18. Eighteen
EIGHTEEN
J ax
“I’ve never done this before,” Harley says, panic lacing her voice.
“I’ve got you, doe eyes.”
I step out onto the ice, her small, gloved hand clasped in mine. After she agreed to what I had in mind for something fun to do, I told her to go get dressed for the arena and meet me in fifteen minutes. She’s so cute in a black beanie, matching turtleneck sweater, and light blue skinny jeans.
Harley takes a shaky step onto the ice after me. Her eyes go wide and she squeals. She grips my forearm with her other hand as I glide us toward the middle of the ice.
“I can’t even stay on my feet and you’re over here skating backwards while supporting all my weight.”
“I’ve been on the ice since I could walk, Davidson. I think I have a leg up here. Plus, you hate hockey. Remember?” I raise my eyebrows at her, knowing full well that this girl loves hockey.
She wets her red lips, cheeks already pink from the cool air in the arena. “Yeah, about that…”
“Harley Jules Thomas, are you a liar?” I gasp, feigning surprise.
“I am,” she says, turning her nose up. “I am a dirty, little liar. Because I most definitely do not hate hockey.”
I keep gliding us around the rink, letting her get the feel of her weight on skates. Eventually, her legs start moving in time with mine and she doesn’t even notice.
“You’re really good at this,” she breathes, her breath ghosting out in front of her lips.
I shrug, allowing her to take more control. “You’re not as bad as you think you are. The best way to stand on the ice is by using the inside or the outside of the blade. Which you figured out within thirty seconds of being on the ice.”
“Balance,” she murmurs with a smile.
“Exactly. And if you push off with the inner toe of the blade, and away from you, you’ll get a better kick off to glide forward.”
Harley does what I said, pushing off her right toe as if this isn’t her first time on the ice. A smile spreads across her face as she pushes me back with the force.
“What else do you want to do today, Davidson?” I ask, spinning her around so that her back is to my chest.
She squeals and giggles, wrapping my arms around her while we skate around in aimless circles. The sound of her laugh warms my blood, making me want to do anything and everything to hear it again.
“We need to study,” she whispers.
“We could go back to my place. Order some food and study in my room?” I suggest.
“Hmm. Pizza?” she asks.
“I could go for some pizza,” I murmur, dropping my chin to her shoulder. “But on one condition.”
“Yes?”
I swallow down the knot forming in my throat. “You’re not allowed to go running twenty some miles on the treadmill later.”
Harley taps my forearm and whispers, “Turn me back around, hockey jockey.”
I flip her around just as we come up next to the boards. I push us until her back is pressed against the plexiglass. Harley reaches up, adjusting the beanie on my head. I can tell she’s thinking over the right thing to say. But I have a feeling that she is going to tell me the truth.
“I have never weighed over 125 pounds. Because when I was in high school, my mother sent me to a fat camp after I gained weight when I was studying for my ACTs.”
I grind my teeth together, swallowing down every word that’s on the tip of my tongue. I settle on, “You’re 5'1. 125 pounds isn’t overweight.”
“I know that.” Her fingers play with a lock of hair at the nape of my neck. “But right now, I still need their money. So, pleasing them comes at a cost.”
My brows pull together as I study her face. “What do you mean, you still need their money?”
She lifts a shoulder and drops it back down as her eyes settle on my chest. “My scholarship doesn’t cover the dorm I live in. It also only pays for one meal a day.”
“You don’t have a full-ride scholarship?”
Harley shakes her head, dropping her eyes to my chest. “I, uh, I gave it to someone who couldn’t afford college like my family can. My classes and books are paid for, along with one meal. I have that one meal set up to go to someone who also can’t afford to pay their way.”
I lift her chin, making her meet my stare and seeing the shame in her eyes. “Why are you embarrassed about that?” I ask softly.
“I’m not embarrassed about giving my scholarship away. I’m ashamed of the money that I take for granted. And I’m ashamed that you know one of the lengths I have to go to just to keep that money in my pocket.”
“What else do you have to do?” I push.
“Well, for starters, I had to attend that horrible date Saturday. I also attend a weekly dinner, one that I managed to get out of the past two weekends because of the fight that made me physically ill last weekend, and then my father apparently being away on business yesterday.” She makes an irritated noise, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure his business involved another underage girl.”
“Harley, how much do you remember from last Sunday?” I ask her.
She drops her head back against the plexiglass, staring off over my shoulder. “I remember almost all of it. It started coming back in pieces before most of it fit together.”
“Which parts do you not remember?”
Her eyes meet mine and the corner of her mouth tilts up. “I remember you basically telling me that you’ll slay all my enemies before declaring that you saved me from freezing to death.”
“And obviously you remember giving me the code to your room,” I add.
“Which I changed,” she teases. Her face sobers. “I remember you helping me out of my dress and taking out my hair.”
I glide my fingers down her silky curls. “You should never have to dull yourself down for someone.” She gives me a sad smile. “Will you tell me something?”
“What do you want to hear?”
“You said you transferred schools because boys are mean, and girls are meaner. What did you mean by that?”
Harley tuts, clicking her tongue. “Now that is a story that requires the involvement of food.”
I start backing us up across the rink quickly, holding onto Harley’s hips. She shrieks, her eyes going wide and cheeks flushing adorably. I grin at her, pulling her along with each backslide toward the break in the board barrier.
“Did you bring your bike today?” she asks as we step off the ice.
“Maybe. Do you like being on the back of my bike?” I tease.
Harley steps up to me, her balance on the rubber mats much better than on the ice. Her arms wrap around my waist. “Maybe I just like having a reason to wrap myself around you.”
Leaning down, I brush my lips over hers. “You have most definitely brought me to my knees, Davidson.”
“Mm, not yet, hockey jockey.”
“Is that pizza?” Jace asks as I kick the door closed.
“None for you, asshole,” I call over my shoulder, skipping every other step to get up the stairs faster.
“Man, that’s fucking wrong!” Jace shouts after me.
“Don’t care! Order your own!”
I slide back into my room, finding Harley sitting in the middle of my bed, books surrounding her like she’s about to summon the calculus gods down from their mathematical heaven. Her head is tilted to the right and she absentmindedly taps her bottom lip with her pointer finger.
The door clicks shut and I flip the lock so that wolf noses don’t try to come steal our pizza. Harley’s head snaps up and her beautiful smile takes over her face.
“You got Larry’s Pizza? Ugh. Zayden Stone, you’re going to make me fall in love with you if you keep giving me the best of the best when it comes to food,” she rambles, stacking open books on top of each other and setting them aside.
“You’re already in love with me, Davidson,” I murmur teasingly, closing the distance between me and the bed.
She snorts, literally snorts before giggling. “You think very highly of yourself, hockey jockey. What makes you think I’ve fallen in love with you?”
Harley flips the box open, making the room fill with a wonderful marinara aroma. She lifts a piece of pizza, not wasting any time taking a massive bite followed by another. Both her cheeks are adorably full.
“Well,” I say slowly, pretending to think about it. “I have already shown my hero qualities. Rescuing you from a terrible date and vowing to slay your enemies,” she giggles more, covering her mouth with her hand. I continue, “I’ve taken you on a much better date, twice. The cliffside being one, and the arena being the other. And, as you have said, I keep providing the best of the best when it comes to food. All great qualities to fall in love with.”
Harley shakes her head. “It’s that pink hair actually.”
“It is,” I confirm. “You had big, giant hearts in your big doe eyes this morning walking into Gordon’s class.”
She picks up a pen, throwing it at me. I palm it to my chest and wrap my hand around it. Twirling it in my fingers, I pin her with a stare. Slowly, I drop the half-eaten piece of pizza into the pizza box. I click the pen once, twice, three times. Reaching out, I remove the pizza from her hand and drop it next to mine.
Stunned eyes peer up at me as I prowl up the bed toward her. “You threw a pen at me.”
Something flickers in her blue eyes. “You deserved it,” she whispers.
“That so?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Harley’s tongue drags across her bottom lip. She nods before pinning that lip between her teeth. My body hovers over her, forcing her to lay back into the pillows. Her chest rises and falls with uneven breaths and her heart thunders in her chest.
“You’ll pay for that one, doe eyes,” I breathe out.
My eyes dip to the swell of her breasts. She removed her sweater after we got back to my place. Leaving her in just a simple black tank top and whatever kind of bra she chose to wear underneath. The two black straps have been taunting me the last hour while we waited for the pizza to arrive.
I flick my gaze back up to hers as I lift the pen to her chest. Her breasts rise with a shaky inhale and she holds her breath. Keeping my eyes locked on her wide blue ones, I press the ink into her skin.
“Zayden,” she says my name with a drawn out breath. It sounds like the most beautiful fucking prayer.
Slowly I drag the pen over her soft skin. Her breaths come out in short, fast bursts. The staccato rhythm doing nothing to stop me from inching the pen down the valley of her chest. With the nine letters trailing between the two peaks, I drag my hand back up her chest.
The pen remains in my hand as my fingers curl possessively around her throat. I stare at the word disappearing into her tank top, the black ink scrawled in my hand writing holding all of my focus now.
“Beautiful?” she asks, a crease between her perfect brows.
“It’s one word I would use to describe you,” I murmur with a gentle squeeze of my fingers.
I release her throat, sliding my hand across her collarbone and brushing the straps of her tank and bra off her shoulder. I lock my gaze with hers briefly before pressing the pen into the skin and writing the next word. ‘Breathtaking’ is placed on her left collarbone, followed by ‘Captivating’ on her right.
I place the pen sideways in my mouth and mumble around it, “Sit up and take this off.” I snap the fabric of her tank top.
She listens with little hesitation, solidifying the next set of words I plan to write on her. The breath in my lungs stalls though as soon as she pulls the black fabric over her head.
Both straps of her bra still hang loosely over both shoulders, but the lace fabric that separates my vision from her taut nipples is still firmly in place. Her fair skin in contrast to the black ink I’ve marked her with makes my mouth go dry.
Harley settles herself back onto the pillow, coyly biting her lip. The shy, meek girl I met a month ago is nowhere to be found within these four walls of my bedroom.
No.
Beneath me lies a woman who is entirely aware of how her body affects me.
With a harsh inhale, I place my right palm above the hem of her pants and hover over her again. Settling the pen just below her bra line in the center of her ribcage, I write three words and then brush my thumb beneath the ink.
“Don’t stop being this one, doe eyes. I quite like your obedience.”
When I look up at her face, I’m met with a skeptical eyebrow raised. The fire in her eyes makes me grin. She must think she doesn’t want to be told, ‘good fucking girl’.
“What?” I ask.
“Really?”
“What?” My response makes her roll her eyes. My left hand grips both her cheeks, the pen lodged between my fingers and her face. “You are a good fucking girl,” I growl. “You are my good fucking girl.”
She squeezes her thighs together and I know before the scent of her arousal fills the air that I have found something that makes this girl’s body hum with need. And from the look in her eyes and the flush crawling up her neck, she had no idea until just now.
I hover my body over hers, bring my lips to her ear, and whisper, “I’m not done, doe eyes. I’m just getting started on figuring out all the things that will have your pussy dripping for me.”
Harley’s breath hitches and her body shudders. I pull away, giving her a wicked grin. I snap open the button on her jeans. Her eyes are wide. I hold her wide stare as I settle myself between her legs. Pressing the pen just above the hem of her black lace underwear, I write one more word.
I underline that word with my tongue, wetting the lace. “Now, this one, it belongs here.” I eye the four letters and drag my gaze up her torso. “Mine,” I say, biting the word for emphasis.
Sliding my hand up her flat stomach, reveling in the way it hollows out as she takes in a clipped breath. Dusting my fingers over her ribs, the underside of her breasts, to the center of her chest while I follow the path with my lips.
The erratic beat of her heart is a steady kick drum reverberating in my ears. I kneel between her spread legs, dropping the pen to the bed beside her as I run both my hands down her ribs. Stopping just long enough to dip my fingers beneath her pants.
“The only thing that could possibly be sweeter than the sound of your heart pounding for me, doe eyes, is the taste of you on my tongue.”
I slide her jeans over her hips, and despite her lifting them to allow me to shimmy them down her ass, she stutters out, “W-what are you doing?”
Her jeans land somewhere on the floor behind me. The corner of my mouth tilts up and I press her thighs open with my palms. A flush covers her skin from her chest to her cheeks.
“Tasting you,” I answer. I drag the backs of my fingers over the damp fabric between her legs. “You okay with that, Davidson?”