“I’d fucking kick his ass.”
“You’d get in a fight with your friend for me?” She sounded surprised.
“No, I’d kick his ass. There wouldn’t be much of a fight.” It wasn’t true—Lowell was a big dude, and I’d likely endure a serious beating if I took a swing at him, but Chloe didn’t need to know that.
“Oh. Well, … thanks.” A few minutes went by. Over in the pool, girls were climbing on to guys’ shoulders for a game of chicken, and in the hot tub, one couple had started making out. It was warm for early June, over seventy at almost midnight, and I felt kind of hot and sweaty, even though I wore only a bathing suit. I thought about Chloe up on my shoulders, her pussy against the back of my neck, her legs hooked around my torso, and my dick started to get hard.
Great.
What was I going to do if it didn’t go away? Could I sneak off to the bathroom and take care of it myself? It didn’t help that a soft breeze was coming from Chloe’s direction and I swear to Christ it smelled like key lime pie.
“Oliver,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever think about me?”
I wondered how the hell to answer that question without getting punched in the face. Was she looking at my crotch? “Think about you how?”
“You know how.”
I crossed my legs at the ankle and tried to keep cool. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I want to know.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure you do.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s not really my fault. I’m an eighteen-year-old guy and we don’t think about much else.”
“Girls think about sex too, you know.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. A lot.”
Hope, and my erection, rose higher. “So you’ve thought about me like that?”
She laughed. “Not even for a minute.”
“Fuck off,” I said, heat rushing to my face.
“Sorry. Just being honest. I’ve really never thought about having sex with you.”
I said nothing because I was too busy being mad that she’d tricked me. I should have known better than to be honest with her.
“I’m still a virgin,” she went on. “I’m saving myself for the perfect guy.”
I snorted.
“But I was thinking about kissing you just now.”
I looked over at her and found her head turned toward me. She was serious, as far as I could tell.
“Why now?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you still thinking about it?”
Another nod.
“Then I dare you to come over here.” I said it, but I didn’t actually think she’d do it, so I was shocked when she got off her chair.
Moving over on mine so she could lie next to me, I thought my dick was going to bust out of my swimsuit. Was this for real?
Without saying anything, she stretched out alongside me, her head propped on one hand, the other still clutching that towel between her breasts. For the time being, I kept my hands locked behind my head—I didn’t trust them.
“So?” she said after a moment.
“So what?”
“So I dare you to kiss me.”
With my pulse hammering, I reached for the back of her head and pulled her lips to mine. They were soft and cotton-candy sweet. I kissed her lightly for maybe ten seconds and pulled back. “How was that?”
“Nice. Too nice.”
“Too nice?”
“Well, Jesus, Oliver, if you’re gonna take the dare to kiss me, do it like you mean it.”
God, she drove me nuts. I didn’t even know if she was flirting with me or insulting me, but if she wanted me to kiss her for real, I’d do it. I fisted my hand in her wet hair and brought her lips back to mine—this time, I opened my mouth and slanted my head, kissing her harder and deeper. I shoved my tongue in her mouth. I bit her bottom lip. I hauled her on top of me so her body covered mine. I knew she could feel how hard I was, but I didn’t care—she’d asked for this. I kissed her until she could hardly breathe and she put a hand on my chest as she gasped for air.
“Oliver,” she whispered. “We should stop.”
“Why?”
“Because people can see.”
“So?”
“So that’s enough.” She got off me and stood up.
“Wait a minute, that’s it?” I braced myself on my elbows. “You dare me to kiss you and now you’re leaving me here like this?”
She hoisted the towel up, rewrapping it around herself. “Pretty much. I’m ready to go whenever you are. I’m going to put dry clothes on.”
Fuming, I watched her wander away, my hands clenching into fists. I knew I didn’t really have the right to be angry with her, but I was. This was entrapment! Why’d she make me kiss her like that? Now I was going to be all blue-balled and tortured for the rest of the night, maybe even for the rest of the summer, if Caitlyn didn’t take me back.
Girls. They were so fucking aggravating. Especially Chloe Sawyer.
I vowed I’d never take a dare like that from her again.
But I did.
6
Chloe
THEN
“Show me your room,” I said.
“My room?” Oliver looked at me funny and leaned closer to my ear. The music at the bar was loud, and the crowd was noisy. “Why do you want to see my room? It’s just a dorm room. It’s a mess. And it probably smells.”
“I don’t care. I just want to see it. I’m bored.” I glanced over my shoulder at Blair, my freshman roommate from Purdue, who was flirting shamelessly with Oliver’s roommate from Miami Ohio. “It doesn’t look like they’re ready to leave yet.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda bored too.” He shrugged. “I guess we could.”
“Cool. I’ll tell her we’ll be right back.” Then I hesitated. Blair’s sister was here somewhere—she was an upperclassman and we were staying at her apartment tonight—but I had no clue where she was. I didn’t want to leave my roommate with a creep. “He’s not gonna be a jerk, is he? I won’t leave her alone with him if he is.”
“Who, Beekman?” Oliver snorted. “Nah, he’s harmless.”
“Okay, give me one sec.” I went over to Blair and whispered in her ear. “Hey. Oliver and I are taking off for a bit. We’ll be back.”
She held up one finger at Beekman and turned to whisper back, “Are you sure about this? I still think it’s a dumb idea.”
“Yes. I’m sure.” I rolled my eyes at her doubtful expression. “Look, I just want to get it over with. It’s my choice, so quit harassing me about it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, giving me a hug. “But come back fast or I’ll be worried. And be careful.”
“I will.” I made my way back to Oliver. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Outside, the late autumn air was crisp as we walked down High Street from uptown Oxford toward the cluster of dorms on the edge of campus. On a Saturday night, the sidewalks were crowded with students heading out for a good time. We seemed to be the only ones walking in the opposite direction.
“This campus is pretty,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you like your classes?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Your roommate seems cool.”
“Yeah.”
It was like trying to talk to a brick wall, but that was okay—I hadn’t come all this way for sparkling intellectual conversation. Well, technically, Blair and I’d come all this way to visit her sister, but I was also on a personal mission.
“You ever get back together with that girl?” I asked, pulling my hands inside my sweater.
“What girl?”
“The girl who dumped you right before prom. The one who gave the good blowjobs.” It had only been five months since that night, but it felt like forever ago. Going away to college had made my former life seem as if someone else had lived it
.
Oliver laughed. “Oh yeah. Caitlyn.”
“Right. Caitlyn.”
“No, we didn’t get back together.”
Good. A girlfriend would have been a complication. “How’s your family?” I asked.
“They’re good. Hughie got into Harvard’s MBA program so my parents are all fucking geeked.”
“Harvard, wow.”
Oliver grumbled something I didn’t hear.
“And how’s your sister, Charlotte?”
“Fine. She came down with my parents to visit last month.”
I’d pretty much exhausted all topics of conversation by the time we were climbing the stairs to Oliver’s third floor dorm room. As we walked down the hall, which—as suggested—did smell pretty terrible, like a locker room and old, sweaty laundry—he did ask me one question. “You like Purdue?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I ended up with a great roommate, so that helps.”
“This is it.” He stopped at a wooden door with a dry erase board on it, upon which was written EAT MY BALLS. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, gesturing for me to go in first.
It was a typical dorm room—two twin beds and two desks with utilitarian lamps attached to them were along the walls. One of the lamps was on. The window was straight ahead, shade down, and there was a closet on either side of the door. No rug on the wood floor. One navy blue comforter and one blue and white striped. Neither bed was made, and there were random baseball hats, sneakers, and sweatshirts tossed around. It was a stark contrast to my dorm room—Blair and I had matching paisley comforter sets for our twin beds, a coordinating rug, and decorative pillows, thanks to a shopping trip to Target we’d arranged beforehand. We kept it pretty neat.
“It’s nice,” I lied, taking a tentative sniff. “And it doesn’t smell too bad.” It smelled sort of good, actually—like the cologne Oliver had been wearing the night of the prom. The night we’d kissed on the lounge chair. I hadn’t forgotten about that. In fact, I’d thought about it quite a bit since then. It was one of the reasons I was here.
Folding my arms across my chest, I moved farther into the room. I heard Oliver sigh and the door shut behind me.
“Which one’s yours?” I asked, glancing at the beds before looking back at him.
“That one.” He pointed to the striped comforter and I sat down at the foot of his bed. That’s when I noticed the monogrammed sailboat sheets. Of course.
I bounced on his mattress a few times, trying to work up the nerve to say what I’d come here to say.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets. “I’m kinda hungry. We could go—”
“I want to have sex,” I announced, looking him right in the eye.
His jaw dropped. “What?”
“I want to have sex.”
“With me?”
“Yes, with you. Why else would I be in here?”
“I have no fucking idea.” He shook his head. “Ever since you texted and said you were coming here and you wanted to hang out, I thought it was weird.”
“What’s so weird about it? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, but …” He struggled for words. “I didn’t know this was what you meant. I haven’t even heard from you since prom.”
“I know.” I lowered my head a little and peeked up at him through my lashes. “You still mad about that night?”
“Kind of.” He crossed his muscular arms over his chest. He’d filled out a little since coming to college. “You fucking baited me into messing around with you, and then you took off.”
“I didn’t bait you. I dared you.” I leaned back on my hands and swung my feet. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t resist.”
A scowl appeared on his face. “Well, I’m not having sex with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a trap. You’ll dare me to take my pants off or some shit, and I’ll get all worked up, and then you’ll decide at the last second that you don’t really want to fuck me, you’re just mad at your dad or something, and you’ll—”
“Oliver, that’s not what this is.”
He eyeballed me warily and took a step back, dropping onto his roommate’s bed directly across from me. “Then what is it?”
I took a breath and launched into the speech I had prepared. “I put off having sex when all my friends were doing it in high school because I wanted it to be right and meaningful, with the perfect guy. But now I think that’s stupid.”
“It was stupid then too.”
I ignored that and went on. “The longer I put it off, the more it builds up in my mind. I want to get the first time out of the way so it doesn’t feel like such a big deal.”
“Are you drunk?” he asked, squinting at me.
“No! I haven’t had a drop of alcohol tonight.” I stood up and started pacing back and forth between the two beds. “Look, all my friends are being pressured into having sex with these total assholes who don’t respect them and treat them like shit. I want my first time to be on my terms with someone I know and trust.”
“You trust me?” He sounded surprised.
“Up to a point,” I said carefully. “I mean, I’d never actually date you, but for my current purposes, you’ll do.”
“I’ll do?” He stood up and puffed out his chest. “I’ll have you know that there are a lot of girls dying to sleep with me. I don’t need to be your trust fuck just to get laid.”
“I know,” I told him. “And I figure your experience will come in handy. That’s another reason why I chose you.”
I was leaving out the third reason, because I didn’t want to say it out loud—that our kiss on prom night still had the power to turn me on whenever I thought about his body beneath mine, and the sensual way he kissed. I was attracted to Oliver without having a crush on him, which made him the perfect candidate to help me accomplish my goal.
He kept looking at me, like he wasn’t sure whether this was a joke or a dream. “Why wouldn’t you ever date me?”
“Because I’ve known you too long, and I know you too well. Your priority is a good time. You’d never be faithful to me. Plus you’re immature, conceited, spoiled—”
“Okay, okay.” He held up one hand and frowned. “I get the point.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“How come I feel like I’m supposed to lecture you about having more respect for your body?” he asked, shaking his head. “What the actual fuck is wrong with me right now?”
“I do have respect for my body.” Because I felt like he might not agree to my plan, I decided to take it to the next level.
Step one—I grabbed the bottom of my sweater and whipped it over my head, letting it drop to the floor.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as his eyes drifted down my chest. Beneath the sweater, I’d worn a very fitted black tank top with a scoop neck and a pushup bra. The look on his face was exactly what I’d been hoping for. Boys were so predictable.
Step two—I took off the tank top and let it fall from my fingers. “Come on. Say yes. Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, I want to,” he answered, his voice raw, his gaze on the rounded tops of my breasts above the top of that ridiculous bra. When I took it off, he was probably going to feel cheated.
“Good.” Time for step three. I reached behind my back and unhooked the bra. But before it slipped from my shoulders, he slammed his eyes shut.
“Jesus, Chloe. What the fuck are you doing to me? I’m all …” He swallowed hard and squirmed before opening one eye and adjusting the crotch of his jeans. “Confused.”
“Why?”
He looked at me seriously. “Because no-strings-attached sex with a hot girl is pretty much a guy’s dream, and I’m sitting here trying to talk myself out of doing it. I feel like I’m in the fucking Twilight Zone.”
“Look, Oliver. I want this. I’ve thought this through. I want to lose my virginity, and I want it to be with you.” I started hooking my
bra again. “But if you’re not willing and able, I’ll have to find—”
“Wait, wait, wait just a damn minute,” he said, sticking his chest out again, hands on his hips. “I never said I wasn’t willing. And I’m definitely fucking able.”
I looked up at him. “Then I dare you to prove it.”
“You’re on.” He reached for the bra, but I held it in place.
“There are just a few things we have to agree to first.”
He groaned. “I knew it. What?”
“Number one—we use protection.”
“Duh. Next.”
“This is our secret. We never tell anyone it happened.”
“Fine. Next.”
“This is a one-time thing. Nothing changes between us. So no weird texts or phone calls or treating each other differently. We don’t like each other afterward.”
“I don’t like you at all right now.”
I smiled and let the bra fall. “Perfect.”
His hands were on my breasts before I could even take a breath, and he pushed me back onto his bed so fast I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
Somehow—I’m not sure how, since he never seemed to take his hands off my body—he took off his navy blue henley and whatever he’d worn beneath it and stretched out above me with his bare chest on mine. It felt sort of warm and heavy in a nice way, but then the feeling was gone, replaced by a different one as his mouth traveled down my throat and chest and over each breast. My nipples stiffened and tingled, sending little bolts of arousal deep into my belly. Oliver wasn’t the first guy to get this far with me, but he was definitely the most skilled. He did things with his lips and tongue that made me gasp and arch up off the bed. My hands moved of their own volition, threading into his dark hair. My fingers curled into fists.
I’d sort of expected him to get right down to business, so I was surprised that he seemed to want to take his time. As his mouth moved from one breast to the other and back again, like he couldn’t decide which one was his favorite and had to keep tasting them both, one of his hands slipped between my thighs, and he rubbed me slowly but firmly on the outside of my jeans. This wasn’t a new thing for me either, but it felt like it, because no one had ever touched me there while kissing me that way. The effect was dizzying and made my body feel loose-limbed and liquid. When he unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, I was ready for it. I wanted more.
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