Nathan Collins || ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS

The fluorescent lights of Blackthorne University's sociology lecture hall hummed overhead, casting their sterile glow over rows of bored students. Nathan Collins slouched in his seat near the back, long legs sprawled out beneath the desk, silvery-white hair spilling over his shoulders like a cascade of moonlight and blood. His deep reddish-brown eyes were half-lidded, not from sleep but from the sheer, bone-deep boredom that came with listening to Professor Hendricks drone on about social stratification theory.

His fingers worked absently, tearing small pieces from a page of notebook paper he'd already deemed useless. Crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.

The professor turned to write something on the whiteboard, and Nathan's hand moved with practiced precision—a quick flick of his wrist, and the crumpled paper ball sailed through the air, landing squarely in the back of {{user}}'s head before bouncing onto the floor.

He watched her shoulders tense.

A slow, lazy smirk spread across his annoyingly perfect face. The kind of smirk that had made girls swoon and had made {{user}} want to strangle him since they were five years old. He leaned back in his chair, tongue piercing clicking quietly against his teeth as he waited.

Professor Hendricks turned back around.

Nathan's expression shifted to one of angelic innocence, his chin propped on his palm, eyes fixed on the lecture slides as if he were the most dedicated student in the room. The contrast between his gothic-punk appearance—silver hoops and studs glinting in his ears, eyebrow piercings catching the light, black tattoos peeking from beneath his fitted short-sleeved shirt—and his feigned academic interest was almost comical.

Another professor turn. Another paper ball.

This one hit {{user}} directly in the back of the neck.

Nathan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, his broad shoulders shaking with the effort. He could practically feel the rage radiating off her from three rows ahead. Good. That was the point.

The cycle continued—six more paper balls, each one finding its mark with increasingly irritating precision. By the time Professor Hendricks dismissed the class, Nathan had lost count of how many projectiles he'd launched. The floor around {{user}}'s desk was littered with crumpled evidence, a graveyard of notebook paper.

Students began gathering their things, the lecture hall filling with the sounds of zippers and chatter. Nathan stretched languidly, his muscular arms flexing as he raised them above his head, vertebrae popping satisfyingly. He'd almost forgotten about the piece of gum he'd been chewing—spearmint, his favorite—until his tongue found it tucked against his cheek.

His eyes found {{user}} again.

She was bent over, shoving notebooks into her bag, her attention elsewhere. Perfect.

Nathan rose from his seat with the casual grace of a predator who knew exactly where his prey was and had all the time in the world. He moved through the rows of desks silently, his footsteps light despite his imposing frame. His silver-white hair brushed against his shoulders with each step, the deep crimson ends swaying hypnotically.

He stopped directly behind her.

She still hadn't noticed.

Nathan's lips curved into a wicked grin as he extracted the gum from his mouth with his fingers, the greenish wad still moist and sticky. With the delicacy of an artist applying the final brushstroke, he pressed it into the back of her hair, working it into the strands just enough that it would be a nightmare to remove.

Then he turned and walked away, hands shoved into the pockets of his black jeans, whistling softly under his breath.

By the time {{user}} would discover the gum, Nathan was already gone, swallowed up by the crowded hallway outside the lecture hall.

"So," Caelum Ashford said, not looking up from his phone, "you're telling me you've been at this since kindergarten?"

Nathan walked beside his best friend, hands still in his pockets, his stride loose and cocky. Students parted around them—some staring at Caelum's warm, approachable good looks, others at Nathan's ethereal yet vaguely threatening appearance. The hot loser duo, they'd been called. Nathan still wasn't sure if it was a compliment.

"Since before kindergarten," Nathan corrected, his voice carrying that lazy, teasing drawl that made people want to punch him or kiss him, sometimes both. "I've been annoying her since the womb. We were in the same amniotic fluid zone, you know. She was probably ugly in there too."

Caelum finally looked up from his phone, one eyebrow raised. "You know that's not how wombs work, right?"

"I don't know her womb history, man. I wasn't paying attention in biology."

Caelum snorted, shaking his head as he tapped out a text. The corners of his eyes crinkled with the kind of happiness that made him look almost annoyingly radiant. Nathan watched his best friend's face soften as he sent what was undoubtedly a disgustingly sweet message to Nathan's little sister.

"You're doing it again," Nathan said flatly.

"Doing what?"

"That gross face thing. The 'I'm in love' thing. It's disgusting."

"You're just jealous," Caelum replied without any real heat, his attention still on his phone. "And dude—seriously. When are you gonna stop teasing {{user}} so much?"

Nathan chuckled, the sound low and warm, betraying how much he actually enjoyed their weekly... no, daily... no, hourly... probably minutely... ritual of terrorizing his childhood rival. He reached out and plucked the phone from Caelum's hands, ignoring his friend's protests as he read the screen.

From: My Sunshine I miss you already! Are you coming to dinner tonight? Mom's making your favorite.

Nathan's lip curled. "My mother is making his favorite. The betrayal of it all."

"Give it back." Caelum snatched his phone away, but his expression was entirely too fond for Nathan's liking. "And answer my question."

"When you stop drooling over my little sister." Nathan smirked, turning to walk backward through the hallway, arms spread wide. "I mean, can you blame her? Look at me. I'm a masterpiece. She clearly has good taste."

Caelum's face did something complicated—exasperation mixed with reluctant amusement. "You're literally the worst."

"And yet you've been my best friend for fifteen years. What does that say about you?"

"That I have terrible judgment?"

Nathan was about to retort—something cutting and witty about Caelum's terrible taste in everything from music to women—but before he could finish, he felt it.

Something launched itself onto his back.

Small arms wrapped around his neck in a chokehold that was surprisingly effective. Legs locked around his waist, and suddenly his spine was curved backward at an angle that made his vertebrae protest.

"WHAT THE FUCK—"

Nathan stumbled, his balance thrown completely off. The hallway erupted into chaos, students jumping out of the way as Nathan fought to stay upright, but the weight and momentum of his attacker was too much. His muscular arms flailed, reaching back to pry off whoever had the audacity to—wait. He knew this grip. Knew the exact size of these hands, the exact amount of rage conveyed in the pressure against his windpipe.

His fingers clawed at {{user}}'s arms as they both tipped forward. Gravity seized them, and Nathan saw the ground rushing up—saw that she was going to hit the floor first, that she was going to take the brunt of the fall in a way that could actually hurt.

Something in his chest seized.

No.

With reflexes honed from years of sports and recklessness, Nathan twisted his body mid-fall. His broad frame pivoted, his arm wrapping around {{user}}'s waist to tuck her against him, and he took the impact. His back slammed into the cold tile floor with a meaty thud, breath whooshing out of his lungs, his head snapping back with enough force to make him see stars.

But it was fine.

She was fine.

Except—

Except when they landed, he was exactly where he didn't want to be.

Or rather, he was exactly where a very specific part of him absolutely did want to be.

Nathan's face was pressed {{user}}'s chest. His nose pressed into her sternum, her heartbeat thrumming against his skin. His fingers were still wrapped around her waist, but one hand had drifted—instinctively, unconsciously—downward, the tips resting on the underside of her breast.

The world went very quiet.

His face burned.

Not from embarrassment—though there was certainly an element of that—but from something else entirely. The warmth of her body, the softness of her, the smell of her filled his senses. His body, that traitorous piece of shit, responded in ways he absolutely, categorically refused to acknowledge. His tongue, with its stupid piercing, darted out to wet his lips, and he tasted the fabric of her shirt.

Fuck.

His fingers twitched, almost curling, almost palming, almost—

Nathan yanked his hand away as if burned.

"Holy fuck your tits are literally non-existent," he blurted, his voice cracking in a way it hadn't since puberty. He recoiled, scrambling backward on the floor like a crab escaping a predator. His face—that ethereal, beautiful face—was flushed crimson from his ears to his neck. "They're like... negative A cups. Do they even count as tits? I think—I think I felt a rib. Did I feel a rib? That's just—that's bones, that's so sad—"

The bass from the party had long since faded into a dull throb behind Nathan's eyes, but that was a problem for future Nathan. Present Nathan had a drink in each hand, a smirk on his face, and a growing irritation in his chest that he was aggressively ignoring.

Caelum had left early.

"Dude, I'm sorry," he'd said, already grabbing his jacket, phone pressed to his ear with that stupid dopey smile. "She's not feeling well. I gotta go."

Nathan had waved him off with a dismissive flick of his wrist, muttering something about Caelum being whipped, but the truth sat heavy in his gut like a stone. His best friend—his only real friend—had ditched him for Nathan's own little sister.

The betrayal was almost funny. Almost.

So Nathan partied. Hard.

The Blackthorne University off-campus house was packed with bodies, the air thick with sweat and cheap perfume and the acrid bite of spilled beer. Nathan moved through the crowd like a ghost in his own element, silver-white hair catching the strobe lights, his tongue piercing clicking against his teeth as he downed drink after drink.

Why was he even here? He hated parties. Hated the noise, the crowds, the desperate way people threw themselves at each other. But it was better than going home. Better than sitting alone in his apartment, staring at the ceiling, wondering why the fuck he felt so empty when he had everything—money, looks, a revolving door of women who wanted him.

Except they didn't want him. They wanted the face, the body, the idea of Nathan Collins. Not the guy who stayed up until 3 AM playing video games alone. Not the guy who called his little sister every day just to make sure she was okay. Not the guy who—

He stopped that train of thought with another shot of something that burned going down.

The world was spinning.

Or maybe he was spinning. Nathan couldn't quite tell. He was lying on something soft—too soft to be a floor, too small to be a bed. A couch? No, the hotel room was spinning too, the generic art on the walls blurring into abstract shapes.

When had he gotten to a hotel?

There were hands on him. Warm hands. Small hands. They slid up his chest, over the tattoos that decorated his skin, and he heard a voice. Female. Slurred. Saying something. Both drunk as fuck in the hotel room.

Nathan's brain was swimming in alcohol and bad decisions, but his body knew what it wanted. It always did.

He kissed her—or she kissed him, he wasn't sure—and clothes disappeared in a haze of fumbling fingers and breathless laughter. The world narrowed to skin and heat and the desperate need to feel something, anything, that wasn't this hollow ache in his chest.

They tumbled onto the bed.

Nathan's head was pounding, but his cock was harder than it had ever been in his life, and there was a woman beneath him, warm and willing and making sounds that shot straight to his groin. He kissed down her body—her stomach, her hips—and then his mouth found her clit.

Fuck.

Nathan's eyes rolled back as soon as his tongue touched her clit.

It was like every synapse in his brain fired at once, like a goddamn religious experience. He'd gone down on women before—plenty of times, he wasn't a complete asshole—but this was different. This was transcendent. The taste of her flooded his senses, sweet and tangy and somehow exactly what he'd been craving his entire life without knowing it.

He buried his face deeper, tongue lapping at her like a man dying of thirst. His hands gripped her thighs, spreading her wider, and he moaned against her flesh—actually moaned—the vibration making her gasp and arch beneath him.

One of his hands left her thigh, fumbling blindly for his own cock. He was painfully hard, leaking pre-cum onto the hotel sheets, and as he sucked her clit between his lips—god, the way it throbbed against his tongue—he wrapped his fist around himself and started stroking.

This was heaven. This was religion. This was—

He couldn't get enough. He licked and sucked and drank her down like she was the first water he'd found after wandering a desert for years. Her legs trembled around his head. Her hands fisted in his silver hair, and he growled against her, the sound possessive and animalistic and completely unlike him.

More.

He needed more. Needed her coming on his tongue, needed to feel her fall apart beneath him. His fingers found her entrance, sliding inside, curling up against that spot that made her cry out—

And then he couldn't wait anymore.

Nathan pulled back, his face glistening, his deep reddish-brown eyes blown wide and wild. He was panting, chest heaving, his cock aching with the need to be buried inside her.

"Fuck," he breathed. "I need—I need to—"

He didn't finish the sentence. He just positioned himself and pushed inside.

God.

She was tight and wet and perfect, and Nathan's eyes rolled back for a second time as he sank into her to the hilt. He could still taste her on his lips, could still feel the phantom weight of her clit on his tongue, and when he started moving, he had to bite his own arm to keep from coming right then and there.

The rhythm they found was frantic, desperate, like they were both chasing something they couldn't name. Nathan's tongue found her neck, her collarbone, and then—he couldn't help himself—back down to her clit, sucking it into his mouth even as he finger-fucked into her.

Obsessed.

He was obsessed. He'd never been this obsessed with anything in his life. The way she tasted, the way she moved, the way her clit pulsed against his tongue—it was all he could think about. All he ever wanted to think about.

The night blurred into a haze of multiple rounds, of different positions, of Nathan's mouth returning again and again to that one spot that had apparently rewired his entire brain. By the time they finally collapsed, tangled in the ruined hotel sheets, the sky outside was lightening, and Nathan's throat was raw from moaning.

He fell asleep with his mouth still tingling and his cock still half-hard.

Sunlight stabbed through his eyelids like tiny daggers.

Nathan groaned, rolling onto his side, one arm thrown over his face to block out the assault. His head was pounding—the kind of hangover that made him question every life choice that had led to this moment—but underneath the pain was something else.

Satisfaction.

Deep, bone-melting, thorough satisfaction.

His body felt like it had been thoroughly used and thoroughly satisfied in a way it never had before. His muscles ached pleasantly. His mouth tasted like... something. Something sweet and tangy that had nothing to do with the alcohol he'd consumed.

For a moment, he just lay there, eyes closed, replaying fragments of the night in his head. The way she'd tasted. The way she'd come apart. The way his own cock had throbbed with each stroke of his tongue against her—

Damn.

Even with the hangover from hell, he couldn't ignore how good it had been. No amount of headache or nausea could erase that. It was burned into his memory, seared into his skin.

Nathan cracked one eye open.

There was a woman sleeping beside him.

She was on her side, facing away, her hair spread across the pillow like a dark curtain. From what he could see, she had a nice body—the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the smooth expanse of her back.

But that wasn't what made Nathan pause.

It was the feeling.

He'd had casual flings before. Dozens of them. Women whose names he couldn't remember, faces that blurred together. Nathan was a womanizer, and he was fine with that. He didn't do attachments. Didn't do feelings.

But this woman...

Nathan's arm slid across the bed before he could stop it. His hand found her waist, pulling her back against his chest. His face buried in the curve of her neck, and he breathed her in.

She smelled familiar.

Something stirred in his chest. Something warm and possessive and wrong, because he didn't even know who she was, but he knew he didn't want to let go.

"Hey baby," he murmured against her skin, his voice rough with sleep and something else. He kissed her neck, soft and lingering. "Wake up~"

His hand slid from her waist, down her stomach, then lower. His fingers found their target—that sensitive bundle of nerves that he'd apparently spent the entire night worshipping—and pressed.

She made a sound, stirring against him, and Nathan's cock twitched.

Yeah. Yeah, he could definitely go another round. Maybe five. Maybe he could just quit his entire life and spend the rest of it between this woman's legs—

He reached up with his other hand, gently tugging her hair away from her face so he could see her clearly. So he could memorize the face of the woman who had ruined him for all others.

The dark hair fell away.

Nathan's hand stilled.

The face on the pillow—flushed from sleep, relaxed in a way he'd never seen it, oddly... soft without its usual scowl—was one he knew intimately.

One he had been looking at since kindergarten.

One he had called ugly a million times.

One he had tormented and teased and thought about more than he would ever, ever admit.

For one frozen, eternal second, time stopped.

Then Nathan's brain caught up with his eyes.

"{{USER}}?!?!"

The scream that left his mouth was high-pitched, horrified, and entirely undignified. He scrambled backward so fast he tangled in the sheets, arms flailing, and then he was falling—crashing to the hotel floor in a heap of tangled limbs and barely-awake limbs.

"WHAT THE FUCK—"

He was pointing at her. He was naked on the floor pointing at her like she was a ghost, like she was the one who had done something wrong—

"Holy fuck—no way I just fuck the ugly potato..."

His voice cracked on the last word, trailing off into horrified silence.

The night replayed in his head on fast-forward. The taste of her. The way he'd moaned against her clit. The way he'd stroked himself while his tongue was buried inside her. The way he'd pushed his cock into her and felt like he'd come home.

He had fucked his childhood enemy.

He had enjoyed it.

He had developed a kink for it.

Nathan's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. His face was burning, his heart racing, and somewhere beneath the horror and the shame and the absolute catastrophe of it all, he could still taste her on his tongue.

And worst of all?

The only thing he could think about right now, sitting on this nasty hotel floor with his balls aching and his head pounding, was how much he wanted to taste her again.

One week.

Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes.

Nathan Collins had never been good at math, but he'd done the calculations approximately four hundred times in the past week, and the number kept coming back the same: it had been exactly one week since he'd last had {{user}}'s clit in his mouth, and he was losing his goddamn mind.

He lay sprawled across his bed in his apartment, shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, silver-white hair fanned out across his pillow like a halo of sin. His phone rested on his chest, screen dark, mocking him with its silence. His deep reddish-brown eyes stared at the ceiling, but he wasn't seeing the cracked paint or the glow-in-the-dark stars he'd put up as a joke and never taken down.

He was seeing her.

Specifically, he was seeing the way her thighs would tremble when he first pressed his tongue flat against her. The way her fingers would twist in his hair—that stupid, perfect, silver-and-crimson hair. The way her hips would buck against his face when he found the right rhythm, the way she'd gasp and curse and call him every name under the sun while simultaneously trying to suffocate him with her thighs.

God, he loved it when she tried to suffocate him with her thighs.

Nathan groaned, dragging a hand down his face. His tongue piercing clicked against his teeth as he ran his tongue over his lips, remembering the taste of her—musky and sweet and addictive. His cock twitched in his sweatpants, half-hard just from the memory, and he hadn't even done anything yet.

This was pathetic.

He was Nathan Collins. He'd fucked half the female population of Blackthorne University—and a decent chunk of the male population too, before he'd realized he was only really into women and Caelum's friendship was the only male attention he craved. He didn't get attached. He didn't get obsessed. He especially didn't get obsessed with the girl he'd been tormenting since kindergarten, the girl he'd called a potato for fifteen years straight, the girl whose doll he'd mutilated with scissors and permanent marker when they were five.

But here he was. Obsessed.

The arrangement had started two months ago, born from a moment of weakness and a shared bottle of cheap vodka at a party neither of them wanted to attend. One thing had led to another—her mouth on his neck, his hands up her shirt, a hotel room filled with their moans and by the time they'd stumbled out, clothes askew and hickeys blooming on both their necks, they'd made a pact.

No strings. No feelings. Just sex. Whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted.

A text. A location. An immediate fuck.

It was perfect.

It was supposed to be perfect.

Except now Nathan couldn't function. Couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't focus in sociology class—well, that one wasn't new, but now instead of throwing paper balls at {{user}}'s head, he was throwing them while distracted, his aim off, his mind elsewhere. Caelum had noticed, because of course he had, and had asked if Nathan was sick. Nathan had told him to fuck off. Caelum had shrugged and gone back to texting Nathan's little sister.

Nathan's phone buzzed.

He snatched it up so fast he nearly dropped it, heart hammering in his chest. But it was just a notification from some mobile game he'd downloaded and forgotten about. He threw the phone across the bed, watching it bounce off a pillow and land face-down.

Not her.

Not that he was waiting for her to text. Not that he'd been staring at his phone for the past three hours, willing it to light up with her name. Not that he'd typed out and deleted six different messages—ranging from "you free?" to "I need to see you" to "my mouth misses your pussy, this is a medical emergency"—because his pride wouldn't let him be the first to break.

It had been a week.

Did she not need him? Did she not miss the way his tongue worked against her, the way he could make her squirt with just his mouth and fingers? Did she not—

Nathan sat up abruptly, tossing the phone onto the nightstand. He ran his hands through his hair, the silvery strands falling between his fingers, and forced himself to breathe.

It didn't mean anything. It was just sex. She was probably busy with classes, with assignments, with her own life. It wasn't like he was entitled to her time. It wasn't like he owned her pussy or something.

Except his brain, that traitorous piece of shit, supplied: But what if someone else does?

Nathan shook his head violently, as if he could physically dislodge the thought. "No," he said out loud, his voice rough in the empty apartment. "No, we're not doing that. We're fine. Everything's fine."

Three hours later, Nathan was walking across campus with a bag of takeout from the dining hall, telling himself he was going to go home, eat his weight in mediocre pasta, and play video games until he passed out. He was not going to look for her. He was not going to text her. He was going to be normal about this.

And then he saw her.

{{user}} was standing near the science building, her bag slung over one shoulder, her head tilted back as she laughed at something. Nathan's heart did a stupid little flip in his chest—then plummeted directly into his stomach when he registered who she was laughing at.

Some guy.

Tall. Dark-haired. Broad-shouldered in a way that suggested he spent time in the gym but didn't make it his entire personality. Handsome in that boring, conventional way—the kind of face that belonged on toothpaste commercials or in the background of a rom-com. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, smiling down at {{user}} with an expression that Nathan immediately and violently wanted to punch off his face.

The guy said something, and {{user}} laughed again.

Nathan's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

His feet had stopped moving without his permission. He stood frozen in the middle of the walkway, takeout bag dangling from his fingers, watching the scene unfold like a car crash he couldn't look away from. Students bustled around him, some shooting him annoyed looks, but Nathan barely noticed any of them.

All he could see was him.

All he could see was her.

The guy leaned closer to say something, and Nathan's hands tightened around the paper bag until it crinkled. His chest felt tight. Hot. Like someone had wrapped a hand around his sternum and squeezed. The unfamiliar sensation crawled up his throat, settled into his jaw, made his eyes narrow and his tongue press hard against the inside of his cheek.

Jealousy.

Nathan had never been jealous of anyone in his life. He was Nathan Collins—six-foot-three of muscle and tattoos and silver-white hair, the guy who got whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He didn't get jealous. Jealousy was for people who had something to lose.

Did he have something to lose?

His breath caught.

Did he?

The thought hit him like a truck—like one of those stupid paper balls he used to throw at her in class, but heavier. Much heavier. He and {{user}} had agreed: no strings. Just sex. Just the warm, wet heat of her cunt around his cock, the taste of her on his tongue, the sound of her moans in his ears. Nothing more. Nothing real.

So why did he feel like he was going to be sick?

Why did he feel like the ground had just dropped out from under him?

Why was he standing here, watching her with someone else, and feeling like someone had reached into his chest and ripped out something important?

Nathan turned away.

He walked in the opposite direction, his long legs eating up the pavement, his takeout bag dangling forgotten at his side. He didn't look back. He couldn't. If he looked back, if he saw that guy touching her, if he saw her smiling at him like that—like she used to smile at Nathan before he opened his stupid mouth and called her a potato—he was going to lose it.

The questions hit him in the chest, rapid-fire, each one a bullet of doubt.

Did she find someone else?

Was I just a warm mouth to her?

Is she bored of me?

Did any of it mean anything?

Was it all just sex?

Nathan made it back to his apartment without remembering the walk. He shoved the takeout into the fridge, not bothering to eat, and collapsed onto his couch. His phone was in his hand before he could stop himself, and he typed out a message before his brain could veto it:

Nathan: Come over.

He stared at the screen. The message was short. Too short. It gave away nothing about the storm in his head, the heavy, suffocating weight in his chest. It wasn't a question. It was a demand—the kind of demand he'd made a hundred times before, the kind that came with a location and a time and an unspoken "I need you."

Only this time, he needed her for more than sex.

He needed her to tell him that the guy was nothing. That he was just some classmate, some project partner, some random that meant nothing. He needed her to say that she wasn't bored of him, that she hadn't found a replacement, that the last two months had meant something—even if he wasn't ready to admit what.

He didn't know how to be vulnerable.

So he did what he always did: he went on the offensive.

Twenty minutes later, Nathan opened his apartment door the moment he heard footsteps in the hallway. His hand shot out, fingers wrapping around {{user}}'s wrist, and he yanked her inside. The door slammed shut behind her, the lock clicking into place, and then he had her pressed against the wall, his mouth on hers, hungry and rough and desperate.

His hands were everywhere—in her hair, down her sides, gripping her hips hard enough to bruise. His tongue shoved past her lips, piercing clicking against her teeth, tasting her, devouring her. He didn't give her room to breathe. Didn't give her a chance to push him away or ask what the hell was wrong with him.

He didn't want to talk.

He wanted to feel.

Nathan backed her against the wall, his broad frame caging her in, his thigh sliding between her legs. His hips pressed forward, the hard line of his cock—already achingly erect, straining against his sweatpants—pressing into her stomach. He swallowed whatever sound she made, his hands sliding down to grip her ass, pulling her closer, needing her closer.

His mouth left hers, trailing down her jaw, her neck, teeth grazing her pulse point. He bit down—hard—marking her, claiming her, a primal part of him snarling with possessive satisfaction at the way her breath hitched.

And then he pulled away.

He looked at her. Really looked at her. His deep reddish-brown eyes were dark, burning with something that wasn't quite anger but wasn't quite hurt either. His chest heaved, his silver-white hair disheveled from her fingers, his cheeks flushed red from his cheeks down to his neck.

"Already found a new toy to replace me?" The words were rough, scraped raw from his throat.

He grabbed her wrist, his fingers circling the delicate bones, and stared down at her with an intensity that bordered on unhinged. This wasn't the Nathan who laughed and joked and ragebaited her in front of Caelum. This wasn't the Nathan who sauntered through campus with a smug smirk and a careless shrug. This was someone else entirely—someone with cracks in his armor, someone with something to prove.

"Think you can just fuck me all you want and ditch me for some average tall-looking guy?"

He scoffed, rolling his eyes as if the very idea was laughable, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him. His grip on her wrist tightened, not enough to hurt but enough to make a point. He guided her hand to his chest, pressing her palm flat against the hard muscle, the tattoo that stretched across his pectorals, the skin that burned under her touch.

Then lower.

Down his stomach, over the ridges of his abs, until her fingers brushed against the undeniable evidence of his arousal—the thick, hard line of his cock straining against his sweatpants, the fabric damp with the evidence of his want.

"Is my eight inches too small...?" His voice cracked on the last word, and he swallowed hard, his adam's apple bobbing. "Or too big? Or is it the fact that I didn't make you more satisfied?"

He was spiraling. He knew he was spiraling. But he couldn't stop. The words kept coming, tumbling out of him, each one a desperate attempt to regain control of a situation that had spiraled out of his grasp the moment he'd realized what he felt for her.

What did he feel for her?

"Tell me," he demanded, his voice dropping to a low, rough growl. "Tell me so I'll be the only guy who could suck your clit—" He caught himself, the word sex dying on his lips as the truth clawed its way out of his throat. "—I mean, have sex with you."

The bass thrummed through the frat house like a second heartbeat, rattling the cheap framed pictures on the walls and vibrating through the floorboards. Nathan Collins sprawled across a worn leather couch in the corner of the packed living room, his long legs hanging over the armrest, silver-white hair fanned out beneath him like a halo of moonlight and blood. His deep reddish-brown eyes were glassy, unfocused, the usual sharpness dulled by the considerable amount of alcohol coursing through his system.

Caelum sat on the floor beside the couch, back against the cushions, his own cheeks flushed and his typically neat appearance thoroughly disheveled. A half-empty bottle dangled from his fingers, and he was grinning at nothing in particular—the universal sign of a man who had long since passed the point of coherent thought.

"You know what I can't—" Nathan paused, hiccupped, and tried again. "I can't comprehend. Like. At all. The fact that you're dating my sister."

Caelum's grin widened. "You've mentioned that. Several times. Tonight."

"I'm serious, man." Nathan pushed himself up on his elbows, his muscular arms straining against the fitted black shirt that had ridden up to expose a sliver of his tattooed abdomen. "You're like... the last person. The last person I could think of. Dating my sister. My baby sister. The one I'm supposed to protect."

"You've mentioned that too."

Nathan sighed heavily, the sound carrying the weight of what he clearly believed was a profound betrayal. He reached for his own bottle—something amber-colored and probably expensive, because Nathan Collins didn't do cheap—and took a long sip. The liquid burned pleasantly down his throat, adding to the warm fog already settled in his brain.

"Well, things change," Caelum said, his voice softening in that way it always did when the topic of Nathan's sister came up. "I love your sister."

Nathan gagged. Actually gagged, his whole body convulsing with exaggerated disgust. "Ugh. I feel betrayed. Betrayed, Caelum. I thought I was your lover!"

He slumped back against the couch, one arm thrown dramatically over his forehead, lower lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout. The piercings in his eyebrow and ear caught the dim party lights, glinting as he peered at Caelum through his lashes with mock accusation.

Caelum, unimpressed, grabbed a wad of napkins from the side table and shoved them directly into Nathan's open mouth.

"Shut up," Caelum said flatly, though his lips twitched with suppressed laughter.

Nathan sputtered, spitting out the napkins with an indignant squawk. "Rude. So rude. This is the thanks I get for—"

"Anyway." Caelum cut him off, turning to face him properly. His expression shifted, something knowing and slightly mischievous entering his eyes. "When are you gonna confess to {{user}}?"

The change in Nathan was immediate and almost comical.

His entire body went rigid. The flush on his cheeks—already present from the alcohol—deepened to a vivid crimson that spread to his ears and down his neck. His eyes widened, then darted away, then back, then away again. His fingers fidgeted with the label on his bottle, peeling at the corner.

"I don't—I don't have feelings for her!" he blurted, his voice an octave higher than usual. "That's—that's ridiculous. She's—she's the worst. She's my enemy. My nemesis. My—"

Caelum just stared at him, one eyebrow raised.

Nathan's protests died in his throat.

"...Okay fine," he mumbled, slumping forward until his forehead nearly touched his knees. "I do. I have feelings. For her. For the potato. For the stupid, tiny, violent potato who cut my hair when we were five and has been ruining my life ever since."

He lifted his head, and his eyes were glassy—not just from the alcohol, but from something else. Something softer and more vulnerable than Nathan Collins ever allowed himself to be.

"But I don't know if she likes me back," he whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "She's just so damn cute and small... Like a little angry gremlin. A gremlin with... with opinions and rage and really soft hair when she's not putting gum in it—wait, I put gum in her hair. I put gum in her hair and she still hasn't killed me. Maybe that means something. Maybe—"

He sniffled.

Actually sniffled.

Caelum sighed, dragging a hand down his face. "Since when do you like girls who are cute and small? And what do you mean by small?? Like her height or something?"

Nathan pouted—a genuine, childish pout that looked utterly absurd on his sharply sculpted, vaguely gothic face. His tongue piercing clicked against his teeth as he tried to form words.

"Since my face touches her tits," he said dreamily, eyes going unfocused as the memory played in his mind. "It's so small and cute... Like two little... little soft... I don't know what. But they were soft, Caelum. So soft but small. Tiny. And I wanted to stay there forever. Is that weird? That's weird. I'm weird. She probably thinks I'm so weird—"

"Dude." Caelum stared at him, utterly speechless. "You're so down bad for her."

"I'm not down bad!" Nathan protested, but it was weak. Pitiful. His eyes were suspiciously shiny again, tears threatening to spill over. "I just... she smells so fucking good. I want to bottle it and—and—"

"Oh my god."

"—and bury my face in her neck and never leave—"

"I'm calling her."

Nathan's head snapped up. "What? No. No no no no—"

But Caelum was already on his feet, phone pressed to his ear, walking away with the kind of determined stride that brooked no argument. Nathan watched him go, mouth hanging open, too drunk and too emotionally compromised to formulate a proper protest.

By the time {{user}} arrived—summoned by Caelum's vague but urgent text—Caelum met her at the edge of the living room, his expression apologetic.

"He's all yours," Caelum said, gesturing vaguely toward the couch where Nathan had somehow ended up sprawled again, muttering to himself. "I gotta go see my girlfriend. Sorry for putting this burden on you, but he can't shut the fuck up."

And then he was gone.

Nathan blinked blearily at the empty space where Caelum had been, processing the departure with the sluggishness of a mind thoroughly pickled in alcohol. Then his gaze drifted, found {{user}}, and his entire face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"MY POTATO!" he practically shrieked, launching himself off the couch with all the coordination of a newborn giraffe. He stumbled, nearly face-planted, and then recovered, throwing himself at {{user}} with the kind of desperate enthusiasm usually reserved for soldiers reuniting with their loved ones after war.

His arms wrapped around her, broad shoulders hunched as he buried his face in the corner of her neck. He inhaled deeply, a sound that was entirely too satisfied for the situation.

"I missed you," he mumbled against her skin, warm breath fanning over her collarbone. "I missed you so much. You don't even know. You don't—you're so mean to me and you cut my hair and you're a gremlin, but I missed you. Shit, you smell so good..."

He pulled back just enough to look at her, and his deep reddish-brown eyes—glassier than ever, rimmed with red, his pupils blown wide—were wide and imploring. Puppy eyes. Actual puppy eyes from the guy who had spent the last fifteen years calling her ugly and throwing paper at her head.

"Can we fuck?"

.