Tutor Me (20 page)

Scratch that. Fuck off.

Still feeling devastated but glad I had reclaimed some of my dignity, I dried my face and walked out to the parking lot, composed. Lacey was just pulling out in her car. She rolled her window down.

“What are you doing right now? Come lie by my pool.” The last thing I wanted to do was be around anyone, but now that I was well and truly done with Callum, I decided to throw myself wholeheartedly into this crowd, starting with Lacey.

I nodded, but said, “I don’t have a suit with me.”

Lacey grinned. “Then you’ll have to wear the red one I tried to get you to take a while back.”

I climbed in, Lacey promising to drive me back to collect my car later. I should have just driven my car then but I wanted to get off the school grounds as quickly as possible.

We’d barely left the parking lot when Lacey said, “Are you OK? You look upset.”

I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t, so I simply said, “I’m sorry, Lacey, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. It’s not about Bryce, its stuff outside of school.”

I smiled at her as brightly as I could, but she wasn’t buying it. She stared at me hard, eyes narrowed. “I know something is going on but if you don’t want to tell me, fine.” I just left the hostile silence between us, too upset to come up with a convincing alternative story.

We were walking up Lacey’s driveway when Callum texted me.

????!!!!

“Who was that from?” Lacey asked, curious.

“My dad,” I lied. I turned off my phone and followed Lacey inside the house.

I took a dip and was lying in the water on the top step of the pool a little while later, keeping my eyes closed to avoid talking with Lacey. If she asked, I would explain that my red and teary eyes were a result of the chlorine. I heard a commotion from inside the house, but I was too dazed to pay any attention. The front door slammed and then Lacey came storming back out to the patio, livid but triumphant. I watched her, figuring she’d gotten in a fight with her mom or her brother. Her dad wasn’t around enough to fight with.

She was visibly seething, her fists clenched together by her sides. “He has a lot of fucking nerve!”

I sat up, concerned. “Who was it?”

Callum. Fucking. Caldwell.”

I jumped at her announcement. “What was he doing here?” My voice sounded harsh to my ears.

“He was looking for you. I told him you weren’t here and to get the fuck off my property. Now, is there something you want to tell me?” She was like a wrathful goddess in her knitted bikini, beautiful and without mercy.

I sprang up from where I had been lying by the pool, finding my own anger and ignoring her question.

“You
what
? Someone came to see me and you sent them away without asking me? How dare you interfere. This has NOTHING to do with you, you controlling bitch.” I was snarling at her, and was as close to physical violence as I’d ever been in my life. I saw a look of hurt cross her face but I was too pissed to care.

She started to say something about his not having the right to speak to me but I was already running toward the side gate, trying to get out to the front yard and the street before Callum left. I yanked the metal latch on the gate, pulled it open and hurtled across the green grass, barefoot. My heart leapt as I spotted Callum in his car, his forehead resting on the steering wheel. Lacey was screaming at me, “Jenny, wait,” but I ignored her. The gate slammed shut behind me. Callum must have seen me out of the corner of his eye because he suddenly looked up. I stood there on the sidewalk a few feet from his car, panting, dripping wet in the bikini, barefoot. I hadn’t even grabbed a towel. He wound the passenger window down. His eyes flicked down, blazed, and then darted back up to my face. His expression was a mixture of pain, fury, and longing. I could read his expression because it mirrored my own.

“Get in. We need to talk. Now.”

“I am in a wet bathing suit.”

“Believe me, I’m aware of that.”

“I need to get my things.”

“Fuck your things. Get in the car now.”

As if on cue, Lacey’s front door opened. She stepped out, flung my book bag and various articles of clothing onto the lawn, and slammed the door.

“Go get them.” His voice was unrelenting.

I walked over to pick up my stuff, bending my knees rather than lean down with my ass in the air. I came back to the car. “Can you drive me to my car? It’s at school.”

“After we talk. Get in.”

I opened the car door and climbed in, dumping the book bag and clothes on the floor in front of me. Lacey hadn’t bothered to toss one of her towels with my things. The wet bathing suit was going to do a number on the car seat. My hair was hanging bedraggled around me but at least it was no longer dripping.

We sat in silence, each staring in front of us. I snuck a sidelong glance and saw a muscle in his jaw ticking.

“Callum please drive us somewhere. I don’t want to sit in front of Lacey’s house.”

He ignored me, still sitting there, as if choosing his words. He spoke finally through gritted teeth. “So after telling Lacey to say you weren’t here, you changed your mind?”

“No!” I clenched my fist in my lap. “I didn’t even know you were here, and I had told her nothing. She did that herself. We just had a big blow up about it. How did you find me anyway?”

“Charlotte thought you might be here.”

I sighed. “OK. Now take me to my car.”

He paused as if to take that in, then started the ignition. Anger was radiating off him, and his voice was clipped when he spoke. “We have more to say. The guys are practicing at my house so we’ll go to yours.”

“My dad might be home.”

“He’s not. I was just there.”

As we pulled up at a red light his eyes flicked over to me. He leaned over to grab a handful of my clothes off the floor, and thrust them on my lap. “Cover yourself up. I can’t think straight with you looking like that.”

Could he make me feel any worse? I tossed the clothes back on the floor and swung toward him in the seat, spitting out venomously, “Don’t you tell me what to do with my body. You rejected me, so you have no right to say one word to me about how I look.”

He snorted angrily. “I rejected you? That would mean you had bothered to put yourself out there and offer yourself to me, which you haven’t, except for ten minutes this afternoon before canceling the offer.”

“You didn’t text back.”

“I was practicing and didn’t check my phone till you’d sent both messages.”

We were at my house now and he pulled into the driveway, fast. I unbuckled my seatbelt so I could face him. “You purposefully sabotaged your exam.”

When his eyes narrowed in question I went on. “That’s right. I know all about it. Ferguson told me. Just after I sent you that first text. So, screw you.” I turned back around in my seat, my arms crossed over my chest.

“You wanted to play this game with me but not risk anything, keep me and Bryce both going. After that scene in the cafeteria on Friday I decided this game is over.”

“That wasn’t for your benefit.”

He looked bitter. “I know.” There was a long pause, while he looked down at the steering wheel and then smacked it. When he finally spoke his voice was like ice. “Jenny we’re done. Go find Bryce.”

I started crying then, hard. “I don’t want Bryce!” I sobbed. I had gathered my book bag and clothes into my lap, and was squeezing them tight as if for comfort.

Callum turned to me, his voice like a knife, “What. Do. You. Want?”

“YOU! I want you!” I was screaming now. “And it hurts so much that you don’t feel the same way.”

I opened the car door and climbed out with my stuff, stumbling toward my house. I looked back at the car when I heard the door slam. Callum was moving fast around the side of the car and toward me, like a panther. When he got close instead of stopping he walked straight into me, grabbing my head in his hands and slamming his mouth down on mine in a rough hard kiss. I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let go. His hands were holding my head so tight I couldn’t turn away and his mouth was demanding, fusing to my lips so that I couldn’t breathe. I gave in and started kissing him back, desperately, angrily, my hands reaching up to the back of his neck, pulling at his hair hard, forcing us even closer together. I pressed myself into his body but it was as if I were trying to knock him over rather than surrender. His hands moved to my waist and he lifted me up, and I threw my legs around him, squeezing tight, trying to hurt him. My suit was drying but was still damp and I could feel the heat of his body penetrating it, and on my bare skin. I could also feel him against me, hard. His hands moved to my ass and gripped it. He walked up my front steps carrying me as if I weighed nothing, somehow seeing where he was going although his mouth was still moving against mine. At the door he dropped me down and stood there without touching me.

“Get your keys out and open the goddamned door.” His voice was still furious but at least it wasn’t cold. I grabbed the keys out of the front pocket of my book bag and unlocked the door, flinging it open. He sprang on me as soon as the door was open, bodily pushing me inside so that I stumbled and would have fallen over if his strong hands hadn’t caught me. He slammed the door with his foot.

Standing in front of him, so angry and aroused and vulnerable, I started trembling all over. He noticed and suddenly his face softened, and he looked at me with aching tenderness. His grip on my arms loosened and he spoke.

“You’re shaking. Is that for me?”

I looked away. “Why do you ask? You know it is.” I said it softly now, my anger abated, my pride gone.

“Look at me.”

I turned my gaze to him, waiting.

His voice was soft. “I am so crazy about you I am out of my mind.” My eyes popped at that, a sharp burst of elation spiking through my veins like a drug.

He was stroking my arm now, his fingers slipping forward to the soft swell of skin between my armpit and breasts that wasn’t covered by the triangle of bikini top. My eyes were glued to his face, soaking in his words.

“That look on your face when douchebag was kissing your neck almost destroyed me. I know that if I fuck you, I will be lost. But I accept my fate.”

He slid his hands behind my neck and tugged sharply at the red tie there, pulling it loose and causing the strings to come undone and the top of the bikini to drop below my waist. His eyes raked over my breasts. Then his hand was on my back, pulling the second tie loose, and the bikini top fell to the floor altogether.

He tugged at the two strings on either side of the bikini bottom, and as the bows came undone, I widened my stance so that the scrap of red fabric could fall.

“Do you want this too?” He ground out, his voice almost menacing, but it turned me on so much I felt myself get dripping wet.

He continued. “If not, now is the time to stop this because my self control is almost gone.”

I nodded, eyes tense. “Please don’t stop.” I said softly. 

My words triggered something inside him, because he pounced then, pushing me down, causing me to lose my balance but breaking my fall with his strong arms so that before I knew it I was flat on my back on the soft oriental rug in the foyer, and he was on top of me, his hard body pressing me down. He was kissing me all over, his face buried in my neck, his hands running through my hair. He nipped me hard on the neck and then licked the spot when I cried out, his hands running up my sides, squeezing my breasts, and soon a hand was between my legs, stroking me, and I let my knees flop apart to give him greater access. I reached the bottom of his t-shirt to pull it up, frustrated, and he paused long enough to put his hand over his back and yank it off before tossing it to the side. I was already grabbing at the waistband of his jeans, unsnapping them, and shoving them down, using my feet to push them past his knees. He reached down to help, pulling off his boxer briefs as well. I stroked his hard chest and arms all the while. Then we were both naked, skin on skin, on the rug, Callum’s hardness pushing between my legs.

Callum sat back to reach for his jeans and pulled a condom from the pocket, tearing open the wrapper and quickly sheathing himself while I watched. Then his eyes flew to mine as he leaned forward, bracing himself over me on his forearms, and pushed against my opening. Where he stayed, hovering, taut. I mewled in frustration.

“Callum…” I looked at him beseechingly, trying to pull him toward me.

“Once we do this, you’re mine. Bryce is dead to you. Do you understand?” I nodded, my eyes wide at his intensity.

“Say it. Say the words.” His voice was strained but determined, the command non-negotiable.

I found the strength to say, “But then Noelle, Jessica and the rest are also history.”

“Absolutely.”

I reached up and stroked his cheek, tearing up again. “Then I’m yours. I’m yours already, and for as long as you’ll have me. And you’re mine.” I choked out.

His eyes blazing, triumphant, he entered me, all the way, causing me to shudder. He pulled back and started thrusting slowly but deeply. “You feel like paradise. I have dreamt of this moment for so long.” He then thrust faster, harder, and I could feel my arousal mounting.

I was pushing my hips up to him, wanting him to take me even harder, deeper, and he was burying his head in my neck, biting my ear, our chests rubbing each other. Then his head was just above me, and I was looking into his eyes as my pleasure built. The primal look of hunger on his face, the loss of control, sent me over the edge and I came hard, moaning and calling out his name. He came right after, thrusting to his climax, letting out a sharp shout. We dropped flat onto the rug, him lying on top of me, dripping with sweat. While our bodies calmed down we nuzzled and stroked each other.

A little while later he lay on his back and I rested on his chest. I licked his nipple and stared up at him.

“So, for me that was pretty, um, mind-blowing. But I know you have a lot of experience and I hope you hadn’t built it up in your mind too much so that when we finally did it”-

Callum was kissing my head as I spoke but then cut me off. “Jenny. That was even better than I could have imagined. I’m reeling from it, from you.”

His words warmed me to the core. 

Finally he sat up and removed the condom, tying it up. He got up and walked toward the bathroom down the end of the hall.

While Callum was down the hall, I got off the floor and collected our things, and headed to my room to grab some clothes. I started to get dressed. Callum followed me in from the bathroom, and he watched me as I pulled on panties, a bra, t-shirt and jeans. 

“What are you doing?” He was looking at me with consternation. “What’s the hurry?”

“I thought I should end things with Bryce pretty much immediately.”

His face broke out in a relieved smile. Once he’d gotten dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed. I climbed onto his lap, my phone in hand, and typed a message to Bryce while Callum nuzzled my neck.

We need to talk.