Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
I slowly licked my lips, my mouth suddenly becoming dry. For a moment, I felt like I was under his spell. His gaze instantly followed the movement of my tongue, and I subconsciously took a step back, folding my arms over my chest to stand my ground.
I shook my head, ridding myself of the uneasiness I was immersed in from his intimidating composure that unexpectedly seemed to loom over mine.
“Ugh!” I spewed. “You’re still absolutely horrible. How about you learn how to humble yourself a bit?” I shrugged. “Never mind, that would take intelligence, and we both know you lack that in spades.”
He scoffed out a chuckle.
“Am I amusing you?”
He grinned. “You always did.”
Mirroring my posture, he folded his arms over his broad chest, and his pleased expression didn’t falter. I tried like hell to ignore how his stance only emphasized his towering, strong build.
He abruptly cursed under his breath before adding, “I have to meet my new tutor, and she’s fucking late. Why can’t anything go right today? Ah, yes, it’s just the curse of you. Perfect.”
He sidestepped me, but I chimed in, “Oh God,” when I immediately realized our predicament.
Not missing an arrogant beat, he gloated. “Women usually say that when they’re riding my cock, Cinderella.”
I glared at him again, begging the frustrating tears not to fall just like I begged the universe to be wrong.
“You’re the guy? You’re Charles?”
The understanding of what I asked was now clearly written across his face as his eyes widened in sharing, “Vaughan is my middle name.”
Our gazes darted toward the piece of paper in my hand that contained the name of the student I was supposed to tutor for the summer.
Charles A.
He stared.
I stared.
And then he damned us both by uttering a blunt whisper of…
“Shit.”
CHAPTER 2
VAUGHN
Now
She was prettier than I remembered but more damaged than I was, and she still stared at me like I was the devil himself.
Maybe I was.
However, she had no clue the shit I was going through, not one hellish clue. Nobody did. Having to deal with my father and then my coach that morning about my grades and how I needed to get my GPA up or else… And now having little Miss Fucking Sunshine in my face wasn’t helping the anger issues they kept riding my ass for.
“This isn’t going to work,” she stated the obvious.
“No shit.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just request another student.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re not my first tutor, so unless you plan on deep throating my dick, I’m stuck with you.”
She jerked back. “Of course you’d screw your tutors.”
“I wasn’t exactly the one doing the screwing.”
“You make me sick.”
“Feeling’s mutual, sweetheart.” Before she could say another word, I gripped her arm and hauled her ass into the private study room beside us.
“Let go of me!”
I did. “With pleasure.”
Being a football player meant I had my fair share of injuries—the clean break was always the easiest, but the sprain?
The stumbling?
The hit to the head, the knee, the body?
The rough shove against the wall that made you so dizzy you wanted to kill someone. You always remembered the bastard who did it, and then you were always out for blood. But the clean breaks always almost came out as an accident forced by aggression and competitiveness. Those were the hits I respected.
The ones I knew.
Now Tru Remy…
She was my clean break.
I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath while trying to stay focused on the task at hand.
“So Cinderella turned into a tutor?”
Her beady eyes zeroed in on me. She always had that shit-eating stare, especially when looking at me.
The same solemn expression.
The familiar sad smile.
The “I trust no one” composure.
She hadn’t changed, and for some reason I couldn’t for the life of me fathom, it pissed me off for her. There were times with her that used to wreak havoc on my mind. I wanted to yell at the world and use the power my parents had to fix a corrupt system that had fucked over and fucked up so many kids and ruined so many lives.
I couldn’t blame her for hating a world that had been beyond unfair to her. The cards she was dealt weren’t just shitty, they were traumatizing, and if I knew anything about Tru, which wasn’t a lot to begin with, she was as tough as nails.
“So,” she mocked in a patronizing voice, “the football god turned into a bigger dumbass than he was in the past? I mean, how many tutors have you gone through at this point? What am I? The tenth? Twentieth?”
Instead of acknowledging her jab with a response, I sneered, “All we had to do was meet and get our schedules together, alright? I’ll go first. I have practice every night at five unless there’s a game, which typically takes place on Saturdays. As far as scrimmages, I can sometimes work around those. But let’s get something straight, Cinderella. The only reason I need a tutor is to graduate and move on to bigger”—I purposely raised my eyebrows and looked down at her—“and better things.”