by Linda Kage
So I scowled at the fucker for making me freak out.
“You’re the one who can’t keep his feet to himself,” I countered. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He tipped his head toward the growing line at the barista’s counter. “Why didn’t you chase after them?”
I frowned, momentarily confused. “After who?”
“Who?” he repeated incredulously. “Those two girls who just eye-fucked the shit out of you, man. That’s who. On a normal, average day in the life of Ten, you would’ve already been over there, panting and drooling by now.”
I shrugged, refusing to take issue with the terms panting and drooling. “They said hi to you first.”
He snorted. “As if that’s ever held you back before.”
Okay, so he might’ve had a point. I glanced at the two women still gossiping together, close enough that they were touching. They looked good from the back. Nice tight asses with enough junk in the trunk to interest me. I pictured both of them together, teaming up on me. But, yeah, not even that roused me enough to leave my chair.
I turned back to Gamble. “Meh.”
His mouth dropped open. “What the hell? Oren Tenning does not say ‘meh’ to tits and ass. Ever. So...what the hell is up with you? Shit. Are you dying?”
“What? No.” He wouldn’t stop staring at me as if he really was afraid I had cancer or something, so I hissed out a sigh and glanced around before I leaned across the table toward him. “Have you ever...” I scanned the coffee shop again, on the lookout for spying ears. I debated whether I should say anything. But then, I told myself that it wasn’t like I was really talking about his sister to him. This could be my proof to myself that it couldn’t have been her last night. I’d never give details to a guy about his own sister. Plus I always gave him details; he’d think something was up if I didn’t.
So, I lowered my voice and continued. “Have you ever gotten more turned on when you were arguing with a girl while doing her?”
Gamble stared at me with his mouth open before he shook his head and blinked. “Why would you argue with a girl while you were doing her?”
“Because...” I growled out my frustration and waved my hand, hoping to get him past that issue. He wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t stand hearing anyone but my parents or Caroline call me Oren. “It doesn’t matter why. It just...happened. And it was hot. Really weird. But like, extremely hot.”
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Jesus. You would like something strange like that.”
“I’m serious, man.” I scowled at him hard.
“So am I.” He blurted out a laugh. “And only you would start up an argument with a woman while you were inside her. Damn, Ten.” He shook his head again, but this time, he was at least grinning while he did it. “You’re a piece of work.”
Disappointment lanced through me. I was hoping he’d have experienced something at least similar before. “What about hair pulling, then?” I pressed. “You ever get your woman to come by pulling her hair while doing her?”
Eyebrows shooting into his hairline, Gamble sniffed. “As if I’m going to let you know about anything that gets my woman off.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a finger. “Let me get this straight. You argued with some girl and pulled her hair during sex? Wow. What are you? Five?”
“No,” I muttered, growing more irritated than ever. I didn’t like him bashing what might’ve possibly been the best sex of my life. “I’m Ten. And she liked it. A lot. Like, four times within twenty minutes a lot.”
Gamble pulled back, clearly impressed. He whistled between his teeth, but then his face filled with disbelief. “She probably faked it.”
I lifted my hands. “Why fake four times? Why not just once so I’d stop and leave her alone?”
He shrugged. “Good point, but I don’t know. To make you feel better, maybe?”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “She didn’t fake them. Trust me. There was no way to fake this. It was...” I shook my head, still stunned by everything that had happened. “Fucking incredible.”
A knowing grin lit Gamble’s face. “Well, holy shit. One specific woman finally left an impression on my Ten. What’d you say her name was? Anyone I know?”
I winced and sucked my bottom lip in between my teeth. “I don’t know.”
He blinked. “You don’t know what? Her name?”
With a shake of my head, I said, “Nope. I do not know her name.”
“Well, what’d she look like? Was she one of the usual football groupies?”
I shrugged. “Not sure.”
“You’re not sure about…what?”
“I’m not sure what she looked like.”
He scratched at the five o’clock shadow on his jaw and frowned at me. “How can you not know what she looked like? How drunk were you?”
“I wasn’t drunk at all. I just didn’t...see her.”
“You didn’t...” He shook his head, clearly confused. “What?”
“It was dark.”
“Okay, but... Wait, wait, wait.” He waved his hands. “Start from the beginning.”
So I did, telling him about my meeting with Kelly at the bar. He knew who Kelly was and how tightly corkscrewed her hair was. Then I told him about our darkened meeting plans. “But the thing was, the girl who came into my room had long, straight hair that was really soft.” And silky. And she’d smelled amazing...like Caroline.
Gamble studied me for a good ten seconds after my story before saying, “So, basically, you could’ve fucked...anyone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. I mean, it was definitely a female, but other than that...yeah.”
His eyes went wide. “It wasn’t Hamilton’s woman, was it?”
I started at him a moment to wait for him to grow up. Then I said, “Really?”
He shrugged. “Well...it’s not an impossible suggestion. She lives in the same apartment as you and has long, straight hair. What if she got up in the middle of the night, and…I don’t know, used the restroom and was so tired when she came out, she mistakenly walked into the wrong room and crawled into bed with the wrong roommate.”
I stared at Gam, sure he’d lost his mind.
He snapped. “What? It’s not that unreasonable of an idea.”
“Yes, it is! Because it sure as hell was not Blondie.” Even though, okay, the body type and hair did kind of match. Oh, shit. It hadn’t been Blondie, had it? My stomach roiled. Quinn would never forgive me if I accidentally—
“Wait. No.” My shoulders slumped in relief. “It couldn’t have been her. She kept calling me Or—by my first name. So, the chick definitely knew who was doing her, which totally cancels out your theory that Ham’s woman accidentally crawled into bed with me and screwed the wrong guy. Twice.”
“Hmm. Yeah. I guess.” He continued to think about it before saying, “But did the girl realize you didn’t know who she was?”
“Yeah.” I sat forward again, lowering my voice. “That’s the strangest part. It totally spooked her when I told her I knew she wasn’t Kelly. She actually wanted me to think she was someone else. She even tried to buck me off and stop when I told her. And we hadn’t even finished round two yet.”
“Wait. You told her during sex?” Gamble gasped out. “And holy shit. It wasn’t even the first round? Can you possibly say anything else more bizarre right now?”
Yes. I think it might’ve been your sister.
But, yeah, I didn’t say that shit. I freaked myself out for even thinking it. So I blew out a breath. “It was the best fucking sex of my life.”
I was able to admit that.
Gamble snorted. “And you still don’t know who she was?”
I shook my head, not sure if I wanted to know. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to know. Because if it’d been who I wanted it to be, I’d be seriously fucked. And if it hadn’t been who I wanted it to be, I’d be seriously...disappointed. “She lit out of there like he
r tail was on fire as soon as we finished. I’m telling you, she didn’t want me to know her identity.”
But that idea didn’t faze my friend. “Well, I don’t really blame the poor girl there,” he said with an obnoxious grin. “If I were a woman who had a thing for you, I’d be too humiliated to let anyone—even you—know about it.”
“Fucker.” It was my turn to kick him under the table.
He rolled his eyes as if he was way past such childish antics. “So, it was the best sex of your life, and you’ll never be able to get a repeat because you have no idea who to go to for night two. Nice, man. Way to fuck yourself over.”
“Oh, shit.” I fell back in my chair, staring at him with my mouth open. “You’re right.”
I’d never get to fuck that mystery woman again.
Not cool.
“Hey, guys.” A breathless Hamilton interrupted us by pulling out the free chair between us and slumping down with an exhausted pant.
Since he was only a sophomore, he still attended the team’s Saturday morning training sessions. Decked out in sweats and a T-shirt with his face shiny red with exertion and his hair wet from a recent shower, he’d obviously come straight from practice.
“What’d I miss?” he asked.
Gamble snickered, and I knew he was going to say something I’d have to beat his ass for a split second before he asked, “Hey, your woman didn’t get up in the middle of the night last night to, I don’t know...get a drink or go to the bathroom or anything, did she?”
“Jesus,” I muttered, tipping my head back and squeezing my eyes shut. He just had to go there, didn’t he?
“Uh...” Confusion clouded Ham’s voice as he glanced between the two of us. “I don’t think so. Why?” His gaze settled on me before moving back to Gam.
“Because Ten here had a midnight visitor in his room. Some chick came to him in the dark, fucked his brains out, then ran out before he could get her name or even see her face, and he has no clue who it was.”
I ground my teeth at the vulgar way he put it. Which was strange, because on any other occasion, I would’ve phrased it pretty much the same way. But since I was picturing her with Caroline’s qualities, it suddenly didn’t seem so funny to say it like that.
Hamilton’s eyebrows crinkled in confusion before they shot straight up into his hairline. He whirled to me with an incredulous glance. “And you think it was Zoey?”
“No.” I lifted my hands in immediate surrender. I mean, I wasn’t puny by any stretch of the imagination. But Ham was huge, and I was pretty sure he could take me if I offended his woman in any way. “I know it wasn’t her. And I never thought it was. That asswipe over there came up with that idea all on his own.”
Ham zipped his stern glare to Gamble.
“Whoa,” Gamble said, lifting his hands too, but laughing as he did so. “I was just fucking with you guys. Jesus. Who would’ve been your first guess?”
“Some football groupie,” Hamilton said immediately.
Caroline, I didn’t say at all.
I groaned into my hands before dropping them from my face. “The fact of the matter is, I have no idea who Miss Midnight Visitor was, and I’m sure I never will. So let’s just drop it already. Okay? Good.”
Knowing I was never going to dip my wick in that sweet honeypot was beginning to irritate me.
Jesus, why was everything irritating me today?
Ham and Gam glanced at me. Then they glanced at each other. When they gave one another a knowing grin, I rolled my eyes. But God...damn. I missed the days when all my friends had been as single and available as I was. Now that they were all pussy whipped, they seemed to think I should be too, like fucking one woman for the rest of my life was such a grand, amazing thing.
Dear God. The horror. Unless maybe that one woman felt like the woman last night had felt. Then maybe—nah. I shuddered at the thought, and leaned forward to pay attention to my calculus book. “Coach still lining you up as the first-string quarterback next year?” I asked Ham.
He cleared his throat, glanced at Gam, and then nodded. “Yeah.”
Gamble had been the star QB of our team until he’d broken his collarbone on the second to last game this last year. So Hamilton had needed to step in and bring us the rest of the way to the national championships. We all knew it bothered Gamble because he hadn’t been able to play that last game, and he’d lost his shot to try out for the pros. Even though he said he was happy settling down here with his woman and taking care of his three younger siblings—whom he’d taken away from his mother after she practically abandoned them—we knew it bugged him.
“Aspen find a job yet?” Ham asked him, hopefully.
When Gam looked up, we knew she hadn’t from the tightening in his jaw. “No,” he muttered.
She’d been unemployed for going on a year now, ever since she’d been fired for starting a relationship with him. Which brought up another sore issue with Gamble. He felt like a personal failure every time she applied for a new job and wasn’t hired. But then he wouldn’t even let her apply for jobs that he found “beneath” her. If their money was as tight as I knew it had to be, you’d think he’d just suck it up and let her be...well, whatever, for a while. But nope. He stayed stubborn. And she knew how much it would bother him if she “lowered” herself, as he called it, so she stayed unemployed and they just kept scrimping along. And I kept pretending it was my turn to pay for all our Saturday morning drinks at the coffee shop. And Gamble just kept letting me.
I knew Caroline offered him money on a regular basis. She’d gotten a little nest egg last year—though I never learned just how many eggs—after she’d gotten involved with that rich prick from her hometown and his parents had paid her off. But Gamble adamantly refused to touch a cent of that money.
I think each and every one of his rejections tore off a piece of her soul and left her bleeding a little more each time. She’d gone through a lot of bad shit to get that money; she should get to spend it however the fuck she wanted to. And if she wanted to help her family with it, her big brother should let her. That was one of the reasons she’d taken it in the first place...because of Gamble and their two younger brothers.
Gamble forcing her to spend it on no one but herself killed a part of her, and sometimes, I just wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and shake some sense into him, force him to accept some of her money already. It would’ve made her happier.
But I had no business in their family affairs, and I knew better than to butt in, no matter how many times I watched Caroline stiffen her spine, lift her chin and try to keep the pain from her eyes whenever he refused her help. The too-proud, stubborn ass.
“I think I’m going to change my major,” Gamble spoke up suddenly.
“What?” Hamilton and I glanced at him in unison.
He nodded. “Aspen and I have been talking, and...business administration isn’t my thing. I know I won’t ever go pro, but I miss the football field. That’s where I belong. So, I’m thinking...I’m going to enroll again next year and get a teaching certificate, maybe become a coach.”
While Hamilton nodded, letting him know what a great idea that was, my jaw dropped. “What?” I couldn’t be the only one of us three graduating and moving off to find a real job. I was the least mature of our group, the perpetual college party boy. I didn’t want to be the first to grow up.
Gam shrugged and sent me a solemn glance. “Since Pick’s raised my wages at the bar, we’re doing...okay. We can make it for another two years until I graduate, and Caroline already has money for college taken care of, so I don’t have to worry about her. I seriously think it’s for the best if I did this.”
“Well, fuck.” Now I really felt crappy. Not only had I had the best sex of my life and had just realized I’d never have it again, but now I was hearing that I’d be moving off while all my friends would remain here together...without me.
That shit just wasn’t right.
The second semester of my fr
eshman year at ESU was drawing to a close in a month. A month. I would turn nineteen a week after the last day of class, I had a minimum-wage job cleaning an insurance office downtown after hours, and I’d just tricked the asshole of my dreams into having sex with me.
Yeah, I was a complete mess.
The soreness between my legs was the first thing I felt when I opened my eyes the next morning. Which flooded my head with flashbacks of the night before. Oren’s hand running up my thigh. Oren’s teeth digging into the back of my shoulder. Oren’s cock making me come all over his room. I shuddered and clamped my legs together as I hugged one arm over my tingling breasts.
Well, I’d been curious what he’d be like. And I’d gotten my curiosities appeased.
But now I ached for seconds.
“Way to go, Caroline¸” I muttered aloud. Way to not get him out of my system but to embed the craving for him even further into my soul.
Studying the ceiling of my room, I blew out a slow breath. The sheetrock was painted white and had a delicate-looking ceiling fan hanging directly over my bed. There wasn’t a hole or even a water stain of an approaching hole in sight. This was the best ceiling of the best bedroom I’d ever had. It was my room alone, too. I didn’t have to share it with my two younger brothers, who rolled over constantly at night and always managed to jack me in the face with an arm or elbow.
It was all mine.
The trailer house we’d lived in before really couldn’t even be classified as a home. The morning Noel had arrived on our front steps and seen how we were surviving, he’d bundled the three of us up and brought us all back to college with him. I hadn’t seen my worthless mother once since then.
Though I knew how much Aspen and Noel squeezed and budgeted to keep us here and cared for, everything I had in Ellamore was a million times better than what I’d had back home. My big brother was my personal savior. He’d saved me in more ways than one by bringing me here.