Clash (7 page)

“Fine,” she said, giving them one final pop. “Just remember. The diva to end all divas. And slip those panties into his hand the first time Vix tries something.”

I nodded in acknowledgement. Diva, diva, diva. Think like a diva, act like a diva. Diva is a state of mind. My mental encouragement to myself wasn’t helping, so I decided to put some diva theory into practice.

Turning to the guy still brushing up against me, I worked a half smile into place. Looking up at him through my lashes, I saw I’d caught his attention. “Sure is hot in here,” I said slowly, a tad suggestively.

Brushing Up Boy’s eyes widened; I could almost see the pulse quicken in his neck. “It sure is,” he replied, moving closer and resting a hand on my side.

“I could sure use something to cool me off.” I crossed one arm over my stomach, brushing the other hand up and down my other arm. The corners of his eyes lined watching my fingers caress my skin.

Wetting his lips, he came closer. Close enough to know I’d…
ahem
, hit the mark.

“I think I’m up to the challenge,” he said, one side of his mouth curving up.

“Hey, Mr. Over-eager,” Holly stepped in. “She means a drink. A
cold
drink.”

Shaking his head, he cleared his throat and stepped back. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Sure. I’m on it.” Casting one longing look my way, he started tearing through the crowd, heading for the kitchen.

“You’re smart enough to know not to drink anything he gives you, right?” Holly said as we watched the boy storming ahead.

“Yeah,” I replied, shaking my head. “How was that for diva?”

“You’re a natural,” she said, nudging me. “Keep up the good work.”

The music came to an abrupt halt, a few heartbeats of silence saturating the room before the first few beats of “Eye of the Tiger” made the room shudder. All hail the victors, because if the song didn’t give them away, the chanting that had started outside and was working its way in had done the job.

“Show time,” Holly said, elbowing me.

“Will you stop throwing elbows?” I hissed over at her. “I’m going to look like a purple Dalmatian by the time you leave tomorrow.”

“Oh, grow a pair,” she muttered, focusing on the front door when it fired open. “Diva,” she added.

“Brat.”

“Ooooh. Burn,” she deadpanned, elbowing at me again.

This time, I dodged her bony little elbow.

The kicker, Kurt or Kirk, was the first through the door, one of the cheerleaders‌—‌no doubt his Spirit Sister‌—‌hanging off his elbow. Right behind the K named kicker, Tony came in, a petite bouncing blonde on his arm.

The players had never arrived in this fashion before; Jude usually just came barreling through the door first, hollering some obscenity, before throwing me over his shoulder and finding a quiet spot we could be alone.

I knew exactly who and what was responsible for the change in entrance. The
who
being Adriana Vix. And the
what
being a bitch.

“All right, Lucy, get into position,” Holly said, shuffling me in front of the door. “This chick’s coming out of the gates swinging.”

“No shit,” I said, shaking my head as the parade continued. I wasn’t holding my breath for Jude; I knew she was saving their entrance for the grand finale.

“Here, lean your hip into this,” Holly instructed, shuffling me sideways until I hip-checked an old, water damaged sofa table. Standing in front of me, she positioned my hip where she wanted it, then grabbed my hand. “Hand on hip, feet crossed at the ankles.” She squatted down, adjusting them just so. Popping back up, her gaze met mine with a hardened degree of seriousness. “When he walks in and his eyes fall on you, I want your eyes to emanate innocence. And I want your mouth to open just a bit‌—‌just like it does during orgasm.” Clamping her hands over my shoulders, she leveled me with one more look. “Got it?”

“Sure?” I answered, because there wasn’t any time for clarification. I could see the top of Jude’s shaved head coming up the front stairs. A shiny dark haired head a few bobbing inches below it.

“Put a nail in that bitch’s casket,” Holly said, driving her fist into her hand before disappearing into the crowd.

Even obscured by a mass of bodies, Jude moving into a room made my heart quicken. Even with a male fantasy glued to his arm, he made my legs weaken.

As I’d expected, Adriana was beaming like she was walking across the Miss America stage. I’d be honored to add some tears to her eyes if she didn’t loosen her grip on Jude’s arm. Bouncing into the room like she was the star attraction, she waved at the crowd while the chorus thumped through the room. She was wearing a simple, short, turquoise colored dress that made her skin almost sparkle in its bronziness.

The crowd was chanting, “Ry-Der. Ry-Der. Ry-Der,” and my heart was beating two beats a syllable. He’d changed into a snug fitting white v-neck tee and dark jeans that hung off his hips, finished off with his worn pair of Converse.

Over a year on and off together, and the man could still make my stomach clench just by looking at him.

As Jude and Adriana blazed through the crowd, it began to part, opening up to where I leaned against the ramshackle sofa table, hand on hip, eyes and mouth ready to carry out their orders when he looked my way. Holly couldn’t have placed me in a better location.

Adriana’s eyes landed on me first, and her face screwed into a smirk as her hand curled deeper into Jude’s muscled forearm.

But I didn’t deviate from the plan‌—‌resisting the urge to smirk right back at her‌—‌and my willpower paid out in spades. Jude’s gaze didn’t only shift to me‌—‌it skidded to me. Stopping in his tracks, he held me in his eyes. He never even blinked. “Wow,” he mouthed, running his eyes down my body.

Inhaling through my nose, I pushed past the muscles clenching tighter in my stomach brought on by the way he was staring at me. Opening my eyes wider, I blinked them slowly, infusing as much innocence as I was capable into them. Then, biting my lower lip suggestively, I parted my mouth just how I imagined Holly would have wanted it.

Jude might have just wavered in place. Adriana’s scowl screwed deeper, resembling a rare form of outrage.

I owed Holly big time.

Weaving out of Adriana’s death grip, he cut through the rest of the room towards me. Adriana slammed her hands on her hips, looking one quake away from exploding. It was a beautiful sight.

Even more so was the one grinning at me as he shoved through the rest of the crowd, moving as fast as he could. Stepping in front of me, his eyes were swirling pools of silver.

“Damn, Luce,” he said, sounding out of breath, appraising me with his eyes again. Looking at me with the excitement and anticipation of unwrapping a present.

I didn’t have words for the man standing before me, worshipping me with all he was. Flattening my hands over his chest, I pressed against him. His mouth parted with a surprised inhalation. The heels made it so I didn’t have to press onto my tip-toes when I crushed my mouth into his. My mouth was unyielding against his, smoothing, sucking, and smashing his lips like all we had left in life was this moment.

After his surprise passed, his hands lowered into place over my hips, kneading into them with an urgency that tightened the muscles in my thighs. By this time in our public make-out session, the crowd had starting hooting, and when Jude’s hand rounded around to my backside, digging into the flesh back there, they started hollering.

My breathing was becoming irregular, what amount I was able to manage in this state of tongue tangledness low. Running my hands up his neck to cradle his face, I pulled it back. Looking up into those hungry eyes, feeling the warmth of his breath gusting over my face, I smiled.

“Good game.”

CHAPTER SIX

“You better not be staring at what I think you are, Kurt,” Jude warned, reappearing with a couple of beers in hand and clearing up the K kicker’s name.

“I most certainly am not staring at what you think I was,” Kurt said, tilting his beer our way before fading into the crowd.

“He most certainly was,” Jude said, handing me one of the beers before resting his hand on my side. “Not that I can blame him.”

Clanking my bottle against Jude’s, I took a drink. “But you will beat him if he does it again,” I guessed.

“Hell, yeah I will,” he said, nuzzling my neck before he laid a path of kisses down it. The slippery glass bottle almost fell from my hands. “That goes for you too, Denoza,” Jude said, peering over at one of his teammates while his mouth continued to wet the skin above my collar bone. “And I’ll start by prodding out those wandering eyes.”

“Sorry, Ryder,” Denoza said, smiling sheepishly between the two of us. “What can I say? Your girl is meant to be stared at.”

“That’s right. She is,” Jude said, straightening up and putting himself in front of me. “By me.”

Denoza lifted his hands in surrender. “No harm, no foul, man,” he said before setting his sights on a single girl sprawled out on the stairs and beelining her way.

“Not in my book,” Jude muttered after him, before turning around. “You’re gonna get me killed, Luce,” he said, his face twisting when he took another look at me. “I’m one tough son of a bitch and I can fight off every one of these guys one loser at a time, but I think they could take me if they all came at me at once.”

“Should I go change?” I suggested, taking a step towards the stairs.

“Shit, no,” Jude said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back. “I just wish it was you and me so I could enjoy you all to myself.”

Lifting my arms, I wound them over his neck and started swaying in time to our own beat. Dancing to the beat of Jude and Lucy’s song.

“It is just you and me, baby,” I said, resting my head against his chest, closing my eyes when his arms fastened around me. The music wasn’t fitting, the crowd wasn’t fitting, but everything about the way Jude held me to him made up for our inability to fit into the world around us.

Not even a minute later, the music came to a screeching halt. Jude and I continued to sway in time to the silence.

“Okay, everyone,” a familiar voice spoke through a microphone. “It’s time to play a new game night game that’s sure to become a tradition.”

I thought we’d been playing a game all night.

Sighing, I lifted my head from Jude’s chest to see what the bitch had up her sleeve now.

“As everyone knows, the starters are all assigned a Spirit Sister at the beginning of the year.” I rolled my eyes at the rest of the cheerleaders grouped around Adriana, bouncing and clapping in excitement. “Our goal is to make their lives easier so they can focus on kicking ass every Saturday!”

A roar burst through the room.

“But a man’s got to have his fun too, right?” Adriana’s brows lifted in suggestion as the roar amped up.

“So tonight marks the beginning of a new Spirit Sister tradition.” Lifting the arm she’d hidden behind her back, she revealed a full bottle of top shelf vodka. Another explosion of cheering. Over a pretty girl holding a bottle of liquor.

It was oddly depressing.

“We don’t only do your laundry and make you brownies, we’ll get you drunk as a skunk!” Adriana waited for the crowd to quiet before continuing. I was already feeling sick to my stomach before her eyes landed on Jude. “Each Spirit Sister will serve a shot to her assigned player, starting with the quarterback first.”

Yep, that’s what I was waiting for. She was using the ruse of a game and the motivation of peer pressure to separate Jude from me. Holly’d been right with her manipulation meter readings on Adriana.

“That means you, Jude Ryder!” she shouted into the microphone, waving the bottle at him.

Jude groaned, peering over at me, but before he could say anything, a herd of his teammates moved up behind him and began shoving him towards the front of the room.

“Don’t worry, Jude’s date for the night, you’ll get him back,” Adriana said, staring right at me. I wanted to slap that smug smile off her face for referring to me as nothing more than “Jude’s date.” “That is, if he wants to come back after playing the game we’ve got planned for him.”

A couple of guys around me hung their heads back and made coyote calls. I was reminded, yet again, that men were evolved from apes.

Shoving Jude up next to Adriana, the herders stepped back into the crowd so everyone could see what was happening up in front. I didn’t like seeing Jude standing so close to Adriana, seeing how close in height they were. In her heels, only a couple inches separated them. They’d fit together perfectly. Why my mind went there, I don’t know, but the image of Jude bracing himself above Adriana while he kissed her, moving inside of her, made me clutch at my stomach.

“Here’s how this works,” Adriana said, looking over at Jude, who was rubbing the back of his neck, looking every shade of uncomfortable. “Shot glass,” she began, lifting a small glass. “Shot,” she continued, pouring the clear liquid to the brim. Then, handing the bottle off to one of her fellow cheerleaders, she raised his index finger to the crowd, who was looking around at each other like
big deal
.

Rolling down the top of her strapless dress, she tucked the shot glass between her huge tits. “Enjoy,” she instructed. “No hands allowed.”

Oh, hell no.

The guys had turned into rabid beasts, throwing their arms in the air and cheering.

Adriana took it in, managing a tiny curtsy without spilling a drop of liquid, right before her gaze shifted on me. “What are you waiting for, Jude?” she said, looking nowhere else but at me. “Drink up.”

“What the hell are you doing standing here, you stupid, stupid girl?” Holly hissed beside me, shoving me towards the front of the room. Reaching down my dress, she slapped the panties into my hand. “Go beat that bitch at her own game.”

It took one more solid shove from Holly, but then I went into action. Hurrying through the bodies chanting “Ry-der” and throwing fist pumps into the air, I balled the panties up into my hand, watching Jude, who was watching me. I had his attention, likely because he was worried about me getting eye molested by one of his teammates, but right now, I’d take his attention any way I could get it.