Not Casual

CHASE

I knew I was in trouble the second she didn’t say no.

She just stood there in the back lot, breath fogging white in the cold, satchel slung over one shoulder, green eyes full of every smart reason she should turn around and walk away.

Then she looked down.

Then she looked back up.

And stayed.

That silence was worse than any yes. It meant she was choosing me anyway—knowing exactly how bad this idea was.

Which meant I was choosing her right back.

We didn’t touch the whole way to the dorm.

That was the part that almost broke me.

The long walk across the back lot. The side entrance. The quick nod I gave the facilities guy dragging a recycling bin down the hall, pretending there wasn’t a woman two steps behind me who still tasted like parking-lot relief and the best mistake I’d ever made. The elevator ride under too-bright lights, oxygen thin, her coat still buttoned, hands folded neatly in front of her like she was here on assignment instead of the girl I’d just kissed senseless against an arena wall.

I kept my hands locked at my sides.

She kept her eyes on the glowing floor numbers.

“Your photographer’s gonna love this,” I said, because the quiet was killing me.

She turned her head slowly. “Love what?”

“You vanishing after the game with one of the players.”

Her expression didn’t flicker. “He’s not my photographer. He’s the paper’s. And I’m not vanishing.” A beat. “I’m making a temporary, extremely questionable decision.”

I smiled before I could stop it. “You always talk like that when you’re nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

The elevator dinged.

I stepped out first. If I’d stayed in that metal box with her one second longer, restraint would’ve been a memory.

The hallway on my floor was dead quiet. Most of the guys were either still downtown at the postgame party or crammed in someone else’s room replaying the third period like it was gospel. Marcus had texted ten minutes ago that he was “out being adored by women with poor judgment.” I figured I had at least an hour before he stumbled back smelling like cheap vodka and victory.

I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Sloane stepped inside slowly, taking it all in.

The room was exactly what it was—college-athlete functional. Two beds, one made, one not. Desk buried under notebooks, tape, and a half-empty tub of protein powder. Hockey sticks leaning in the corner. Skates drying by the vent. Marcus’s side loud and chaotic, country poster crooked over his bed like a declaration of war. My side cleaner, but nowhere near impressive.

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a second, gaze moving over the sticks, the desk, my hoodie draped on the chair, the crooked sophomore-year regionals photo taped near my bed.

Then she looked at me.

“This is where you live now,” she said softly.

The way she said it shifted the whole room. Not judgment. Recognition. Like the dorm had finally become real to her—the actual shape of the months that had been carving us both hollow since August.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It’s smaller than I pictured.”

“Offensive.”

She smiled, small and real. “Your ego takes up a lot of visual space. I assumed the room would compensate.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help it.

The tension didn’t vanish. It never did with her. But it changed—less live wire, more low heat. Still dangerous.

She walked farther in and set her satchel on my desk chair. The credential still hung around her neck, plastic badge resting against her coat.

I stared at it.

Of all the things that had no business being hot, that stupid lanyard might have been the worst.

She followed my gaze and groaned. “Don’t.”

“What?”

“I know that look.”

“You have no idea what look you’re talking about.”

“I absolutely do.” She reached up and pulled the lanyard over her head, dropping it on the desk. “Professional boundaries. Heard of them?”

I stepped closer. “Nope.”

“That tracks.”

We were close enough now that I could feel the last of the cold still clinging to her coat sleeves. She looked beautifully wrecked—hair slipping from the knot she’d started the night with, lipstick gone, cheeks flushed from the wind and whatever the hell had happened between us in the parking lot.

I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted a lot more than kissing.

But the room already felt heavy with summer ghosts and everything we hadn’t said. If I touched her before we cleared some of that air, I knew exactly how fast the night would derail.

So I reached past her, shrugged out of my damp dress shirt, and tossed it over the chair. Her eyes tracked the movement before she could stop them.

The fact that she tried—and failed—did terrible, perfect things to my control.

“You’re staring,” I said.

“I’m literally not.”

“Sure.”

Her gaze snapped back to my face. “Don’t start.”

I moved into her space carefully this time. No ambush. No wall. Just close enough to feel the way her breathing changed.

“Tell me something true,” I said.

Her expression flickered. “That’s vague.”

“You’re a writer. Figure it out.”

She looked up at me for a long moment.

Then she pulled out her phone.

I watched her thumbs fly across the screen, faster than they should have been for hands that unsteady.

**Sloane:** Covering the rest of the weekend. Drive back without me. I’ll find my own way Sunday.

She stared at the sent message like it might grow teeth and bite her.

The phone buzzed.

**Ethan:** Everything okay?

She typed back: Fine. Professional development.

Another buzz. **Ethan:** At 11 PM?

Then: Never mind. Don’t want to know. Be safe.

She locked the phone and set it face-down on the desk.

Her hand was still shaking.

“That wasn’t a professional development text,” I said.

“No.” She exhaled, slow and shaky. “It wasn’t.”

“So what was it?”

She met my eyes—really met them. The kind of look that peeled everything back to the bone.

“A choice,” she said quietly. “A really stupid one.”

I closed the last inch between us. Her coat brushed my bare chest with every breath.

“Tell me to stop,” I said again.

She didn’t.

Instead she reached up, gripped the back of my neck with both hands, and pulled me down.

This kiss wasn’t like the parking lot.

That one had been relief—two people breaking the surface after weeks underwater.

This one was deliberate.

This was her stepping into the fire, eyes wide open, knowing exactly how badly it would burn.

I kissed her back like I’d been waiting my whole life for this exact second. Because I had. Every late-night call, every 1:47 a.m. text, every night I’d lain in this bed staring at the ceiling remembering the exact sound she made when she came—it all funneled into the press of her mouth against mine.

My hands found the buttons of her coat.

She helped me slide it off her shoulders. It hit the floor with a soft thud. Then the satchel strap. Then my palms were under the hem of her turtleneck, sliding up warm skin, feeling the full-body shiver when I pressed flat against her spine.

“Chase.” My name left her mouth half gasp, half prayer.

I peeled the turtleneck over her head in one motion.

She stood there in jeans and a black bra, hair loose around her shoulders, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. Lamplight caught the faint, almost-faded marks along her collarbone from weeks ago, and something raw and possessive roared through my chest.

Mine.

The word wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t gentle. It was older than thought.

I reached for her.

She stepped back.

My heart slammed to a stop.

But she wasn’t running. She was kicking off her boots, fingers already at the button of her jeans. She pushed them down, let them pool at her ankles, stepped free.

Black bikini panties. High-cut. Simple.

The exact kind she’d worn that first day at the pool when I’d pretended I wasn’t watching every single move she made.

“You’re staring,” she said.

“I’m appreciating.”

“Same thing.”

“Absolutely not.” I closed the distance in two strides. “Appreciating implies I still have self-control.”

Her laugh came out soft and breathless. “And you don’t?”

I answered by hauling her against me and kissing the air out of her lungs.

Her bare skin was warm against my chest. Her arms looped around my neck. I walked her backward until her knees hit the edge of my bed and she sat hard, looking up at me with those green eyes that had wrecked me since the night she moved in.

I followed her down.

The mattress dipped. She slid back toward the pillows and I crawled after her, caging her beneath me, one knee between her thighs.

“I’ve thought about this,” I said against her jaw. “Every night. Every single fucking night.”

“Thought about what?” Her voice was barely there.

“This.” I pressed my thigh up between her legs, felt the heat of her through thin fabric. “You in my bed. Under me. Where no one can interrupt.”

She made a small, desperate sound and rolled her hips against me.

I kissed down her throat, found the wild pulse there and sucked gently until she whimpered. My hands found the clasp of her bra, undid it. The fabric slipped away. She shrugged it off and it vanished over the edge of the bed.

I pulled back just enough to look.

Low lamplight painted gold across her chest, her stomach, the curve of her breasts. She was breathing hard, nipples tight and flushed, hands fisted in the sheets like she was bracing for impact.

“God, you’re beautiful.” The words scraped out, rough and involuntary.

She made a soft sound—half laugh, half something else. “You’re just saying that because—”

I cut her off by closing my mouth over one breast.

Her back arched off the mattress.

I took my time. Slow at first, then harder, tongue circling, teeth grazing just enough to make her gasp. My hand palmed her other breast, thumb dragging across the peak until she was squirming under me.

“Chase—please—”

“Please what?”

“More.”

I gave her more.

I kissed my way down her body like I had all the time in the world.

Because tonight, for the first time in months, I did.

No parents downstairs. No thin walls. No stolen minutes between dinner and curfew. No pool house heavy with chlorine and the constant threat of being caught.

Just her.

Just us.