Moments in Time (6 page)

I dug around in my pocket and fished out enough change for a soda. Food still wasn’t appealing, but I figured the sugar might help clear my head. Making my way through the stacks, I hoped the machines weren’t empty. Everyone hit the library midweek so they could have their weekends free, and even though it was pretty empty now, it had been packed when I arrived.

Only one light was lit. The one next to the Sprite. Of course. No caffeine. Oh, well, at least it had sugar. The can tumbled down through the machine, sounding ridiculously loud in the quiet of the hallway. I popped the top and drained half of it. You weren’t really supposed to take drinks into the main part of the library, but no one enforced or followed that rule.

My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my pocket just in time to see the low battery symbol flash and the screen turn black.
Shit.
When I’d forgotten to set my alarm the night before, I’d also forgotten to charge my phone. I wondered who’d texted me, and when. The back area where I’d been sitting all evening had shit reception. The call that buzzed right then could have come in hours ago. I tried to turn the phone back on to see if it had enough juice left to at least show me who’d called. No such luck.

I was still fiddling with the power button when I saw Tanner. Well, I saw his shoes. Before I rounded the corner, I spotted them through the empty row on the bottom bookcase. Navy blue Chucks, no laces, crossed over each other. My heart beat double time as he came into full view. He was half leaning, half sitting on the edge of my table, arms behind him in a way that made every vein and muscle in his forearms stand out. I could barely swallow my mouthful of Sprite.

“Hey,” I whispered, even though there was no one at any of the nearby tables.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?”

He shrugged, shoulders bunching up to his ears, hair falling over one eye. “Had to return a book. Figured you’d be up here.”

“Yeah. I’ve got—”
What? What have I got?
No reason whatsoever to have spent half the night in the library other than the fact that I was avoiding going home. “—stuff due soon.”

Tanner nodded.

I tried to keep my voice casual. “I thought you and Wendy might have wanted some time alone too.”

One dark brow popped high on his forehead. “Why’d you think that?”

My cheeks heated—I’d blushed more in the past day than in the past six months. “She didn’t come over last night. You know… every Monday… I figured since you skipped a night you might want to, I don’t know, make up for it.”

Tanner raked a hand through his hair, then braced his arm behind himself again. “She left a few minutes after you did.”

“She did?”

“Yep. The only reason she came over was to help me get the room clean for your mom.”

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean?”

“She stopped by the book store and said she’d run into you on the bus and that you looked frazzled. Her word.”

“Wait, you worked today?”

“Yeah, we all switched our shifts around because of midterms last week.”

“Oh.” So he hadn’t left our room to avoid me. I felt like an ass.

“Anyway, she said you’d locked your keys in the room, and I remembered you said your mom was coming. Then I got home, and the place was still trashed, so I called for backup. I threw all the laundry in the wash, and she helped me straighten up.”

“You did my laundry?”

“Just the bed stuff.”

“Wow.”
I can’t believe he did all that.

“After the stuff you told me last night, I figured it was probably kind of important to you.”

“It was. It is. Thank you.”

“I owe you at least a load of laundry for all the food you bring me.”

A smile tugged at my lips, but something still nagged at me. “What about Wendy?”

“She said it was worth it for those cookies.”

“No, I mean did she, like, ask anything? Like why….” I was too scared to complete the question.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Tanner’s eyes scanned mine.

Of course I started freaking out. My heart drummed in my ears again. “What?”

“Wendy kind of knows what happened. With us.”

Every bit of oxygen left my body. If there hadn’t been a bookcase for me to lean on, I probably would’ve fallen over. “Knows….”

Tanner looked at the floor for what felt like a decade, then looked up at me through his dark hair. “She didn’t come over last night because I’d told her I was into someone else.”

He might as well have punched me in the gut.
Someone else? So it’s not Wendy I have to worry about, it’s someone else?
“You are?”

His eyes met mine, and I forced myself not to look away. “You. I told her I was into you.”

“But you didn’t even know if anything would happen at that point.”

“Yeah. Didn’t matter. Even if nothing had, I thought I should tell her.”

“Why?”

Tanner gave a long blink, and I watched those black wings cover his eyes for a moment.
Fuck, he’s gorgeous.
“It felt important. Turns out she already knew before I’d even said anything.”

My eyes were so buggy, I didn’t even think I could manage a blink if a sandstorm hit the library. “She did? How did? I mean when did…?”

“I don’t know. She’s a girl, and we’ve been friends since we were fifteen. She knows me pretty fucking well.”

“I’ll say.”

“We were never really a thing, you know. I mean, Monday nights, that was just a hookup. She’s got a boyfriend at school in the city. That’s why she goes home as many weekends as she can afford. It’s to see him.”

“She has a boyfriend?”

“Yeah. They’ve both done the long-distance thing before, and it didn’t work out, so they made a pact that they can do the friends-with-benefits thing with someone nearby. To keep them from meeting someone new and having the new person turn into a relationship. I don’t know. It works for them.”

I struggled to wrap my head around everything he was telling me. I knew he and Wendy had been friends since high school, but I had no idea they were doing this friends-with-benefits thing in an official capacity. Honestly, I’d figured she was in love with him. “So you’re not into her?”

“Not the way I think you mean.” His lips twitched in a smile.

“Yeah, I know you’ve literally been into her. I’m not deaf.”

His grin got broader, and God help me, my stomach flipped over just from watching his mouth. My cock noticed too and seemed to be having a flashback of that mouth wrapped around it. I shifted—as if there was a pose I could strike that would make it more comfortable to have a hard-on in jeans.

“And she’s okay with you not being into her?”

“It was just sex, Collin. I mean, we love each other as friends, but really, that’s it. She’s cool.”

I still hadn’t had one question answered, though. I took a deep breath. “What did she say? About us?”

“She’s glad I finally got my head out of my ass and manned up—her words. She thought I should have told you when we first moved in.”

“You knew back then?”

“That I was interested? Shit, yeah. I kinda knew since we first met.”

“Two years ago?”

Tanner nodded. I wanted to touch him so badly, my fingers burned with need. “That night you and I were the only ones who didn’t go to that big party and we got drunk on the roof? I’d never wanted to kiss a guy so bad in my life.”

That night flashed back into my head. I’d wanted the same thing. So much. “Me too.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’d never had feelings that strong before. Like I almost couldn’t control them. I convinced myself it was because I drank so much. And I didn’t have a clue you felt the same way.”

“Took me by surprise too. And I sure wasn’t ready to admit it. I think Wendy started noticing way back then, though. She didn’t say anything, but I bet she picked up on it. Once we moved in together, though, she definitely thought I should tell you. She gave me some shit about it when I didn’t.”

“But she still hooked up with you.”

“I was pretty adamant about staying quiet. I told her guys don’t just tell each other shit like that if they think the other guy’s straight. She forgets sometimes that I’m not out at school.”

“But you are at home?”

“Well, yeah, sort of. I mean, my parents know. And most of the people I worked with over the summer. Bi isn’t exactly a tragedy down there the way it is in smaller towns. Or, I’m guessing, at your house.”

I stared at my shoes. “Thanks for doing all that. With the room and everything. I was really scared she’d show up and… know.”

“It’s okay. I get it. And so does Wendy. That’s why she stayed and chatted up your mom. Your nice hetero roommate and his pretty girlfriend….”

“Worked like a charm. I bet you anything she gives me a lecture about how I should find a girl just like Wendy.”

Tanner chuckled. “Well, you know, she does have Monday nights free now….”

I laughed, way louder than I’d intended, earning a sharp hiss from the woman wheeling a cart of books down the center aisle. Tanner grabbed my arm and pulled me between the stacks. With his hand gripping my arm and his smiling face that much closer to mine, suddenly nothing seemed funny anymore. He gave me a playful shove up against the books. My gaze darted from his eyes to his lips, then back again. Then his mouth was on mine.

It was such a relief, I didn’t even think about where we were or who might see us. I just kissed him, hard. The shelves bit into my shoulders and ass as he pressed up against me. Even through our jeans, I could feel how hard he was. My cock rubbed against his through the thick fabric, making me dizzy. His warm tongue swept inside my mouth, filling me with want. I needed more—more tongue, more friction… more Tanner.

He pulled away and took a step back. The cool library air made my wet lips tingle. Only then did I think to look around. No one was in sight. Relief mixed with need, and I forced myself to breathe.

Tanner adjusted his jeans. The thick outline of his erection created a long sideways bulge. My cock strained to get closer. I cleared my throat. “I think we need to head home.”

“Good idea.” Tanner handed me my backpack.

I couldn’t get my laptop and notebooks into it fast enough. Everything felt slow-motion, like running in waist-deep water. All I wanted was to get to our room.

The walk from the library to our door had never seemed longer. Tanner’s hand bumped mine several times, and each time I could have sworn sparks flew off our bodies. More than once I had crazy thoughts of pushing him down in the bushes between buildings or shoving him up against the brick pillars along the darkened alley behind the student center. That wasn’t me. I didn’t even kiss my girlfriends good night if anyone was watching. Public stuff wasn’t my thing. Was it? My cock seemed to think maybe it was. I was so hard, I could barely see straight enough to make it up the stairs to our room.

Our room
. It had been our room for all these months, but now that had a different meaning. Now it was the place where we could be together. Really together. Tanner fumbled with the keys, and I wondered if he was as shaky inside as I was. Nervous anticipation had me vibrating from head to toe.

The door next to ours flew open, and Tim and Eric stumbled into the hall, laughing.

“Hey,” Tim said. “We were just gonna knock on your door. We’re heading to The Coop for food. You wanna come?”

I froze with paranoia. Could they tell? Could they see the desperation? Could they sense how aroused we were?
Fuck, did they hear us last night?

Tanner’s voice was smooth as glass. “Nah. We just ate.”

“‘Kay,” Eric said.

“See ya.” Tim gave a quick wave, and they disappeared into the stairwell.

Tanner opened our door and stepped inside. I followed, still shaken. Tanner took my backpack and set it in the closet as our door clicked shut. He reached up and turned the lock, then slammed me up against the door so hard it knocked the breath out of me. His mouth was back on mine before I could speak. Hot. Demanding. Exactly what I needed.

The door rattled behind me as Tanner bucked his hips against mine.
So good.
How could it possibly feel so good? The tingling at the base of my cock radiated outward like a starburst of pleasure. This was what all the fuss was about when people talked about how hot sex was. I finally got it. And I didn’t want it to stop.

Another door opened and closed in the hallway. Footsteps echoed as they trailed past our room. Could people walking by our room hear us? Would they know? Tanner sucked my lower lip into his mouth, taking all my concerns along with it.

He leaned back, still pressing his groin against mine, and tugged off his shirt. I would never get tired of looking at him. Golden brown skin, smooth muscular chest—not pumped up like some gym rat, just firm definition. Warm hands inched under my shirt, shoving it up. I raised my arms, and he yanked it over my head.

The magnetism between us pulled me toward him with irresistible force. I had to touch him. Smoothing my palm across his chest, I felt his nipple harden at my touch. My cock flexed against his, struggling in the confines of too much fabric. My hand trailed lower, over the silky dark hair that disappeared into his jeans. I popped the button and inched down the zipper.

Surreal. I kept expecting him to stop me. To tell me to get off him. Instead he shivered with what I realized was need.

His cock sprung out the minute I spread his fly open. No underwear. He must have noticed my surprise, because he laughed.

“I had time to do your laundry, not all the laundry.”

“Not complaining. Trust me.” I wrapped my fingers around him, and he thrust into my fist. Silky heat glided across my palm. Stroking him made my cock throb, but I focused on him. Turning to the side, I gave his shoulder a push until he was up against the wall. His hands went for my zipper, but I pushed them away, continuing to stroke. His head thumped against the wall, and pleasure surged through me, knowing he was this turned-on. Because of me. Because of what I was doing to him.

My mouth watered, and I knew if I stopped to think, I’d get caught up in my own thoughts. I dropped to my knees, dragging his pants down as I went. My pulse jackhammered throughout my body—my ears, my fingertips, my throat. I slid my hand around him again, feeling him swell in response. The head of his cock was right there. Right in front of me. Dark red, skin so smooth it shone.