Obsessed with the Heartbreaker: An MM College Romance, page 18
“So, you’ve been thinking?” the Professor asked.
“Yes. I—I want to do as you said.”
His eyebrows shot up on his forehead, looking like he was trying to contain amusement. “And what exactly did I say?”
“That I should look for something I liked. Like leadership. Working with people.”
The Professor hummed, leaning back on his leather chair and observing me like he was a therapist and I his patient.
“You’re not choosing it because I told you, though, are you?”
My jaw ticked. “Someone has also been poisoning me with such similar ideas. I thought I’d try to bite. See what all the fuss was about.”
Now he grinned, leaning forward again and resting his elbows on the table. “Good. Friends with brains are a treasure to have.”
I rolled my eyes and said almost instinctively, “He’s not a friend.”
“Isn’t he?” He took a pen and opened his notepad, looking up at me behind tortoiseshell glasses. “A boyfriend then?”
I wanted to say no but the way my heart jumped made me stop.
Why did Antony feel like my boyfriend?
Why did it sound like the best thing in the world?
There was no time to linger on it now. Yet something else to hide under the rug.
“He’s someone.”
“I see.” Professor Larsson had the gall to smile to himself as he wrote something down, then took out several papers from one of his drawers.
“It’s a good thing I came prepared, then.” He handed me the papers and I looked at them, feeling slightly shocked.
Though I shouldn’t have been.
“You’re obviously not going to be an intern with a leadership position, but I’ve been looking into options that want to cultivate it, and I think these internships would do well with the skillset I know you to have.”
“Which is an uncanny ability to be an asshole and yet still be worshiped by the masses?”
“I mean people skills. A great ability to organize and manage a group. Jobs with a lot of teamwork while also having independence for you to learn to think by yourself.”
“Sounds too good to be true.”
He shrugged. “I have friends.”
“You? I thought you were a hermit.”
He chuckled, scratching the back of his head, strangely bashful. Had I touched a nerve? “I am a hermit, but some people still manage to cling to me. Like spider monkeys.”
That made me consider the Professor in a whole new light. “So you have powerful friends? In this field?”
“I have friends who are powerful in many fields.”
It sounded like he wasn’t going to share anything more, so I rolled the papers onto themselves and got up. “I’ll look into these.”
“You do that, and send your applications by the end of the week.”
Narrowing my eyes, I said, “I don’t take orders, Professor.”
“And I don’t take charity cases. But here we are.”
That blunt-asshole attitude was something I understood and appreciated, so I just smirked his way and left.
My heart was racing already. For some reason, all I wanted was to go get Antony and tell him all about this. I wanted him to be happy for me to be proud of me, which was stupid. It was also why I shouldn’t go get him.
I wouldn’t go after him like a puppy looking for praise.
I wouldn’t.
Chapter 28
Antony
Settling down with my friends on a table in the cafeteria with our lunch, I half-listened as Eliot ranted-rambled about his classes and his homework, which, to someone who had known him as long as Scott and I had, translated into ‘I’m really into it but complaining is my favorite pastime’. Which was good.
You just had to learn to pick up the clues.
“And it’s like, dude.” When Eliot said dude, you knew he really liked something. “They give us so much reading material for one day to another and they also make us think about what we read! And I’m like, do you want me to read this shit until my eyes bleed? Should I keep analyzing until my brain becomes meringue and it comes out of my ears? Christ, just, when will it be enough to just go to class?”
“I think the point is that it’s not enough to go to class,” Scott said with a grin on his face as he punctured some pasta with his fork. “Thinking has actually been said to be good for you. I heard about that the other day.”
“And I’d like a spoonful if it’s all the same to you,” I said, picking up some vegan lasagna with my fork.
Lately, I’d started paying more attention to the vegan and vegetarian options in the cafeteria, not because I actually wanted to become one, but because…As stupid as it sounded, it made me feel closer to Henry, the surprise vegetarian. I imagined, like a starry-eyed romance novel protagonist, whether Henry would have also chosen the same meal as me.
God, I was so fucked.
“Ant, you’re an animal. Those are my brains.”
“But they’re meringue. How can I say no to that?”
“I wouldn’t say no,” Scott said, siding with me. I put up my fist and we bumped them like good bros.
“I hate both of you.”
“You love us.”
“Arguing like a married throuple again?”
My head whipped to the side so fast, my neck almost cracked.
It was Henry.
Standing right beside me, lunch in hand, in the cafeteria.
Or rather, sitting right beside me.
“I don’t think you can be married as a throuple,” Eliot snarked as he and Scott watched Henry warily. “But invite yourself to our table, why don’t you.”
“You invited yourself to my party once.” He put his bottle of water in front of him and started diving in on his own vegan lasagna. “Fair is fair.”
Why did it make me so ridiculously happy?
“I should mention that you also uninvited us from them. Technically.” Scott looked between the two of us now, eyes starting to glint with amusement.
“I didn’t remember you being so rude, Scott. That’s definitely not polite conversation. Travis is definitely having a good effect on you.”
Henry’s thigh was warm against mine. I hadn’t spoken a word since he’d arrived, almost catatonic with the shock, but the contact revived me.
“Scott has always been internally kind of rude. He just didn’t show it.”
Henry looked at me then, his dark eyes roaming my face, my body, and my food, lingering on the sight for a long moment, and just because I could, I reached out to his own plate and took some of his food and put it in my mouth.
“A thief, are you?”
“King’s food always tastes sweeter, they say.”
Henry’s eyes heated, but El cleared his throat, interrupting us.
“So. What brings you here?”
Henry shrugged. “I just came from seeing my advisor. He suggested some internships to me that might go well with my ‘people skills’.”
“People skills?” Eliot coughed. “What people skills?”
But he was just being annoying and a contrarian and Henry knew this.
“That’s good,” Scott said. “More chances for you to take over the world.”
Rolling his eyes, Henry was suddenly very focused on his food as he said, “I guess I thought if I was going to work, I might as well do something I liked. And being a tyrant is kind of my jam, or so people tell me.”
Heart thudding inside my chest, it was very hard to not just allow myself to reach for Henry and kiss him. Hug him. He looked a bit bashful but actually happy. It was in the relaxed line of his shoulders, in the lack of bite to his words, in the soft way he admitted he was finally doing something for himself and letting go of some of the resentment that he felt for his father that had been stopping him until now.
And in that moment?
I realized I had to tell him.
I had to share with him the conversation I had with his father at the steak house. Tell him that I’d accepted, even with my own selfish motivations, and that all I’d wanted was for him to do what he wanted, whether his father would approve or not.
It terrified me. Because now that I was this close to him, I’d started getting my hopes up that maybe he might forgive me. That he might understand.
Because if someone knew me and understood me, if someone could stare into my eyes and feel like he was staring into my soul, it was Henry.
And something was happening between us.
I needed to come clean.
“You okay?” Henry asked, low between us.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Yeah. Sure.”
He eyed me for a moment but didn’t say anything. Instead, he just kept eating and bantering with us, like we’d done it a million times. Henry being Henry, he tugged smiles and laughs out of all of us, because he was an asshole with a wicked mind and Eliot’s snark combined with that was an explosive combination.
I noticed too that people were watching us. Scott, the college Prince, was in the same place as the King, and it was a rare sight indeed.
“You’re coming to my place later this afternoon,” Henry told me, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Am I?”
“Unless you have a date with your books?” He turned sideways on his chair to face me fully. “I get it if you have midterms or essays coming now—”
“It’s fine. I can come.”
I did have essays and I did have midterms. But who cared?
Henry exhaled, watching me. “Good.”
I nodded, and before Henry got up, he planted a kiss on my lips. It shocked and delighted me both, and the Heartbreaker King left all of my friends open-mouthed and wide-eyed, along with a trail of fruity smell in the air.
I was going to tell him.
Because this feeling in my chest…It wasn’t going to go away.
Not after three months.
Maybe not ever.
Chapter 29
Henry
That afternoon, we walked together to my frat. Our hands brushed several times on our way there, and I had to wrench away from the metaphorical wheel the part of me that wanted to just take Antony’s hand and hold it and act like we were boyfriends, because this was going way too far. It was getting out of hand.
And the more it went on, the more I realized there was no way to stop it. There was no quieting the growing feeling in my chest, the longing to just have Antony with me all day, to know he was really mine. But even if I couldn’t quiet it, I could ignore it. Just for a while longer.
I just wanted to pretend that this was okay to want.
Once in the frat, Antony and I did the laundry together, even though it should have technically only been him who did it, according to our ‘deal’, but who the fuck cared anymore? It was just another way to acknowledge that this was bullshit. An excuse to be together. To talk and listen to Antony ramble about his classes and ramble to him in return. About the affairs in the frat house, about Maddox being Maddox, about the upcoming movie we both wanted to watch.
It was the most domestic scene ever. And as much as I wished I could hate it or be bored by it or at least be indifferent toward it, this domesticity I also began to crave.
It was bad.
We got things set up and there was nothing to do but wait. Going upstairs, I followed Antony into my room and my skin felt almost too tight for my body. There was this feeling of inevitability in the air that threatened to slap me in the face, and I was getting ready for the impact. Praying to any god who would listen to just wait a little longer. To just let me cover my eyes and ears for a few more days.
“I need to talk to you,” Antony said, as if he’d been hearing my own thoughts.
“You’re already talking to me,” I said, closing the door and locking it. I didn’t need some nosy guy coming up here and seeing Antony all vulnerable and gorgeous and bare.
It was a sight meant for my eyes only.
At least for now.
“It’s about the reason why I…demanded you claim the deal.”
Antony’s green eyes were piercing as he set them in my direction. He stood, a little stiff, clearly nervous, and I just couldn’t have it.
“Can’t it wait?” I walked up to him, pulling him closer to me by the hips and starting to trail soft kisses down his neck the way he loved. “I have more interesting things in mind.”
“I…” Antony trailed off, breath hitching as I sucked on the sensitive flesh. “I don’t know. Don’t you want to hear it?”
It was a valid, very appropriate question. Because me being me, and me being obsessed with knowing things about Antony, I usually wanted every crumb of knowledge he wanted to offer.
But this, I didn’t want to know yet.
I wasn’t born yesterday, and I wasn’t naive. I’d known he’d had to have a reason to come to me in the first place. We’d both used excuses to get to where we were now. Great minds thought alike and all that, and I just knew that if he told me, I’d have to call in the logical side of my brain. I’d have to turn it on and face the music, the fact that we didn’t live in a dream full of rainbows and unicorns where it was normal and okay for us to be together. The reality of the situation would finally become apparent, and I’d feel compelled to take action and put a stop to things and I just didn’t want to.
A ball of emotion tightened my throat. “There are other things I’d rather do right now.” My hands started going upwards, feeling the shape of Antony’s back muscles, the tension in them, the strength. “Things that include you.”
Antony’s pupils were blown wide. His lips were already pink and parted, watching mine with hunger, but as it had been made clear lately, he liked it when I took charge.
And he especially liked it when I seduced him.
So I did.
With gentle words of encouragement, Antony let himself be seduced. He let me kiss him, responded with the most desperately needy and encouraging sounds. He let me take charge and undress him, push him toward my bed, leave him spread out over the covers, all with low-spoken ‘yeses’ and ‘please’ and ‘right there’.
Fingering him was a delight. I’d never enjoyed the act more with any other person, but it was nothing new, because I’d never enjoyed anything else more than I did when I did it with him, and seeing Antony enjoying it so much too was the hottest thing in the world.
“Henry,” he gasped lowly. I’d started talking to him in a low voice, like other people shouldn’t hear, like this was a secret, intimate moment between the two of us, and apparently it turned him on even more, because Antony was so flushed. His eyes were shiny, lips bitten as he tried to keep the sounds at bay, and I kept licking and softly sucking the crown of his hard length because this sweet torment was my favorite to do to him.
Tonguing his slit, Antony tried to thrust up into my mouth and then toward my fingers, but with my free forearm I was keeping him down. His knuckles were white as he fisted the sheets.
“Don’t worry, darling, all comes in due time.”
When I felt him good and ready, my cock weeping all over the place, I put the condom on and lined up my cock, slowly sinking in, using a hand on Antony’s chest as leverage, watching his mouth widen with desire.
“Sore?”
“No.” God, he already sounded breathless. Like he would take anything I gave him.
Which only made me want to give him everything.
“Are you sure?” I asked as I pushed deeper into him, one slow, methodic thrust made to drive him wild.
“Yes, Henry, just…” He bit his lip.
He didn’t want to ask. Not with words.
And he didn’t need to.
It was more than ‘just fuck me’. It was ‘just have me’.
And I was going to. I was deep in Antony and I was going to enjoy every second of it.
At first, I kept my thrusts slow and sensual. My cock was so hard I feared I might come at any second, and Antony’s wasn’t much better. It was leaking profusely over his stomach, his eyes unfocused as my hand rose to his neck, just putting it there. Holding him down.
“Is this how you like it? Is this how you want to be taken?”
“Yes,” he said, voice ragged. “I love it.”
I love you.
“One day, you’re going to ride me. You’re going to fuck yourself on my cock, and I’m going to watch you writhe on my lap. I’m going to hold on to your thighs and you’re going to beg me to just do it, finish things off the way you like, and when I’m happy with the way you beg me, I’m going to turn you over and fuck you hard until you come with your dick flattened against the sheets.”
That made Antony thrust up onto me. Until now, he’d been happy to let me have my way with him, enjoyed me taking control of the situation, but now he was getting desperate.
“Can we…Can we do it?”
The usually confident Antony sounded so beautifully shy when he was with me. Hesitant, vulnerable. It called to all of my protective and possessive instincts, and I just wanted to shower him with praises, compliments, fuck him hard and so good that he cried.
Without a word, I pulled out of him.
Antony knew not to hesitate, and he immediately turned around, pushing himself up to elbows and knees, showing himself to me.
Fuck.
“Buckle up. I’m very close and won’t hold back.”
“Good.” He looked back at me with flushed cheeks. “I want you to lose control. Fuck me the way you want.”
There was no stopping us after that.
I pushed into him with one hard, decisive thrust that made us both groan. Once I’d bottomed out, I molded myself against his back, putting an arm around Antony’s collarbone, and started giving him just what he’d asked.
One hard, rough fuck with no finesse, no control to be had, only raw lust and need.
With each thrust, Antony was letting out small, high-pitched sounds that went directly into my bloodstream. Each slap of skin against skin only made me want to push harder, get deeper, get closer. I needed to be as close to him as physically possible, I wanted to merge the both of us so completely there would be no telling where one ended and the other one started, and with each slide of my cock, I was reaching for him. Reaching for his heart, for his very soul, and I nailed his prostate, again and again, wanting Antony to reach the highest of ecstasies because he deserved the world.
