Chapter 34

thirty-four

HENDRIX

Thursday morning, the cheerleaders had vomited Dayton Pride crap all over the halls. Glittery banners. Streamers and ribbons. God, I hated this school.

Students shuffled behind me in the crowded corridors, locker doors slamming. Shoes squeaking.

I'd really hoped that getting Brown to lick my ass would have gotten me suspended, but no. That dickwheeze had seen right through me. He knew giving me three months' worth of detention was way worse than a three-day-suspension vacation.

So, there I stood in the hallway, turning the combination to my dented, dick-graffitied locker.

Wolf clapped me on the shoulder. "Dude, the football team is giving Baites so much crap about getting turned down by Lola."

Which meant the whole team would think they could ask her out, too.

Oh, what a motherfucking tangled web we weave when we try to pretend we don't care who dicks down our used-to-be girl.

I fought the jealousy simmering below the surface as I put away my books and recanted the memory of Sid's stuffed head rolling to the floor. But it blew like Mount Vesuvius the second I turned around and saw Daniel Baites.

Maybe it wasn't so much that he'd asked her out.

Maybe it was the lack of respect. Or maybe it was the fact that she had cried on me the other night, and for the first time, I really saw how sorry she was. Whatever it was, it had opened that festering wound right back up and had me marching toward Baites like a death moth to a soon-to-be-dying flame.

He shoved his football bag into his locker.

Before he could close the door, I snatched him by the collar of his jacket, spun him around, and pinned him to the metal.

He flinched, trying to block an anticipated punch. There was that respect…

"Brookes told me you wouldn't eat my face!" The high, panicked pitch of his voice sounded like I had his balls in my fist, trying to castrate him with brute force.

"This isn't eating your face—" I held his arm in place and slammed the locker door on his fingers. "Is it, dipshit?"

He let out a howl.

The scuff of sneakers in the packed hallway silenced, and I let go of the door. As soon as it popped open, Daniel's bitch-ass sank to the dirty floor, his hand clutched to his chest.

"Don't fucking talk to her," I said, then turned around, meeting the horrified gazes of the other students in the hall.

At least these assholes would know better than to ask if Lola and I were still a thing. Because honestly, it didn't matter. I could accept she wasn't mine all I wanted, but she'd always be my territory. The stench of my mark would sure as hell stay put.

When I shifted from the lockers, the crowd immediately parted.

Wolf stood to the side of the hall, smirking. "So, you aren't over her," he said, falling in step beside me.

I wanted to live in denial and avoid the ridicule. I'd decapitated a sloth, for fuck's sake! "I'm pissed at the lack of respect."

"Lack of…" He bent over, laughing his stumpy ass off as students rushed down the hall to get to class. "Lack of respect? Wow."

I socked him in the gut. Hard. "That's right, cocksucker."

He socked me right back. "It's the lack of fucking balls."

And my brain short-circuited, sparks and smoke shooting out in every direction. It was a lack of balls.

The rest of the guys had fucked their way through girls because they wanted to. I'd done it because I'd been a desperate little, hurt bitch looking for something to make me forget her. A druggie in withdrawal, searching for some form of shitty relief in their cycle of addiction. Over and over and over again. I was addicted to her, and there was no damn cure.

I'd just sat down in Smith's class when the secretary called my name over the loudspeaker.

And that time… my ass got expelled.

Four o'clock in the afternoon.

Zepp was gone.

I was shitfaced.

Expelled and shitfaced and watching Stranger Things from where Lola had evidently left off. This show was weird. Good but weird…I almost didn't hear the front door bang shut. Something dropped in the entranceway.

"You asshole!" Lola hurtled over the arm of the couch and snatched the remote from my lap, turning off the TV. "I haven't watched that episode." She pushed up on a huff and crossed her legs.

My gaze dragged over her smooth thighs. I thought about having them wrapped around my head while I buried my face in her pussy, and my blood flow shifted. Fast.

Friends. Fucking friends, friends, friends… I took the last sip of my beer, then chucked the bottle to the floor. Screw friends. "Take off your shorts," I said.

Her brows pulled together. "What?"

"I need to taste your pussy." I slid off the couch and dropped to my knees in front of her, lowering her zipper.

Was it irrational? I didn't give a shit. It had been a month since I'd had my tongue in between her legs, and right then, it was all I wanted. It was what she got for crying on me…

"I… I thought…" Her gaze drifted to the collection of beer bottles on the coffee table. "Are you drunk?"

"My tongue's not." I took the sides of her shorts in my hands. "Why? Do you want me to stop?"

She didn't say anything fast enough, and she sure as hell lifted her hips when I yanked her shorts and thong down her legs.

This was something I absolutely shouldn't have been doing. Like ripping a Band-Aid off a hairy leg when I knew the fucker was going to bleed everywhere, but I didn't care.

She tossed her head back against the couch cushions. "Why are you doing this to me, Hendrix?"

"Because I want to." I gripped her knees and spread those thighs apart. I'd missed this. "And you want to let me." Then I leaned in and sucked her clit into my mouth until her knees jerked.

Just like that, precum rolled to the tip of my dick. This girl was definitely an addiction, and I was about to get high as hell on her.

I gave her a little rake of teeth and a hum. "You gonna come on my tongue like my good-fucking-girl?"

Another hard swipe, the taste of her tempting me to pull out my cock and fuck her until she wouldn't know how to say "friends."

I dragged my tongue from her front to her back.

On a moan, she fisted my hair. "Fuck, Hendrix."

Then she came. Hard. Thighs clamping around my head, pussy riding my face just the way I liked it.

"You said—" she pulled in an uneven breath— "you wanted to be friends."

I leaned back in, sweeping my tongue back over her. "Friends with benefits is better…" It was bullshit. But it sounded good.

She looked down at me, brows furrowed, lips parted like she wanted to say something. But before she could—

"I'm going to make you come again." And I fucking did.