Chapter Seventeen
Channing
When I walked into the hall outside of Ava’s apartment, the blue light of morning was creeping out. I had no idea we’d been together so long. It felt like just a few minutes. My intentions were completely pure.
I wasn’t there because of a bet, or because I wanted to get back at Jason. I was there because we made love. We didn’t fuck or have a quickie. Those words simply didn’t apply to what we did. Her body was so fluid, so responsive. Every touch was rapture. It was exhilarating seeing her eyes rolled back, and her mouth pop open.
It was even more exhilarating when she looked into my eyes after, and we kissed. Then we held one another. It was so natural, like she’d been waiting to fall into my arms since before I met her. That was pure magic.
I drove home in a daze, still thinking about what’d happened. I had no idea what time it was until I pulled up to the dorms and saw students walking back and forth on the sidewalk.
“Shit.” I shot out of my car and flew up the stairs, then down the hall into my room. It was 8 o’clock, and I had to be at practice soon.
When I walked into the locker room, Mike walked up to his locker wearing a towel. “You haven’t showered yet.”
I ducked down to open my locker. “I know. I just got here.”
“No, dude, you haven’t showered at all today. I can tell by your hair.”
“So, I figured I’d shower here.”
“Oh, no. Don’t try to play it off, man. You didn’t come back to the dorms last night. Who was it? I know it wasn’t the tutor.”
“I went out last night, and I couldn’t get back in on time.”
Mike clicked his tongue. “You know you’re not fooling anyone, right?”
“Fine, it was Carla,” I lied. “If you must know, she hasn’t stopped calling me.”
“Dude, you gotta set that shit loose. You can’t have girls calling you like that.”
“I had to do her in first, shit.” I grabbed a towel and walked off into the showers. What Ava and I did wasn’t the kind of thing you went around talking about. A quick screw after a night of drinking, sure, but not what we did. She deserved more dignity than that.
I turned the water off and walked out to my locker. The room was mostly empty. Everyone else was probably still on the field, but I could hear somebody shuffling around in the locker on the other side of mine.
Jason’s foot squeaked against the tile, and he popped his head around the corner. “Hey, how’s that bet coming, huh? Did you sweep up all the cobwebs?” He pushed away invisible spider webs with his hands.
“Screw you,” I ducked down to open my locker.
“Hey, all I’m saying is I think she needs somebody more experienced that knows how to ease it in,” he held up his finger and started to curl it, but I shot up and slammed him into the cinderblock wall behind him. “Don’t do that,” I pinned him by the neck with my arm. “Okay?”
He gave me a trembling nod, so I eased off and he ran out onto the field.
The coach had us do a preliminary workout, then took us into a classroom where he had water and protein bars waiting for us. There he pulled down a projection screen and showed us old videos of the next team we’d be playing.
It was mostly commentary. He’d play the video for two seconds, going over things, then do that again. It took us three hours to get through the whole thing.
I caught Mike at the door when we walked out. “Hey, come do a lap with me.”
“Sure/” He followed me onto the track.
“I needed this.” We stuck to a jogging pace. “Been on my ass for too long, and that movie was starting to put me to sleep.”
“When Jason walked onto the field, he had a red mark on his face.”
“He did?” I gave Mike a shit-faced grin.
“One of the guys tried to ask him about it, and he went berserk, and got up in their face. He was puffing his chest out like a bird.”
“Really?”
“Yup,” he laughed and rounded the bend.
“I wonder how that happened.”
“I was wondering the same thing myself. What’d he do? You’ve never attacked him before.”
“So, he pissed me off.”
“You better be careful with that shit. If the coach sees, he could throw you off the team.”
When we finished, I jumped back into the shower. I was having a hard time controlling my thoughts. I didn’t care about football or any of the other players. All I could think about was that moment after Ava and I had sex, when we were lying next to each other.
Then I saw her body, her face when I drove myself through her, and her mouth hanging slightly open. When I looked down, my cock was standing straight up, and I knew that I had to do something about it.
By the time I was done, the locker room was empty again. The coach was sitting in his office, but so far as I could tell, the other students were gone. I liked it better that way. The players were the biggest groupies of all, and they didn’t even know it.
Everybody wanted to talk about that pass I made, or Mike’s touchdown, and they all wanted to shoot the shit with me. I didn’t know what made me so special; I didn’t care. I just wanted to be left alone.
The coach looked like he wanted to say something when he passed by, but I just kept walking. That was how I got from point A to point B everywhere I went. People would look at me, smile, and even walk towards me, so I just kept walking.
It seemed rude, and a lot of people got miffed by it, but that was the way I had to do things. When I got into the library, it got worse. A group of girls was standing in the lobby. One waved at me, and I just kept walking. I hated doing that, but I couldn’t be everyone’s knight in shining armor. It was their fault for investing so much in a person they didn’t know.
I couldn’t sit in one of the booths. People walked around looking at the books all the time. They were bound to come up to me and start talking. I had to use the study rooms. I posted up there with my book and waited for Ava’s tutoring session to be over.
I wasn’t studying. That entailed reading and comprehending words. I couldn’t do that right now; I was too busy thinking about what it felt like to have her body under mine. I wished she didn’t have to work. I’d kidnap her and keep her all to myself while I perfected my technique. We’d survive on nothing but strawberries and whipped cream.
The clock moved slowly. There was no point in staring down at my book. It was all I could focus on. Every second was a lifetime, another second that I should’ve been spending with her. I was losing my mind, and if I didn’t stop, I was going to drown.
I turned back to my chemistry book. Hamburg was forcing us to read through three chapters on our off week, and I was studying ahead. There was no way that woman was going to ruin my week. I opened up to chapter nine and started on the first paragraph.
Three words in, I got an idea. Maybe, if we were quiet, and I was careful about it, I could get her into one of the study rooms. There was no point in waiting. I could bend her over the table and plow right through.
My cock was aching. The tip was sticking straight up, and I could feel it brushing against the cloth. I was going to lose it. I couldn’t study. I couldn’t think. I slammed Jason into the wall. I was going crazy, and I had to get control of myself.
I went back to my chemistry book.
She was so pliable, like clay. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to really work at her. She had no idea what I could do. I’d have her signing. My heart was pounding now. I was trying to calculate how long it would take me walk down there and convince her to go into a dark study room with me.
It was just a fantasy. We’d get caught in a heartbeat, and we’d end up being thrown off the property. She didn’t need some hormone-crazed guy coming at her, especially not with the workload the professors were giving us.
We were supposed to be having a free week, but all the teachers were all giving us extra to compensate for the time we’d normally be spending in class. I’d have to study most of the week to stay on top of it.
The chemistry book may as well have been written in Chinese. I couldn’t get through it, but I still had half an hour before her appointment ended, so I put my book away and walked back to the dorm to change. I needed to look perfect. My hair had to be right. My clothes had to perfectly pressed, and creased in all the right places. I might not have gotten any sleep, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look good.
When I was done, I had to rush back to the library to get to the tutoring center on time. I froze at the door when I saw her sitting in the room with Jason. They were both leaning over a book, and his forehead was almost touching hers.
I had to grip the front desk to keep from running in there. He said something, and she laughed. Then he looked my way with a huge grin. I could already see the bruise forming on his cheek. I pretended not to notice him, but he was leaning in closer.
She didn’t seem to notice what he was doing at all. If she did, she didn’t let it be known. Maybe the idea just didn’t cross her mind, because he was so ugly. He had his red hair tied behind his head in a ponytail and his white face was covered in freckles.
He looked up at me every once in a while. Ava caught on after a bit and looked my way. She went right back to the book and started to move through things. I could sense that they were almost ready to finish up, so I moved closer to the door.
I planned on intercepting Jason if I had to, but he was all slime. He knew just how to look at her, and nod his head at all the right times. Had he not been so disgusting, it might’ve worked. He was slick.
He even had her laughing when she got up to open the door. He moved in behind her, met my eye, and slapped an invisible butt. A jolt surged through me, and I started forward, ready to tackle him to the ground.
But Ava was staring at me. “Hey.” I melted into her smile and forgot Jason was there.
“Hey,” I sighed.
“So, I guess I’ll see you then.” Jason was sheepish, and a little subdued, completely different.
“Yeah.” Ava gave him a quick grin.
“I almost forgot.” He pulled a pile of wadded bills out of his pocket and handed them to Ava.
“Thanks.” She took them.
He stood in front of the desk for a second and stared at me, but we both ignored him, and he walked away. “Did that prick come on to you?”
“He’s the worst one.”
I moved in closer to whisper. “I’ll bet they all dream about taking you into one of these rooms.”
She looked behind her, frantic, like a girl being confronted by a monster.
“What do you say? Do you have time for a quick study session?”
She reached back to open the door and flicked off the lights. I was on her the second she walked in.