Page 42 of Price of Victory
“Then we’ll be quiet.”
It felt like we were doomed to have the same conversation every day. I didn’t hate it. “Aiden…”
He cut me off by pulling me down into a kiss that was anything but quiet. It was desperate, hungry, full of wanting and the tension that had been building between us all day. I forgot about the library, about the possibility of discovery, about everything except the way he tasted and the way his hands felt gripping my shirt.
When we broke apart, both of us breathing hard, I realized I was practically sitting in his lap, my hands fisted in his sweater like I was afraid he might disappear. Or trying to make it disappear.
“We have to stop,” I said, but I made no move to pull away.
“Do we? Because from where I’m sitting, this feels pretty perfect.”
“It feels like we’re about to get arrested for public indecency.”
“Then maybe we should find somewhere more private.”
The suggestion hung in the air between us, loaded with promise and possibility. I knew I should say no, should remind him that we’d already crossed enough lines for one week. But looking at him, seeing the heat in his eyes and feeling the way my body was responding to his proximity, I couldn’t bring myself to be practical.
“My room?” I heard myself say.
“Lennox?”
I laughed. “Still at Oliver’s. Always at Oliver’s.”
“Maybe I should just move in with you.” He was already reaching for his laptop, packing up with an efficiency that suggested he’d been hoping for exactly this outcome.
I laughed. “As if you could survive living in a dormitory.”
“Calling me a brat, Morrison?”
“Calling a duck a duck,” I said.
He stuck a finger into my rib cage, nearly making me yelp. “Lead the way.”
As we gathered our materials and headed for the exit, I tried to tell myself this was just physical. Just two people who were attracted to each other acting on that attraction. It was better than biting each other’s heads off. But the truth was more complicated than I wanted to admit.
I wasn’t just attracted to Aiden Whitmore. I was falling for him, despite every rational reason not to. And judging by the way he was looking at me as we walked through the empty library corridors, I wasn’t the only one who was in deeper than expected.
This was supposed to be simple. Take the edge off, explore the attraction, maybe work through some of the tension that had been building between us for years. Instead, it was becoming something else entirely. Something that felt significant and precious and terrifying all at once.
But as we stepped out into the cool night air, as I felt his hand brush against mine in the darkness, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the complications. Tomorrow, I could worry about families and consequences and everything that made this impossible.
Tonight, I just wanted to be with him. Consequences be damned.
SIXTEEN
AIDEN
The campus dininghall was packed with the usual lunch rush chaos, students weaving between tables with overloaded trays and the constant hum of conversation creating a wall of sound that should have been perfect white noise for eating alone. I’d chosen a corner table specifically to avoid the social minefield of the busy lunch period, planning to grab a quick sandwich and disappear before anyone I knew spotted me.
That plan lasted exactly thirty seconds.
I saw him before he saw me, sitting at a large round table near the windows with what looked like half the hockey team. Rhett was in the middle of some animated story, his hands gesturing as he talked, and even from across the crowded room, I could see the way our teammates were hanging on every word. Lennox was laughing at something, nearly choking on his drink, while Elio shook his head with mock disapproval. Patrick and Easton were both grinning, the easy camaraderie between the five friends obvious even at a distance.
My first instinct was to grab my tray and leave before anyone noticed me. The last thing I needed was to navigate the complex social dynamics of Rhett’s friend group and how it balanced with us being teammates, especially when I was still processing whatthe hell this thing was that kept happening between us. The memory of his fingers in my hair and my name on his lips was still too fresh, too distracting for me to trust myself around him in public. The truth was simple enough. I couldn’t resist him any more than he could resist me. And the second serving of truth was simpler still. The fewer people who knew about it, the less the chance of my father collapsing again, but with a knife in his back this time.
But even as I started to stand, even as I told myself that avoiding him was the smart play, I found myself sitting back down. Because walking away felt wrong, cowardly in a way that went against every instinct I’d developed over twenty-two years of never backing down from anything.
Besides, what was I so afraid of? That I’d give away the fact that I’d spent most of the night with my face buried between his peachy cheeks, learning exactly what sounds he made when I licked him gently, then rougher, then gently again? That I’d somehow broadcast to his entire team that I knew what he looked like when he was completely undone, cum spilling over his chest and eyes begging, lips forming my name with no voice to say it?
