But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I gritted my teeth, tossing my head back into the spray of water, picturing me taking her, sinking into her softness, making her all mine. She took my pounding, crying out my name and clenching around me as she came hard. Again.

A guttural groan came deep from within me.

Fuck yeah … pumping, pumping.

And then I got dizzy in the best kind of way, feeling tingles and goose bumps as the heat built and rose until bam! My orgasm slammed into me, and I came for what seemed like forever, my legs giving out as I sank down to the floor of the marble tiled shower on my knees. My entire body quivered, shaking with the aftershocks. With unsteady hands, I pushed wet hair off my face.

Fuck, me.

I wanted that girl in the window.

But not enough to find her.

“Two things about me:

I dance and I dance.”

–Dovey

“ARMS UP, DOVEY,” Mr. Keller, my instructor, called to me as I focused on my partner, Jacques, and the contemporary piece called Song of the Earth we were doing. He and I had the lead role for our annual school production, and it was a prime spot, one that would shine on my application to a ballet company next year. I needed to ace this part because I didn’t have a back-up plan. Ballet was it for me.

I put my arms in the air, rounding them out in fifth position. He nodded his approval.

I continued, executing the abstract movements, some of which were more demanding than classical ballet, requiring deep pliés and distorted yet elegant lines. Climactic and passionate, I let myself fly as I danced the last scene, envisioning myself as the character that loses the love of her life.

Then something weird happened.

Right in the middle of my grand jeté tingles skipped up my spine and spread over my body. I landed and let out a shiver. It felt like someone was watching me, and I didn’t mean the teacher or Jacques or one of the other dancers. The sensation was more intense, darker, making me self-conscious as I finished up my routine.

As soon as my part was done, I went off to a corner to grab a drink of water, passing by the big window that faced the west and looked out over the football practice field.

I stopped in my tracks.

A big football player was facing me on the twenty yard line, dressed in tight white football pants and a navy blue jersey. He was tall, probably a few inches over six feet, and his shoulders were impossibly broad. No clue who he was with the helmet on, but his practice jersey said number 89, yet even that meant nothing to me. I knew nada about the game or the players on the team. Well, I knew some of the players’ reputations. Most were uber-rich and super popular. I mean, this was Texas where football players—especially those with looks and money— were treated like gods.

I cocked my head. Why would he stare into the dance window, and why—slam! He got pummeled hard by another player. I flinched and gasped, wondering if I should run out there and check on him, but then the coach loped across the field. He took the player’s helmet off, but from my angle I still couldn’t make out the fallen player’s face. After a few minutes, he stumbled to his feet with the aid of a couple of players, and they walked him off the field and back to the sidelines.

“Dovey, you’re up next,” one of the other dancers said.

I glided back to the center spot, forgetting about the player.

I’m sure he wasn’t looking at me anyway.

No one at BA ever sees the scholarship girl from Ratcliffe.

AFTER PRACTICE, I left the dance building to meet Spider, my bestie, in the school parking lot. Well, to be honest, I was meeting him and his random flavor of the month. Becca, maybe? Who knew. I couldn’t keep up with the names considering the constant rotation he ran.

As I came around the corner of the building, I saw he had this week’s girl backed up against the side of his Range Rover, his hands on her ass, all cozy as they made out. I noticed he’d colored his hair again; it was azure blue, and I had to admit, it looked good.

I paused and watched in a clinical kind of way, wondering what all the fuss was about with him. I mean, who’d ever want to kiss Spider? His mouth had been everywhere. I laughed low enough so they wouldn’t hear me, still taking it all in, planning on critiquing him later on his tongue technique.

He stuck his hand up her red shirt, going for boobs, and my brows hit the roof. It wasn’t even dark yet. Not that that had ever stopped him.

The girl moaned, her hands cupping his nape, her fingers caressing the hand-sized black widow tattoo he had on his neck. He pulled her closer and pumped his hips against hers.

“Spider,” she moaned, picking up a leg and wrapping it around his waist.

Good grief. They were about to make their own porn movie.

I coughed.

They didn’t move, their hands getting more frenzied, their kiss more heated.

“Yeah, baby, like that,” Spider said gutturally as the girl put her hands in his pants.

Okay, enough. This was gross.

I put my hands up to my mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle. I grinned when Spider flinched and shot me an irritated glare. I shrugged. So. I loved to give him a hard time.

The girl straightened her shirt, her beady green eyes on me. Pissy? Most definitely.

“Bloody fucking hell. Could you have let us finish?” he said, pushing down on the giant hard-on in his jeans. His British always came out more when he was pissed, which made me smile.

I cocked a hip. “You said we were going to Portia’s for a pastry, so I’m here. Jonesing for a donut, if you wanna know. If you wanted to mess around, you shoulda got a room. Or at least gotten in the car. It’s right there.”

The girl gave me a weird look. “You’re going with us?”

“Am I?” I asked Spider, arching my brow. He’d better say yes. We’d made plans at lunch and if he bailed on me …

He gave the girl a quick peck on the mouth. “Yep. She goes with me.”

Suck it, I wanted to say to her, but I just stood there, because I’d still be here tomorrow … and her? Not so much.

I moved in closer and stuck my hand out to the girl, offering an olive branch. “Dovey Beckham. And you don’t have to worry. Spider and I are just friends.” I smiled, because really, we were just friends, and it would be nice to have a friend who was a girl.

But she gave me a look loaded with disdain. Typical reception from the rich girls who considered a girl from the projects beneath them. But maybe because Spider was watching, she put her hand out too. “Becca Mitchell. Spider’s girlfriend.”