29. Aurora
AURORA
Isabella’s supposed to be at the rink this morning.
I know that because I live with her, have lived with her for two years, and know her schedule, which is exactly why I skipped class and came back to the apartment now. I’ve got a small window to grab enough clothes to get me through a few more days and get back out before—
“Cole Ellis?”
I freeze at the sound of Isabella’s voice, squeezing my eyes shut.
Busted.
I knew this could happen. That’s exactly why I’ve been avoiding her for the last two days, which is a lot harder than it sounds when we literally live together.
Still, I was doing a pretty decent job of it. Mostly because I’ve been staying at Cole’s.
We haven’t even had sex—thanks, Mother Nature. He leaves for the rink before the sun’s up, I go to class, and then somehow, I end up back at his place after, where he makes me food and puts on Death Note, which we’re both now way too invested in.
I let out a breath, set the bag down by my feet, and turn around slowly. “Heyyy… Izz.”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “You’re sleeping with Cole? Really? The guy you’ve hated since the second you got to Colton?”
My shoulders sag. “Damn it. I was kind of hoping you’d just block out what you saw.”
She just stares at me, blinking. “Block it out?” She cuts herself off and shakes her head. “Aurora. Are you actually serious right now? This is huge. When? How? Why?”
I press a hand to my forehead and let out a breath. “I don’t know, okay? I genuinely have no idea what’s happening or why or what we even are, I just—” I look up at her, swallowing hard. “I didn’t tell you because, first of all, this is completely insane.”
“So insane,” Isabella says immediately.
“I’ve hated his guts for as long as I can remember, and now—”
She tilts her head, the corner of her mouth curving. “Now he’s rearranging your guts?”
My jaw drops, a laugh bursting out of me. “Who the hell are you?”
She smirks, lifting her shoulder in a shrug. “Learned from the best.”
I open my mouth, ready to argue, but Isabella beats me to it.
“Maisie had a theory, you know,” she says. “A while back. That something was going on between you two.”
I huff out a breath. “Of course she did.”
“She’s perceptive.”
“Terrifyingly.”
“I told her she was wrong,” Isabella says, and when I look at her again, the teasing has faded from her face. “I told her there was no way, because you would’ve told me.”
My chest tightens. “I’m sorry. I wanted to. So many times. I just…” I press my lips together. “I was embarrassed. Mortified, honestly, that I even let him touch me in the first place. And then I kept going back. And now—”
I let the sentence trail off, swallowing down the words.
Isabella tilts her head. “You love him?” she finishes, which makes my mouth go dry, the words settling themselves in my stomach.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “We’re not even anything. We just…” I break off again and let out a groan, my throat tightening. “God. What am I even doing?”
Isabella crosses the room and pulls me into a hug before I can say anything else. I press my face into her shoulder and shut my eyes.
“You don’t need to have this all figured out right now,” she says, before she pulls back and narrows her eyes. “But if he hurts you, I will cut his balls off and staple them to his forehead.”
I blink at her, letting out a slightly terrified laugh. “And you called me dramatic when I threatened Ryan.”
“Ryan never hurt me,” she says with a shrug. “But your history with Cole is… a lot.”
My mouth twists, because unfortunately, she’s not wrong.
I think about the last two days anyway. Him coming back from practice and dropping onto the couch beside me like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
Bringing me a sweet treat without even asking if I want one because apparently he’s figured out by now that the answer is always yes.
Being carried to the bed by him after I snooze off on the couch and sleeping on his chest, feeling warm and safe.
“He’s been different lately,” I tell her. “Weirdly…” I pause, because the word feels embarrassing even to me. “Sweet. Which makes everything so much more confusing.”
Isabella’s gaze drops to the bag. “You’re staying with Cole tonight?” she guesses.
“Yeah,” I say, already feeling heat creep into my cheeks.
She studies me for a couple of seconds. “I hope he’s good to you, Aurora.” Her hand finds my shoulder. “You deserve someone who’s good to you.”
I press my lips together, not knowing how to answer, because I don’t know what is happening between Cole and me. I just know what it feels like when he looks at me, like I’m the only thing in front of him. Like I’m the only thing he sees.
And I don’t think I ever realized how badly I wanted that.
“Fuck, Prescott,” Cole groans as I grind on his cock, taking him deep with every roll of my hips. “Take what you need from me,” he says, his head hitting the back of the couch cushions. “Use my cock as your toy.”
Fuck, I’ve missed this stretch, this burn.
It’s been over a week, and my body’s been starving for him.
I practically mauled him the second I walked in.
He opened the door, and the second I stepped inside, I yanked up his shirt, shoved his jeans and boxers down his thighs in one rough tug, pushed him flat on his back right there on the living room rug, straddled him, and sank down onto his cock.
He’s buried so deep it aches, my clit dragging just right against him every time I grind into him. He isn’t even lifting my ass and making me bounce on him. He’s just letting me fuck myself on him exactly how I crave it.
His thumb drags over my bottom lip until my mouth parts and my eyes flutter closed when he spits into it. A shudder tears through me when his cock hits the same spot over and over, making me roll my eyes to the back of my head.
“Fuck yes. Grind that pretty pussy on me,” he grunts, his hand sliding to my ass to guide my hips as I move against him.
His palm cracks over my skin, the sting ripping a moan out of me which only makes me ride him harder, my pussy clenching around his thick cock while pleasure floods every inch of me.
He slides his thumb between my lips, and I suck on it, twirling my tongue around it, making his eyes darken.
“Fuck,” he groans. “You needed this dick so bad, didn’t you?”
A broken sound slips out around his thumb, my eyes squeezing shut as the pressure in me winds tighter.
“Goddamn, you look good riding me like this,” he murmurs breathlessly. “You gonna come?”
I nod, forcing my eyes open to meet his. He grabs my ass, moving my hips harder, faster, until heat bursts behind my eyes.
I throw my head back, my spine arching as the orgasm hits. “Cole,” I moan, tugging on the strands of his hair while I keep riding him through it.
He drives up into me until a groan tears out of him and he comes, spilling inside me.
I collapse against his chest, still twitching around him as I lift my head and meet his eyes. His fingers move slowly up and down my back, and for a second everything goes quiet, the only sound in the room is our breathing as we stare at each other.
But then my phone starts buzzing on the coffee table, and when I glance over and see another text from an unknown number lighting up the screen for what has to be the tenth time today, my whole body goes tight.
Cole’s eyes flick to it, and I can tell he read what the text says, because when he looks back at me, his expression has gone hard. “Why the fuck is your ex-boyfriend texting you?”
I swallow and push myself up, a rough sound slipping out of him when I lift off and he slides out of me. I reach for my panties and step into them fast, then grab my jeans off the floor and tug them on, wincing when I feel the slick between my thighs.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Cole getting up off the floor and pulling on his boxers while I reach for my bra and fasten it behind my back, doing my best not to look at him.
“Are you seeing him again?” His voice has gone hard. The same way it used to sound months ago, back when we could barely stand being in the same room.
My head snaps toward him. “What? No. Of course not.” I shoot him a look. “Why the hell would you even think that?”
He shrugs. “You tell me, Prescott. You come here, fuck me, and then the second Johnson texts you, you’re pulling away and getting dressed, and you don’t even look surprised.”
I sigh, pull my shirt over my head , and shake my hair loose. “I’m not surprised because he’s been texting all day.”
Cole’s jaw clenches. “Yeah?”
“He’s back in town for the game tonight, and he wants to talk.”
“Talk,” he repeats, crossing his arms over his tattooed chest, and… boy, is it hard to think when he looks like that.
“He said he has some of my stuff and wants to give it back. He asked me to meet him at his hotel.”
Cole just hums.
I wait for him to say something else, anything else. To tell me not to go. To tell me it’s a bad idea. Tell me he’s coming with me. Tell me he doesn’t like the thought of Chase wanting me alone in a hotel room.
But he just looks away.
He turns away from me and bends to pick up his sweats, and something in my chest drops before he even says a word.
“It’s up to you, Prescott,” he says, stepping into them. “If you want to go sit there and listen to that prick feed you more bullshit, be my guest.”
My brows pull together, thrown more than I want to admit by how little he seems to care. “You don’t care if I go see him?”
“Why would I?” He yanks the sweats up over his hips, still refusing to look at me. “It’s not like we’re dating. We’re just fucking. You can do whatever you want.”
We’re just fucking.
The words feel like a knife to the chest, which is humiliating, because it’s not as if he said anything I didn’t already know.
But standing here half dressed in his apartment, still feeling him between my thighs, it feels as if every stupid little hope I let myself build over the last two days has just been crushed right in front of me.