Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy)

by Brooke Jaxsen

  Skylar pulled back. “Are...are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Do what, have sex with you?”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been sober for a week...remember?”

  “Here?”

  “Yeah, is that an issue?”

  Skylar laughed. “I just never took you for that type, Emma. The type that would want to have sex under the Hollywood sign, outdoors, on the ground, in the middle of the night, instead of maybe in a sorority house with a frat boy. But you’re sure?”

  “Yes, Skylar, I’m positive!” I said, and I started to unbutton my shirt, but this time, Skylar was the one to stop me with a kiss.

  “Let me...m’lady,” he said, and I laughed. Fuck, he knew how much I hated it when guys did that stuff and he wasn’t about to let me forget. He unbuttoned my shirt with ease and pulled it out of my plain jeans while I slipped off my shoes with ease. One fell down the hill. Crap. I sent the other to join it, because there was no getting them back in the dark. They had been claimed by Cali, Cali Forn-i-a.

  “Wait, you have a condom, right?”

  “Better yet, IUD and test results. Clean.”

  “Great.” Skylar really did trust me. I did get the results and they were clean, but I hadn’t shown him. When exactly is the appropriate time to show off that sort of thing?

  We unbuttoned each other’s clothes. Unlike before, where we’d had the lights in the apartment to help us, we only had the stars and the lights of the city now. This was our own private Eden, a forbidden paradise we were exploring together, a place where there was nobody but us, and everybody was elsewhere, where we could finally be alone, with only each other and our bodies for company and comfort.

  I unbuttoned Skylar’s flannel shirt, so soft from so many washes, with colors that had bled so that the plaid pattern was a mess of black and browns and greys, and I made my way down to his pants while he took his shirt off. I found his member, rock hard, and ready for me to suck.

  I’d wanted to do this since the first time I’d seen him nude. This was his most vulnerable spot, the part he hadn’t had tattooed with anything and probably never would, the only part of Skylar he hadn’t changed. He’d changed so much about himself trying to get away from what his parents had become, but he hadn’t changed this.

  I took him in my mouth and looked up to gauge his reaction and he smiled, closing his eyes, and putting his hand on the back of my head. Usually, with guys, I hated when they did that. It felt patronizing, creepy, but with Skylar, it felt dominant. He didn’t have to have whips and chains and toys to be a dominant man, he had the ability to change a person, and that was just about the most dominant thing one could do to a person.

  His dick was salty but that was to be expected, given the fact he’d been on stage, playing guitar, for over an hour, and probably right after going to the gym. I didn’t care. It tasted like Skylar and that was all that mattered.

  I took tried to take it all down but he stopped me, as if he knew it’d make me gag, as if he knew I couldn’t really take all of it. It was fine. I knew he’d give me another chance to prove myself later, the way he’d helped me prove I could be a better me in the not-so-ancient past.

  “Emma, I need to be in you. Now,” he said, but it wasn’t an order. He was practically begging. I slipped off my jeans and pressed a finger down into me. Thank goodness I was wet, and that the panties and jeans hadn’t wicked away the moisture. I was ready for Skylar’s dick and just hoped he was ready to cum for me this time, seeing as he hadn’t before and I wanted to pleasure him so badly.

  This time, I was the one on top of Skylar, straddling him at the hips, his boxers and jeans barely pushed down because I’d been in such a rush to get him into my mouth, to pleasure him, but even though I was on top, Skylar was still huge beneath me...and inside of me, as I slipped his cock in. I would have never guessed that the reason he couldn’t wear skinny jeans was because his cock was so big, that even soft, it made a huge imprint against boxers that, on a normal man, would have been loose. He was just that well-endowed.

  His cock was already throbbing in my hand as I guided it in, veiny and ready for a release, soon, so I knew I needed to act fast if I wanted to get off too. I knew it was selfish, as I’d already had one more orgasm than he’d had (at one and zero respectively), but I needed a release and Skylar was the only one who could give it to me. Not even my vibrator could rival him in ability to pleasure.

  Skylar put one of his big palms against the small of my back, my pants off all the way but my shirt left off because I didn’t have time to fully unchange, needing Skylar inside of me so desperately. He guided me on and off his cock by moving his hand up and down as if it was a gesture meaning “fuck this way, Emma”, “ride me like this, Emma”, “this is how I want you, Emma”. He didn’t even have to say anything and I knew what he meant, how he wanted me to pleasure him.

  I used one hand to stabilize myself on Skylar’s torso, hoping that as I pressed down on him I wasn’t causing undue pain via pressure, the other to reach around and touch my clit because Skylar was in no state to, supporting me with one hand on the small of my back and the other on my firm ass, squeezing it like a ripe apricot ready to burst with juices.

  I pressed into Skylar, over and over, as if I was stomping grapes with my pussy but trying to get something better than wine out: that elusive substance known as Skylar’s cum. I wondered what it would be like. White or clear, thick or thin, bleachy or salty? I knew it was dirty, to have these thought sbout him, but maybe being clean just made everything else seem so much dirtier in comparison. I never would have thought sobriety could be so intoxicating.

  His hand on my back let me know how he wanted it. Faster, slower, harder, softer, and pleasing him pleased me, making me wetter and even more needing.

  “Are you ready, Emma?” asked Skylar in his low, low voice, the voice I’d only heard come out during sex and when he was on stage, singing. This was his true voice, the voice he hid from the world with one more gentle and tender, instead of this primal voice like that of a half man, half animal, all lover.

  “No, not yet,” I said breathily. I was so close but not quite ready. I needed something to send me over the edge. I needed Skylar.

  “What can I do for you, Emma?” he whispered, not to be quiet but because our breaths had been taken away by our passionate tryst.

  “No, it’s just...I want to cum with you,” I admitted.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,”

  “Then do me a favor?”

  “What is it? Anything,” he pleaded.

  “Count down with me. From ten.”

  “Ten...,” he started, his voice so much deeper and low than mine, than his usual.

  “Nine...” I sad,

  “Eight...” he growled, the way he’d growled that night that he fucked me, that he didn’t make love to me but fucked me like I’d asked, like I was a toy, and he held onto my lower back the same way he had all those nights ago, keeping me steady but then pushing me up so that I knew exactly how he wanted me, exactly how I could bring him closer the precipice of pleasure.

  I gripped onto his shoulder, begging his body for support, support from the imbalances it was causing within me, a tsunami of passion that was going to release but that I needed to stall. “Seven...”

  “Six....” He tried to say it calmly, as if we were at NASA and he was counting off a rocket’s release, and in a way, he was, but this wasn’t Cape Canaveral, this was Los Angeles, and the only there was no rocket, just his dick, no atmosphere, not even air for us to breathe as we gasped with need, just my pussy that he could find relief and comfort in, as if pulling out of me would cause him pain.

  “Five...” I said, pulling in closer to him, needing his body’s warmth even though he’d already made me so hot. I needed to turn into a phoenix, fly away, and then turn to ash, a thousand times over in a thousand milliseconds. I needed to free the birds of passion locked in the cag
es of my loins, but I needed him to make sure he came first, came with me on this journey.

  “Four...”

  “Three...”

  “Two...”

  “One...,” I leaned in to whisper into his ear.

  And then there was the explosion.

  He came inside of me as my pussy started to quiver around him, pulling the cum up into me.

  This was bigger than me. It was bigger than Skylar. It was bigger than the both of us and went deeper, too, rocking us not just to our cores, but to the cores of the universe, for in that moment, we were the universe. We were all of the past, all of the future, locked into this moment of the present. It was like a moment frozen in time, no, a moment looping in time, like a .gif or a Vine on loop, and it was deafening, as if somebody had pumped up the bass and increased the volume to a point where it was almost painful, but so painful that it transcended that state and became pleasure, so that it became the ultimate point of human existence, its high note, as if everything in the world had been built to make this moment a reality.

  I kept myself on his dick so that the cum wouldn’t spill out of us, not yet, but like all good things, it had to end, even as the echoes of our names being called out by each other faded into the night, swallowed up by the hills, by the sky, by the city below us, the city that couldn’t watch us here, in front of them.

  We got changed again and called a cab that could be there in about half an hour, but in the mean time?

  Skylar played me the song he’d written, a concert for one by a band of one, together, more than two.

  Chapter Fifteen, #ItsComplicated:

  SKYLAR AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL WHAT WE WERE. Were we boyfriend and girlfriend or just two roommates that happened to have sex a lot? Jared had moved out, moving into another apartment in the building with his sister who now wanted to live in LA to pursue her dream of becoming the next Lana Del Rey.

  All I knew was we were getting better.

  Chapter Sixteen, #Recovery:

  I’D BEEN CLEAN FOR TWO WEEKS AND THEY WERE THE HARDEST TWO WEEKS OF MY LIFE. I’d expected myself to be all over Skylar but instead, I found myself spending more and more time studying (gasp) in the library (double gasp). As my schedule became more and more erratic as finals approached, so did Skylar’s. The summer season was starting and they needed him at Club Grit now more than ever.

  By this point, although Skylar and I didn’t have labels for what we were, we had the most open and honest relationship I’d had with anyone until that point. I could talk to him about anything: about UCBH, about classes, about my life in Iowa. It was as if my time at Omega House had never existed, but of course it had. In the back of my mind I kept thinking about it, about the fact that I was now a social pariah at UCBH, as one of the few girls to get kicked out of Omega House in its history, about the fact that the secrets I’d told sorority sisters in confidence had gotten out, secrets ranging from who I used to have crushes on to the fact my parents had won the lottery (which apparently wasn’t info everybody already knew, contrary to popular belief).

  Skylar was the one who had brought me out of the darkness and back into the light. Although we were different, around him, I could be myself. I didn’t have to be a clone like I was at Omega Mu Gamma. Even though Skylar and I didn’t share every single interest and taste, it was a good thing. It meant we could explore new things together while sharing our favorite things from our past with each other.

  Skylar had been my salvation. And, as I learned, I was his redemption. I was his way of making up for the fact he hadn’t been able to save Sandra, the fact that he thought he’d failed her. Even though it was a relationship of just two people, I felt like Sandra was still on his mind and in his heart. I had to wonder: how much of her did he see in me? How much of our relationship was about his past and how much was about our future?

  This was going to be my first set of tests without pills. Kim had given us all study drugs to help us absorb knowledge for the tests as well as perform well on them and last semester, I’d earned all A’s and B’s, but was it really earned if I had the unfair advantage? People said it was okay, that because everyone did it, I should do it, but maybe it was more similar to athletes taking steroids and going pro than people liked to pretend.

  So, this semester, I was pill free and it was nerve wracking. What if I got poor grades at UCBH and got kicked out and had to go back to Iowa and never saw Skylar again? These were the things that kept me up at night, the things that his kisses could make melt away into the sheets as well as all the stress and tension from worrying all the time about finals.

  I got up to use the bathroom and that’s when I got the text.

  The text that would change everything.

  Again.

  Chapter Seventeen, #ThingsGuysDoThatGuysHate:

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE I WAS BACK AT THE OMEGA HOUSE. But, there I was and I waited for Samantha outside, until I got a text telling me to knock. I guess I’d left behind more stuff than I expected. DeAndre kept the cab running because we expected this to be a quick visit, that I’d just get a box of stuff handed to me with maybe a sweater torn up with scissors. That would have been better than what really happened.

  “Hey, come on in,” said Samantha. She was cheery, as if I’d never left. “Can we get you some coffee or something?”

  “Uh, no, I’m just here for my stuff,” I said calmly. I knew that Samantha was judging the way I was dressed: the way I’d come to UCBH, not in tennis skirts and polos and strappy Tory Burch sandals with matching Longchamp bags, but in casual jeans, a shirt, and practical sneakers. I hadn’t had my highlights redone and I’d started to do my nails at home again. I still wore makeup, because I liked it, but not because anyone made me do it, like at Omega House. Skylar acknowledged that yes, there was a difference between Emma with makeup and Emma without, but he just wanted me to be happy, and this was me happy. This was Happy Emma, the girl that had gone missing during most of my year as a frosh.

  “What if I told you that you could bring your stuff back here?”

  “Like as storage? I’m good, thanks,” I said, confused. What the fuck was Samantha talked about? Was she drunk this early in the day.

  “No, silly, like, as part of your pledge class again!”

  “Listen, I’m just. Here. For. My. Stuff.” I was firm but I knew Samantha wasn’t taking me seriously. Now that I thought about it, she never had.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple, hun. We want you back in the sorority and you’re going to accept.”

  Kim Lee walked around the corner. Of course: Kim Lee was probably behind this all. The club president was in tow, but we all knew who had the real power: Kim Lee and that goddamn black and red clipboard. Kim Fucking Lee. “How very nice to see you again, Emma. I am sure that Samantha has explained that you can come back to the sorority now that your punishment is over.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to come back, Kim.”

  “I don’t think you get it, Emma, there’s no leaving Omega House, at least, not on your own terms.”

  “No, I don’t think you get it. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I don’t have to join your sorority. I don’t even have to come back to Omega House again after this. I’m here for my stuff.”

  “You can have your stuff. But, it’d be a shame if we released your sex video.”

  “Sex video? What sex video?” I asked. I didn’t even send sexy Snapchats, flash guys on Omegle, or do anything past grinding. There wasn’t a sex tape.

  “Oh, of you and DeAndre, of course. That night at the frat house, Pub Night? There’s video footage of you two drinking, smoking and not just smoking cigarettes, but what I suspect is weed, and of you two fucking, in his room. You’ll never be able to press rape charges if that gets out, plus, if we release it onto the Internet, everybody will know about you and DeAndre’s little fuck fest.” Shit. I knew that Kim didn’t have to lie about that, that a scumbag like DeAndre would do that sort of thing, eit
her out of a sick perverse desire to be a secret voyeur and simultaneously star of his own secret porn stash, or, more likely, to cover his ass in case a girl tried to press charges. A girl like me.

  The things, the things girls like me have read, have marked in red, on this web, spun of lies and gossip? Those are the things worth reading, worth watching, worth feeding, worth engorging, until they are the all-consuming, the all being, the all-knowing, for without our attention, if they were just ignored in the electric cosmos, they wouldn't be what they are. They wouldn't be the things that control as a flock, bound together by the invisible threads that bind us all to one another, and to them. They are the links that bind.

  “I...I need to think about it.” I didn’t even need to see the video to know that it was true.

  “We understand. But you have twenty four hours, and after that, we send the file to your parents, as concerned citizens. Don’t worry, there is only one copy, but we only need one.”

  I left the house pale as a ghost, without the boxes of stuff I’d been told I was there to pick up. “Where’s your stuff?” asked Skylar.

  “It was a trick, a last sort of “gotcha”, I guess,” I said. “Let’s just go.”

  “No, I need to know, Emma. What happened in there?”

  “DeAndre, he has a tape...of us, together, the night before he tried to rape me at the club.”

  “Like a sex tape?” Skylar’s voice was restrained but I knew that he was seething inside as his eyes narrowed and he gripped the steering wheel harder. I hadn’t seen him this way since DeAndre tried to rape me at Club Grit.

  “A sex tape, yeah. I had no idea he had that or that he’d been recording me that night. I swear.”

  “It doesn’t matter, you didn’t consent to that and that’s fucking disgusting. I’m going in,”