“Don’t get too comfortable,” I warn him and place my earrings on a tall circular stand. “This won’t happen again.” Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him stuffing his hand into his jeans, rubbing his own cock and trying to lure me into his trap.

“Come on, Apple,” he moans. “I’m horny as fuck.”

“I’m thinking.” I press one foot against the back heel of the other and slip out of three-inch heels. When I regain my bearing, I make a quick adjustment to my posture. I must remain in control even with my lower stature.

“You’re not still obsessing over that professor of yours, are you?” Brick leans back onto his elbows and stalks me with full eyes.

“We’re more alike than you care to admit.” I say with a shrug before turning and slipping out of my cocktail dress. I can feel his gaze burning a hole through me. “You can’t quit obsessing over me, so what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that I can have you.” Sheets scuffle as I hear his feet land against the cherry floors. Soon, his breath swims across the nape of my neck and his hands latch around my feminine biceps. “I’ve had you before and I’ll have you again.”

“What if I tell you I’m saving myself for him?”

“That would confuse me greatly.” His cock presses through the opening in his jeans and against my back, and his teeth nibble against my ear. It’s not my intention to do so, but I shift backward against him, craving to feel his touch. He’ll always have this power over me. His hand trails to my stomach and his fingers flick at the tip of my black panties. “You know it’s never going to work with that teacher of yours. I hate playing the same damned tune, but it might be time for you to retire from this business of misery. Do you really want to go through that heartbreak again?”

He’s made his way in—the palm of his hand caresses me from beneath the fabric that should have kept him out. I pull away from him before he’s able to win. He can’t have me, but I have to let him think he can.

Turning to face him, I press my own palm against his chest and guide him backward to the bed. “This time I’ll be different. Summer is right around the corner and I’m not about to leave my senior year legacy tarnished.” Once we reach the bed, he pushes his jeans down his hips, but before he can free himself completely, I push him backward with a forceful blow and take a seat in his lap so that we’re face to face. “Instead of being remembered for being forced out of Kappa Zeta Bullshit-eta, I will be remembered as that girl who did the impossible.”

“Yeah. We’re talking Olympic-like odds here.”

I throw my arms around his neck and he steadies himself with his hands pushed against the mattress. “Every girl on campus wants him. He’s like the ultimate prize of every young girls fucked up daddy fantasy. I’ll be the one to claim him.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll break his heart and destroy his reputation in the process.”

He throws his arms around my waist and squeezes me tightly. “You’re quite the vindictive bitch, aren’t you?”

I give him another blow against his chest, knocking him onto his back. “You think you know me, Brick. I’ll continue surprising you while you continue to flatline.”

“All of this for a bad grade? “ His brow furrows, as if it’s a shocking revelation that something so small could trigger something so cruel. “It’s not like you actually deserved anything higher than an ‘F’.”

“It’s not about the grade. It’s not even about him. It’s about being the girl accomplishing what nobody else could.” I buck my hips and bounce against his restrained cock. “I’ll be a legend.”

“Wait a minute,” he says and pushes me off him and to the side. “Did you say I was flatlining?”

“I’m going to need you to keep up, Brick.”

“Nah.” He reaches down and adjusts his dick through the thin, black fabric of boxer briefs. It’s important—apparently—to make sure your junk is comfortable before confronting accusations about your stagnating reputation. “You can’t just put something like that out there.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

His eyes sparkle. Nothing good can come of this. “How about a bet?”

I roll my eyes and spin my feet off the edge of the bed. “You have nothing that I want.”

“How about this?” He crawls to me and kneels behind my lingerie-clad body. “You say I’m flatlining. I say I’m just taking my time.” He curls his fingers under the strap of my bra and leans in closer. “But if I can seduce Tyra Young, the unapproachable and untouchable daughter of Senator Young before you can seduce and break that poor man’s heart, then you have to sleep with me one last time before we head separate ways come graduation.”

“I’m still not seeing what’s in it for me.”

“If I win…” His mouth hovers along my neck, planting short, tempting kisses between each word. “You still win because then you can have this any time you want.”

I throw my hand behind his head and crane my neck to meet his gaze. “And if I win—“

“That’s not going to happen,” he interrupts with the most devious of smiles, the kind that could cut diamonds out of glass.

“It’s simple. If I win, you have to admit that I’m better at this game than you.”

“That’s all?”

I raise myself off the bed and onto my feet. “In person and in writing.” I can’t help but smile wickedly. “I’ll frame that confession for generations to come. It’ll stand as the eighth wonder of the world displayed next to the Mona Lisa in The Goddamn Louvre.”

“We have a deal.” He scoots to the edge of the bed, his steel abs contracting and expanding as he throws his hand out to shake mine. “I look forward to fucking your brains against that wall behind us.”

“And I look forward to the self-destruction of your own pride.” I slip my hand into a dresser beside the bed and retrieve two pairs of handcuffs I had previously acquired during a routine traffic stop gone awry. “Now lay on your back.”

“You surrendering already?” he asks with a curious, but content smirk as he rolls onto his back and stretches his arms to the posts of the bed. “It’s probably for the best.”

“Don’t you know?” I give him a playful toss of my shoulder. “You should always expect the unexpected with me.” I climb onto the bed and straddle his hips. “Since you can’t exactly claim what you haven’t earned, you might have to settle for oral.”

He pushes his groin upward, craving the friction that only I can provide. “That’s fine with me smokebomb.” His eyes shift upward to supervise me as I cuff his right arm to the metal post, and follow quickly with the left. “It’s just a waiting game until I get the entire plate, if you catch my drift.”

It would be impossible not to catch that. “I admire your tenacity to dream.” My fingers run through my hair as my body comes to a resting position with my ass planted firmly against his pulsing hardness.

“You’ll either fail and come running back to my bed, or you’ll get your heart broken and come running back to my bed,” he says as I push my body back, ass in the air and begin to make my way down the creases and folds of his ridiculous abs. “Either way, against your protests, I know you’ll never really be able to truly live without me fucking you to sleep every night.”

I pucker my lips around his belly button and flick my tongue directly beneath it, slowly making my way further south until I hook my fingers into the waistband of his underwear and pull them to his knees. The handcuffs clank against the posts as his body tenses. His eyes flicker shut and his teeth sink into his bottom lip.

My fingers tangle around his erection, lightly caressing the length of his shaft. I take pleasure in every moan that’s tossed from his helpless lips. “You know something, Brick?”

“What’s that?” he asks in his usual just-suck-my-dick tone that he often uses in times of sexual indecency, a tone that screams, I’m not listening to a word you say.