by Paige North
“I thought we could grab dinner, then go out?” Chandler asks when I climb into his car.
“Sure,” I say, forcing a smile. Go “out” means to a bar, which isn’t at all my scene, but whatever. Out means I’m not in the dorms, listening for Gabe to come back.
Chandler makes small talk as we drive along. He’s on fall break from his school, which is on a quarter system.
“What’s the paper you’ve been working on about?” he asks. (I’ve been avoiding his texts and cited a big paper as the reason, which isn’t a total, complete lie.)
“It’s about solving a PR crisis. The theory is you can do it three ways— release something about your client that’s better, release something that’s worse, or release something that’s both,” I explain.
“Both? How would that help?” Chandler asks as we pull up to a small Chinese restaurant. (My pick— if I have to go on a date I’m not interested in, the least I can do is get chicken fried rice out of it).
I answer, “It’s the idea of steering into the skid, basically. So, let’s say you’re Rayann Miller’s publicist. You know, the pop star? She’s all crazy and outspoken and weird these days. But rather than trying to prove she isn’t weird, you release something better: her using that weirdness as a platform for self-expression, and worse: her performance at the MTV awards, the one where she twerked and pulled that guy’s pants down on stage. So, now her weirdness is seen as a good thing, and it’s been done so publicly that it’s no longer remarkable.”
Chandler is staring at me across the top of the car, then frowns. “Or, maybe avoid the whole thing by not letting her act crazy in the first place.”
“Well, she’s an adult. You can’t really stop her,” I say.
“Hell yeah you can. Lock her in the dressing room,” he says with a laugh.
“Never mind,” I answer, annoyed.
We head into the restaurant. It’s nothing fancy, but they really do have the best Chinese food in town, and are usually nearly empty since they’re really more of a take-out or UberEats kind of place. Plus, they’ve got a dartboard.
After we’ve ordered, I point the darts out to Chandler. I smile at him pleasantly. “Want to play?”
“Sure,” Chandler says, and rises, easing the napkin he’d already put in his lap down beside his plate. We walk to the dartboard, which is in the back of the restaurant, keeping the scant handful of other patrons safe from flying objects. There’s a little cheap silver tray of darts nearby, along with a half dozen signs around that say things like DO NOT THROW DARTS AT PEOPLE and NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR INJURIES and, my favorite, IT IS NOT ADVISED TO THROW DARTS AFTER ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION.
Chandler picks up a dart, and I do the same.
I wave him away and then throw it, hard. It sticks into the board in one of the outside circles. Not bad, but whatever. The point is throwing darts, not being good at it.
“Nice! Let’s see how I do,” Chandler says. He weighs the dart in his hand, then trades it out for another. Then he pulls his arm back and does a few fake throws. His face is serious when he finally chucks it at the board. It misses entirely, sinking deep into the drywall. From the various marks and chips in the paint, it’s clear Chandler wasn’t the first to miss the board by a mile.
“What the hell?” Chandler says, shaking his head. He frowns, then picks up another dart and again weighs it carefully. He throws it, and it sticks into the board, a few rings outside my dart. He looks at me and shakes his head, like this is ludicrous. “These darts are weighted weird.”
“It’s just a game,” I say lightly.
“Yeah, but if they’re going to have darts they should at least have decent ones, you know?” Chandler complains.
I shrug, pick up another dart and throw it. It lands even closer to center. Chandler laughs, but there’s an edge to it now. He walks to the board, plucks the dart I just threw from it, and sets himself back up at the throwing line. He fastballs it at the board, and it sticks relatively close to where it’d been when I threw it.
“Oh, yeah. See, you happened to grab two really well balanced ones,” Chandler says, nodding like he’s cracked a case.
“Guess so,” I answer, forcing a smile. I can’t believe Chandler Harrison has managed to make throwing darts unfun, but he has— and I’m not interested in trying to pad his ego when he inevitably keeps missing.
I tell him I think our food is coming soon, and we go back to the table. My disinterest in this date is basically at max, at this point, but I happen to know guys like Chandler love talking about politics, so I guide him into a conversation about trade policy then dig into my chicken fried rice, able to ignore most of the conversation. When dinner is over, I expect him to drive me back to the dorms. It’s only after we’re in the car and he heads toward a different part of town that I remember I said we could go out afterward.
“Hey, Chandler? I hate to do this but I’ve sort of got a headache. Can we rain check on going out? I don’t think I can do bar noise tonight,” I say, rubbing my temple pathetically.
Chandler looks alarmed, then frowns. “Really? You don’t want to take an Advil or something? I thought we’d go to the Manhattan. I saw how into the football game you got and figured you might like to go to a bar where so many of the players hang out.”
I grimace. “I really don’t think so.” I really, really don’t think so. What if Gabe is there? Hard pass, thanks. Chandler relents, but as we drive by the Manhattan on our loop back to the dorms, I can’t help be scan the already respectable crowd on the patio for Gabe’s form. I see plenty of football players there, hulking and wide and tall, but none with bar tattoos. I turn my head back to the road—
Gabe’s eyes collide with mine, hard and wide and demanding. I gasp.
“Holy shit, dude, stay out of the street,” Chandler snaps. Gabe was jaywalking right in front of Chandler’s car, leaving my date to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting him. Gabe waved to Chandler apologetically for a beat, but then his eyes fell on me, and now I can’t move, can’t budge, can’t speak—
“Isn’t that the player who’s in your dorm or something?” Chandler ask as Gabe stiffly finishes crossing the street, his eyes on me the whole time.
“Yeah,” I finally say in a near whisper.
“He looks like an ex-con. And I don’t like the way he’s looking at you. What’s the process to get him moved out? Maybe you should do that. I can file a complaint, if you want. Or have one of my dad’s people pull his records— it’s still weird to me how nobody seems to know anything about him,” Chandler says, finally easing to the stop sign and urging us away from Gabe, away from the Manhattan, but not away from that feeling of throaty sickness that’s now overpowering me. I don’t want Gabe to think I like Chandler. I don’t want him to think I chose Chandler. I don’t want Chandler. At all.
“I’m not worried about him. I just need to get home— headache is getting worse,” I say.
Chandler doesn’t say much for the rest of the ride, clearly pouting about our night being cut short. He drops me off at the dorms and I barely take the time to say bye, hopping out of the car and hurrying to the door with my swipe card. I dart upstairs to my bedroom and close the door behind me, forcing slow breaths. There’s nothing to be upset about, I tell myself. You went on the date with Chandler, like you told Dad you would. Gabe saw you, but that was bound to happen eventually. Nothing has changed. Everything is fine.
I open my laptop and blast Netflix cartoons for the next few hours to fill the sense of a growing void all around me, cuddled down in my bed, trying valiantly to think about anything but sex and guys and obligations and Gabe’s hard brown eyes.
My father calls four times, then my mother twice— they’re checking in to see how my all-important date with Chandler went. I ignore them, knowing that if I feed them that excuse about feeling sick, they’ll advise I take some Tylenol and “get back out there”. It’s happened before, with other sons of political alliances.
I must fall as
leep at some point, because when I suddenly snap awake it’s pitch black outside, and my laptop has frozen somewhere in season four of Animaniacs. I blink, yawn—
Someone is knocking on my door.
No, not someone. It’s Gabe. I know it’s Gabe— the knock, the clear strength behind the strike, but also the energy he emits even through the door. He’s not at the front door, this time— he’s banging on the bathroom door we share.
I sink down deeper in my bed, trying to ignore the sound. It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. Is he drunk? Did he just get back from the Manhattan? Is he angry?
I’m not afraid of him, exactly, but rather afraid of the things he might say to me if alcohol removes any sort of filter he possesses. He’ll probably call me out on being with Chandler. On going around with some guy I don’t even like, days after letting him come on my chest. He’ll hassle me for being a spoiled rich girl, and I’ll deserve it, because right now it’s him I want— but it’s also him that I know it would never work with. Not with my father being who he is. Not with my last name.
“Lucy, enough,” Gabe growls through the door.
I take a breath. I can’t ignore him forever. “Go away,” I call. “I’m sleeping.”
“I don’t give a shit. We need to talk,” Gabe answers.
“We don’t.”
“I know what’s going on. With you. Who your dad is and why he acted like I was trash. All that bullshit.”
“You spied on me?” I ask.
“I Googled you,” Gabe says drily. “Open the door, or I’m breaking the lock. I’m over you dodging me.”
I exhale, confident that he’s serious— and very confident that he can break the lock in a matter of seconds, if he wants to. I rise, straighten my clothes, then turn off the glaring overhead fluorescents. I tell myself it’s because it’s one o’clock in the morning, but the truth is, I turn them off because they’re not flattering. Despite all that’s going on, I still want Gabe to think I’m pretty. I still want him to want me.
I cut through the bathroom, listening to the sound of his breathing on the other side of the door for a moment before reaching for the handle. I turn it, cracking the door a tiny amount—an inch or two, at best. Gabe towers above me, his height blocking me from seeing any farther into his room.
God, he is so beautiful. His body is made of granite, his eyes dark and demanding. I remember how his cock felt against my skin, how the ridges of his muscles under my fingertips felt as he made me come. Get it together.
“Gabe, look—my father is going to make both our lives miserable if we—”
Gabe scoffs loud enough to shut me up, then says, “I don’t give a fuck about your father. You think some old politician scares me? I’ve been dealing with guys like him my whole life.”
This strikes me enough that I tilt my head to the side. “Really? How?”
“How have I been dealing with them? By not giving a damn what they think about me.”
I can tell Gabe knows he’s dodging the actual question, but don’t dare call him on it. Not when I can see the flicker in his eyes, the frustration in the way he’s breathing, the tension in his chest.
He places a hand on the door and, without much effort, pushes it open. I don’t put up much of a fight, but still stumble backward at the motion. Gabe takes two steps into the bathroom, coming toward me with a primal sort of intensity that, against my better judgment, makes my core clench and my thighs ache for his demanding touch.
“Gabe—” I manage, but my words are light and heady. He takes another few steps, and now he’s driven me out of the other door, into my own room. He’s never been in here before, but he doesn’t look around.
His eyes remain on mine, full of heat and a confidence that I’m sure I’ve never possessed. He backs me up to the edge of my bed, then closes in. I jump when he pushes a hand between my thighs and, without hesitation massages my pussy. It takes a matter of seconds for my wetness to seep through my panties.
“I care what you think of me, Lucy. And from the feel of it, you think pretty highly of me,” he says, then lowers his mouth to mine. He kisses me hard, but not in the crushing way that would imply he doesn’t know how to do it— in a way that traps me, holds me down with delicate ferocity, steel cages around hummingbirds. If there was any part of me left that intended to resist him, it crumbles immediately.
Gabe slides his hand farther between my legs, until his forearm is against my pussy. He easily scoops me up this way, laying me back on the bed, my hair splayed around my face. He yanks his shirt off, then begins to remove his pants, all the while staring down at me like I’m something to be conquered.
In a matter of seconds, he’s completely naked. I can’t speak. I’ve never seen a man naked before, not entirely, and the fact that I’m clothed makes me feel tiny. His cock is hardening right before my eyes, enormous with excitement.
Gabe stands with such swagger, unashamed to be undressed. Why would he be ashamed? His body is a map of muscles and tattoos and things I long to touch and lick and writhe against. He steps closer to me, and without thinking, I reach for his cock. When my fingers wrap around it, he smiles.
“Are you ready, Lucy?” he asks as I feel him, run my fingers along his shaft, lick my lips at the memory of how he felt in my mouth.
“For what?” I ask in a whisper. He steps forward and, as I begin to pump my hands up and down on his cock, starts to unbutton my pants.
“If I say I’m going to do something, I do it,” he says firmly.
My hands are still on him. My words are hardly audible. “You mean—”
He tugs my pants down, then lowers his head to kiss my clit through my panties. He speaks against my pussy, the brush of his lips making me jump in pleasure.
“I’m going to fuck you, Lucy.”
Chapter 8
As soon as he says that, a bubble of fear rises in my chest and refuses to pop. Gabe’s cock is huge, and I remember how large his fingers felt in me. Plus, I’m not on birth control, and I don’t have anything—
“Shh,” Gabe says, and I’m stunned, because I haven’t said anything at all. He’s quieting my mind, not my mouth.
I take a breath. “It’s just that I don’t—”
“Lucy,” he admonishes me quietly, now tugging my pants off my ankles.
“Gabe, even your fingers felt huge, so I’m not sure I—
“Lucy,” he repeats, then hooks his fingers through my panties and whisks them away. Cool air prickles at my pussy; Gabe reaches forward and strokes my clit for a second, and I erupt into shivers of pleasure. He smiles, then lifts them hem of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head.
“Gabe, I—” I try one last time.
He shakes his head, reaches around my back, and unhooks my bra. Somehow, it isn’t until that’s gone that I truly realize I’ll be naked with him for the first time. My nipples go hard when they hit the air; Gabe tosses my bra across the room, the lowers his mouth to mine again, sliding his hands from my waist to my breasts as he does so.
“Such beautiful tits,” he says. “You liked it when I came on them, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
He leaves my mouth, lowering his lips to my left nipple. I moan when he sucks it into his mouth and rolls his tongue back and forth across it.
“And you liked it when I licked your pussy?” he asks around my breast. I can’t answer anymore, only nod frantically. Gabe, still standing beside the bed at this point, kisses down my body.
My hips lift up in anticipation, but still, the moment his tongue slides along my slit feels wholly unexpected. I cry out and begin to circle my hips around his mouth. Gabe closes his lips around my clit and sucks on it. A rush of heat sweeps through me, and I feel myself grow wetter.
Gabe squeezes my right ass cheek, then slides his fingers to my pussy entrance. He gently eases one in. I cry out in pleasure at being filled by him, and try to force him deeper inside me. Gabe leaves his finger in me, but returns his li
ps to my mouth, kissing me firmly.
“I’m going to fuck you, Lucy. I’m going to slide my big cock into your pussy and take your virginity. And I promise you, baby, you’re going to love it. Trust me.”
I stare at him for a second, unable to speak— how can I speak when he’s still sliding his finger in and out of me? But what I was to say is: I do trust you. I don’t know why, exactly, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I trust him, and I want him, and as scared as I am, I’m also so, so eager to know what it feels like to have his cock inside me.
I finally manage to nod, which must be the consent that Gabe was waiting for; he abandons me and grabs for his pants, reaching into the pocket to remove a purple-wrapped condom. He tears it open, then hands it to me.
“Put it on me,” he instructs, stepping closer, so his cock is within reach.
I take the condom from him, shaky with lust and nerves. I’ve seen it done in enough sex education videos to know how— I take hold of his cock and roll the condom down. It doesn’t even reach the base, he’s so large.
Gabe seems satisfied; he gets onto the bed, pressed against me, though he’s so much larger that I’m still left looking up at him. Gabe’s skin is hot against mine; he’s pressed up against me so that his hard cock is pressing into my hip. He drags his fingers across my body, studying me hungrily. I can tell he’s deciding what he’ll do to me, how he’ll do it— and I adore the fact that for once in my life, I’m not the one making an important decision.
Gabe’s breathing is heavy; he eases two fingers into my pussy and massages me there. I whine as another rush of wetness sweeps through me, heat forcing my eyes to shut, need for his fingers to go deeper, harder, longer.
“You’re so tight, Lucy,” he growls. “I’ll have to be careful. I don’t want to hurt you. But your little pussy will feel so good, it’ll be difficult not to fuck you hard right away.”