Boys Like Him

Fourteen days

I lay sprawled across Lloyd's bed, the sheets already twisted beneath me from earlier, wearing nothing but one of his oversized black T-shirts. It barely skimmed the tops of my thighs.

The AC hummed steadily overhead, cool air kissing the bare skin of my legs and making my n*****s tighten against the shirt. I stared up at the vent, watching the thin slats blur as my breathing slowed, trying to focus on the steady white noise instead of the heat pooling low in my belly.

Two weeks. Fourteen days of this... of sneaking here straight after classes, of him kicking the door shut behind us and having me against the nearest wall before I could even drop my bag. His place because my landlord still hadn't fixed the damn AC in my apartment, turning it into a sweltering oven that made even breathing feel like work. Here, the air was crisp, the bed was huge, and Lloyd... f**k, Lloyd, knew exactly what he was doing.

He knew how to unravel me with his mouth, slow, filthy circles with his tongue until my thighs shook and I was begging, fingers knotted in his hair, hips grinding against his face like I could ride the pleasure right out of my body. He knew how to tease me with just the head of his c**k, sliding in an inch, then out, then deeper the next time, stretching me until I was whimpering his name like a prayer. And when he finally bottomed out-thick, hot, filling every inch-the way he'd hold still for a second, letting me feel him throb inside me before he started those long, punishing strokes... God. Just thinking about it now had me clenching around nothing, a fresh rush of wetness slicking my inner thighs.

I pressed my legs together instinctively, trying to ease the ache, but it only made it worse. My c**t throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

Across the room, Lloyd stood with his back half-turned, phone pressed to his ear.

I shifted again, deliberately this time, letting one knee fall open a little wider, the hem of the shirt riding up until cool air hit the damp skin between my legs. His gaze snapped to me fully for a heartbeat, pupils blowing wide before he forced them back to the window, jaw ticking.

"Yeah, I'll handle it tomorrow," he said into the phone, but his free hand had dropped to adjust himself through his sweats.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Two weeks of constant f*****g and somehow it still felt like the first time every single night.

I let out a quiet breath and pressed the back of my hand to my forehead, half amused, half exasperated with myself.

He had started pacing.

At first, it was just a slow shift of weight from one foot to the other while he stayed on the phone, but now he was moving back and forth across the room in long, restless strides. His hand dragged through his hair once, then again, his jaw tightening in a way I hadn't seen before.

And his voice... still controlled, but the edge creeping into it was unmistakable.

Whatever the conversation was about, it wasn't going well.

I propped myself up slightly on my elbows, watching him from the bed.

I'd never seen Lloyd lose his temper before.

Actually, now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure I'd ever seen him even close.

He was always calm and annoyingly in control of everything around him.

But right now, something was pushing him.

He turned away from the bed, pacing toward the far wall again, his voice sharpening.

"No, that's not what I said-"

My phone buzzed beside me on the mattress, the sudden vibration making me glance down.

I reached for it lazily, stretching my arm across the sheets.

It was ten in the morning.

We were definitely supposed to be in class.

Technically.

But we'd been late before. Very late. Sometimes we didn't bother showing up at all after nights like the one we'd had.

Mariah was probably texting me the salon schedule again, reminding me which shifts I had this week. She'd started doing that lately, like she suspected I was becoming unreliable.

Which... okay, fair.

I unlocked my phone, expecting her name to pop up.

Instead, the notification was from an unknown number.

My brows knit slightly.

Curious, I opened the message.

A picture loaded first.

My stomach tightened instantly.

It was Lloyd.

The photo looked like it had been taken from a distance, maybe across campus or from inside a car. Lloyd stood near the steps outside the student center, his posture relaxed, talking to someone just out of frame.

And next to him, leaning in close enough to be unmistakably familiar, was a girl.

Her hand was resting lightly on his arm like she'd done it a hundred times before.

My stomach knotted.

Below the photo was a message.

I see you've been sucked into his orbit.

I frowned, my thumb hovering over the screen as I read on.

Run while you still can.

My pulse slowed, then began to thump harder in my ears.

Lloyd Luxen destroys everything he touches. He is no good for anybody and belongs in an asylum.

A strange chill crept up the back of my neck.

I'd hate to watch another girl become one of his victims.

For a moment, I just stared at the message.

A small chill slid down my spine.

Slowly, I lifted my gaze from the screen and looked over at Lloyd again.

I scrunched my nose, staring down at the screen in confusion.

Why would a complete stranger send something like that about him? The message felt... personal. Too personal. Like whoever had written it didn't just dislike Lloyd-they knew him. Or thought they did.

My thumb hovered over the screen, my mind already trying to pull apart the photo again. The girl beside him. The wording. The strange bitterness dripping from every line.

Before I could spiral any further into it, I felt a warm hand settle on my shoulder.

I startled slightly and looked up.

Lloyd stood beside the bed now, towering over me, the irritation that had been in his voice a moment ago still faintly etched into his expression.

"We should start getting ready for school," he said, his voice calmer now, though there was still a trace of that earlier tension beneath it. "I've got practice at noon."

His gaze flicked briefly toward my phone in my hand before returning to my face.

"And you," he added, softer this time, "should probably stop skipping class because of me."

The corner of my mouth lifted despite myself.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position on the bed, tucking one leg beneath me as I looked at him.

"Who were you arguing with?" I asked.

"No one important."

His tone was casual-too casual.

But in his eyes, a quick flash of irritation flickered.

I noticed it. Of course I did.

Still, the last thing I wanted to do was poke at whatever had him wound up like that.

So I let it go.

I slid off the bed, the hem of his shirt falling a little further down my thighs as my feet hit the cool floor.

"I'll meet you downstairs in twenty."