"What are you talking about?"
"Why isn't she here tonight?"
I groan in exasperation. "She's... this isn't the place for her."
Sable raises her eyebrows. "How noble of you to protect her honor," she says sarcastically. "I'm sure she appreciates the gesture. What you really mean is that you didn't invite her."
"I wasn't being a dick," I protest. "Why the hell are you even here?"
"Tank," Sable says.
"I didn't know he invited you."
"Yeah, well he did. So now you look like a real ass because you didn't invite Cassie," Sable points out. "So I came up here to tell you to stop being an ass. I don't know why the two of you have this hot-and-cold bullshit going on, but you really just need to get over it and start fucking already because you're both on my last nerve."
"You're nosy and interfering," I say, shaking my head. "You and my mother would get along well."
"That's probably why I like her so much." Sable grins triumphantly. "So I've said my piece. Now I'm going to go hump your roommate."
"Too much information," I call to her retreating figure. "I don't need that image in your head."
"Go get my roommate naked so you have a replacement image in your head."
Well, shit. I wasn't thrilled about this party in the first place. And now Cassie... God, she must think I'm the biggest prick ever.
I take out my phone, and start to text an apology. Fuck. That'll be a lame ass text message.
Grabbing my car keys, I head downstairs instead.
I push my way through the growing crowd, annoyed about all of the people already inside my fucking house. I want some goddamn peace and quiet, not sloppy drunk chicks trying to hang on my arm as I pass. Three of my teammates are standing around in the front room drinking beer and being obnoxious. Someone I don't know is upside-down doing a keg stand.
Dillon yells my name and I keep going. I never liked him to begin with, but since he said that shit about Cassie at the athletic center, he really rubbed me the wrong fucking way.
"Yo, where's the hot tutor?" Dillon yells when he catches up to me.
"There is no hot tutor," I say, ignoring him and heading for the door.
"The chick in the locker room before wasn't your hot little piece of ass?"
I clench my hands into fists. Let it go, I tell myself. I step outside into the humid Texas evening air.
"I think I'll take a turn with her." His slurring voice cuts through the noise behind me, and I turn around, a mixture of anger and adrenaline surging through me.
"I think you'll leave her the fuck alone."
Dillon grins, obviously enjoying pissing me the hell off. "Come on," he eggs me on. "I know you've been hitting that. That girl's lips were made to suck cock."
"She's not like that," I growl. I should walk away. He's trying to rile me up and that's it.
"She looks like she'd know what to do with that tight little pussy —"
I don't let him finish. "She's a virgin, you stupid fuck."
I punch him, square across the jaw. He reels backward, stumbling for a second before he runs at me. The impact knocks me to the ground and he hits me once, but I'm too angry to give a fuck. The only thing I can think about is how much I want to beat his ass into the ground. So I do. I'm on top of him, hitting him, but I only get a couple of punches in before Tank is pulling me off of him.
"Fight's over!" Tank yells. Someone else drags Dillon away from me. When I try to go after him again, Tank blocks me. "You know he's just running his mouth. It's not worth it."
I gulp deep breaths of air, too hopped up on adrenaline to give a fuck about reason. I want to beat his ass, and I want to do it right this second, but people are pulling Dillon back into the house.
"It's over," one of the guys yells.
"It's over," Tank repeats to me. "Go, cool off... Somewhere that's not here."
"Fuck," I yell. I'm amped up and I want to go hit something. Normally that would be the weight room.
Except I don’t go to the weight room. I go to Cassie’s.
22
Cassie
I snuggle up on the sofa, not working on my thesis like I should be. Instead, I give myself a manicure and pedicure and slap Sable's mud mask all over my face. I eat ice cream out of the carton and watch bad reality television. It's cookie dough, my favorite, and it's nice and quiet here. Here there's no loud music, no obnoxious football players, and no topless girls throwing themselves at said obnoxious football players.
I'm not bitter about the non-invite.
Colton is right. What happened was no big deal. Sure, he's hot, but that's it. I hooked up with him and nothing more. In fact, I should hook up with him like crazy. Get him to do the deed, take my virginity. It’s time I got it over with. It'll be like ripping off a bandage, right? No messy feelings and no messy relationship necessary.
Yep, that's a plan.
Totally.
I take another bite of cookie dough.
When I hear the knock on the door, I sigh and get up, ice cream in hand. "Why are you back so early? Bored with Tank already?"
But it's not Sable.
It's Colton.
And I'm standing here in my shitty pajamas. With mud all over my face.
"You," I say, pushing the door halfheartedly closed in his face before heading to the kitchen to get rid of the ice cream. When I turn around, Colton is standing there.
With a purple-blue bruise under his eye.
My eyes fall to his hands, clenched into fists at his side, and I momentarily forget why I'm annoyed with him, taking his hands into mine and turning them around. His knuckles are bloody, his skin torn.
"Did you get in a fight? Or is this from dragging your knuckles on the ground?" I'm only half-joking about the knuckle-dragging caveman quip.
He doesn't answer.
He pulls me against him, his hand on the small of my back, and presses his lips roughly against mine. My body does what it always does when he touches me. Arousal rushes through me and I don’t think. When his tongue finds mine, I surrender to his kiss, forgetting about everything else.
He grips my ass, pulling me firmly against him, and I’m only half-aware of him picking me up and sitting me on top of the kitchen counter. His hands are all over me, his calloused palms rough against my skin as he cups my breasts. I slide my hands underneath his shirt, my hands roaming his chest as he kisses his way down my neck.
Every cell in my body is screaming for more. More of his hands on me. More of his lips on me. More of him.
When he pulls away from me, his voice is rough. Ragged. “It wasn’t not a big deal,” he insists. “What happened. I mean, it was a big deal.”
“You’re a dick,” I say, matter-of-fact.
“Say that again. But only the last word.”
“Dick,” I whisper.
He covers my mouth with his and I melt into him. “I’d listen to dirty words come out of that pretty little mouth all day,” he murmurs, his voice low. “Say cock.”
“How about cocksucker?” I suggest.
He growls. “That’ll do.”
His lips graze the side of my neck underneath my ear. I hear myself whimper, but not in pain, and he pulls back, looking at me for a minute.
“I just…" he begins. "I’ve… never hung around a girl after hooking up with her. I came here to – oh fuck, I don't know why I came here. I needed to cool off and I – I just thought of you. I didn't come here to do this, but then you were standing there in the doorway, looking like that… and I couldn't keep my hands off you.”
Looking like…Oh, God. My hand goes to the facemask, the mud crackled all over my skin. “Why are you making out with me?? I look like a train wreck right now.”
“Maybe I like train wrecks.”
I slide off the counter, ignoring what he just said. “You need something for your hands,” I urge him, scooting away. “I’ll get you peroxide.”
I don’t wait for him to answer. I run down
the hallway to my bathroom and close the door behind me, groaning when I look in the mirror. I'm worse than a train wreck. I look like a swamp creature, between the mud mask and my unruly hair, not to mention the stained shirt and ratty flannel pajama pants.
I scrub the mask off my face and do a quick cleanup before rummaging around the cabinet underneath the sink for some peroxide. When I return, Colton is sitting at the kitchen table, his elbow propped up and his forehead in his hand. He looks up at me with an expression I can't quite place.
“I brought peroxide,” I say, holding up the bottle. I kneel down between his legs on the chair, and try to ignore the fact that I’m between his legs right now. I especially try to ignore the fact that his cock is inches away from me. “This is going to sting a little.”
I dab the peroxide on his knuckles.
“Shit! That stings a lot," he complains.
“Don’t be a baby,” I whisper, cleaning up his hands the best I can.
And avoiding eye contact because he makes me nervous. My body seems to do what it wants when I’m near him.
And what it wants to do is Colton King.
“Cassie,” he murmurs. He slides his fingers under my chin and tilts my face up. “I’ve never hooked up with the same girl twice."
“Okay." I definitely don't want to talk about Colton King's sex life right now and how I'm one of many notches on his bedpost. It's not like we've fooled around much at all. So it's probably half a notch. More like an eighth of a notch.
“So I'm…” he pauses. “I'm not real good at… whatever you do after you hook up with a girl.”
“What happened to your hands?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I punched someone.”
I stand up and set the peroxide and washcloth on the table. “Who’d you punch?”
“An asshole.”
“At the party?”
“Yeah.”
“I take it he looks worse than you?”
“I hope so.”
“Why did you punch him?”
“No reason.”
I look at him for a long moment, and he doesn’t say anything. Then he bends down and picks me up, hoisting me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing at all and carrying me down the hallway.
“What are you doing?” I protest.
“What I’ve been wanting to do since the first time I saw you,” he says, opening the door to my bedroom and throwing me on the bed. “Before you even say it, don’t.”
“Before I say what?” I sit up, half-annoyed by his flinging me over his shoulder like a caveman and half-distracted by the fact that he’s stripping off his t-shirt and dropping it onto the floor.
My eyes linger on his hard chest before meeting his gaze.
“The tutor-student thing,” he says. “Don’t give me the same crap about the stupid rules because we both know that’s not why you’re hesitating. At least be honest about it.”
I slide off the edge of the bed and stand, irritated by the implication that my concern about getting caught is completely unwarranted. “And your pooh-poohing my concern about the rules is patronizing and dismissive.”
“Say more big words. I love it when you use big words." He grabs the fabric of my tank top and pulls me against him.
"Misogynistic."
"You're making me hard." He pushes his cock against me to demonstrate.
“You’re a child.”
“None of those are big words, and you’re lying.”
“What am I lying about?" I ask. “You just think rules don’t matter at all.”
“You’re scared.”
I let out a laugh. “I’m scared? You’re the one who's never hooked up with the same girl twice.”
“And you’re the girl who hasn’t hooked up with anyone at all.”
“Not true,” I say. “I just haven’t fucked anyone.”
“Because you’re scared.”
“Am not."
I’m not scared of screwing someone. Maybe of having my heart broken, but I’m not in danger of that here, because Colton King isn’t in danger of taking it.
“Why did you get in a fight?” I ask him.
“I already told you. No reason,” he mumbles. His hands move down my back, his touch gentle as well as demanding.
“Now you’re lying.”
“Someone was talking about you and I didn’t like it.”
“Talking about me,” I say flatly, working it out in my head. Oh, God. Someone at the house saw the two of us and had to be talking about the student-tutor thing.
Colton shakes his head like he can tell what I’m thinking. “It wasn’t that,” he says without even asking. “It was someone running his mouth about wanting to nail you.”
“Wanting to nail me?" I'm unable to stifle my laugh. I'm not the girl that guys talk about wanting to nail.
“I didn’t like it.” He shrugs like it’s self-evident.
I put my hand against his chest, halfheartedly pushing him away. “So you got into a fight with someone in an attempt to defend my honor? This isn’t the fifties, in case you weren't aware.”
“I wasn't defending your honor,” he says, wrapping his hand around my wrist and pulling me tightly against him. His other hand is on my lower back, pinning me against his growing hardness, and when his hand slides down further under the waistband of my pajamas, I inhale sharply.
“Colton,” I start. It sounds more like a moan than a warning.
“You’re not wearing any panties,” he notes, his voice strained.
“I wanted to be comfortable.”
“I punched the guy in the mouth because I didn’t like him talking about nailing you,” Colton says, his hand slipping lower to caress my ass cheek. He groans low under his breath, squeezing the fleshy part of my cheek in his hand. “I already told you, you’re mine.”
I laugh – Colton King, campus' biggest player, is calling me his? Whatever — but the laugh turns into something else when his hand slides around my waist and down the front of my pants. He stops, though, pausing with his fingers millimeters from my clit. The distance is agonizing.
"This is mine," he declares.
“I’m not yours,” I say.