Give Me You (11 page)

Layla sighs. “Sorry to get all in your face, but I don’t want to be
that
roommate.”

“Um, okay. What roommate? Far as I know, you’re the only one I got.” I glance at the mirror above the sink and check my makeup. I got a little sweaty at the soccer game—purely due to the weather of course, not because watching Skylar block damn near every goal got me all hot and bothered—so I’m surprised my eye makeup isn’t smeared.

“The one always running you off so I can be alone with my boyfriend,” Layla clarifies.

“You’re not, trust me. If you were, I’d totally tell you to get a room. I really do need help with my homework, and if I can scam a free tutor…then hell yeah. Who knows? Maybe hanging with Skylar will be beneficial after all.”

“Yeah, looked like y’all were negotiating some benefits earlier.”

I see my chinks pink in the mirror. So, okay, I’m attracted to the cocky punk. I’m human.

I say nothing but Layla isn’t finished with her assessment of the situation. “Seriously, you can tell me to mind my own business, but what’s the deal with you two?”

I smile at my reflection—thankful that I don’t have food in my teeth. “If I knew, I would tell you. But honestly, I have no idea. He knows he’s not going to get a hook up from me, so I don’t really know what his deal is. I’ve told him I’m not playing, that I’m serious about not sleeping together. No matter how much I like him, that I’m not going to change my mind.” I find the new lip-gloss I bought at the drugstore in my purse and put some on. “If he’s pursuing me because I’m a challenge, then he’s an idiot who’s wasting his time. But if I can get help with Calc and a place to hang occasionally so you and Landen can have some privacy, then I don’t see the harm.” I shrug one shoulder. “His friend’s studio apartment was pretty bad-ass, by the way, so everybody wins.”

“Well, everybody except Skylar.” Layla shakes her pretty blond head. “I mean, all you can do is be up front with him I guess. But Corin, be careful. He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who gets turned down a lot.”

I can’t help but grin. No, he probably never gets turned down. Except by me, but for some reason, he still wants to hang out with me. His words play again in my head.
Who needs sexual gratification when they can have snarky insults and blatant rejection?

“Deal. And hey, if you ever don’t want to be alone with Landen, you can, like, signal me or something, and I’ll just refuse to leave the room.”

Layla looks horrified at the thought of not wanting to be alone with Landen. “Um, actually—”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

“You guys ready?” Layla asks the boys as we approach them.

Something is going down though because Skylar and Landen are toe to toe with shoulders squared.

Layla and Landen do that thing where they forget the rest of the word exists and Skylar and I walk outside.

“What was that all about?” I jerk by head toward our dinner companions “You and Landen looked ready to throw some bows.”

Skylar shrugs. “Landen always looks like that. He’s an intense dude.”

I frown. “True, but he seemed pissed at you specifically this time. What happened while we were in the ladies room?”

He side eyes me as we walk. “He was warning me to not push you into anything. To behave myself, I guess.”

“Really? Have to admit, I didn’t know O’Brien cared so much.” But I know it’s mostly because he cares about Layla and she cares about me, so I get the Landen O’Brien concern in an indirect sort of way.

He doesn’t comment, just holds the enormous library door open for me.

The library smells like hundred-year-old paper and dust. But I love it. It’s peaceful. Like a church—minus the judgment.

Skylar watches my face as we enter, and I pretend not to notice. But I know what he sees. My mouth dropping at the sight of the cathedral ceilings, my eyes brightening as they scan sky scraping towers of books.

“This place is really getting you off, isn’t it? I can’t help but wonder if you’d look this worked up after a raging orgasm. Let’s find out, shall we?”

I ignore him. I’ve gotten used to his in inappropriate banter. Mostly. When he whispers dirty things to me in public, and especially in close proximity to our roommates, I still blush. And worse, used to it or not, Skylar Martin affects me. My stomach tenses at his request. He’s only half kidding, maybe not even half. My heart beats a little heavier against my chest and I work hard to appear unfazed.

We trade under the table kicks and above the table flirty jabs for the next hour while I study. A few times I go to the tables where the tutors are and get help with a few Calc problems. Each time I can feel Skylar’s appreciate eyes on my body. At one point I catch him watching me chewing on my pencil as if I’m purposely seducing him with my nerdy habits.

I ask him for change for the vending machines so I can grab a soda because I need the caffeine boost. With the change comes a slip of paper I recognize as the ticket from dinner. The ticket with the waitress’s phone number on it. So he did take it then.

I avert my eyes quickly before any emotion registers on my face.

I’m not hurt by that. I offered to get him her number myself.

It’s fine. I don’t care.

Keep going, Connelly. Maybe you’ll convince yourself.

Skylar leaves the ticket out and I know he’s testing me. Trying to determine whether or not I give a shit.

I don’t.

Except I kind of do. But I shouldn’t and I know I shouldn’t.

When the tension thickens between us to a point where I can barely sit still, I stand and make my way to the reference stacks in the back of the room.

“Corin,” he says evenly from behind me once I’ve reached a dead end between rows. “Stop, please. I want to talk. Actually talk.”

I turn around and smirk at him. “Funny, I don’t think you’ve stopped talking since we got here.”

He shakes his head and folds his muscular arms across his broad chest. “No. I want to cut the bullshit for one night. You’re agitated and I don’t think it’s about Calculus. Tell me what’s bothering you. Say something real, dammit.”

“Something real, dammit,” I repeat.

His eyes are bright, emergency flares in the darkness aimed at me with a ferocious intensity that presses me further against the wall. His arms uncross and he places his palms on the wall on both sides of my head. He’s caging me in and demanding answers I can’t give him.

“No more games, Corin. Not tonight.”

Realizing I’ve been holding my breath, I exhale and then inhale deeply, causing my chest to graze lightly against his. My nipples practically high-five his. God, he smells so good. I would drink whatever body wash he uses with a straw.

Fine. He wants a real answer. I give him the best one I can manage while drowning in the warm clean scent of him.

“What do you want me to say, Skylar? That I’m attracted to you? That I want you? That every time you open your mouth I wish it was on me? I’m not going to say any of that. Because you already fucking know it.” My teeth are clenched in frustration but voice is so breathy that it’s embarrassing.

“That’s a start. Either you’re in to me or you aren’t, Corin. If you aren’t, say the word and I’ll leave you be. But I’m done playing this mind-fucking game with you.”

“I’m…I’m…”

“You’re what? A virgin? Saving yourself? What?”

I shake my head. He wouldn’t understand. You don’t tell a guy you have a minor flirtation with that you had a miscarriage after your piece of shit boyfriend “accidentally” knocked you down a flight of stairs in your shitty apartment. Or that you ran away at fifteen to escape a mother who treated the living room like a brothel only to end up exactly like her. You sure as hell don’t tell him how the guy who knocked you up pimped you out to his friends for money or that being pregnant at eighteen made you feel like you might actually have one good thing in your life. But you lost that too so you ended up here trying desperately to create some semblance of a future for yourself. No, no way in hell.

“I’m celibate,” is all I give him because it’s all I have to give. “For personal reasons that are none of your business.”

He scoffs, and I’m overcome by the urge to slap his handsome face.

“Don’t scoff at me, Skylar. I’ve had sex. I know what it’s all about. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just not going to do it again until I decide to.”

His brows thread inward. “And what do you think will make you decide to? Tequila?”

Bastard. My hands thrust out and shove against his hard chest. “Move, asshole. Better yet, go to hell.”

“Not until you tell me why—why you’re celibate and why you look at me like you want to eat me alive only to dip out immediately after any conversation or moment that ventures beyond surface level.”

I bite my lip hard because I did not know he’d caught those looks. Or my tendency to duck and hide to avoid intimacy. Turns out you’re not as smooth as you thought, Connelly. He’s been paying closer attention than I realized. But I’m still not ready to cut myself open and let all the ugly fall out.

“I’m not like Layla, Skylar. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, a lifetime’s worth already, ones I’m trying very hard not to repeat. I don’t want to get sidetracked by sex-that’s not what I’m here for.”

“What are you here for, Corin? I’m not trying to be a dick. I genuinely want to know. I feel like we talk around everything but never actually about anything.”

I tilt my chin up because everyone else who knows me would laugh if they knew why I was really here. “I want to go to law school—and before you burst out laughing—yes, I’m serious. I want to be a child advocate. It’s a job I heard of where you’re like a legal voice for kids who need someone to make sure they end up somewhere good and safe. Not all of us had that growing up. So I’m sorry if your precious male pride is wounded because my legs didn’t fall open the second you indicated that you were interested. If that’s what you’re looking for, look elsewhere.”

He gapes at me and I do an internal fist pump at leaving his arrogant ass speechless for once. Taking advantage of his moment of stunned weakness, I move past him but somehow his hand shoots out and catches me. Strong warm fingers encircle my upper arm, gripping tightly enough to dent my flesh but not enough to hurt.

“Corin. Stop. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

My skin tingles to the point of searing where his fingers are. I glance down and stare at our joined flesh.

“You listening, sweetheart?”

Swallowing hard, I nod.

“I am not every other guy you’ve been with. Yes, I am attracted to you. Yes, I would like to fuck your sweet body into submission because you are always fighting me and what you feel for me. But rest assured, I do not put this much effort into anything or anyone that I don’t care about. I like you. I want to continue getting to know you. And maybe I’ve done a shit job of showing it with the innuendos and teasing, but I respect the hell out of you.”

His words have a direct line to whatever body part controls my heart rate. I make a mental note to ask in anatomy class.

“You do?”

He smirks as if I’m ridiculous not to realize this and releases my arm. I breathe a little easier though I kind of miss the contact.

“Of course I do. You’re smart, and funny, and beautiful. You’re a loyal friend to your roommate from what I’ve seen and even though I’ve never heard of what you want to be when you grow up, I know it’s a hell of a lot nobler than my career choice. So yes, baby. I respect you very much. I just wish you weren’t so closed off sometimes.”

I’m closed off because you wouldn’t respect me if you really knew me.

The words “I would like to fuck your sweet body into submission” just keep circling my brain on a constant loop. How easy it would be to let him. To give up control and just let go and let him give me what we both know I need. But I know how that vicious cycle plays out. Soon I’d be using sex to validate our relationship and then I’d be using it to gage my own self-worth.

I will not be that girl again, not even for this beautiful man who swears he respects me.

“I’ll work on that,” I finally say, easing the tension just a fraction. “I’ll try to at least.”

His eyes cloud over, his gaze growing darker by the minute.