Chapter 7
APOLLO
“Thanks for ruining the night,” Daphne said, marching toward the parking lot with her keys in her hand. A sheet of snow covered the lot, inches thick, and the plow hadn’t been through to clear it yet. “Hope to see you never.”
I snatched her keys from her. “First of all, you’re welcome. Second, you’re not driving.”
“Give me my keys back,” she said, reaching for them.
But I held them above my head, so she had no shot. “We’re in the middle of a storm.”
“Well, I need to go home.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have come up here then.”
“Well, I like to volunteer, unlike you who’d rather sit home all day and sleep with a bunch of girls, because you don’t have to work for a living like everyone else in our goddamn town! You have a career already set out by your daddy.”
I gritted my teeth. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Tell me that’s a lie then.”
My nostrils flared. It wasn’t a lie. Dad had a career set out for me, even though he knew full well that I didn’t want to be a corrupt businessman like he had been ever since Mom had died. No, I wanted to have a chance at saving someone like her.
Medicine… was what I wanted to do, not finance, not numbers, not business.
“Sounds like I’m right, huh?”
“I don’t give a fuck whether you’re right or not. You’re still not driving home.”
The roads were covered in inches of snow, and Daphne’s car looked like it shouldn’t even leave little ol’ Redwood, nevermind drive for two hours in the middle of a snowstorm back there!
Daphne jumped up onto me, trying to reach her keys. “Give them!”
“No.”
“Stop being a dickhead! It’s freezing out here!”
I spotted a hotel across the street. “We’re staying in a hotel tonight.”
“We?!” she exclaimed. “I’m not doing anything like that with you!”
God, she’s so fucking hot when she’s mad.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Realizing that I wasn’t going to get through to her out here, I turned on my heel and hurried across the street, the snow coming down even heavier now. “Have fun freezing out here!” I called over my shoulder, slipping into the hotel lobby.
She yelled something in my direction that I couldn’t quite hear as the lobby doors snapped shut, and I headed to the front desk, leaning onto the counter and flashing the clerk a smile I gave all the girls.
“One night, please.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she typed away on her keyboard. “We have a room with two queen-sized beds for $299 and a room with a king-sized bed for $350. Do you have a preference, sir?”
“One bed is fine,” I said, with a smirk, watching Daphne stomp across the street.
After sliding my card across the counter, she finished checking me in and handed me one room key. I thanked her and headed to the doors where Little Miss Porn Addict was trudging in, her hair covered in a layer of thick snow.
“I hate you.”
My chest tightened, but I recovered quickly with a smirk. “Got us a room for the night, Little Miss–”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” she warned, storming straight for the elevator.
Once I slipped into it with her, I pressed the button for the seventh floor and rocked back on my heels. With her arms crossed over her chest, she glared at the shiny metal doors. “I don’t need your permission to drive home, Apollo. I’m not your responsibility.”
“Yes, you are.”
She opened her mouth, and I expected her to shoot an annoyed response back, but she paused for a moment and peered over at me. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and I assumed that it was from the cold.
Not from what I had just said to her.
“Are you planning on camping out here until spring when the snow stops?”
“If that’s what it takes for you not to be so reckless.”
“I’m not reckless.”
“You drove two hours in a snowstorm to volunteer at a garden. A garden!”
She snapped her head in my direction and marched over, poking me hard in the chest. “Well, you’re the dumbass who followed me all the way up here, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and thinking that I’m just going to bow down to your every command.”
“Would you rather that creep follow you home instead?”
Again, she opened her mouth, but no words came out. So I took her silence as an opportunity to back her up against the elevator walls. I posted a forearm on either side of her head, leaning down to get a good look at her flushed face, those big eyes, and those pouty lips.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Daph. Like it or not, you belong to me now.”
“I… I don’t belong to you.”
“No? So I can share your dirty little book with the rest of the school?”
She met my stare with one of her own. “Go ahead.”
I raised my brows, a low chuckle leaving my mouth. “Go ahead?”
“Do it. You won’t.”
My lips curled into a smirk. “What a little brat I have on my hands. Careful now.”
“You know what I think?” she said, poking me in the chest again. “I think you’re all talk.”
“Me? I’m all talk?”
“Yeah, you are.” She craned her head to look up at me, her arms crossed over her chest, pushing her tits together enough for me to see some cleavage. She knew exactly what she was doing. “You’re not going to do shit.”
“You’re right,” I said to her, wrapping my hand around the front of her neck and pinning her to the elevator. I snatched her phone from her hand, because it was too goddamn easy, and scrolled to her audio app. “I’m not going to do anything.”
“Give that back, you dick,” she said, trying to reach for her phone now.
“I’ll just have you share a couple recommendations to the school’s social media, and–”
This girl leapt into the air, jumped onto me, wrapped her legs around my waist, and tried to snatch her phone back. My dick hardened inside my jeans, feeling her body heat against me in places that hadn’t been touched in a long time.
Longer than I’d like to admit.
“Give it! You can’t!”
The door opened on the seventh floor, and I headed to our room with her in my arms. When we reached our room, she wiggled out of my hold and glared up at me, standing in front of the door.
“So desperate for it, huh?” I leaned her up against the door and grinded myself against her. “Is this what you have wanted from me since our little meetup in the library?” She sucked in a breath, still reaching for her phone but not as focused on it anymore.
“Huh?” I pushed. “Is this what Little Miss Daphne wanted? Is this why she’s been so cranky today?” I drew my nose up the column of her throat and chuckled against her skin. “Does she need to be fucked?”
“No,” she said, breathily. “No… I don’t.”