I tried to come up with retort that might change his mind, but he had me stricken speechless. After everything that happened, after what we did in the woods, this reaction totally blindsided me and slapped me across the jaw. I couldn’t even breathe. Gargoyles scampered up my throat, and I didn’t want to cry in front of him, not like this. I flung the door further open, straining it against the hinges. “Asshole,” I choked out. My pout quivered. I slammed the door and stormed off, fists clenched, in the direction of my house.
He tore down the street, kissing me off with a shower of grit.
He left me. Again. What the hell! Both steamed and crushed, I burst into tears. I didn’t just imagine that. He whispered that I was certainly HIS, like five minutes ago. He said that! And he kissed me, again and again, yanked me back in for more. He fingered me, ate me out and practically fucked me. He wants me, I know it. So why was he pushing me away?
I bowled over, hobbled to behind of some frat house and crumbled to the grass. I felt so stupid and spineless, to be falling apart over a guy I didn’t even know, but I’d been on a quest for years to find a guy who’d get me and not judge me for my twisted desires. The thought of joining the BDSM club on campus and ending up with a Dom who’d force me to crawl around on a leash like a puppy everywhere or lie on a bed of spikes made my skin crawl and stomach ache. They were way too extreme for me. Since I never had anyone in my life caring about me or showing me glimpses of what my potential could be, my self-vision was stunted. I just knew a better me had to be in there somewhere, a me that I felt could only be found through submission, with the guidance of a caring Dom. With training, submissives end up the most selfless, appreciated and sexually in-touch people in the entire world. It takes a lot of self-imposed and delivered discipline to completely surrender to someone else’s hands and mind. To bow like that is entirely gutsy, sexy, strong and beautiful. I wanted to be like that. And I needed and craved a hammer to break through my walls and defenses and some glue to fix any real brokenness that might be unearthed. I did not need a shredded back or needles shoved up my toenails. I know what I need, and Logan does too. He’s my hammer and glue. And I don’t care what I have to do, I will make him see that. I don’t even care what the fem-Nazis on campus have to say about that either! It is much weaker to not admit what you need than to live a lie and pretend like you’re strong and invincible. That is fake and the wimpiest thing ever. Yes, I need a man ... to correct me and love me and reshape me and lord over me … so that I can discover a more amazing ME.
I need that man. I need Logan.
When I pulled myself together and my involuntary sobs found a less frantic rhythm, I stood and wiped my face. I suddenly realized I didn’t have my costume pieces, which might make Brianna suspicious. I walked around the corner and down the street. No indoor lights were on. Maybe I was in the clear. No such luck. As soon as I walked through the door into the dark house, someone grabbed my arm. She did. I knew it was Brianna, and not Gloria, our lax and often tipsy house mother, even before she spat out, “Where the hell have you been?”
I hugged her and started crying. “Ohmygosh, Brie. It was awful. Some stupid goon from the mansion was right on my heels and everyone took off. They left me. With all the running every which way to evade him, I got disoriented and lost. I hid out for a while and couldn’t figure out this way from that. I couldn’t see lights, until about fifteen minutes ago and I worked my way out, in these stupid shoes. I’m so glad to be home.”
“Wow. It sounds like a dreadful night. I am really disappointed in you though. You need to be much more conscious of time and more creative about evasion. You are my favorite pledge, and I hope to be your big sister. Don’t make me have doubts about you. Melissa was ousted tonight.”
“Noooo. What? Why?” A rock dropped into my chest. Now, I was stuck alone with a bible-reading Christian and a chick with smelly feet?
She turned away and I followed her into the sitting room, curious for the story. “She didn’t do it. She hid in the woods and waited for the others to catch up. You didn’t notice? That kind of behavior will not be tolerated. No chicken-shit wimp is gonna be a Goddess in this house. Do you understand?”
I nodded and warmed my fingers over the crackling fire. Yes, definitely, I understood perfectly. I knew what that meant. Someone ratted her out.
“The others insisted you threw the most eggs, which is great, but I’m pissed it took you so long to get back here. The whole time, I was worried that—” she trailed off and didn’t finished.
I spun to face her, my lips pursed, eyes glaring. “Worried, what, Brianna?”
“That you got tangled up in something bad. The guy who lives there, you shouldn’t go anywhere near him. He’s bad news.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s that pretentious idiot, Logan or something, right? I recognized his last name on the gate. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.”
“Good! That’s good to hear. You had me worried and kept me up way past midnight. I’m missing beauty rest and my nails are trashed now. Look.” She flashed me her hand, but her nails looked fine to me. “It’s after 1! A little late I could see, but this is ridiculous. You were lost in the woods for hours? It’s a freaking couple miles away, not like a whole county. So that is a pitiful excuse, if not an outright lie. You cannot be this late again. Do you hear me?”
Clearly.
“I think you could use some … encouragement to brush up on your sense of time and space and to keep an honest tongue, don’t you? I have a test tomorrow. I am not at all happy you kept me up, stricken with fright.”
By encouragement, I hoped she wasn’t talking about the paddle. If she turns on the lights, lifts up my skirt, pulls down my panties, she’ll know I lied. I hadn’t been paddled yet by her or the other sisters but I’d witnessed it plenty and they usually went for bare. My lungs froze up. “Encouragement. Like pushups?”
She shook her head. I gulped when she lifted the plank of wood off the purple leather couch and twirled it like a screwdriver with one hand against her palm. “I really don’t think pushups will do it, I’m afraid.”
I cringed and clutched my bottom. “Can’t we wait until morning?”
“Do you really want this display in front of the entire Sisterhood? I suppose we could, but a quick and easy ten, and you’re done. If you make me wait for tomorrow, I may be even more furious and deliver untold more.”
Easy? Yeah, maybe if I hadn’t already been trashed three different ways tonight. Did she know? There was no way she could, right? “No, I guess not. Go ahead. What do you want me to do?”
“Bend over the arm of the couch.”
I followed her direction and tears pricked my eyes. I wished more than anything it was Logan I was bending over for. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get the chance again, and the thought of that broke my heart. I felt so pathetic. I should not be hung up on a guy I just met, but guys like him were so rare.
She flipped up my skirt but kept my panties in place, thank god. I’d never be able to explain why they were so wet, but a marked up ass would quickly rat me out. I pressed my face into the seat and winced at each blow as she began smacking away. The paddle came into my sit spot, again and again, with a crash. I started blubbering at the fourth one. I cried because it didn’t hurt nearly enough. At the seventh spank, I was sobbing. She was not holding back, and after my night of spanks galore from Logan, this should’ve been hurting like hell. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Fuck that cream or the cold air or time, whatever! Her smacks stung, but the lack of gut-wrenching pain meant that the warm, red surface Logan had wonderfully painted across my backside was gone. Except for one line where the edge of a belt had cut in on my left cheek, that she was now bringing to attention with each smash of the paddle, the evidence that he cared for me and got my twisted nature was gone! And she was polluting my ass with her smacks of nothing.
When it was over, she helped me up and hugged me. She thought she’d taught me a good lesson
. She whispered words to sooth in my ear, but I seethed. Whatever. I’m not crying over that crazy-ass spank, bitch.
“Goodnight, Addison,” she said sweetly, drawing a stark contrast to the heartless way Logan had said it. But I knew this girl would not hesitate to slit my throat and make my life hell if she found out what I did behind her back with an off-limits guy. That’s what made her so deplorable: her delicate, easily tripped switch. She could be nicer than an angel at times and more evil than Satan at others. I hope to hell someone else claims me as a little sister, if I actually made it to the initiation ball upon returning from Christmas break.
Sniffling and rubbing my bottom for a good show, I rushed to my room, which was now one girl shy. Poor Melissa. Poor ME.
Even in the faint kiss of moonlight, the vacancy smacked me hard. The stripped-down bed and gouging hole in the closet screamed of the fragility of my place here. The twelve of us who’d been voted in to trial and pledge our loyalty, well, nine now, were crammed together in the three first floor bedrooms. I think these were technically servant’s quarters, back when this was the founder’s home. Whiffs of chlorine from the indoor pool constantly plagued us, as well as nightly cantatas from the washer-dryer choir. Luxury two-person suites on the second floor awaited those of us who actually made it into the Sisterhood. I yearned for a suite, with a nice sitting area, where I could curl up on a settee and read all the trashy eBooks I desired. In the library or the parlor, I was always looking up or over my shoulder and couldn’t slide my hand into my pajamas for the best parts. I wouldn’t make the same mistake as Melissa, Jordyn and Tierra, who were now banished to way-old dorms or the Polly-Anna greeks that still had openings this late in the year because no one wanted to join.
No, I would take and do whatever I had to to get my pin and my sister status and my stinking suite upstairs. Maybe Logan ditching me was a blessing. It would’ve forced me to choose. I couldn’t defy Brianna, I couldn’t.
But, dammit, I had no clue how I was going to keep myself away from him. I wasn’t the same girl I was at 10 o’clock. Not in the least. The dirtiest things were bubbling out of my mind, and the blood rushing through my veins was spiked with lust and desire. Pretty convenient that it was Halloween because I felt like a vampire, dead to an old self of yesterday and reborn in a different, better flesh. And my new thirst was fierce and strong and unquenchable.
Already dressed for bed in my babydoll, I leapt onto my mattress and slid under my covers, tugging them up to my chin. Need roared in my mind, a need to lay at his feet. He doesn’t want me. Forget about it. I said it over and over in my mind, trying to remind myself of its futility, to embrace that as some bitter pill of truth. Fuck it! I just didn’t care what he said. It wasn’t true. He could insist ’til he’s blue in the face or scream it from every mountaintop in the world, and I still wouldn’t believe it. That is not what he truly wants. I felt his kisses. I know. He didn’t just kiss me, I’ve been kissed plenty. Logan Thorndike drove his talons into my soul and embedded his imprint. He claimed me. And so, I know exactly what he wants. Me. As his.
I slid my hand down and stopped at my sex, cupping it. I recalled Logan’s touch driving ruthlessly into me until I ran hot all over his hand. I imagined his hard cock ramming deep inside me as he whispered naughty things in my ear in the darkness. I finally dove under the lace to access my throbbing lips, and I drew dozens of circles on my clit, rough, then soft, rough, then soft. I knew what would get me off the fastest. Logan was now giving my bare bottom licks with a belt as I bent over a log in broad daylight, and his shouts of my badness echoed across a valley, aahhh. I’d foolishly, foolishly forgotten to pack snacks for an all-day hike. He ordered me to straddle the log and lie across it. I obeyed my scorching hot Sir, trying not to lose the jeans gathered around my boots because he wanted them right there. Rough bark poked into my naked cunt and thighs, even more so when I squirmed at each strike of leather. He belted me ten times and shifted position and stood at my head. The unfolded belt whistled through the air before slapping down on the sensitive underside and my spread-open crack. He did again and again until I exploded in ecstasy.
While listening to the steady, even exhales of my two remaining roommates, I arched my back and clapped my hand over my entrance when my walls started convulsing. No one but you will see me come. It’s yours, it’s yours … because you said so. My breaths ripped out of me, and my pussy mouthed and moistened my fingers. The grin of a demon blossomed on my lips. I was bad, coming like a dirty slut, right in the same room while my roommates slept. I panted softly as my body unwound.
Ah, Logan. As I was blanketed in relaxation, his word “bad”, in that deep, sexy voice, poured over me like warm honey. I turned onto my stomach and shivered as I palmed my butt cheeks. Bad ... bad … bad … You, Addison … are bad. Mmm, yes, I am! I need you. And you need me. The deep longing for him—his hands, his lips, his body, his orders—coursed through me so strongly it hurt. I knew this would happen. Didn’t I say that? Logan woke up this inner, sexy beast. Logan did. He may try to deny it or suppress it, but he knows the truth too.
Just as I am his … he is mine.
And I intend to take ... to seduce … to worship … that which is mine.
SORORITY PLEDGE 2:
Bad Girl on the Rise
CHAPTER 1
Climbing the stairs to a sexual precipice, I was smacked by a twinge of guilt, but I didn’t know why. Despite the dirty notes I’d tucked into Logan’s backpack when he’d been animatedly engaged in football chat with other dudes and all the creative reasons I’d constructed to bend at the waist in short skirts around him, that idiot hadn’t given me so much as a wink since he’d torn me out of my chrysalis ten days ago. As he said, “You and I were never a THIS.” Right. We were never a THIS. So why did I feel like I was kinda sorta cheating on him? I wasn’t. We were nothing! Absolutely nothing. He spanked me and kissed me and, yeah, made me juice up and spill like a pomegranate, and that’s it. He clearly wanted nothing to do with me. I needed to forget him. I did. Somehow. Screw you, Logan.
Once my roommate, Shayna, and I reached the top of the stoop, I straightened my white feathered mask and fluffed my sparkly, layered skirt and dangling snow crystals.
Music, laughter and screams of agony throbbed and thumped on the other side of the off-campus, mansion door. Were we really doing this? I don’t know about Miss Prim-and-Proper here, but I had to. Not only did I want to knock off the two weeks of hazing in December we were promised as a prize for crossing this threshold, I was also pretty starving and pissed from the dozens of dismissals from Logan Thorndike. He was such a jerk. A jerk whose deep, sexy voice and scorching gaze haunted me every waking minute of the day. And many sleeping minutes too, honestly. I wanted to be taking orders from him. I wanted him grabbing fistfuls of my hair while he pummeled me from behind with all the force he could muster. I wanted to call him Sir, my Sir. I wanted to scream it, in pleasure and pain, and to know the heights he could bring me to, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. I needed to shut him up and kick him out of my head. At this Close-to-Sex party, some touchy-feely action would be coming my way. Lots of it. Perversion diversion. Perfect. I can do this. Just don’t come. Don’t come. Get hot. That’s it. After my torturous week and a half, I deserved some fun and heat, dammit! I buzzed with excitement and anticipation at the unknown possibilities here in this den of debauchery.
I clutched Shayna’s hand as she hesitated at the door. “Again, I’m going to stress, you don’t have to do this. You look like you’re gonna puke.” I was about to say that the best part about this whole thing was that no one except button-lipped DeGas, or maybe close friends, could ever be certain we were here, but a one-over told me that it wasn’t true in her case. While I beheld at least some shred of mystery as a snow queen with my platinum blond wig of ringlets and half my face covered with a bird mask, she looked like … Shayna.
Bead necklaces and sunglasses aside, not only was she not in any real cos
tume, she’d done nothing to disguise herself at all. For these types of things, not all disguises worked that was true, but you had to at least try to be anonymous and put in an effort. She did not at all. She was a string bean of hot pink. The ankle-skimming skirt and plain-Jane hair would give her away in an instant to anyone who knew her.
The blond locks of her perfect bob swayed as a single unit when she shook her head. “It’s just ... God’ll hate me, Addison.”
This poor, sad-sack Christian was so, so out of her element. I couldn’t believe she came. I felt torn between not wanting to do this alone due to fear of the unknown and wanting to be free of her leech hold so I could explore a place that sang to my soul without her judgmental attitude and sneers getting chucked in my face. “Huh, well, God surely already hates me, but I’m not worried about that. The only deities I’m hoping to impress are the ones in Delta Gamma Manor. If you’re gonna feel guilty about this, which I know you will, then just bolt. I won’t even tell Brianna you were here.”
She sighed but didn’t reply.
I think she wanted to be here, desperately, to get off maybe or to peek around out of curiosity, but she needed to feel like she had to be here, like her arm was being twisted or something, in order to be free of guilt. No way was I giving her that nugget of sugar though because it simply wasn’t true. She could turn around at any time. Suck it up, Shay, or leave. Forget you. I’m goin’ in.
I opened the door to decadent opulence and felt her come in behind me. She was hanging in there.
Swaying colored lights lit up an otherwise darkened foyer and great room. It was very low-lit and surprisingly not smoky. I expected to be choking on it or smelling pot at least. Nope. Sweat and perfume were the only scents wrestling for prominence, and so far, sweat was winning. Though it wasn’t stuffy-hot temp-wise, the bits of activity I saw beyond the massive arch opening up to the great room made the home sizzle. Desire had conjured a heaviness in this domain of pain, and it slicked my neck and whispered delightfully kinky things in my ear. I was home.
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