Page 42 of In the Net (Sin Bin Stories #5)

HARPER

T his week, I’ve managed to make a tiny dent in the debt I have with the tutoring center. The several hours I’ve spent helping students outline and polish essays have encouraged reflection—on just how down bad I am for my fake boyfriend.

Every hour is a conspicuous reminder that the thought of another girl winning a date with Sebastian lit such a blaze of jealousy inside me that I gave up forty hours of my time to keep it from happening, even with research papers piling up, Sophia’s wedding to get ready for, and finals season almost around the corner.

It’s concerning. Because once we’re back from my cousin’s wedding, and all the conditions of this relationship we’ve been faking expire, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do about seeing Sebastian with other girls.

I’m sure the first thing he’ll want to do is make up for lost time. His date schedule will be full and his bedroom might as well turn into a revolving door.

The thought immediately has a corrosive feeling churning in my chest.

I don’t know how I’m going to be okay with seeing Sebastian with other girls when this deal of ours ends.

As a matter of fact, I don’t know how I’m going to be okay with …

“How about this?”

It’s probably a good thing that thought gets interrupted by the student I’m tutoring. We’re working on writing effective conclusions, and I just gave her some tips to rewrite the final paragraph of the essay she has due in a couple days.

I read through, nodding. She did well. Honestly, I enjoy tutoring. It’s fun and fulfilling using my skills to help others. I just wish I didn’t have to do forty hours of it.

Our session is over, so I give her positive feedback along with a couple tiny suggestions on how she could do even better. A nice, positive feeling buzzes through me when she smiles and tells me that our session helped her a lot, and that she’s much more confident about submitting this essay.

When she leaves, I start to gather my stuff to head home. I put in three hours of tutoring today. When I finally get home, it’ll be more than twelve hours since I left for classes this morning.

A quiet knock sounds against the open door of the tutoring room, like someone trying to get my attention.

“Sorry, I’m just heading out,” I start to say, but when I turn around, my breath hitches.

Sebastian is stepping into the tutoring room. The temperature of the small space already feels about twenty degrees higher. Surprise rolls through me, along with a pleasant buzz. It’s embarrassing how quickly the smile takes over my lips.

To add to the surprise, he’s dressed … really nice.

A crisp blue button-up shirt and a pair of black jeans that look like they were ironed.

His thick, jet-black hair is a little damp, like he just stepped out of the shower before coming here.

When he takes a step closer to me, the clean, soapy scent wafting from him confirms that impression.

“Sebastian? What are you doing here?” It’s concerning how warm and fuzzy my chest feels just from seeing my fake boyfriend unexpectedly.

Sebastian’s blue eyes are bright, his gaze resting on me with appreciation that only makes the buzz stronger.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he says, taking a step closer, “I believe I owe you a date.”

Sebastian and I are still laughing at something he just said about an overrated writer we both dislike when we step inside my house.

I let out one of those satisfied, post-laughter sighs as I close the door behind us. It’s a sound I shouldn’t be making around Sebastian. My defenses should be higher than that. But those defenses have been dangerously low for a while now.

At least I’m still scolding myself about it. When that stops, I’m in real trouble.

But when Sebastian turns to me in the dark, empty living room and our gazes catch, I have to ask myself who I’m kidding. I’m already in real trouble.

For our “date” tonight, Sebastian took me to the cocktail bar where we had our first fake date.

That night feels like a million years ago, even though it hasn’t even been two months.

We only had one cocktail each, with food, and not even any of the strong ones, since we have classes tomorrow, but we’ve still been laughing all evening like we’re tipsy.

As I look up into Sebastian’s eyes, suddenly, something in them sharpens. His jaw sets harder, his nostrils flare, and intense immediacy seeps into his gaze. A charge enters the air around us, and the lighthearted mood that we’ve been in since we arrived at the cocktail bar changes.

With his long legs, it only takes him one stride to eat up the distance between us. He’s so big, so broad while still being leanly muscled, that his sheer presence overwhelms my senses.

“Remember how I said that these dates are always platonic?” he says, an arch tone to his voice, referring to when he explained how the dates won at the auctions go.

“Yeah?” I say, an answer crossed with a question.

A grin pulls on his lips. “This one won’t be.”

His intentions radiate from him. From the hungry look in his eyes, from the way his nostrils flare, from the way a thrum of desire seems to vibrate from his body.

The same desire gallops through me, too, warming my blood and notching the muscles tight low in my core and high on my legs.

But at the same time, a feeling of challenge and defiance stabs at me.

I find myself chafing at Sebastian’s presumptuousness, even as it turns me on. After not even addressing what happened between us in his room, he feels like he can set the pace and initiate it again at the drop of a hat? And then what? We’ll just not mention it until the next time he’s in the mood?

But at the same time, I feel a strong, magnetic tug toward him, like there’s a string from his mouth to mine, pulling me.

“And how do you know that?” I ask, tilting my chin, the question clearly a combative jab at him.

Behind his glasses, a cocky gleam glosses over his eyes. “Because you’re about to kiss me.”

It’s like that thread connecting our mouths yanks, because my lips are suddenly all over his.

Even though Sebastian has been proven right, I don’t melt into the kiss. I don’t surrender to him. No, I control the tempo, snagging his lip between my teeth, kissing him hard and rough, drawing groans of surprise and delight from him.

I snake my hands underneath the hem of his shirt, feeling the hard, sharp ridges of his abs. Tendrils of electricity zap from where my hands brush against him and twist through my body, making the muscles in my loins clench with a sweet ache.

Sebastian unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall down his arms to the floor. My hands run all over him, feeling the dense cord of muscle around his back, the hard planes of his chest, curling around the boulder-like slabs of his shoulders.

“You’ve been dreaming about doing this again, haven’t you?” he teases, that familiar, cocky lilt of his turning me on far too much. At the same time, it makes me want to keep playing our familiar game of back-and-forth.

“Nu-uh,” I protest, though the denial coming out of my throat as a breathy moan gives me away.

He huffs, like he can see right through me. His right hand rakes down my leg, sneaking up under my skirt. I gasp, and arousal blasts through my core when his fingers press against my panties. Even over my leggings and underwear, he can feel how soaked I am. His chest vibrates with a pleased sound.

“One thing I love about this sweet cunt of yours,” he rasps into my ear, “is that it shows me when you’re a liar.”

His grin is a smug slash across his sharp-featured face. Suddenly, the desire rises within me to turn the tables, to be the one in control, to make him feel like he’s at my mercy.

Something softens in Sebastian’s cocky expression, like he notices the hardening of my own. Wordlessly, I sink to my knees. I feel his muscles stiffen as I unbutton, unzip, and then tug his pants down the columns of his legs.

The stark outline of his cock behind his tight boxer-briefs is swelling and growing by the second. I slowly drag my tongue around my lips, wetting them, and I know Sebastian’s eyes are latched onto the sight.

I sink my fingertips under the waistband of his boxers. The warm, humid feeling of his skin feels so nice against my fingers that are still chilly from the walk home.

I tease him, running my fingers across the waistband, only pulling it down a few centimeters, knowing my touch so close to his throbbing length is driving him wild.

“Shit, Harper,” he groans, throwing his head back. “I’m dying here.”

“If I recall,” I sing coyly, “we’re supposed to ask for what we want.”

The call-back to how he played my body like an instrument in his room has heat and wetness gathering between my thighs while I’m on my knees. Looking up, I see the sharp protrusion of his Adam’s apple bob with a thick swallow at the same memory.

His muscles dance and coil as I pull his underwear down his hips. When his cock is finally free, springing up and bobbing in the air, his body shudders with relief.

But I don’t want him to have any relief for long.

Dropping his underwear and letting him step out of them, I curl my fingers around the hot, hard bar of his manhood. It’s a light, tentative grip, calculated to tease rather than satisfy him.

His balls are tight, veins bulging up his length, the head of his dick pink and swollen, the tip already glistening.

I run my hand all the way to the base, then back up, loving the heft and solidness in my hand.

My walls of my entrance clench, remembering how this beautiful, thick, long member felt pushing inside me, filling me utterly.

A wave of anticipatory pleasure rolls through me.

The shudder makes my hold on Sebastian tighter, just as I’m getting to the edge where his crown swells toward the tip. His ab muscles ripple in response.

“Please, baby, suck my cock and put me out of my misery,” Sebastian says, his voice pure surrender.

I don’t know what turns me on more, him begging, or him calling me baby .

I take him in my mouth, the salty flavor of pre-cum beading on his tip tingling my tongue.

“ Fuuuuck ,” Sebastian groans, the word a strangled growl in the air.

Still running my grip feather-light up and down his throbbing length, I coat his head with my lips. He’s falling to pieces above me, his muscles jumping, his breath going ragged, curses and moans dropping from his lips.

His dick is smooth, the skin soft and velvety despite being hard as steel. The articulation of his tip in my mouth feels so good, I could run my tongue around it all day long. I roll my thighs together, seeking friction for my center that’s drenched and tingling with need.

Sebastian’s hand spears into my hair, where he wraps it around his fist and pulls with a sharp tug. Hot electricity shoots from my scalp straight to between my legs, where my desire turns into a sharp, hammering throb.

Every inch of my body is so wound up that I can’t help but increase my suction as my lips streak up and down his cock. When I slant the flat of my tongue over Sebastian’s leaking tip, I can feel that he’s close.

I start to go faster, wanting to taste the spill of his release in my mouth, but he suddenly pulls his hips back, depriving me of him.

My mouth opens to question what he’s doing, but before I can get a word out, he’s gathered me in his arms and is lifting me off my knees, into the air, and marching me up the stairs.

“Not yet,” he says, determination fixed in his voice. “I’m not coming until I’ve been inside you again.”

In my room, Sebastian makes quick work of my clothes before dropping me onto my bed. But not on my back. He leaves me lying face down. Instinctively, I tilt my hips, exposing my wetness to him.

His growl rumbles through the room. The low, rough sound goes straight to my core.

“I want to have you in all the ways I’ve imagined,” he rasps.

I let out a needy moan. “Yes,” I say. “There’s a condom in the drawer next to the bed.” It’s been a while since I’ve hooked up with anyone other than Sebastian, but it’s smart to keep a couple around, just in case. Right now, I’m glad I did.

The edge of the mattress sinks as he props his knees on it. He spreads my legs, lining himself up against me. I hear the condom wrapper tear, and I know he’s rolling it down his cock.

“You should see yourself right now,” he says, his voice thick with marvel and admiration. “So wet. Fucking glistening for me. It’s the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.”

He pushes into me, and my brain turns to mush. The feeling of his muscular hips slapping against my ass is too much. Pleasure radiates through my body, ratcheting higher with every hard, vigorous thrust.

I prop myself up high enough to push back against him, meeting every forward push. My ass claps against his hips, my sensitive skin stinging in the best way from the rough contact.

The ball of pressure low in my center expands, telling me I’m reaching the point of no return.

I don’t want to come like this, though, face down and Sebastian leaning over me. I want to be the one on top as we finish.

I draw my hips away from him. The lack of his size inside me makes my chest plummet in disappointment, but it’s only long enough for me to turn around, grab him by the shoulders, and haul him back-first onto my bed.

I straddle him, sliding him back into me.

His hands clasp onto my hips as I ride him, spearing myself with his cock. I plant my hands on the slabs of his chest muscles as I bounce.

The sight of him on his back, his glasses still on, his tangly dark hair matted with sweat to his forehead, his muscular torso on full display, his jaw clenched with intensity, his eyes burning on my naked body, it’s all too much. There’s no chance of holding my climax at bay for long.

When Sebastian lets go of my hip to bring his hand to where we meet, drawing circles around my taut clit, I fall over the edge.

My orgasm rips through me. My eyes close so tightly that bursts of light erupt on the dark canvas of my eyelids.

Sebastian keeps working me with his thumb, drawing the climax out beyond what I thought possible.

I’m plunged into a sea of bliss, unsure which way is up or how much time is passing.

One thing I do notice, from the way Sebastian pulls tight underneath me, is that he’s coming, too.

I collapse next to him, feeling like every drop of energy has been wrung from my body.

In my depleted state, for the first time, I don’t have the energy to push away or deny a realization that’s been chasing me for a long time.

I’m not ready for my fake relationship with Sebastian to end after the wedding in two weeks.

And maybe I don’t want it to be fake anymore.