by Nicole Casey
“See you later,” I tossed carelessly over my shoulder but when I returned to Katie, I had absolutely no interest in talking to her for another minute.
“I thought you were going to the washroom,” she said when I plopped back down. “Who was that?”
I eyed her.
“Who was who?” I asked innocently and her mouth turned downward into a frown.
“You really are just as bad as everyone says,” Katie huffed, rising from the couch and crossing her arms over her chest. “You can’t even focus on one woman at a time!”
I didn’t know where that came from but I took exception to it. It was bad enough that Blake had some warped idea of who I was but a perfect stranger?
I started to tell Katie that she didn’t know anything about me but I stopped myself. What did I care what she thought of me? She wasn’t Blake.
Katie was waiting for me to say something but I grinned even though I felt like unleashing on her.
Shrugging nonchalantly, I said, “What can I say? It’s hard to keep my attention.”
I was glad she looked even more furious but to my relief, she stormed away in a huff. I immediately turned my attention back to where Blake was standing but she and Ryan had moved elsewhere.
Stay down, I warned myself. Don’t go looking for them.
Again, I blame the alcohol and I was on my feet, brushing through the throng of partygoers for a glimpse of Blake again.
Someone thrust another cup in my hand and my earlier resolve to stick to water was forgotten.
I sipped on it as I walked through the main floor of Alpha Delta Phi, almost tripping over people and discarded containers alike, my pulse began to quicken slightly. Had they left already? Had Blake seen me and decided to go somewhere else?
I saw Trevor and asked him if he’d seen her.
He looked two sheets to the wind, his eyes barely focusing on me.
“Oh hey!” he called happily, clapping me on the back like we were besties. “I’m so happy to seeeeee you!”
I stifled a groan.
“Yeah, you too, man. Have you seen Blake? She was just in here with a guy—Ryan?”
Trevor’s eyes widened.
“You gonna kick his asssss?” he slurred, jabbing a finger into my chest. “Don’t let no man touch your bitch, right? Bros before hos!”
I considered asking him what the hell he was talking about but I decided there was no point in trying to reason an unseasoned drunk. Trevor, like everyone else, was just celebrating the year end and the onset of graduation. None of us were big partiers, science geeks the lot of us. I wasn’t there to embarrass Trevor for losing control—he’d earned it too. I just wanted to know where Blake might have gone.
“Trev, have you seen Blake?” I tried again.
“Oh yeah yeah,” Trevor mumbled, nodding. “Like two, no five minutes…maybe six minutes ago?”
He looked at me for approval and I suppressed the urge to shake him until he made sense.
“Yeah? Where did she go?”
“Oh buddy,” Trevor groaned. “She’s with that guy!”
“I know,” I snapped. “Where did they go?”
“No, Mal, she’s with that guy,” he repeated. “Like with him.”
“He’s her boyfriend?”
Disappointment cut through me like a blade. I should have guessed it. Blake didn’t seem like the type to randomly pick up men and accompany them to parties but she hadn’t introduced Ryan as her boyfriend.
“I dunno.” Trevor seemed to have lost interest in our conversation and he reached for a cup which may or may not have been his.
“Oh my God! Can you just focus for one second?” I yelled, my patience done. “What about Blake and Ryan?”
Trevor blinked at me like he’d forgotten I was there.
“Oh hey…oh yeah…they just went upstairs together.” Trevor leaned over drunkenly and leered at me. “And I think we both know what that means.”
A wave of ice washed down my spine.
Yeah. I knew exactly what that meant. If Blake had come there that night knowing I was there, she was throwing it in my face that she was with someone else.
She was upstairs getting laid and I was chasing her around like a lost puppy.
7
Blake
“So?” Ryan drawled, leading me around his room. “What do you think?”
I eyed the disarray without knowing what to say exactly. I’d never stepped foot inside a frat house before that night and I was certain I never would again. They really glamorize what it’s all about in movies. The reality was it was a filthy commune which reeked of man sweat. I hadn’t missed out on anything not ever entering one.
Still, Ryan seemed ridiculously pleased with it for reasons I could not fathom.
“It’s…nice,” I offered lamely. What was I even doing there?
It had been Beth’s idea, of course, her “live your last days of college like you’re an entitled brat”. Ryan was a friend of Beth’s through his cousin, Brett who apparently was on Mal’s soccer team.
I couldn’t escape that guy anywhere I went, it seemed.
Maybe there’s a reason for that, a little voice in my head chirped and I told it to shut up. I was alone in a room with a guy, in a frat house. Maybe I wasn’t going to graduate college as a virgin after all.
Why did I shudder when I thought that?
As if he was reading my mind, Ryan sat on the edge of his unmade bed and patted the spot at his side. It was such a cheesy, rehearsed move, it made me cringe.
“Come and sit with me,” he cooed. “Tell me about yourself.”
Yeah right—as if he cares about anything you have to say to him.
Again, I found my mind going back to Malcolm. For all his reputation, he’d never once patted a spot and told me to tell him about myself. He might have been the only guy I’d ever known who had actually listened when I’d spoken to him, even though we weren’t even friends.
“What are you waiting for?” Ryan asked and I could hear the impatience in his voice. I found myself wondering if he had another date that night. Suddenly, I realized who he reminded me of.
Chance Edwards.
Until Mal had shown himself downstairs, Ryan had been scoping out the party like I wasn’t standing nervously at his side but the minute Mal had materialized…
But now that we’re alone, he’s completely focused on me, isn’t he? He’s all about getting in my pants so he can add another notch on his belt and move on.
I was not losing myself to this guy, no way. I don’t know what I was thinking following him upstairs like that.
“I think we’d better go back downstairs,” I suggested, backing up slightly. “I could use another drink.”
Ryan laughed, maybe thinking I was joking.
“After,” he promised, rising from his spot with his arms extended toward me. “First, come and relax. You’re too tense. Beth says you’re all work and no play.”
Beth talks too much, I thought with annoyance even though I knew Beth had not thrown me to the wolves. In her mind, she was doing me a service setting me up with Ryan. I carefully sidestepped his embrace. I didn’t want him touching me, not when I knew Mal was downstairs.
How weird was that? Why did it matter that Mal was downstairs? Mal couldn’t care less that I was up there with a guy I barely knew. He had no way of knowing I’d only agreed to go to this frat party because I’d heard Mal was going to be there. There was a safety in knowing he was there.
Not that I need Mal to protect me.
Truthfully, I missed Mal’s calls, even though it had been me who had told him to stay away but I’d been too stubborn to pick up the phone and text him.
Maybe it was because I knew that even if we maintained our tentative friendship or whatever it was, things were bound to go downhill again. It was just better to stay out of each other’s way, no matter how much I found it difficult to stop thinking about his intense grey eyes.
I was doing it
again—thinking about Mal. Ryan was staring at me strangely.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Ryan told me, reaching out for my hand which I permitted him to take even though it was impulse to yank it back like he was made of acid. “I’m a really nice guy.”
I may not have had a lot of experience with the opposite sex but any woman inherently knows that any man who utters those words, the “don’t worry, I’m a nice guy” spiel is one from whom you must run and never look back. Generally speaking, people don’t need to broadcast their attributes.
“Of course you are,” I replied quickly and I did move to take my hand back but he tightened his grip on me. A spark of fear touched my chest and I looked at his face. Anger had replaced his annoyance.
“Stop acting like you didn’t know why I invited you up here,” he growled. This time, I successfully retrieved my hand back but I was shaking inside. I was afraid to turn my back on him in case he grabbed me so I just kept moving back. My fear escalated as he followed me.
“Where are you going now?” he snapped but I didn’t answer. Instead I turned and ran, my fingers trembling so badly, I had no idea how I managed to get the door opened but I did, convinced that Ryan was on my trail.
He wasn’t but that didn’t do much to lower my heartrate when I shoved past the guest on the stairs. I didn’t stop moving until a firm grip grabbed my upper arm. I screamed inadvertently as Mal spun me, his brow creased in concern.
“Jesus, Blake, it’s just me. What’s wrong?”
I tried to shake my head.
“Nothing. I-I just need to get out of here.”
“Fine,” he agreed without questioning me further. “Let’s go.”
Before I could argue that I just wanted to be alone, he led me out of the crowded house which seemed to have doubled since I’d followed Ryan upstairs. I felt so stupid, embarrassed that Mal was the one to get me out of there when I’d gotten myself into such a scenario.
We moved into the night in silence, until the sounds of the party on Greek Row began to fade away and we were away from the boisterous students.
Only then did Mal ask me anything.
“Did that guy do something to you?”
His voice was like gravel, almost as if he didn’t want to hear the answer if it was yes.
“No,” I said quickly even though I wasn’t sure if that was the truth. “No, nothing happened.”
He stopped walking and looked at me.
“Are you okay? You’re pale as hell.”
I kept walking, wishing he couldn’t read my face so well. How had he gotten to know my expressions?
“Blake, wait.”
He caught up with me and touched my arm again but I didn’t flinch. There was a comfort in his nearness.
“I just want to go home,” I told him. “I’m tired.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “I’ll walk you there.”
He sounded less drunk than he had before, like seeing me upset had sobered him up. I didn’t protest him walking me home. We’d been walking for almost two minutes in perfect quiet before I realized he was still holding onto me.
Slowly, I exhaled. I hadn’t noticed I hadn’t breathed normally since we’d left Greek Row.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” he asked but I shook my head. I really didn’t. I wanted to forget I’d put myself in such a dumb situation.
“I’m going to smash his frat boy face,” Mal muttered angrily and I laughed shortly.
“Why? He didn’t do anything to you.”
Mal stopped walking and I saw that we had somehow made it within a block of my house already.
“Blake, I’m not your enemy,” he said tightly. “And I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you, certainly not at the hands of a guy who can’t take no for an answer.”
The words warmed me more than they should have and before I knew what I was doing, I stepped toward him, slipping my arms around his neck and pulled him toward me. The action startled him.
“Blake…”
I shut him up by pressing my lips against him and I felt his body tense instantly. Immediately, I was embarrassed and pulled away, dropping my head.
What was I doing?
“Sorry,” I breathed, tears of humiliation filling my eyes. Of course Mal didn’t want to kiss me. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to kiss him, except I knew I did. I’d probably always secretly wanted to know what it was like to taste his mouth, even when I’d convinced myself that I hated his guts.
I barely had a chance to fall into a wave of self-pity when he seized me by the waist and reclaimed the kiss, surprising me so much, I lost my footing.
But Mal caught me and I was swept up in his hot mouth, my lips parting to permit our tongues to touch. A jolt of electricity I’d never felt coursed through my body and he brought me closer, our body meshing almost perfectly together.
Through his jeans, I felt the bulge of his hardness and I was consumed with a combination of excitement and apprehension but I shoved away my worries and let him hold me. I thought if he let me go in that second, I would melt away into a puddle but I didn’t need to worry—his grip around my waist with his muscular arms was firm. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Goosebumps erupted over me and though I could taste the beer on his breath, I knew he wasn’t intoxicated. The look in his sooty eyes told me as much when he pulled his head away and stared down at me like he was looking for a sign from me as to where to go from there.
I was trembling again but this time it had nothing to do with dread. I was precisely where I needed to be.
“Sorry,” he muttered but I could tell he wasn’t—not any sorrier than I was.
I shook my head but I didn’t break my gaze from his.
“Come on,” I breathed, grabbing his hand. I didn’t want to break the spell between us but we couldn’t exactly finish what we’d started right there on the street, even though I could feel any resolve I had oozing out of me. If he’d insisted, I might have let him drop me onto the grass of the neighbor’s lawn.
Of course he didn’t and he followed me back toward my shared house. No one was home but even if there had been, I doubt I would have noticed as we moved up the stairs and made our way into my bedroom, barely closing the door before we found ourselves in each other’s arms again.
My shirt was off first, followed by his, our pants landing elsewhere in the room and suddenly, we were entwined in a tangle of arms and legs while Mal’s full mouth traced the lines of my body.
There was no resistance, no desire to stop him. Maybe I’d subconsciously known that I was always going to lose myself to Malcolm Laurier, that my outward contempt was a mask for the internal desire I’d had for him.
His tongue lapped around the taut skin of my nipples and I sighed, bucking upward permitting his strong forearm to embrace me closer from underneath him.
Every so often, he would pause and look at me, inherently knowing it was my first time and expecting me to stop him but I had no interest in ending it.
My hands slipped through the mass of dark hair and I guided him along the flatness of my belly and between my legs. I was already wet and waiting for him but when the tip of his tongue met my middle, I jumped at the unexpected bolt of pleasure which erupted through me.
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer, only arched myself so he knew I didn’t want him to stop and he didn’t.
My calves laced over his shoulders and he cupped my ass with his huge hands, massaging at the cheeks as his lips suctioned onto me, bringing me to places I’d never been.
God, what had I been waiting for? This was incredible!
Moans fell from my lips, endless rolling waves of passion making me hotter until I couldn’t stop my body from doing what I wanted to do—release over his soaked lips. I shuddered over and over, a long cry falling from my mouth. Still, Mal continued to lick and lap at me like he didn’t want to miss a single drop. I felt like he might have kept going for hours but I wante
d him inside me and I brought him back toward me, urgently.
When our faces were even again, I could read the question in his eyes but I didn’t permit him to ask it aloud. I didn’t want to second guess what was happening even though I knew I wasn’t going to change my mind. It had never felt so right being with anyone. I’d been waiting for Mal, even though I was well aware that nothing could ever come from us being together.
It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to being who we were, I lied to myself. This won’t change anything.
He entered me, slowly, smoothly and I instantly tensed against him.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his breath hot in my ear. “I can stop.”
“NO!” I didn’t want him to stop and to prove it, I tightened my thighs against his hip, drawing my body upward, pulling him in deeper.
Was he huge or was it my inexperience? It was impossible to say but I strongly suspected the former was true. Deliberately, gently, he filled me, littering my neck with heated kisses, punctuated with sighs.
“Oh my God, Blake,” he grunted, his chest slick with sweat. “You feel incredible.”
The words only made me want him more and my waist bucked upward, until I could feel his sack slapping against my cheeks. We were bound together fully then and now that he was in me, there was no stopping either of us. We’d gone too far and we weren’t going back.
Mal’s breaths escaped faster and my heart was pounding so fast, I was sure it was going to escape through my parted lips. We were in a rhythm, one which grew faster and more eager with each thrust. He was growing harder inside me, filling me entirely in every way possible.
Another climax was growing, I could feel myself rising to the occasion again and as I let myself go, Mal did too, our bodies exploding into one another in unison, our cries overcoming each other.
I thought I heard someone come into the house which I shared with three others but I was too caught up in the weight of Mal upon me to pay any real mind to what was happening outside my closed bedroom door.
The anxiety that Ryan had caused me was a distant memory now, like a bad dream that had never happened in the first place.