Big Man on Campus: an Enemies to Lovers College Romance (Big Men on Campus Book 1)

by Stephanie Queen

  “Show me the way to your lair, princess.” She takes my hand and leads me up the stairs from the kitchen and down a long hall, light on her bare feet. We pass two doors and when we get to the third door on the left, she opens it and I follow her inside, pulling the door closed behind us. She flicks on a light and I flick the lock on the door.

  Maybe I should be curious about her childhood bedroom, but my focus is on the bed. It’s king-size, at least three feet off the floor, and covered in a festive plush comforter and more pillows than two people need. I back her into it.

  “So what do you do to get into bed? Pole vault or mini tramp?”

  She laughs and I press her face into my shoulder to muffle the sound. “Princess, you’re going to need to control yourself tonight. How about nice long quiet orgasms, rippling one after another without making a sound? You think you can do that for me?” As I speak, I lift her in my arms and toss her on the bed, then vault onto it, joining her.

  She rolls on top of me, dressed in a red sweater and black leggings. “You look like a sexy Christmas elf.” I pull her forward and kiss her, really kiss her, drinking her in, forgetting about her father and mine, dissolving all the trouble, the world, until we could be anywhere, back in my room at BMOC House on my mattress or in her dorm.

  “You okay?” I ask. She nods.

  “More than okay. Let’s make each other forget all about our parents tonight.” My cock responds with a resounding fuck yes and the rest of me follows, desperate need filling in the cracks between my soul and my heart as I run my hands down her body, taking possession of every part of her.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted you more.” My words shock me, not that I feel this way, but that I admit it. The cracks of my defenses grow wider, but there’s no room for regret as my emotions well, my mouth claiming hers in a searing, searching kiss, like a blind man looking for home.

  Bang. The loud noise wakes me and my eyes fly open. I squint against the glare of sunshine coming from three tall windows. The bedside clock tells me it’s past noon and I shake my head. Bedside clock? The disorientation created by unfamiliar surroundings disappears as loud voices penetrate and Joni stirs, turning into me. Her phone call about her parents’ fight, my drive to Moreland, and our night together in her childhood bedroom flood my consciousness all at once. I bolt upright.

  “What’s that?” she says, sleep muddled. It was a long night of fucking, close to lovemaking with raw emotional upheaval. Looking at her messy golden hair, the sheets falling from her perfect bare breasts, and her bee-stung lips, the haze of lust tugs at me. But the distinct sounds of a man swearing and a woman shrieking at the top of her lungs drive me to jump from the bed.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Joni slides from the bed following me, panic in her voice, as I pull on my discarded jeans. I zip them as I go for the door. Not waiting for her, I open it and head down the hall toward the voices, propelled by the distress in her mom’s voice and the raging need to kick her father’s ass.

  “Take what you want and get out!” Her mother shrieks and I go from a fast walk to a flat-out run until I reach the wide-open double doors of her parents’ room. I know it’s their room because I see them both, squared off on opposite sides of an oversize sleek platform bed.

  “Not until I talk to Joni,” her father growls. “And that bastard Jack Hunter. I saw his truck. I know he’s here.”

  Stepping inside the room, my fists clench, but I keep them at my side. Banking my rage and breathing evenly, I answer him.

  “You’re right. I am here.”

  They both turn to me, shocked to see me standing just inside their bedroom. He’s wearing a wrinkled white dress shirt and dark dress pants, looking like he slept in his clothes. Her mother, who I haven’t seen in years, is dressed in a sleek red and black pant suit like she’s ready to go out on the town. She’s tall and slim and resembles Joni except she has narrower, edgier features, a more sophisticated sensibility that shows. I wonder, not for the first time, how these two people could have produced a gem, a true princess, like Joni.

  Charles, in a fit of irrational confidence that I’m sure is born of equally irrational anger and resentment, storms toward me. I hold my ground.

  “Stay away from my daughter. Get out of this house now before I call the police and your Heisman dreams come crashing down around you.” I don’t flinch at his threat, but I feel the bruise. I’m used to emotional battering and pull my defenses around me, staying calm.

  “Why don’t you tell me to my face what your problem is with me, Charles? Why do you really hate me? What do you know about my father?”

  Joni rushes into the room. I know without turning around because of her scent, the energy of her presence, and the flick of her father’s gaze to a point behind me. I stay planted between him and Joni, but my heart rate soars, my calm slipping, the protective instincts of my reptile brain taking control. Returning his attention to me, he sneers.

  “Your father is nothing. And you’re nothing but a bastard.”

  “Jack,” her mother says in a pleading voice, “maybe you should go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers.”

  “I don’t owe you anything, you arrogant piece of trash.” Charles loses it, almost foaming at the mouth.

  “Tell me who my father is.” I feel calm in the face of his flipped-out fury.

  “You look just like him, you bastard.”

  “Stop calling him that,” Joni yells, jumping between us. Flashes of Lake Winnipesaukee engulf me, revving me. But this is her father and he’s on a dangerous edge.

  He pushes Joni out of the way. As I watch her stumble back, all my calm restraint evaporates. Red-hot rage and the need to lash out and crush him floods me. Charles Dowd is tall and fit for his age, but so am I. And I’m twenty-five years younger.

  There’s no thought and less conscience as I throw my balled fist into his face in a quick powerful jab. Blood spurts from his nose as he falls back against the bed.

  Her mother screams. “Stop! Enough.”

  Her shout barely registers as I move in and stand over her husband.

  “You motherfucker. If you know who my father is, tell me.”

  “It’s not my secret to reveal.” He wipes blood from his face with his starched white shirtsleeve, less cocky as he stares up at me, but no less mean. “Go ask your mother. Tell her I told you that she knows. She’s known all along, harboring some misguided hope he’ll come back. Tell her to tell you all about your father. Maybe she’ll come clean. There’s no reason to keep the secret anymore.”

  I stand over him, fists clenched. My gut clenches and my head spins out of control. This man hates me because of my father.

  Then he mutters under his breath, “Except to avoid pain.”

  I back away. Joni is standing behind me. I grab her arm and pull her from the room.

  “Let’s get out of this place. You’re not spending another minute here.”

  “Joni,” her mother calls after us, but I don’t stop.

  Joni doesn’t resist me or answer her mother. Why should she? It’s the worst shit show I’ve seen since I was last home—at my mother’s home.

  We’ll see how long that record lasts since that’s where we’re going now.

  I throw my things into my duffel and she finds a small Louis Vuitton bag and I help her fill it with whatever I find in her drawers.

  “You can come back another time and get more things.”

  She nods. Her eyes are wide, she looks shocked but stalwart. No more tears. I’m so fucking proud of her, but I don’t say anything because my adrenaline forces me to keep moving, to get out of this place. No time or attention for talk now.

  We take my pickup and I take her back to my house—my mother’s house. I’m not prepared to see my mother. I haven’t been back in four years. Maybe I always knew we’d need to have a showdown sometime.

  But I didn’t know the stakes would be so high, that she’s been lying
to me about my father all these years.

  Chapter 19

  Jack

  The sight of my childhood home makes me sick to my stomach. I stand in the dirt driveway staring at the peeling paint and scrappy excuse for a lawn. There’s an old piece-of-shit Honda Civic in the driveway that makes my truck look shiny and new. I didn’t buy the car for my mother. It must belong to a visitor. My stomach churns again. Joni takes my hand.

  “It’s smaller than I remember it,” I say.

  Meaner, more desolate, filled with all the demons I’ve piled there, discarded and left for dead. I’ve avoided it, never wanting to return. But the recurring stabbing pain in my back has been warning me there would be a reckoning someday.

  This is the day. Ready or not.

  I take a step forward. The sharp pain strikes me across the back as if the demons have all ganged up on me at once to say their piece.

  Gripping Joni’s hand, I turn away from the front door and head for the back of the four-room shack.

  “We’ll go in the kitchen door. She won’t be in there. She’s never in the kitchen.”

  With my heart hammering hard and fast, fear darkening the edges of my mind, I pull Joni with me as I march up the dirt path to the back stoop and pull open the rickety screen door.

  I turn to Joni. She tells me everything with her eyes and I take all I can from her, all the courage and warmth and goodness in her and hold onto it. Then I turn the knob and push open the door and step into the kitchen of my childhood, prepared to face the demons, the nightmares, and the despair residing there.

  Joni pushes in behind me, but I’m stunned, frozen to the floor. I don’t recognize the tidy, pleasant room. And I barely recognize the woman standing over the stove when she looks up at me.

  “Jack.” A hand flies to her chest and she stumbles, gripping the counter. The fear that she could be having a heart attack in spite of the fact that she’s a young woman, only thirty-eight years old, moves me.

  Rushing to her side, I catch her and sit her in a chair at the old table. It’s the same one of my childhood except it’s clean and free of dirty dishes and fast-food discards. I back off, remembering who she is, the unreliable, not-always-there mother of my childhood, ever since I was five years old.

  She reaches out, clutching at my jacket, and I rip it away from her.

  “Jack, I’m sorry, I’m just so shocked—surprised to see you here. It’s been so …” She turns her awestruck eyes to acknowledge Joni. “I’m sorry. Joni, right? Joni Dowd? I’d recognize you anywhere. You look like your mother.”

  “Never mind that shit,” I say. “This isn’t a social call.” Her face clouds up.

  “You’ll stay for lunch—”

  “I have some questions to ask you, Mom. And I want the truth this time.” Her face goes pale like she knows what I’m going to ask her about, like she remembers the conversation we had the last time I was here.

  “I should leave,” Joni says.

  “Stay.” I flick a glance at her. I need her to stay. She doesn’t move. We still have our coats on like this is going to be a quick visit and maybe it is. My chest tightens as the environment tugs me back to my beginnings and I fight the feeling of being trapped, but it’s useless. I can’t leave my mother’s house any more than I can jump outside my own body.

  Standing over my mother where she sits at the table, fear showing in her eyes, I ask my question expecting an answer this time, knowing she’ll finally give it to me. Ready or not.

  “Who is my father?”

  “Jack, I’ve told you—”

  “Lies. You’ve told me lies, according to Charlie Dowd.” Her eyes go big at the mention of his name, then they tear up.

  “Tell me.” I vibrate with need and she flinches, but she lifts her chin, clears her throat.

  “Your uncle Dashell.”

  “What? My uncle—what the fuck are you saying?”

  “No—it’s not like that. Dashell isn’t my brother. Not even a step-brother. No relation at all …” Her voices trails off with impossible wistfulness and I can feel her overwhelming sadness, the sense of loss, the look she used to wear all the time, especially when she’d go on a bender or disappear for days. Grabbing her shoulder, I give it a shake.

  “Tell me. The whole fucking story.” She comes back to me, focusing on my face.

  “You look like him, you know. You’re a lot like him. Only better—”

  “Why?” I met my uncle exactly once. At Grandpa Giddy’s funeral. But Grandpa talked about him once in a while. Said I reminded him of Dashell. No fucking kidding. Damn you Grandpa.

  “Your grandfather sent him away. Because of my mother. She wasn’t really your grandmother. Grandpa wasn’t my father.”

  “What the fuck.” I slash my hands through my hair and turn away from her. Joni comes to me. She opens my pea coat and slips her hands inside, warming me, murmuring.

  Joni says, “This sounds like a long story. Maybe we should stay. Hear her out.” Since I have no intention of leaving before I wring every last ounce of truth from my mother, I rip my coat off and toss it on a chair. Joni takes her coat off and takes a seat at the table across from my mother.

  “You two are an item?” Mom says, giving a derisive laugh. “Charles must love that.” She sounds like her old self now, the shock wearing off her.

  “Charles threatened Dashell. I don’t think Dashell cared, but Giddy cared—your grandpa didn’t want my mother embarrassed, didn’t want a scandal. They thought I’d give you up if Dashell left. They all thought they knew what was best for me. They didn’t have a damn clue.”

  “Start from the beginning. If Uncle Dashell wasn’t really my uncle, then who the fuck was he? Why did everyone think he was my uncle? Why did you lie about who he was all this time?”

  Mom looks back at me, a sad, weary smile aging her pretty face. I can see why Joni liked her smile. I never saw the warmth and longing in it. I couldn’t risk the disappointment.

  “Dashell was your grandfather’s son, so yes, don’t worry, your grandpa is really your grandpa.” And she’s really my fucking mother. Nausea curdles in my gut. I tense and then force the even breathing.

  “But your grandpa wasn’t my father. He married my mother knowing she was pregnant with someone else’s baby. I never knew who my real father was. I didn’t care and I never understood why you cared, thought I could carry off the same lie my mother always told, claiming she didn’t know who my father was.”

  A bitter laugh erupts. “So if being fatherless was good enough for you it was good enough for me?”

  “All I knew was that your grandpa was as good as my father. I always believed he was until I was a teenager, ready to become a woman. I always believed Dashell was my older brother, distant and broody and perpetually disgruntled. He played ball like you. He was good too. We used to go to his games at the high school when I was a kid. But you’re better. You always were. In every way.”

  “Why all the secrecy?” I whisper, desperate to break out of the cage of lies and secrets, needing to lay everything bare because no matter how hard it is, it can’t be any more painful than the emptiness of ignorance, the gnawing of the unknown, the constant turmoil of self-reassurance and combating the paranoia and fear of the dark possibilities.

  “It wasn’t a dark secret, not at first. It was a glossing-over of family history my mother told me. No one had to know that your grandpa wasn’t my daddy, that Dashell wasn’t my half-brother. He was six years older than me. I was a blossoming girl of thirteen when he left for the army and a fully blossomed young lady when he returned four years later.

  “Not long after he left my mother got a phone call from my aunt and it upset her no end. I heard her crying in her room. She had closed the door and that wasn’t like her, but we had another phone—these were house phones, land lines. It was before we had cell phones. So I listened in to her call on the kitchen phone.” She bows her head and I’m trying to imagine my mother as a kid finding out that her
life’s truths were all lies. But I don’t feel anything, as I stand, hands fisted on my hips, anger keeping me together, keeping me grounded and safe.

  “I found out that day that Giddy wasn’t my real father, and that explained a lot. My blood father had died in an accident. My aunt said they were right about him, that he was a reckless young man headed for no good. That my mother and I were lucky to have Giddy.”

  “What about Dashell? Who was his mother if it wasn’t Grandma?” I don’t know why I care, but it seems worse somehow to be missing a mother.

  “I never knew. Giddy never talked about her. Mother only told me it was a tragedy, and Dashell only said his mother was dead. Mom was good to him though I know she thought him difficult. Maybe he was a difficult teen.” She shrugs, then smiles like I don’t remember seeing. “But he wasn’t difficult at all when I fell in love with him.”

  “You were only fucking seventeen years old. He was a grown man. What kind of—”

  “I was mature enough. I was far from an innocent child. And I have to admit, he did try to resist me. But there was something between us, more than chemistry, more than growing up living in the same household. I told him we weren’t siblings and he of course already knew that. He knew my mother was pregnant when his daddy married her. He knew everything. He said he loved his father anyway.”

  “So you started a relationship with him and got pregnant.” I conclude the story, but dissatisfaction chokes me. “That doesn’t explain why he left and why you kept it a secret all these years.”

  “Giddy insisted he leave. My mother insisted he leave. We couldn’t have people know because they’d think it was incest. He could be jailed for that or statutory rape.”

  “Not if you told them the truth.”

  “People believe what they want to believe. The worst thing possible. My birth certificate shows Giddy as my father. I thought they were wrong, that if we told the truth it would be all right. Until the night Charles found us.