Never (20 page)

“Hmm,” she murmured, kicking her legs back and forth. She gave me a stern look. “No more parking lot brawls?”

I put a hand over my heart. “No more brawls anywhere. Ever.”

She studied me, trying to find a crack. A sliver of a lie. A smile teased her lips. “Alright. Apology accepted.” The smile cemented. “BFF status reinstated.”

“Yay!” I squealed, lurching from my bed to hers. “Now—it’s your turn to open up about what’s been going on with you.”

“What’s going on with me?” she said, feigning innocence. “Nothing is going on with me.”

“Right,” I said, unconvinced. “C’mon, spill.”

She crossed her arms. “There’s nothing to spill. How about you spill about why you’re shacking up with Lucas after your whole ‘We’re just destined to screw it up’ speech?”

“Yeah...” I said peevishly, picking at the hem of Lucas’ shirt. “About that.” I gave her a mischievous smile. “We kissed and made up.”

I picked up on that,” she said, elbowing me. “I’ve seen your version of tee and jeans and Lucas getup is much more stylish.” Her jaw dropped. “Wait a minute—did he bail you out?”

“Yes,” I answered, then backtracked when I remembered that he told me that did. “Actually, his mom bailed me out. Lucas rode up on his yellow taxi to pick me up.”

“Wait...the woman who basically said you were the worst thing that ever happened to her son bailed you out of jail?!”

“Yep,” I confirmed, still not believing it myself. “I think it was her way of apologizing.” Lucas said it was her way of giving us her blessing, but I thought that was a stretch. She was bailing me out of jail after all. “He came to get me and we went back to his place and...I admitted I was just pushing him away because....”

“You were afraid?” Kim finished, a vindicated twinkle in her clear eyes.

“Save the ‘I told you so’,” I groaned.

She didn’t let me off so easy. “I’m just saying!”

“Riiight,” I laughed.

“I think a ‘Kimberly is always right’ moment is upon us.”

“How about ‘Kimberly is sometimes right’?” I winked.

She sighed dramatically. “I guess that’ll do.” She went serious. “I’m glad that everything worked out. You deserve something good, Juliet.”

I deserve something good
, I repeated to myself. For the first time in a long time, I believed it.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Lucas

The mood was set.

Books were open and turned to the right pages, notecards lined in a multicolor row. I had enough caffeine in my coffee to caffeinate me and two other people. Still, I couldn't focus. My study partner made me want to do anything
but
study.

"Stop looking at me like that, Lucas," Juliet whispered sternly. The glimmer in her eye said something else.

I inched closer to her, need coursing through me. "Like what?"

Her cheeks were the color of cherries. Dark, ripe cherries. A cherry that I wanted to graze with my teeth before tasting the plush sweetness inside...

"You know exactly how you're looking at me." She turned up the collar of her jean jacket like that would extinguish the flame that burned between us. It only drew my eyes to her jawline, memories of kissing up and down the slope making my pulse race. Making sitting down uncomfortable.

As if she could feel the way the air changed, the effect she had on me, she glanced over. And down.

Her eyes lingered on my crotch for a moment, like she could see every contour of my erection. Like she could taste it.

The squeal of her suitemate pushing a chair back filtered through the wall, ruining the moment. Juliet shifted her hips to the right, putting some distance between us.

“Another reason we should have gone to my place,” I said, raising an eyebrow. Another part of me hardened, thumping in agreement.

“You know exactly why we aren’t at your place.”

She spoke the truth. My place no longer looked like a clip from
Hoarders
but clean or not, we just couldn’t focus. Both of us kept looking at the bedroom. At the dining room table. Kissing, touching until we ended up in a tangle on the floor.

I hated the library, so we agreed her dorm was the next best bet. But all the parlors had been taken—leaving her dorm room. And now we were sitting on a bed, squeezed together on her tiny mattress.

Concentrating was impossible.

She cleared her throat, her voice low and distracted. "I, uh, was looking at the latest lab assignment and I was wondering—"

"Why I can't keep my mind on my homework?" I butted in, my lips curling at the sides at how beautiful she was when she threw me a withering look. From the warmth behind her milky skin to her intensely brown eyes, she was delicious...even though the usually round and expressive things were now slits of irritation.

She pushed her hair behind her ear, pointedly turning back to her homework. "We really need to finish this."

"I know. It would help if you stopped being so irresistible."

She shook her head, not hiding the smile away before it flashed across her face. "We have plenty of time to fool around—"

"Oh I don't want to fool around, Juliet," I said smoothly, closing my textbook. "I plan on pushing you back against the mattress and doing things to your body that make you forget about everything except for my mouth."

Her lush, pink lips hung open, the red in her cheeks deepening as she looked around us like she was expecting the Homework Police to come bursting through the door. "You know I've missed you. I mean, just from what you said I'm already—" She looked down, biting her lip. "You know."

"I don't actually," I said, holding back my smile when she finally met my gaze. Every visible inch of her was red and I wanted to find out if other not-so-visible parts of her were just as red.

She whispered the word and it sent a ripple over me. "Wet."

I raked a hand through my hair, trying to play it cool like I wasn't coming just as undone. Just as raw and exposed.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Oh but sitting so close to her and keeping my hands to myself was. It was excruciating.

She bit her lip, her tongue sweeping nervously over the bottom. I imagined it in my mouth. Dueling with my tongue. God, I missed her mouth. I missed her taste.

She gave me a dirty look, but slid closer nonetheless. "Why now? We had last night and the night before? This morning. Why here?" Her face fell. "Have you...done this before?"

"Had sex?" I quipped.

"Had sex
here
," she said with an edge. “In this dorm.”

I dropped the act, answering her truthfully. "I haven't."

Surprise flickered in her eyes. "So this is what, something to tick off your college bucket list? Getting hot and heavy in some freshman’s dorm?"

I bit back my retort, breathing in and out before answering. "I don't have some ulterior motive here, Juliet. I think I was pretty straightforward with what I want."

She looked down, then brought her eyes back up. "You want me."

"Yep."

"And if my answer was no, that I wasn't swayed by your
very
appealing offer?"

"Then I'd try to get some work done and steal as few sexy glances as possible." I reached out, sifting her dark hair through my fingers. "I'd wait for you. As long as it took."

And I meant it. We'd been through so much: finding each other, losing each other, finding each other again. I knew what life was like before Juliet. I knew what
I
was like before Juliet. She made me better. She made me want to ask myself the hard questions and take the steps toward accepting the answers. So if she wasn’t ready, I’d wait.

She interlaced her fingers with mine, squeezing tight. "Do you have any idea how—"

"Happy I make you?" I cut in with a wink.

She brought my hand to her mouth, her eyes darkening with lust as she drew her tongue up and down my thumb. "I was going to say horny."

Her warm tongue sent an electric jolt through me and it took all my self-restraint to pull my hand away.

"As much as I want you, hell this was my idea, I don't want to pressure you."

"I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have some misgivings about—" She leaned in. "Hooking up with my suitemate right next door. But now that you teased me..." She closed her book, dropping her highlighter on top. "Lead the way."

I pulled her close, breathing in the vanilla of her perfume. Our lips met and light sparked all over me. The lust, the frenetic animalistic need in me changed when we kissed. Everything around me brightened with beautiful clarity. I heard everything, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the thunder of my heart in my chest, the pulse radiating from her touch. Nothing tasted as sweet, every other kiss paled as I caressed her lips with mine.

I swept my hands down her back, biting back a moan that the whole building would have heard when her tongue swirled around mine. Sliding against my body. Telling me to take her. Giving herself to me.

My hands gripped her buttocks, lifting her and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Her lips didn’t leave mine as I spun her around and pushed her back onto the mattress.

I gazed at her warm body as I unbuttoned her fly and she shimmied out of her jeans. Her pink and white polka dot underwear were sheer enough that I saw the strip of her sex. My fingers brushed the material and the cool touch of her juices made me swell to the point that I could have willingly let go. But not yet. I had promises to keep.

My tongue flicked over her sex, lingering at the slit, loving her taste. I breathed in her arousal, the way she writhed, her body trembling. My body fought the restraints like a caged beast, hungry for freedom.

I spread her thighs, holding steady, watching and waiting until the look in her eyes went mad with lust. She brought her legs up, trying to draw me in.

But I needed to hear the words.

“What do you want, Juliet?”

“You,” she groaned as I drew up and down her heat. “Only you.”

I drove into her, my body alive. Roaring with bliss. This was my heaven.

She was my heaven.

Every touch was a promise. She seared my soul. She possesed me. Our bodies connected and even after we reached the peak, we didn’t let go.

I collapsed beside her, pulse racing and body humming with the knowledge that there’d be no one else for me but Juliet.

“I love you, Juliet.”

She turned into my arms, pressing her lips against my chest. “I love you too, Lucas.” She propped her head on her palm, eyeing the fallen books around us. “You know, I think we need to come up with a new system.”

“Is that right?” I snickered.

She nodded with a mischievous smile. “We do a chapter, then we reward ourselves.”

“Reward ourselves with what?”

She licked her lips suggestively.

I reached over her, retrieving my book. “Well hell, what are we waiting for? Grab your highlighter!”

Our laughter filled the room and I couldn’t help but wonder how I got so lucky. I found her. I’d fight to be the best guy I could be; a guy deserving of her.

She best thing that had ever happened to me.

“What?” she asked, blushing under my gaze.

“It’s me and you, right?”

Her smile was my answer, but she said the word anyway. “Always.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellery Rhodes loves to read and write romance with lots of steaminess. She moved from the East coast to California for love and stayed for the french fry burritos (though her fiancé is pretty nifty too!).

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