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  How long could anything between us last? He’ll be off to play in the NFL in no time, and where would that leave me? I’m not trophy wife material. Not that I should even be thinking of things so permanent when all we have done is kiss and make out in the hallway at his house. But I have to think more long term after all the years I spent planning my escape from Hell House.

  “What are you doing after this?” He asks when I don’t respond to his comment.

  “The usual.” I shrug against the wooden chair. “I’ll hang out here until it’s time to go home, grab a soda at the SAC, and then repeat my nightly routine.”

  “Do you want some company again?”

  “No, but thank you for asking. Clarissa grounded me until who knows when, and I’d rather not do anything else to provoke my stepmother before she ends my punishment.”

  He shakes his head, annoyed, and maybe even a little angry. “You are way too old for punishments. If she paid your tuition for the rest of the year, then why don’t you leave now and get away from your stepmother?”

  “I wish it were that simple, Shawn.” He has no idea how much I would love that to be true. “Where would I go? How would I get to school without Clarissa’s money?”

  “But it’s your money. Is it not?” He scoots his chair until our thighs are touching and we’re sitting arm to arm. “Couldn’t you use your legal mind to find a way to get some of the money your father left to your stepmother?”

  “I talked to some of my law professors about my situation, and they all agree that the estate legally passed to Clarissa, and I am entitled to nothing. I could fight it if I had something in writing from my dad, but he left nothing behind but me.”

  He cups his hand on my shoulder, the heat from his skin leeching into mine, as he locks onto me. “There must be some other way. I wish I could help you, Ella.”

  “I know you do, Shawn, and I appreciate everything. But some things are not meant to be.”

  Like us, I want to say.

  Before he can respond, the librarian comes up behind us and clears her throat. “No touching, please. Keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Finch.”

  Holding back my laughter, I turn just enough to see Mrs. Potter scowling down at us.

  “You should know better, Ella. I expect more from you.”

  “Yes, of course,” I say, deflated.

  “Sorry, it won’t happen again.” Shawn slides his hand off my shoulder and places it on his lap under the table. But his eyes tell me something different. It will happen again.

  The school frowns upon fraternizing with students during tutoring hours. As Shawn’s tutor, it’s my job to help him study—not help him get a boner. He should probably stop wearing track pants when he’s around me. Just seeing his pants tent every time he touches me causes my nipples to harden. I share his desire.

  But I’m supposed to be the one in charge here and in control of this situation. Shawn has made me blind to everything, including my responsibilities. He could be my greatest weakness if I allow it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ella

  After school, I head to the SAC to grab my usual drink for the ride home. But Shawn is not at the table where his friends meet for dinner. All of his teammates are there with the usual group of sorority girls and cheerleaders draped over some of their arms. Natasha and Anastasia are at the end of the table with the Queen Bitch of Kappa, Harper Connelly. She’s even more of a bitch than my stepsisters if that’s even possible.

  I shuffle through the cafeteria, fixing myself a hot chocolate in a hurry. The last thing I need is for my stepsisters to spot me. I lucked out that they weren’t here the time Tori had called me over to sit with them. But they have been here every time since, so when I stop by, I glance at Shawn from a distance. He smiles in acknowledgment when he sees me, knowing not to cause a scene that will draw attention.

  Since the night Shawn followed me home, I have endured more torture than normal from my sisters, forcing me to miss the playoff game. It was supposed to be one weekend, but Clarissa has yet to lift her punishment. She likes having me there twenty-four seven to cater to her. At least I have school and Shawn. I like that we have our somewhat private tutoring sessions because it gives us time away from his usual crowds. But I worry what will happen when Shawn learns of the secret I have kept from him.

  Scanning the room, I keep my fingers crossed and find no sign of Shawn anywhere. He’s a big guy and hard to miss.

  In a few short weeks, Shawn has somehow managed to suck me in and claim my heart in the process. It beats faster when he’s around. My pulse quickens, and I have trouble catching my breath. Even though we only parted ways over an hour ago, I was hoping to see him. The more time we spend together in the tutoring center, the more I like being around him.

  I should not enjoy his company this much. But Shawn is too charming not to like. With each day that passes, I find it difficult not to fall for him.

  Full of surprises, I find Shawn propped up against the covered booth at my bus stop, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his winter jacket. It’s February and cold enough outside to turn into ice, yet Finch is here, smiling at me as if he’s not freezing his ass off. Winters in Philly are sometimes mild, but this year has been worse than others.

  I raise my eyebrows at him in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

  “I noticed you didn’t have any winter gloves earlier,” he says, moving closer.

  I glance down at the hot chocolate warming my hands and smile at his sweet gesture. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

  “I also wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

  “I told you before that is not necessary, Shawn. I’m sure you have better things to do than taking six buses tonight.”

  “Nope, I’m right where I want to be.” He removes his hand from his pocket and offers it to me.

  “How did you know I forgot my gloves at home?”

  Shawn pulls a pair of gloves out of his pocket and holds them in his palm, waiting for me to accept. “I spotted you power walking across campus earlier.”

  “Power walking? I doubt I was doing that.”

  I laugh and take the gloves from him. But that leaves him without a pair of his own, and I feel guilty because I have the hot chocolate to keep me warm. He has nothing but a thin jacket.

  “It sure looked like you were from where I was standing,” he counters with a devious grin.

  “Do you make it a habit of following me around?”

  “I wasn’t stalking you,” he quips.

  “I kinda like stalkers,” I joke, grinning up at him, “especially ones as cute as you.”

  An awkward silence passes between before he says, “You think I’m cute?”

  I roll my eyes and take a sip from my cup. “You know you’re cute. It’s not like this is news to you, Shawn. We already had this discussion about how all the girls on campus talk about you.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “What do they say about me?”

  Regretting my words, I take a second to think it over by sipping from the hot chocolate warming my hand. “All good things,” I mutter. “Tori says you’re one of the good ones.”

  He rubs his hands together and then breathes into them for warmth. “See, I knew I liked Tori for a reason.”

  “You should wear them,” I say, standing so close my chest is almost touching his stomach. “I will be fine.”

  He peels the gloves from my hand and slides my fingers into them. “I’m used to the cold. I play football in this kind of weather. You are wearing my gloves whether you like it or not.”

  Out of fear I will seem ungrateful, I accept his offer. His hands are so big that mine look like a child’s in comparison and the material bunches up in different places. Once he has my fingers situated inside the holes, he takes my hands and shoves them into his coat pocket along with his. This is so intimate and unlike anything I have ever experienced with another man. So far, my sexual history only involves Shawn. My la
ck of experience doesn’t help much since I have nothing to compare. But Shawn is most definitely boyfriend material.

  The more I discount him, the more he does something that I least expect, luring me further into his trap. He has my mind and body under a spell, his magic working deep within me, capturing me in ways I had never thought possible.

  “I cannot let you get on the bus with me again.” I peek up at him, and he squeezes my hands.

  “You can’t stop me, Ella. In fact, I would like to see you try.” His sexy smirk ignites a fire beneath my skin that causes my cheeks to flush, and this time, it’s not from the cold.

  “Are you going to make it a habit of riding the bus home with me every night.”

  He nods. “As long as I don’t have practice or a fraternity event, I plan on it.”

  I grunt in frustration. “I don’t want to be the reason your grades slip even more.”

  “Well, you see, that’s where you are wrong. I plan to use this time to study and do my homework. Do you have any idea how loud it is at my house? I live with sixty dudes, most of whom are partying half the time and could care less about school.”

  “I guess I will believe it when I see it, but I like the sound of you studying outside of our sessions.”

  The bus pulls up at the curb in front of us, ending our conversation. Shawn removes our hands from his pockets and presses a palm to my back, guiding me toward the bus, as the doors open.

  He leans down, and his lips graze the shell of my ear. “Just so you know, I’m not that easy to get rid of, so I hope you like the company.”

  I tilt my head back so that our eyes meet and smile. “I would love the company, and I would also like to see you pass your classes.”

  He clamps his other hand down on my shoulder and kisses my forehead. At this moment, we don’t need words to convey our feelings.

  Shawn is a man of his word. From the night at the bus stop forward, he waited at the cafeteria to join me for the ride home. He never walked with me up my driveway again, but just knowing he was there was all I had needed to get through another night at Hell House. Too bad we’re weeks into our sessions, and I am still grounded. Clarissa lives to torture me and that she does so well.

  School and my daily appointments with Shawn are all I have to keep going. I look forward to class more than I ever had in the past. Before it was an escape from my house, and to some extent, it still is. But now, things are different. Seeing Shawn every day brings a smile to my face. He makes my miserable existence bearable and gives me something I never had before—hope.

  Sitting side by side in the back of the tutoring center with Shawn, my heart speeds up when his fingers graze mine on the table. The energy that fills the void between us is so palpable everyone in the room can probably feel it, too.

  I gave Shawn a reading assignment now that we are ahead of schedule. He passed his last few quizzes and projects. As his tutor, I’m so proud of him. But, as his whatever we are to each other, I am ecstatic beyond words. Who would have thought that meeting each other would be good for us both? I had disregarded a relationship with Shawn because I thought were bad for one another. It turns out I was wrong.

  “Okay, I’m done.” Shawn sits back in his chair and looks at me. His expression is unreadable. “What’s next, Boss Lady?” He gives me the most adorable wink that causes my skin to tingle without him even touching me.

  “I’d like to see how you did on your Constitutional Law test.”

  His eyes glaze over, and he turns his head away from me. I assume it’s because he failed until he removes the paper from his bag and slides it in front of me. My eyes widen when I see a big A scribbled in the top right-hand corner.

  “You did it, Shawn. Congratulations! I’m so proud of you.” Without thinking, I reach over and wrap my arms around him.

  He hugs me back, holding me tight, and my skin pricks with tiny bumps that go straight up my arms. “Thanks, Ella,” he breathes against my ear, causing a chill to go down my spine. “This is all because of you.”

  I sit back just enough slip from his embrace, settling into my chair before Mrs. Potter comes over again and tells us about the no touching rule again.

  “No, it’s because you cracked down and put the time and effort into your classes. How many people would take six buses every night just to get some peace to study?”

  “That’s not the only reason I ride the bus,” he says, flashing me a boyish grin. “If you weren’t on it, I would probably go to the library or Broad Street Beans.”

  “Well, I doubt you would get much accomplished sitting in the middle of a crowded coffee shop, but the library sounds like a good idea to me.”

  “But then I wouldn’t get to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman, now would I?”

  My cheeks flush from his words. “Will you stop that already? I think you just like embarrassing me.”

  “No, you just don’t know how to take a compliment.” He lifts my chin with his finger so that our eyes meet. “You need to learn how to take a compliment because you are beautiful, and you should have someone tell you so every day.”

  “Shawn,” I mutter, unable to breathe with his hand on my face. I can’t even finish my train of thought.

  What was I even planning to say? Who knows?

  Words fail me with Shawn this close. H’s fully aware of this fact. Sometimes, I swear he does this on purpose to throw me off my game. Under normal circumstances, I would be composed, more like the Ella I project to the world.

  But around Shawn, I am a completely different person. I act like myself, something that doesn’t come easy with strangers, and I sure as hell am not myself at home. One wrong move and my punishments increase, the work getting harder each time I cross either my stepsisters or Clarissa.

  “Ella, listen to me,” he says softly. “You are beautiful. Get used to hearing it because I plan to tell you how beautiful you are every day until the end of the school year.”

  Then, it hits me. This situation is temporary, with the expiration inevitable. We graduate in sixty days. Even if Finch fell head over heels in love with me in that short amount of time, he has scouts from the NFL looking at him. He has a future that does not include me. After graduation, I will be nothing more than the girl who helped him pass his classes so that he could move on with his life.

  “Shawn, you have to stop telling me that.”

  “Why? It’s the truth.”

  “Because this is not real. You only like me because of how much time we spend together.”

  “Time has nothing to do with how I feel about you, Ella. I don’t make a habit of saying things I don’t mean, and I wouldn’t spend four hours on buses every night if I weren't crazy about you.”

  “I thought you take the bus to study,” I challenge.

  “I do it because of you. From the second we met, I felt this strange attachment to you. I like being around you, I like touching you, I like studying with you, and I want to kiss you almost every second I am with you. Is it that hard to believe that I could like you?”

  “Well, yes, I guess it is hard for me to wrap my head around everything. You walk around campus with girls who look like super models. Whether you realize it or not, you have a type, and I do not fit into that box.”

  “Don’t you see? The fact you don’t fit into a certain mold is why I like you.”

  “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that, Shawn.”

  He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, mulling over his next response. “Is this what all smart girls do? Overthink everything. This conversation did not go as I had planned.”

  “How you planned?”

  He nods, his face somewhat deflated. “I thought of what I would say to you for the last week.” Shawn tugs at his shirt, and a gold chain breaks free from beneath the material.

  Startled by the heart charm at the end of its length, I gasp at the sight of my father’s half of the golden heart. Instinctively, I reach for it, my eyes wide
and in shock. Even though I knew Shawn had the charm, I wasn’t expecting to see it hanging around his neck.

  He grabs my hand before I can touch the gold and feel what I have lost between my fingers. “I was right,” he mutters, staring down at our hands.

  I shake free from his grip, desperate for an escape. “I…uh…” I stammer and get up from the chair. “I’ll be back.”

  He knows. How stupid of me to react in such a way. Timing is everything, and the timing of this situation is not right. I wanted it to be perfect. Now, things are awkward and weird and not what I was expecting.

  Shawn pushes out from the table, about to stand, when I set my hand down on his shoulder to keep him in place. He stills, staring up at me with wide eyes and a hopeful smile.

  “I have to run upstairs and grab a copy of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. I will be right back.”

  Without giving him time to respond, I walk away from our table, a nervous wreck. My entire body is on fire and trembling with each step I take out of the room. I know the Bar Association rules by heart and don’t need the book to help him pass this class. But I do need a break, so I can collect my thoughts and consider what I have done.

  Shawn knows, and now that he does, where do we go from here?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shawn

  My suspicions about Ella were one hundred percent accurate. Ella is my masked beauty. After all my efforts to find the girl, she has been sitting next to me on the bus and in the library for over three weeks.