Swish (5 page)

But like Hallie, the members of the club were sure that MJ did not want any one of those from them. After all, MJ had…

“My secret crush then,” MJ decided after a beat.

Everyone groaned, but it was a good-natured sound. In truth, it was MJ’s secret crush that had everyone at ease with her. Most of the guys felt safe teasing MJ, knowing they would not be misunderstood. Some liked to flirt with her outrageously, knowing that she would not reciprocate. After all, she did have her secret crush, and the story of how she became part of the club was now legendary.

She made a face. “Well, what else am I going to talk about?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. We got it. Talk about him then while we eat your salad.”

Another one asked with a frown, “But he’s here? He’s really a part of the club?”

MJ turned red. Every time the question could be answered with Helios’ name, she just couldn’t help but blush.

The sight of MJ’s reddened cheeks had everyone laughing.

“And you haven’t made your move yet?” a freshmen member demanded. “You’re so slow.”

“I’m not slow. I’m…biding my time.”

The biker next to her snorted. “Does he even know you exist?”

“Of course he does.”

“I just don’t get why he doesn’t make the first move instead,” the biker on her other side muttered. “Maybe he’s got a girlfriend?”

****

Helios watched MJ shake her head almost violently at the question. “He’s
not
that kind of man! He’s gentle and nice…”

“Knock, knock.” A mocking voice said behind the door just before Kellion walked into the study.

Helios swiftly snapped his laptop shut and stood up. “What is it?”

Kellion only smirked. “No need to feel edgy. I know you’ve been watching MJ on the CCTV. Your laptop’s screen was reflected on the window behind you.”

Helios grimaced.

Kellion headed towards the minibar at the corner. He took out an energy drink from the fridge. As he tore the wrapper off its lid, he remarked casually, “I never knew you would last this long, you know.”

Helios did not answer, his face stoic.

“It’s been over two weeks. You’ve been watching her all the time. Why don’t you just take her?”

Helios said silkily, “Maybe because I would like to honor her
‘secret crush’
?”

“Bullshit.” Kellion took a long gulp of his energy drink. “You’re never one to let anything stand in the way when you want something. What’s different now?”

Helios did not answer.

“Has it never occurred to you, the possibility that you could be her secret crush?”

Kellion’s words warranted a humorless laugh from Helios. “Have you heard her speak about him? I have. Because you’re right. Every goddamn day I watch her like a stalker. I am obsessed with her. I need to think about her just so my cock will get hard and when I fuck another woman, I pretend it’s her. That’s how low I’ve sunk, and I don’t even fucking understand why I want someone like her.”

The words were spoken with such harsh emotion that Kellion knew there was nothing he could say in return. He had never seen Helios feel so strongly about anyone…at least not since Helios had learned of his brother’s betrayal.

Everything had changed for his friend since then. 

Everything had become black, with seemingly no chance of light ever coming into Helios’ life…until one girl had skidded into his life and made Helios’ heart start beating again.

There was no redemption left for Kellion, but Helios was a different case, and he would do everything he could for his friend to start living again.

“It’s possible—”

Helios cut his friend off curtly, “No. It’s not. You’ve heard her speak about him, too. She says he’s kind. The kindest man she’s ever known. Someone gentle.” His lips twisted and he asked mockingly, “Does that sound like me, Kellion?”

“No. It doesn’t sound like you. But you can be that person again. You were that person before.” Kellion gestured to the laptop. “Why be satisfied with just watching her from afar? For her, can’t you be that person again?”

Helios shook his head. “I will not be weak again.”

Kellion did not answer. When Helios spoke like that, he knew there was no changing his friend’s mind.

****

It was almost eleven in the evening when MJ made it back to the club’s headquarters. She was tired and hungry, and because of both, she was irritable, too. Why in the world did Helios Andreadis have to build his club’s headquarters so far from the main campus anyway? Did he know how many calories she had to burn just to cross the football field to get here? She hated burning calories. She hated it because that meant exercise, which was synonymous to training. The latter word reminded her of all the training she had with James.

Crossing the dimly lit living room, MJ made her way directly to the kitchen. Switching the lights on, she threw her backpack on the counter and prepared to cook herself a meal. Since it was a Tuesday, most of the bikers would probably be out racing and come home at around three in the morning.

MJ said a quick prayer.

Dear God, please let them eat out because right now I’m too tired to cook, but Andrea’s gone so now I have to take over and cook for them.

It was a selfish prayer, and feeling guilty about it, MJ decided to pray again.

I’m sorry God for being selfish. If they’re hungry after the race, of course I’m going to cook for them. Please just make it easy for me to wake up later?

There. That was better. With a happy smile, she started whistling as she cooked herself some mac and cheese. The real kind, not the one that needed to be microwaved.

“Mmm…” She couldn’t help sighing in pleasure when the aroma of mac and cheese hit her nostrils. She took a seat and as she started to dig in, her mind drifted back to her talk with Hallie earlier this morning.

“Your secret crush is Helios, isn’t he?”

Hallie’s softly spoken words had an unexpectedly positive effect on MJ. She was so shocked by the other girl’s words that the urge to throw up stopped. Slowly, she opened the tap and rinsed her mouth. When she was done, she saw Hallie through the mirror, gazing at her with a look of sympathy on her face.

She whispered, “It’s really not a crush. That’s just something Kellion came up with. It’s more than that. I just…I just feel a connection with him.”

MJ allowed Hallie to lead her out of the bathroom and into one of the bedrooms. The other girl made her sit on the bed, and she did. Although she and Hallie were of the same age, Hallie was like a little general with the way she commanded people around her with such ease, using a gentle word or a look of chastisement to get everyone to do her bidding.

“I’m sorry about what you had to see this morning.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t the first time.”

“Do you want another volunteer to trade tasks with you?”

She shook her head quickly, completely disliking the idea of yet another girl being able to enter Helios’ room.

“I’m not a girl who easily takes risks, MJ. But for you…for Helios…I will. Kellion, Yuri, Helios, and I, we’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve known each other the longest. Even when we were kids, we were all that each other had so you can say we’re a family and we’re extremely loyal to each other.” Hallie was gripping her skirt hard as she spoke.

MJ said hesitantly, “You don’t have to…”

“No. I want…I think I need to tell you. Helios wasn’t always so hard to reach. He wasn’t…as unfeeling. Once, he was like…Kellion. He was the most popular kid in school. Everyone liked him. Even though he was a bastard – a son of his father’s mistress – no one treated him differently because he was just…just like his name, you know? He shone. He was good at everything. And his older brother always came out second best. And it ate at Herod. Helios adored him as a big brother, but Herod hated him.”

Hallie took another deep breath. “Then Helios fell in love with this girl, Odessa. We all liked her. She was wonderful. Helios would do anything for her. He loved her so much. But she had all of us fooled. When it was his eighteenth birthday, she came to the party with Herod. And it was obvious for anyone to see that they were together. That they had just had sex. And if it wasn’t obvious, they took pleasure in telling everyone about it. Herod even went up on stage and…”

Hallie struggled to breathe.

MJ couldn’t breathe either. 

“He told us in explicit detail what Odessa had been able to make Helios do. It wasn’t dirty! Even I knew it wasn’t bad, wasn’t dirty, wasn’t wrong! What Helios did, he did it out of love. But the way Herod spoke of it…”

Hallie looked at MJ with beseeching eyes. “You understand now, right? He’s just afraid. That’s all. He’s just afraid.”

Chapter Six

It was when MJ started loading the dishwasher that she realized she was not alone in the kitchen. Heart jumping to her throat, she spun around, arm raised in a defensive stance, ready to beat the intruder to death in case he wanted to do something nasty.

But it was only Helios.

She let out a loud sigh of relief. “You scared me. I thought you were a bad guy.”

Helios raised a brow. “And if I were, would you have tried scaring me away with a…whisk?”

MJ glanced down at what she was holding. Oh. She was indeed holding a whisk.
Deeeeym
. She put it in the sink. Looking back at Helios, it suddenly hit her that it was just two of them in the kitchen. Her heart started beating faster again at the realization.

Helios still stood at the kitchen’s doorway, wearing only a pair of sweat pants and nothing else. He looked, as always, larger than life, and when he took a step inside the kitchen, MJ’s mouth went dry. Each step that took him closer to her made MJ feel more nervous and restless. His hair was unbound, which meant he had been about to sleep – or had already been sleeping. Helios only left his hair untied when he was inside his bedroom.

“D-Did I wake you up?” Logically speaking, that couldn’t have been possible if he had been in his bedroom, which was four floors above the kitchen.

Instead of answering, Helios closed the distance between them. He had paced his room endlessly while waiting for her to come back. It was her first time to stay out this late, and not knowing the reason for it ate at him.

“Where have you been?”

She did not even think of lying or asking why it was his business to know. There was something ominous in Helios’ voice, telling her she would be better off not arguing. And so she said quietly, “I joined a photography club. Tonight was a lunar eclipse…”

A photography club.
Maybe that club was made up of yet another group of men?
 

The words were out before he could stop himself. “And do you have a secret crush there, too?”

Helios’ snide question had her blinking in hurt confusion. “What are you saying?”

“You tell me.” His control had snapped, his mind filled with visions of MJ surrounded by men. And this time, those men were not of his club, men who were not under his control and did not owe him allegiance.

“I’m beginning to wonder if your secret crush even exists at all. Or maybe it’s all a product of a cunningly crafted strategy so you can flirt with everyone, have everyone’s attention, and nobody will think you’re a slut—”

MJ’s slap cut the rest of his words off.

For a moment, they stared at each other. MJ’s eyes flashed with hurt anger. Helios’ gaze seared her with contempt…and something else that she couldn’t name.

And then he moved. 

The next thing she knew, he had her half-lying on the table and he was standing between her legs. “
No one ever touches me
.”

That was when she remembered Hallie’s words.

And her heart broke.

The pain his cruel words had caused left her, pushed away by the pain she felt for him. She whispered, “I’m sorry. I won’t ever touch you without your permission. I’m sorry.”

There was so much she wanted to say but knew it wasn’t the right time to say any of them. So she could only stay quiet and immobile, looking at him and yearning. She yearned to
touch
him. She yearned to touch him so he would know he wasn’t alone. The same way that she had thought of him all these years, all those times she had lain on the ground and told herself that she wasn’t alone because somewhere in the world, there was a person like him who could save her. Who would want to save her.

Just
wanting
to save her was enough.

“Don’t look at me like that.” His voice was raspy with need. With her soft and pliant body under his, Helios knew it would never be the same between them again. Now that he knew how she felt, how perfect she damn felt next to him, it would not be the same. He wanted to fuck her, wanted to possess her, wanted her to make him her world.

But something had changed
, Helios realized. One moment, she was hurt and confused. The next moment, she wasn’t. Instead, she was…she was looking at him like she wanted to be kissed. Like she wanted to be touched. Like she wanted to be
his.

His breath hissed out. She felt so fucking nice under him. He wanted to touch her skin, wanted to feel her hair curl in his hand, wanted to know the shape of her breast. 

He watched her brow furrow. 

And then she asked, “Is this okay?” 

A pained laugh escape him. He had told her not to look at him a certain way, and she had taken him literally. No one was like her. No one.
And
, Helios realized grimly,
that was exactly why he wanted her
. 

MJ’s frown had Helios looking grimmer, and she tried to scowl instead. At that moment, she would have done just about anything he asked her. Anything just to make sure he would never think of the time when he was made to feel alone and rejected. Screwing up her face in her most terrifying scowl, she asked, “What about this?”