Hate You Still by Lyssa Lemire

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

KNOX

“SURPRISE!”

It feels like a shockwave blowing in my face. One moment I’m just walking through my front door with Gavin, and the next moment …

Fuck, the next moment, I’m not sure what’s going on.

In a second, I recover from the original shock and take in what’s happening.

“Happy birthday!” the big crowd that seems to have materialized out of nowhere into my living room shouts, following up their first exclamation.

A surprise party. A surprise birthday party. For me.

And it’s no mystery who organized it.

My eyes sweep the crowd in front of me, taking stock of who’s here.

A lot of the football team. Even guys I’m not exactly on good terms with. Shit, even Lars is here, and he’s grinning ear to ear. No doubt finding it beyond amusing that I’ve been taken by surprise.

Holy shit. “Clare?” I can’t help but remark on her presence as I see her lingering to the side of the group, looking at me with a big, bright, grandmotherly smile on her face.

Then my eyes fall to the small, dainty figure standing in the midst of all the burly, oversized athletes in my living room. Emma.

My first emotion once I fully realize what’s happening is … anger. Not the burning anger I’m so used to. More like offense.

Emma should have known from our conversation the other day that my birthday isn’t something I like to talk about. That I’d rather pretend it just didn’t exist. I didn’t say so in so many words, but, shit, she isn’t stupid. Not intellectually or emotionally. She should have understood my demeanor.

But when I see that bright expression on her face. So happy … and it’s not just that she’s happy, it’s like she willing me to be happy, too. She did this for me. She did this because she wanted me to have something special.

Fuck. That momentary trace of anger evaporates. All I feel is gratitude. Gratitude for Emma, for her selflessness, for how much she cares.

How much she cares … about me.

Fuck. I’m thrown through a loop. She really cares about me.

I fully realize now that our relationship is so much more than physical. So much more than lust. So much more than just making up an unsettled past.

She cares about me. And, fuck, I care about her.

Maybe I l– … lo– …

It’s probably a good thing that my inner monologue gets cut off at this point.

“Well, anything to say, old man?” Clare speaks up, drawing laughs from the rest of the group. I guess I must have been standing here mute for a good while, taking everything in.

I feel my face burning. Fuck, being embarrassed is one emotion I’m not used to. But it’s a good kind of embarrassment. I feel my lips perking up into a wide, genuine smile.

“Thanks everyone,” I finally manage to say, chuckling. “You almost gave me a fucking heart attack. But thanks. It means a lot.”

The guys from the football team break out into obnoxious, sarcastic awwww’s. I roll my eyes and flip them a middle finger, drawing more laughs.

“Alright, break out the beer!” One of our teammates, Jackson, loudly announces, walking over next to the couch in my and Gavin’s living room and opening up a cooler that’s suddenly there.

This draws another round of cheers from the guys, as everyone rushes over to crack or twist open a can or bottle of their choice.

“Get over here,” I say to Emma, walking up to her, drinking in the beautiful, happy smile and expression on her face. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me tight.

“I was worried you wouldn’t like it,” she says.

I plant a big kiss on the crown of her head. “I fucking love it, baby,” I tell her.

There’s that word. Love. Using that word in a sentence directed at Emma feels dangerous. Risky. Like foolishly walking through a field littered with landmines. But I’m going to have to shove that feeling into the back of my head for now, and just enjoy the party.

Clare walks over to us, and I wrap my arms around her gently. “How old, if I may dare ask?” she asks.

I laugh. “Twenty-two.”

She lets out a long, impressed whistle. “Really getting up there, eh?”

“Tell me about it.”

I settle into the party, getting over the awkward feeling that still lingers, and start making my rounds thanking everyone for coming.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lars boisterously slaps me on the back with his gigantic palm. “When your girl told us there’d be free beer, we all jumped at the opportunity.”

Lars and I had our differences at the beginning of the year. To put things lightly. But looking back, I’m not too much of a stuck-up idiot to admit that it was all my fault. I was a fucking wreck at the beginning of the year.

Ever since Emma and I got together, though, I’ve done a one-eighty. Coach is even letting me run plays during practice, since I’ve stayed so clean off the field, and have brought my grades up so much in all my classes.

Of course, he’s not considering cutting the duration of my benching short. When Coach makes a promise, he sticks to it. But even that is about to be finished. My community service will be over in just a week and a half. And then it’s off the bench, and back into games for me.

As I walk away from Lars to talk to some other guys, something he said keeps ringing in my ears: your girl.

Emma and I still haven’t put any labels on what we’re doing. On what we are.

But, fuck it. I know what we’re doing, and I know what we are. And I’m damn sure ready to put a label on it now.

I see Emma talking to Jackson and Gavin. Yeah, I’m ready to put a label on it right fucking now.

I walk up and casually wrap my arm around her, resting my palm on her shoulder and pressing her tight against me.

“My girlfriend really knows how to throw a party, huh?”

With all the casualness of commenting on the weather, I just did it. I dropped the bomb. For the first time, I called Emma my girlfriend.

Because that’s what she is. She’s my girlfriend.

She’s mine, period.

I look at her face to try and gauge the impact it has on her. Her face looks frozen for a moment. The significance of that casual comment obviously wasn’t lost on her.

But soon her white cheeks turn red and the straight line of her mouth forms into a smile. She rests her head against my arm that’s around the back of her neck.

“It’s easy when you have a boyfriend who deserves it,” she says.

It feels like my heart’s doing backflips on the top of a cloud.

After the party, Emma and I along with Gavin and Katie start cleaning up once everyone’s left.

But when I turn to my side to see Emma bending over to pick something up off the floor, affording me the most perfect view of her heart-shaped ass, I realize that the rest of the clean-up is going to have to wait for later.

Because, immediately, I need her.

Bad.

Now.

“Hey, Gavin, Katie,” I say, placing the trash bag I was filling up down on the carpet. “Why don’t you guys go out or something. Let me and Emma finish cleaning up here.”

I say all this without looking at them, but my eyes still fastened on Emma. She’s straightened up, and my eyes greedily suck up the outline of her curvy hips. My imagination is on fire, thinking of the ways I’m about to have her bend over again so I can regain that perfect view of her luscious ass I had moments ago.

The tone in my voice, and the direction of my gaze, obviously leave Gavin and Katie with little inclination to protest. They wish me a happy birthday again and head out, leaving me alone with Emma.

Shut leans against one of the chairs, looking at me with inviting eyes. “You want us to have to clean this up all by ourselves?”

I place my hands on the sides of her hips, relishing in their alluring softness, the sensuous shape of their curve. My eyes travel up and down her body, lingering for a moment each on her collarbones, her breasts, her center. “No,” I say. “I want us to do something else all by ourselves.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Her eyes are hungry. She drags her red, soft tongue across the outline of her lips.

As an answer, my lips crash onto hers. I hoist her up, allowing her to wrap her legs round me.

“Taking me upstairs?” she asks with a suggestive look.

I shake my head back and forth. She looks disappointed at that answer, before I clarify. “I want you right here.”

She blushes. “In the living room?”

A sly grin spread across my lips. “I want you on the floor.”

A tiny gasp escapes her throat.

I kneel down and lay her down on the floor. Fuck, as sexy as she looks laying down on a bed there’s something especially sexy about seeing her on a floor.

I unbutton her pants and undo the zipper. I leave them like that, unzipped, showing the top of her pink panties, as I lift her shirt up, placing a trail of kisses up her beautiful, soft tummy while slowly inching the hem of her shirt up to her tits.

After her shirt is peeled off, her two tits look so fucking good that I can’t resist doing something savage. I reach around her back and tear the fabric of her bra strap. I fling the torn fabric to the side and cup her perfect semi-spherical breasts in my hands.

Fuck, they fit perfectly. These tits were made for my palms.

She gasps and giggles at my tearing of bra. “I liked that bra!” she admonishes me through her laughs.

“I’ll get you another one,” I growl, my mouth veering toward her tits, my tongue flicking her hard, erect nipples, eliciting sweet moans from her, which turn into yelps as I gently tease the sensitive flesh with the edges of my teeth.

Once I’ve had my full of her tits, I follow the trail of kisses I left down her tummy and slide her tight jeans down her legs.

I snatch the fabric of her panties between my teeth. I lift up her legs and glide her panties up them. I fling my head to the side, discarding her panties, and lower her legs back down. Now she’s totally naked on the floor in front of me, her perfect pink pussy glistening and inviting me.

I position my head between her thighs. I breath in the scent of her pussy, utterly intoxicating. I drag my tongue up her slick opening, savoring her taste. She gasps and I feel a tremor shaking through her.

I circle my tongue around her clit, alternating the pace and pressure of its movements. Her back arches and she cries out in pleasure. I wrap my lips around her clit and apply a gentle suctioning pressure. Her thighs wrap around my head, drawing me closer to her wetness and further drowning my senses in her.

“Fuck, Knox, I’m coming,” she groans.

I increase the intensity of my suction, quickening the movements of my tongue. She thrusts her hips forward and cries out in ecstasy.

After her orgasm has rocked her body, she lowers her hips back to the floor, whimpering in the afterglow of pleasure.

After giving that pretty pussy attention with my lips and tongue, it’s now time for my cock to take care of her.

I flip her onto her belly, drawing a gasp from her mouth. “Mmm,” she moans, excited for what I have in mind. She gently pushes her hips out, putting her in perfect position for her pussy to take my cock from behind.

I growl. Fuck, she looks so good. That beautiful-heart shaped ass, her full and luscious thighs, and that beautiful pink pussy between them.

I slide a condom down my shaft. Grabbing a handful of both her cheeks, I spread them, giving me full access to her yearning wet slit.

I slide just the head of my cock into her pussy. My eyes roll as the pleasure of her warm wetness assaults every inch of my body, every nerve. “Fuck,” I growl.

“I want all of you,” she groans, urging me to push myself further in. “Fuck me, baby.”

She doesn’t have to ask me twice. Sinking my hands deeper into the tantalizing flesh of her ass, I push myself forward, filling her up with my length.

I thrust in and out, increasing in speed and ferocity as I feel my orgasm build up in my center.

“More,” she moans, lightly. “More, more. It’s so fucking good.”

I thrust forward again as I ride the crashing waves of my climax, unloading myself into the condom. I grit my teeth and my hands clench, both full of her soft ass. My muscles tremble as the spasms of my cock drain me of my cum.

“My God, Knox,” she moans as I slip myself out of her and dispose of the condom. “That was so fucking good.”

“So, where does that one rank?” I joke as I catch my breath.

“Number one,” she sighs, exhausted.

She’s still lying on her belly. The position of my hands and fingers are imprinted starkly on her ass. Fuck does that turn me on. Her fucking ass is marked by my touch, by my grasp, by my grip.

Something tells me that the memory of that sight is going to present itself to me later tonight, and I’m going to be forced to fuck her like this all over again.