Page 74 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

“Well, it’s pretty simple. The football game ended at 9 p.m., and we didn’t make it back here until after eleven. And since a day is twenty-four hours, then anything that happens before 11 p.m. this evening all counts as one. That’s just math.”

Jack’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he considered my fuzzy logic. I tried not to smirk in triumph as I felt his erection growing against my thigh.

“I think I get it,” he said. “You’re saying we still have five more hours before our one night is technically over.”

My face burst into a toothy smile. “Exactly! You can’t argue with math.”

“I would never…” he chuckled.

I silenced him with another lingering kiss. We had five more hours until our Cinderella moment, and I intended to make the most of every minute before we had to go back to being rivals.

Chapter 23

A Bad Influence

Silvia: sooo… how was it?

I bit my lip while I reread the message. Even a day later, having woken up alone in my own bed—after he insisted on leaving at exactly 11 p.m.—I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Jack’s hands felt on my skin. Not to mention the way his cock stretched and filled me so perfectly.

I usually had no problem telling my best friend—in gory detail—about the men I hooked up with. There had been Craig from the bar whose dick was so bent it looked broken, Aiden from the gym who hummed All I Do Is Win while he bent me over a table, and quick-draw Kevin from my organic chemistry lab who blew his load before he even got the condom on.

Something stopped me from talking about Jack. It wasn’t just that he was physically the most gorgeous human I had ever seen—Michelangelo’s David had nothing on him. No. There was also a vibe. He saw me. And he was obsessed with my pleasure. He seemed infinitely more interested in making me come than getting off himself.

The feeling was potent and intensely erotic.

Mel: It doesn’t matter. We agreed it would be a one-time thing.

Silvia: Bullshit. How many times did you do it??

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. Five hundred miles away, and Silvia could read me like a book.

Mel: Six

Silvia: Six does not equal one!!!!!!!!

Mel: It’s fine. We did the math.

Silvia: So this is it? You’re not going to see him again?

Mel: I’ll see him around campus, but yeah. We agreed to stop… fraternizing.

Silvia: You don’t want to stop fraternizing.

No. The answer came to me before I even finished reading the message. I had known I shouldn’t do anything months before anything ever happened. I knew I should stay away from him after the first kiss. And the second. I shouldn’t have rolled around with him in the wrestling room, and I definitely shouldn’t have propositioned him.

But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Mel: I need to focus on the students. Midterms are coming up.

Silvia: That’s not an answer.

It wasn’t, but it was as close as I could get to one. And, it was the truth. Two things could be true. I could be drawn to Jack while also understanding that starting something with him was a bad idea—a distraction at best and a career-ending offense at worst.

But I liked how I felt when he looked at me.

And I wanted him to look at me like that all the time.

I sighed and put my phone down.