“I didn’t know she was your mom,” he said, and his shoes by the door, he sat on the wooden hall bench, putting them on one by one with his socks. He danced blond eyebrows. “Like I said, that was just a nice little surprise and funny as fuck.”
He reached for his last shoe, but I picked it up, opened the front door, and threw it outside. He watched me, unfazed as probably a two-hundred-dollar sneaker went flying out into the snow-covered lawn. He scratched his neck. “You gonna go get that?”
“No.” I strode right up to him, and he angled up from his seat. He was sitting down, but our eyesight was nearly level considering how tall he was. I hugged my chest. “This isn’t the classroom. You may have Professor Douglas in your back pocket, but you don’t have me. You’re in my house, and you’re going to stay away from my mom.”
“Your mom and I had a good time.” He stretched his arms back. “We met at party. I don’t promote anymore, but I do for a few close friends. We met during one of my events, and like I said, we had a good time. Probably won’t even see each other again. It was casual, an understanding between both of us.”
“That better be the case.”
He tugged me close after that, a hand under each ass cheek, and I stiffened, my hands easily curling into fists as he bit down on his bottom lip. He squeezed my thighs. “Fuck, what a waste this is. Why are you so uptight? You should relax more.”
He massaged the back of my thighs to the point where I almost did, my body buzzing, but when his finger traced the seam of my ass through my leggings I reared a fist back.
He grabbed it, a full hand like a baseball in a catcher’s mitt, and grinning, he brought my heated fist to his mouth and sunk his teeth slightly into it.
“I’m going to enjoy this game,” he said, and I wiggled out of his hands, bracing my fist that pulsed and burned from his teeth. He hadn’t bit me hard, not at all really, but I still felt him.
Body shaking, I shot a finger out the door. “Get out of my house.”
He stood, growing like a Redwood and about nearly as tall as one. He pressed a hand to the side of my head against the wall. “See you back on my block.”
And with that, he left me swaying, simmering, as he grabbed his coat off the coat hook, then headed outside. He pretended to not even let the snow bother him, sliding on his shoe before headed over to the garage. He just waltzed inside from the side door, and before I knew it, the garage door was opening and he was pulling a car out of my daddy’s old parking spot. An electric blue luxury vehicle charged the air, the ass winking at me through the window as he pulled out. I slammed the door before he could see my reaction to that.
And I did my best not to feel the sensation of his teeth still in my flesh.
Chapter Six
LJ
Term passed quickly for the most part over the next two months, the days starting to warm up and the snow completely melted despite it being mid-March. Before I knew it, midterm grades were rolling in, and for the most part, nothing was a surprise. I kept up on my shit. Took school seriously but then my gaze scanned my computer down to my film 110 class.
I don’t fucking believe it.
A sixty-eight percent average stared back at me. Roughly a D when I’d gotten nothing short of A minus average my entire academic career. Grade school included. I’d put priority on grades. Something I could control despite my parents failed relationship and a dad who walked out on his entire family. It was something I could hold tight onto when my friends cruised around in their fancy rides and invited me out to stuff when I barely had two nickels to rub together in my pocket. School had never come easy to me despite what I led my friends to believe when coming up, but what did was work ethic and grit. That I could control, and the thing that ultimately gave me the edge over many of my affluent friends. It also got me a full ride to one of the best schools in the country, so this grade I was staring at right now? Complete bullshit.
Seems the beauty queen came out to play.
She obviously was still a bit sore about what happened between her mom and me at the beginning of term, and shit, had it been a delight to see her that weekend. It’d come as a huge surprise to me, of course. I didn’t particularly go looking for people’s moms to screw, but it’d been a bonus finding out Gen was hers. Billie’s mom had been nice, and though I hadn’t seen her since, a good time. I thought the feeling was mutual that day.
My teeth gnashed at my current situation, all this grade business was Billie’s doing. I hadn’t really spoken to her since that weekend, easily blending into a sizable class, and in recitation, I didn’t care much to participate—when I showed. I had other more important classes and activities I actually cared about, but apparently that meant something to her. True, I knew participation and attendance came into affect with my film grade. I had read the syllabus after all, but I figured I could make all that shit up when midterm exams happened.
A big and obnoxious C stared at me in that department, hence my D average. Billie had marked me an F in regards to participation, and yeah, I could go to class a bit more, but that C definitely hadn’t been warranted. I hadn’t given a shit about film class all term, but I had done better than that. I showed up to every lecture outside of recitation, watched the films and absorbed what I could. I didn’t necessarily “get” all of it, but I absorbed it. I fluffed my essays up a bit, something I was good at, but obviously not good enough for Professor Douglas’s TA. This C on my written midterm examination had her name all over it, despite the fact we took the exam in lecture. The TAs were known for doing the grading.
Niko whistled over my shoulder, coming into the living room in a pair of sweats that sat at his hips and cut across his calves in a way I knew they were mine. I may have been taller, but if this dude didn’t stop stretching the shit out of my clothes, I would very well kill him.
Seeing my eyes on my clothes he wore, Niko chuckled before guzzling his bottle of water. He’d obviously just got done working out in our basement gym. He recapped his water. “D average? Shit, bro. You lose your IQ or something?” He whistled again. “That definitely ain’t you.”
And not my fault. Billie Coventry definitely had it out for me, my shrug subtle before I picked up a pillow and lodged it at him from the couch. He side-swiped it, but I hit him with my second round of launches. I’d played every sport imaginable under the sun when I’d gone to high school, my aim pretty damn good. I growled. “I told you not to fucking wear my clothes.”
This dude was bougie as fuck, had a closet full of his own expensive threads, but still had the nerve to work his way into my walk-in. Clothes were just the guy’s thing, I guess, and I’d even dated girls with less interest.
Tossing his big body on the couch, our sectional beneath him labored at the seams. Bottle of water pinched to the side of his teeth, Niko grabbed one of the Xbox controllers on the ottoman. He let the bottle fall to cradle in his arm. “I like your stuff. Gives me more options.”
“You mean other than the five T-shirts you have for every one of mine.” I snorted, then shot a finger. “Keep your ass literally out of my stuff.”
“Okay, okay.” His big shoulders bumping in laughter, Niko pulled up some basketball video game. From what I understood, he’d played that at high school. He angled his head of sweaty hair back. “What’s seriously going on with that grade, though? Thought you took shit seriously.”
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