Page 12

Jude
Ocean eyes, and fuckable lips.Two thoughts I force myself to bury as I watch her, inhaling smoke and blowing it out past her lips.
It takes everything in me not to kiss her. To actually kiss her.
Coach will have my nuts in a vice if I so much as think about it.His words.But the problem is, I’m already thinking about it. Have been since her soft body crashed into mine in the Masons’ hallway last night.
I was an asshole for standing there, drinking her in while not acknowledging her words. And I’m an even bigger one for the way I’ve looked at her tonight, as if she’s ruined all my fucking plans for making it through college in one piece, not shitting on Coach’s hospitality and waltzing my way right out of his good graces. I need the play time. I need the advice and one-on-one not many are willing to give as well as he does. Which would all go down the drain for any one of us if he were to find out we went against his wishes.
The other truth is that this girl beside me stunned me stupid last night. Half asleep, blond hair messy, blue eyes roving up and down my body without restraint. It knocked me off a pedestal I hadn’t realized I was standing on. One where I was sure I couldn’t give two shits what Coach’s daughter or her friend looked like. It took far too long for me to piece together that she was likely the friend of the daughter he was talking about, and it pissed me the fuck off because she’s drop-dead gorgeous.
But I’m not sixteen, and I know how to keep my dick in my pants.
Unlike Boss.
Coach will have all our asses for his antics alone, regardless of the rest of us upholding his rule. And regardless of the thoughts that have been running on a near-constant loop in my mind since last night—ones I don’t plan on acting on. Which is why he won’t find out.
What’s done is done with Boss, so we’re all keeping our mouths shut about it. It helps that he’s a genuinely good guy and an even better friend and teammate, and that Addy isn’t half bad herself. They’re not just fucking around, those two, and that helps, too. But Addy didn’t notice her friend went missing tonight because of how wrapped up in Boss she is. Didn’t sense something was amiss.
And I might not have either, had I not been so intent on watching her every damn move.
I rake a hand through my hair and pull my hood over my head, drawing myself back into the present, observing Declan as she watches smoke billow from her mouth and dissolve into the air.
My lips involuntarily tilt at the image, something approximating a smile.
Blue eyes fix to mine, and she begins to smile, too. Her lips,those fucking lips, curve higher and higher at both ends as she stares at me. I can’t tell if she’s amused or happy or simply drunk, but the sight of it drops a dose of relief into my bloodstream, phantom hands releasing their grip on my chest.
I saw the panic in her eyes in the kitchen. Saw her hurrying through the party, desperate to find her way outside. I’ve seen enough in my twenty years to know what it looks like when someone is drowning, and she was caught beneath the surface, dragging deeper into the current.
The pull to follow her out here became impossible to ignore.
______
“Declan,” I say sometime later. The six letters of her name roll off my tongue like the stroke of a kiss, making me want to tastemyname, onhertongue.
“Hmm?” she responds, eyes still glued to mine.
“You good?” I ask. I know she knows what I’m asking. That I saw the anxiety and panic attack consume her, even if no one else took notice.
She tilts her face away from me and up toward the sliver of moon hooked in the sky, nodding. “Yeah, I’m good. Thank you.”
I’m not sure what she’s thanking me for, though. It was clear she was already in control by the time I walked out here and sat down beside her. So, I choose not to acknowledge her thanks because it isn’t deserved. Not as my gaze marks every dip and curve of the profile of her face. Falling over her eyes, down her nose, and over her lips. Lips I would like to defile in more ways than one.
I drag my knees up, arms hanging loosely over them, and force my thoughts to travel in a more wholesome direction. As wholesome as I can, anyhow. Which isn’t easy with her sitting beside me.
“I should probably go find Addy,” she says, but her tone betrays her words, telling me she’d rather stay here instead.
I respond with a nod, bringing the joint to my lips and taking a deep pull, releasing a cloud of smoke between us as she reluctantly comes to a stand.
“See you around, I guess,” she says. And, waiting a beat for a response I don’t give her, she finally walks away.
______
“Hey, you claiming her, man?” Parker rounds the building, eyes glued to her ass as she leaves. I want to deck him for openly checking her out, but I have no right. I was doing the same two seconds ago.
“No, I’m not fucking claiming her. We’re not cavemen.”
“You know what I mean,” he responds.