Obsessed with the Heartbreaker: An MM College Romance, page 15
It would probably lead to another round of the most amazing sex of my life, and even if a part of me wanted it, the other was becoming aware again of all the frat guys roaming the exterior of the house.
The heat of a blush started coming over me as I wondered whether they’d heard me moan and cry out Henry’s name.
Jesus.
“Your fault.”
“Are you blushing again?”
God, his teasing, genuine smile was going to kill me. It made my insides flutter, and I helplessly hid my face on Henry’s shoulder.
We were lying in bed, side by side, facing each other. Still maintaining the cocoon of privacy for a bit longer.
“Don’t hide from me, I want to see it.”
“No.”
Henry’s chuckle reverberated through me, warming me up from the inside out. He scratched my nape with his heavenly fingers in response, a gesture so tender it was almost physically painful.
Could I just stay here, in this moment, forever?
Probably not.
“You should go. Everyone will see how hot and edible you look like this, and I’ll have to kill them.”
With a small chortle, I said, “Territorial much?”
“Very. But you already know that.”
I did.
And I felt the same way.
What was happening between us was still undiscussed, and I was almost too afraid to bring it up, but I had to.
I just needed to know before I left.
“You won’t pretend this didn’t happen tomorrow?”
His hand tightened in my hair. “No.”
Relief flooded through me.
“But this isn’t a relationship.”
“It isn’t,” I confirmed, even if it tasted wrong in my mouth. “We can keep at it for the three months I’ll have to hang around.”
It was technically less than three months now, but if Henry knew, he didn’t let it show. “Three months.”
“You can’t fuck anyone else.”
The territorial tone of my voice made Henry pull my hair until I was facing him. He had the biggest shit-eating grin in the world.
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
“I didn’t know you’d be like this.” He kept lightly scratching my scalp, the sensation divine. “You’re very pretty when you’re jealous, but you’re trying to boss the boss, Antony. Be careful.”
His praise swept through me, dizzying, making me feel a little high. With my own hand, I slid it through his hair and gave it a pull—something I now knew he liked and would be using against him until the end of time. Our time.
“You’re mine for three months, Heartbreaker,” I said, feeling unexpectedly bold. “And I plan to make good use of the privilege.”
Henry’s deep dark brown eyes stared at me with what looked like shock for a moment before I kissed him again.
Just one more for today.
Then I’d go.
It was more than just one.
* * *
It was hard to keep our hands off each other after that. A dam had broken, one full of years of pent-up desire and longing, and every unnecessary moment away from Henry hurt. I wanted to be as close to him as I physically could, and it was clear from how he kept clutching me to himself that he felt something similar. Getting each other off was our new favorite pastime, but more than the physical closeness, I couldn’t get enough of the intimacy.
This I had been starved of. We’d had something close to it when we were still friends, but nothing like it was now. I lived for every moment laying on Henry’s bed, quietly whispering to each other, every sarcastic remark that Henry had to make and every longing look he sent me. It didn’t help that I felt like a flower seeing the sun every time he softly praised me, which embarrassed and pleased me both. It was his genuine tone and steady eyes that made me feel like I was about to melt. This emotional closeness was my drug, even more so than the physical one, and for now, I shut down every thought that told me not to get so attached because it would hurt more after.
I didn’t care.
I was feeling reckless. If this was all I’d ever get, I’d take it with open arms.
This development affected my mood, which made it apparent that something was going on to everyone that knew me. Oliver narrowed his eyes at me with secretive smiles, clearly suspecting something was going on. And my best friends?
Well, those knew me better than I knew myself, and because of that, they knew that sometimes, being indirect and torturing me with small nudges so I would confess the truth was more useful than outright asking.
So that was what they did.
“Scott, do you think there’s something in the air? Something sweet, like an aphrodisiac,” Eliot asked, like the worst actor in the world.
We were in our living room, bellies full from dinner, watching a sitcom to wind down before we went to sleep.
“Maybe.” Scott’s blue eyes were visibly amused. None of them looked at me, though, both leaning back on the sofa, legs stretched on our tiny coffee table, and pretending like I wasn’t right in the middle of them. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. There has been this very strange thing on Antony’s face lately. This…smile. Like he has a big fucking secret he’s not sharing with his best friends and I, for one, won’t be feeling patient for much longer.”
Okay. Their indirectness was rather direct.
I rolled my eyes as Eliot played with one of his dark curls falling in front of his eyes.
“Yes, it might be something in the air…Which suspiciously smells like Henry’s hair shampoo, I think…” Scott trailed off, trying his best to act indifferent until the moment he leaned into me, putting his nose on my shoulder and giving me a good sniff.
Eliot copied him a second after.
“Hey,” I called out, but still they pretended I wasn’t there.
“Definitely Henry’s. It’s expensive and conceited. A Heartbreaker’s scent,” Eliot confirmed.
“Okay. I’m here, you can stop ignoring me.”
“Ignoring you?” Eliot turned to me with an indignant look. “I think it’s you who’s ignoring your best friend contract, not us.”
“I signed no such thing.”
“You did. Not my fault you don’t remember.” Pointing at his temple, he said, “It’s all here. Should I read it to you?”
“Please, do tell what it says,” said Scott, enjoying my demise way too much.
“Spare us. Fine. Just ask what you want to know.”
“Are you and Henry together?” Scott asked at the same time as Eliot said “Are you two fucking?”
I reluctantly sighed. “Yes to both.”
Eliot got up with a cry of victory. “I knew it!”
He even had the gall to do a little victory dance.
“Was this why you two stopped talking before?” Scott asked, turning toward me on the sofa and muting the TV.
“Yes…and no.”
Or was it?
There was no other option but to tell them about the kiss that started all of it. Only it hadn’t, had it? Because our relationship had had an unnameable quality to it from the beginning.
Then I told them of our arrangement.
“I thought the Heartbreaker didn’t do repeats.” Eliot sat down once he was done and gave me a loud pat on the thigh. “You must be quite good in the sack, Ant.”
“El.” My cheeks were burning already. I’d always been very direct with my friends, but when it came to this subject? Talking about me?
Apparently, I was still a bit of a prude.
“Sexual tension will change one’s priorities. I know they definitely changed mine,” Scott smirked before it started to fall. “Have you told him about Connell and the favor he asked you, though?”
That definitely brought the mood down. “No.”
“So you’re not doing it anymore?”
“I am.”
Technically.
In my own way. Just like I’d done from the beginning.
They both gave me a worried look. “Ant, lies aren’t good in a relationship.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “This isn’t a relationship.”
Eliot scoffed. “Right, and I’m seven feet tall and an alien—”
“It isn’t. And it won’t last. It’s just for three months.”
I’d kept out the details of the ‘deal’. Again.
Because really, I didn’t think they mattered at all.
“How do you know? I used to say the same with Travis, and look at us.”
Yes. Scott’s relationship with the college bad boy had had a tumultuous start, but they were now deliriously in love.
Even Eliot had had his own share of hard times when he started secretly seeing his current boyfriend, who was none other than Eliot’s brother’s best friend.
Their situations and mine were different, though.
They just were.
Even if Henry and I were ravenous for each other right now, it would fade. He’d get bored of me eventually, even if we didn’t stop at three months, and then he’d go on to find someone interesting. Someone more like him. Someone with an actual life, and who didn’t spend days spent stuck in a library between books.
They also didn’t know about me having to graciously dodge Connell’s questions a few nights ago when I went to have dinner to his house with my mother and sister. Henry, as usual, hadn’t been there, so it had been all too easy for Connell to pull me away for a second and ask for progress.
My stomach turned to knots.
I’d told him that Henry was already thinking about his future, which was a good thing, but I’d kept the rest to myself.
As if they knew what I was thinking, Eliot said, “I don’t think he’s really going to hate you, Ant. You’re not even trying to persuade him into doing what his father wants. You’re trying to guide him into doing what he himself wants. And we all know this Connell favor was just an excuse.”
Truthfully, I felt like shit for lying to Henry. Or at least omitting the truth, but I was also starting to think—or rather, hope—that he wouldn’t hate me either. Henry being Henry, he had to have known that there had been a reason for me to approach him in the first place. It was relieving—but I was also convinced that if I told him, he wouldn’t want to talk about his career again. He’d try to shut down and be stubborn and unhappy just because he thought he’d be getting back at his parents.
But I couldn’t have that.
At least, even if our not-relationship didn’t last, I’d have helped him.
And that should be enough.
Chapter 23
Henry
“So he’s not a monster,” Maddox said suddenly, almost making me jump out of my own skin in our cozy frat kitchen.
Trying to settle my racing heart, I turned to look at him. The Hellhound was leaning back on the counter, arms crossed and pensive expression on, his icy blue eyes trying to decipher me like a mathematical problem. Sunlight spilled in through the window and onto his inky black hair, and it was just way too fucking early to be getting started with interrogations.
But here we were.
“Who are we talking about?”
Mad gave me a long look, one that said ‘Don’t even bother’.
There was one only person he could have been talking about.
“He isn’t.”
My stomach twisted into knots as I myself had to face the truth once and for all: I’d never hated Antony. He had never been the monster in my story, even if Maddox had wanted to think it, but I still had to say that the sheer force of the feelings assaulting me once I admitted it to myself was nothing short of terrifying.
I took a sip of my steaming coffee mug, hoping it would soothe some of the turmoil.
It didn’t.
“So why didn’t you just fucking tell me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“As complicated as the fact that you’re going at it like rabbits at any chance you get?”
Now it was me who gave him a hard look. The hand holding my coffee threatened to shatter the ceramic into a million pieces.
But Mad being Mad, he wasn’t deterred. He pushed away from the counter. “Is that what this had been about the whole time? You wanted him?”
My heart was beginning to race again. “I said it’s complicated.” I rounded the kitchen table, trying to get some space from the intensity of his questions, but when I reached the door that lead to the yard, Maddox was on me and blocking the way.
“You’ve been pining for him.”
“I have not.”
“You have, and that’s exactly why you would never tell me the reason you seemed to hate him so much to begin with. You were so stingy with the details, and it was all because you were carrying this crush—”
“I just kissed him once, okay? I wasn’t pining.”
There, I’d said it.
But of course, my best friend wasn’t satiated with just a crumb, so I briefly told him the story of how we’d been…close. How I’d missed him in my first year of college. How I’d kissed him on that one stupid day.
I told him of the way he pushed me away and how I never spoke to him again.
And I kept to myself the way my father had looked at me pitifully and said ‘He’s not for you, Henry.’
I knew, okay? I fucking knew.
The memory was like a blow to the gut all over again.
Maddox’s cold stare actually softened after I finished my tale. “Hen, I don’t know how else to say this, but that is the literal definition of pining.”
“Are you a dictionary now? A love guru?”
“I’m your best friend, and as the only person here who still has some perspective here, I’m telling you—There’s a word written on your forehead and it says ‘denial’.”
“I saw nothing wrong in the mirror this morning.”
“Exactly, because it’s been there the whole time.” Maddox let go of the door, instead leaning on it and sighed. “Look, I’ve been very hard on Antony and had suspicions about him, but…Hearing this, I don’t really hate him. Whether his motivations for approaching you have always been pure, I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re bad.”
I hadn’t really told Maddox anything about my own suspicions about why Antony approached me, but I hadn’t needed to. Mad had been looking out for me from the start.
Almost with complete certainty, I knew that Antony must have had some motivation to approach me in the first place, some excuse he could use, just like I’d had it to make our deal. There was no one with a better heart than him, though, so I wasn’t really worried about it, even if I would, eventually, find out.
Unaware of my inner monologue, Maddox continued. “And I should point out that you’ve been basically skipping these past few days that you’ve been together. Even the guys are starting to notice.”
I groaned. “I haven’t been skipping. I don’t skip. And I will not tolerate this slander.”
“Two guys have told me they heard you humming. An actual song.”
Silence reigned in the room.
Truth was a bitch and it had just slapped me in the face.
“I don’t see your point.”
“My point is that it wouldn’t hurt if you started calling this what it is.”
“There is no this.”
Maddox practically growled with frustration, pushing his hands through his hair and pulling on it.
“I’m going to strap you onto a chair until you admit it.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Hen, just face the music—”
“Maddie!”
Adam came in from the other room. “Some guys are looking for you. They want you to help them with something.”
Mad’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do they want me to help them with?”
Adam shrugged. “Didn’t ask. I’m just the messenger.”
Walking out of the kitchen, my best friend gave Adam an unfriendly look while the latter just smiled in his direction.
I finally exhaled in relief.
“Always perfect timing, Adam.”
I would hug him if I were a hugger.
But I wasn’t, so instead I just let the praise linger in the air.
“Actually.” Adam half-closed the kitchen door, looked out to check if someone—or Maddox—was still close by, before turning to me again. “I wanted to speak to you.”
Oh.
I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going.
“Go on.”
I was now standing by the kitchen table, leaning my behind on top of it, and Adam came to stand beside me, tapping his fingers on the back of a chair. “There aren’t many ways to say this, so I’ll be blunt.” He raised his eyes to meet mine very seriously. More so than I’d ever seen him. Then he asked, “Are you cheating on Maddox with Antony?”
No coffee had been in my mouth, but I choked anyway.
What?
“Am I what?”
“I think you heard me, Henry.”
Henry. Not King.
Interesting.
Putting my coffee down before I spilled it, I crossed my arms and watched him silently for a moment.
He was standing tall, still, and very determined to get his answer. Not even a flinch under my unforgiving scrutiny.
This guy was for real.
“I’m not cheating on Maddox.”
“Are you sure?”
Was I sure?
God, this day was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?
“I’m very fucking sure. We’re not in a relationship.”
Adam’s brows furrowed. “Aren’t you? Open relationships are still relationships, and I get it if you’re okay with each other sleeping around, but when feelings get involved with a third party…”
I didn’t have the time—or the brain space—to examine his last statement and what he was suggesting about me and Antony, so I settled on addressing the former. “Adam. We’re not in any sort of relationship, and we have never been. We’re best friends.”
And the only reason I was bothering to explain this to Adam was because he was loyal to a fault, had always had my back, and, I was just realizing, maybe I thought about him as a friend of sorts too.
