My Next Challenge

By Amy Faye

Emma's body jerks with pleasure that she wasn't entirely aware existed...
It's easy for me to pick up women, and it's the best way to blow off steam.

She wanted to put a stop to that. I wasn't about to let some little c*ckblocker get in the way of my fun.

There was something about her that made her sexy. She was going to be my next challenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HeartthrobPublishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463502495

Book preview

Chapter One

Emma Owens would have preferred to be studying in her room. The outside is wonderful, too, but the room doesn't have the wind problem, and it's awfully nice to be able to walk around in just her underwear.

There's something freeing about it, overall. Just not having to worry about it. But that son of a bitch Weston is across the hall, and she's not about to have another run-in with him.

After all, the school administration isn't about to do anything about him, and she's not going to waste any effort on something she can't control. So the quad it is, this afternoon.

The wind blows the pages back a few turns, as if God was telling her to go back to that material. But Emma doesn't need to. She can recount every major historical event, every name on that page. She could even get a few of the sentences pretty close to word-for-word.

Some people always claimed that it was easier for her, because she's got a photographic memory. So she doesn't need to study like other people, because her memory is perfect. Never need to study anything at all.

That would have been a true blessing. Everything might be just as easy as everyone said she had it, if that were the case. Too bad, though, that it isn't the case. She studies just like everyone else.

Well, perhaps not just like everyone else. Whenever other people take out their notes to read over before a test, Emma gets a very clear show of exactly what the differences between them are.

Their notes aren't as well-organized as hers. They're not as concise, either. They spend too much effort on the wrong things, don't cover things that need covering even as they waste space on things that will never be on the test.

Then there's the fact that they're always getting nervous. Emma has no time for nerves. If she doesn't know something, then she's not going to make up for that in the two minutes before class begins.

By the time it's written in the notes, she already knows it all. Notes aren't there for you to learn, they're for you to remind yourself later, and even then you only need a gentle reminder.

Then again, taking them two or three times always helps, too. By the third time, when you can really get to color coding and having nice, pretty headers, then you should know it backwards and forwards.

She turns back to the page she was on before, reads it over again. There might be no reason to do it, but History has never been her strongest subject.

If it was math, she might not have to read it over again, but all the names and dates run together if she isn't very careful to avoid it.

The first set of notes is always messy. The notes she takes in class, or the notes direct from the book. They don't look so different from the ones that she might see other students using.

Perhaps that's the real difference between her and other students. Perhaps it's down to the second and third attempts, when she takes what she's already done and refines it.

Emma takes a breath and sits back against the tree she's got herself seated under. The bark is rough and catches her hair a little, but it's a good tree, and the shade from its leaves is extremely welcome.

She doesn't like what she's seeing headed her way.

Craig Weston hasn't even bothered to get himself all the way dressed. He's got a shirt over his shoulder like he just hopped out of the shower, and he's striding across the lawn with a grin on his face.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happened. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how it went, either. Nor, Emma thinks with a tinge of frustration, did it take a genius to notice the way that every girl on the sorority lawn watched him walk out.

Even the ones he'd already gotten to know watch him go like they're just waiting for their chance to get back at him. Not Emma, though. She pours every single bit of distaste, every bit of hate that she can muster, into her face.

It's not that she doesn't see the way that he moves. The man exuded masculinity so strong that there was no way Emma wasn't going to notice it. That just makes it that much easier to hate him.

The man had no right to make her feel this way. He was a complete scuzz-ball, and how none of the other girls saw it, she'd never know. Emma thought she was smarter than that, though. Smart enough not to get taken in by a pair of big blue eyes, a movie-star square jaw, and a tight body.

Her body didn't appear to be all that smart, though. She wasn't in control of that, but she damn sure should have been. It was absurd that she was letting herself get taken in, knowing full well what he was, who he was.

No, she wasn't going to be taken in like the other girls were. It didn't stop her following him across the street. It didn't stop her noticing how tight those jeans were around his absolutely gorgeous ass.

It didn't stop her thinking that if that body were on any other man than Craig Weston, she'd be just as thirsty for it as the rest of them.

Emma takes a deep breath and tries to control herself. No way. Not him. She wasn't thinking about it, and she wasn't going to think about it. Instead, she might as well think about how Jane was just another in a long list of the girls that he'd slept with and unceremoniously dumped.

As if they weren't worth anything to him, as if none of it meant anything at all. They were her friends, her sisters. Not some cheap floozies that he could forget about as soon as he walked out of the room.

The thought goes straight to Emma's head, making her feel hot with anger. She has to suppress it, though. She can't afford the time to worry about what she's going to do about it.

She can't afford to do anything about it in the first place. So instead, she'd better get back on studying. It's still a while until finals, but that doesn't mean she can afford to be wasting her time now. That's how people get into that crazy mindset of having to cram for finals in the last week.

She turns back to her textbook. It would be nicer, easier if she had a photographic memory. She could just flip through the book as fast as she could look at the pages, and recall them easily. Read it from her head, rather than reading it with her eyes.

She wouldn't need the notes she's got. Jane—the thought of the girl upstairs puts a blush on her face when Emma thinks about what she's just been doing—was in this class, too, and she said she'd really appreciate a copy of Emma's notes.

A request Emma was more than happy to oblige, but it meant that she could afford to get distracted, not by anything. So she'd better get her head out of the clouds and get her mind out of Craig Weston's pants.

Emma clicks the pen twice and gets back to the War of 1812. She's only got four days until they get their weekly Friday test, and she's hoping to have all of this committed to memory by Wednesday. That's how you stay ahead of the game in this world. Otherwise, you're just going to let yourself get behind.

She's never been behind, and she's not hoping to get started on it now.

Chapter Two

Craig lays back in bed, his hands laced up behind his head, and stares at the ceiling. The other difference between sex and his other indulgences was beginning to set in now.

When he made a big play, or killed it in the gym and hit a new personal record, it surged through him for the rest of the damn day.

It was a high that just got better. If they could make a drug half that effective, nobody would ever stop taking it.

After sex, though… it left him feeling wrong. Off. Every time, he swore it wasn't going to happen again. And then every time another girl practically threw herself at him, the itch started up again. An itch that wasn't going away and got more insistent with every moment.

His breath catches in his chest. This time was going to be different, he thought. This time, for certain. This was the last time.

After practice tomorrow, he'd come home, he'd crack a book. The classes this semester weren't bad. They rarely were. It was pretty important not to take anything too hard. He'd never been much for academics, but college ball had been the logical next step after high school.

A dozen different schools, places he could never get into on his academics, had been there on his knees. Still, they had some standards, and star quarterback or not, he wasn't an exception to that rule.

So he did what he could. Even still, Craig wasn't going to light up any leader boards in the academics department. The thought of getting a tutor had occurred to him before. The team even offered the services.

Craig wasn't quite that bad, though. As long as he didn't take anything outside his comfort zone, took things slow, and attended classes, there wasn't going to be a problem. He wasn't an idiot, just focused on other things.

He takes a deep breath. He should be studying, or at least eating something before studying. Instead he's laying here feeling sorry for himself, feeling sorry for whatever the hell had him sleeping with another girl before he even learned her God damn name.

It just seemed to keep happening. Like everything. He worked hard as hell now, to stay on top of his game. It's too big a risk to let himself go slack, and there's no way he's making it pro if he skates by on raw talent.

But high school? He picked up a ball, went out for the team, and within two hours of the first time he'd touched a pigskin they were already whispering about him. He'd go to practice, he'd listen to the coach.

That was how it was. Long as he did what he was told, there was no problem. He never needed to go home, get into the gym outside of practice. Never needed to spend hours drilling. He picked it up and went with it. Easy.

Academics isn't like that. Craig's never been a real genius, and he's never wanted to be. Just average. Just good enough. It was a strange sort of miracle that the one thing he'd never really wanted, raw talent, was the one thing that he'd always had to spare.

He sits up in the little twin-sized bed that his feet hang off the end of. Can't afford to skip a meal. A second later, an alarm starts ringing on his phone, just like he knew it would. Meal-time. If he wants to maintain this body in its best shape, eating is important.

He sidles up to the hot-plate and drops a pan onto it to pre-heat, then turns to the fridge and pulls the hamburger out that he'd had thawing since the night before and a minute later, drops it into the pan that's just started to sizzle.

The fat in the ground beef starts hissing real loud immediately. He sprinkles a little seasoning on, same as he always has. It's a routine now, and it's a routine he doesn't mind one bit.

He wasn't hungry when he was laying down, but now that the routine's kicked in again, his body knows what's coming, and it starts to get ready for what it knows is coming.

He smiles at the thought. So much of his life is a routine now. Even what happened before. Wake up, morning practice, morning classes, lunch, afternoon classes, afternoon practice, maybe follow a girl back to her dorm.

Hope to hell it doesn't turn into a misunderstanding like it did today.

Thankfully, most of the time, it doesn't. Most girls know the score. It's always upsetting when they don't know it, because Craig, in spite of all outward appearances, isn't out to break hearts.

There's just no time for a relationship right now. It's not fair to a girl to give her a couple hours a week, maybe, spread out through the days.

He'd have to be back in his dorm in time to cook the hamburger every day, and in bed by nine. No time to go to the movies, no dinners out. They'd have to fit between the routine.

The routine didn't allow any time for anything or anyone else, and it was important to let him have the successes he needed.

The smell of meat starting to brown fills the room. How damn delightful. He takes the spatula and flips the burger and sets the spatula down on the plate. The top's a nice color, deep brown with what he knows is a nice thick crust. It's easy to get a good result when you're doing it the same every time.

Two things are a given in Craig's life. First, talent. He'd pick up anything that involved his body like a fish to water. No problems.

Second, routine. If he didn't pick it up right away, then he'd have a hell of a lot easier of a time if he just set himself a routine and stuck to it. That was all it really took to succeed, in the end. Those two things.

It all came together perfect every time. Tonight, routine meant eating, finishing the homework due tomorrow, and seeing if there was anything that needed more than an evening of work.

He runs through the list in his head. Nothing seems like it's going to be a problem, though. None of the real big final projects have been assigned, yet. Besides that, half of them end up being group assignments, so they're a lot smaller than they look when you think about it. They might not be one evening's work, but no more than two or three.

Deep breath. The hamburger's done. So it's just a few little things tonight. Answer a few questions from the reading. A one-page paper. Easy as can be. He drops a slice of cheese on top right after he slips the hamburger onto the plate. The spatula gets tossed into the dirty dishes.

Fork and knife in hand, he starts eating mechanically. It's good, but no better than it was yesterday, no better than it might have been the day before. The same as the day before. The same as it has been since he got here.

It's easier to make the food real good with a proper stove, but once he got used to the hot plate, it wasn't really a problem. The only real difference comes down to how much time you spend on pre-heating.

The plate clean, he puts it into the dirty dishes with everything else and sets it aside. He'll have to get them down to the common room to get everything cleaned up in a bit, but for now he's got homework to work on. Two hundred and fifty words about some short story. Reading won't take long, and writing only a little longer than that. But first he's got to do it.

Chapter Three

Emma swallowed hard. It was easy to be full of fire and judgment when it was Craig. Downright damn easy. Nobody in the world would blame her for thinking that it was his fault.

I mean, frankly… she cut the thought off before she let herself think the words 'who could resist.'

Anyone could resist, but they needed to want to, and Craig was a great guy at making them not want to no more. But when it came to thinking about poor Jane… she was probably sitting there feeling bad.

What right, Emma thought, did she have to go barging in there? She closed her eyes a minute and said a short, silent prayer. Just a moment, for guidance, and then she had her mind straight. There was nothing more for it. Sometimes in order to heal a wound, you have to tear it