9. Fletcher
Chapter 9
Fletcher
S ometimes, if I’m feeling particularly masochistic, I try to think of the ways my life might have played out differently had I only looked down that night. I didn’t, though, and it’s probably the only thing that kept me whole through the following weeks, the following years…
Gideon and I kept our pants on for the rest of our study dates, but the tension between us was suffocating. When we sat together, he inclined toward me, the rose scent of his hair wafting around us both like the most dangerous kind of tie. His hair would brush my ear, and if I was feeling particularly brave, I would reach for him and tuck it back. His skin always burned my fingertips, and I ached to touch him more.
Touch him harder.
Touch him with intent.
The night before our assignment was due, Gideon didn’t show up at my dorm. I waited until 11:15, then I called him. He didn’t answer, so I put on my shoes and trekked across campus to his building. Gideon was half in the hall, half in his room, with his hand braced against the door frame while he tried to fight his sneaker onto his foot.
I cleared my throat and he looked up, face blanching at the sight of me.
“Sorry,” he said, slamming his foot down to get his heel into the shoe.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He scrunched his nose. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
“Your alarm?”
“To come over.” The door to his room swung closed, bumping him on the ass, but not latching closed.
“Were you not…” I trailed off, remembering about the first night I called him to study. When I’d woken him up.
“I’m awake now,” he said. “Did you want to go to your room?”
“We’re both here.”
“Right.”
His throat flushed that pretty pink again, and he pushed the door open with his ass, moving out of the way so I could join him inside. I hadn’t been in his room since the night we’d jerked off together, and I had to close my eyes to center myself after the door closed behind me.
Gideon’s sheets were still crimson red, still rumpled, but now I knew they’d be warm from his skin. He’d just been asleep there, and while he fumbled around his desk for his copy of Hamlet , I walked over to his bed and pressed my palm against the sheets. It would have been too much for me to bend over and smell them, to see if I could detect a trace of our spend dried into the expensive cotton.
“I think we’re all set for tomorrow,” he said nervously.
I looked over my shoulder at him, eyes narrowing at the way he wrung the book in his hands like he was trying to twist the spine in half.
“I think you’re right.”
He worried his tongue across the front of his teeth. “We probably don’t even need to go over it,” he said, words dying off. “We know the content.”
“We do,” I agreed, sliding my hand down toward the middle of his bed. “Do you sleep on your back?”
“What?” Gideon squinted at me, brow knit with confusion. “Why?”
“Just answer me.”
His gaze fell from my face to my hands where I had his sheets fisted into a ball.
“Stomach,” he rasped.
I counted to ten and forced my fingers to unfurl, letting go and exhaling through my nose.
“I thought you were mad about it,” Gideon said.
He didn’t mean about sleeping on his stomach.
“Why?”
“You didn’t say anything about it,” he said, lips twisted into a sad smile. “You didn’t ask to do it again.”
“Neither did you.” I wasn’t a beggar, but maybe I would have begged him.
Fact of the matter was, I’d spent the whole week not just thinking about the sounds Gideon made when he came, but also about what that whole encounter could mean for me. What it should have meant. If my father ever found out, he would have beat me to within an inch of my life. I didn’t think he’d forgive me for wanting to get into bed with a North, let alone actually doing it.
My handprint was in Gideon’s sheets.
“Are you still a virgin?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
But I wouldn’t be for long. Father’s orders.
“Have you ever kissed someone?”
I put my hand back on his sheets, moved it up to his pillow. Everything was cold already. He’d been awake for too long. Gideon set his book down on the foot of the bed and stepped toward me, the heat rolling off of him in waves threatening to drown me right there in front of him. My phone vibrating to life in my pocket was a life boat I wasn’t sure I wanted, and when I pulled it out and saw my father’s name on the screen, I wished I had actually drowned instead.
“What are you really trying to ask me, Gideon?”
The phone went silent, but I knew it was only a matter of minutes before he called back. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but I knew what I wanted, and I knew I was running out of time. I put my phone back into my pocket and shifted to face him head on. Without a word, Gideon let his green eyes drag over every inch of my face like he was mapping every hair and blemish in my skin. He licked his lips, pulling the bottom one between his teeth, shuffling half a foot closer to me.
“I’ve never kissed anyone,” he said.
My skin burned and I wanted to scream.
Don’t speak unless spoken to.
Never question authority.
Family above all else.
And fuck the North family.
Stay away from Gideon North.
Stay away from Gideon fucking North.
I understood the warning now because, in less than two weeks, he’d wormed his way under my skin and I’d practically cut myself open to make room for him. He closed more space between us and instead of moving away, I stood my ground, shivering when his breath huffed out against my cheek.
He was so close.
My phone started to vibrate again.
I was out of time.
I fisted Gideon’s soft and silky hair in my hand, then I crashed our mouths together and kissed him.