Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star's Seduction)

by Thorne, Olivia

  Which led to sex.

  I’m not going to lie: I did it because it was expected of me. And I did it because I felt guilty. And I did it because to not do it would have provoked a terrible fight, and made him angry and suspicious and impossible to be around.

  It was nice, though. I enjoyed it. Like when he kissed me earlier, having sex with him felt familiar and safe. It was… pleasant.

  I didn’t mind that he only lasted a couple of minutes, though.

  We lay in bed talking for a good half hour – about Syracuse, about the next year, about our future together. Then we started kissing again. This time he went down on me without being prompted. I told you he was very considerate.

  Normally I like oral a lot, but I wasn’t feeling it tonight. I could tell he was getting frustrated by my lack of response. I had two options: I could either fake an orgasm – which I was horrible at, and which would raise red flags – or I could actually try to have one. I know it’s really, really bad of me, but I’d fantasized before about other men when I was having a hard time getting off. Channing Tatum. Ryan Gosling.

  This time… I thought of Derek.

  I thought of him between my legs. I thought of me gripping his hair as he kissed me, licked me, pleased me with his tongue. I thought of feeling his strong hands caressing me, watching his broad back and the muscles rippling under his tattoos…

  I came pretty quickly.

  Afterwards Kevin entered me, finished, and drifted off to sleep. I lay there next to him, tears staining my pillow, hating myself for what a horrible person I had become.

  38

  The next day passed uneventfully. We slept late, had sex, got up, and had breakfast at the dining hall. We came back to the room, showered, walked downtown, and poked around in the shops. We had lunch at the Grill, an Athens institution (kind of like a hipster greasy spoon diner with the option of getting tofu in everything).

  I intentionally steered Kevin away from the gyro place. When we passed by it, I got a queasy feeling in my stomach.

  Other than that, it was a very pleasant afternoon. We decided to eat dinner at the dining hall, watch a movie in my room, and have an early evening in.

  Well, Kevin wanted an early evening in – which was code for more sex.

  Maybe it was stupidity, or maybe it was a subconscious desire to get caught… but I completely forgot that Derek was coming by at 5 o’clock.

  Until I heard the knock on the door.

  I froze. My entire body was petrified.

  Kevin looked at me from where he was sprawled out on the bed. “Aren’t you going to get that?”

  “…yeah,” I said, and walked over, stiff as a robot.

  I flung open the door.

  There he was, gorgeous as ever. He was wearing his customary jeans, a tight black t-shirt over his muscular torso, and a perplexed look on his face. He must have heard the male voice through the door, and was apparently still processing the information.

  “Derek! Hi!” I said in an artificially chirpy voice, my face warped into an exaggerated smile. “Shanna’s not here right now!”

  I was just waiting for him to say, I didn’t come to see Shanna.

  Or to bust me some other way, intentionally or not.

  But he didn’t.

  Maybe he saw the terror in my eyes. Or maybe he’d been in situations like this before, player that he was.

  Whatever the case, he didn’t miss a beat, and he didn’t betray me at all.

  “Oh, that sucks,” he said nonchalantly. “Well, just tell her I stopped by, will you?”

  I don’t know if it was my overall weirdness, or Derek’s sexy voice, or his own inherently jealous nature, but Kevin slipped off the bed and came padding over. “Who’s this?”

  I could see it on Kevin’s face, and hear it in his tone: he was threatened. And slightly belligerent.

  “Kevin, this is Derek,” I said with formal politeness. “Derek, Kevin. Derek’s one of Shanna’s… uh, friends.”

  ‘Friends’ seemed suitably vague. It could mean anything from actual, platonic friend to casual hookup.

  I knew which way Kevin would take it.

  Derek didn’t react at all. He reached over and offered his hand to Kevin. “You must be Kaitlyn’s boyfriend.”

  “Uh… yeah,” Kevin said, glancing at me in distrust as he shook Derek’s hand. “How’d you know?”

  “I just assumed. I heard her talk about her boyfriend before, but she never goes out with any guys. You’re from Syracuse, right?”

  She never goes out with any guys was a nice touch, as was the detail about Syracuse. I felt Kevin relax beside me.

  Then he turned into a dick.

  “Yeah. You and Shanna date?” he asked, a peculiarly gleeful tone in his voice, and I knew he was about to try to stab my roommate in the back.

  Derek looked amused. “Well, there was that one night I came home with her.”

  “Oh.” Kevin’s plan deflated in front of his eyes… and then he looked at Derek’s body with rising panic, and I knew exactly what he was thinking:

  THIS guy was naked just a few feet away from my GIRLFRIEND?!

  “But you didn’t stay,” I added hastily.

  Derek smiled playfully, and I thought for a second he was going to say to hell with it and push the plunger on the dynamite.

  But he played it cool.

  “Nope.” He turned to Kevin and said in a man-to-man voice, “Chick passed out on me, drunk off her ass. What’re you gonna do, right?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin agreed with a laugh.

  As if he’d ever been in that situation before.

  “Well, anyway, tell her I came by,” Derek said, then waved to Kevin. “Nice meeting you, man.”

  Kevin did his best to give Derek a cool nod. “Yeah, you, too.”

  And then Derek walked into the stairwell without even a single look behind.

  Something inside me felt like it was dying. I wondered miserably if I would ever see him again…

  …and then wondered if I was a horrible person for feeling like that as I stood next to my boyfriend.

  Kevin snorted in derision.

  I looked over at him. “What?”

  “That’s the kind of guy Shanna likes?”

  I looked at him with a twinge of guilt. “Yeah?”

  Kevin shook his head in an oh-so-superior way. “Figures. Your roommate has terrible taste in men.”

  I narrowed my eyes angrily as he walked back to the bed.

  If you only knew.

  Then I spent the rest of the night feeling awful that I’d thought it.

  39

  Shanna was getting ready for another night out when we came back from dinner. She was freshly showered and sitting in front of her closet door full-length mirror, putting on eye makeup.

  “Don’t mind me, I’m just getting ready and going back out.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, kind of hoping she would stick around and I could use her as a buffer. “I don’t want to make you – ”

  “Naaah, it’s cool. I actually like the guy I hooked up with last night. We’re gonna go get trashed and then go back to his place again.”

  “Wow. Classy,” Kevin sneered.

  Shanna glared at him in the mirror. “ORRR, on second thought, I could just hang out here with YOU all night.”

  Kevin blanched. “Sorry.”

  “Tell her thank you,” I prompted him.

  “Thank you,” he said, with a good dose of sincerity.

  “Yeah, you better thank me,” Shanna muttered as she went back to putting on eyeliner. “We both know Kaitlyn’s too straight-laced to fuck with somebody else in the room, so the only reason you’re gettin’ some is ‘cause I’m gettin’ some.”

  “She is pretty straight-laced,” Kevin teased me.

  It was a transparent attempt to get back in Shanna’s good graces – and it didn’t work.

  “Pot and kettle, dude,” she muttered. “Just sayin’.”

  He trie
d again, which was kind of pathetic to watch. “Who’s more straight-laced, do you think? Me or her?”

  Shanna got a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Oh, her, definitely. Like Ferris Bueller said, if you stick a lump of coal up her ass, you’d have a diamond in a week.”

  She grinned and shot me an impish look in the mirror.

  I just glared at her.

  “By the way, some dude came by to see you,” Kevin said.

  Shanna frowned. “Who?”

  “He had a bunch of tattoos.” He turned to me. “What was his name? Derek – yeah, Derek.”

  Though a player in her own right, Shanna wasn’t quite as fast on the uptake. She actually turned around, she was so surprised. “Derek came by to see me?!”

  “Yeah, he said he was checking in after that time he came home with you and you passed out on him and he left,” I said as fast as I could, ratta-tat-tat like a machinegun.

  Now she got it.

  She wasn’t nice as Derek was, though.

  She twisted the knife – and enjoyed it.

  “Ohhhhhhh yeeeaaah,” she said, as though just now remembering. “What happened after I passed out, exactly?”

  “He left,” I said icily.

  “Ohhhhhh,” she said, visibly amused, and went back to her makeup. “I wouldn’t know. I was passed out. Next time he comes back, I’ll try not to pass out again.”

  I grimaced. “You do that.”

  Kevin had no idea what was going on, but he enjoyed seeing our formerly united front go down in flames. All he needed was a tub of popcorn and a drink, and he would have enjoyed it more than the movie.

  Thank God he didn’t ask for more details after she left.

  40

  We had sex again after the DVD of Silver Linings Playbook was over.

  I should have been raring to go. I love that movie – especially the way it ends. The look on Jennifer Lawrence’s face in the last shot is the way I want to feel when I’m in love.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that way now. In fact, the movie was kind of a dispiriting contrast to my current feelings.

  As I went through the motions, I refused to think of Derek. I was tired of the guilt, and I resolved not to go there again.

  When Kevin moved to go down on me, I stopped him.

  “Just hold me,” I whispered. “I’m going to miss you… I just want you to hold me.”

  So he did. We cuddled, and it was nice.

  And this time I didn’t have to hate myself as I fell asleep.

  41

  We got up at 6AM. He had to be off by 7 for the fifteen-hour drive back to Syracuse, so I fixed a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal, bananas, and coffee while he showered down the hall in the guys’ dorm bathroom.

  Afterwards I accompanied him down to the street in a t-shirt, PJ bottoms, and flip-flops.

  “I’m so glad I got to see you,” he said as we hugged and kissed by his car. “You happy I came down?”

  “Of course. Text me when you get in? No matter how late?”

  “You don’t want me to call?” he asked, slightly offended.

  “Shanna might be asleep. I don’t want to wake her up.”

  “Oh… okay, sure.” He stared deeply into my eyes. “Are we okay?”

  “Yes, of course!” I smiled reassuringly. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m more than okay,” he smiled, and hugged me close. “I can’t wait till school is over… and then next year…”

  “It’s going to be great,” I said as we held each other. “Everything’s going to be great.”

  In retrospect, I wonder if I was honestly looking forward to it… or if I was trying to reassure myself.

  42

  I trudged back upstairs and collapsed in bed, then fell asleep for another couple of hours.

  When I woke up again, my first thought wasn’t of Kevin, or of how nice the weekend had been, or how his scent still lingered on my sheets.

  It was of Derek.

  I wondered if I was ever going to see him again.

  Part of me would have been relieved if he had decided he hated me and was going to stay away. The safe part of me, I should say – the part that knew my future was with Kevin in Syracuse.

  But another part of me was anxious beyond belief.

  I got up, showered, got dressed, and started studying.

  Every fifteen minutes or so, I glanced at my phone, halfway wishing Derek had a cell so I could call him and…

  …and what?

  Just say ‘hey’?

  Tell him, ‘I know I’m back with my boyfriend and all, but I hope we can go on some more dates’?

  I told myself I was horrible for stringing Derek along, and even more horrible for thinking of someone else when I was with Kevin.

  But I still kept looking at the damn cell phone every fifteen minutes.

  43

  Shanna came back around dinner time.

  “So you two patched it all back up, huh?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks for letting me have the room both nights.”

  “No problem.” She yawned and swapped out her club clothes for a shower robe. “Aren’t you going to thank me for the other thing?”

  “What other thing?”

  “The ‘not busting your ass about Derek in front of your boyfriend’ thing?”

  Oh. THAT other thing.

  “…thank you,” I said grudgingly. “Though there wasn’t anything to bust me on.”

  “Ha! I don’t think your boyfriend would see it that way.”

  No, he definitely would not have.

  And this once, out of all the hundreds of times he had been a suspicious jerk, he would have been right.

  Shanna got her stuff together for the shower down the hall. “You do know your boyfriend is a dweeb, right?”

  “He’s not a dweeb,” I protested.

  “He’s kind of a dweeb,” Shanna said, as though breaking bad news that I obviously didn’t want to accept. “And you do know that Derek is a grade-A hunk of man-meat, right? I mean, like, a dream lay, right?”

  “Who sleeps with anything with a pulse,” I snapped.

  “Um, not so much,” she said, annoyed, and gestured to herself like Vanna White might to a vowel. “Exhibit A.”

  Oh yeah.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “You should be, since it’s your fault,” she said, though she sounded like she was ribbing me more than she was upset with me. “Anyway, you do know he’s a grade-A hunk of – ”

  “Man-meat, yes, got it.”

  “Okay. Just checkin’ that your brain still works.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “That might be your problem, though.”

  “What?”

  “Your brain. That’s all you ever think with. You should try thinking once in awhile with another part of your body. And by ‘another part of your body’ I mean – ”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said snarkily. “That’s your specialty, not mine.”

  She shook her head as she walked out the door. “You should try it sometime. Why pass up a chance at something amazing for something you don’t really want?”

  I frowned and turned around. “What do you mean, something I don’t really – ”

  But she was already gone.

  When she got back from the showers, I didn’t ask again.

  I didn’t want to hear the answer… because, deep down, I was afraid she was right.

  44

  Kevin texted at 1AM. Considering stops to refuel, go to the bathroom, and grab food, he’d made pretty good time.

  Got in safe.

  Good, I texted back. Okay drive?

  Terrible… but I had good memories to help me.

  I smiled and texted back a smiley face.

  Shanna asleep?

  Yes, I texted, even though it wasn’t true. She was up cramming for a test the next morning, music blaring through her earbuds.

  Okay… go to bed.

  Already there.

&nb
sp; Thinking of me? he asked with a winking smiley face.

  Of course, I texted back, with another winking smiley.

  Did I wake you?

  I lied again.

  I was dozing, waiting for your text.

  I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been lying in bed for the last three hours, hoping to hear a knock on the door.

  Okay, go to sleep, he answered..

  You too.

  I love you.

  Love you too.

  That was it for the texts, though I still couldn’t sleep for another hour.

  The knock on the door never came.

  45

  Not until Monday evening, that is.

  I was studying and glancing at my cell phone every ten minutes when I heard the sharp rap rap rap on the wood.

  I fairly bounded up out of my chair and flung open the door.

  There he was, gorgeous and grinning at me.

  My heart thudded in my chest.

  He looked past me theatrically, as though searching the room. “Sooooo, I came to see Shanna again – ”

  “You don’t have to pretend, he left yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, no, I actually came to see Shanna,” he said earnestly. “I figured I’d take her up on that ‘rock my world’ offer.”

  My mouth dropped open and I stared at him like he’d just admitted he liked eating fried puppies.

  He broke down at that point, and staggered backwards as he pointed and laughed at me. “Oh my God, that was priceless – you should see your face – I wish I had a picture of that – ”

  “YOU ASSHOLE!” I shouted, then started laughing along with him. It was impossible not to.

  He tried to keep the joke going with a straight face, but failed badly. “Hey – Shanna’s single, I’m single – I figure, ‘why not?’”

  “Well, you’re out of luck, ASSHOLE, because she’s not here,” I said, half-pissed-off, half-grinning.

  “Oh, well… I guess you’ll do, then,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.