Fake Dates & Ice Skates: (The North University Series Book 1)

I’ve been trying to put it into words how it feels when I watch Wren perform. At the showcase it was incredible and liberating but watching her compete? A whole other level. The way she gets pissed when she thinks she’s going to be late. The way she takes her hair down after performing a flawless routine. The way she gets annoyed at me when I forget to bring the right water. The way she insults me when I slip up.

It’s an addiction.

“Do you ever listen to anything I tell you?” she spits, her foot in my lap as I untie the laces on her skates. We’re sitting in the locker room after one of her competitions in LA which I’m sure she’s won. I accidentally forgot to pack her phone charger after she told me to get it since she left it in my room. So, she’s in a bad mood. Understandable. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because I like it when you shout at me. Is that bad?” I say through a grin, tapping her leg so she changes her foot. She rests her other foot in my lap, allowing me to undo her other lace.

“Yeah, you’ve got a problem. Get help immediately,” she says, trying her hardest not to smile at me. “What are you doing later?”

“You, hopefully,” I whisper and she actually laughs at that but she still waits for an answer.

“Miles.”

“Wren.”

She sticks her tongue in her cheek, again, trying not to laugh as her face turns pink. “I’ve just competed against one of the most hardcore teams in America. The last thing I’m thinking about is you putting that inside me. My body needs to heal.”

“And heal it will,” I say, pulling her into my lap so she can straddle me. “After I’m done with you.” I kiss across her jaw, down to her neck, across the small exposed skin on her neck and she whimpers.

‘We’ve got one more night in LA. What do you want to do?” she asks between pants.

“I already told you what I want to do,” I press again, my dick twitching at the thought. She looks at me seriously. “We can stay in tonight. Your body is sore and I’m exhausted from watching you all day. My eyes can only open for so long.”

She laughs and the sound runs through me like honey. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Only for you.”

We do exactly that. We spent our last night here in the hotel room across from Coach Darcy and the other team members, pampering ourselves with facemasks as we watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns. We splash out on room service, filling ourselves with pancakes and waffles until we’re so stuffed, we can’t even sleep close to each other, needing the space to spread out.

As much as this girl can pretend that she doesn’t want me, when we get back to Salt Lake that day, she only orders the Uber to my house instead of hers, meaning she wants to spend the night. I don’t mind at all. Being with her sometimes feels like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. I know how dramatic that sounds but it’s true. Every time I’m around her, I just want more and more and more.

*

“What’s your favourite song?” she asks me out of nowhere. We’re laying on my bed after one of my games, both tired as hell. Well, I’m laying down and Wren’s on top of me, running her hands through my hair.

“Right now?” I ask, trying to think. She nods. “Anything by Taylor Swift…?”

“Good try, Milesy,” she says, laughing. “I want to know what your favourite song is.”

“Why? So we can do karaoke like we did in Palm Springs?” I ask hopefully, leaning up on my elbows.

“God, no. I’m never doing that again,” she groans even though I know she loved it and everything we did afterwards. She looks at me calmly, twisting her fingers through my hair as she whispers, “I might be making a playlist for you.”

I gasp dramatically. “Really? For me?” I ask, feigning shock and she rolls her eyes. “Or is it for me but not really for me?”

“Well, you know all about that, don’t you?” she challenges.

“You saw it eventually!”

“Yeah, on accident,” she retorts. I narrow my eyes at her.

“Where is this conversation going?” I whisper, trying to catch whatever is in her eyes. There’s something hidden behind them and I want to know more. There’s one last wall that I need to break down. I try and see if I can bring it down and I say, “You know you’re my favourite person, right?”

That almost cracks it. Her eyes crinkle as if she’s about to cry and I think I’ve said the wrong thing. What I’m not expecting is for her to hug me. I can count on one hand the amount of times Wren and I have hugged and it’s always because the other really needs it. When we were fake dating, it was sort of an unspoken rule that hugging was crossing the line.

“You are so obsessed with me. It’s kind of pathetic,” she muffles into my skin and I laugh. You have no idea how right you are, I want to say. She draws back from me. “I hate to ruin this moment, but my phone needs to charge.” I don’t get to respond before she’s slipped off my bed to plug her phone into my socket.

When she comes back onto the bed, I sit against the headboard, patting my lap and she sits on me, her pink summer dress pooling at both sides of me. I sink my teeth into her collarbone, my hands digging into her sides as her body presses against me.

“Where were we?” I ask as I bring my hand underneath her dress, slipping further up her thighs until I get around to her ass.

“You were saying how you’re so obsessed with me.”

“Right. Of course,” I muse, slapping her ass. “I can’t get enough of this.” I drag my mouth from her collarbone, across her chest to her right side. “Or this.” I plant kisses across her neck, and she shivers, a light whimper escaping her mouth when I press a light kiss in the sensitive part beneath her ear. I move my hand from her ass to the other side to touch her wetness. “And this.” I rub my thumb over her clit slowly. “Do you like it when I touch you here, baby?”

“Mm hmm,” she murmurs, rolling over me. I can feel her wetness on my trousers, and it makes my dick twitch. Her phone chimes with a notification but we drown it out with sloppy kisses and stupid whispers. She wraps her hands around the back of my neck, studying my face before leaving a long kiss on my lips as she rolls over me faster. Her phone chimes again.

“You should get it,” I pant as I look down to my bedside table and her phone lights up with tons of messages. “Wren, you have, like, a million miscalls.”

“Just leave it,” she breathes, still rolling over my fingers as she kisses along my jaw. I can’t help but look down to her phone again which hasn’t turned off yet.

She finally reaches over, pulling her phone off the wire and balancing it on her shoulder, still moving over my fingers. “Ken, what is it? I’m kind of…” I press a kiss to her shoulders, gaining a shaky exhale as Kennedy’s voice sounds muffled on the phone. They sound like they’re taking in code, so I continue moving my fingers around her as she pins me with a blissfully pained look on her face, still mumbling into the phone. God, this might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. “I’ll…” she pants into the phone when I brush my thumb over her and she clamps her mouth shut to stifle her moan. “I’ll look now. Okay, bye.”

“What was all that about?” I ask when she uses both of her hands to type into her phone, not looking up at me. She shrugs before throwing down her phone next to me. She dives into my neck, her hand curling around the nape of my neck as she starts to bite and suck me. ‘Fuck.” I groan when she bites just underneath my jaw but my voice sounds hoarse. “Wren. Stop. That. Shit. You’re going to give me a hickey.”

She laughs against my throat. “Good.”

“You’re insane.” I still haven’t got used to this. This utterly bizarre feeling that shoots through my body when her mouth is on me. Her phone lights up again beside me. She groans as she reaches for it, finally looking at whatever people are spamming her about.

“Fuck me,” she breathes, staring down at the phone.

“Okay,” I say cheerfully, pulling her even closer to me but she doesn’t budge. When her eyes meet mine and I can tell something’s wrong. She doesn’t look at me like she’s about to kiss me again. She doesn’t look like she’s going to make a witty joke before unbuttoning my jeans. Instead, she looks at me with pain and hurt in her eyes.

“No, literally, Miles. This is so fucked up,” she whispers, looking down at her phone then back up at me.

“What happened? Talk to me.”

“Do you remember what you were doing in Palm Springs, the day of our flight home?”  I shake my head and shrug. I remember getting wasted in the middle of the day and some old lady had to drag my drunk ass to the hotel. “Yeah, I thought not.”

“Wren, what’s going on?”

She turns her phone to me, turning up the volume but I can already read the subtitles. It takes me a minute to register the video that’s playing out loud. Of me. That day in the bar. I start to feel sick. I look up at her and she’s not looking at me.

“Shit. Wren, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was out of my mind.”

“I’ve… I’m…. I’ve got to go.”

What the fuck have I done?