Chapter Twenty-Three Aurora / Joshua
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aurora / Joshua
Aurora
The bus was packed.
Every seat filled, every inch stuffed with bags, jerseys, and bodies. Voices were loud, laughter echoing down the aisle as I stood there, clutching my folder to my chest, trying not to get in the way.
“Find a seat, Campbell!” the coach shouted from the front.
Right. A seat.
I glanced around. Nowhere.
The only space left was—
My stomach dropped.
Joshua.
He sat right at the back, the entire row to himself and duffle bags that were piled up beside both sides of him, leaving little to no space, headphones on, hood half up and long legs stretched out. Everyone else was paired, sleeping, or already settled. He was the only one with space. Barely.
And he saw me.
I knew he did. His eyes flicked up for a second, quick but sharp, before going back to whatever he was looking at.
I hesitated. My body screamed don’t do it, but logic whispered he’s the only one you know. And that the only space left was that little micro area next to him.
I started walking down the aisle, careful, clutching my folder tighter as the bus engine rumbled beneath me.
“Let’s move, boys!” the coach called from the front.
I froze, mid-step, then the bus jerked forward.
Everything happened too fast.
My balance slipped. Folders flying out of my hand, and before I could even gasp, I stumbled right into him.
Hard.
“Shit,” he muttered, hands instinctively shooting out to steady me. One on my waist. One on my thigh where my knee had landed on his lap.
I froze. Completely froze.
So did he.
The air felt different now, thick, heavy, silent despite the surrounding noise.
My pulse was racing, my face burning as I scrambled to pick up my folder, to move, to do something.
“Careful,” he said lowly, his voice barely audible over the chatter, but it still sent a shiver down my spine.
I nodded quickly, not trusting my own voice, not that it would come out even if I tried.
There was nowhere else to go, nowhere else to sit. The bus was already moving.
So… I stayed.
Awkwardly, hesitantly, I sat beside him, half on the seat, half pressed against the pile of bags that boxed us in.
His knee brushed mine, just barely.
And even though neither of us said a word, the silence between us was loud enough to drown out the whole bus.
The bus jolted again, turning sharply down the road. I barely had time to catch my breath when the coach’s voice cut through the noise.
“Lockhart! Catch!”
A black duffel came flying from the front. Joshua caught it and frowned, looking up for the first time in a while.
“Put that up, important emergency kit!”
Joshua grunted in response, looking around at the pile of bags beside both of us for space, but everywhere around us was already full.
He sighed, glancing around. “There’s no—”
Before he could finish, I stood up, holding onto the back of the seat in front of us to steady myself. I gestured quickly, pointing at the space beside him. He got it immediately.
“Yeah, okay.”
He placed the emergency kit exactly where I had been sitting. Great.
Now where was I supposed to go?
The bus bounced again, everyone shifting, laughing, yelling, knees bumping into aisles. And suddenly, the boys around us noticed the problem.
“Hey, Campbell, right here!” one of them grinned, patting his thigh.
“C’mon, we don’t bite!” another said, earning a few laughs from the others.
I froze, blinking, heat rising in my cheeks. I opened my mouth, ready to say something, maybe shake my head, but Joshua moved first.
“Move your damn hand,” he muttered at one of them, and before I could even register what was happening, he reached out, grabbed my wrist gently, and tugged me back.
Right onto his lap.
The breath punched out of me. My knees bumped the seat in front, his arm automatically looping around my waist to steady me as the bus hit another turn.
“There,” he said lowly, voice rough, right by my ear. “Problem solved.”
My heart nearly exploded.
I stayed frozen, staring straight ahead while the guys in the next row made way too many noises, whistles, laughs, teasing remarks that made me want to disappear into thin air.
Joshua ignored them completely, his gaze fixed on the window, jaw tight, arm still firm around me to keep me from falling again.
Before my mind could finish thinking about how safe I felt on his lap, the coach started catching all the players’ attention.
All heads snapped to him, and the volume toned down. He stood at the front of the bus, going on about drills or strategy or something, voice echoing above the hum of the road. The bus had finally evened out, no more sharp turns, just a steady hum beneath us.
Joshua shifted beneath me. I could feel it, every tense muscle, every breath. He kept glancing toward the front like he was trying to see past me, but my hair kept getting in the way.
He sighed, low and rough. “Lean back.”
My eyes widened.
He tilted his head, voice quieter this time. “I can’t see anything. Lean back a bit.”
Oh.
Right. Of course. Because I was blocking his view.
I hesitated—only for a second—before slowly leaning back against him. My spine met the hard plane of his chest. Warmth radiated through the thin fabric of his shirt, steady and solid, his breath grazing the back of my neck when he exhaled.
He cleared his throat. “Not that far.”
I froze, cheeks burning, and adjusted just enough that my shoulders brushed his chest lightly, barely touching. But barely was still too much.
He moved his arm from my waist to rest on the bags beside us, like he was making space, but the heat of his skin lingered, tracing a line down my spine.
The coach’s voice kept going, something about something I couldn’t understand or catch. My heartbeat was loud. His breathing was louder.
I needed a distraction. Something. Anything.
So, I reached into my bag, fingers brushing through notebooks until they found my Kindle. My safety net.
I pulled it out and hit the power button like it was going to save me from spontaneous combustion. The screen lit up, and I scrolled to the last page I’d been reading. My hands were trembling so badly that I almost dropped it.
I tucked my legs in tighter, pretending to focus on the words. The problem was that I hadn’t processed a single sentence. The text swam in front of my eyes while the world shrank to the quiet space between us.
Every bump of the bus made my shoulder brush his chest. Every inhale felt too loud.
So I kept reading.
Or pretending to.
—
Joshua
Her Kindle light glowed against the dull grey of the bus interior, the small screen bouncing slightly with every bump in the road.
I told myself I didn’t care. That she could read, nap, or count the ceiling panels for all I cared.
Except… she was still sitting on my lap.
Still pressed against me. And that damn thing was right in front of my face. My eyes flicked down. Just a glance.
Just a glance.
Big mistake.
The words that greeted me—moan, thrust, tongue, heat—made my brain short-circuit so fast I forgot how to breathe.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Out of all the books in the world, the quiet, shy, barely-talks-to-anyone Aurora Campbell was reading that. On my lap. While I was trying not to think about her.
She shifted slightly, adjusting her Kindle higher, completely unaware of the war she just started in my head. The movement made her hips press down just enough that I felt every last inch of her weight.
My jaw tightened. My hand, resting casually on the bags, curled into a fist.
She had no idea.
No. Fucking. Idea.
I dragged my gaze away from the screen, staring out the window, trying to count the trees flying by. It didn’t help. The words I saw burned into my skull like a curse.
I was supposed to be the composed one. The calm captain.
But right now?
Right fucking now?
My heart was beating like I’d just run ten laps.
She turned another page.
Then another.
The glow from the screen hit her face, her lips parted just slightly in concentration. Every few seconds, she’d drag her finger across the text, highlighting.
I blinked.
She’s highlighting.
She’s actually highlighting.
I leaned back, trying to ignore it. I couldn’t. My eyes moved on their own, following the slow motion of her hand as the yellow mark appeared on the screen.
And then I saw what she was highlighting.
I leaned down, chest still pressed to hers, my hot breath ghosting along her ear. “Take it,” I whispered, voice low.
I stopped breathing.
She went back, reread it, and highlighted again.
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, swallowing hard. Was she studying this? Annotating it like a research paper?
Jesus Christ.
Her head tilted a little as she read deeper, thumb brushing the corner of the screen. Her lashes fluttered with every line. She didn’t move, didn’t react, just absorbed every word like she was memorising them.
Does she even know what these words mean?
Because I do.
And watching her read them, watching her lips part the way they did when she breathed through her nose like that, made every thought in my head turn to smoke.
She highlighted another line.
“Fuck me… harder,” she begged, voice ragged. “Show me I’m the only one.”
Fuck.
My chest tightened, a low sound building in my throat that I had to swallow before it escaped.
I shouldn’t be reading this. I shouldn’t care. But every word she lingered on felt like it was written to torture me.
She didn’t even flinch. She was just sitting there, on me, reading filth like it was a bedtime story.
And me?
I was losing my goddamn mind over a Kindle.
She turned another page, and I swore I saw the corner of her lip twitch, like she was smiling.
No.
No, no, no. There’s no way she’s smiling at this.
And then, another highlight glow.
My eyes dragged back before I could stop them.
“Please send me the video,” she begged, finger brushing down my chest. “I want to get off on it when I miss you.”
I dropped my head back against the seat, biting the inside of my cheek so hard it hurt.
Unbelievable.
Her book man was keeping sex tapes… great. And she highlighted it.
Was she learning?
Taking notes?
Practising in her head?!
Her nails tapped the edge of the Kindle, the softest click each time she changed the page. I tried to count them, tried to breathe through the chaos in my chest.
I shifted because there was no way I could sit still anymore. Every breath I took felt too loud, too heavy. I could feel the pulse in my throat.
Does she even know what she’s reading?
Does she even understand it?
Because if she does, then she’s a lot less innocent than she looks.
And if she doesn’t…
God help me, because that makes it worse.
She was highlighting things she didn’t even realise would ruin a man like me.
She stopped turning the pages. Paused. Stared too long at the same sentence.
He hesitated, hands hovering over the send button.
“He shouldn’t send it,” I muttered under my breath. The second the words left me, her whole body tensed. Her fingers froze mid-scroll. I felt her back stiffen against my chest like I’d just poured ice water down her spine.
Oh, she heard me.
Slowly, her head tilted just enough that I could see her eyes flicker to me in the reflection of her Kindle screen.
Caught.
The realisation hit her face like thunder. Her lips parted, breath hitching. Her hands fumbled as if she wanted to exit the page, throw the Kindle out the window, and maybe jump after it.
And God, it was adorable.
Her panic. Her tiny, mortified tremor as she hugged the device closer to her chest. I bit back a smirk, dragging my gaze back to the window to hide it, but not fast enough because she saw. I knew she saw.
“You forgot to highlight that part,” I murmured, half-teasing, half-dying inside. “I think it’s important.”
She turned away so fast her hair brushed my jaw, and I felt her whole body burn against mine.
Poor girl.
She probably thinks I’m disgusted.
I’m not.
I’m entertained.
And painfully, pathetically, interested.
Her hands moved fast, too fast.
The Kindle went dark, and in the next second, her phone was in her grip. I heard the furious taps before I even saw the glow of the screen.
A text popped up on my lock screen seconds later.
My Princess: He should send, she asked nicely.
My brows lifted.
Oh? Nicely? Sweetheart, she was seducing it out of him.
I leaned back, staring at her face as she slightly glanced back at me. Her cheeks were pink. Her jaw set, stubborn and defensive.
“Really?” I said lowly. “You’re arguing with me over fictional people now?”
She glared—glared—at me. I didn’t know someone like her was capable of glaring at people, actually; she wasn’t because her glare wasn’t even a glare; it was just a stare. Then went right back to typing.
My Princess: Yes. Because you’re wrong. He should send it.
I almost laughed. Almost.
Me? Wrong? I only just read the book, but I was pretty sure I understood the situation between two fictional characters better than she did.
“Princess,” I muttered, voice low enough that only she could hear, “Why should he send it when he’s right there for her to get off on. Again.”
She froze. Again.
And for a split second, I saw the way her eyes widened and the flush in her ears burned red as she clutched her phone tightly in her hands. And God, I’d never seen anyone look so beautifully alive in their discomfort.