Carnal Pledge: A College Bully Romance

by Vixen Kane

  “I… me too.”

  He keeps my hand in his and tugs me toward the door to my building. When we reach it, I pull my hand away and fumble in my clutch for my ID so I can swipe it to gain entry. I grip the slim card between my fingers but make no move to unlock the door.

  “Thanks for dinner.” Seriously, that’s all I can say?

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I… uh… I should get inside.” Still, I make no effort to move toward the lock.

  Just when humiliation starts to creep in, Seth leans in and kisses my cheek. “I’ll call you,” he whispers in my ear before pulling back, turning and walking to his car.

  My feet come unglued from the concrete once his car pulls away from the curb. I swipe my ID, and once I’m over the threshold, I kick off my shoes to carry them as I walk up the stairs to my room.

  “Oh my god! You’re home. How was it?” Lexie’s questions hit me the second I walk through the door. She’s lying on her bed with her cell phone gripped in her hand. She bounces off the bed and no doubt would have skipped toward me if space would have allowed. “Tell me everything.”

  “It was fine. The food wa—”

  “Girl, I don’t give a shit about the food. How was the man? How was Seth?”

  “Seth was… fine.” I walk past her and toss my shoes on the floor in front of my closet.

  “I’ll just bet he was.”

  “Lexie, it wasn’t a date. How many times do I have to tell you that? Hell, how many times did you tell me that?”

  “I know, I know.” She flops back on the bottom bunk. “But you gotta admit, Seth Carnes is one prime specimen.”

  Unable to argue that, I don’t even try. “Yes, Seth’s hot. But we’re just friends. I’ll probably never even see him again.”

  My phone beeps, and when I pick it up and read the text, I freeze.

  Seth: Had a great time. You looked beautiful. Come to the party next

  Saturday?

  Three dots appear under the text, indicating that he isn’t done.

  Seth: As my date?

  And then again, maybe I will.

  14

  Seth

  “Dude, have you not heard of the three day rule?”

  I ignore Tristan long enough to check myself in the mirror, making sure I didn’t miss a spot while shaving.

  “I’ve got less than three weeks to make this happen. I don’t have time for the three day rule.”

  “But you went out last night. It’s too soon. You’re going to come off as clingy.”

  I glance at him in the mirror and chuckle before applying cologne and leaving the bathroom with Tristan following me. Ironic that I’m the clingy puppy in his mind.

  “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  I look over my shoulder at his concerned expression but don’t stop. I don’t have time too. According to Lexie, Val is at the dorm but has no idea how much longer she’ll be there. Apparently she goes to her friend’s dorm room in the evenings to study several nights a week. What’s the friend’s name? Jenna? Fuck, I’ve been studying Valerie Tilson more than I’ve been studying my classes, but I’m starting to have fun with it. Her cute blush from last night fills my mind, and I smile.

  It’s working.

  “I’ll meet you guys at Callahan’s,” I say to Connor and Ethan as I walk by them to the door.

  Connor raises a brow at me. “You’re not riding with us?”

  I flash my teeth and toss him a wink, pausing at the front door. “Gotta go see my new girlfriend first.”

  Connor laughs, and I take it as encouragement. More encouragement than Tristan’s frown at least.

  I slam the door after stepping through and trot over to my car. The sun’s already set, and when I get to Valerie’s dorm, I have to drive around for several minutes before I find a parking space. Apparently the residents of Jefferson Hall don’t share the fun in Wednesday bar nights because everyone is fucking home.

  I finally get parked and make my way to the entrance. I slide in alongside a couple girls going upstairs and nod at the RA on duty, who lets me through. As soon as I reach the stairwell, I step around the girls and hurry up the steps, as if it makes any difference. If Valerie left, she’d walk right past me. Still, for some reason, I’m nervous. Nervous that she won’t be there. Nervous that I’m imagining how well last night went. Nervous that she’s come to her senses and sees right through my intentions. Maybe that’s why I’m breaking the three day rule. Or maybe it’s because I have limited time to get this shit done and I’m scrambling.

  When I knock on the door, it takes Valerie a minute to open it, but when she does, it’s like all of my nervousness transfers to her. Her eyes widen and a blush creeps over her face, while I finally feel like I can breathe easy. I wasn’t imagining things. Last night really did work.

  “Seth,” she says, glancing down at her pajamas. It’s eight thirty, Val, really? “What are you doing here?”

  I open my mouth, but hesitate before I get out the words I rehearsed. I’d planned to invite her out with me, but I think that’d be a lost cause. She obviously didn’t plan on leaving the dorm. My guess is she isn’t going to jump up and down at the prospect of karaoke night.

  “I was next door at Rogers again and thought I’d stop by to surprise you.”

  Shit, I should’ve brought flowers or something.

  She squints at me. “How did you know which room was mine? And how did you get up here without me signing you in?”

  I want to chuckle at that second question but refrain. Freshman are adorably naive. Or annoying depending on who it is. Right now, in her pajama bottoms with little pandas printed on them, she’s pulling off adorable.

  “I asked the RA. She’s a friend of a friend.”

  “Ah.” She moves a strand of hair that’s close to her eye off to the side of her face and her blush, for some reason, deepens. She’s nervous, but I’m confident it’s a good kind of nervous. This time I don’t hold the chuckle in, and her head snaps up as her eyes narrow.

  I bite my cheek and gesture behind her. “So, you gonna invite me in?”

  “Oh, um.” She throws a look over her shoulder, then turns back to me. “My roommate’s going to be here soon, and we try to let each other know when we’re having guests. Maybe another time?”

  Oh, Valerie. Lies, lies, lies. Lexie left a half hour ago and won’t be back until much later, and I’m going to guess the last part of that was bullshit as well.

  “That’s too bad,” I say before clucking my tongue. I push the door open farther and step into the room, glancing around while I ignore her protests.

  “Seth, seriously. I don’t want to piss off—”

  “Do you have some weird obsession with pandas?”

  “What?”

  I walk over to the bunkbed and immediately know that the top bunk is hers. There’s a stuffed panda resting on the pillow. I pick it up and examine it.

  She stalks over to me and snatches the panda from my grasp. The nervousness is gone, and when I meet her gaze I notice that predictable eyebrow scrunching thing. Funny. I remember it being so much more annoying.

  She sets the panda back on the bed and crosses her arms over her chest, startling when a few girls walk by giggling.

  “You should probably shut the door,” I tell her, hauling myself up to the top bunk and flopping down. It would’ve been easier to flop down on the bottom bed, but I imagine that’s a roommate rule as well. I lace my hands behind my head to let her know I have no intention of leaving. I would if I believed she wanted me to, but she doesn’t. She just doesn’t realize it.

  She lets out a sigh, and her shoulders sag before she turns around and traipses back to the door. When she shuts it and walks back over to me, I smile.

  “So, this panda thing?”

  “Don’t make fun of me.” Her eyes are narrowed again, but the blush in her cheeks gives away her embarrassment. Fuck, it’s cute.

  “I’m not making fun of you, I�
�m just getting to know you.” I pick up the panda and rest it on my knee. “Personally, I find Mr. Panda to be adorable.”

  She reaches up and takes it from me again and rolls her eyes, but to my amazement, the eye roll is accompanied by a laugh. When it dies, her face turns more serious. “Why are you here, Seth?”

  I sit up and let my legs dangle over the edge. For several moments, I study her. I’m not searching for the words to say, none of them seem necessary. After last night, the answer is too obvious. No other girl except Valerie Tilson would still be questioning it. But she is. I can see it in her eyes, see it written in the lines by her pursed lips.

  What is this?

  What are we doing?

  Do you like me?

  Why?

  I get why she’s confused. I really do. A week ago, I never could’ve imagined I’d be here, staring at those lips, thinking about kissing her. She catches my line of sight, and her lips part for me. She’s telling me so easily what she wants, but I still don’t think she has any idea.

  “Because I want to be here,” I say, pulling my gaze back to her eyes. “I’ll leave when your roommate comes back… or now if you really want me to.”

  She looks away, as if to consider it. With the way her eyes dance, I think she is considering it. Which means she’s still fighting. She’s attracted to me, that much is clear. But there’s still so much in the way.

  “Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?” she asks, still not looking at me.

  “What?”

  She clears her throat. “When you asked me to dinner, you said there was something you needed to talk to me about… I don’t think you ever told me what it was.”

  Right.

  I pause for a few minutes to search my mind. At the time, I’d only said that because I wanted her to agree to go with me. But the more I think about it, the more I do have something to say. Something I’d thought about saying for a long, long time.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you with the pictures.”

  She turns to me and raises her eyebrows.

  “No, I—” I ruffle my hair and sit up straighter. “I knew it’d hurt you, I just mean you weren’t my target… and I’m sorry for doing that. It was stupid and immature, and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences for you. I’m four years too late, but I truly am sorry.”

  She doesn’t say anything for several moments. Just stares at the tiny wooden dressers the dorms provide. I pick at a fray in her bedspread and hope we can move on from this quick. Now I remember why I never apologized to her before yesterday. This is awkward, uncomfortable, and probably won’t do us any good. What’s done is done. But it’s an obstacle we’re going to have to get past. I said sorry, but I never gave her the why. I still haven’t if I’m being completely honest.

  “Did you know people made fun of me for the rest of high school for that?”

  I let the fray go and smooth my hands on my knees. “I figured, but no, I never heard anything about you. Like I said, I was focused on Josh.”

  She gives me a curt nod, and her lips draw into a thin line. That was the wrong thing to say.

  “Right, because it’s so much fun to pick on the good kids isn’t it?”

  “Good kids?” I ask, my own eyes narrowing as I hop off the bed to stand in front of her. “You think Josh is a good kid?”

  Anger flares, and I can already tell it’s going to be a bitch to put out. Still, I roll my neck in an attempt to ease the tension before it bubbles over.

  “Josh was student council president. He was a youth group leader,” she counters with a huff. “Before college, he was the very definition of a good kid.”

  My teeth clamp down to the point I think they might crumble. There are admittedly a lot of things that make me angry. I don’t like to be questioned. I don’t like to be doubted. I fucking hate being around my parents. But Josh Conoway. He takes the fucking cake.

  “You think so?” I ask.

  She nods in a dramatic way with her eyebrows raised. Because she truly has no idea what I’m talking about or who her ex-boyfriend is.

  “Freshman year, my sister had a crush on him.” I roll my neck again and brace myself. “So, she invited him to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and you know what he said?”

  Valerie’s face begins to relax, and her shoulders sag. She seems genuinely saddened before I get through a tenth of the story. It’s always like that when you’re talking about someone with a disability. Everything’s pitiful, and it only pisses me off more.

  “Seth, I’m sorry you feel like he rejected your sister, but—”

  “He didn’t reject her, Valerie. He said ‘yes’.” Her brow furrows in confusion, but this time I don’t give her the chance to defend him. “He told her he’d pick her up in a limo the night of the dance. She spent a week picking out a dress. The entire day getting ready. And she sat in our living room until four in the morning crying while she waited for him. We couldn’t get her to go to bed. She just kept fucking waiting because she was heartbroken.”

  Vallerie climbs the ladder to sit next to me on the bed. “Seth, I...” She shakes her head. “I didn’t know that. I…” Her mouth hangs open, and her eyes swirl with both pity and regret. It’s enough to tamp down my anger. Some.

  “He laughed at her the day we came back to school, in front of everybody. She was mortified, and he just laughed at her.” I flex my fingers and breathe, doing my best to shake away the memory. I’d only been there for the last part of it, and by then it was too late. She panicked, overwhelmed by the people watching and laughing. I didn’t even have a chance to kick his ass then, but I made up for it. For the next four years.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, when I notice the uncomfortable posture Valerie’s sporting. I think she just realized she dated the biggest douche in the world. Either that or she can feel the vibe I’m giving off and it’s incredibly off putting. “I don’t mean to explode on you, I just really don’t like him.”

  “No, I get it.” She brushes her hair to the side again and looks at me. “It puts things into a very different light… You’re right. He’s an asshole.”

  I watch her neck as it contracts with her swallow. I can feel it as the anger leaves my body, and it’s the strangest thing. She’s calming me. Usually nothing calms me when it comes to that guy, but her with her panda pajamas and her cute uncomfortable swallow. She does as good a job calming me as she does annoying the shit out of me. I suddenly want to be on her good side. Challenge or no challenge.

  “Am I an asshole?”

  She stares at me, and the seconds that pass feel like an eternity. Her eyes dart to my lips, then back up. The tension in the room begins to shift, but it’s so subtle I can’t tell if I’m imagining it. If maybe I only want it to be there.

  “I don’t know anymore.” Her voice is soft. She says it like she’s sad, but I’m studying her face too closely to mistake it for sadness. It’s still uncertainty.

  I lean forward and brush the hair back that’s yet again in her face. I tuck the strand over her ear and cup her face with my hand. She’s gorgeous. No annoyance. No anger. There’s not even any fear. Just a whole lot of uncertainty.

  And for a fraction of a moment, I’m uncertain too. Because I know if I lean in and kiss her right now it’ll mean something. It’ll be more than a desperate attempt at avoiding sketchy catcallers in the dark. It’ll mean more than some college experience for her. It’ll feel real. And for a moment… less than a moment, I’m afraid it’ll mean more than a challenge I have to complete. I could be wrong about her. She might be someone I don’t want to hurt.

  The doubt disappears as quickly as it entered when her eyes flutter closed. I lean in the rest of the way, pressing my lips to hers. She tastes like cherries, and it takes me a moment to register that it’s her lip gloss.

  I dip my tongue into the crease of her lips, and she parts them for me. My tongue slides over hers, and it’s better than cherries. It’s… her. And maybe a bit of mint-flavored mou
thwash.

  My fingertips glide down her neck, over her collarbone and to her breast out of reflex, but I catch the mistake in time to continue lower to her waist. I guide her in a circle before nudging her backward, hoping she’ll gradually lay down on her own without it seeming like I’m rushing it. The last thing I want to do is push too fast and blow my chances, but my cock is hardening fast, and I want her. All my previous thoughts and opinions about her fade away as her back rests on the bed and I ease on top of her, our mouths still stuck together.

  When I finally pull back for air, I only pause long enough to take in her swollen lips before I move to her neck. Her skin is hot against my lips, and it too tastes like a fucking dream. Her smell. Her taste. The feel of her body grinding slightly beneath me, her hands resting on my arms. It’s intoxicating.

  I’ve had a lot of sex. I’ve been with plenty of women. But right now, I feel sixteen again, in the backseat of my car, buried in the pussy of the senior who took my virginity. In other words, I’m fucking lost in this.

  My hand moves over her knee, up her thigh, and when it reaches the waistband of her pajama pants, I don’t know if I can make it the time it takes to pull them off and free my cock. She’s writhing beneath me, her skin inflamed. She has to want this as much as I do.

  But as soon as I pull her pajamas down an inch her eyes fly open.

  “Wait,” she says, gripping my wrist. She’s breathing heavy, but she’s coming down from the cloud we were both just on, and I want to whine like a teenage girl because of it. She doesn’t need to say anymore words. I see the certainty in her eyes and already recognize this isn’t about to happen.

  “You okay?” I ask, moving my hands up her sides. My cock is straining painfully against my jeans, and I summon all my strength to ignore it.

  “Yeah.” She nods and removes her hands from my arms, resting them at her sides and simultaneously brushing off my own hands. I rest them on either side of her. “Sorry, I just… don’t want to rush things.”

  I nod and roll off her, sitting up on the bed. She follows my lead and adjusts her pants. It’s awkward for a minute. She manages not to make eye contact with me, and I manage not to give in and adjust my painful hard-on.