THREE
Donovan
Mondays were usually a hive of activity in Marshall Hall but today it was quiet. There were five classrooms in each of the three hallways on the first floor and the offices on the second floor hid the Business and Marketing professors as they slept through their free period. That warm August day, however, the quiet that normally came behind the snores of professors stealing naps, was broken periodically by a group of freshmen foreign exchange students, all girls, who had just watched their first rugby practice. Their squealing and chatter was damn loud in the stillness.
Donovan had been the first player to lose his shirt during their weekly drills and as he waited beneath the curved, wooden staircase in the center of the lobby, shadowed from the high squeals of eighteen year olds, he thought that, perhaps that hadn’t been the best of ideas. Afterwards, they’d chased him into Marshall Hall like he was Bieber when he was fresh, before he turned into an obnoxious, party-throwing asshole. But, Donovan wasn’t hiding. Squealing freshmen, he could handle. Skittish brats who draw attention to Donovan’s business? Yeah, not so much.
He knew Layla’s schedule simply because it had taken him weeks to figure out how to get back at her for the glitter fiasco. He’d followed her, watched when she left her Marketing class, her leather fashion design sketchbook always under her arm, and how often she hurried through the lobby avoiding the over-eager T.A. who crushed on her. That day, though, Layla didn’t hurry. She didn’t try to avoid the T.A. because he was not there. Layla was, in fact, quite alone, adjusting the loose, silk turquoise tank top she wore, fiddling with her high-waist black geometric shorts, sporting a ridiculously large silver necklace, and Donovan smiled to himself in silent approval as he watched Layla duck away from the crowded lobby and back toward the hallway.
He followed immediately.
There was no warning, no preamble to his actions. Footsteps behind her, she managed a quick look over her shoulder as she adjusted her turquoise bag, and immediately scowled at him as he took her arm, slipping with her into an empty classroom before she was even able to slap his hand away.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
He could tell she didn’t like him standing so close to her. Layla’s chin lifted, her eyebrows arched in an inflated Disney-villainous manner that he found almost funny. Naturally, he stepped closer.
“We need to have a discussion about how you behave around our friends.”
“Excuse me?” Her indignation was real by the tight cross of her arms and ram-rod straight posture that made her arms stiffen.
“Autumn noticed that something was up. You begged off Joe’s barbeque to work out with Mollie and Vaughn, then fake sick and you think no one would notice?”
Layla recovered, quickly, and Donovan tried not the think that her small blush was cute, tried to disregard the impulse to see if he could make her blush deeper.
“I don’t see how that’s your problem.” She pulled at that chunky necklace, then fanned herself with her hand and Donovan didn’t think her reaction had anything to do with the warm temperature in the room or the musty smell of chalk that crowded the board next to them.
“It became my problem when Autumn assumed you skipping the party was because I did something to you.”
Layla flipped her long, white blonde hair off her shoulder and, though it seemed impossible, she lifted her chin even higher. “So.”
Donovan didn’t fight the smile that had his cheeks twitching. He moved toward Layla, fingers stretching as he tried to keep himself from touching her. “So… you can’t start acting like you don’t wanna be around me. We’ve never avoided each other before, no matter how vicious the pranks got. We can’t start doing that now.”
Layla glared at Donovan like he stunk. Which, if he was being honest, he probably did, but that was not the point at all. The little brat’s haughty attitude mixed up Donovan’s head and he couldn’t decide, just then, if he wanted to scream at her or kiss her senseless. Then that constant sneer shook her top lip—Donovan thought he must really smell awful—and Layla spoke with a growl that was almost scary. But just almost. “I wasn’t avoiding you and since when do you care what Autumn or anyone else thinks?”
“Hey, listen,” he said through a laugh, enjoying how pinched her face became as he waved his hand, acted as though the whole situation had been nothing but a fun little ride for him. Nothing made him happier than pissing her off. Well. Pissing her off and then having her come at him like she wanted him naked. “You want them finding out, it’s no problem for me. Declan will give me shit about it, but the deed is done. I just thought you wanted to keep our little thing, quiet.” He stepped forward, loving how those narrowed eyes of hers immediately rounded and she stepped back like he was a threat. He was totally a threat. When he pushed Layla’s soft hair away from her eyes, his fingers ignoring his brain’s impulse to keep from touching her, those bright, rough eyes only grew wider. God, he loved how easy it was to get under her skin. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.” Another step and Layla’s back hit the wall next to the door and that obnoxious bag of hers fell to the floor. “Unless you want me getting in those guts again.”
Layla’s lips curled and she released a loud, revolted oath. “Don’t be disgusting.” She pushed on his chest, trying to get him to back up, but Donovan didn’t budge. “I would never sleep with you again. In fact, I’m still not convinced that actually happened.”
Donovan loved the way Layla avoided his eyes, how that pathetic defense of hers hid what he knew she was remembering. “Think what you want, brat. I know what happened.” He moved back into her space, resting his palm against the wall as he looked down at her. She smelled like peaches. It made him hungry for her. “And don’t get all sanctimonious. You got off. A lot.” He traced his finger along her collarbone, liking the softness of her skin, of that thin top, and watched her lips part, wanting nothing more than to nibble on the wet pout of her bottom lip.
“I liked hot dogs once.” She smacked his hand away from her skin. “Then I found out they were made of disgusting bits of pig and shit and it put me off of them for good. Kinda like you.” He didn’t buy her insult or her attitude, not with the way she swallowed and moved her eyes to Donovan’s mouth. “Besides, if it was as earth shattering as you claim, then I’d remember more than a few fragments of images.”
“Need me to paint a picture?”
“No. I need you to step back and let me breathe.” She didn’t wait for Donovan to move and jabbed him in his stomach, elbowing him to her side. “I’ll stomach being around you if you keep your distance. Stop acting like you still want me. We agreed never to speak of what happened again.”
“Yeah, well, you look good today and I kind of lost my sense.”
“What sense?”
The air thickened just then, like it pulsed with smoke, hissed with electricity. It was the same sense that heated around their bodies anytime Donovan argued with Layla. It was the same strange sensation he’d felt at sixteen when he’d filled Layla’s locker with fifty blown up condoms and she’d marched right across the hallway and shoved him against the wall. The air crackled then too because she’d fought back. Because she’d showed him she wasn’t a coward. He’d always passed it off as their anger, their annoyance that the other was still breathing. But as Donovan took a step and Layla took two back, he realized that the hiss was real, that he only felt it when Layla was around. He hated that he noticed. He hated that it was only in Layla’s presence that the sensation moved around him. He didn’t need that bullshit, it annoyed him, but damn if it didn’t feel good.
Still, he wouldn’t let on to how she was affecting him. That brat’s ego was already inflated to ridiculous levels. He wouldn’t add to it. “Nothing but bitchiness comes out of your mouth, you know that?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your mammoth ego, Donley?”
And that’s when Donovan disregarded the heat working between, too annoyed, too frustrated to see it as anything other than his temper rising. She was generally a vicious smart ass. Why would now be any exception? “Like you’re capable of getting under my skin.”
“Then why are you acting so offended?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
She really shouldn’t have said that. Donovan pulled her close, his fingers in a loose grip on her arms. He didn’t think, forgot to remind himself that no matter how much he wanted her, bottom line was, he hated Layla. Forgetting that very important bit of information, Donovan pulled her against his chest.
“That I can do, brat.”
Donovan crashed his mouth into hers, inhaling that delicious peach scent and let the strange, domineering voice in his brain, the one that came up with the most devious pranks and insults to level at her, drown out his reasonable thought. In that moment, he only smelled that intoxicating scent on her skin, felt the easy warmth from breath bouncing against his lips, how her sharp intake of breath told him he wasn’t alone in feeling that hiss. She wanted him, he knew that. Her cheeks were pink, flushed and her gorgeous tits heaved, an invitation Donovan had no intention of ignoring.
Layla didn’t act like she wanted anything else but his mouth, his hands, him leaning her against the wall with her legs wrapped around him as they went after each other like they were starving.
“You smell disgusting,” she said, pulling his sweaty t-shirt over his head.
“Stop flapping your damn lips.” Donovan’s mouth worked over her neck, down to her collarbone and she did not complain that he was sweaty and filthy from the pitch.
“Don’t… oh God…” she pulled his hair and Donovan let her, too worked up by her smell, her taste to care what she did to him.
“God you feel good,” he said, grinding into her, his body ready, eager for her, despite what he knew he shouldn’t want, what he’d told himself he never wanted from Layla. Donovan pulled her closer, pressed his hips deeper, so she could feel all of him, squeezing his fingers into her ass and she released a moan, deep and throaty. Then, as he flicked his tongue behind her ear and moved his hips a bit too eagerly against her, Donovan felt the instant disconnect as though she’d only just realized who was kissing her—the rigid way her back straightened, how she moved her head back to avoid his mouth on her skin.
Knowing defeat when it came to him, Donovan didn’t stop her, didn’t try to convince her to stay with him in that empty, musty room as she untangled her limbs from his waist, as she held her hand flat against his chest to keep him at a distance.
“Layla…”
A shake of her head, she grabbed her bag and went through the door with Donovan right behind her, pulling on his t-shirt and making weak attempts to get her to talk to him. “Layla wait…” and he didn’t follow, couldn’t as they left the hallway and she became lost in the lobby crowd.
He stopped in the center of that crowd and straightened his shoulders, annoyed, turned on, frustrated, mad at himself and more than a little irritated when he saw Declan leaning against the staircase, arms folded and a stupid scowl bunching up his mouth. The Irishman stared at Donovan with an expression that told him Declan had seen him chasing after Layla and that Donovan would have to explain why.