Greek: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 7)

by Kandi Steiner

  I finger the AΣ letters hanging from the white gold chain on my neck, remembering the day he lavaliered me like it was yesterday instead of six months ago. Any time I feel lonely or distraught over us being so far from each other, over not knowing the next time we’ll be in the same place, I reach for that charm and let it ground me, let it remind me that what we have is far too strong for distance to destroy.

  “What about you? How’s it going over there?”

  I sigh. “Well, I survived Rush Week, so that’s always something to celebrate. Classes are already kicking my ass, but with it being my last semester, that’s to be expected, I guess.” I frown. “It’s weird. Since I already got into Johns Hopkins, I feel… less motivated.”

  “Hey, maybe for the first time in your life, you just skate by for a semester. Take it easy.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, right. Do you know me?”

  “I do,” he says with a smile. “You’ll be busting your ass for straight A’s like always.”

  Adam kicks back in his bed — an unfamiliar bed so different from the one we set up for him in Boston. He gave me a tour of his little room in the Alpha Sigma house in Boulder when we first got on the call, and it made my stomach hurt that he was having new experiences at a new university without me.

  It also makes me long to be there in bed with him, to be held by him, touched… kissed…

  I shift against the little tingle that thought sends between my legs.

  “Are you happy with the pledges you picked up?” Adam asks.

  “Yeah,” I say genuinely, smiling at the memory of that crazy week. “It’s always a blur, but I tried to really take it all in this time. My last time. And… there’s this girl I really like, I really feel a connection to.” I bite my lip. “I think I might try to take her as my Little.”

  “Really? Who is she?”

  “Her name is Tera. She’s…” I laugh to myself. “Unique. Different in the best ways. She’s got this amazing style, and all these fun hobbies and interests that are completely new to me. She does cosplay.”

  “Whoa,” Adam remarks, brows shooting up. “What kind?”

  “I don’t really understand it all, but she said like anime characters. She showed me a picture and holy hell, it was hot.”

  “Who was she dressed as?”

  I arch a brow at his earnest interest. “I can’t remember… Asuka or something?”

  “Asuka Langley Soryu?”

  My jaw drops. “Yes. How the hell do you know that?”

  Adam grimaces, grabbing the back of his neck. “I may or may not watch anime sometimes…”

  “You never told me that!”

  He laughs. “It’s not exactly something to brag about, especially in a fraternity.”

  I shake my head, sitting back on the bed and folding my arms over my stomach. “Adam Brooks. I learn something new about you every day.”

  But Adam doesn’t respond. In fact, he doesn’t move at all. His eyes are glued on the screen, and after a moment, he lets out a long groan.

  “Your tits look amazing right now.”

  I bark out a laugh, looking down at the simple tank top I’m wearing and the way my cleavage is on display with my arms crossed under the wire of my bra.

  “You’re such a perv.”

  “Can you blame me? It’s been so long.”

  “Too long,” I agree. “Seeing you in bed makes me wish I was there with you more than usual.”

  “Seeing your legs in those little sleep shorts makes me hard as a rock.”

  I flush, tucking my hair behind one ear as my eyes fall to my lap. “Adam…”

  “When does Lindsey come back?”

  I look at the door of our room, as if I expect him saying her name to have conjured my roommate. “I don’t know. She’s at the Omega Chi Beta house.”

  “Maybe we should take advantage of the alone time…”

  I blush even harder, but just hearing him say the words has me clenching my thighs together. “I… I don’t really know what to do.”

  Adam grins, a devilish smirk that tells me he knows exactly what to do.

  “Lie back into your pillows,” he says. “Let me see you.”

  I swallow, heat rushing from my neck to my toes as I do as he says. I use my hands to scoot back more toward the headboard, and then I lean back, posing like I’m on display for him and him only.

  Adam bites his lip. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, and then he repositions his own camera, and I can see his hard-on straining against his boxer briefs.

  “Adam…” I breathe at the sight.

  “I told you you make me hard,” he says, and he runs his hands over the thick outline, moaning as he flexes into the touch. “Does this make you wet?”

  My mouth parts. “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  I roll my lips together, not sure if my face is hot from embarrassment, or from how insanely turned on I am.

  “Come on, baby,” Adam purrs. “Open your legs for me.”

  My heart pounds harder at the request, and I tuck my knees up to my chest before slowly letting them fall open, my feet spreading to opposite sides of the bed.

  “Now pull your shorts to the side.”

  Adam strips off his shirt, and then lays back in bed, waiting for me to do what I was told.

  Hesitantly, I run my fingers down the inside of my thigh, and then slip them under the thin, plaid fabric of my shorts, pulling them to the side just a half inch.

  “More,” Adam pants.

  I can see my reflection on the screen, though it’s small in the top corner and Adam takes up most of the space. But when I pull the fabric a little farther, there’s no mistaking the pink glossy image I reveal.

  “Fuck,” Adam hisses, and he reaches into his boxer briefs, tugging them down just below his ass and freeing his length. It springs up, hard and ready, and he thumbs the bit of precum on the tip before rolling his fist over the tip, the shaft, all the way down to the base.

  I don’t realize I’m moaning at the sight until the sound is vibrating through me, and I snap my mouth shut as soon as it happens.

  “Don’t be quiet,” Adam says.

  “I have to. House full of sorority girls, remember?”

  Adam bites his lip, and then he sinks down farther into his sheets, his back against the headboard, abs folding in on themselves. He kicks his briefs the rest of the way off, and now I have a perfect view of his hand around his shaft, his tight balls, and his face full of lust and wanting in the background.

  “This is a really hot view,” I comment.

  “You’re telling me. I want to tear those shorts off you and kiss my way down between your legs. I want to run my tongue along those wet lips and suck your perfect little clit between my teeth.”

  I gasp at the vision of it, as if I can feel it actually happening, and without him having to tell me to, I strip out of my shorts and my tank top, unlatching my bra and tossing it aside until I’m completely naked on the screen.

  “Jesus, Cassie,” he moans, stroking himself slowly as his eyes devour me. “What do you want to do to me?”

  “I want to lie back on that bed and hang my head off the edge of it, and I want you to fuck my mouth the way you did in the tent that night at Boca Chita Key. I want to feel every inch of you sliding into my mouth, my throat, until I gag for you.”

  Adam stifles his groan, but he’s already pumping faster, flexing into his hand time and time again. “I fucking love when you have me in your mouth.”

  “And then I want to ride you. I want you deep inside me.”

  “How deep?”

  I don’t even realize that I’m palming my breast, tweaking the nipple, that my back is arched and my fingertips are circling my clit softly. It’s like watching him on screen transports me in time and space, like I’m there with him.

  Like it’s him touching me.

  I slip my fingers inside myself, watching on the screen as they disappear. “So deep I see stars,” I br
eathe, closing my eyes as I let the sensation of being filled take me under.

  “Rub your clit for me, baby. I want you to come.”

  I do as he says, dragging my fingertips down from my breast until they’re circling my tender clit. I’m still pulsing my other fingers in and out, but then I keep them as deep as I can reach, wiggling the tips back and forth to hit the right spot.

  “You’re so fucking sexy, Cassie,” Adam says, picking up his pace. “I want to come on those perfect tits of yours.”

  “I want you to come in my mouth.”

  He groans his approval, pumping faster as I match his pace.

  “I’m so tight, Adam,” I find myself whispering, and I’m not even a little ashamed. In fact, I’m spreading my legs wider, arching my back, chasing my release.

  “You’re always so tight. Tight and wet and mine.”

  “Oh God… I think…”

  But I don’t finish the sentence before the spark I’ve been chasing catches fire, and a powerful orgasm rolls through me, pulsing and numbing and all-consuming. I have to hold my breath to keep from crying out, and as my climax starts to recede, Adam catches his, his face contorting as he tries not to be too loud. Watching him spill on his stomach makes me ready for round two, makes me want to be there to lick it up and beg for more.

  Jesus, who am I?

  Adam’s entire body shivers when he’s spent, and he lets out a long breath, shaking his head. “Fuck me, that was hot.”

  I giggle, my face heating as I grab my shorts and pull them back on, slipping the tank top over my bare breasts.

  “Nooo,” Adam whines. “Don’t cover them up.”

  I laugh, but before I can even pop back with a reply, the door to my room flies open and Lindsey bounds through it.

  “Oh, my God. The party is so fun, Cass! You have to come!” she says, ignoring the way I jump at her entrance.

  Adam covers his mouth to keep from laughing, meanwhile looking around him for something to clean up.

  “I just came back to change real quick. Some stupid freshman spilled her rum punch all over me.” Lindsey rolls her eyes, strips off her shirt and quickly replaces it with another. Her eyes find me then. “You coming?”

  I swallow, hoping like hell I don’t have I just had phone sex with my boyfriend written all over my red face. “I’ll catch up, just finishing up some studying.”

  Lindsey rolls her eyes. “You already got into your dream school, remember?” She checks the time on her phone. “If you’re not there in twenty minutes, I’m coming back and dragging your ass out of that bed.”

  She doesn’t wait for a response before she flies out the door, and Adam howls with laughter as soon as she’s gone.

  “That’s not funny, Adam! What if she would have been even sixty seconds earlier!”

  “She would have had quite the view, and would have understood why I’m so obsessed with you.”

  I narrow my eyes and flick him off, but then I’m laughing, too, relaxing back against the headboard again. My eyes soften, and Adam’s smile turns sad, too.

  “I miss you,” I whisper.

  “Miss you more.”

  ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING about me knows that I don’t get nervous.

  That word, that state of being? It doesn’t exist for me. Put me in the game with thirty seconds left and an impossible play to make. I’m your guy. Put me in front of a room full of angry fraternity brothers with the mission to get us all on the same page again. I’m your guy. Put me in front of the most drop-dead gorgeous and unobtainable woman in the world and watch me woo the panties right off her.

  I’m. Your. Guy.

  Nothing phases me — there’s no amount of pressure you could put on me that would make me feel anything but completely confident that I can do whatever the fuck I want to do or need to do to get the job done.

  But they say when you graduate college, things change.

  And boy, are they a changin’.

  My palms are so slick I can barely hold onto the handle of the pan as I sauté the mushrooms for the recipe I picked out, and I can’t count the times I’ve double-checked that every candle is lit, that the flowers are in the perfect place, that my tie is on correctly, that the music is just the right volume. I also may or may not have restarted the album three times now, because the song I want playing when Erin gets here keeps coming on before she’s arrived.

  There’s no denying it, no faking like I’m calm, cool, and collected.

  Because Erin wants to have sex tonight.

  And I have absolutely zero fucking chill about it.

  It’s not like it will be our first time. No, our first time together consisted of entirely too much alcohol and a sorority formal that neither of us remembers. That night has a black ink smudge over it, and if you asked either of us what positions we were in or who came first, we’d have no answer.

  All we know is we woke up naked in bed together, and not too long after, Erin found out she was pregnant.

  So, clearly, we didn’t use protection.

  My hand pauses mid-stir over the mushrooms, heart thrumming in my ears as I remember the choice Erin had to make. I can’t imagine what I would have done if I’d been in her shoes, and as much as it angered and upset me for a long time, now, all I have in my heart is respect for her.

  And love.

  God, I love that woman so much it burns me.

  So no, it’s not our first time, but it’s the first time since mountains and mountains of shit piled up between us — pain and longing and miscommunication.

  Plus, I’ll be the first man inside her since the ones who violated her, who took something from her she’ll never get back.

  The memory of walking in on that scene, on seeing Erin with mascara marring her cheeks and her dress hiked up over her hips, those monsters prowling out of the room like they were kings instead of scum…

  I nearly break the spatula in my hand, but shake off the thought before it can sweep me under, tapping the spatula on the edge of the pan. I set it to the side and mix in the heavy whipping cream and melty mozzarella cheese.

  And then there’s a knock at the door.

  Wiping my hands on the kitchen towel hanging from the stove, I fidget with my hair and my tie one last time, and then I swing my front door open, losing my breath at the sight of Erin on the other side of it.

  She’s always beautiful. She’s always poised and classy, always naturally glowing — even in her worst moments. But tonight, there’s a sparkle behind that glow, a magnetic light in her eyes, a sensual smile on her soft pink lips that makes my rib cage squeeze tight around my lungs. Her hair is down and curled, the dark blonde tendrils flowing over her shoulders, and a pastel yellow sundress hugs her breasts, her waist, her hips, cutting off mid-thigh to reveal her tan legs and the nude heels strapped to her feet.

  “I think this is the part where you invite me inside,” she comments with an amused brow.

  “Shit, sorry,” I say instantly, opening the door wider and ushering her inside. “Ah, sorry for cursing, too.”

  She chuckles at that, hanging her purse on one of the hooks I adhered to the wall just beside the door. And then she’s in my arms, pressing up on her toes, her lips on mine.

  “Since when are you sorry for cursing?”

  I breathe a laugh against her lips, my shoulders releasing a little now that I’m holding her. “I don’t know. I just…” I pause, shaking my head. “You’re radiant, Erin. As always.”

  “Thank you,” she says with a little blush playing on her cheeks. “And you,” she comments next, holding my arms as she pulls back and lets her eyes trail down the length of me. “Are wearing a suit.” She looks at me again. “In your own house.”

  I didn’t think it was funny until she said it, and now, I feel about as idiotic as any guy can.

  I laugh, kissing her cheek before I release her. “Can’t a guy dress up for his girlfriend for date night?”

  “You can dress up for me any time you want,�
�� she says, looping her arm through mine. “But just so you know, you could have worn sweatpants and I’d have loved it just as much.”

  “Oh, I know why you love my sweatpants,” I tease.

  She giggles, hiding her blush as she presses her face into my chest. But then, she pulls back, sniffing at something in the air and frowning. “Um… is something burning?”

  I balk, eyes nearly bulging out of my head as I rip from her grasp and jog across the entryway back to the kitchen.

  “Ah, Christ,” I curse when I make it back to the stove and see the burning, ruined sauce in the pan. I cut the burner and pull the pan over to a burner that’s not on, sighing as I debate whether the sauce is salvageable.

  It’s not.

  Erin chuckles when she comes up behind me, her arms wrapping around my waist, chin resting between the lower part of my shoulder blades. “Whoops.”

  I shake my head. “I’m so stupid.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I am.”

  “You were distracted.”

  “Still, I knew I had it on, I should have turned the heat down or come back over or—”

  Erin tugs on me until I turn and face her. “It’s okay, Clinton.”

  The sound of my name on her lips has me closing my eyes and letting out a soft breath.

  “We can order in,” she continues. “I have to pee, but when I get out, I’ll look on my phone and see what’s around here. Okay? It’s all good. We’ll find something to eat, I promise.”

  I nod, but still don’t open my eyes, not until she kisses my cheek and hurries off to the bathroom connected to my bedroom.

  The house I found to rent after graduation is small, old, built sometime in the 1940s. It’s a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath with a small fenced-in yard and a porch. The floors creak and the plumbing needs updating, but it has charm, and the landlord gave me a price that even Erin said was too good to be true for this close to downtown.

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I finally move from the spot where Erin left me, grabbing the pan like it’s a poor bastard I’m about to pulverize in a street fight. I hastily scrub the charred contents into the trash can and then toss the pan in the sink, turning the water hot as I fill it and squeezing a healthy amount of soap in to soak.