All Played Out (Rusk University #3)(13)

I gulp in air, and order myself to look away, but I can’t. I just can’t. Luckily, he’s wearing a pair of tight, black shorts beneath, and I’m able to finally pull my gaze away while he’s still covered. I hear him lay the loincloth over the fence in front of him, and I turn farther away, lest I be tempted to look back again.

I realize I’m still clutching the spiral to my chest, terrified to let it out of my hands. So while he removes his last article of clothing, I lean over the fence and drop the spiral onto the grass.

I keep my back determinedly to Torres, but even so, I know the minute he moves away from me. I can feel it.

Which is absolutely absurd. It’s impossible to feel a person’s presence. Feeling directly implies touch.

And yet . . .

There’s a splash behind me, and no longer able to contain myself, I turn. I watch his head break the surface of the water, rivulets running over his face and shoulders. He reaches up and wipes his eyes, and then he’s grinning at me. Wild and carefree and so, so handsome it’s hard to breathe.

It’s easy to understand why Dylan warned me away from him. There is something impossible to resist about his charm and when he focuses it all on one person? I can imagine he gets just about any girl he wants.

And improbably . . . that girl is now me.

I can’t really see anything beneath the water. To my eyes, he’s no more naked now than he’s been all night. But even so, an illicit thrill runs through because I know. Even if I can’t see.

Before I can ask him to turn around, he does, wading over to the side of the pool and leaning his arms against the edge with his back to me.

He doesn’t say anything to prompt me into action. Nor does he seem impatient. He behaves almost as if I’m not even here.

And that is the thing I don’t understand about Dylan’s warning. Sure, he’s been blatantly flirtatious. And shameless was a very apt description. But he’s never been pushy or rude, except for the moment when he stole my spiral, but even that had been oddly . . . thoughtful. And it makes me wonder . . . is he different with me than he is with his friends? Or just different with girls he’s interested in? Maybe the thoughtfulness is an act to put me at ease.

Well, if it is . . . it’s working.

With a deep breath, I reach for the buttons on my shirt and begin to undo them. The first brush of air against my bare skin makes me shiver. It’s not cold outside, despite it being the end of October. Texas doesn’t have a traditional winter so much as it has one long summer with occasional cold fronts to break up the relentless heat.

When I get the shirt all the way unbuttoned, I shrug it off and lay it over the fence beside Torres’s loincloth. I blush furiously at the sight of the dark shorts on top of his costume. They’re longer than boxer briefs, but they’re still constructed like them. And I can just imagine how snugly they would fit over his muscled thighs . . . over all of him. I look back over my shoulder, but he’s still exactly as I left him, his wet, muscled shoulders glinting in the moonlight.

Quickly, I shove the plaid schoolgirl skirt over my hips, and it pools at my feet. I step out of the garment and pick it up, tossing it on top of my shirt, and then I pause. I could just jump in like this. Admittedly, I’m not a skinny-dipping expert, but I’ve seen enough movies to know one doesn’t have to be completely naked for it to count.

But then my bra and underwear will be wet when I go back to the party. And since my shirt is white, there’d be no hiding it. I’d either have to wait for my undergarments to dry or just say screw it and go back anyway. It would take a long while for my things to dry. Dylan would no doubt wonder where I am. She’s probably already wondering.

No. Bra and underwear need to go, too.

With one last glance at Torres, I reach behind me to unclasp my bra, shimmy off my underwear, and throw them both on the pile of clothes.

Then I turn to face the pool.

I look at Torres’s back and wonder if he can feel me the way I thought I could feel him earlier. Does he know I’m standing here facing him, completely on display? One peek over his shoulder is all it would take to know all my secrets. But he doesn’t peek. Not once.

I bend, sitting on the edge of the pool and slipping my legs in the water. The cool water prickles at my skin, and before I can change my mind, I slide all the way in.

I squeak at the cold sting of the water against my bare skin and hold my arms up. They and my head are the only things that didn’t go underwater, and I suck in a hissing breath.

“You should have just jumped all the way in.”

I look up to see that Torres has now turned. He’s still leaning against the pool’s edge, but he has his arms stretched out beside him. I marvel for a moment at just how big he is. His arms, especially, are long and undoubtedly strong.

“Everyone always says that,” I say, trying not to shiver. “But I still prefer to ease myself in, rather than plunge all at once.”

“And this list of yours? That’s not plunging in all at once?”

“I suppose some things might be, but the bigger things, those I’m easing myself into.”

“Like?”

Like sex. Possibly with you.

I grit my teeth, and slowly lower my arms into the water, wrapping them around myself both to cover my breasts and recover a little bit of warmth.

“Like tonight I had my first real drink of alcohol. That was the first step. Later, I’ll actually get drunk. Even do a keg stand.”

He laughs and drops his hands into the water. He begins moving toward me, and the goose bumps already dotting my skin seem to tighten and multiply.

“You’re going to do a keg stand? Now, that is not something I ever thought you would have on your list.”

Too embarrassed to admit that I’d Googled college bucket list in an attempt to learn what normal people my age do, I shrug and say, “It seems like fun.” Actually, it seems like a disaster waiting to happen, but what do I know?

He laughs, still moving toward me, and comes to a stop about three feet away.

It’s just far enough that I don’t feel crowded, but still close enough to speed my heartbeat to a frantic pace.

“You just keep surprising me, girl genius.”

“That’s a good thing?”

“Very.”

His eyes are dark, pupils expanded wide in the night, and the look he gives me isn’t one I can classify. It’s sexual, for sure, but most of the looks he gives me are at least partly sexual. And yet they’re all so different. Before meeting him, I hadn’t imagined how varied the reactions of attraction could be. It’s fascinating, and without realizing it, I’ve moved a foot closer to him. Close enough now that I could reach out and touch him, if I were willing to unwrap my arms from my chest.

“I’m not always surprising,” I say, feeling an irrational need to quash his attraction to me, to make him somehow less potent. “Generally, I’m quite boring.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think you could ever be boring.”

And suddenly my eyes are watering, and I need to swallow and swallow again. I hadn’t realized until he’d said it just how badly I’ve always needed to hear those words. Confidence is a camouflage that does nothing to fill the gaps it covers.

Before he can see my reaction, and before I can think too far ahead, I lift my arms to touch his shoulders and pull myself up enough to press my mouth to his.

To kiss my stranger.





Chapter 10

Mateo



Her lips are so tentative at first that I barely react, wondering if there’s a chance that this is her first kiss. And if it is, the last thing I want to do is scare her off.

But then I realize that the brush of her lips was soft and short, not because she was hesitating, but because she’s so much shorter than me that she had to pull up on my shoulders, lifting her toes off the pool bottom, to reach me. Her grip shifts and this time her arms go around my shoulders, holding on to me to keep her up, and the change brings her so close that her bare chest brushes mine.

Fuck.

She gasps, and the second kiss she’d been about to give me is forgotten as she closes her eyes and dips her head. She arches her back, as if she wants to draw her chest away from mine, but her arms stay tight around my shoulders, and her tits drag against my skin, wet and hot and . . . fuck. That slow glide of skin is enough to snap the last of my resolve.

I wind my arms around her waist, pulling her tight against me, and the soft curve of her stomach presses against my rock-hard cock, and it’s a fucking miracle that I don’t come right then and there.

She feels so damn good in my arms. Soft and warm and smooth, and I know I’m not going to be able to keep my promise to Dylan. I told her that I would take things slow with Nell. That I wouldn’t let things go too far.

But all I want now is to go further, be closer.

But I force myself to ask, “Can I kiss you? Is it okay to be kissed by me now?”

Her eyes are wide and dark, and in the scant few seconds that she pauses, my heart feels like it’s twisted all the way around in my chest. Then she nods, and I crush my mouth to hers, feeling dizzy with just how much I want her.

She opens to me immediately, pushing her tongue against mine in a way that soothes my earlier fear that she hadn’t done this before. One of her hands slides from my shoulder to my neck, and it presses her chest flush against mine. Her nipples are beads of heat against my skin, and her breasts are full and heavy, and I can’t wait to feel them, to hold them, to taste them.