After the game—a win, a loss, honestly, at this point it’s one in the same, I couldn’t focus—I head straight back to my dorm. Em and Vi went out for a bite, and no matter how much they pleaded, I opted for a steamy read, alone in bed. The last thing in the world I want to witness tonight is Rowen pointing his penile divining rod at some bimbo as he leads her off into the sexual sunset. It was bad enough witnessing the coital ritual take place last week—prior to enduring our own tongue trauma together the following day. God, that kiss alone has probably exposed me to all kinds of dicey diseases. I’ll have to get inoculated no thanks to Vi and my willingness to get her back into the dating scene.
By the time Saturday rolls around, I’m a nervous wreck. It takes hours for me to shower, dress, and try to make myself look halfway decent for my impending, quasi-orchestrated rejection.
Vi and Ember walk me all the way to the psychology department as far as the stern looking sign that reads Group A contestants only will allow.
“Contestants.” I scoff at the term. “And what, pray tell, am I aiming to win other than a shot of antibiotic resistant herpes and the promise of a broken heart?”
Ember straightens the velvet choker around my neck. “Nobody is allowed to break your heart, and if they do—I’ll break them.” Her purple lips—MAC Heroine, a color I adore and plan to swap, borrow, and steal as soon as I get my sanity back—break out into a giant disconcerting grin, and as much as I appreciate a good verbal threat, I can’t seem to smile back. God knows there’s nothing as precious as a friend who freely threatens physical violence to those that hurt you. In my case, she might be forced to make good on her word. Whether I like it or not, Rowen has already painfully twisted my heart.
The three of us engage in an awkward group hug just as my sensei, Seth, meets me. He’s quick to whisk me back to hair and makeup, talking a mile a minute about how great I was last time as if he were the one I was gifting an oral massage to with my tongue. Emily, the makeup fairy, takes over and I’m prodded, plucked, and swatted over and over again with camera friendly powder. But at the end of my rather aerobic transformation, my skin looks flawless, and interestingly enough, I hardly recognize this magazine ready version of myself staring back from the mirror. I would give anything to put Emily in my pocket and take her home with me. There is something comforting and luxurious about having someone else sweep the bushy tail of a makeup brush over your features for minutes on end. Soon after my metamorphosis from drab to fab, Seth picks me back up and leads me to the room with the ominous door that reads talent only, and every cell in my body tingles to life at the sight of it.
Seth offers me a seat on a nearby stool, but I shake my head. He’s already filled me in on the fact that today’s endeavor consists of another tongue lashing—ten luscious lashing minutes, not that it’s in the cards for the two of us. But my God if it were… My mouth salivates just thinking about the oral possibilities.
Seth leans in with his face scrunched up in outward scrutiny as if he’s tracking a flea across my face. “Today’s experiment should go well. Ten minutes, no lights.”
“And then what?” My heart thumps just envisioning what it might be like if Rowen did show. Ten minutes of free-falling into Rowen Garret’s mouth. Ten minutes of his hard body pressed to mine—that pretentious, heady cologne taking over my senses. The sweet spot at the base of my thighs bucks just thinking about it.
Seth’s brows rise in amusement. “And then you take a simple quiz and you’re free to leave. No light show this time, hon. It’s solely a sensory exercise. When the bell rings, you’re to leave immediately.”
“How very Pavlov of you. Just up and run like a common street thug?”
Seth offers a forced grin. “You’re a riot, you know that? But I guess you have to have a good sense of humor to get you through something like this.”
“Something like this? You’re not judging me, are you?” I’m not sure if I should be offended or alarmed. Hell, forget Seth. I should be judging me!
“Heavens no.” He clears his throat and his face, his entire shiny bald head lights up a shade of pomegranate. “Let’s discus next week. Should the two of you decide to go on with the experiment, we’ll start the one-on-one dates. The TSE will choose the first venue.” A devilish dimple goes off in his chin, and I begin to worry. Should I trust a man with a dimpled chin? What if it’s a winking dimpled chin? Crap. My mother left no such instructions. What I wouldn’t give to have one more one-on-one with my mother. “Don’t worry. It will be somewhere very, very public.” He puts an unusual emphasis on it as if I should expect to star in a Broadway musical with Rowen after the coffin-like closet they locked the two of us in. It only makes sense. “A park or a café.”
The thought of Rowen and me being anywhere near a public establishment makes me cringe with regret.
“Everything okay?” Seth pulls out his nifty little box of mints from hell, and I scoop up a handful and chomp them down as if I had been sucking on an onion all night.
“I’m more than okay.” My voice shakes, calling me out on the lie, and I nearly choke in the effort. Damn mints. “So just to clarify. If he doesn’t show up, he’s still notified that I did, right?” I don’t want to have any misgivings about Rowen and me heading on a one-on-one date next week. This ends tonight, in less than two minutes to be exact. T minus one hundred twenty seconds to my ego’s demise. A part of me wishes he’d show up with bells on. That the thought of us not continuing might actually incite in him an unnatural level of devastation.
“Oh, yes. The TSE is adamant about making a clean break. Both parties sign a clause of termination.”
“Clause of termination?” God, it sounds so serious. He’s standing me up, not divorcing me. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have come. Who the hell cares if he feels bad? If we both stood each other up, it would be amicable. But no. In typical me fashion, I go for the jugular whenever possible. Usually a cutthroat move like this would usher a dark smile to my lips, but a part of me feels silly grasping for an outlet of revenge. Revenge. That’s what this is really about. I want Rowen to hurt as much as I did when he walked out of our lives without so much as a middle finger. A part of me would do anything to have him hurt a fraction of the amount that I did. I suppose in the grand scheme of what went down, I was the low man on the totem pole. Certainly he broke Becca’s heart—although, the way she was instantly jumping my brother’s bones in the living room you wouldn’t really know it. And for sure Braden was hurting. Rowen was his best friend. I miss the crap out of Mindy, so I know that Braden must have missed Rowen no matter how savage their blowup was.
“Don’t worry.” Seth snaps shut his tiny tin of minty terror. “The termination notice is just a formality.”
The little red light goes on, and Seth escorts me over and opens the dark hole of regret I’m about to entomb myself in.
“He’s already in.” Seth gives a quick wink. “The partition will lift momentarily.” And with that, he gives a firm shove and seals me in the dark closet.
“He’s in?” I hiss, and a loud and annoying buzzer goes off.
“No speaking in the control room,” a nebulous voice reprimands from above.
Control room? Aren’t you in the control room, I’m tempted to shout but don’t, because holy hell, Rowen is just one luscious kiss away.
The partition glides up with a quiet whoosh, and instantly the scent of his cologne envelops me.
A pair of sturdy hands pats my waist carefully, making their way up my arms before giving a quick squeeze of assurance once they hit my shoulders.
My heart belts out a few last-minute wallops before it undoubtedly expires. A rush of dizziness hits me, and I can feel the floor sway beneath me. Passing out is not only a possibility at this point—it’s a promise.
I latch onto his arms, hard and round as tree trunks, and work my way up until my fingers sink into that luscious silky hair of his. It’s so thick and slick I could be happy doing this for ten minutes stra
ight, but instead, I opt for the practical and pull his head gently toward mine. But this time, I’m not gunning for his lips—it’s his ear I’m interested in. My mouth skirts over the soft scruff on his cheeks, and my entire body quivers uncontrollably. Dear God, if I thought last week’s adventure in the dark could have easily killed me, this week’s advent into groping has me orgasmic before we hit go. Not that we’re going to hit go. In fact, I’m putting a stop to this right this minute.
My breathing picks up so fast I can’t catch my breath. I bury my mouth next to his ear, breathing heavily like some pervert, and, instead of rejecting him, I’m giving him the impression I’m about to lose control just from his simple touch. I might, but that’s beside the point.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper so low I pray the gods of the social debacle didn’t catch on. No buzzer goes off, so there’s that. That tiny bit of rebellious vindication is all I need to feel empowered once again.
Rowen leans in and sets his lips to my temple. “What are you doing here?”
The buzzer goes off like a shrill alarm in the middle of a comfortable dream, only too bad for me because I can’t reach over and bang the shit out of that Baby Ben.
I swallow hard, too afraid to say anything. Was Rowen hoping that I would ditch him so that I could eat a shit sandwich come morning? Or does he really want to be here? I’m thoroughly confused.
The darkness thickens around me. His warm body presses tight to mine. His warm breath sears over my cheek, and my panting hits an all-time high. Here I am, alone in the dark with Rowen, hyperventilating myself into an anxiety attack over the fact he didn’t screw me over and leave me to my own self-righteous misery.
Then it happens. Rowen brushes his lips over my cheek as if testing the waters, and my heart thuds so loud I’m positive he felt it straight down to his marrow. I’m pretty sure those bimbos he beds nightly don’t have a nuclear detonation going off in their chests from his simple touch. I’d probably be the first girl to keel over if we ever played mattress tag. Death by the prospect of Rowen’s penis. Probably not the worst way to go.
His mouth drags over my cheek, slowly, carefully until he hits my lips, and he backs away as if he just kissed a live coal.
My entire body turns into one pulsating heartbeat filling in the silence with its enormous pounding. My palms flatten over his chest, completely convinced that at any second he’ll do an about-face and bolt, but he doesn’t. Instead, Rowen wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me in tight. Those fingers of his depress into my back, and I die ten tiny deaths at his commanding touch. His chest hammers over mine just as wild and anxious as my own, and I can’t help but bite down on a smile. A heavy sigh expels from him as his minty breath rains lightly over me. Oddly, it feels safe like this with Rowen, as if somehow we had stopped all of the madness, and having him near me—perhaps not this near, but nevertheless, it feels as natural as breathing.
He leans in, and his nose bumps over mine for a moment before his lips tread lower and hit pay dirt right over my own. Home. Rowen’s lips found the forever home I’d love to give them. His soft tongue breaks in like a thief, and I open up and welcome it with my own. I pull him close by the back of the neck with a fury and launch an assault over his mouth that rivals anything that happened in this room last week. Rowen probes my mouth as if he were looking for a lost treasure, something he demands to have back in his possession and will stop at nothing to find.
A part of me wants to believe that I am that treasure—that I’m the object of desire Rowen Garret will stop at nothing to get back, but I can rest assured my little schoolgirl crush is a one-way road. This, right here, is simply Rowen being Rowen. This is who he is now. The kissing colossus. The player. The boy every girl beds as a graduation requirement, and this dark, cloistered, heated kiss is simply my moment in the limelight.
His hand slowly massages my back as his kisses soften to something sensual, something elegant, and dare I say sweet. Rowen kisses with an exuberant vigor. This isn’t some frat boy pecking, some wild, controlling, you’re-going-to-laid lashing just to hustle me to the nearest mattress. Not that I would be familiar with either of those tactics. But I do know this. Rowen’s determined, careful kiss has the underpinnings of yearning, of an indelible wanting that neither of us seems to be able to fulfill. It will take a lifetime to quell this sweet ache. I want it to.
His grip on me intensifies as he pulls me closer than I thought possible, and my leg hikes over his muscular frame. In one clean swoop, Rowen picks me up by the thighs until I’m sitting on his hips, over that growing hardness just under my bottom, my legs entwined behind his back. His strong arms hold me steady as we continue to probe into one another’s mouths, and silently, invisibly, into one another’s lives.
I’ve missed Rowen. And selfishly I’ve wanted this. Too bad that for him I’m just another girl in the dark, ready and willing to give him whatever it is he wants.
It’s hard not to.
I don’t think I could stop.
A bell goes off overhead, and the doors slip open letting in a sliver of light at either end of the room.
Rowen loosens his grip, and I slide down his body like a luge. His face is shadowed, but I can see the lines of his comely features, those ultra downy lips of his that he’s graced me with for the last ten minutes.
The bell sounds once again. “Please leave the control room,” that nebulous voice hums from above.
But our eyes lock, and it seems impossible to move.
Rowen’s gray eyes look crystal clear as they glow in this dim light. They’re saying something to me, pleading with me, and I can’t quite grip what they’re trying to tell me. And just like that, Braden and Becca pop to mind—that dinner party at the Pinewood Steakhouse—the hurt that Rowen put all of us through. I land my hands over his chest, and as much as my head demands I shove him into tomorrow, my palms fan out over his muscular build in the shape of a heart instead. Rowen still has mine hostage.
And after I poured all of my best kisses into him, I think he knows it.
I dart out of the room, ignore Seth, skip the quiz, and bolt straight for Canterbury Hall instead. I need a long hot shower and maybe a nap if I plan on facing my brother in the next two hours. Braden would kill me if he knew what just took place. He would kill Rowen, too, but let’s face it, he’s been looking forward to committing that homicide for the last three years.
But I will never tell.
Rowen and I have a secret.
A soulfully delicious, achingly sweet secret that I will cherish forever.
Rowen
That kiss.
It’s all I can think about as I get ready for dinner. The coach invited a few of us out to the Pinewood Steakhouse to meet with a handful of prospective recruits. It’s an on-going process, trying to get the best of the best to join the Cougar family. I’ve been to a few of these. Most of the guys eventually climb onboard, and if they don’t, I still get a nice meal out of it.
Boomer and I head out together. I drive while he talks nonstop about the thirty-two-ounce porterhouse steak he’s about to sink his teeth into. Boomer is pretty fit for a two hundred eighty-pound slab of granite. He’s all muscle and rage. On a good day, the cables on the sides of his neck bulge for no reason. And when he’s pissed, you can climb onto one and zip line down. He’s kept his hair shorn close to his head for as long as I’ve known him, and as much as I’d like to attribute that to style, I think it’s because what hair he has left happens to be Cheeto orange. I don’t have a problem with it, but Boomer mentioned it was the cause of many a fistfight in his younger years and partly the reason he’s such a madhouse of muscle today.
The Pinewood Steakhouse sits on the edge of Moon Ridge just this side of Bixby in an old reclaimed barn that has been transformed into a modern five-star eatery. We pull into the parking lot, and I quickly opt out of valet.
Boomer groans as I drive us down in the acre deep lot. “Dude, you’re so cheap even your truck squeak
s.”
“The only thing I make squeak is the mattress.”
We share a quick laugh as we hop out and head for the restaurant. It’s true that I’ve made my fair share of mattresses sing, but it’s not near as much as popular opinion might have you believe. I’m not sure how or why the rumor mill grinds away on my dick’s behalf, but I never wanted this. Mindy is right. Once upon a time, I was a one-woman man, and that woman was Becca. But Braden stepped in and things went to shit. I may have panic fucked a few too many coeds in the aftermath, but that good time has long since slowed down. For a while, I was nursing my aching heart. And then after that, I was just trying to fill a vacuum that I didn’t know existed. By the time I figured it out, I had circled around each of the sororities twice.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I fish it out to find a text from my sister.
What’s up?
I can’t help but give a crooked smile. I love that Mindy wants anything at all to do with me now she’s been let loose on a college campus. At the Pinewood Steakhouse. Football stuff.
She buzzes right back. You mind if I swing by? I love steak!
I’ve invited Mindy a few times before, but I’m slow to do it this time. I scowl over at my roommate. It’s a full house tonight. Maybe next time.
What?! Are you shutting me out? Is this because of Boomer? Is he there?
“Shit,” I mutter as we walk through the door.
“Who’s that?” Boomer leans over as I flash my phone his way, and he lets out a dark laugh. “Dude, tell her I said hello.”
Boomer knows all about Mindy’s little crush. She’s made no bones about hiding it, and I’ve made no bones about objecting to it. Next to Braden, Boomer has been like a brother to me. Braden and I grew up together for the most part, so he feels like family in that way. Boomer, however, has been stinking up our shared dorm for the last four years, separate bedrooms or else it would have been a deal killer, but just one bathroom. And I know that after he ingests that thirty-two-ounce bovine disaster tonight, he’ll be fouling it up that much more.