Page 116 of Under the Lights

“Oh my fucking God!” Ella screeched as I looked up at Dom in shock. “Why am I looking at my brother’s pasty white ass?!Doors, people! They’re there for a reason! Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Sorry!” I meekly called out, Dom’s grin now positively shit-eating. Motherfucker was enjoying this.

“Where did that even come from? Wait, wait — don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.” She fake gagged audibly. “I can’t deal with this right now. Dom?”

He looked over his shoulder, flashing her that smug grin. “Yes?”

“We’re gonna talk about this. I know this wasyourdoing. You need to stop corrupting her.”

“Sure,” drawled Dom, but her steps were already fading in the background, followed by a door slamming with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

“Oh my God,” I moaned, mortified, making him snort. “This is not funny!” I swatted his thigh.

“Yeah it is.” His tattooed hand wrapped around his cock, already hardening again. “Now, let’s get this cleaned up, Darlin’, I’m not done with you yet.”

***

The late afternoon sun cast soft rays through the windows of the library. Wistfully, I stared out at the clear, blue skies.

It looked like a picture-perfect day, and with the humidity mostly gone now, it reminded me of home. Instead of soaking up the fall sun, however, I was hunkered down in the library.

Between practices, games, coaching, and oh yeah,trying to finish my degree, I barely had time to study at all. I had to take advantage of every opportunity, even if it was just an hour between classes.

We weren’t close to finals yet, so at least it wasn’t packed.

The quiet atmosphere soothed me — soft murmurs, highlighters scraping over paper, and the light clicking of people typing on their laptops filled the air. I enjoyed the silence, and the understated background noise helped me concentrate.

What did not help me concentrate was the bane of my existence sitting right next to me — with his stupid handsome smile he kept flashing at me, and his stupid backwards cap on his stupidly gorgeous dark-red hair, and his stupid big inked hands making the pen in his hand look miniscule.

He claimed it was a totalcoincidenceand said he had planned all week to study here today.

I stared at the words in front of me so hard, my eyes were starting to water. I’d been stuck on the same page for the last five minutes because Dom was justway too close.

His tree trunk of a thigh kept brushing against mine because, of course, he was fucking man-spreading, and his scent surrounded me, making me flustered.

The cocky little smirk, permanently stuck on his face, made clear he knew what he was doing. I huffed in annoyance, as if mybreath didn’t hitch when I felt the warmth of his thigh pressed against me.

Like I wasn’t drooling over his forearms that flexed when he moved.

Like the butterflies in my stomach didn’t go crazy every time I felt his gaze on me.

And Ihatedmyself for loving it.

“Do you mind?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth.

“You’re smarter than me. I need your ambient genius to survive.” He shrugged, not even the least bit sorry.

I got up, partly to find a reference book, partly to calm my raging hormones. There was nothing sexy about a fucking library. Getting all hot and bothered just because he was smiling at me and sitting closely was pathetic.

It was that goddamn backwards cap. And the neck tattoo. Couldn’t blame a girl for going feral for that shit.

I just needed a minute to breathe, to center myself again, so I’d be able to focus. Moving down a shadowy row in the stacks, my eyes were roaming over the spines.

Just as I’d clocked the one I was hunting, with my hand reaching for it, I all of a sudden heard an agitating, grating voice behind me.

“Aw, look who it is.”

Fixing a condescending smile onto my face, I turned. “Aria. I’d say it’s nice to see you, but …well.”

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