I shook my head, my thumb running over his mouth to silence him. I didn’t want to debate what had or hadn’t set off that guy. I didn’t even want to think his name. He’d already taken up too much time and energy between us. Tomorrow, I promised myself. Tomorrow we’d figure it out. We’d talk about it more, but not anymore.
I leaned down, my hair cascading around us and my lips met his.
I loved him. I knew it then.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” I murmured against his lips.
He held onto me, framing my face, searching me. “I left you before. I gave you space. I’m done with that. Fuck whatever you think. Just fuck it. Fuck this enemies shit between us. That’s done. Got it? I’m not walking, not again. I can’t—”
I kissed him.
I silenced him this time.
It was me. It was my turn.
I didn’t hide. I let him see me. I let him feel me, and he was right. We were done with that. Then he tugged me down on his lap, and he rolled us over on the bed. When we fell asleep, he was still holding me and it was perfect.
Chapter Forty
STONE
I sat on the edge of the bed the next morning, actually just five hours later.
I needed to go. I needed to go to my home, start my day. I needed to head to the stadium. I needed to get ready. We had a game tonight, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t leave. My ass wouldn’t leave that fucking bed and I couldn’t stop watching her.
She needed sleep. Not me. I was fucking wired.
This asshole, some asshole, hurt my girl.
Because that’s what she was. Mine.
She was no one else’s and I should’ve shut that shit down long ago. I knew why she walked. I got it, and a part of me wondered if she was doing the right thing, but fuck that. No more. I was done staying away. I was done keeping quiet and not making her talk. We needed to talk. Talking. Shit. We barely talked. We fought, then we went to bed. That’s how we communicated, and I was trying to tell her all the ways I cared for her. I needed to show her, not just say the words, but she was asleep and I had to leave and do my job.
Except I couldn’t make myself leave her room. I couldn’t even get off the bed, and I needed to get off the bed. I’d be fined so damn much money if I didn’t show, but every cell in my body was screaming at me to curl back in her bed, pull her into my arms, and never let her go.
Never ever let her go again.
But, shit. I raked a hand through my hair.
I couldn’t do that. I was a professional. We played through everything. Wind, sleet, rain, pain, blood. We showed up. We played. We dominated.
He was dead. I was trying to tell myself. She was safe. I could leave, do my job, and scoop her back in my arms afterwards. Her. Me. Our bed. Yeah. It wasn’t my bed anymore. It was ours. She just didn’t know it.
Shit. Shit!
I had to go. I had to, but God, I didn’t want to go.
Moving around the room, I went to wash up before dressing, but I wasn’t going out her side way. Hell no. I went the other way, not expecting anyone to be up. I’d been in college, but I hadn’t partied like these guys. I rarely partied. I footballed. That was it. I did football, and if I wasn’t footballing, I was training to football or thinking about footballing. Football was my life. These guys, they were different. They were more normal. If they were planning on pro, they had one last year to get their shit together. But that wasn’t my issue.
Going up to the kitchen, I hadn’t expected anyone to be up.
Someone was up.
A girl was at the counter making toast. She turned, yawning, but seeing me, she shrieked. “Oh, my Jesus!” She pressed a hand to her heart, giving me a shaky smile. “I wasn’t expecting a guy, and then it’s a guy, but it’s not just any guy, it’s you, and yeah. Still getting used to seeing you around here.”
She was the nice one, the one Dusty liked. I was trying to remember her name.
“Nicole?”
“Yeah. Hi.” The toast popped up and she took one, waving at me before putting it on the plate and reaching for the butter. “I suppose you’re on your way out? How’s our girl doing downstairs? She seemed tired last night. I mean, more than usual considering how much she’s working.”
I had started to walk past her, letting her talk, but hearing the last few words, I paused.
The girl was still rambling, her back to me, still buttering her toast. “Between you and me, I worry about her. She’s not gotten a car and she doesn’t think we notice, but she’s walking back and forth from campus. That means she’s walking after her shifts, but she’s got some hang-up about asking for help. I don’t get it, but she’s prideful. So, yeah. My uncle has a car in the garage. There’s no insurance on it, but I was thinking I could ask him to get some and she could drive that. We could say it’s the house’s vehicle, but poof—like magic—it’s always available only for her.” She turned, the toast done on her plate. “What do you think?” She was smiling at me.
She took one look at me and that smile was wiped clean.
I was barely keeping my shit together as it was, and now to know this.
She’d been walking. No, fuck that. She was working. A lot, from what this one was saying, and she was walking?
I grated out, “How far is campus from here?”
She swallowed, getting with the program and cluing in how close to the edge I was. “Her job is four blocks away. I think she cuts through somewhere, maybe a side alley, so it might be less. I’m not sure.”
Fuck that. Fuck this girl. Fuck her fucking roommates. And fuck me, for letting her go when I knew I shouldn’t have.
Fuck. Just fuck.
“How long has this been going on?”
Another swallow before her head bobbed down. “Uh. A week? No. More than that, I think. Maybe two?”
“You don’t know?” I ground that out.
“No. I’m sorry.”
I was gone. Dusty was going to have a car in her spot by the end of the day and before then, Morpheus would be on her curb. If she walked, he would follow. I didn’t give a flying fuck how pissed she might be about that.
She had had a goddamn stalker.
My thoughts went rampant thinking about that piece of shit. I wanted to find him again, murder him with my bare hands and stuff his desecrated bones back into the ground, and I wanted to repeat that process all over again. Over and over and over until I got justice for Dusty.
I had no clue, no fucking idea.
A stalker. A goddamn motherfucking stalker.
If I’d known, shit. I would’ve wanted to go at him, wrap my hands around his throat, but fuck. I couldn’t go back in time. The piece of shit was dead, but I could go forward, and I interrupted the nice roommate. She was still talking.
“Where’s Witkerson?”
She’d been pouring orange juice into a glass, and at my growl, she jumped. Juice spilled all over the counter, but flinching, she swung those wide eyes to me. “Uh. What?”
“Noel. Witkerson. Your school’s QB 1. Where is he? I know he sleeps here.”
“Oh.” She was flustered, her cheeks getting red. “Savannah’s room is upstairs on the right, but…”