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I feel so deliciously used.

My nipples harden every time I feel that deep low ache between my thighs, which is basically every time I move.

Even now, as I slide into my desk chair. I’m early, for once in my life. And I’m happy the only other person here to see me and my sitting-down-of-shame is Angie.

“Ooh,” she makes a perfect “O” with her mouth and then snickers as she slips the bookbag off her shoulders. “Looks like you’re having a good time, huh?”

I haven’t spoken to her since that first time, even though she’s been friendly.

I just don’t make friends. Or have them. I don’t want them and I wouldn’t make a good friend in return either. So there’s no point.

But I’ve never been too good to brag.

“You could say that,” I tell her with an expression of pure content.

“So … ” she pries, “who is he?” She talks while opening her textbook and her notebook, filled with what looks like an actual outline and highlighted words.

It’s obvious she actually gives a fuck about chemistry … or at least about passing the class. Good for her.

Before I can even open my mouth, I catch a glimpse of Dean from the corner of my eye. With his height and broad shoulders, he takes up the whole frame before walking in. I can feel my body react to his. The way my heart skips, my thighs tighten. I’m more than acutely aware of his presence.

I bite down on my lip, raise a brow and nod my head in his direction although I keep my eyes on Angie’s.

I can hear him stride across the room and take the seat next to mine, but all the while Angie’s expression drops. Her back stiffens and she forces a smile that’s not genuine.

“Just be careful,” she mutters and then goes back to her notes.

That’s not the reaction I was expecting, and my gaze lingers on her longer than it should.

I don’t like it. Not in the least.

The entire class I keep looking at her.

Even when Dean puts his hand on my thigh. Even when he leans over and covertly whispers dirty things in my ear. Angie keeps taking glances back at him.

Before we’re even halfway through class I pass him a note and feel like I’m back in fucking high school. This shit is stupid. All of it. But I guess I’m stupid because I keep falling for this shit with Dean.

The question is simple; did you fuck her?

I get a what-the-fuck expression in return from him, with a furious headshake and then a cocky smirk. The note he sends back pisses me off. He likes that I’m jealous.

I’m not fucking jealous.

This right here, this is why I don’t have friends. Or boyfriends or fuck buddies or anyone in my life.

I have to force myself to relax and the moment I do, finally listening to the professor, Angie gives me a friendly smile. Genuinely. Maybe I’m just fucking crazy.

I’m irritated, all because of one look from a girl I don’t even know. That’s not me.

Just as I’m settling into my seat, shaking it off, Dean’s heavy hand lands on my desk holding a scrap of paper.

A note. You want a list of the girls I’ve fucked?

“Oh my God, shut up.” I don’t hide my irritation as I mumble the pissed off response.

Professor Grant glances our way as Dean chuckles. At least he’s having a good time with it all.

He lowers his hand to my thigh, scooting his desk closer to mine as quietly as he can. He’s a big brute in that tiny desk and can’t do a damn thing quietly. I don’t know why it makes me smile like it does. He plays it off, mouthing he’s sorry to the professor and I find myself trying to bite back the humor.

But I instantly realize why he moved closer when he slips his hand onto my thigh.

I should look to see if the professor sees, or maybe even Angie. But my dirty mind instantly looks to see what time it is and how many minutes are left before class will be over.

When I peek at him, knowing there’s only ten minutes or so remaining, he’s sinking his teeth into his lower lip, giving me a sexy grin as he squeezes my upper thigh and then lets his fingers drift closer and closer to where they want to be.

I’m in jeans so there’s no way he’s going to be doing anything too scandalous. But I like his ownership of me. I like that he likes me and doesn’t mind showing people.

I like that I like him too.

Even if Angie has a stick up her ass about it.

And so I part my thighs just a bit, enough for him to slip his fingertips over the top of my pussy, pressing the seam of the jeans against my clit.

My breath hitches and I look straight ahead, as if my body isn’t igniting under his touch.

He doesn’t try to get me off, and he’s gentle more than anything else. Petting me and pausing when my eyes close.

It’s over before it really gets started though.

The sound of everyone packing up is the cue he needs to take back his hand. I’m riding a high from the forbidden foreplay and I don’t acknowledge when Angie says goodbye. I hear her, but I pretend I don’t. Maybe that makes me callous or catty or something else. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I didn’t come here to make friends.

Although I didn’t come here for Dean either.

We’re the last two left behind. It’s becoming a habit. One I’m starting to grow fond of.

“What’s going on tonight?” he asks me and I don’t answer him.

He’s a tornado. Destructive and all-consuming. And like a natural disaster, I’m not quite sure how to handle Dean or if I can use this situation to my advantage.

But one thing is certain, there’s going to be a path of wreckage left in his wake.

“I’m staying home this weekend I think,” I answer him honestly. I’ll be alone in the house, planning and considering all my options.

“Like at your parents’?” he asks me.

“No, just here.” The thought of going home to my mother’s is one I don’t give the time of day.

“Gotcha,” he says, moving the bookbag he didn’t even touch on top of his desk.

“Well, I’m heading out early tomorrow morning. You want to hang out tonight?” he asks me and then winks. He’s not going to be here this weekend. My heart slams hard, although on the surface I keep my body relaxed. I had plans. Plans that were easy because he’d be at the frat party. But maybe this means I can save him from all this. Maybe it’s meant to be this way.

“Come on, don’t make me go to bed all alone,” Dean pouts when I don’t answer fast enough for him.

I can’t help but laugh.

“You want to fuck me, but not bring me home to your mother, that it?” I tease him back.

“You want to come? I’ll bring you.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

“I’m not staying there long; you want to come with?”

“I don’t think I’m the type of girl you bring home to your parents.” And I have things planned. I don’t tell him that part. He can’t know.

“Firstly, you’re blind and delusional. Secondly, I hate my mother.”

“So bringing me home would be to spite her?” Suddenly feeling lightened by the situation, a smirk graces my face. “Like to piss her off?” It’s another game.

“You’re something else, you know that?” he says, not answering my question.

If only he knew.

“What about rugby, don’t you guys have a game or something?” I ask him, feeling the itch and stir of anxiety deep in my stomach. It radiates outward as he answers.

“It’s not important, and the guys know I’m going. I’m not like an official member anyway. It was just Kevin’s idea that I join.”

“You close to Kevin?” I ask him.

“His dad really, he’s paying my ride here.”

“Why?”

“I got into some stuff, beat a guy pretty fucking bad and Jack’s friends with both my uncle and the judge. He said he’d watch me and offered to ‘set me straight.’” He huffs a laugh, but it’s obvious that Dean’s grateful for it.

“He sounds like a good guy.” I breathe out the words although I feel empty saying them.

“It’s a favor to my uncle. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

He runs his fingers along his stubble as he looks up at the clock. He’s got another class to go to and we’re already taking too long, but I have to ask. “Why’d you get into a fight with that other guy?”

“He was just getting a little too handsy.”

“With you?” I joke, but he doesn’t even smile.

There’s a hardness about Dean, just beneath the cocky and joking exterior. “With this chick. I was drunk and so were they. Turns out it was his wife.”

“So he was just flirting with his wife and you beat the shit out of him?” I quip, but again he doesn’t laugh.

“If flirting means grabbing her by her hair to pull her out of the bar, then yeah. Sure.”

“Well why the hell did you get locked up then?” I ask him, feeling my heart drop and the image of what he’s describing playing in my head.

“She lied. She didn’t want her husband to go to jail.”

Sickness coils in my stomach. “I’m sorry.”

“Yo,” I hear someone call out and turn to see Daniel in the doorway of the class.

“What the hell is he doing here?” I mumble.

He nods over at Dean, his face cleanly shaven and his hair pushed back. “You got a minute?” he asks Dean and my heart hammers hard. Hard and fast, like I’ve just been caught.

Daniel doesn’t even look at me. And I wonder if he knows something he shouldn’t. Or if I’m maybe missing a piece to the puzzle.

“One sec,” Dean says quietly and then plants a kiss on my jaw before leaving me behind. It’s odd what one little kiss will do.

Knowing before he left, he had to leave me with one little kiss.

I just hope it’s not my last.