by C. Morgan
“It was perfect.” My hand slid across to table to cover hers. I hadn’t meant to do it, but shit like this kept happening to me. Instead of withdrawing it immediately, I rolled with it and left it there when she didn’t pull away either.
Her expressive brown eyes crinkled at the corners when she glanced down at our joined hands. Then a soft smile touched her lips. “So, what are your plans for the weekend?”
“That’s actually why I wanted to see you this morning,” I said, holding her gaze as I used my free hand to fish my phone out of my pocket. “There’s a party at the house tonight. It’s a color party. Want to come with me?”
“A color party?” She frowned. “Like colors are the theme? How does that work?”
Tapping on the screen of my phone to wake it up, I keyed in my passcode and navigated to an app, then set the phone down and showed it to her. “You get assigned a color by a wheel on the app. Whatever color you get, you have to wear it and only it.”
Hadley giggled but then shrugged and pulled the phone closer to her. “Sounds like fun. What do I do?”
“Just press the button at the bottom and get your color.” My gaze dropped to the screen as she did what I asked. I watched as the wheel started spinning, ending on green. “I’ll see you at the house at seven wearing all green, then.”
Her brows rose. “All green, huh? That’s going to be a challenge, but I’m sure I can swing it.”
“I’m sure you can.” I got up and swiped the coffee she’d gotten me from the table. “I’ve got to go invite some more people.”
“Right,” she said but shook off the first traces of disappointment that had been starting to show on her features. “Want to get something to eat first?”
“I grabbed something back at the house,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight, Haddie.”
She smiled. “See you tonight, Dax.”
The cafeteria had filled up a bit since I’d walked in, but I could almost feel her eyes on my back while I left. As a legacy, there were a lot of the things pledges were usually required to do that I’d been exempted from, but getting people to this party and assigning their colors wasn’t one of those things.
It was even a pretty fun task to have been given, but as I strode away from Hadley, I kind of wished I didn’t have to do it. I had another assignment I could’ve talked to her about, but as much as I told myself that was the only reason I’d have liked to stay with her for a few more minutes, I couldn’t.
Lines were getting blurred in my head. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t been able to stay with her. Perhaps it was even time to broaden my horizons and put some effort into getting to know some of the other girls vying for my attention.
With that thought in mind, I squared my shoulders, pasted a smirk on my lips, and approached a group of sorority girls hanging out in the hallway. They all accepted my invitation, got excited about the colors they landed on, and flirted a little before I excused myself.
I flirted back, letting them run their hands all over me and smiling at all the right times, but I couldn’t say that my heart was in it. Fuck. I need to get this thing with Hadley over with.
It was starting to mess with my head, but I couldn’t just let it go. I had to stay the course and make her pay. I’d heard revenge often didn’t make people feel any better, but if it was true, then it was lesson I was going to have to learn for myself.
What she’d done couldn’t just go unpunished. It wasn’t right.
For the rest of the day, I focused on inviting as many people as I could to the party and put Hadley out of my head. I was sticking to the plan, and that was that.
Back at the house after classes were done, I found the guys who’d finished earlier already busy setting up for the party. Callum was standing on a ladder, fixing a string of multicolored balloons above an archway.
He grinned when he saw me. “Ah. A freshman. Go out back and help Ryker with the bar, will you?”
I gave him a two-fingered salute and went to drop my backpack in my room before meeting Ryker in the garden. He was heaving a keg out of a truck parked outside the back gate.
“I hope you invited half the campus,” he called in greeting, wiping sweat off his brow with his forearm. “Finn ordered enough booze to last the entire student population for a month.”
“You’d be surprised,” Finn’s voice replied from the other side of the truck. He ducked out from behind the open doors with a crate of bottles in his arms. “We’ll return whatever we don’t drink, but it won’t be as much as you think. Get in here, Breyer. We need all hands on deck to get this done before people start arriving.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” I walked around them and jumped right in.
The rest of the afternoon passed by fast. If this was the setup, I didn’t even want to think about the clean-up tomorrow morning, but maybe if I slept late enough, I’d miss the truly awful parts of it.
Thomas and Colt carried couches out onto the lawn while the brothers inside transformed the place into a mess of color. Ryker and I set up the bar outside and several inside, making sure to stash spares of everything nearby.
Cups were stacked high on all the tables. There were game areas with beer pong, foosball, and our pool table readied, and Finn had the foresight to leave large trashcans in every room.
He shrugged when he saw me looking at him. “A lot of people won’t use them, but it’ll make it easier in the morning.”
Beer kegs and giant bowls of spiked punch decorated the countertops. There were snacks set out all over the place, and some of the guys were setting up flip cup in the game area along with the rest of it.
It all came together pretty damn well in the end. My mind finally started drifting while we were busy doing the final checks.
Hadley crept back into my head when I wasn’t paying attention, and when I caught myself thinking about her, I realized I was looking forward to seeing her. I was also curious to see how she would dress up.
I tried to shake the thoughts about her again, but she was clinging to the inside of my brain like a fucking parasite. Even after the setup was done and while I was getting showered and dressed, I kept imagining her in green and wondered if she’d wear green underwear too.
Those thoughts started running away with me as images of her stripping to reveal lacy green panties flooded my mind. I shook my head and scrubbed my hands over my face. Get your head in the fucking game, Breyer. It’s not supposed to go that far again.
Sounds of the party getting underway eventually drifted into my room, and despite my better intentions, I straightened up a little before I left. If Hadley and I ended up in here, I didn’t want her to be grossed out by laundry on the floor or crumpled bed sheets.
Determined not to examine my motives for really cleaning up, I did what I could and then went out to join the rest of the guys. The party got into full swing pretty darn fast, and while I was friendly to everyone, I was distracted.
I kept my eyes peeled for Hadley and stuck close to the front door. Crowds of people swarmed around it, but when she finally appeared, I sucked in a deep breath.
Hot damn. She looked fucking amazing, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Despite the scores of people around, she turned a lot of guys’ heads in the tight shimmering green dress she wore.
I’d never really thought about it, but green was a damn good color on her with her dark features and tanned skin. Her hair had been taken up into a high ponytail on top of her head, and her makeup was heavier and shinier than usual.
The dress hit mid-thigh and was skintight, accentuating every curve of her body. My mouth dried up as I watched her, my feet momentarily glued to the spot.
I was spurred into action when I noticed a couple of my brothers approaching her. Obviously, they didn’t know that she was my Haddie.
She was laughing when I got to them but looked relieved to see me as I came to stand next to her. “There you are. I was wondering when you were going to show up.”
I slid
my arm around her waist, knowing it was a possessive move I shouldn’t have been making but doing it anyway. She smiled up at me, edging closer to my side as she rested her hand gently on my hip. “Sorry I’m late. I had to borrow a dress from Ruby and she wouldn’t let me go until she’d done my makeup too.”
“I’m just glad you made it,” I said, surprising even myself by how true it was. “Let’s get you a drink. Then I’ll give you a tour of the house?”
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing it,” she said, glancing at my brothers who were silently staring at us when they realized that she was with me. “Thanks for welcoming me, guys. I think Dax has got it from here.”
“You’re damn right I do,” I muttered under my breath, giving each of them a pointed look that said back the fuck off before leading her away. For now, she was mine. And I wasn’t going to let anyone take her away from me before I was ready to let her go.
Chapter 20
HADLEY
“This party is crazy,” I said as I followed Daxton through the house. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that he was by my side, holding me close with his arm around my middle, I was pretty sure I’d have bolted by now. The sheer number of people in every room was overwhelming, the music was so loud that it was threatening to take control of my heartbeat, and I’d never seen so much alcohol in one place.
Everyone else seemed to be having a ball, and I could see why since so much effort had been put into the decorations, games, and food, but it was all a bit much for me. It was also my first frat party, though. Maybe I would become accustomed to it if I just gave it a chance.
Dax dipped his head down to speak into my ear so I’d be able to hear him above the music. “It’s pretty epic, right? We don’t host as many parties as some of the others, but the ones we do host are always the best.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
He pulled away from me slightly, eyes widening. “You haven’t been to any parties since you’ve been here?”
I shook my head, averting my gaze to sweep it across all the action going on in the room. “This is the first one I got invited to.”
He waited me out, smiling when I finally looked back at him. “Let me show you around. We can play a game or two. Maybe that’ll help you relax.”
“It’s worth a try,” I agreed, falling into step with him again as he led to me a counter with a keg of beer and punch of some kind on it. I opted for a beer, figuring it was safer to drink something from a sealed keg instead of an open punch bowl, but then I wondered if I even needed to be worried.
From what I knew, Dax’s frat was filled with lots of popular guys, but they were also supposed to be the good ones. They were the top scorers academically, the best athletes, and all had reputations worth preserving.
I doubted any of them would tolerate someone spiking the punch with anything other than alcohol, but I decided to play it safe anyway. They weren’t the only people around, after all.
Accepting the red cup Dax handed me, I kept it close to my chest and stuck to his side when we started moving through the party again. To his credit, now that he knew I wasn’t experienced at this, he was a great host.
He introduced me to some of his brothers, showed me how to play the drinking games others seemed to be enjoying the heck out of, and was even happy to just stand in quieter corners talking to me. After about an hour, I’d relaxed a little but the whole scene was still massively overwhelming.
Eventually, I pushed softly at his chest and inclined my head to where a beer pong game seemed to be getting out of control. “You don’t have to babysit me all night, you know? I’ll be fine if you want to go join the world series going on over there.”
He laughed, glancing in the direction I was pointing before bringing those bright blue eyes back to mine. “I’m all good, but thanks. There are some very competitive people around here. How do you think they’ll feel if I swoop in at the last minute and kick all their asses?”
“How very considerate of you.” I smiled, resting my head back against the wall we were standing next to. “I just can’t help but feel like I’m ruining the party for you. Maybe I should’ve started smaller. I didn’t even party much back at school, and the ones I have been to have been nothing like this.”
“You’re not ruining my night, Haddie,” he said softly, reaching up to run his fingertips over my cheek. “You being here is making it actually. How about we take a break for a while? We could go up to my room and have some one-on-one time until you’re ready to come back.”
“Go to your room, huh?” I teased, toying with the hem of his shirt as I considered it. “Is that what people are calling it these days?”
He dropped his head closer to mine, giving me a secretive wink before pulling back. “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. We could go for a walk, too.”
“No,” I said after hesitating for a second. “I’d like to see what rooms in this place look like. I’ve heard so many stories and watched so many movies with frat houses in them. I’m curious to see how reality stacks up.”
“Well, I don’t have food in my room that’s gone green, so that’s a good start, right?” he said jokingly, then lowered his hand to take mine. “Come on. I’m curious to see what you’ll think about how reality stacks up now too.”
As he led me to his room, I marveled at the surprising majesty of his house. It seemed to ooze history even if it smelled like booze. It made me itch to ask a hundred questions about it, but I held my tongue and stuck to admiring the pictures of classes that’d come before, the trophies, and the architecture instead.
When we made it up a sweeping staircase and Dax swung open a door down the corridor on the right, I peeked past him before preceding him in. My brows shot up as I looked around.
“Your single is bigger than my double,” I said, jaw slackening as I took in the hardwood floors, the view over the fiery treetops outside, and the high ceilings. “It’s amazing. I love my roommate, but maybe I should’ve considered Greek life.”
He stepped in after me and closed the door, leaning back against it as his gaze joined mine in sweeping across the room. “I don’t know. I have some pretty fond memories of your room already.”
I flinched when I looked at his bed. “I bet you’ve already got fond memories in here as well.”
The bed was certainly big enough to have made some very interesting memories. Even though it was made up, I wondered when the last time had been that he’d washed those sheets.
Not wanting to get hung up on it, I checked out the rest of the place. The furniture was all dark wood and masculine. There was an area rug between his bed and the wardrobe, and a giant desk underneath the window. Thick maroon drapes secured his privacy from prying eyes outside, and there was a sofa with a desktop computer monitor on the coffee table in front of it.
A pair of strong arms suddenly wound around me from behind, jerking me right up against his chest as his lips brushed against my ear when he spoke. “I haven’t actually made any memories in here yet. I meant it when I said that wasn’t why I invited you up here, but if you want to, you could always help me change that.”
I turned slowly in the circle of his arms, looping my own around his neck and threading my fingers into the soft hairs at his nape. His eyes were fixed on mine at first but then slowly dropped to my mouth before he lifted them again.
“I might be convinced to help you with that,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I gazed into the deep blue of his irises. “If you promise that I’m not going to be met by a row of your brothers lined up outside your door to cheer for you after.”
He chuckled softly, tightening his hold on me as he stroked up and down my back. “I think some of those movies you’ve been watching have given you the wrong idea. Trust me. We don’t have any of those kinds of traditions here, and even if we did, I’d never have let them do it t
o you.”
“You know what?” I said as I pushed myself up on my tiptoes. “I think I do trust you.”
“Good to know,” he whispered.
Something dark seemed to flash in his eyes, but it was gone when he blinked. The next moment, his lips were on mine and I forgot to even wonder what thought he could’ve had before he’d blinked it away.
His kisses were as firm and demanding as they’d been in my room the other night, but since he didn’t have a roommate who could come back and knock at any time, it didn’t feel quite as rushed. For a long time, we just stood there kissing. Our hands roamed each other’s backs and sides, fingertips exploring the more innocent parts of each other’s bodies.
I felt his erection growing against my stomach, my own need growing right along with it. But neither of us sped up the pace.
When he did eventually start walking me back to his bed, he was rock hard and I was pretty sure my panties were soaked through again. Earlier today, I’d gone to a discount store in town and had found a matching set of lime green underwear.
Hoping he wouldn’t think I’d gone too far, I opened my eyes when his fingers found my zipper on the side of my dress. He frowned when he realized my eyes were open, then cocked his head at me.
“You okay?” he asked in a rough, husky voice.
I nodded, swallowing past a sudden dry spot in my throat. “Yep. I’m just wondering what you’re going to think when you take my dress off.”
The frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
“I think you should just look.” I took a step back, my knees hitting his mattress as I reached for the zipper myself. I dragged it down fast, pulling the sleeves from my shoulders and stepping out of the dress once it fell to the floor.
Only then did I look at him again.
While there was definite humor in his gaze, he was also looking at me like he wanted to eat me. Which, considering how great he was at that particular act, I was hoping would come true.