Sweet Ache

Chapter 3

HAWKIN

My TA? What the fuck?

She stares at me with defiance in her caramel-colored eyes and a victorious smirk on those full lips. I love the fact that she has the balls to play me like she did when everyone else simply complies either from being starstruck or intimidated.

Gotta love a girl with brass ones.

Our verbal duel ends abruptly when she turns and walks away without another word. So why do I find myself wanting to ask her to stay even though she obviously detests me? The woman is intriguing and intense and … a bitch, but shit, there’s just something about her that has my dick commandeering my thoughts.

Damn her for pointing out my sexual innuendos because now as she stalks out, her fine-as-fuck ass in that short skirt that keeps giving me a glimpse of tan, toned thigh with each step, sex is all I can think of.

Sex with her in particular.

I blow out a breath as she strides out the door without a backward glance and even though I hear the outer door to the auditorium open and then close, I still keep staring.

Vince draws out a long, low whistle to the left of me. “Now, that’s a coed worth getting schooled by. Bet your ass she’d be feisty as hell in the sack.”

I tear my eyes from the doorway, a part of me hoping she’ll come back through it for some reason, before turning to face him. And I can’t pinpoint what it is that he said that irritates me but I’m irritated nonetheless. But I shake off the notion just like I wish I could shake the desire riding rampant through my system. “She might be sexy as hell but some kitty-cat claws aren’t worth the scratch.” Even as I’m speaking the words, my body calls me on the lie.

“Sexy? Dude, that’s the understatement of the year. She’s smokin’ hot. Her curves were banging, her—”

“Banging is definitely something I’d like to do to her,” I mutter under my breath, her face immediately flashing in my mind even though it’s been only a matter of moments since she’s left. I turn to retrieve my bag where it lies.

“Since when is hostile your type?”

“You know me, Vince, the only type I have is willing,” I say over my shoulder although right now I’m thinking hostile looks pretty damn attractive.

“Truth.” He falls silent for a moment, which leaves me alone with my thoughts of how the lecture I was anxious to give turned out more interesting than I’d expected because of her presence. How focusing on her allowed me to calm my nerves on what to lecture about when I never get nerves on a stage. “And she was so far from willing she just might be the one woman on this campus whose hand job would be a fist in your face rather than wrapped around your dick.”

“What?” I ask around the Skittles I just tossed into my mouth, annoyed that he’s questioning my prowess. “You think I couldn’t get her to go out with me?”

He laughs and scrubs a hand over his jaw. “Even your charm has limitations Hawke … and that woman is most definitely one of them.”

“Bullshit.” I snort in response as I glance down at my phone for messages. I can’t remember the last time I was turned down.

“Dude, there’s no way in hell she’d go on a date with you.”

“Bet me.” I snap the words out in reflex, my damn ego stomping its feet in protest, and then cringe when I realize what I just said. How I just carried over the go-to response within our band to prove a point about this, over her. Fuck.

“Nah, that bet’s not worth it because she’d say yes just to get easier access to knee you in the nuts.” He purses his lips and then his smile spreads wide to match his eyes lighting up. “But sleeping with her? Now, that’s a bet I could sure as hell win.”

“You think I couldn’t get her in bed? Are you kidding me?”

He pats me on the back roughly. “Nope. Even the ladies’ man Hawkin Play can’t have a perfect record, and she’s most definitely the chick who will ruin it for you.”

I jerk my shoulder to get his hand off me. “No way in hell. I’ll have her eating out of my hand by the end of this seminar. Watch me.”

“That’ll be funny as fuck, man. Watching you get shot down repeatedly. Hell, this might even be a record or something.”

“Put your money where your mouth is then, huh, Vinny?” I taunt as we begin to make our way up the steps. I make only bets I can win and I know I can win this one.

“In a heartbeat but man, last bet, what was her name?” I shrug in response because there have been so many women involved in our band bets over the years they all kind of run together after enough time. “It doesn’t matter but shit you swore you won, sealed the deal with her, and there was no way for me to prove otherwise.”

Her face flickers before my eyes, the beautiful redhead from our blow job bet: who could get sucked off first from the gaggle of groupies at an after party. “Damn she was good,” I reminisce, thinking about that little tongue technique she used. “You’re just jealous the chick you picked—”

“Don’t remind me,” he groans.

“It’s your fault you didn’t outline the terms of your bet better. Besides, we didn’t make you get the tattoo dude. No harm, no foul,” I say, referring to the stakes of all of our band’s bets: If the challenger loses, he must get a heart tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Each bet lost results in the heart being outlined and made bigger.

Thank fuck I’ve never lost. The few tats I have are for a reason, a reminder of my life’s lessons in some abstract way or another—not because I lost some dumb-ass bet like they all have.

He glares at me, still cross over it. “All I’m saying is that if we’re betting, then I want proof this time that you sleep with her.”

“Sure thing. Hop on in with us if you’re that desperate for proof,” I offer without any conviction.

“Perfect.”

I snap my head over at him as we stop for a beat in the auditorium’s foyer to finish our conversation. “Fuck no. I was joking!”

And it’s not that we haven’t done something like that before—two of us with one or a few more girls. A tour bus is only so big and there’s only so much time you can kill playing Halo or Guitar Hero.

“I know you were but my bet, my rules. I want proof. And it has to be done by the last day of the seminar.” He raises his eyebrows before slipping his own sunglasses on, smarmy smile in place.

“Piece of cake,” I say as I glance out the windows to where a small crowd is gathered past where Axe and his guys stand, waiting for autographs and pictures.

“I want in on the action with the little hellcat. I’m there or there’s no proof and you, my boy, finally get a goddamn pansy-ass heart on your pretty-boy skin.”

And therein lies his motive. He thinks I’ll back down, afraid to lose and finally get inked with the stupid image we all decided was our band tradition over ten years ago … when we were young and dumb.

I sigh and just shake my head. Maybe it’s the need to prove I can get the girl and avoid an idiotic, meaningless tattoo. Or maybe it’s because I really want to figure her out, understand why those golden eyes and long legs of hers are still on my mind. Why I keep wondering if she’s really as feisty in bed as she is out of it.

Regardless, the die is cast. And I’ll just have to hope I’m not revisiting the young and dumb phase with this decision.

“You’re on, Vinny boy!” I say as I push open the doors with gusto. Immediately excited screams, the soundtrack of my life this past year, fill the air around us.