All Played Out (Rusk University #3) (19 page)

When I find myself actually considering running to the pharmacy down the street to buy a new tube, I press my hands to my face in frustration.

I look at myself in the mirror and say, “Stop this. I don’t need this to impress him. I don’t need to impress him, period.”

Clearly he hadn’t needed me to wear makeup the other night. Granted, it was dark, and he could probably only see the outline of my face, but still. Besides . . . it’s not as if I’m trying to . . . I don’t know,
keep
him. This isn’t about that. It’s about experience and discovery. And yes, maybe I’m no longer envisioning a future spent alone, married to my job; maybe that’s not what I want anymore, but I’d be crazy to start picturing a future with this particular guy.

What if he goes on to play football professionally? I might not watch football on TV, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that all of those guys date supermodels and actresses and people much prettier and more interesting than me.

I don’t expect to have a piece of his future. I’m just going to enjoy the piece of him I have now.

After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash off the mascara monstrosity on my eyes, I decide to go ahead and start cooking. If I can’t be productive and study, I can at least do something useful. Originally I’d planned to wait to start dinner until Torres got here. I relished the idea of putting him to work. But it’s probably a good thing I’m starting now. Somehow I can’t imagine Torres doing anything in my kitchen except making a mess. An image pops into my head of my counter covered in ingredients, and the food burning, while he kisses me into oblivion.

I shake away that thought and begin prepping ingredients. One of the things I did love about growing up in and around a restaurant was learning how to cook. It’s not as big a part of my life as it is for my parents and the rest of my family, but it’s something that puts me at ease. There’s a science to it that has always appealed to me. Measurements and mixes and observation. It engages my hands and my mind, and at the moment I could use that kind of distraction.

I’m making tortellini Bolognese because I figure since he’s an athlete, his diet is probably pretty carb heavy. And Bolognese is a sauce I used to help my mom make all the time. She used to spend hours on that sauce, letting it simmer and steep in flavor. She’d be horrified to know that when I make it these days, I’m usually done in a little under an hour.

I focus on the vegetables first. Chopping and dicing my way through onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. It takes a little while, but eventually the motions of my hands and the concentration finally push the thought of Mateo (and his mouth and his hands) out of my head for the first time in days. By the time I toss the vegetables in the pan with olive oil and a little butter, I’ve lost myself in the task. I’ve made this dish often enough that I don’t even have to look at the recipe. I move on from the vegetables to the meat. Mom makes hers with ground beef, pork, and veal, but on my college-student budget, I’ve settled just for ground beef.

I think of Mateo again, but this time I’m calm enough to do it objectively, to wonder what’s made me so nervous in the first place. It’s not that he’s coming over or that I’m cooking for him. It’s more about what happens afterward.

Dylan texted just before the makeup debacle to say she was staying the night at Silas’s again. The words caused a stab of regret . . . until I realized what they meant. An apartment all to myself with Mateo. No one would be coming home to interrupt us. And after what happened in his truck earlier in the week, I was practically suffering withdrawals from his hands and his mouth and all of him.

How is it that I could be addicted to him already? That I could crave him this much? I don’t know, but I do know I’ve never had this kind of physical connection with anyone. And maybe he is dangerous. Maybe he’s a much bigger catalyst than I bargained for, but I’m willing to risk it. For the orgasms. And okay, the laughs and the companionship and the adventure, too. And for him. That indefinable, overwhelming, annoying, and endearing thing that is just Torres.

I’m ready to sleep with him.

The thought hits me out of nowhere and has my heart behaving erratically again, so I force my attention back to my sauce.

I’ve finished adding the milk and tomatoes and spices and have left the sauce to simmer while I clean up when the knock comes at the door. My hands are covered in the remnants of my ingredients, and my stomach swoops so low I could swear it settles somewhere around my knees. I nudge the sink faucet with my forearm and start washing my hands as I call out, “Come in.”

I hear the door open, and I close my eyes and take a few quick, steadying breaths as I soap up my hands. I tell myself to open my eyes. That he’s going to come around the corner any second, and I’m going to look ridiculous washing my hands with my eyes closed, but everything inside of me is in a frenzy. And I know . . .
know
that “butterflies in your stomach” is just an expression, just something parents say to their kids, but all the same, I could swear that I feel every flap of their wings.

My eyes are still closed when I feel the buzz of his presence at my back, then his large hands settle onto my hips, curling around to stretch across my lower belly. I feel something ghost over the skin at my neck. His lips? His nose? And then he murmurs against my ear, “Something smells delicious.”

I swallow, fighting off a shiver. This is . . . it’s . . . so strange. And yet, somehow not. It shouldn’t feel natural to have him in my house with me while I do everyday things like cook. He’s from this other world, and in my head he’s so intertwined with the list that is so
not me
. He shouldn’t fit here.

But I’m learning that the difference between what should be and what
is
matters very little where he is concerned.

“I’m making tortellini,” I tell him, belatedly realizing I should have asked him if he had any allergies or dislikes or—

“Sounds great.”

I finally open my eyes as he wraps his arms fully around my middle and noses some of my hair to the side to kiss the corner of my jaw.

“Do you need me to do anything?” he asks.

Make me feel like you did the other night. Put me out of the misery I’ve been in the last several days without you.

“No, the sauce is pretty much done. I’m about to put the pasta on to boil. When that’s done we’ll be good to go. I might throw together a salad.”

He turns me around and presses me back against the sink. “So what you’re telling me is that we’ll have a little time to kill while the pasta is cooking?”

He leans down to kiss me, but I put my hand up to block him. “I haven’t put the pasta on
yet
.”

“Well, do that so we can get to killing time.” He punctuates the command with a swat to my bum, and I gape at him.

“You did
not
just do that.”

“I did. And I liked it.” He rubs his hands together like some cheesy movie villain and says, “In fact, I think I might want to do it again.”

I dart away from him, spinning so that he’s nowhere near my ass.

“You stay there,” I order, opening the fridge to get the tortellini. Even though inside I’m thinking, Screw the pasta. Screw everything. Clearly I’m not the only one craving the next course after the other night, and I’m so very tempted just to abandon dinner to drag him back to my bedroom.

“You’ve got one minute, woman. And then pasta or no, I’m coming for you.”

My heart thumps with nerves or anticipation or something else I can’t identify. Something that has only ever happened with him, so I don’t know what to call it.

I start opening the package of tortellini and say, “I can’t put it in until the water is boiling. And even then, I’ll still have to stir it occasionally.”

“Fifty seconds.”

“If I don’t watch the pot, they could stick to the bottom or stick together.”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“Torres!”

“Five-second penalty. It’s Mateo to you.”

I glare at him, and rush to fill a pot with water. By the time I put it on the stove, I only have a few seconds left. I get the burner turned on, and then I’m practically tackled by a six-foot-two (maybe six-foot-three) overgrown child. He crowds me against one side of the archway that separates the kitchen from the little dining nook, and his hands slide unabashedly down to cup my ass. He kisses me, but I break away, turning my face to the side so I can laugh.

“You are ridiculous. And you can’t blame me if the food ends up being horrible.”

“I won’t blame you for that. I’ll just blame you for torture.”

“Torture, is it? Really?”

He catches my bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly. “Keeping me away from this,” he says. “Definitely qualifies as cruel and unusual.”

I close my eyes. How am I supposed to remain cool around him when he says things like that?
How?

“One minute,” I tell him. “You’ve got one minute. Then I need to check on the sauce and start on a salad.”

Cockily, he lifts one dark brow and says, “Guess I better make that minute count.”

His hands slide from my ass down to the tops of my thighs, and he heaves me up so that I’m forced to wrap my legs around his waist. I throw my arms over his shoulders to hold on, but he keeps me up with just his hands and the crush of his body against mine as if I weigh nothing at all.

“Fifty seconds,” I tell him. I mean for it to sound sarcastic, but instead it comes out breathy and soft, and he groans in response.

“Cruel and unusual,” he says again before slanting his mouth over mine.

I expect the kiss to be fiery and hot and fast, but instead it’s teasing and sensual. He seduces me one stroke of his tongue at a time. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. And every time he withdraws, I arch up into him, trying to keep him with me. In seconds, the kitchen disappears, and it’s only me and him and all the places our bodies are touching and all the places they aren’t. His fingers dig into my thighs, and the small bite of pain somehow heightens everything else. I drag my hands over the slopes of his shoulders, down to his muscled biceps and back up again, and when he slows the kiss, it’s my turn to dig my fingernails into his skin. Because I don’t want slow. I want everything.

He pulls back, grazing his lips over mine again and again without actually kissing me. I groan in frustration, and he says, “Minute’s up.”

I tighten my legs around him and breathe, “Have another minute.”

When we finally come up for air, I’ve boiled half my water away and have to refill the pot. This time I manage to resist him long enough to make a salad, get the water back to boiling, and toss in the tortellini. Fifteen minutes later, we fill our plates and head for the table. Once we’re sitting, I realize that I’d been so ridiculously worried about what I was going to say when I saw him or how I was going to look and how the night would end that I didn’t even think to be nervous about the other scary part of the evening.

Dinner. Like an actual dinner date. With conversation. And awkward silences. And
more
awkward silences. I pick up a fork and push at my food, trying to think of what we could possibly talk about. Then he groans.

“Good?” I ask hopefully.

He gestures with his fork while making another series of appreciative noises that despite not being words somehow read as
Oh my God, yes.

“It’s my mother’s recipe.”

“It’s amazing.
You’re
amazing.”

I look down at my plate, hiding a small, satisfied smile. “Thank you. But it’s just pasta. It’s not as if I made the tortellini from scratch.”

“None of that,” he says, pointing his fork at me. “This is excellent. The end. Full stop.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I say again.

“One thing, though. You have to promise me never to cook for any of our friends.”

My stomach clenches at the word “our.” I still haven’t checked off that particular item—“Make new friends”—despite the Frisbee game and the party. I’m waiting for it to feel right. For it to feel like I belong to them and they belong to me. But I realize then that Torres counts. Whatever else he might be . . . we’re friends.

“Why can’t I cook for them?”

“Because then they’ll always want you to cook. And
this
. . .” He circles his fork over his plate. “This is
mine
.”

I smile and shake my head. “So selfish.”

“With you? Hell yes.”

“With my food, you mean.”

He suddenly looks serious. “With
you
. No more calling that ginger dude to help you with your list. I don’t like him.”

“You don’t
know
him.”

“Sure, I do. Matty something or other. He came to a few parties earlier this year with Dylan. And what kind of name is Matty anyway?”

“Selfish
and
jealous. You’re not doing so hot tonight.” I lift my eyebrows in mock disapproval. “Anyway, Matty is just a friend. And it’s not like you have to do
everything
on the list with me.”

“It
is
like that.”

“No, Mateo. It isn’t. Besides, you’re busy. You have practice and games and classes. You might not always be around. School is out in about a month, and then . . .”

“ And then what?”

“And then I graduate.”

When a stunned silence follows, I realize I maybe should have broached that particular topic with a bit more finesse. Until now, he’d been continually shoving pasta into his mouth and still managing to hold up his end of the conversation. Now he does neither.

“You’re twenty,” he says finally. “You can’t be graduating.”

“I am. I came in with all my requirements pretty much out of the way. And since I don’t have a job, I petitioned to take more than eighteen hours each semester.”

“So that’s what the list is. One last hurrah. And then what?” He fiddles with the napkin beside his plate for a second, and then continues: “You leave?”

Am I imagining the tension around his mouth and his shoulders?

“Not immediately. None of the graduate programs I’m applying to allow me to start in the spring semester, so I got a job as a research assistant for one of my professors. That will last me through the end of the school year. I’ve applied for a few summer internships, and hopefully one of them will work out, and then after that, theoretically, graduate school.”