In Ruins Page 6

  I shimmy out of my shorts and slip my fingers around to the hook of my bra, just to mess with him.

  His face darkens in anger. “Carl.” He reaches for me as if he’s actually going to forcibly stop me from getting naked, and I snake around him and race toward the dock. Moments later, Tina and I jump into the lake, shrieking with laughter.

  We start some kind of equal opportunity stripping and swimming feminist movement, and by the time I turn around to face the shore, half of the girls have joined us.

  Thirty minutes later, almost the entire party has moved into the cool, refreshing lake, which does feel pretty damn great after all. A chicken fight breaks out and people watch and cheer.

  Eventually I feel him behind me. He doesn’t touch me, but I know he’s there. I turn my face to him, smirking, and he takes another step so I can feel his chest against my back. He isn’t mad anymore, just amused, his eyes alight with challenge.

  “I’m gonna get you back for that, you know,” he murmurs into my ear.

  I shrug. Any time he wants to strip down for me is just fine.

  But then I feel his fingertips ghosting along my sides, and I suck in a sharp breath. We are deep enough that the water comes up to my chest, and it’s dark enough that it hides everything below it. I can’t help it, his touch makes me lean back into him until I am flush against him.

  “You see what you’ve done?” he asks, hands banding around my waist as he presses the conspicuous evidence of his desire against my ass.

  I nod, pushing my thighs together as I arch into him just a little bit more.

  He walks us slowly and casually back away from the crowd until he is leaning against the now empty dock, his fingers caressing all the while. I just let him. I have no witty words or snarky quips to shoot his way, not when he’s touching me like this.

  “You tease me, now I’m going to tease you.” His voice grows deeper with each word.

  I trace my nails gently over the back of his hands, and he takes it as encouragement. He slips a finger into the waistband of my boy-cut underwear, and just slides it tauntingly back and forth, back and forth.

  I gasp in a breath, waiting to see how far he will go. His other hand explores, roaming around my hip and then to my ass, his fingers digging softly into my flesh. My head lolls against his shoulder and I feel his chest rise with his sharp inhale.

  “You like that, Princess?”

  I don’t want to admit that I do, because I don’t want to be the one to lose this challenge. But more than that—more than anything—I don’t want him to stop. So I nod.

  Tucker lets out a soft growl from the back of his throat, and then his fingers dip slowly into my underwear.

  “Tuck,” I sigh.

  His head drops over my shoulder and he kisses my throat. “I said I was going to tease you, not make you feel good,” he whispers. “But fuck, Princess, when you say my name like that…” He trails off, but his fingers start stroking me, and I whimper.

  He takes me higher and higher, my hips moving with his hand, my ass grinding into his steel erection, and his breathing races mine. He pushes his hand farther down until he thrusts one, then two fingers inside me, the heel of his hand rubbing purposefully, his rhythm making me gasp for air.

  Tucker whispers dirty little things about my body and what it inspires in him, how jealous his dick is of his fingers right now, how he wishes he could do the same thing with his tongue.

  And then he takes me over the edge, right there in the lake, our friends no more than fifty yards away. I bite my lip so hard I almost draw blood to keep from crying out, my nails digging into his flexing forearms.

  It takes several moments for me to return to earth as Tucker’s hand slows and eventually withdraws. He traces his fingers over my belly and around my navel as I try to catch my breath.

  “Now I’m never going to be able to leave this lake,” he says with a laugh.

  “Hmm…?”

  Tucker answers by grinding his raging arousal against my ass again.

  “I came back into the lake to wait for it to go down, and to get you back for getting me riled up in the first place.” He laughs. “And now I’m going to have to spend the night in this fucking lake.”

  Or…I could return the favor, I think to myself.

  I suck in a deep, courage-mustering breath.

  I reach behind me and let the tips of my still-tingling fingers graze over his thigh, dipping under the hem of his boxer briefs. Tucker stops breathing behind me. I turn my head, and my lips reach up to the base of his throat, just softly brushing his skin. His Adam’s apple rolls under my lips with his thick swallow and his hands grip my sides.

  I don’t dare turn to face him. If anyone looks over and actually manages to make us out through the blackness, it will look like he is just holding me as we watch our friends party. If I turned, it would look too intimate. We would at the very least look like we were making out, and that would destroy the clandestine ambiance—as if our intimacy is a secret that belongs only to us.

  I slide my palm up over his underwear until I find the massive shape of him under the thin, wet cotton. My other hand assaults from above, slipping beneath his waistband and immediately finding its target.

  “Princess…Fuuuck.” Tucker groans into my hair, emboldening me, and I grasp him firmly and start to stroke.

  I’ve only done this once before, when I was probably too young to be doing it at all, and certainly didn’t know how to make it especially good. And granted, my knowledge now only comes from the couple of porn videos Tina and I have watched online, but Tucker’s rapid breathing, the way his fingers burrow into my waist, the trembling of his taut belly behind me, tells me he likes what I’m doing.

  I silently marvel at his size, how he possibly managed to fit that inside my body. I move faster, a little stronger, stroking and twisting, wanting so much to make him feel as incredible as he made me feel. He hides his face in my hair, his chest rising and falling fast and hard behind me.

  “Fuck, Princess. I’m going to come in your hand.” He says it like a warning, but it feels more like a promise.

  And then he stops breathing entirely, his fingers root themselves almost painfully into my skin, and he does exactly as he said. I strain my neck to watch him, his face turned upward to the night sky, eyes shut tight, teeth clenched as he fights to keep quiet just as he forced me to do minutes ago.

  In those short moments he is perfectly mine, and I revel in it.

  He takes a moment to calm his breathing, and then spins me to face him, green eyes shimmering with awe in the moonlight. “You never do what I expect,” he murmurs.

  I bite my lip to keep my smile from growing into an epically embarrassing grin.

  It feels like a victory. But certainly not a defeat for him. And I wonder if Tucker and I have found a new way to challenge each other, one where we can both triumph, and I try to ignore the warmth in my chest as my heart swells with pride and something else—something that threatens to thoroughly unravel this new delicate truce of friendship and wonderful, world-spinning benefits.

  Chapter Six

  Carleigh

  Present Day

  As the October air grows cooler and the trees change to vibrant coppers and fiery reds, I fall into a routine. Classes and studying, and a reasonable amount of socializing. Devin and I have befriended a few girls from our dorm and we’ve formed a kind of group. Of course, they all want to go to the hottest parties, the most popular bars, and that means running into Tucker more than my heart appreciates. Or maybe my heart appreciates it more than I care to admit.

  We seemed to have developed a nonverbal truce, where the only indication that there’s any history between us is his practiced obliviousness to my presence, only rarely interrupted by his contemptuous stare.

  Seeing him twice a week in creative digital marketing doesn’t help either. I try to focus in class, participating twice as much as I normally would just to distract myself from his presence, but Tu
cker takes up the entire room. Our past is a living, breathing entity, a constant reminder of what I’ve lost, and his hostility is tangible.

  The sad part is the class should have been my favorite. Even though I landed there by default, and despite the harsh grading system, I actually find the subject matter interesting—useful for the future. And the professor is pretty cool, too. It’s nice to have a professor that remembers what it’s like to be a student, and I honestly don’t mind that he expects a lot from us. I like being challenged. But Tucker doesn’t seem to agree. I hate that I’m so acutely aware of him, but I can’t help but notice that he seems to dislike our professor nearly as much as he does me.

  Mondays aren’t especially known for partying or going out, but some people are just incapable of enjoying a relaxing night in, and I’m starting to discover that Devin is one of those people. She suffers from an obvious case of FOMO—fear of missing out—and seems irritated with me when I tell her I’m just going to study and go to bed early. I win her back over when I offer to do her makeup, and she and Julia head out to the bars looking like they’d fit in better at a Hollywood club.

  * * *

  The following morning begins like any other Tuesday, with equal parts anticipation and dread, and neither is particularly helpful. It’s hard enough to get over the love of your life when you’re not sentenced to spend an hour sitting across the room from him twice a week.

  Class starts out normally enough. I get there about five minutes early and take my usual seat. Julia sits beside me and complains about her hangover, though it doesn’t stop her from talking my ear off. Not a minute before class is scheduled to begin, Tucker strolls right past me without even a hint of a glance my way. It still stings, but it also gives me the opportunity to watch him, and I note that I’m not the only one. Most of the girls in the class sneak a peek at Tuck, and I can’t really blame them. But I suspect I am the only one to notice the subtle clench of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, and I can’t help but wonder at it.

  Zayne asks the two students nearest his desk to pass out some memos to the class, and draws a blush from both of them. I have to suppress an eye roll. He’s good-looking, but he’s our freaking professor.

  Before I can even glance at the sheets of paper that have just been handed to me, Zayne starts speaking. “For your final project this semester, you will be creating a social marketing campaign for one of the organizations on the list I have provided.” Zayne holds up one of the sheets of paper.

  “Every semester I choose a different theme, and yours will be nonprofits. The campaign will not focus on selling anything or raising money, but rather on the organization’s core values.”

  Zayne goes on to reference points from his last lecture as well as our textbook, and I’m glad I’ve kept up. Basically he wants us to create a viral video that will positively and effectively represent the nonprofit’s values or messages.

  I swallow anxiously. Well, I wanted to be challenged.

  “For your final, you will create a presentation to showcase your campaign to the class,” Zayne continues. “You will be graded on the following: concept, writing, design, execution, editing, presentation, and last but not least, professionalism.”

  Some guy whose name I don’t remember raises his hand and Zayne gestures to him. “Uh, what do you mean by professionalism? Like, how professional it, like, is?”

  A few people snicker, but I hold mine in. It’s not a stupid question, even if it was phrased less than articulately.

  Zayne just looks at the guy for a moment. “How professional, like, what is?”

  The poor kid turns redder than the blushing girls before him. “Like…the project?” His inflection is so unsure it comes out like a question; even more people laugh, and I can’t help cracking a smile.

  Fortunately Zayne takes pity on him. “Professionalism refers to the way you conduct yourselves during all of the stages of your project. After all, college is supposed to help prepare you for the workforce—for life—so you will be judged and graded very much the way an employee is reviewed in a professional setting.”

  I glance around the room, trying to figure out if I’m the only one who doesn’t know how one reviews your professionalism on a project that won’t be presented until the end of the semester.

  “The second sheet you’ve been handed is the list of your groups.”

  Groups?

  “I’ve divided you into six groups of four. You will be responsible for meeting on your own time, assigning roles, delegating work, etcetera. You’ll work together through the semester, and in the final weeks, you will all submit anonymous reviews of your group members.”

  Oh.

  “Now, I’m always happy to act as a sounding board or provide feedback for anyone who wants to take advantage of my office hours, but the onus will be on you. I won’t be checking in, or micromanaging any of you. It’s all up to you. You’re adults. It’s your project, and your grade on the line.

  “And speaking of grades, I should also mention that this project is a competition.”

  There’s a chorus of surprise and anxiety, and I silently echo it. I’m as competitive as the next girl, but aren’t we all here to learn?

  Zayne goes on to explain that our projects will be graded on a curve. We’ll start with a specific grade based on our team’s place in the competition, which, of course, he will judge. The winning team starts with A’s, the losing team with D’s, and the four middle teams will start anywhere from a B+ to a D+ depending on Zayne’s assessment of the campaigns and presentations. Everyone in a group will earn the same starting grade, but not necessarily the same final grade. Apparently that’s where our “professionalism” comes in. Once Zayne evaluates our peer reviews, they, and his own “observations,” will either raise or lower our individual grades, “some considerably,” and that will determine the grade for our final project. He reminds us it will account for half our grade for the class itself. No pressure.

  “I expect you all to work together professionally; however, you’d be surprised at some of the behavior that has led to a failing grade in previous semesters.”

  Silence.

  But Zayne isn’t finished. “There’s more on the line than your grades, as well. After all, what’s a competition without a prize?”

  And here I thought the A’s were the prize.

  “The winning team will be presenting their campaign to the executives at Steepman and Boyle, my former employer and one of the largest advertising firms in the country.”

  I’ll say. Even I’ve heard of S&B. They’ve been famously behind some of the most creative ad campaigns and successful social media promotions in the past decade.

  “All of the organizations on the list I’ve provided are their clients, and if they’re impressed, they could potentially use your video in one of their campaigns, and each of the winning team members would be credited. And paid.”

  This announcement has the intended effect, and cheers erupt around the room along with excited chatter, before Zayne quiets us again.

  “There’s more.” He smiles at our collective eager anticipation. “From the winning team, the student or students who earn the highest grade on the project will interview with my former bosses, and one will be awarded a paid summer internship in the department of his or her choice.”

  Wow.

  “Now, this is a big deal,” Zayne states the obvious. “Thousands of students apply for even the unpaid internships at S&B every year, and whoever is selected will be getting a valuable foot in the door—one that, if you play your cards right, could lead to a job offer and a successful career.”

  I sit up straighter in my chair. An internship at S&B is beyond anything I ever pictured for myself, at least in the foreseeable future, but I’m sure as hell picturing it now. I imagine what I could learn there—how much it could help me when it’s time to get my own businesses off the ground. Suddenly my distant dreams feel tangible, within my grasp, and my competitive spirit
awakens and flexes its muscles.

  A survey of the room indicates that I’m not the only one suddenly motivated, but I rally to find the confidence that once came so naturally to me, and tell myself I’ve got this.

  I’m smiling to myself when I finally take a look at the group list in my hand, and my smile vanishes instantly.

  I stop breathing entirely, the black photocopy ink blurring as I stare right through the paper, but Julia taps my shoulder excitedly, and I try to suck in air and focus as she gushes over our being in the same group.

  And then she’s whispering in my ear, “And that super hot lacrosse player is with us, too! The one always staring at you—Tucker Green.”

  My eyes shoot to his icy green gaze to find it locked on mine, completely inscrutable. He works to unclench his jaw, his mouth a thin line of displeasure.

  Zayne claps once to get our attention. “Okay. So like I said, you can make your own schedules to work on your campaigns, and in the next couple of weeks I’d like you all to have an idea of what organization your group will choose.”

  He dismisses us. As always, everyone rushes out the door to get to their next class, except Tucker, who always sits there waiting for me to be long gone before he heads out. But I make my way up to Zayne’s desk, all too aware of hostile green eyes on me, and vaguely I wonder why he doesn’t take the opportunity to get out of here.

  “Hey, Carleigh.” Zayne’s boyish smile makes him seem younger, more like one of us. I would find it disarming if Tucker’s presence didn’t make me feel like I need a full military detail.

  “Do you have a minute?” I ask him tentatively. I need him to change my group. There’s no way Tucker and I can work together—there’s too much riding on this project—and he shouldn’t have to be the one to switch. But as I stand here chewing on my bottom lip, I still don’t know what excuse I’m going to give Zayne for wanting a new group.