Page 76 of Crush
The Winthorpe Hammerheads are as esteemed as any middle American high school football team, and banners and flags fly as we march out single file. The girls’ swim team comes from the opposite direction until we meet at the twenty-five-meter mark and face the crowd, waving, then settling our hands on our hearts as the national anthem plays.
I mouth the words, but my eyes slide to the side, searching for the source of my misery and distraction.
Ember.
She should blend in with all the others in her black swimsuit, cap, and goggles, but I spot her immediately, her body molding to spandex like it was made to be showcased through a tight one-piece.
Anthem over, we take our positions on the bench while the girls start first. This isn’t Ember’s heat, so she sits out, too.
Her form prickles in my periphery, not so close that she draws my heat, but near enough that I can sense every movement, from her crossing her legs to propping an elbow on her knee as she watches.
She sips her sports bottle without a care. Not once does her profile turn toward mine.
Fucking infuriating.
It’s harder for her to hide my brands in a swimsuit. A few days have passed since getting rough with her in Father’s office, my red fingerprints fading to a deep scarlet on the sides of her neck. The bite mark is still vicious, clotted indents crisscrossing her shoulder—proof that I’d lost all control when she’d almost passed out from my hand. The feel of her along my length, her wetness and desire spiking into stardust behind our eyes … I’d never come like that before. No one has ever allowed me to strangle and fuck them. Even now, if I blink too slow, I can see it as if it’s occurring in real time, my dick growing hard. My mind’s quick to step in, refusing any weakness, especially over her.
She’s my fuck toy. Nothing more. I can’t allow it, regardless of how it felt to have her submit and beg or what it would feel like to be the only man who enters her.
Zeke’s full of shit.
The shit-bag himself distracts my scorching focus, a flash of a tight Speedo plopping down next to me.
“You just can’t shake her, huh?” he muses.
I growl without looking over, “I thought my warning was obvious in the locker rooms.”
“Oh, it was.” Zeke leans back on his palms, focused on the girls’ breaststroke, though I doubt he gives two shits. “But it’s not like you’ll attack me in front of all of Winthorpe. That’s all you are, isn’t it? A pit bull with no leash until your dad comes in to collar you. Has he ordered you to stop fucking the enemy yet, or are you still testing the swamp waters there?”
“If you think,” I say while staring straight ahead, “that I won’t pull you down by the ankle and drown you in front of every person here, you are sorely about to be corrected.”
“You’d have to catch up with me first.”
Zeke’s eyes keep darting toward Ember, forcing up the bilious desire to smash his forehead against the tiles.
“She’s not yours, and from what I’m gathering, not your type. Stop looking at her.”
“I’m just getting one last image of her unsuspecting face.”
I whip my head in his direction. “What?”
The timer goes off, the heat finished, and the crowd jumps up and claps.
Zeke smiles, facing forward. “You’ll see.”
Ember and her competition stand and walk forward. I leap from my seat as she begins a last-minute stretch routine, coming to her side.
“Don’t do the heat.”
She looks up from her hamstring stretch, recoiling when she notices who the warning comes from. “Leave me alone, Thorne.”
I bend down until I’m almost at her ear. “I’m telling you, don’t do this race.”
The crowd roars, noisemakers and the school’s anthem being sung by the pathetic alumni who didn’t make the most of themselves after the amazingness that was their high school experience.
Ember rights herself, elbowing me out of the way as she waves to the crowd and attempts to pass me.
I grab her arm. “Listen to me. Something’s about to go down—”