College Girl

by Shelia Grace

  “I’ll drop off the case tomorrow,” I whispered as I passed him.

  I took off around the building to the back exit. I had just reached the opposite end of the courtyard when the door swung open and I saw Alex, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. It was dark, but even in the pale light under the doorway I could tell she had been getting less sleep than I had. I was about to call her name when I realized that someone watching her in the dark would only scare the shit out of her. I cut across the breezeway, and seconds later she turned the corner and ran right into me.

  Chapter 7

  Alex

  I took a step back and looked up—and up—right into Ryan Bennett’s face.

  Fuck! Before coming to class, I had had it all planned out. I had sat in the very back, right by the exit, and I had even left before the end of class. I was failing miserably anyway, so I didn’t even know why I bothered showing up.

  I glared up at him, wondering why he couldn’t just leave me alone to wallow in rejection. Because that was what Friday morning had been. One big fucking rejection. The you’re too young line had been bullshit. And I had been telling myself ever since to forget about Ryan Bennett. But what had I done instead? Every night I had fucking dreamed about his hands on me, his lips on mine, the rough sound of his voice in my ear.

  “What do you want?” I asked as coolly as possible.

  “To see you.”

  I melted a little and then straightened up.

  “Why?”

  He frowned and then started laughing.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing. I’m just surprised you didn’t have that prick from the library in a headlock.”

  My stomach dropped—for two reasons. First was the memory of the psycho stalker from Creative Writing. Second was the fact that Ryan Bennett was only here checking up on me because of that psycho. I looked down, annoyed that my eyes were beginning to burn. Stepping away from him, I sniffed derisively.

  “Yeah? Well, then you don’t need to be here checking up on me, do you?”

  “Apparently, I do,” he snapped. “Were you going to walk to the library by yourself again?”

  I looked up and glared at him.

  “First off, that guy didn’t show up in class yesterday, so I figured the cops picked him up—”

  “More like I broke his nose over the weekend,” Ryan muttered.

  “What?” I yelped. “You didn’t!”

  Ryan smirked.

  “I don’t think he’ll be bothering you again.”

  “Seriously?”

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or seriously disturbed by this piece of information.

  “Seriously.”

  “How the hell did you do that?” I demanded.

  “Well, I went to his apartment, and I told him if he even thinks about attacking another girl that he will find himself buried neck-deep in pig shit.”

  I shook my head.

  “Wait. … How’d you know where he lived? I didn’t even know his full name.”

  “I have friends in administrative places.”

  “And you went to his apartment and beat him up?”

  “No. I went to his apartment and very politely asked him to stop being a sex offender. He didn’t like that.”

  I stopped, feeling less defensive.

  “Thank you,” I smiled crookedly. “And, by the way, I’m going back to the dorms, not the library. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

  Not knowing what else to say, I hitched the straps of my backpack higher and turned to start walking toward the dorm. If I got lucky, I could beat Brit back to the room and lock her out. Ryan reached out and grabbed my hand, making my skin tingle.

  “Do you think that guy is the only degenerate asshole on this campus?” he asked incredulously.

  “No, but I’ve got night classes, and I can’t just teleport to my dorm.”

  “What about calling campus security?”

  I rolled my eyes at this lame suggestion.

  “Really? You sound like my mother. It’ll only take fifteen minutes to get back to my dorm.”

  “It will take two minutes on the bike,” he smiled.

  I swallowed and shook my head.

  “No way. Last time was an emergency.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll walk.”

  He held his hand out in front of him.

  “You know, if you want to adopt a youngster, there are plenty of organizations for that,” I mumbled as I walked ahead of him.

  On the other hand, campus was already eerily empty, and the thought of walking alone was creeping me out. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. Suddenly he grabbed my backpack and slid it off my shoulders, pulling me into one of 1500’s dark corners.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” I yelped.

  He lifted me easily onto the low concrete wall.

  “I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do since Friday morning,” he murmured.

  He reached back and pulled my hair out of the ponytail before taking my face between his large, warm hands. I looked up at him, shaking, and when his lips touched mine, I almost died. Every part of me felt electrified. Sensations I remembered so vividly from the night at his house resurfaced in an instant. Then he nipped my lower lip, and I couldn’t help gripping the front of his shirt, amazed by the contours of his muscles. Without thinking, I wrapped my legs around him, and his tongue pushed past my lips. When I moaned, he pulled away and lifted me off the wall. Without a word, he picked up my backpack and starting to walk in the direction of the dorms. I chased after him, still dizzy.

  “Are you trying to confuse me?” I demanded.

  “I am trying to keep my hands off of you. And it’s proving to be incredibly difficult.”

  I was glad it was dark—so he couldn’t see how red my cheeks were. I was having a hard time keeping up with him since his legs were so much longer than mine, but it was good to walk fast. It kept me warm and distracted. We walked the entire way in silence, and by the time we reached Mercer, I already had my ID card in my hand, thankful that at least I had remembered this time to eat dinner before leaving for Calculus.

  “Thanks for walking with me. … You didn’t have to, but … I mean, I appreciate it …”

  I couldn’t help going back to being stiff and formal, because I couldn’t figure out how to be around this guy. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to feel his hands on my body. And it wasn’t helping anything that he was staring down at me like he wanted the exact same things.

  When he didn’t say anything, I finally turned to slide my card in the reader. As I opened the door, I reached for my backpack, but Ryan shook his head and followed me inside. I let out a sigh of relief. The lounge was empty—no jerks from the second floor. Instead of taking the stairs and having to pass the dickhead landing, I pressed the button for the elevator and felt my heartbeat jump as Ryan got on with me. The elevator rattled its way to the third floor, and when the doors opened again, I practically sprinted to my room, grinning like an idiot when I got there.

  There was no sock on the door, which meant that I had made it back before Brit. Unlocking the door, I looked back at Ryan. When I stepped inside, I felt super relieved that I had made the bed and Brit hadn’t managed too much carnage over the course of the day. Ryan looked around and smirked as I put my backpack down in the corner.

  “Do you chain-smoke?”

  “That would be Brit.”

  He walked over and easily reached past my lofted bed to open the window.

  “I had forgotten how depressing these freshman dorms were,” he grunted.

  “Thanks, but some of us can’t afford a quaint two-bedroom house with no roommate.”

  I watched as he grabbed an errant sock from Brit’s side of the room put the sock on the door handle. Next, he took the wooden chair out from under my desk and shoved it under the doorknob.

  “The next time you want privacy,” he said.

  “Right. Li
ke I bring guys back to the room …”

  I blushed. Of course, that’s exactly what I had done tonight, even if the guy was my TA.

  “So, does that chair thing actually work?” I asked curiously.

  I had only ever seen anyone do that in the movies. Ryan nodded and started walking back over to me, stopping to look at my iPod, which I had left hooked up to the speakers. A minute later, the same album I played at his house came on. When he reached me, his arm slipped around my waist and he lifted me onto the edge of the bed. Closing my eyes, I felt his warm breath on the side of my neck. The smell of his aftershave made my mouth water. Then his lips grazed my skin, and I shivered. A second later, his lips brushed mine. When he stopped, I opened my eyes and found Ryan staring down at me very seriously. He skated his thumb across my lower lip.

  “It’s wrong to want you the way I do,” he said softly.

  I wanted him to kiss me again. The problem was I wasn’t sure how much more I was ready for. A week ago I had never even kissed anyone. And from the way he had touched me last week, it was easy to tell that we were eons apart as far as experience went. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Make some twenty-eight-year-old guy wait around until I figured it out?

  Then I froze. Maybe I was just one of many girls to him. The thought was like a splash of cold water. I had no right to think of this guy as my boyfriend—we barely knew each other. Still, the thought of him kissing someone else made my stomach plummet. I pulled back before he could kiss me. Because if he kissed me again, then I wouldn’t care—about anything except feeling his lips on mine.

  “You should go,” I said quietly before adding, “because I really want you to stay.”

  He nodded.

  “One thing, first. Will you please stop hiding from me in Robertson’s lecture?”

  “I wasn’t hiding!”

  “You were,” he laughed.

  I smiled sheepishly.

  “Maybe a little.”

  He stopped and seemed to be thinking something over.

  “Would you go somewhere with me next week?”

  “A math symposium?”

  He smirked.

  “My parents are having an event at the winery.”

  “And you want me to go with you?”

  He pushed my hair out of my eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Reality hit me, and I shook my head.

  “No. I can’t. I don’t have anything to wear. My mom didn’t think I would need anything but jeans for school, so I’ve got …” I shook my head. “Never mind. I can’t show up at some fancy wine event in boots and jeans. Am I even old enough for a winery event?”

  “You worry too much,” he smiled.

  Someone rattled the door handle, causing me to jump. Unfazed, Ryan turned and walked over to the door, pulling the chair out from under the knob and swinging it open. One of the assholes from downstairs—Adam something—stepped back and stared up at Ryan, who had leaned his arms across the top of the door.

  “Need something?” he asked the jerk in front of him.

  I almost clapped when the second-floor creep retreated into the stairwell without a fucking word, the door slamming behind him. I hopped off the bed, and Ryan turned toward me.

  “Your phone.”

  I nodded and went over to my backpack, took out my phone, and unlocked it before handing it to him.

  “I’m putting in my number. Call me if that jackass comes back.”

  “Are you going by Matthews or Bennett?” I ask innocently.

  “Bennett, smartass. I’ll see you in class on Thursday … in the front row.”

  As he walked out, I realized that Thursday night felt a long time away. And had I just agreed to go with my TA to his parents’ fancy wine party? Shit!

  ###

  The next morning, I went over to the university’s undergrad newspaper. I had applied for a column last quarter and gotten turned down, but they were always advertising for freelance reporters. The pay for articles was miniscule, but I figured I could use what I made over the rest of the quarter to subsidize whatever I was going to have to pay to get a dress and decent shoes. The news editor who interviewed me—Jenny Tran—was nice. She looked over my samples from high school for a few minutes before rifling around on her desk for a sheet of paper.

  “Your first assignment. You can turn it in next week. Aim for fifteen inches. Welcome to The Sentinel, Alexis.”

  “Alex,” I smiled.

  I looked down at the paper and tried not to squeak with joy. I was thrilled out of my mind to be getting an assignment that might pay me enough for a small pizza. Still, I figured working for the paper, even doing just an article a week, would be better experience than the minimum-wage job I had worked before leaving for school.

  By the time I got back to the dorm, Brit was gone, but just to be on the safe side, I slid her chair under the door. Then I traded off working on the article for the newspaper and my final story for Creative Writing, which was due at the end of the quarter. I had deleted the original story and started a new one called What If. It was basically a fictional account of meeting Ryan that had a happy ending. Lame and desperate, but it made me feel better.

  A couple of hours later someone knocked on the door. Looking through the peephole, I smiled when I saw Julie. Sliding the chair out from under the door, I opened it.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I smiled at her.

  “That fucking hunch-backed dick from downstairs is in the DC calling you a whore.”

  My mouth fell open, and when I recovered, I started laughing.

  “Come on in.”

  I closed the door behind her.

  “No, wait. There’s more,” she huffed. “You’re going to love this. He’s calling you Alicia.”

  “It’s kinda nice when they don’t bother learning your name before insulting you, isn’t it?” I smirked.

  “So, Alex. How the fuck did you of all people earn the title of whore?”

  I blushed, remembering Ryan opening the door last night.

  “Okay, so remember the TA I told you about?”

  “The twenty-eight-year-old who almost deflowered my fellow virgin? Uh, fuck yeah.”

  “He didn’t almost deflower me! Jesus!”

  Julie rolled her eyes and hopped on my bed.

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

  “Well, he walked me back from Calculus last night, and the asshole from downstairs started banging on the door looking for Brit.”

  Julie snorted.

  “Both our roomies were at some kind of rush event last night. S-o-o-o? What happened? Were you guys getting it on in here or what?”

  I squirmed.

  “Not quite.”

  “Well, shit. That’s disappointing. So he just walked you back to the dorm, and that was it?”

  I shrugged guiltily.

  “We might have kissed.”

  “Whore!” she squawked.

  “You think I should sew a scarlet “W” onto my clothes?”

  “Totally! You’d be the first virgin whore. You could start a trend.”

  “Great.”

  “Hold up. I thought you said you weren’t going to see him again,” Julie said accusingly.

  “Julie, I tried to avoid him. I really tried. I even left class early, and he fucking jumped out at me before I could get out of 1500.”

  “Hot guy stalking you. What a fucking problem!”

  “He’s not a hot guy! He’s my fucking math TA! Before last week I hadn’t even kissed a guy. Then I have this insanely random hookup with some guy ten years older than me? Come on. It’s not like we’re going to start going out.”

  “Well, you could fuck him.”

  “Jules!”

  “What? It was just a suggestion. If Chris walked into my dorm room and said, ‘Let’s fuck,’ I’d seriously consider it.”

  “Shh!” I whispered, laughing.

  Chris’s room was directly across the hall from mine, and Julie had a serious thing for him.
He was one of the nicer guys on our floor. Meaning he smiled when I passed him in the hall, he didn’t make asinine comments, and he didn’t play his music all day and all night at an eardrum-bursting decibel. He was cute, too, but not hot in a Ryan Bennett sort of way. At least not to me.

  “Oh, right. Alex Reed is waiting for true love. Good luck with that.”

  I picked up my pillow and tried to smack her with it.

  “I’m just sayin’ … Hot guys don’t grow on trees,” Julie pointed out. “You wanna grab breakfast tomorrow?”

  I nodded as she jumped off the bed.

  “So, what are you going to do when you see him in class?”

  I shrugged.

  “No fucking clue.”

  She laughed and walked out. Shit. What the hell was I going to do?

  Chapter 8

  Ryan

  I met Becca halfway between campus and the winery. My sister had been the first to break with the family tradition by going to design school. However, she owned her own shop, which just happened to be on the grounds of the Bennett Family Cellars. Her acquiescence to my mother was how she got out of being the black sheep—a title reserved for me, despite my master’s in viticulture and enology.

  I walked into the coffee shop and ordered a black coffee for myself and an Americano for Becca. When she walked in a few minutes later, it was jarring to see my big sis, the Amazonian goddess. Six-feet-tall in her socks, she had played volleyball during undergrad in Southern California. She smirked, her blue eyes crinkling.

  “Baby brother, why the hell do you need a dress for a little person?”

  “It’s a long, fucked up story. But the parents will be happy that I’m attending the family function next week, so …” I said.

  “So you are gracing us with your presence, then.”

  I pulled out her chair for her.

  “Don’t turn into Mom, Bec.”

  “But I do Mom so well! Are you bringing Gretchen, Dear?”

  “Low blow, Sis.”

  “Oh, take it easy. I never liked her anyway.”