by CoraLee June
He didn’t ease. We were spiraling. Climbing. The smell of sex mixed in the air with the fragrant flowers. “So fucking close,” I croaked. My voice was a broken mess of bliss.
Oakley shuddered, and soon both of us were exploding on the table. I cried out, not caring how loud I was. Oakley was nothing but a mess of moans and curses. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said while grabbing my hips. He dug his fingers into my skin, and I rode out my bliss along with him.
“Fuck, Oakley,” I said once the last bit of pleasure had passed. “That was…” I couldn’t even articulate what that was.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “You’re mine, Amanda Matthews,” Oakley said.
“Ditto, Problem.”
25
The California sunshine beat down on my shoulders as we waited for the charter bus that would take us to our hotel. The three hour flight was okay. The entire team sat together, so it smelled like I was breathing in filtered farts the entire time. Oakley held my hand, and I ended up falling asleep on his shoulder, earning us various curious stares and winks from Dale and his other teammates. We might not have been officially dating by conventional standards, but it was pretty well-known where we stood.
“Are you ready for your meetings?” Coach asked. He’d been standing nearby, eyeing Oakley’s hand laced with mind with scrutiny.
“I prepped him on possible questions. I also arranged for some journalists to be there to catch them going into a meeting to get some buzz,” I answered, looking up at the approaching charter bus. Our hotel was close to the stadium, and I was freaking out about possibly running into someone I knew.
“I’m ready,” Oakley added.
We got on the bus, and the moment I sat down, I started checking Oakley’s social media and articles featuring commentary about the upcoming game. Nearly everyone was mentioning how Oakley seemed to be taking this season seriously.
“I’ve emailed all of you the schedules for the weekend. I want each of you to go to your hotel rooms and lock yourselves inside for the duration of the evening. No partying. No canoodling. Nothing. I’ll have eyes all over the hotel. You can leave your room to eat. That’s it. Be smart, or I’ll make you run until you puke. This is a big game. Lots of important people are watching,” Coach Howard said while staring at me. “I’m putting Miss Matthews on watchdog duty. Since she’s done such a good job keeping Oakley in line, I’m promoting her to babysitter of all your sorry asses for the night. Her room is at the end of the hall, and I have it on good authority that she’ll kick you in the balls if you break the rules.”
What? That was news to me. The entire bus started whistling.
“Coach?” I whispered. “We didn’t discuss this. If I’m managing the image of the entire team, I need to be prepped. How do you expect me to keep them out of trouble if I don’t have advanced notice?”
Coach leaned over to look at me. “I have complete faith in your ability to wrangle them. It’s one night. Keep my team out of trouble. Sit in the hallway if you have to. I’ll have a very positive letter of recommendation if you do.”
I gritted my teeth. “Got it.”
Oakley squeezed my hand and smiled. I supposed I would be spending my evening in the hallway tonight.
The carpet in the hallway was so gross. I mean, it looked fine, but it had a faint smell of dog piss and spray deodorizer. For the last hour, I had been sitting on the floor, leaning up against the door to my room, trying not to think about the last time it was actually shampooed. Since my room was at the end of the hall, anyone trying to leave would have to go past me.
So far, all of the guys were behaving. I could see all of their doors from my spot, and every now and again, one of them would pop their head out to see if I was still playing watchdog.
“I see you, Liam. Don’t even think about it!” I shouted as one of the players opened his door and peeked out. The escape attempts had died down since they figured out I really was going to sit in the damn hallway on the disgusting floor.
Oakley slowly opened the door from the inside of our room and gave me the chance to sit up before opening it all the way. He was holding a Styrofoam cup of the terrible complimentary coffee brewed inside the nineteen-ninety-something coffee maker in our room.
“I thought you could use this,” he said, handing me the coffee. “You’ve been out here forever. How about I text the guys and tell them that we need some alone time and to keep their asses in their rooms? Then we can go inside, and I can do that thing you like with my tongue,” he teased.
“No,” I said firmly. “I need the recommendation. I can’t fuck up. Again.” At this moment, I really hated Coach. That recommendation had better fucking sing.
Oakley crouched beside me and started slowly kissing my neck, sending shivers down my spine. He made his way up to my mouth, and his skilled tongue started to weaken my resolve.
“Are you sure you can’t come back inside? Just twenty minutes…” Oakley said in a throaty voice between kisses. “In fact, I bet I could make you come in five…”
Oh hell. I started to squirm. I was about two seconds from humping his leg. I could use a good orgasm. Five minutes couldn’t hurt. “You have to threaten them,” I began, slowly standing up.
“What would you prefer?” he asked, pressing me against the wall.
“Tell them I’ll cut their dicks off.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he replied with a chuckle. “Anything else?”
“Tell them if they leave, I’ll have the school newspaper publish an article about a chlamydia outbreak in the athletic department.”
“Oh, that sounds so hot,” Oakley teased again. He then pressed me against the wall and whispered in my ear, “Anything else?”
“Tell them—”
“For fuck’s sake! We get it!” I snapped my head down the hall in time to see a lineman poking his head out the door. “You’ll maim, embarrass, and shame us if we leave. Just please stop with the creepy foreplay. I’m hard as a rock listening to the two of you, and I don’t really want to explain to my therapist that I got off to this. It’s bad enough I’m trapped in here, don’t make me listen to you guys fuck in the hallway, too.”
Oakley and I started cracking up, and our intruder disappeared. Grabbing my wrist, Oakley pulled me inside his room and started frantically unbuttoning my pants. I clawed at his shirt, neither of us able to get our clothes off fast enough.
This felt different. This was pure animalistic lust. Fast, hard, and powerful.
Oakley deepened his kiss, his tongue moving with mine furiously. His need for me was so fucking hot that I didn’t know if I would last even five minutes like this.
He tore my shirt over my head and pushed my bra up, exposing my breasts.
Oakley shoved me against the wall, knocking over a lamp from the nightstand. He held my hands over my head with one of his big hands while the other hand feverishly roamed my body, stopping only long enough to pinch my nipples. Moans escaped my lips every time his fingers teased me.
“Oakley...I need you inside of me,” I begged.
Without hesitation, he let go of my hands long enough to let me attack the button on his jeans. When I couldn’t get them undone fast enough, he reached down, thrusting them just past his thick muscular thighs. His rock hard member was barely contained by his boxers. I grabbed the waistband and yanked them down over his flexed thighs.
A loud pounding on the door snapped both of us out of our shared frenzy.
“Amanda! Amanda! Amanda, we need you!” a loud voice accompanied the now crazed knocking.
“I am going to kill whoever is on the other side of that door,” Oakley growled.
“Do we have to answer?” I asked with a pout. “Let’s ignore them,” I added before kissing him deeper.
“Dale snuck out to a USC party,” the voice yelled.
Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK. I swung open the door, forgetting that I was currently naked and Oakley had his pants around his ankles.
&nb
sp; “Oh shit,” Kyle said with wide eyes as he stared. Oakley stepped in front of me, his hard cock pointing like an arrow at the asshole interrupting us. I quickly found Oakley’s shirt and put it on.
“What?” he asked. “And you better scrub the memory of my naked girlfriend from your brain, or I’ll make you run until you puke, freshman.”
Oh my God, he called me his girlfriend. Nope. Not important right now.
But like, oh my God!!
Kyle stammered, staring at the ceiling. “Uh. Dale snuck out, like, an hour ago? He found the fire escape and took the stairs.”
“That slippery bastard. I’m going to end him. I’m going to deflate his balls,” I growled.
Kyle let out a chuckle, then swallowed his amusement when he saw my furious expression peeking from around Oakley.
“Where is he?” Oakley asked.
“USC’s Pike house? I don’t know where it is.”
“Shit,” I began. “I know where that is.” I started looking around the hotel room for my pants and shoes. I was literally going to have to march myself into the lions’ den. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid. It would be one thing to see the people who tormented me from across the field, and another thing entirely to march into their home.
“Is he in trouble?” I asked absentmindedly, shrugging on my yoga pants.
“Someone posted on Instagram that a University of Texas player was seen kissing a girl outside the party,” Kyle explained, his voice quivering from fear. “I told him not to go. I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
“Yeah, you are,” I grumbled. “I’ll be back. And please, for the love of ice cream, make sure no one else does something stupid. I will personally end anyone who so much as thinks about leaving this hotel.” I stepped forward and slammed the door shut.
Oakley let out a sigh and started looking for his clothes. “How far of a drive is it?”
“I’ll order an Uber. It’ll probably take thirty minutes,” I replied.
“Great. Let’s go.”
My brows shot up in surprise. “You’re not going,” I insisted. “You can’t be seen at a USC party, Oakley.”
“And you can’t waltz into that party alone. Dale is probably drunk off his ass, and I don’t trust anyone not to fuck with you. I know you’re nervous to be back here. You don’t have to do this alone, Amanda.”
“I—”
“Stop arguing. The longer we wait, the more opportunities Dale has to fuck up. Let’s bring him back before the coach finds out, okay?”
I let out a sigh. As a publicist, I knew that Oakley needed to keep his fine ass in this hotel room. But as a girl about to face the horrors of her past...I just needed his support.
“Please don’t let anyone take photos of you,” I relented.
Oakley wrapped me up in a quick hug. “We got this, Darlin’.”
“Oh, we’re doing cute pet names now, huh?” I replied with a sniffle. The anxiety coursing through me was intense. I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Just testing it out,” Oakley answered with a sly smile. “Let’s do this thing, Sweetie. Schnookums. Dear. Sweet Pea. Love.”
That last nickname made me preen.
“Let’s go, Mr. Snuggles.”
26
The atmosphere screamed frat house. It was packed with guys wearing USC shirts and girls wearing as little as they could get away with. Sweaty bodies were pressed against each other, dancing to music that was far too loud. Cheap beer flowed freely, and bad decisions were being fueled by it. I didn’t think I would ever set foot in here again.
I was going to eviscerate Dale when I found him.
Thankfully, nobody had noticed the steamy hunk of perfection that was my boyfriend yet. Even just thinking the word boyfriend made me feel giddy, like a thirteen-year-old girl practicing writing her name with her crush’s last name.
I laced my fingers through Oakley’s for some much needed support and gave his hand a squeeze. It was too loud to hear myself think, let alone hear each other, so we searched without talking. I relied on Oakley’s height to see above the crowd, and I shoved through people to make room to get by them.
As I was working my way toward the other side of the house, where the music wasn’t as loud, someone turned around and ran into me, spilling beer all down the front of my shirt. Ugh, great. I was going to spend the next few hours smelling like lite beer.
“Amanda? Amanda Matthews?” the person I had bumped into squealed in my direction.
Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God. I had been so focused on finding Dale that I had momentarily forgotten where I was and who I was surrounded by. I had just run into Legacy Small, former sorority sister and best-friend-forever-turned-mean-girl.
Legacy was a perfect ten. She had the figure of a model, flawlessly applied makeup, and tan skin she achieved from hours of sunbathing on the beach. Her dark brown hair was always shiny and perfectly styled. She had been my roommate in the sorority house and spent Christmas with my family sophomore year. Legacy had also been the one to film me streaking on the Dean’s lawn, and then she texted it to everyone she knew.
“Legacy,” I said coolly.
She not so subtly checked Oakley out, giving him lingering sex eyes. She tore her gaze away long enough to shout to a gaggle of my former sorority sisters that I was here. Fuck. Everybody heard her. Legacy had one of those voices that just carried, even over loud ass music.
“Chuck!” she screamed over the music. “Come here! Look who it is!”
Oh fuck. I squeezed Oakley’s arm harder. “Sorry, we don’t have time. We’re looking for someone,” I stammered as Chuck made the crowd part like Moses and headed over to us. I used to have a crush on Chuck. He’d let me shamelessly dance on him at parties, and it wasn’t until the video of me leaked that I learned I was the butt of his jokes the entire time I’d known him. He wrapped his arm around Legacy and looked me up and down like a predator, smacking his lips as if I was a tasty treat. Oakley stiffened at my side.
“Who are you?” he asked in a sultry tone. Did he seriously not recognize me? Figured.
“It’s Amanda Matthews, silly! I almost didn’t recognize her myself,” Legacy replied, playfully slapping his chest.
Chuck’s eyes widened as recognition flashed across his features. I wanted nothing more than to run away and pretend I’d never been here. Oakley looked like he wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.
“No shit? Amanda Matthews! You look good!” He laughed, eyeing me up and down.
“We really need to leave,” Oakley interrupted while tugging on my hand. Legacy reached out and grabbed my other hand, stopping me from leaving.
“I can’t believe it’s really you. I mean, last time we saw you, you were—”
“Fat and running across the president’s lawn,” Chuck interrupted with a booming laugh.
Ice filled my veins. It was insane how easily he insulted me. “What did you just say about my girlfriend?” Oakley growled.
Chuck glanced at Oakley, then did a double take. “You’re Oakley Davis. You play for UT, right?”
“We really need to go,” I said again before jerking out of Legacy’s grip.
“You’re dating this guy now?” Chuck asked before tipping his head back and laughing. “Here, let me airplay it to the flat screen. I’m pretty sure I have it saved.”
Before I could stop him, Oakley lunged after Chuck. He was fast, but not fast enough to get the phone before Chuck had cast the video to the biggest screen in the frat house. I watched in horror as my lumpy and dimpled ass filled the screen. Everyone had gone silent, even the DJ stopped the music to watch.
I couldn’t actually remember that night, but I had seen this video hundreds of times. I had watched it obsessively when it was circulating around USC a few months ago. I knew the whole fucking video by heart, but seeing Oakley watch it made me feel the same way as the very first time I saw it.
My stomach dropped as naked Amanda happily ran through the grass singing USC’s fight
song. Legacy was laughing, both in the video and standing right next to me. I started tossing my cookies right onto the president’s slippers, tits heaving with each retch, and Legacy’s voice filled the room: “Oh my God, she’s such a sloppy mess. So fucking pathetic,” followed by more giggling. “Look at her ass jiggle.”
“See? That’s why I didn’t recognize you, I was looking for that fat ass.” Chuck sneered at me when the video cut off. Chuck moved forward and pinched my stomach. Hard. I gasped and swatted him away, but he refused to move.
“Leave her alone,” Oakley yelled.
“What? She likes it,” Chuck said with a hard laugh before grabbing my throat and squeezing hard. “She likes being pushed around and teased. She’s desperate. Or at least she was. Doesn’t matter how much weight she loses, Amanda Matthews will always be nothing more than a fat, pathetic bitch.”
This time, I couldn’t stop Oakley. His fist connected with Chuck’s jaw, and Chuck fell backward, yanking him off of me. He was back up again before Oakley could land the next punch, and he started swinging wildly in an attempt to defend himself.
The whole frat house went wild with coeds chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Phones were being whipped out faster than dicks on Tinder.
“Oakley!” I yelled. “Stop, he isn’t worth it!”
Oakley threw one last punch, blackening Chuck’s eye before we heard the police sirens.
Fuck. Fuckity Fuck Fuck.
I grabbed Oakley’s arm, hoping to pull him out of the room so we could escape, but the crowd grew thicker. The video of me was on loop, and I felt the familiar vise of a panic attack closing my throat. “We...we have to l-leave,” I croaked out as Oakley wiped the blood on his knuckles off on Chuck’s shirt.
“Breathe, baby,” he said over the loud shouts as uniformed officers ran inside the frat house. A pair of cops took one look at Chuck, who was out cold, and started putting Oakley in cuffs.