Page 80 of Whistle

“Why is it half on the curb?” I asked.

Two tires on the sidewalk and two tires on the road.

Bro, what?

Shit. Did I just bro myself? I glanced at the trauma latte. What the hell did they put in this?

“I was in a hurry,” Emmett groused as he pulled open the passenger side to put everything he was carrying inside.

When I just stood there, he stalked over and grabbed the bags and coffee, muttering the whole way back to jam those inside too. Bracing his palm on the frame of the open door, he turned. “Did you forget how to walk?”

The second I got in that car, he would ask. I would tell him. I was never self-conscious about my preferences before… Okay, that’s a lie.

A big one.

I was always a little shy about my love of lingerie. But not enough to stop wearing it. Especially after Brynne…

My center of gravity suddenly shifted, and my feet left the ground. The shout I let out turned into an oomph when my middle met Emmett’s shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, and the long length of my hair draped toward the ground, blood rushing to my head.

“I said get in the car,” he intoned. “I meant it.” Then to someone who was not me, “What the hell are you looking at? Go study. This is Elite business.”

I craned my neck, trying to look at the people who were unmistakably gawking. My hair obscured the view, and the tight band his arm made across the backs of my thighs was super distracting.

It reminded me of when he’d pinned me to his desk and swallowed my dick.

He swung me down, catching my hip to keep me from falling while stepping so close our bodies rubbed. “You better get in the car before someone sees that.” He spoke quietly, the roughness in his tone doing exactly nothing to calm the situation.

The situation? My rigid dick.

I glanced down at it pressing against the fly of my jeans.

A low, warning growl ruffled the hair on the back of my neck. “Get in the car, Goldilocks, I do not take kindly to others seeing what’s mine.”

“You’d have to admit it was yours first, and then—” I gasped dramatically. “The scandal. Coach and a swimmer. You’d lose your job.”

Deep down, I knew it. I always did. He had too much to lose and would never get involved with me. Not in any way that wasn’t secret. It was why I was at this dorm in the first place. It was just another reason that getting in this car was a bad, bad idea. My heart was already frail, my armor beginning to thin.

He shifted, his breath brushing across my cheek. “Do not underestimate my willingness to protect what’s mine.”

I jolted back, eyes searching his face.

He used my shock to push me into the passenger seat and close me in the car. We rode in silence the entire way off campus and remained that way even after we pulled into the driveway of his townhouse.

Rush’s Corvette wasn’t here and neither was the white one Landry drove.

Reaching into my jeans, I pulled out my phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he shut off the engine.

“I’m ordering an Uber. I’ll go to a hotel.”

The phone disappeared from my hand, and I gaped as he sent the screen dark and shoved it into his jacket pocket. “Go in the house.”

“No.”

“Tell me you don’t want to.”

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