Page 67 of Embrace

“Scarlett.”

I jolt right out of the dream, breathing hard and disoriented as the name I moaned practically writes itself on my walls in glowing red. The sheets pool at my waist, slipping past my abdomen, leaving a sparking sensation in their wake. I look down to see the erection tenting my boxers.

Uh-oh.

Twenty-two

Scarlett

What’s the likelihoodof going to hell for lying to your parents?

Because waving bye to my dad and then driving directly to the hockey house feels like I’m committing a grave sin.

I’ve appeased my conscience by telling myself it’s for the greater good of academia. If Kian passes the course, he’ll graduate and be on his merry way to the NHL and I won’t ever have to tell my dad about this arrangement. So far, he’s been overly curious about what I’m doing in my free time, and I tend to dodge that question by reciting all my classes. It helps that even when I was in the sorority and partying every night, I still managed to ace all my courses. There isn’t one professor at Dalton who could say anything bad about me. The students, on the other hand, well, that’s a different story.

Promiscuous. Wild. Elusive.

“Hey, Red!” Cole calls as I’m making my way up the porch steps. He’s dressed in all black, helmet in hand and keys swinging from his index finger. Sebastian is right behind him, walking out of the now-closing garage.

The house is loud and exactly what I expected. There are a bunch of guys from the hockey team in the living room, screaming at the TV. I spot Dylan in the kitchen across the hall, shirtless and yawning as he eats a bowl of cereal.

Their practices have been pretty brutal, and Dylan’s decided that he can juggle both hockey and figure skating with Sierra. My dad is not happy about it.

I’m trying to find Kian in the group of guys, but he’s nowhere to be found.

“I think he went outside,” Cole says to me, pointing to the sliding doors.

I nod and weave through the guys, who barely notice me. The need to stretch the hem of my shirt down doesn’t appear, and neither does the feeling of being appraised raise the hairs on the nape of my neck.

I slip through the sliding door and onto the back porch. The muffled sound of the TV barely makes it through here, covered by the bubbling sound coming from the massive hot tub. It’s huge. And it’s got Aiden Crawford’s face all over it.

I’m so confused by the sight that I almost don’t notice Kian soaking in it, head back, body lulled deep in the steaming tub.

The curve of his neck drips with droplets of water running down his Adam’s apple and toward the tattoos that branch out on his neck. He’s got one arm on the edge of the tub, his thick biceps spanning a fourth of the perimeter.

I swallow, watching the way he flexes and unflexes his hand, the veins under his skin popping through even under the dark ink. I wonder how they’d feel around my neck, the sheer weight of them on my body, and how his fingers—

“Scar?”

I jerk, springing myself into a coughing fit that I try to muffle with my fist. When I clear my throat, he’s still got that wide smile on his face, kind of like a puppy wagging its tail.

“Come in. The temperature is perfect,” he says.

I deadpan, my eyes locked on him, until he finally lets his gaze sweep over my clothes and then nods to himself.

“Right. One sec.”

Kian flips a switch on the wall, reaching it easily with his long arm. Then he lifts himself out of the water, and my eyes stay stuck on him like leeches. Every movement feels drawn out, slow, and downright torturous with how my clothes itch against my skin.

The water clings to him in tiny beads, rolling down his shoulders, his chest, and his arms, catching the light like little pearls. My mouth parts as the drops of water trace each muscle. Stuck to every part of his skin like that’s where they belong now, holding on to him desperately.

His obscenely tiny black shorts cling to his thick thighs, molded to the muscle beneath like one of those airtight plastic bags. My tongue feels like sandpaper.

The steam from the hot tub wraps around him, curling up in the air, tracing the outline of his body in a misty haze like it would some kind of god. He keeps walking toward me, and it’s too much for my brain. The catalog of new skin and tattoos have nowhere to go in the overfilled planes of my mind.

I freeze, caught somewhere between awe and something I won’t admit aloud. Then Kian smiles, and I’m about to follow him back inside but he doesn’t stop. He keeps walking until he’s pressed against me.

That’s when hehugsme.