~Beckham~

Do you how you wish you can experience certain things all over again for the first time? That’s what I wished for after that first night I spent with Luca. Except, I am feeling it now, feeling as if it’s for the first time, with her as her mouth presses almost painfully against mine. Her lips are soft, her teeth not so much as she nicks my bottom lip forcing me to open up for her with a hiss. She pushes her tongue into my mouth with a relentless force that would have left me breathless if not for all the experience from over-eager puck bunnies fucking my mouth the first chance they get. The two of us shift closer until our chests press together, the clothes barely serving as the barrier that it should be. My body flushes up, a drop of sweat almost trailing down the curve of my spine in the middle of fucking October. Without disconnecting our lips, Luca gets on her knees before swinging one leg across my hip, straddling me and making herself comfortable across my lap, her arms thrown casually over my shoulders. Quick to lift my legs up I support her weight against my knees as she grazes my scalp with her trimmed nails, tugging occasionally on my growing locks. I almost groan only for the sound to be swallowed by her plush lips, our tongues moving in a tantalizing waltz, the tandem being commonplace and strange all at once that I don’t know what to do with it.

Her sex brushes against my steadily growing hard on, the leggings barely doing anything to help with lessening the friction. Not to say that me going commando under my sweatpants after my post-practice shower is of any help currently either, especially when the tall vixen on my lap begins to gyrate her hips and grind into me. My hands roam across her back, mapping every sinew, muscle and curve before braving it and cupping her full breasts. It’s all firm muscle, sitting nice and taut on her torso with nada sag. Athletic girls may very well be my type, even though I don’t acquaint myself with them in bedroom as much as I’d like. Breaking the kiss, I lean back with my arms raised, helping Luca rip the shirt off of my body, like she doesn’t understand why I had it on in the first place. Then, her hands are all over my body, with fervent reverence tracing all the sharp lines and contours of my body. The second we take a break from making out before we turn blue from all that lack of oxygen, Luca’s lips hungrily latch on to jaw, her wet tongue wreaking havoc on me as she licks a wet strip from my earlobe all the way down my neck, where my vein strains against the thin skin.  Luca sighs in contentment like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted and that does nothing to help my ready to bust, near blue balls boner.

“LJ!” I breathe out, ready to beg her if I have to because somewhere between this teasing my body went from being pleasured to agonized and even as an athlete with an increased tolerance for pain, I have far reached my threshold. “I-” Just when I am about to embarrass myself, her phone blares out her ringtone and just like that the bubble bursts. Almost as if coming to her senses, Luca blinks slowly before groaning and hurriedly getting off my lap. 

“Fuck,” I hear her swear before she reaches to grab her phone that is hidden beneath the material we have been working on. She doesn’t answer it, choosing to let it ring while she gathers her things and stuffs them back into her bag.

“We are halfway through. Let me know when you’re free and we’ll finish the rest.” She lets the sentence linger in the room for a bit before she turns around and says, “Or maybe, I’ll finish it up alone. You’ve done enough ground work and you’ll be busy with the first game.”

For the first time in a while, I let my exasperation get the best of me. “Yeah?” I challenge her. “What if I don’t want to?” I don’t think she expected that, probably assuming that I’d forfeit to the temptation of less work and same grade as her. Good.

She almost stumbles on her feet when she hears me, hesitantly glancing my way to see how serious I am. “Okay? If that’s what you want.” She clears her throats gets her bearings, her face shuttering like it always does. “I just assumed that you might want to not do too much work.”

Quietly, I point in the direction of my shirt which Luca graciously grabs and chucks in my direction. Pulling the shirt on I snap, “Well, you assumed wrong, LJ.”

“Jeez. Back up, tiger. All I wanted to do was a favour, damn!” I can see through it. All the façade for me and questions she has for herself. I shrug, getting off the bed to square off with her. “You know what you want to do, LJ? You want to run away from what just happened.”

“And what just happened?” she dishes right back, her head tilted in defiance. If not for the situation we are in, I would have found that arrogance hot as fuck.

“What happened was that you kissed me like a freaking porn star and now you’re flippin’ about it. You want to do me no favour, Luca. You want to run away from the fact that you don’t do repeats but you still would have gone there with me if not for that stupid phone ringing.”

“That’s swell of you to presume and that-” she points in the general direction of my kind size bed, “-was a mistake.” That stung. It shouldn’t, yet it did. 

I take a step in her direction but Luca Ackerman doesn’t back down. Not that I expected her from the very little that she let me know about her. “Oh yeah? And how often do you make these mistakes?”

“Not very often if I can help it,” she admits and then shakes her head. “Can we forget this happened?”

“We could have, if you didn’t make a huge deal out of it, asking me to stay out of the assignment.”

She sighs, making me feel like an insolent child that needs to be disciplined. “Yes. And for that I am sorry. But, that? That shouldn’t have happened, Beckham. I-”

“-don’t do repeats. Yeah, I know. I had no more control over the situation than you had. You think being a twenty year old woman is being difficult. Try being a dude.”

A small smile quirks her lips, even though she’s defensive all over. “And why’s that?”

“Science says men think about sex every seven seconds,” I offer, even though I think I might be wrong. I love a good lay but even I don’t think about a fuck all that often if I say so myself. 

“I think that finding was debunked, Beckham.”

“Well,” I jerk my shoulder in nonchalance. “We still think about sex far more than you do, especially when a fine woman such as yourself grinds down against me like that’s the last thing she’d be found doing.” That brings a cute grimace on her face. She jerks her head at my bottom half.

“That looks painful.”

I roll my eyes. “It is. I’m officially blue-balled. Never thought I’d live to see that day. No thanks to you, LJ.”

“You should take care of it then. I’ll get out of your hair!” she frowns for a second before rushing towards the door when I call out, “What’s so bad about getting dicked from a good dick, again?” She stops but doesn’t respond, so I elaborate, “I’m talking about the no repeats rule of yours.”

I can feel her rolling her eyes, before she looks me over the shoulder. “I’m assuming you’re the good dick we are talking about here?” I shrug casually, unintentionally giving her my lopsided smile that is usually reserved for friends. I guess, she is friends, in a totally not friend way. A crooked smile spreads across her face and she mocks, “Swell of you to assume, Beckham and you know what they say about people who assume too much,” then proceeds to pointedly look at my raging boner. Don’t think I have had one such as this ever since Ms.Tawny flashed us her nips during high school. Apparently, there was some truth to the whole seven seconds thing, because her name alone should have not done it for us, but fuck if half the class wasn’t sporting a hard-on.

Shaking my head to come back to the topic, I point out, “You never did answer my question.”

She bristles. “I just never do. There is a huge market for good dick, you know. Why have one when you can explore? I’m adventurous.”

“And how often do you succeed?”

“You’d be surprised,” she shoots back but I can sense a bit of lie there because she scrunches her nose, immediately after. “I should go.”

“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you, LJ.” Her eyes flare and she drops the rucksack she’s shoulder off to the floor before stalking my way. I decide I like it. That fire in her eyes, that’s a rarer sight than the blood moon itself. 

“Why? Why is this so- why are you pressing on this, Beckham? Just find yourself a bunny. At least you have that going on for you men!”

I inch towards her, enough to be chest to chest with her and jerk my shoulders as casually as I can. Luca is look unimpressed as fuck, but when has she ever look impressed, especially when her gaze is directed my way. “Didn’t know I was that difficult to read, woman.” She blinks and I smile. “I want to fuck you, Luca. Again.” She’s flabbergasted. I’ve gotten the usually eloquent in the most cynical way possible Luca Ackerman tongue-tied and surprised. Most exciting thing that’s happened in my life that does not involve hockey.

She smacks her lips in hesitation and offers, “I am sure we can get past these thoughts and work together. Tell me I’m not wrong, Beckham.” 

“Today wasn’t the finest example of that kind of restraint, Luca.”

“It wasn’t,” she agrees and peers at me with that magnetic gaze of hers. All doe-eyed and innocent when I know she’s anything but. The mysterious duality of Luca. “But, I’d like to think we have better discipline than that.”

“Maybe, we do. I mean, never say never, right?” Her shoulders sag in relief but I add, “But I don’t want to. A lay with you was fantastic. I would do it again. I want to do it again. Isn’t all that chemistry stifling to not do something about it?”

Luca tinges red, not with the charming kind but the one that reeks of haughtiness. “I have chemistry with plenty of men, Beckham Hayes. And, so do you. Let’s not kid ourselves about some kind of unparalleled connection here.”

“I never said anything of that sort. I just said we should duke it out in bed. We make a good pair. I’m sure you’d not argue against that given that you have an argument against every damn thing that comes out of every damned mouth.”

“You are not irresistible, Beckham.”

“Neither are you, Ackerman.”

“Then we shouldn’t have a problem.”

She’s challenging me and baiting me into agreeing with her stupid rule. I know it, I fall for it any way. Male ego is a plague, I swear. I nod with my hands on my hips. “We won’t.”

“Good. Glad we are on the same page.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, then." It maddens me how the conversation took the sour turn and how in the end Luca got her way. She’s charmingly manipulative in a way that you don’t quite realize you have been manipulated unless you give it some thought. She fearlessly gambles with what she thinks will elicit the kind of response she’s hoping for and then goes with it. It’s fascinating as it is frustrating. 

“I bet your ass you will, Beckham. Good night.” She has the audacity to lean it and leave a fleeting kiss to my cheek, much like she did the first time before she’s off like she’s never been, except for that signature musky cinnamon fragrance of hers that she distinctly leaves behind. I stay put in my room for all of two seconds before I thump after her. From a distance, I hear her say her goodbyes to my friends and when not a second later I follow after her, I am cause for their raised brows. I put my finger up in a just a second gesture before I rush outta the front door that just clicked shut.

“Ackerman!” I call after her retreating back, whilt I simultaneously spot her pastel blue scooty. I smile, begrudgingly. She spins around, exasperation clear on her face when she asks, “What now, Hayes?”

“Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be your seatmate, tomorrow.”

I see a smile but that could just be me conjuring things I want to say. “Why? First row not doing it for you, anymore?”

I shrug. “Not enough personality.” Then I narrow my gaze at her playfully. “Or enough banter, for that matter.” 

~Luca~

A personality like Beckham with the looks and bed skills to go with it and a fuck buddy relationship? Yeah, that sounds like the recipe for a disaster. I see why it will be easy to like Beckham. Why people do like him despite his apparent playboy ways. He’s gentlemanly in his requests to fuck, if that is even remotely possible. I could only hope I was half as lady like is rejecting his advances. I know that I did what I thought for right but for that one brief moment in which I watch him saunter over to me, his entire frame filling up the rather narrow aisle that leads to the empty seat beside me, I sense a flicker of regret along with a whole lot of heat. He knows he looks good in the way he carries himself; confident with a healthy – okay, maybe a little unhealthy amount of swagger, an ever-present smirk tipping the corner of his full mouth. His eyes are trained on me, his jeans sitting low and snug on his narrow waist. Two different, unrelated things that make up for a massive impact, you best believe me. He does this jock-ish chin tip at me and plops down in the seat next to mine. 

“’sup, LJ?”

I don’t turn his way, choosing to keep my eyes to the front of the classroom. “Would you stop calling me that if I refuse to respond to a nickname that I haven’t sanctioned?” I ask, not returning his pleasantries and to be honest, I don’t think Beckham was expecting some either. 

He pretends to think for a bit and then says, “Umm, no. I think it suits you.”

“You think a lot of things, Beckham. None of them useful,” I sneer, still depending on my peripheral vision to gauge his reactions. 

“I’m sure that is not true,” he argues, a playful smile lighting up his tan skin and blue-green eyes. Annoyingly gorgeous and definitely not helping my case with his lack of subtlety and his abundance of wit. God so help me.

“Whatever, starboy.”

“You want to come over to mine tonight to do some of that assignment?” he questions as Greene walks in with that etched grimace on her pale face. He whips a notebook out and expectantly looks at me while I do the same. His entitles ass grabs the pen of my hands and I sigh, “Yes, Beckham. Why don’t you help yourself to the only pen I have?” That’s a lie.

One that I didn’t expect him to catch on. I guess, there’s still lessons to be learnt where Beckham Hayes is concerned. “Liar. I saw that pen pouch of yours filled to the brim with highlighters, pens and the likes.” Fuck. I though men have the attention span of a sparrow. 

“Yeah, whatever.” I grab another one of my pens from my pen pouch. 

“Is whatever the word of the day?” he mumbles, but I don’t grace that query with a response.

The class is uneventful much like every other class of Greene’s with my seatmate and temporary assignment partner keeping to himself, a fact I am not entirely sure I am okay with. I should be glad he’s got his trap shut, but I am weirdly not. If this is not the sign for me to up and run for the hills, then I don’t know what is. So, when the class finishes, I grapple my stuff and shoot out of the classroom like my butt’s on fire. Except, fuck Beckham and his longer my long limbs because he’s in step with me in no more than five minutes.

“Are you running away?” There is a hint of derision in his voice that I’d absolutely hate coming from anybody’s mouth. With the realization last night that this has become a game between us, there has come a certain level of comfort with Beckham’s presence in my life. Two years from now, I don’t think I’d hear of Beckham Hayes other than whatever I expect to hear of him on the news if he ever decides to go pro. With the level of skills I have seen, there seems to be no other route for starboy.

“No, starboy. Your narcissistic ass would think that, wouldn’t it? Your ass ain’t important enough.”

“I only ever asked if you were running away. Never said away from me. But, you are?” 

“What the fuck do you want Beckham?” It’s supposed to come out as a frustrated question but I soon come to the cognizance that there is no heat to it. He bumps his shoulders with mine like we are best friends.

“I think I like starboy better.”

“If you want me to keep calling you that, what you just said is an incentive in no way, Hayes!” I counter, internally enjoying the bickering. However, you’d not find me, nor even on my death bed admitting that out loud. No one wants to feed Beckham Hayes’s Kardashian ass size ego. 

Sometimes, I feel so empty that this mindless jabber from Beckham is almost soothing. It keeps me from going back to places I’d rather keep in the darkest recesses of my muddled brain. I have come to terms with the fact that my mind is tragic pit of endless thoughts, sarcasm and cynicism about everything in life, especially the good. It’s almost as if Beckham is a temporary reprieve from all of that business in my head that I just can’t shut off.

A heavy hand lands on my shoulder, literally shaking me from my thoughts. “Did you hear me, woman?” Another hand is waved smack in front of my face. “Earth to.”

“Yes. What?” I grumble, turning towards the cafeteria for my caffeine fix. “Don’t you have class you annoying thing?”

“Need to grab a pretzel.” Then continues, “So are you coming?” I don’t know is the double entendre is intentional, but it really wouldn’t be all that surprising if it were. I ungracefully snort.

My uninvited companion frowns, his arms still resting like dead weight across the expanse of my shoulder, his fingers unthinkingly brushing across my tank exposed arm. Then, his bulb flickers and he playfully shoves me. “You dirty girl. That’s not what I meant. Fuck, LJ. Get that brain of yours off the gutter.”

“I didn’t say a fucking thing. It’s your empty upper compartment that is in the gutter, starboy! Maybe that seven second things is not all that debunked after all.” Another shove, but I am being pulled back into a heavy chest just as fast. When I questioningly eye him, he tips his chin over my head. “You were going to slam into someone, LJ. There was nothing fuck worthy about having your hard slab of a torso crashing into me.”

“Whatever.”

“Yeah! Whatever is definitely the word of the day,” he breathes, keeping me close to him even though it is currently unwarranted. I wiggle slightly to let him know of the position we are in but the dickhead decides to act all unbothered. I shrug my shoulder in efforts to throw his arm of me while simultaneously complaining, “Do you mind, asshole.” The fucktard has the gall to grin and pull me closer. 

“Beckham!” I not so understatedly stamp on the toe end of his sneakers with my heavy Docs.

“So, are you coming or not?” he asks, like I just didn’t do what I just did. What the fuck? Does the boy have iron toes or what? Giving up momentarily, I question, “Go where, boy? Your specificity is absolutely staggering.” 

“I said it before when you were all up your head.” His free hand flails in the general direction of my head. “I asked if you were going to be going to the first home game of the season. I’ll be playing, so that’s a bonus.”

“Beckham, I play hockey. I have enough and more of it in my life. I am not about to come and watch a bunch of twenty something boys let out their infantile instincts out on the rink for about sixty minutes.” Beckham stops, his hand unwillingly dragging me to a stop when he grasps the crook of my elbow. With pinched brows he asks, “Hold up! If us playing hockey is all about infantile instincts, what does that say about you Ackerman? You play the game after all!”

Shrugging I riposte, “We’re graceful. None of the pushing and taunting, dying to prove your manliness. And you definitely won’t find all of us put together in the sinbin half as much as one of you in a game.” 

He opens his mouth to argue, then freezes. “Fuck, is that right?”

“Maybe, you should come and watch us. Our season doesn’t start far from yours.”

The tall, brunette hunk of a man who looks like he belongs in the sets of Vogue instead of the dimly lit hallways of CNU says, something that I should have expected but wasn’t prepared for. “Maybe, I will. Need no reward to watch you move like that on ice.”