Ritual: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 5)

by Kandi Steiner

  But I also woke up with the urge to turn him on, too.

  And I guess when you combine the two, you get this.

  “On your knees,” I say.

  He cocks a brow, smirking. “You’re joking.”

  “Now,” I say, this time grabbing a fistful of his hair and shoving him down to the ground.

  He drops the remote control he still had in his hands, doing as I said, and when he’s on his knees looking up at me, the power that rushes through me is so addicting I want to bottle it up and get drunk on it forever.

  With one hand on the foot of his bed steadying me, I lift my left leg, pressing my high heel into his chest until his back is against the bed. His eyes greedily take in the view my dress is offering him, and I smirk.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” I state, and then I yank my dress up to my hips, place my high heel on the bed behind his head, and lunge forward until my pussy is hovering over his sweet mouth.

  He groans, hands reaching out for my thighs and running the length of them as he appreciates my pink lingerie. The one-piece is crotchless, my pussy framed by the garter belt, and when his finger grazes my clit, my eyes flutter at the contact.

  I reach out, fisting my hand in his hair again until his mouth is on the very clit he just brushed.

  The rush of heat is instant, the same way it had been our first night in bed together. Kade brings out a power-hungry side of me, one that’s controlling and bossy and hellbent on getting an orgasm the way she wants it. It’s a new and exciting side of myself, one I want to explore more.

  And even though he needs help in the flirting and dating and game side of things, I have to give it to him: Kade is a fucking magician when it comes to pussy worship.

  His tongue is fast and focused, flicking my clit with just the right force to have my orgasm building. When he slides his fingers inside me to help push me to the edge, I lean into the touch, basically riding his damn hand as he continues pleasuring me.

  It doesn’t take me long to come, and as soon as the orgasm rocks through me and my legs give out from the weight of my body, I pull Kade to stand and shove him back onto his bed.

  “Get naked. Now.”

  I’ve never seen a man strip faster than he does in that moment, and I stay standing on the edge of the bed, leaning over him when he’s fully naked and grabbing his erection in my hands. It’s slick with pre-cum, and I run my thumb over the slick tip, coating him with his arousal.

  “Fuck,” he moans out, writhing in his sheets.

  “How badly do you want me to suck your dick right now, Kade?”

  “Oh, God,” he cries out, eyes shooting open as he finds me. “So fucking bad.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, and I bend at the waist, taking just the tip of him inside my mouth. I swirl my tongue around his tip, slide it along the length of his base, and cup his balls just as I take him all the way inside my mouth.

  He’s already close to coming — I can tell from the way his balls hang, tight and high, and the way his legs flex as he tries to catch the orgasm.

  So, I suck faster, using my hand in rhythm with my mouth, and Kade flexes and pushes farther inside me, nearly making me gag when he shoves in deep.

  “Oh fuck,” he moans. “I’m going to come.”

  And as soon as he says the magic words, I pull off.

  Kade’s eyes shoot open again, this time in confusion and shock, his body trembling as he reaches for me when I’m already standing and two feet away.

  “Wait, no, no, I was so close.”

  “Were you?” I asked, wiping the corners of my lips innocently. “Aw, that’s too bad.”

  Kade’s mouth drops, but before he can say another word, I rush him, straddling him and sitting right down on his cock when my mouth covers his.

  His entire body trembles, and I ride him fast and hard, mimicking the pace I’d had with my mouth just moments before. I bite his neck, suck on his ear, nearly draw blood from his bottom lip. It’s rough and nasty and hot as fuck.

  And when his hands tighten around my hips, a guttural groan ripping from his throat, I push myself off of him, breaking every spot of contact all at once.

  Kade shakes violently from head to toe, and when I’m standing at the edge of the bed again, I have a glorious view of him ejaculating all over his abs without so much as touching his dick.

  “Jesus Christ,” he cries out, leaning up on his elbows and assessing the mess he’s made on himself. He looks up at me with wild, confused eyes. “What… the fuck… was that?”

  I smirk, walking over and pressing my mouth tenderly to his in a long, sweet kiss.

  “That was payback,” I whisper. “The real lessons haven’t even started.”

  He whimpers, reaching out for me but I pull away before he can get a grip.

  Then, I tug down my dress until it’s covering my hips again, and I don’t give him so much as another look when I swing his bedroom door open.

  “Don’t touch your dick until I see you again.”

  And with that, I strut my ass out of that house like the goddamn Queen I am.

  INTRAMURAL FOOTBALL IS JUST about the only thing keeping me alive.

  Once school started, I found that the hole I’d slid into over the summer was deeper than I realized. I couldn’t focus in class — which I really need to do, considering I’m in my cornerstone courses now that I’m a senior — and even with most of my nights spent exploring Becca, the hole continued to grow, and I fell in deeper.

  It wasn’t until the first IM football game with my Omega Chi brothers that a small spark of my old self came back to life.

  Now, it’s the only thing I look forward to.

  The Alpha Sigma quarterback hikes the ball, and I slam into the offensive lineman across from me, overpowering him in seconds and sliding past him. I growl, thighs burning as I run as fast as I can, and I launch for the quarterback, taking him down before he has the chance to throw the ball.

  It’s my seventh sack of the game.

  Cheers break out from the crowd of Greek students watching the game from the sidelines, and I’m almost positive I hear Skyler screaming above all the noise. I don’t celebrate, though — in fact, I remain stoic all game as if I’m not even playing at all.

  Because the biggest part of me is still numb, no matter how I try to bring it back to life with the things I used to love.

  By the time the game is over, we’ve outscored the A Sigs by seventeen and clenched our second win of the season. I shake hands with the other players and immediately strip out of my helmet and jersey, desperate to get my pads off.

  Every muscle is aching. I know I’ll need an ice bath and I’ll still be paying for it tomorrow, but that pain reminds me that I’m still here.

  I’m still breathing.

  I’m still alive.

  I’ve barely peeled my pads off when Skyler is on my back, her legs wrapped around me and fist in the air.

  “My best friend is a fucking BEAST!” she screams, chanting my name until a small crowd joins in.

  I muster the best smile I have, tickling her sides until she falls off me and lands on the ground, hanging her hands on her hips.

  She nudges me playfully with a wide smile. “You murdered them today.”

  “Just doing my job,” I said on a shrug.

  “Well, you’re doing it well. I don’t think anyone can overpower you now that you’ve beefed up to twice your original size — which was already ghastly, by the way.” She squeezes my biceps, but when I don’t smile, her eyes grow sad. “Hey, I know you already know this, but… you can talk to me. If something is going on.”

  “It’s not.”

  She frowns. “It’s just… you don’t seem like yourself since we came back to school. I know I was busy with Kip and his dad over the summer, so I’m sorry if I wasn’t—”

  “You don’t need to apologize, I’m fine,” I clip, shoving my shit into my gym bag with more force than necessary. I don’t know why I’m pissed that she’s asking
if I’m okay when, clearly, I am not, but for some reason, it fires me up. “I gotta run.”

  “Bear…”

  “I’ll see you around.”

  I don’t look at her again, don’t let her get another word in before I sling my bag over my shoulder and start the walk across campus to the Omega Chi house. Most of the guys drove, and a few of them offer me rides, but I decline, looking forward to the alone time.

  When I pull my phone out of my bag, there’s a few missed texts from Becca wishing me luck on the game. She’s at work, and her last text asks if I want her to come over after. I don’t answer, switching instead to the missed text from my little brother.

  Clayton: Call me when you get this.

  My stomach drops. Clayton is still living with Mac and his family in Pittsburgh, and though I’m happy he can be with his friends, and I know from my time spent with them that there’s no better place for him to be than at Mac’s, it still hurts to be so far from him and know he has no one in our family.

  I dial his number from my favorites list and plug my headphones into the phone jack, popping the buds in my ears just as he answers.

  “Hey,” he answers, and I can tell by the sound in his voice that my stomach lurching wasn’t for nothing.

  Something is wrong.

  “Hey, Little Bro. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, was at an IM game.”

  “You clobber them?”

  “Naturally,” I answer. “What’s going on?”

  I get straight to the point, and Clayton sighs on the other end before I hear what sounds like a door closing and then the faint sounds of him being outside.

  “Mom messaged me.”

  My heart stops, along with my feet, and I stand frozen for what feels like an hour in the middle of the sidewalk trail that leads around our circular-shaped campus before I find the will to speak.

  “What the fuck do you mean, she messaged you?”

  My mother had disappeared the fall semester of my sophomore year — immediately after I’d given her two-thousand dollars, thanks to Skyler’s help — and she’d taken my older brother, Carleton, with her. Other than them occasionally checking in with Carleton’s wife and two sons, none of us had heard from them. I had seen his kids more than he had, and I’d given up on ever seeing Mom again. Hell, I’d lost every ounce of care I had left for her when I realized what she’d done to Clayton.

  How could she just leave him there? He was alone, staying on Mac’s couch until his parents really took my brother in and made a new home for him.

  What kind of mother could leave her teenage son like that, without so much as a phone call every now and then to check in?

  “I mean, she messaged me. She’s on Facebook now, I guess… she made a new profile.”

  “What the fuck did she say?” I ask, and already I’d pulled over to one of the benches near the reflection pond, plopping down and pulling up Facebook on my phone. I search her name, gulping when her profile comes up and I realize she sent me a friend request, too.

  “She just said, ‘Hey, son. It’s Mom. How are you?’” Clayton answers, and then he pauses a moment. “I just got the message late last night, around three in the morning or so. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t respond. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter, swiping through the few photos she’d uploaded. One is of her on a beach, the other is in front of some old, run-down house. She’s somehow even thinner than the last time I saw her, and she’s cut all her hair off.

  My heart breaks at the sight of her frail form, of her sad, drugged-out eyes.

  But then it hardens right back up, remembering what she’d done.

  “Don’t message her back,” I say finally, grabbing my bag as I close Facebook and resume my walk again. “Not until I figure out where she is and what her intentions are.”

  “Okay,” he says, not arguing, but I can hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “I know you miss her,” I say on a sigh, eyes rolling up to the sky and fists clenching at my sides. I want so badly to hurt my own mother, and I know what a twisted, fucked-up thing that is, but I want her to know this pain we’ve felt as her kids. “Just let me figure out a few things first, and then you can talk to her if you want. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” he says. A pause. “I do miss her, but I think I miss who I thought she was. You know? Not who she really is.”

  I inhale a stiff breath, blowing it out as calmly as I can as I scrub a hand down my face. Clayton is around the same age I was when I realized who my mother truly is, and I remember how badly it killed me.

  I hate that it’s doing the same to him.

  “Hey, we have each other, right?” I remind him. “What else do we need?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “That’s right.”

  I change the subject to football, asking how his season is going so far. He’s a sophomore and already on the varsity team, a wide receiver with stats more impressive than I ever had when I played in school.

  After a while, we end the call, and I walk the rest of the way to the house in a fuming silence. As soon as I get back to the Omega Chi house, I lock myself in my room, text Becca that I’ll see her later in the week, and then run a shower so hot my skin is a bright red when I finally emerge.

  I might as well have steam wafting off my skin with the anger still sourcing through me, and I can’t get my thoughts straight to figure out what I want to do next.

  Before I realize what I’m doing, I have my phone in my hand, Erin’s name on my screen, and a text message written in the box below it.

  Me: Are you free? Really need someone right now.

  I stare at the words, eyes welling with tears that burn as I try to figure out why the hell she was the one I thought of, why she was the name I typed, why she was the one I wanted to talk to.

  None of it matters, not anymore.

  Not since I realized everything I thought we had between us was a lie.

  The truth is I can never lean on her.

  She’s the last person I can trust.

  I delete the text, swiping at the one tear that managed to slip free from my eye before it has the chance to roll down my cheek.

  Then, without a plan or a single fucking clue as to what I want to say, I open my laptop, pull up Facebook, and message the woman who gave me life.

  “AND… I JUST FEEL…” Adam grunts, straining himself up and planting a kiss on my lips before he lowers back down to the ground, his hands behind his head. “A lot… of pressure… you know?”

  Another lift. Another kiss.

  Sit-ups are my favorite.

  “That makes sense,” I tell him, holding his feet firmly down to give him support as he lifts again. The sun has just set over campus, and on top of the parking garage where we like to be masochists with our workouts, there’s a spectacular view of the pink and purple sky, and the lights flickering on all across town.

  I also don’t mind the view of his glistening abs, still tan from our days in the sun this summer, flexing and releasing each time he does another sit-up and gives me a kiss.

  “You’re the first person to ever be president for a second term in Alpha Sig,” I remind him. “Anyone would feel pressure.”

  “I just… think I need… to do something… different,” he continues, and I chuckle at him trying to speak through the effort.

  “Like what?”

  He lifts once more, grabbing my face this time and holding me to his mouth for a long, hot kiss that sends a jolt through me before he lets me go. He smiles, tracing my bottom lip before his eyes find mine. “One hundred. Your turn.”

  “I’m not doing a hundred.”

  “You’re doing fifty. Now, come on, switch.”

  He grabs my breasts and squeezes them through my sports bra before I swat him away and lie back, not ready for my torture.

  “Wipe that look off your face, you know you love it,” he says.

  “I do not love it,” I argue, doi
ng my first sit-up and kissing him before I lower back down. The first few are easy, but when I get to the tenth, my abdomen fires up in protest. “I’m doing it because I’m a biology major and a future doctor and I need to learn how to put nutrition and fitness in the forefront of my priority list. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”

  Adam smiles, kissing my nose on the next sit-up. “You’re cute when you’re complaining about a workout.”

  I flip him off, but continue the reps as he starts in on his ideas for his second year as A Sig president. Now that we’re a couple of weeks into the school year, I’m in my routine, feeling solid for the first time since I got to Palm South University. Maybe it’s because I’m finally in my cornerstone classes, or maybe it’s because Adam and I are together, finally, without anyone or anything in-between us.

  It’s crazy what feeling settled in your love life can do for the rest of your life.

  “And I was thinking,” Adam continues when I’m on my fortieth rep. “Instead of doing the concert like I’ve done the last two years, what if I changed it up a bit?”

  I frown. “That concert… got you… on the map again,” I remind him. “It took Alpha Sigma from…” I groan, wrenching myself up and kissing him reluctantly before I lower again. “Nothing… to the talk of Greek Row.”

  “I know, and I think that’s just it. It’s served its purpose, you know? But I want to keep things fresh and exciting.” He grins, kissing me before I go down for my last three reps. “What do you think about karaoke?”

  “Karaoke?” I echo, finishing my last reps and enjoying the long, sweet kiss that follows the end of my torture before I lean back on my hands, sweating, panting. “As in, poor quality instrumental music from a speaker with an amateur singing the words on a monitor in front of them?”

  “Exactly. Except, better.”

  I chuckle. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “Picture this,” he says, excitement rolling off him. “We set up a huge stage, just like we normally do for the concert, and there’s a band set up — drums, guitars, bass, backup singers, all that. Then, each fraternity and sorority gets to compete for the trophy by pulling out their best karaoke skills. We’ll encourage them to not only bring out their best singers, but to also go for the entertainment factor — humor, dancing, all of it. Can you imagine how fun that would be?”