Chapter 2 – Trace
chapter
two
Trace
Lena Fucking Hartwell.
She'd turned around and the whole world had stopped. Same soul-searching dark eyes. Same full lips. Same dimple in her chin, same soft as sin coppery skin that I'd imagined beneath my fingertips more times than I cared to admit.
The one girl on this campus who hated me. The one girl I shouldn't want. The one girl I'd never been able to stay far away from.
My brother's ex-girlfriend.
My secret obsession.
Not in a creepy stalker way. More like in a dumb as shit she should be mine way. But I'd made that stupid no same girlfriends pact with my brother.
For a beat, neither of us moved. We just stood there, inches apart on the dance floor, the bass thumping around us like a second heartbeat.
Her lips were parted. Her eyes were wide.
The blue and silver lights caught the gold hoops in her ears and the sheen of sweat on her collarbone and I could still feel the ghost of her body pressed against mine, the heat of her hips under my palms.
My cock was still hard. That was the humiliating part.
She was looking at me like I was something she'd scraped off her shoe and my body was still locked into the rhythm of her, still running the sense memory of her ass grinding against me, her spine arching into my chest, those little sounds she'd made that she probably didn't even know she was making.
Three years of wanting this woman and thirty seconds of having her pressed against me had nearly made me come in my jeans.
Congratulations, Coulter. You have the self-control of a lab.
The scent of her hit me full force now that she was facing me.
Coconut shampoo mixed with something warm and sweet and purely, intoxicatingly Lena.
The same scent that used to make me lose my mind during study sessions, when she'd lean over to explain calculus and I'd forget how to form coherent thoughts.
The same scent that invaded my dreams and made me jack off in the shower imagining her hands instead of mine.
Say something. Anything. Don't just stand here looking at her like a lovesick idiot.
I leaned in close enough that my lips nearly grazed the shell of her ear. "Should have known that ass anywhere, Hartwell."
The words came out low, rough, the kind of thing you say when your brain has been short-circuited by three years of wanting someone you can't have.
Crude and possessive and completely fucking inappropriate.
But the way she'd been grinding against me for the last three songs had destroyed every filter I possessed.
She jerked back. The shock on her face curdled into something sharper. Those dark eyes narrowed into slits that could cut glass and her arms crossed over her chest, which only pushed her tits up in a way that made it very hard to maintain eye contact.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
There she is. The Lena I knew. All fire and fury and zero tolerance for my bullshit.
I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheek, with my brow furrowed, buying time, trying to look unbothered while my pulse was doing something embarrassing. "Oh, fucking hell, chill, Hartwell. I didn't mean anything by it."
She cocked one hip, her chin lifting. "Sure sounds like you did."
Maybe I did. Maybe I was tired of pretending I didn't notice the way her body moved, the way that leather skirt clung to curves that belonged in a museum.
The skirt she wore tonight was pure temptation, hugging every curve, ending at a length that should be illegal.
Armor disguised as seduction, war paint for whatever battle she was fighting tonight.
And fuck me, she looked like she was ready for war.
Her hair was down in those braids with the curly bits that caught the party lights and made me want to fist my hands in them.
Her makeup was darker tonight, more dramatic.
Smoky eyes that could bring a man to his knees and lips painted the color of sin.
This wasn't the sweet, studious girl I'd fallen for in high school.
This was a woman on the verge of understanding exactly what kind of power she wielded.
The transformation should have intimidated me. Instead, it made me want to peel back every layer of armor until I found the girl underneath, the one who used to steal my hoodies and fall asleep against my shoulder during study sessions.
We came from the same small town just outside Chicago. I'd known Lena since we were kids. She'd been my first girlfriend in second grade, lasting exactly two weeks before she caught me sharing my animal crackers with Wendy Mills during snack time.
Even at seven, Lena Hartwell had standards most grown men couldn't meet.
She'd marched up to me during lunch, hands planted on her tiny hips, fire blazing in those incredible dark eyes, and told me exactly what she thought of boys who shared their treats with other girls.
I should have known then that she'd ruin me completely.
Several years later, she'd marked herself as forever off-limits when she'd started dating my brother Trevor.
They'd been together for a year, the longest relationship of Trevor's life, and when it crashed and burned, it was nuclear-level destruction.
The kind of breakup that ended with photos torched and mutual friends forced to pick sides.
And she blamed me for all of it.
Weren't you at fault, though?
Trevor had always been a player, but when he'd started dating Lena, he'd actually tried to change.
The problem was, Trevor Coulter didn't know how to sustain anything that required actual effort.
Watching their relationship had been like watching a car accident in slow motion.
Horrifying. Inevitable. Impossible to look away from.
The worst part? Watching Lena pour her entire heart into someone who was genetically incapable of matching her intensity. She loved completely, without reservation, with a ferocity that could level mountains. She gave Trevor everything, and he treated it like it was disposable.
I'd known my brother my whole life, knew his tells, his patterns. I could have warned her, could have saved her the heartbreak. But what kind of brother would that make me?
Trevor was my brother, my partner in crime since birth. We'd been tighter than thieves until Lena walked into our lives with her brilliant mind and killer curves and that laugh that could make angels weep. Suddenly, brotherhood felt like a prison sentence.
Those months when the three of us hung out together were exquisite torture.
I'd started hitting the gym like a man possessed, staying on the ice until my coach literally locked the rink, anything to exhaust myself enough that I wouldn't lie awake fantasizing about my brother's girlfriend.
But even then I'd find myself stroking my cock to thoughts of her, hating myself for it but unable to stop.
I could still remember the exact moment I'd realized I was fucked.
Junior year, she'd fallen asleep on my shoulder during a movie marathon at Trevor's place.
Her hair had spilled across my chest, and I'd spent two hours breathing her in, memorizing the weight of her against me, knowing it was the closest I'd ever get to having her.
Trevor had walked in, taken one look at us, and something had shifted in his expression.
Something calculating and possessive that should have warned me what was coming.
The worst part wasn't the physical ache of wanting her.
It was the emotional minefield of watching someone I loved get her heart broken in slow motion.
Trevor would cancel dates, forget important things, show up late smelling like another woman's perfume.
And Lena would make excuses, rationalize, give him chance after chance because that's who she was. Loyal to a fault.
I became an expert at reading the signs, the way her smile would falter when Trevor's phone buzzed during dinner, how she'd unconsciously wrap her arms around herself when he'd scan the room instead of listening to her talk, the barely concealed hurt in her eyes when he'd choose his friends over spending time with her.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to tell her the truth, to be the man she deserved instead of watching my brother take her for granted. But family loyalty was a chain I couldn't break, even when it was slowly strangling me. Even when it knotted my gut so tight I couldn’t breathe.
When Trevor inevitably reverted to his old ways, he expected me to cover for him. So I lied, watched Lena's faith get chipped away piece by piece, saw the light in her eyes dim a little more each time.
And then came that conversation. The one that destroyed everything.
Trevor had been bitching about Lena getting "clingy," and I'd agreed he should end things. But I'd meant it as mercy. For her. She deserved better than someone who saw her love as a burden.
I hadn't known she was listening. Hadn't seen her standing in the doorway, hadn't caught the exact moment her heart shattered. By the time I realized what had happened, it was too late.
She'd never forgiven me. Three years later, and I was still paying for that moment of weakness.
And now here she was, standing on this dance floor, glaring at me with the same fury she'd had the day she found out.
My body was still running hot from the dance, still hard, still wired with the memory of her.
Sweat cooled on the back of my neck. The party noise crashed back in.
The bass, the chanting, some girl shrieking with laughter somewhere near the stairs.
And she has no idea. She has no fucking idea what she does to me.
She was still standing there with her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, waiting for me to say something that wasn't garbage. The leather skirt had ridden up an inch during the dancing and she hadn't noticed, or didn't care, and I was using every ounce of discipline I had not to look down.