Page 18 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
I give her a deadpan look. I desperately need something—anything—else to occupy the topic of this morning’s discussion. It’s one thing to think about dicks while I’m bumping my goods against the floor in the splits. It’s another thing to think about Gage Arlington’s probably massive, veiny, girthy dick while my vagina is very much splayed out in a come-hither pose.
“How would you know? You secretly seeing him?” I jest, quickly tucking my legs back underneath me.
She fans herself. “No, but look at him, Cal. That man is agod. He has a six pack. His biceps are the size of my head. His quads are probably enormous. I bet he has a Jacob’s ladder too.”
Great. Now I’m imagining Gage splitting me open on his nine-inch-long,pierceddong. He seems dominant in the bedroom. The kind of dominant that would watch me come before he even touches himself. He’d make me work for his cock, make sure I’m stretched to accommodate his hulking size. I’d ride his abs until I made a mess of both of us—until I turned a strong-willed god into a whimpering mortal. I’d undulate my hips and rub my leaking pussy over each muscled ridge while my fingernails engraved bloody marks into his chest. His stomach would contract as I started to gush onto him, coating each curve and dip in a sheen of arousal. He’d throw his head back against the mattress and rough out praise, all while trying to keep his grip tightly secured on my hips. And then, after he massaged the flesh there, his touch would travel to my breast, torquing my nipple to a fully erect state with a twist of his long, nimble fingers. He’d buck his hips to seek any last promise of friction, his neglected cock prodding the slit of my ass, demanding relief after bearing too much pressure. And he’d beg me to help him, to take his dick in my cunt or my ass, to…
Hadley’s voice continues to resonate in my head, and it dawns on me that I was just fantasizing about Gage.Me.I was the one fantasizing. Abouthim. Do you know how fucked up that is? Oh my God. I’m a disgrace.
“You were totally just thinking about him.” She does a little shimmy with her shoulders, and as much as I want to fake gag and brush her off, the ear-to-ear beam on her face is fucking contagious.
I suck in a deep, lung-expanding breath, already exhausted with all the mental gymnastics I’ve done before noon. Iwasthinking about him. And when I was, nothing else in the world mattered. Nothing else existed. I didn’t feel this forebodingsense of distress; I didn’t feel like I was biding time until the next chore had to be done. I was living in the moment, unfettered, and someone was taking care ofmefor a change. It was my own slice of golden-gated heaven. I don’t remember the last time I ever felt so…at peace.
“Only because you haven’t stopped talking about him,” I counter.
Hadley mimics a zip over her peachy lips. “Just consider it. You guys will be working together for three months. You’d be amazed at what close proximity and sexual frustration can do to a person.”
When I enter the Reapers’rink, I make a mental note to myself to start packing a puffer jacket, because walking onto the ice in skimpy stripper attire is probably grounds for banishment or something. Or at most, total humiliation for younger brothers.
My class ended early today, so I’m surprisingly on time for once. And Teague will be surprised too, seeing how he hasn’t looked anywhere in my direction in anticipation of my arrival.
I start to carefully shuffle my way toward the ice, waddling like a penguin while simultaneously being self-conscious about how much of my butt is showing, and that’s when I feel a body displace the air beside me.
“You’re going to freeze,” Gage says, lumbering up to me with a lull in his gait and a hip brace over his pants. He’s dressed in his warm-looking jersey and grey sweats, and I glance over at the practice happening a few feet away.
Iamfreezing, but I’ll never let him know that.
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.” I turn my nose up defiantly.
“You have goose bumps.”
“I do not—” I look down at my arms, which, in fact, flaunt a wealth of small bumps. “I just have naturally bumpy arms.”
Gage shakes his crop of chestnut hair, cutting me off with a dart of his body and halting me in my tracks. His half-lidded eyes rake down the length of my figure before a mischievous simper splits his lips. “If you’re not cold, then why are your nipples poking out like torpedoes?”
I gasp and cross my arms over my breasts, not bothering with confirming Gage’s observation because it definitely feels like my nipples are going to chip off in this temperature.
“Fuck off. I’m just here to pick up my brother,” I grit through my teeth, trying to make my way past him.
I can’t. Dude has mile-wide shoulders and inhuman reflexes.
“You’re not getting on the ice, Cali.”
Excuse me?
I drop my arms to my sides, more than ready to shove my way past his mountain of a body. “I am.”
“If you find some way to bypass me—which I doubt—then you need to cover up,” he growls.
“Are you policing my body based on the fact that you, as a man, feel threatened by my lack of clothing?”
“What? No! I don’t want you getting sick.” The lines of his naturally hardened face soften upon his admission, highlighting the faintest crinkles bordering his eyes, and the concern in his tone starts to slowly whittle away at my reinforced walls.
His voice has a richness to it that’s foreign to my ears, sometimes thick around certain syllables, sometimes grated into a gravelly drawl that continuously sparks my synapses. And right now, it’s warm in all the right places. The kind of warm like the soft glow of the sun at midday as it casts buttery rays through a car window, lulling me into a soundless slumber.
“I’m not going to get sick,” I argue, and if it wasn’t for theshiver that just rolled through me, I probably would’ve gotten away with it too.
Gage grumbles out a string of curses before shucking his jersey off and unveiling the tight-fitted long-sleeve clinging to ropes of grabbable muscle. Hand extended, his jersey a peace offering, he shakes it in front of me. “Take it.”
