Ruthless Heart Read online

  “Hmm, no?” Scooping up my bag, I smiled briefly and then hastened across the lecture room floor.

  “Ms Bryant, a word.”

  No! Turning slowly, I trudged back to Leitch’s desk. “Sir?”

  He made me stand there until every student was out of the class, and considering I had been almost sprinting across the floor to avoid Ash, I waited a while. The Saints tight end grinned at me as he passed, casually strolling out the door as casually as he had strolled in. I envied him so much right now.

  “Ms Bryant,” Leitch began.

  “Do you know it’s Ms because, in the 1950s, if you were unsure of a woman’s marital status and age, you called them Ms because Miss was deemed to be for a girl or young woman? It was almost the equivalent of mister.”

  The professor raised his eyebrows at me as I snapped my mouth shut. Me and my useless knowledge.

  “Fascinating,” he said drolly. “You will not be surprised to know that I have never once considered your marital status.”

  “No,” I mumbled as I looked at my feet in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  “I want to talk to you about that paper you submitted. The assignment deadline is not for another week, yet you submitted early. Did you think it wise?”

  “Well, I did at the time,” I said weakly as I looked over his shoulder at the whiteboard, trying to avoid his heavy scrutiny.

  “Hmm.”

  “You want it rewritten?” I guessed. I had tried to get ahead on assignments so I could spend some free time designing posters and flyers for my friend Wade’s band.

  “I want it burnt and forgotten.”

  Feeling my eyes widen, I stared at him in astonishment. “You didn’t even read it,” I protested.

  “I don’t need to read it to know it’s fanciful garbage.”

  “This class is creative writing,” I said to him as I tried to keep my temper. “Your job is to teach fiction, non-fiction and poetry. I gave you fiction.”

  “You gave me washed-up, run-of-the-mill dross,” Leitch said as he crossed his arms, resting his back against his desk as he considered me. “Do the work in the time assigned, do not rush it, and actually try to keep to the assignment, and next time? Well…you may be better. You will thank me for this once you realise that I am doing you a favour.” His hand made a shooing motion. “Go, you are dismissed.”

  Biting my tongue, I turned and marched out of his lecture hall. It took every inch of my willpower not to slam the door shut on my way out.

  Angrily, I made my way to my next class, History of Writing. In freshman year, I had found it to be stale, but the promise of dissecting Shakespeare’s plays had me eagerly enrolling in this course for this semester and next.

  Because Leitch was an overbearing prick, I was now late and had most probably lost my seat in the middle row. As I slipped into the auditorium, I saw Professor Matson had already launched into Romeo and Juliet. The lights were dimmed as she used the overhead projector, and thankful for the cover of darkness, I quietly made my way to the back seats. Stealthily, I spotted an empty seat second to last row, and with more grace than I knew I had, I lowered myself into the chair, dropping my bag at my feet.

  My cry of surprise as I sat on a person echoed off the walls, stopping Professor Matson in her stride. A hundred pairs of eyes swivelled to look at me as the professor strode across the room and flicked on the lights.

  Jett Santo grinned back at me as he straightened, fixing his jeans before he casually flung his arm against the back of my intended chair. Wordlessly, I noticed the girl, who had been half draped over the chair beside him, slipping off the seat and scuttling along the aisle, trying to keep out of sight as her friends giggled at her and covered her as she reached them.

  “What is going on?” Professor Matson demanded.

  Jett raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow as he looked at me in question. What the hell was I going to say?

  “Speak!” the professor demanded.

  “I…” I swallowed past my building fury and turned to the professor, my hands raised in supplication. “I thought I saw a rat.” Technically speaking, I wasn’t lying.

  Several answering squeals and the sounds of shuffles as many students raised their feet from the floor ensued, and it took several minutes for the professor to regain control of the class. The whole time, I sat rigidly in the seat that the girl’s body had been in, while Jett sat smugly beside me, his smirk in place as his shoulders shook in silent laughter.

  How had this turned into my afternoon? Ash, Leitch, and now Jett. Where was Gray? They might as well have just thrown them all at me and gotten it over with.

  “Have you all calmed down?” Professor Matson asked sternly while she glared at me. When she heard enough mumbles of assent, she motioned to the TA to dim the lights. “As I was saying,” she said as she turned back to the screen.

  “You owe me a finish.” Jett’s smooth voice caused my jaw to clench and my hand to curl into a fist.

  “Don’t be a pig,” I whispered back furiously. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Didn’t stop you looking,” he said smugly as he leaned back in his seat.

  I opened my mouth to reply and snapped it shut again. Angling away from him, I tried my best to focus on the lecture, but the presence of him sitting next to me was distracting.

  The mounting horror that he may recognise me was making me nervous. How would the conversation even go? Hey, I’m the girl you slept with, you took my virginity, and I then hurled in your bathroom for an hour. Wanna grab a coffee and tell me how we hooked up in the first place?

  No, thank you.

  And look at him, in History of Writing class and he had a girl giving him a blow job. What a complete asshole. I couldn’t believe I fell for his shit. If there was shit to fall for, which I still wasn’t clear on…either way, he was an asshole.

  I was never drinking again.

  Ever.

  I always knew he was a dick. He proved it on Saturday morning, and he hammered the fact home just now. They were the Devils, they were the complete antithesis of not only their own last names, but the school they played for. They didn’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves and football. They broke rules, they partied where they shouldn’t, and they took what they wanted. They had an almost cult-like following, and they pissed me off.

  In high school, our football team was also made up of the popular kids, but here, the Santo boys took it to the next level. They were considered gods on the field, and they were considered gods off of it. All three of them were free with who they slept with, and I’d heard the rumours, they were apparently not lacking in skill in the bedroom either. The fact that they all had the smarts to be here rubbed salt in the wound even more.

  I detested them and had done long before I got my scholarship here. Their high school team played mine once in junior year. Gray had caught every pass Jett had thrown, and then Ash had scored the winning touchdown. Then, when our team was commiserating our loss, the three of them and their teammates had torched a devil sign into the front lawn of my school.

  No one could prove it. The fact it had been a devil’s trident meant nothing. It could be someone trying to make trouble for them, the authorities said.

  Bullshit.

  I’d been told that, when our team had asked if anyone had actually asked either the Santos or the rest of their team, no one had been able to answer them.

  This afternoon only confirmed what I already knew, Jett Santo would never know what I gave him on Friday night, and if I never spoke to him again, it would be too soon. As my resolve strengthened, I started paying attention to class. As my focus became more about Romeo Montague and less about Jett Santo, I felt my inner calm settle.

  One night didn’t mean anything. I made a mistake. I was a nineteen-year-old girl at college. It wouldn’t be my last mistake, but I knew as I got lost in the greatest tragedy ever told, that he was a mistake that wasn’t worth getting worked up over.

  As the lecture f
inished and the lights turned back up, I stood and gathered my bag. A large hand encircled my wrist, preventing me from leaving. The tingles running up my arm caused me to hesitate fractionally before I jerked out of his grip.

  “What?” I snapped at him.

  “Wait,” he told me as his eyes ran over my jeans and T-shirt.

  “Why?” I scoffed as I put my book bag over my shoulder. “Not interested in the second take of your live porn show.”

  “I haven’t seen you in this class before,” Jett said as he stood, and I had to take a step back to look up at him.

  “Given what you were doing during class, I can understand why.”

  “Judgmental,” he murmured as he stepped into my space, and I instinctively stepped backwards. His head tilted as he studied me. “Uptight little thing, aren’t you?”

  “No, asshole. I just know a sleazeball when I see one.” He was far too close to me. My stupid body was reacting to him, like it recognised him. Good God, he was intimidating, but sweet baby Jesus, he really was hot.

  “I don’t think I like you,” Jett declared as he looked me over again.

  Asshole.

  “I don’t think I care.” With a tight smile, I turned away from him and made my way down the stairs. What a complete douche. At the doors, I couldn’t help myself, and I looked back up at him. The girl from the floor was talking to him, her hand on his arm, her thumb rubbing his bicep as she plastered herself to his side.

  Jett wasn’t paying any attention to her, his eyes were locked on mine. His trademark smirk appeared as he stared at me. Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I flicked him the finger before I turned my head away and walked out of the class.

  Tossing my blonde hair over my shoulder, I headed outside. Putting my sunglasses on to cut out the glare of the Tennessee sun, I decided today’s encounter was actually a good thing. We didn’t circulate in the same groups, and chances were this was the last time we would ever be face-to-face with each other again, and I was fine with that.

  Jett Santo was nothing but a hiccup, and I was ready to move past it. Notch him down to experience, I told myself. A bad one? Possibly. But an experience, nevertheless. And in my favour, he had no idea who he had notched into his bedpost, and he would never know.

  I knew that this was a win for me. As I walked out into the sunshine, I recognised that, as crummy as it felt right now, I would take the win.

  The good thing about being legacies was that we got the run of the house. The other guys who shared with us deferred to us, and we got the best rooms. The worst thing about being legacies is that there was no peace or quiet; people were everywhere, constantly.

  Which I usually complained about, but after the conversation with Coach today, I was on a mission. Whoever the blonde was from Friday, someone in this house must have seen her.

  Gray was already in the kitchen, talking to a few of the guys. In total, twelve of us lived in the house. Gray, Ash and I had the top floor. The game room was in the basement, along with two bedrooms where the freshmen were usually dumped. On the ground floor, there were three bedrooms as well as two reception rooms and a dining kitchen. On the next level up were four bedrooms along with the main master bathroom, which none of us used, so we usually allocated that bathroom for parties. When we had them. Which was rare.

  The house used to be known as a party house, but neither myself, my brother nor my cousin were here to party our way through college. We were serious about getting our degrees and more serious about our spots on the team.

  My spot was in danger, and there was absolutely no way I was losing it because of some loose pussy and a spiked drink.

  Anger coursed through my veins as I thought about it. I didn’t know what I’d even taken, for fuck’s sake, and had my senses not been so fucking numb from Coach telling me that I had failed a drug test, then I would have paid more attention to the drug results other than the small, neatly printed “failed.”

  Gray took one look at me and angled his body so that he was blocking my sight of the other guys. That was my brother’s subtle hint that I was wearing my emotions, something both of us had been taught from an early age by our older brother to never do. It was a trait we taught Ash when we were younger, which is why so many people thought we were heartless assholes.

  Well, we were heartless assholes, but even if we weren’t, we wore the masks of indifference well.

  “Guys,” I said as I walked around the kitchen island to see who exactly my brother was talking to.

  “Hey,” Gray greeted when he turned to look at me over his shoulder. “How’s the ankle?” His quick look at my ankle reminded me I was supposed to be injured. This was so much shit.

  “Annoying,” I snapped angrily, catching my twin’s quick grin at my tone.

  “Heard you took a knock from Ash,” Jamie said as he looked me over. He was one of our defensive ends and was a complete dick. He tried to wipe me out every practice despite the fact we were on the same fucking team.

  “Yeah, my cousin forgets his own strength.”

  Jamie snorted but said nothing. Again, I caught my brother’s look and, swallowing my temper, headed to the fridge.

  “So, is Quinn going to come over to massage you better?” Derrick asked with a grin to his friends.

  “Shut your mouth, dickhead,” Gray snarled before he turned to me. “I’ll take a water,” he said as he joined me at the fridge. “Ash is going to be here a little bit later,” he told me quietly as he took the bottle off me.

  “Why?” I asked him as I scanned the fridge for something light and easy.

  “Because he is.” Gray reached past me and took out some cold cuts of chicken. “Get the tomatoes and the lettuce,” he instructed as he headed to the island, where a chopping board was already set up. Within moments, he was making sandwiches for us both, while I sat on a bar stool and watched him.

  “Hey, so when I heard you got dragged into Coach’s office, I thought it was because you had been to the party on Friday night,” Derrick said as he propped up against the counter I was leaning on.

  “You drinking the night before the game?” Jamie asked me as his eyes narrowed.

  “Just one.” The lie wasn’t really a lie. I only remembered one beer. “He was there too.” I pointed at Derrick.

  Derrick looked at me before he glanced at Gray and then back at me. “Yeah, I spoke to you for like fifteen minutes and then left. Wasn’t really there, you know.”

  He did? I thought hard about it, and I had a dim recollection of him talking to me about the game the next morning. “Huh, that’s right, you were talking about routes again.” I shook my head slightly in mock despair as I rolled my eyes at the others and Gray, who laughed on cue.

  Derrick flushed but joined in the laughter. He played corner and was always yammering about plays and routes, which I didn’t mind, he just got on my fucking nerves at the best of times.

  “Where’d you go after?” Gray asked him casually as he sliced the sandwiches.

  “Met up with some guys from class, played some pool. I was wired, there was no way I was sleeping.” He crossed to the cupboard and took out some plates. “You know I’m too worked up the night before a game, but don’t worry,” he said with a pointed look at Jamie, “I didn’t drink, and Jett was nursing his beer, he said he was going to leave and go home.”

  “Well, he wasn’t alone,” Jamie muttered dryly as he watched Gray make the food.

  “Thought you weren’t at the party?” I asked him shrewdly.

  “Wasn’t,” Jamie huffed as he eyed the steady pile of sandwiches Gray was preparing. “The whole fucking house could hear you getting laid.”

  Gray’s hands paused slightly before he continued to slice the sandwiches. “You got laid?” he asked me with fake humour.

  “Course he got laid,” Jamie snorted as he looked over at me. I could see his distaste for me clearly, and I had to remind myself that Coach would not appreciate me giving the lead defensive end a mino
r concussion. “Heard the bitch screaming for more even with my headphones on.”

  “What can I say,” I replied coolly as I stood and accepted the plate from Gray. “I aim to please.”

  “Yeah, well can you aim to please when it’s not the night before a game? You set the rules when you came into the house. No drinking before a game, no parties before a game, no fucking in the house before a game.” Jamie pulled himself up to his full height, and with the height and weight of him, other guys would be intimidated.

  I wasn’t other guys.

  “Yeah.” I took a hearty bite of my sandwich. My brother made the best chicken sandwiches. “You got something to say to me?” I asked Jamie around my mouthful.

  “How come you get to break all the rules?” Jamie asked as he leaned forward, resting his meaty forearms on the counter.

  “Because he’s a Devil.” Gray stacked the sandwiches onto two other plates, leaving some on the chopping board. “Now eat your fucking sandwich before he shoves it so far down your throat you’ll finally know what fucking deepthroating feels like.”

  Grinning at my brother, I took my water and my sandwich out of the kitchen, Gray on my heels.

  When we were in my bedroom, the two of us ate in silence before Gray sat back on my couch, his head against the wall.

  “No one saw you with your screamer.”

  “Not one person?” I asked in disbelief as I sat forward, my head falling into my hands.

  “Nope.” Gray popped the p as his hand ran over his face. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you imagined her. But she was still here in the morning, Ash saw her ass, and Jamie just confirmed that you were heard at least, if not seen.”

  “Why can’t I remember any of it?” I turned my head to look back at Gray, and in the quiet of my room, he looked worried.

  “You know what it sounds like, don’t you?” he asked me quietly.

  “Yeah, I know exactly what it sounds like.” Shaking my head, I stared at the bed.

  “Yo,” Ash said as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. “Tell me that’s for me.” He pointed at the two sandwiches sitting on the plate.