Tempting the Player (Campus Wallflowers Book 4)

I wake up with a start. The bed next to me is still empty. I knew he wouldn’t come back. When Hendrick makes his mind up about something, there’s no changing it. Last night he decided I was too drunk to know what I wanted. As if I haven’t been completely transparent about my feelings for him all along.

My heart is pounding and there’s a dull ache in the front of my head as I grab my phone off the nightstand to check the time. It’s a little after four in the morning. After drinking the rest of the water Hendrick left for me, I get out of bed. I pause for a second to test my mental and physical clarity. I stand on one foot, then the other, while reciting the alphabet backward.

Satisfied that I’m no longer drunk, I rummage through my bag to find my disposable travel toothbrushes. I make quick work of cleaning my teeth and tongue. I don’t know why I’m rushing when he’s asleep out on the couch, I just know I need to see him now.

I pull the bedroom door open slowly, peering out into the living room as I do. I can’t see much in the dark, but I assume the lump on the couch is Hendrick. I tiptoe toward him with my heart racing.

The floor creaks under me, and he sits up too fast to have been asleep. His feet hit the floor and he stands in one smooth motion. His hair is messy, and stubble dots his jaw. I’m busy checking him out as his gaze rakes over my bare legs. “Everything okay?”

He stalks toward me. This all feels like a terrible idea now. The poor guy is trying to sleep and I’m out here to what? Seduce him. But I’ve come this far, so I say the thing that I wanted to say a few hours ago but knew he wouldn’t believe.

“I want all those things too. I always have. Being drunk didn’t change that.”

His expression shifts from concern to something else. Something that looks a lot like desire. He keeps moving forward until we’re an arm’s length apart. Barefoot, I feel a lot smaller standing in front of him.

“That’s it? You got up before the sun to tell me that?” he asks with no emotion like we’re talking about the weather.

I shift uncomfortably. Huge, terrible idea. I wish I could rewind to five minutes ago and convince myself I am still drunk. Let’s be real, there’s still plenty of alcohol swimming in my blood.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

He still just stands there looking at me like I have two heads or something.

“I’m sorry. I’ll let you go back to sleep.” I turn, dying to get back to his room and hide. I only take one step before his fingers wrap around my forearm. Then his lips are on mine, catching the gasp that escapes as he pulls me back into his chest.

His tongue slides in immediately, invading my mouth, and he kisses me so damn hard my knees buckle. It doesn’t last nearly long enough, but I’m breathless when he pulls away.

I keep my eyes closed a beat longer, then let my lids flutter open as my lips curve. My skin buzzes with electricity when I find his hazel eyes on me. Always watching me.

He stares at me like he sees every piece of me—the good, the bad, all of it. Like he sees me and he still thinks I’m someone worth protecting. I’m addicted to that look and the way it makes me feel. Desired, coveted, and safe. He makes me feel safe in a way that has nothing to do with him always looking out for me.

I launch myself at him, or maybe he lunges for me first. I don’t know how it happens, but I’m in his arms and his mouth slants over mine as he carries me into his room. Those rough, calloused fingers of his dig into the back of my thighs, and I hold on to him just as tightly.

He stops kissing me again. He must be insane.

“Say it again.” The vibrations of his deep voice rumbling from his chest shoot straight down to the throbbing between my legs.

I know what he wants from me, but I don’t answer him right away. Instead, I slide my palm along his jaw, enjoying the way his stubble pricks my fingertips and wondering what it’d feel like against my most sensitive areas.

He waits me out, holding me but not kissing me until I tell him what he wants to hear.

“I said, I’m sorry. Then I told you I was going back to sleep.”

He drops me onto the mattress with a sexy glare. “Not that.”

I consider toying with him more, but it’s in direct contradiction with how badly I want him to kiss me again. “I want you, Hendrick. Kiss me. Fuck me. Make me forget my name. And yours.”

One knee drops to the mattress, and he hovers over me. “Don’t forget my name. I want to hear you scream it.”

My pussy clenches. I reach for the front of his sweats, but Hendrick catches my hands and lifts them over my head against the bed.

“Keep them here,” he says as he places a kiss on my collarbone.

“On the mattress? Where I can’t touch you? Seriously?” I huff and shoot him an exasperated scowl. The man holds out on me forever and then isn’t going to let me touch him?

He meets my needy gaze. “You wanted me to kiss you, and that’s damn well what I’m going to do.” His lips drop to my stomach, just below my belly button, where the T-shirt he gave me to wear has ridden up. “You’re gorgeous splayed out underneath me. I can’t wait to taste every inch of you.”

And he’s forgiven.

I squirm as he continues down my body, brushing his lips over every inch of bare skin. I ball my hands into fists to keep from moving them where I want—on him. “And fuck me?”

“No.” He delivers the news with a slow lick across my hip bone. “Tonight, I just want to kiss you.”

Frustration bubbles up my throat and comes out in a mix of a groan and cry. His mouth is amazing.

“Did you just growl at me?” He cocks one brow while wearing a pleased smirk at my desperation.

“I need you,” I tell him honestly.

That smirk falls into a determined, serious expression, and Hendrick burrows himself between my thighs. From that position, he looks up at me, then pushes my T-shirt up, uncovering my chest. He groans when he realizes I already took off my bra.

He lets out a breath that skirts over my sensitive core. His palm glides down between my breasts, then his thumb teases one nipple. My back arches and I press into his touch.

“So beautiful,” he says so quietly I’m not sure he meant me to hear. He lets his hand roam over my stomach, down my hip, and all the way to my ankle.

Finally, he loops one arm under my knee and pushes my legs wider. He stares up at me as he nips at my inner thigh. I can’t keep still a second longer. My fingers find his thick hair and I scratch my nails lightly over his scalp.

I’m so keyed up that I jolt when his tongue flicks under the side of my panties. He pulls back and I give his short strands a tug.

“Taking your frustration out on my hair?” he asks as he moves his attention back to my hip bone.

“You’re teasing me.” I moan and pull harder. He reciprocates by biting me in the same spot he just kissed.

“I’m not teasing you. I’m savoring.”

My insides melt. Hendrick goes back to kissing me everywhere but where I want, and I lie back and try not to combust. I’m writhing beneath him and pulling on his hair so tight that I might have given him a bald spot when he has mercy on me and slides two fingers over my center. He rubs me through the satin material of my panties until they’re damp, then hooks one long finger under the hem.

“You’re perfect,” he says as he shifts to drag my panties down my legs.

His praise makes me feel lightheaded.

He holds my panties in one fist and leans up to take my mouth. I kiss him with everything I have. I want him to know how badly I want him, how frustrated I am for more. He meets me with the same urgency surging through me. We’re a mash of teeth and tongues, trying to get impossibly closer.

My T-shirt is discarded between kisses, then his hard length presses into me, and I lift my hips to get the friction I crave. He lets me use him like that for a few more seconds before he breaks away from our kiss and slides down my body. He trails more kisses on the way. On my breasts, my stomach, even my elbows. There’s not a single part of my body that he doesn’t graze his lips over before he settles back between my legs.

“Damn, Jane.” One index finger drags down my slit.

My upper body shoots up off the bed. I’m drunk on the pleasure ricocheting through me from that one touch. Hendrick stares at my pussy like he’s in a trance.

“What? What is it?” I ask, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Is something wrong? Do I look weird down there? People always told me to look at myself with a mirror, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to do it.”

I’ve never had any complaints, but I’m not sure anyone has ever stared at it this hard either.

His brows lift. “A mirror?”

“You know, like a little handheld one.”

He flicks the end of his tongue over my clit. “Maybe you can just trust me when I tell you that your pussy is gorgeous.”

Heat floods my face and the throb in my center intensifies.

“Lay back, baby,” he commands.

“I want to watch.” I do just that as he licks me slowly, keeping his eyes locked on me. It takes everything in me to keep myself propped up, watching as he devours me. It’s the hottest thing.

My eyelids feel heavy as the pleasure builds. “I’m so close.”

He sucks hard on my clit and pushes one finger inside of me.

“Hendrick. Oh—” Whatever else I was going to say is cut off as my orgasm shatters me. My eyes water with the need to close them, but I can’t look away from him as the last of my climax shudders through me.

My body goes limp and my arms give out. He presses another kiss to my thigh before he climbs up my body, brushes another kiss over my lips, and then falls onto the mattress beside me.

“That was . . .” My heart is still racing as I let my head fall to the side so I can look him in the eyes again. “Thank you.”

He chuckles softly as he wraps an arm around my stomach and pulls me against his body. He’s still hard, and even though I just got off twenty seconds ago, I can’t resist rubbing my butt against him.

He swats my bare ass. Not super hard, but enough that I let out a little yelp. “Go to sleep.”

“What about me? I didn’t get to kiss you back.”

“You need to sleep.”

As if my body is on his side instead of mine, I yawn.

He moves only to pull the comforter back up around us.

“Fine. We’ll sleep for one hour and then I want my turn.” I snuggle back into his chest and I’m asleep in seconds.