He reaches out and stills me by grabbing ahold of my arms and pulling me closer to him. My sheet drops to the floor, but I don’t even care. I couldn’t be more humiliated at the moment anyway. His eyes dip to my chest for a fraction of a second and he immediately looks up at the ceiling. After a few deep breaths, he slowly lowers his amazing blues to look in my eyes, although I can tell it’s a struggle for him to only look in my eyes. If I weren’t so angry, I would laugh at his effort.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That night, I was on such a high that I don’t remember whatever idiotic thing I said. I was drunk and I finally had you in my arms. And then I passed out so quickly afterward,” he pleads, and then tightens his grip on me to emphasize a point. “But don’t you dare think for one second that I don’t remember every single touch and feeling I had with you. I remember the way every inch of you felt under my fingers. I remember the way your skin tasted, and I sure as hell didn’t forget the way I fit inside you so damn perfectly. It literally makes me ache at the loss.”

JACE -

Just thinking about that night again is making me throb with need. She may have tried to kick my balls up into my stomach earlier, but that doesn’t mean I’m out of the game. Especially with her standing practically naked in front of me. I want her to know that this conversation is imperative to me, but my eyes are straining from the effort of trying to keep them on her face. Damn peripheral vision is fucking with me, because I can see her gorgeous tits so close to my chest and I just want to taste them.

“Tell me what I said… please,” I rasp out quietly.

She doesn’t speak, just continues staring at me with her hypnotizing eyes that could suck a guy in and make him hand over whatever she wanted without a second thought. When her bottom lip sticks out a fraction, I press my body up against hers and kiss her deeply. Never mistake me for a man that doesn’t strike when an opportunity arises. Her hands reach out to my chest and it feels as if she may push me away, but then she melts into me and her hands slide across my skin.

My fingers thread through her hair and I grip her scalp tightly as I walk her backward across the floor. When she bumps into the desk, I cup her from behind and lift her onto the edge of the smooth wood. Her little fingers run across my stomach and over my chest, all while her lips devour mine. I sit my ass down in the chair that’s situated in front of her, and thankfully I’m tall enough to still be at the same level as her lips. But sadly, her fingers can’t dance across my skin anymore.

I break the kiss and park my body in between her thighs, lifting one beautiful leg after another to rest each foot on the tops of my thighs. The view in front of me is fucking phenomenal. I want to consume her legs, since they are featured in about fifty-percent of my dreams about her. I imagine her legs in the air, wrapped around my waist, intertwined with my legs, and my favorite, draped around my face.

My lips begin to trace an invisible line that stretches from her ankles up to her inner thighs. She grabs onto my head and tugs my hair. I shake my head back and forth without removing my lips or even looking at her, “Hands on the desk, Audrey.” With a strangled moan, she immediately latches onto the desk. Audrey craves the surrender and I need the control; this is one of the many reasons why our bodies cry for one another.

I lift my eyelids and see that lust engulfs her. As my mouth lightly caresses the skin on her thighs, I watch short little breaths soar in and out of her lips, which form the shape of an ‘o’. Her fingers clamp down onto the edge of the desk and her knuckles are turning white, a sure sign that she’s barely containing herself. I smile against her soft skin at the tenacity of this woman.

Slowly my fingers catch up to my mouth and I rub across her sad excuse for panties. When she whimpers, I lift up so I’m eye-level with her and lick at the edges of her lips until she opens, and then cover her mouth with mine. Her body begins to rock against my fingers, so I slide the fabric over to feel how ready she is.

Groaning, I say, “God, I can’t wait to be inside of you. It’s been too damn long, but I remember exactly how you feel.”

Her eyes continue to watch mine as I thrust two fingers inside, causing her to arch her back into me. She lets out a long, uninhibited moan and I’m on fire. It’s taking every ounce of strength I have to keep this just about her at the moment. I’ll have my turn.

“Quiet,” I reprimand, stilling my fingers. “Lane doesn’t get to hear this, this is mine. Not a peep or I’ll stop.” Yeah right, a fucking bulldozer couldn’t stop me now.

I watch as she bites down on her bottom lip to stop herself from letting any sound slip through. My fingers begin their ministrations again and her heels dig into my thighs, so I flex my legs to give her something steady to push off of. Slowly, I take her higher and higher with the slow, rhythmic, in-and-out movements. Her back begins to arch toward me again and I cup one of her breasts in my hand. She fits perfectly.

Right as her legs begin to shake, there’s a loud bang on the opposite side of the door and she jumps an inch off the desktop. My fingers remain motionless inside of her, but my opposite hand holds her down so she doesn’t bail. I forget how jumpy she can be.

Lane hollers through the door, “Doll, we’ve got class, hurry it up!” Cock-blocking bastard.

Her eyes are focused on the door and it’s obvious she’s lost her momentum, but my fingers aren’t about to give up. Fuck the class. Why would anyone want to be anywhere else right now?

“Look at me, gorgeous,” I direct softly.

Quickly, I stand and wrap my free hand around her head and tilt it up so I can completely surround all of her senses. The second her attention is back on me, I steal her lips with mine. The kiss becomes hungry and needy. I need more of her; I’ve always needed more of her. She quickly falls back into the moment as she grabs onto my shoulders, and it feels so damn good to have her nails in my back and her chest pressed up against mine. Skin-t0-skin is a magical fucking thing. It doesn’t take long to bring her to the brink again.

In the quiet of the room, she screams, “Jace!” and I feel her clutch my fingers harder and harder as her body crashes back down.

Through her heavy breathing, I kiss her lips softly. “I’ll let that one slide because how can I resist hearing you scream my name?”

She lets out a relieved sigh and I can’t hold back any longer. As I step back to rip my boxers off, she hops off the desk. My body naturally follows her path.

“Damn, I needed that. Thanks babe,” she swiftly offers without any emotion. Then she reaches down, scoops up a shirt off the ground, and throws it over her head. She digs clothes out of her dresser and pulls a brush off of her nightstand, all while I’m standing here shell-shocked.

What. The. Fuck? Did I just get used?

My face must convey what I can’t find the words to say because as she reaches for the doorknob, she throws over her shoulder, “That’s what you said.” Then she retreats out into the hallway before I can ask any questions.

I slump down into the seat and try to replay the reel of what the hell just happened. What did any of that just mean? When realization hits, I smack myself in the forehead. Jace, you stupid idiot. That’s what I said to her after we had sex in my car last winter. How could I have done that to her? I thought I just felt used? What was she feeling when I barely said more than three sentences to her before I pulled her in the backseat and finished with a line like that? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

I pull on my shirt and jeans quickly, then shove my feet into my shoes and run out of her bedroom. When I get into the living room, everything is silent. The dog is lounging on the couch, wagging his tail and looking like he’s about to take a mid-morning siesta already. Lane and Audrey are gone. My stomach begins to hurt, and I get a sinking feeling that I just messed up another chance for us.

- Eight -

AUDREY -

As Lane and I leave class and walk to our last one of the day, my feet are dragging and my stomach is rumbling. I’m feeling sluggish and light-headed. I didn’t have time to grab anything to eat this morning on our rush out the door. I barely had time to throw on my clothes while trying to escape Jace. We only have a ten-minute block between the two class periods, and I don’t have enough time to hunt down a vending machine. I still don’t know this campus very well, so I would more than likely end up lost.

“Lane, do you have any food in your bag?” I moan. He usually always carries some around with him wherever he goes.

“I ate it all in class, why?” he responds.

“I’m dragging. I don’t know how I’m going to stay awake in this class.”

“Well, guess you shouldn’t have been getting another taste,” he teases.

“There definitely won’t be anymore.”

“Riiight,” he says sarcastically.

We walk into our Accounting 582 class, Mergers and Acquisitions, which is bound to bore me to sleep. Unfortunately, a nap is unlikely in this small classroom, where professors are more likely to call me out than they were in the auditorium classrooms I’m used to. Despite this, the smaller rooms for the graduate programs are actually one thing I have learned to enjoy.

Lane and I have claimed two seats on the far left of the room, somewhat close to the front. By this time, everyone has already chosen the seats they will sit in for the semester, so I’m surprised when I see items that don’t belong to me on my desk. Although there’s no one in the seat, someone clearly left their to-go coffee cup and a bakery bag on my desk. It must be from a previous class. People are so rude sometimes. How hard is it to clean up your own mess?

When I reach for the trash, I notice that the cup is still warm, too warm to have been sitting here since the previous class. I set it back down and see my name written in black marker on the side in all capital letters. I step away from the desk and point at the cup as if it insulted me.

“Lane… it has my name on it. What does that mean?”

He leans over my shoulder and studies the cup for a couple of seconds. I feel him shrug his shoulders and then he says, “Usually that means it’s for you.” I can hear the amusement in his voice.

I sit down in my seat and study what’s in front of me. Who did this? A quick scan of the classroom proves what I already knew; I don’t know anyone in here. So how could someone have left this for me on my desk?

“It won’t bite you, just drink it,” Lane whispers from his spot directly behind me.

I pick it up and recognize the name of the coffee house that’s printed in red ink on the side. I haven’t tried that one out yet, although it’s not far from my house. Hoping for more clues, I spin the cup around and then see extra script on the back.

I’m so sorry.

I’ll make it up to you, I swear.

Please, don’t write me off just yet.

I already know what the contents of the cup will be before I place it to my lips and swallow the warm, spicy mixture. A chai tea latte. The delicious drink makes me smile and laugh to myself at his gesture. I still don’t have any idea how he knew what class I had today or even that I attend this school, but right now I’m grateful for the gift because this will be my saving grace for the next hour.

I lift the brown paper bakery bag next and unroll the folded top to peek inside. Lying on top is another note.

It’s my fault you didn’t get to eat before you left.

I’ll make that up to you as well.

Go to dinner with me tonight?

He wrote down his phone number at the bottom, and looking at the familiar area code, I’m almost certain that this is the same number he had four years ago. I still have that number programmed in my phone from the day he wrote it down on a piece of notebook paper for me. I never had the guts to use it before.

Lane leans over my shoulder again, examining my goods. “Damn, he could have at least gotten me something. Douchebag.” I elbow him back to his spot so I can enjoy this moment, even though I know he’s just trying to have a good time with me.

When our instructor enters the room and begins the lecture immediately, I zone out, thinking about Jace. He’s asking for a shot. At least, I think that’s what he’s asking for. Or maybe he’s just curious how the only story he’s ever known could be any different. I would always regret it though if I didn’t hear him out. Before I can change my mind, I pull out my phone and send a text to Jace.