All Broke Down (Rusk University #2) (8 page)

I want to forget myself in her, too, steal some of her sunshine, and give this pristine, perfect girl a taste of what it’s like to get a little dirty.

“Deal,” I tell her. “But you’ll have to come upstairs. All my first-aid stuff is in the bathroom up there.”

She swallows, and I watch her long, delicate neck move.

Damn.
Is there anything about this girl that doesn’t turn me on?

I watch her think about it, and when she finally fixes her eyes on me and says, “Okay,” I get the feeling that she’s come to a bigger decision than just this.

I help her down, and on the way out of the kitchen, she stops to say something to Matt. He gives her a blissed-out smile, and takes another hit.

We exit the kitchen into the front entryway and cross over to the stairs that lead up to a meager second floor that only really consists of my bedroom and a bathroom. I feel a little like the big bad wolf as I follow her up the stairs, but when she reaches the top of the landing, she shoots me a look over her shoulder that makes me pretty certain that I’m not in any hurry to rejoin the party downstairs.

“Which door is the bathroom?”

“This one.”

I twist the doorknob and open up the small room on my right. I let her go in first, mostly so I can get another look at her ass in those shorts.

“Medicine in here?” She’s already reaching for the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, and when she pulls the latch open, a box of condoms falls out.

She mumbles, “Oh crap,” under her breath, and rushes to replace the box, but it landed top down and when she picks it up, all the foil packets dump out.

She starts shoving them back in as she utters an apology. Or four.

Barely biting back a laugh, I decide not to help her and instead enjoy her flustered rush to throw the condoms back inside the box. When she’s done, she returns it to an open shelf in the cabinet, closes the door, and then steps away from the sink until her back meets the wall.

She says, “I should let you find the first-aid stuff. It’s your bathroom after all.”

I step in front of her, not bothering to open the cabinet. I turn on the tap and let the cool water run over my hands. The water runs a little pink, mostly from the dried blood, and I rub at my skin with my fingers until the water runs clear again. I turn off the tap and shake out my hands a few times before presenting them to her. Still red and raw, but clean.

“See? We’re all good. Now, let’s go show you some fun.”

I turn to go and she grabs my bicep.

“You’re not going to bandage them?”

“Bandages would just be a nuisance. They’ll heal up fine as long as I keep them clean.”

She looks around the bathroom, and I can imagine she’s thinking about the fact that college guys live here alone. How clean can things really be?

“At least put something over the worst scrapes.”

“I think you’re trying to stall.”

“I am not. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to not put
anything
on it. Besides, our deal was that
I
clean up your hands, which means I decide how to treat them.”

There she goes being bossy again.

“I’m going to leave this room with my whole hands covered in gauze, aren’t I?”

Her lips twitch like she’s trying not to smile. “Possibly. Now give me your hands.”

I lay them on top of hers, our palms touching, and say, “Yes, ma’am.”

Her eyes narrow. “Can’t you ever just call me Dylan?”

I’ll call her that when I’m inside her. When she’s in my bed. When I’ve got my hands on that perfect ass. That’s when.

“Maybe,” I tell her. But I hope to God it’s not a maybe.

She rolls her eyes, and after a few moments of her standing there, holding my hands, I raise an eyebrow and ask, “Would you like to know where the bandages are? Or are you going to heal me through touch?”

If anyone’s touch could help, it would be hers.

She releases me and mumbles a quiet no. I have her open the medicine cabinet again, and this time the condoms stay where she put them.

“That little black bag on the bottom shelf should have whatever you need.”

As she searches through the bag, I take a seat on the toilet and perch my elbows on my knees. She sets aside some ointment, gauze, Band-Aids, and tape. Then carefully, she begins, “So tell me about the fight.”

She digs through the box of Band-Aids, looking at the different varieties. She looks almost uninterested. Almost.

“It was nothing.” I direct my gaze to the floor.

“You said before it was with a friend. Or someone who used to be a friend.”

“It was.”

“Your friend Carson said the name Levi. That’s the guy? Carson didn’t sound like he liked him very much, either.”

She comes to stand in front of me, but I keep my head down.

“Do you remember in the fall last year when there was a bunch of drama going on with the football team?”

“I remember people talking about it, but honestly I didn’t pay much attention to what actually happened.” I lean back to look at her, and she picks up my right hand. She’s gentle as she rubs ointment across each busted knuckle. “But I’m listening now.”

I tell her about Levi, about how we had a tendency to cause trouble together.

“He felt a little like a brother, you know? Doing stupid shit. Pissing each other off. Pissing
other people
off.”

“Are you an only child?”

I laugh. “No, I’m not. But I don’t really talk to my real brother anymore, either.”

I tell her about those first few days after Levi’s arrest. All the drug tests. Being questioned by the police, questioned by Coach. I don’t tell her how it reminded me of when my brother was arrested. How the police searched our granny’s house and found the stuff he stole. How I got taken in, too, because he’d given some of the stuff to me without telling me where it came from. Fuck, thinking about that shit used to feel like it was a different world I left behind. Now it feels too damn close. Like I walked right back into that world without even realizing my feet were moving.

Levi was supposed to be different. He was rich, smart, had a good family, but he ended up the same as the guys I grew up with, same as I would have ended up without football. I guess I understand better now why we worked so well as friends. Granny always said like sticks with like.

“You had no idea?” Dylan asks, switching to my other hand.

“I mean . . . he smoked on occasion, for sure. But I had no idea how far into it he was. That he was selling, too.”

“So how did you end up fighting tonight?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot.” My tone is a little too hard. I’m still agitated about the whole situation, and that fight wasn’t enough to clear the tension out of my blood.

“You’re not.”

“I am. I shouldn’t have even gone to see him.”

“Yeah, well. We all do stupid things sometimes.”

Her brows crease, and I know she’s worrying about her own stuff now.

“That’s another thing we have different definitions of. Helping people doesn’t seem that stupid to me.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“So why’d you get arrested? You could have backed off, yeah?”

“I should have. I don’t know why I didn’t. Except that . . . it felt right.” Her eyes lift to mine on those last words, her thumb gently rubbing over my sore knuckles, and damn if
that
doesn’t feel right, too. “Even as I was doing it, I knew the consequences. But I just didn’t care. I wanted to
do
something, not because it was what I was supposed to do, but because it was what I
wanted
to do.”

I think I get it then. That decision I saw in her eyes back in the kitchen. That’s what this, what
I’m
about for her, too. I’m just another part of whatever rebellion she started earlier today. About doing what she
wants,
not what’s expected of her.

“We’re not talking about me, though,” she says. “So you went to meet your friend, and then what happened?”

She keeps her eyes down as she picks up the gauze and begins winding it snugly around the knuckles of one hand, and then the other.

“He said the wrong thing.”

“Which was?”

“Dylan.” Now it’s her that’s pushing too hard. I didn’t want to talk about things with my friends, and I won’t talk about them with her, either, no matter how gorgeous she is.

“I’ll guess. You were mad about what he did, and he wasn’t sorry.”

“This isn’t middle school, Pickle. He didn’t hurt my feelings. He said some shit he had no business saying, and it pissed me off. The end.”

“But you don’t think some of that anger stems from what you feel is a betrayal of your friendship?”

She finishes taping down the last of the gauze, but doesn’t let go of my hand.

“I think you’re analyzing me again. Making things more complicated than they are.”

“And I think you’re just a guy who doesn’t like to admit he has feelings.” She drags out the word, teasing me with some goofy smile on her face. I turn my hand over so I can clutch her wrist. I curl my other bandaged hand around her waist and pull her closer.

“I feel plenty of things.”

The teasing stops. She swallows.

“I wasn’t talking about
that
kind of feeling.”

With her standing and me sitting, I’m eye level with her chest. I see the sharp rise and fall as she sucks in a breath. I want her in my lap again, straddling me this time.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t talk about that kind of feeling. Or experiment with it.”

“Is that Stella girl an ex?”

I cough, surprised. My throat twists uncomfortably, and it takes me a couple of solid breaths to get a hold on myself.

“Ah, no. Stella and I have never dated.”

“Have you—”

“Do you ever run out of questions?”

“Not ever.” She turns playful again, and I’m done doing this the careful way. If she wants a rebellion, I’ll be the one to give it to her. I want her against me, and I’m tired of waiting.

I pull her forward, insinuating my knees between hers, and her body naturally follows, settling across my thighs. Her lips part, but she catches herself before she gasps this time. I keep her steady with my hands at her waist and say, “I’ll make you a deal. A question for a kiss.”

Tentatively, she lays her palms against my shoulders. They rest there, her grip light and casual. She ponders my offer for a moment, and it drives me mad that she can do that while our hips are inches away from alignment.

“Okay then. Are you—”

I cut her off. “Not so fast, Dylan Brenner. I’ve already answered one question. We’ve got to settle up first.”

I wrap her braid around my hand like I’ve been waiting to do all night, and I use it to pull her head back just enough that I can crush my mouth against hers.

Chapter 7

Dylan

I
’m going to shatter into a thousand pieces from the intensity of this kiss alone. His hand is on my cheek, turning my head, and it’s so big that I feel like I’m completely at his mercy. In fact, he kisses me like he wants to own me. Not even that . . . he kisses me like he already
does
own me.

I want to feel put off by that. I want to feel disturbed by his dominance.

But I’m not.

I like that he wants me that much, that he kisses me hard enough to bruise, that he’s holding on to my braid like a lifeline. I like that he doesn’t handle me like a breakable, naive little girl. The Brenners adopted me—their pretty little well-behaved orphan girl. Henry cherished me, kept me as a pretty little doll that would one day be his pretty little wife. Until one day that apparently wasn’t good enough. Maybe I didn’t play my part like I was supposed to.

Either way, I’m beginning to learn that I don’t want to be a pretty little anything.

What I do want to be . . . I don’t know. But I know that it needs to be something
I
want. Not what I think other people want me to be.

He tugs a little harder on my hair, pulling me back from my thoughts, and I gasp into his mouth. I bite down on his bottom lip in response, not because I’ve ever done anything like that, but because it seems like the thing to do. He groans, sliding a hand down my backside. So, I guess that means it was okay. He squeezes, lifts me forward and against him so that I can feel his hard length press right against the juncture of my thighs.

To quote Matt—
Holy shit.

He keeps kissing me, his tongue sweeping past mine again and again, and it feels like a race to the finish line. Like if I can touch him enough, taste him enough, I’ll reach a point where I’m so saturated by him that . . . that
something.
I don’t even know what will happen then, but I know I want it. I dig my nails into his shoulders, and he groans into my mouth in response.

One of his hand slips down the waistband of my shorts, under the band of my underwear, and his fingers grip the curve of my behind. It’s so mind-numbingly erotic that I lose pace on our kiss, overwhelmed just trying to catalog all that I’m feeling.

I pull back, struggling to breathe.

“That was more than just a kiss.”

He shrugs, his smile downright devilish.

“Just another difference in definition.”

His lips drift back toward mine, but I place a hand on his chest to stop him.

“Time for another question.”

“Go ahead,” he says, but he doesn’t shift his grip on my ass; instead he tightens it and turns his attention to my neck. His teeth skate along my skin first, raising goose bumps in their wake. Then I feel the heat of his open mouth, the flick of his tongue, his hum of pleasure.

“When we, ah, um . . .”

Words. Letters together in patterns. Focus on the words, Dylan.

“Is there anything between you and Stella?”

His teeth nip at my collarbone and I jolt on his lap. He drops his head into the hollow of my neck and groans. His panting breath is hot against my skin. He uses the hand on my backside to mimic the surprised movement I’d just made, his hips rocking with mine this time, and he groans again, deep and low.