Chapter Two
Eamon
She’d been in my arms. Right where she belonged, finally. But then she’d escaped. I wanted to grab her and toss her over my shoulder, take her to my room and horse it in as rough as I pleased. But she wasn’t that sort of betty. I’d learned that quite a long time before, when I’d dated her roommate.
Claudia had been a tiger in the sack, but she didn’t have enough going on upstairs to keep my interest. Her major was aerobics after all. But she’d been good enough to introduce me to Laurel, and I’d been smitten ever since. I’d dropped Claudia the day I met Laurel. Needless to say, Claudia was none too pleased with me, and Laurel avoided me at all costs.
“Come on, you todger. I want to kill some terrorists in Call of Duty.”
“Shut your gob, you bloody cocktrough.” I shoved Noel harder than I’d intended and he skittered into one of the lounging students.
“Hey!” Pablo turned around on the couch and opened his mouth to go off, but returned to his book when he got one look at my face.
“Sorry, chum. I didn’t know you had a taste for that little bit of snatch.” Noel shrugged and ran a hand through his dark hair.
“Don’t call her that.” I stalked past him and took the steps two at a time to the second floor dormitory.
Bursting through my door, I tossed my satchel on the floor and sank onto my bed. I exhaled and moved to my back, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that I’d always found looked like a bunny missing an ear.
Laurel’s scent was still on my shirt. I pulled the fabric up to my nose and inhaled, as if I could ingest every small particle of her she’d left behind. My cock hardened in my pants, straining against my zipper until I had to shift.
The door opened. “Sorry, Eamon.” Noel poked his head in, his blond hair lit from the hallway fluorescents.
“It’s cool.”
He came the rest of the way in and closed the door before sitting on his bed and flicking on a lamp. “So that’s the girl I hear you talking to in your sleep?”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “You say some pretty nasty shite, you filthy wanker. Very enjoyable. Something about how you’re going to spank her ass raw and force her to worship your cock.”
I would have felt uncomfortable if Noel hadn’t brought a different betty home every night, fucking her until the wee hours before sending her packing. As it was, I flipped him off and settled back against my pillow.
“Just jump her bones and seal the deal.” He pulled out his laptop and started doing some homework for once. “What’s the problem?”
“Claudia.”
“You think that bird still cares what you do?”
“I know she does.” I pulled out my phone and scrolled to a couple of messages I’d received earlier in the day. I held it up, Noel squinted from his twin bed to read the texts.
Want to have dinner sometime? ~C
I really miss you. ~C
I wish you’d talk to me. ~C
“What the fuck, Eamon?” He shook his head and leaned back against the wood paneled wall. “Did you just give her that good of a toss in the sack?”
“I fucked her once. I really wish I hadn’t.” If I could have taken it back, I would have.
It had happened three months ago after I’d met her at one of the bars on the strip in our small college town. Despite my misgivings, she talked me into staying the night in her dorm room. We’d both been pretty trashed. I’d passed out and awoken to the sight of an angel standing above, looking down with a look of utter disgust.
“Laurel,” Claudia had croaked, “Meet Eamon, my boyfriend.”
Laurel, my angel, had pursed her perfect lips, turned her back to me, and lay on her bed, facing the wall. Though it gave me an excellent view of her choice arse, I could tell she didn’t even want to look at Claudia or her “boyfriend.”
From that moment, Laurel owned my heart, though all I owned was her scorn. She wouldn’t give me a chance to explain, always avoiding me at the international house. And now, when I’d finally gotten a chance to touch her, to talk to her properly, she’d run like a frightened fawn.
I stared at the mangled bunny imprint on the ceiling, tracing its outline as my thoughts strayed back to how good it felt to have Laurel in my arms.
“So, I say Schrodinger’s cat is dead as fucking dead can be.” Noel tried to distract me.
I turned my face to the wall. “I don’t want to play this stupid game.”
“Dead.” Noel crowed behind me. “No way it can possibly be alive.”
We’d had ridiculous long-ranging arguments over Schrodinger’s cat for the four years we’d been roommates at university in the States. All the arguments were dumb, circular, and usually ended in some colorful profanity. We were both training to be physicists, setting our sights on working for the American entrepreneur who’d brought back space exploration.