t text me, either, Sheriff,” I tell him.
“Did you want a good morning text every day and a good night one before bed?” he asks.
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but it would be kind of cute if you actually did that. Might help my morning wood—”
“Fuck off,” he says softly, but there’s a softness to his tone, with no bite.
You missed me, too.
You just can’t say it.
And… that’s probably my fault.
“Can you talk to me for once, Wes?” I ask, feeling the pleasant burn in my calves.
He sighs. “Is everything okay with Kieran? No news is good news, right?”
“The situation is stable. For now.”
“And that means he’s not going to flip his shit and start a war?”
I nod. “As long as Roman doesn’t fuck with him, yes.”
He glares at me. “Roman isn’t going to do that.”
“Well, good, then.”
He’s silent for a while, and I wait for his next layer of ice to thaw as we run.
“Why do you suddenly want to talk to me at all?” he finally asks. “Never wanted to before.”
“Because I need to fuck you again.”
He looks over at me for a moment before looking away again.
“Go fuck someone else.”
“I don’t want to fuck anyone else,” I say, probably too loudly.
We’re running down the gravel path at the western edge of campus, over by manicured gardens that are now in peak bloom.
The last breath of winter left after last week’s brief snow flurries, and now spring has stepped back in with a vengeance, warming everything under golden sunlight.
Each tree is bursting with blooms or green buds by now, and the whole campus feels…
Awake.
Alive.
Ready for something new, something different.
I’ve been spending all week trying to get Kieran to chill the hell out and pump his brakes about Onyx, and the only reason it’s been working is because I’m pretty sure he’s afraid of Roman Petrov.
Today, finally, Kieran also told me that he quit taking triple-doses of stimulants. He threw out all of the pills he’d gotten from other students, and he told me he wants to reset and get more level-headed.
Thank. God.
He was a lot calmer this morning, and I feel like I can finally relax a little again.
Other than Weston trying to give me the world’s most frustrating edging experience of all time.
He wipes at his forehead with the back of his arm now as he runs, and I swear it’s like he knows he’s the hottest fucking thing on campus.
“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” he mutters under his breath.
“Believe what?”
“That you don’t want to fuck anyone else. I’m sure you’re looking forward to the next Zenith party so you can get some other doe-eyed freshman guy to throat your cock or something.”
He cuts a corner sharply and heads up the looping path that will take us back to the center of campus.
“I’m not even going to the next Zenith party,” I tell him.
“You’re not?”
“It’s next Saturday. The alumni dinner is that night, and you know that.”
“Whatever.”
“And I went to Zenith nights primarily to fight with other guys who want to fight. Occasionally people also sucked me off, but I have no interest in them now.”
“Because you’d rather ruin my fucking life.”
“Stop,” I roar at him, taking him by the shoulders and pinning him up against the brick wall of the building beside the path.
His skin is warm from his run.
I squeeze his shoulder, hanging there for a moment, holding his gaze.
He’s breathing heavy as he looks at me, keeping his eyes cold as he watches me. His gaze flicks lower, then back up at me.
“What are you going to do, hurt me?” he says gently.
I lean in and close the distance between us and press my lips to his, not hesitating whatsoever this time.
He’s silent. I kiss him like it’s a punishment at first, crushing my mouth on his as I keep my hands pressed against his shoulder, pushing him against the solid wall.
I like kissing Weston aggressively, and I can tell he enjoys it too because he kisses me back like he was fucking waiting for it.
But then, after a few moments, it becomes slower.
I move one hand up, cupping his jaw with a loose grip, holding his head in my hand. His body is still hot beneath mine and as I pull back for a moment he catches his breath, his chest still gently heaving from the run.
And when I look in his eyes again, everything is different.
Like I cracked through another colossal wall he had up inside him, and now I’m behind the gates.
“Thought you said you don’t do this kind of thing,” he says breathlessly, and the sound of his voice goes straight to my cock. “That’s what you told me last time you kissed me.”
“I do when it’s with you.”
I press my lips to his again and this time he parts for me as soon as our lips touch. When I slide my tongue along his, I swear it feels like he’s giving himself to me, willingly and completely.
Maybe it’s always this good behind Weston Knox’s walls.
He kisses me like he’s finally getting a prize he wanted, like he’s hungry for it, too.
I take his lower lip between my teeth and slowly pull it back, letting it go as he exhales, his breath mingling with mine.
He’s pushing the front of his body up against mine now. I can feel his erection jutting against me from under his running shorts, and I buck my hips against his, making him feel how hard I am too.
“Students are going to start walking out of this building as soon as class ends,” he whispers, then makes an irresistible sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh.
I press a small kiss to his lower lip again.
Then another to each of his cheeks, before I go in soft and slow again on his neck.
“Feels so fucking good,” he breathes as I kiss just below his earlobe. “You ignore me all goddamn week and then you have the nerve to come and make me hard like this.”
“Tell me I can fuck you whenever I need it.”
He swallows.
His eyes look brilliant in the daylight, and I’m hit with another deep urge to possess him.
“You can fuck me. But that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
I give him a playful little pout, leaning back and looking him in the eye. “But I’ve told you I’m so lonely. Don’t you want a new friend, baby?”
“Quit calling me baby.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not your boyfriend.”
“You kiss me like you are.”
“Yeah, but I’m not,” he says firmly. “And I know you don’t do relationships. When we fuck, and when I kiss you, I know it’s just for the express purpose getting off. That’s all you want.”
I let out a frustrated groan, looking up at the sky for a moment. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
He pushes me back firmly for a moment, gripping the front of my shirt in his fists and furrowing his brow.
“Don’t screw with me, Sev. What do you want? Actually want?”
I pull in a deep breath, pausing for a moment.
It feels like Wes is trying to dig around inside me, or something, a vulnerable feeling that I’m not used to at all.
His gaze is so serious.
And something splits inside me, words tumbling out before I can corral them.
“Don’t fuck anyone but me.”
He blinks at me, his expression dropping from anger to confusion. “What?”
I pull in a long breath. “Don’t. Fuck. Other. People. That’s what I want.”
“But you’re…”
“Are you ever going to quit trying to tell me what I am?”
“You always encourage the girls you’re with to sleep with whoever they want.”
I nod at him and let my hand slip around his neck for a moment, giving it a brief squeeze, just a quick reminder of the other night.
Fuck, it’s too good.
The idea of anyone else touching you…
The sound of a door being pushed open comes from around the corner of the building. Within moments, I know students will be streaming out from around the corner.
“Nothing makes any sense when I’m with you,” I tell him.
There’s panic in his eyes. “I know the things you want in life. And they aren’t the same as me—”
My voice picks up too much intensity as I speak again.
“Well, maybe I want you to be mine, and maybe I don’t how how the hell to handle that, either.”
I release him just as people come around the corner.
I feel like I just dropped a bomb.
Shock falls over his face, and I’m just as fucking confused about the emotions that are firing inside me like I’m stepping on land mines.
I’m so fucked up about you, Knox.
It’s too much.
Too vulnerable.