Beat Of My Heart

Verse Thirteen

I heard the challenge in his voice, and while there was a small part of me that just wanted to get out of the gym unscathed, I always loved a good competition. 

I bit my lip, trying hard to look seductive while making it look like I wasn't trying all that hard.  It was hard to look a certain way when you tried to make it look innocent and unthinking. 

I licked my lips and forced my eyes to remain steady with his.  I felt his breath hitch and a small smile spread out across my lips, knowing that I had a decent effect on him. 

"Sebastian," I whispered out as hoarsely as I could, trying to make it seem like I was desperately in need of the attention only he could give me. 

It wasn't like I wasn't affected by him in that moment, it was just that all rational thought had left my body and I wanted to be the girl who played the player and beat him at his very own misguided game. 

He started to lean forward slowly, cautiously as if he were testing the waters between us after his call for me to challenge him. 

I licked my lips once more and that seemed to make up his mind, but I had made mine up long before. 

He leaned down closer, his grip on my wrists ever loosening and I took that as my opportunity to release myself from his grip and pushed against his chest with as much force as I could muster. 

For the second time that day, Sebastian Jennings found himself on his back, pushed off by a girl.  

I didn't give him time to recover, though, as I crawled over to his surprised and confused form and placed my body atop of his. 

I loved having this type of control over him. 

I saw his adam's apple bounce in his throat, his tanned skin glistening from the tiny amount of sweat on his skin from our tickling war. 

I leaned down and placed my lips to his ear to whisper in his ear, but he turned the tables on me for a change and suddenly he was straddling me, the entire weight of his body pressing down on me and I was so surprised that I found myself unrelentingly affected by his nearness and his scent, musk and mint, that there was a cloud of foggy lust inhabiting my brain. 

"Don't look so confident now, do you?" he asked me, his husky voice filling my ears like a sweet symphony of sounds. 

I gulped. 

His emerald eyes bore into mine and I couldn't look away, not when we were so close. 

Right when I thought he was going to lean down even closer and brush his lips against my own, and right when I thought I would actually let him, something stopped me from making a huge mistake and seeming like one of those awful fan girls who always threw themselves at him. 

My phone rang. 

My blood ran cold. 

It wasn't because of my phone ringing, but because of the specific different ringtone I'd set my phone to play whenever my father called. 

I cringed, and Sebastian knew it too. 

He got off of me when he saw my uncomfortable look on my face and I rushed over to my bag where I'd left it, the chilling sounds of the ringtone bouncing off of the locker room walls. 

I had done that so in case my dad called while my mom was nearby, I knew not to answer.

Divorce and custody battles were not fun when you were the only child stuck in the middle of them. 

I answered the phone softly, although I should have been beyond angry at him.  

He had promised to take me out to dinner for celebrating my good grades like we always used to do when he lived at home, just the two of us, but he bailed at the last second.  Said he was working.