Chapter 32
Adrian
I’m not thinking straight anymore. Not about school, not about hockey. Not about anything but her. Last night should have satisfied something, scratched the itch, burned off the relentless want in my gut. But it didn’t. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire I didn’t even know was burning that hot.
Now the memory of it is branded on the inside of my eyelids, flickering every time I blink.
Now I know how she sounds when she moans my name—a broken, desperate sound I keep hearing over the clash of weights in the gym.
I know how her small hands claw at my back like she’s afraid I’ll disappear, leaving marks that feel more like a claim than a scratch.
Now I know how she tastes when she’s not pretending she doesn’t want me—a sharp, sweet flavor of defiance and surrender all at once, a brand I can’t wash away.
And I can’t get her out of my fucking head.
There is a repetitive sentence here that I have removed for flow.
Clara Harrington is in my bloodstream. It’s not a metaphor.
She’s a fever in my veins—cut me open and it’s her name I’d bleed.
Every drill at practice today was a failure because my mind was in a library aisle, replaying the feel of her pressed against a bookshelf, her body a perfect, scorching fit against mine.
Every conversation with the team was static, a dull drone under the ringing memory of her voice whispering, “I’m yours. ”
This obsession is a weakness, a crack in the armor I’ve spent my whole life building, and I fucking hate it.
It’s a splinter under the steel, a flaw I should carve out before it gets infected.
But it also feels like the only real thing I have.
I shouldn’t be here. I told myself one time was enough, that I just needed to have her once to get her out of my system like a bad habit.
But the second I walked out of that library, all I could think about was how fast I could get back to her.
This isn’t a choice; it’s a compulsion. A need so deep it’s carved into my bones.
I pull out my phone, my thumb moving with a will of its own.
Come outside.
I don’t knock. I wait outside her dorm room door, my heart a dull, heavy thud against my ribs. From inside, I hear the faint, muffled sound of a page turning. What the fuck are you doing, Hale? This is pathetic. This is how you lose everything. But I don’t leave. I can’t.
When the door opens, her expression flickers through a rapid-fire sequence I track like a puck off the boards: surprise, then sharp irritation that tightens her mouth, and then something else—something softer and darker that looks a hell of a lot like anticipation. Her eyes give her away every time.
“You just gonna lurk outside my door like a creep?” she asks, her voice dry, but I see the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, a frantic little bird I want to trap under my thumb.
I shrug, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, making myself bigger, impossible to ignore. “You left me no other choice.”
“Seriously? You couldn’t just send a text like a normal person?”
“Not when I can see your face instead.” My gaze drops to her lips, and I watch them part on a breath she can’t quite catch.
She exhales, a sharp, frustrated sound, then steps aside. A wary invitation. “Ten minutes.”
I stalk in without hesitation, bringing the cold night air into her small, warm space. “That’s eight more than I need.”
Her dorm is small, spare, almost sterile.
Her bed is made with a military precision that screams of control.
Books are stacked by height. It’s a fortress.
Nothing about this quiet, ordered room explains the chaos she causes in me.
I feel like a storm that just breached the walls.
She crosses her arms, watching me as I stalk toward the center of the room.
My eyes drift to the stack of books on her nightstand, spines perfectly aligned.
I reach over and run a thumb down the spine of the top one, a small act of disruption in her ordered world.
She crosses her arms, watching me warily as I stalk toward the center of the room. “You here to pretend last night didn’t happen? Or to pretend it meant something?”
I stop an inch from her, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin. “You really think I’d show up for pretend?”
“I think you like control,” she says, her chin lifting in that defiant way that makes me want to bite her. “I think it makes you feel powerful when you push people around.”
I smile, all teeth. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?” I murmur, my voice dropping lower. “You’re the only one who pushes back.”
Her breath catches. Victory. She recovers quickly, but the hit landed. “Maybe I like watching you crack.”
“You think I’m cracking?” I lean in, my nose brushing hers, the scent of her—clean skin, vanilla soap, the electric hum of nerves—filling my head. “Then why are you the one whose hands are shaking?”
“They’re not,” she whispers, a lie so blatant it’s an invitation. I can see the fine tremor in her fingertips.
I don’t touch her yet. I just breathe her in, letting the tension build. “I came here because I wanted to fuck you again,” I say, my voice low and raw. “But now I kind of want to see how long I can make you beg first.”
Her eyes darken. The challenge is accepted. “You really think I’m going to beg?”
I smirk, letting my eyes trail down her body and back up. “No. But I think you’ll break first.”
Then I kiss her. It’s slower this time, dangerous.
A deliberate, claiming exploration. Her mouth opens under mine, but she doesn’t surrender.
She fights for control with every flick of her tongue, every sharp graze of her teeth against my bottom lip.
It’s a battle, a war for dominance in the silent battlefield of her dorm room, and it turns me on more than I can handle.
The room smells like her—vanilla, old paper, the clean scent of laundry detergent from her sheets.
It’s a scent of home, something I’ve never had, and the thought is so disorienting that I have to deepen the kiss, to push past it into the raw sensation of her.
My hands find her waist, fingers digging into the soft flesh above her hips.
I lift her and walk her backward toward the bed.
She clutches my shoulders, short nails digging into my skin, but when I toss her onto the mattress, she’s already tugging at my hoodie, her controlled facade shattering into pure, frantic need.
“Thought you had ten minutes,” I say, standing over her, a predator looming over my prey.
“Yeah, and now you’ve got seven,” she snaps, her eyes blazing. “So get to it.”
A low groan rumbles in my chest. “Fuck, I love that mouth.” I’m going to own it. I’m going to make it say my name until she’s hoarse.
I sit on the edge of the bed to pull off my boots, one by one, my eyes never leaving hers. Then I stand, unhook my jeans, and kick them off until I’m just in my boxers and hoodie. I watch her watch me, her gaze hungry and defiant, licking her lips as her eyes trace the lines of my body.
She gasps when I drop to my knees on the bed and crawl over her, pinning her wrists in one of my hands above her head. Her body is small and fragile beneath mine, yet she radiates a strength that calls to the most brutal parts of me.
“What are you doing?” she breathes.
“Taking my time,” I growl, my other hand going to the hem of her black top. I lift it slowly, exposing the pale skin of her stomach inch by inch, and press an open-mouthed kiss to her navel. She shudders violently.
“Look at me,” I command. Her eyes, wide and dark, snap to mine.
I pull the shirt over her head and toss it aside.
Her bra is simple, black lace. I release her wrists, propping her up with a hand behind her back.
My fingers trail down the delicate knobs of her spine to the clasp.
I unhook it with infuriating slowness, my knuckles brushing her skin, feeling her shiver.
I pull the straps down her arms and toss the bra aside.
Her breasts are perfect, full and pale, her nipples tight little buds pleading for my attention.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, my voice thick. “Perfect. Everything I’m about to ruin is perfect.
” I lay her back down, my mouth hovering inches from her skin.
“And mine.” I take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, and she cries out, a sharp, strangled sound.
I bite down gently, just enough to make her gasp, and she groans, her fingers fisting in my hair.
She tugs at my hoodie in a frantic, demanding pull.
I let her win, shrugging it off. Her hands roam over my chest, hesitant and greedy, as I hook my fingers into the waistband of her skirt and drag it down, then her panties.
She’s completely bare, and the sight makes my cock throb painfully against my boxers.
“Adrian,” she breathes, a plea.
“I know.” I pull her to the edge of the bed, arranging her limbs exactly as I want them.
“No waiting.” I bury my face in her wet heat, inhaling her scent like air—vanilla and something rawly, achingly Clara.
Her taste is a drug I can’t quit. She arches, fingers tangling in my hair, nails clawing my scalp until pleasure and pain fuse into electric white fire.
“You’re—fuck—so annoying,” she breathes out, her hips starting to move in a slow, unconscious rhythm against my mouth.
“I know,” I rasp, my tongue shifting into a brutal rhythm against her clit.
I feel her body begin to tense, her thighs quaking.
Her breath stutters into whimpers, my name on her lips over and over.
I pull back, the tip of my tongue flicking teasingly over the swollen peak.
She emits a frustrated hiss. I plunge back in, savage and precise, driving her higher, faster, until her knuckles turn ghost-white clutching the sheets. Then I yank away again.
“Adrian, don’t you dare—”