The Pledge

by Laura Ward

  “I love...being with you, Alec.” My voice was thick in my throat. “I never knew I could be this happy either.”

  He released a breath with a heavy exhale. His forehead dipped into the space between my shoulder and the pillow as his lips found my neck. Then, his hands reached around underneath me to hold me to him.

  “I love—” He paused. In my head I imagined he said, you, even though he never did. I wanted to hear those words so badly, and yet I was too afraid to say them myself.

  Alec groaned as our bodies fell into a rhythm. Our hips rolled more quickly against each other. My hands were in his hair, guiding his mouth to mine, begging for more of him as his thrusts became more frantic. His hands were still under me, pulling my body against his.

  “More.” I writhed beneath him, begging, and something in Alec’s eyes flashed.

  He let himself go, thrusting into me. “Oh, god. Yes.” I pressed my head against the pillow as my orgasm rushed through me, an avalanche of sensation.

  Alec pressed his mouth to my neck, saying my name as he came. Finally, he collapsed on top of me, breathing hard. He kissed the spot underneath my ear. “I love...being with you, too,” he mumbled against my skin.

  The love I felt from his touch and from hearing that he wanted to be with me, too, was enough.

  For now.

  ***

  “Five minutes until the obstacle course, people!” Asher stood on the porch and yelled down to us. “Find your assigned partner!”

  We were enjoying a Greek Week happy hour at the Delta Epsilon house. Even though we were paired with Doug’s fraternity for Greek Week, I’d managed to avoid him at all of the events.

  Next to me, Julie sipped her beer and looked around the front yard of the fraternity house. The area was roped off with caution tape, keeping “underage” drinkers out. Underage was really just code for those poor saps without a fake ID.

  “What time did you roll in last night?” Alexis asked, drinking the rare beer she allowed herself to indulge in.

  “To be clear, I rolled in this morning. Alec walked me home on his way to work.” I hid my grin behind my bottle of beer.

  Julie raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me he finally popped your cherry.”

  I choked on my sip, coughing and wiping my mouth with my hand.

  “For the love of God!” Alexis scowled at Julie, who wore a shit-eating grin on her face.

  “I’d hoped to talk to you guys somewhere more private, and not use the term cherry or pop, but I guess that’s not happening…” I grinned and both girls squealed.

  “How was it, Taren?” Alexis held her breath and pressed her lips together.

  “I waited for the right guy, and it was the perfect time. He was gentle, and passionate, and it was…” I sighed. “Perfection.”

  “Blah, blah, blah. Did you have an orgasm?” Julie tapped her foot, waiting for my answer.

  My eyebrows squeezed together, and I leaned back. “Um, yes. Doesn’t that always happen?”

  “No! That does not always happen. Marry him, or tie him to his bed. You can’t let a guy who knows his way around a g-spot get away. Mark my words. He’s a keeper.” Julie took a long sip of beer and turned to Alexis. “Ah, our lone virgin. Want me to get Asher wasted tonight? You can have your way with him and not be the oldest virgin ever living.”

  Frowning at Julie, I wrapped my arm around Alexis and hugged her to me, but Alexis moved out of my grasp, her face pink.

  “That’s not necessary. I’m not…a…that. All set here, thanks.” Alexis stammered, and Julie looked at me, jaw dropped and eyes bulging.

  “Who? Asher?” Julie braced her hands on her knees and heaved in a breath. “When? I need details. I feel so lost and confused.”

  Alexis shook her head. “Not now. That’s a story for later. Right now we celebrate Taren.”

  We clinked beers as Asher headed our way. He gave Alexis a quick peck on the lips. “You and I are partners.” Alexis blushed and slipped her hand into his.

  “I’m actually running this event, so I’ll see you all down there.” Julie wished us luck before running onto the grassy field in front of the house.

  “DENTON!” Pickles’ voice boomed behind me, and I jumped. “Partners! As it should be.”

  No fucking way. My body felt like it was freefalling off a cliff. My vision blurred, and I walked back a step.

  “Sorry, Taren.” Asher frowned at me. “Pickles picked you as his partner and threatened to go ape-shit crazy if anyone else tried to pair up with you.”

  “That’s because Denton and I have the best chance of winning this thing, dillhole,” Doug hollered as he wrapped his arm around my neck, trying to pull me into a hug.

  Alexis leaned close to me. “You don’t have to do this, Taren.”

  I pushed Pickles’ arm off and looked at all the other match-ups, noticing no one would look me in the eye. Heat crept up my neck, and I couldn’t seem to close my gaping mouth.

  “Watson?” I asked, begging him to switch with me.

  “Sorry, Denton. Bros before hoes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is it any wonder you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  “Denton? You trying to get rid of me?” Doug asked.

  “Been trying for months now,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Competitors! Time to get tied up. Take your asses to the starting line!” Jules called over the speakers.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Alexis placed her hand on my arm, her jaw set.

  Shit. I promised Alec I wouldn’t drink or party with Pickles. Would he understand being partners in a game? Or would he be pissed? My chest hurt at the thought of breaking my promise. I rubbed at my chest and, my brain whirled around as I tried to decide what to do. I had to tell everyone I was out. But if I forfeited, our match up would lose Greek Week. This was an obstacle course. We weren’t drinking together or dancing. There was no intimacy here.

  I sighed, looking around at all the other pairs. I remembered some of the crazier things I’d done in the name of Greek life, like being handcuffed to Ed “Fuckerman” during the Around-the-World drinking party. I survived that; I could survive this. I squared my shoulders. Alec would understand that this was innocent fun.

  “It’s just a game, right?” I looked over at Doug. He swayed on his feet as he tilted another beer back against his lips. He was well on his way to drunk. We’d be lucky to make it past the first obstacle. Actually, we’d be lucky if we didn’t. Then I could get out of this nightmare early.

  “C’mon, Denton. Let’s tear this bitch up.” Doug grabbed my hand, and I yanked it away from him. He reached over and held on with a tight grip. “We gotta go get tied up, babe.” His eyebrows wiggled suggestively, and I fisted my hands to keep from slapping him in the face.

  “Don’t call me babe.” I gritted my teeth and pushed him away with my elbow.

  My stomach was queasy, and my palms began to sweat as organizers bound our wrists and ankles together with rope. This will be over soon. This will be over soon. I chanted in my head over and over again.

  Doug kept trying to hold my hand, and I kept shaking him off. “Cut it out, Pickles. The rope is just to make sure we work together.”

  “Lighten up, Denton. Just trying to make sure we work as a team. We gotta stay close or it’s not going to work.”

  “Well, we don’t need to hold hands to do that. Okay?”

  “Whatever you say.” His grin was sloppy and confident—just like every other time I’d been around him. Damn. I couldn’t believe I used to date him.

  Once all of the couples were lined up at the starting line, Julie picked up the mic. “On your marks, get set...go!” she yelled as she fired the starter gun.

  Following the crowd of tethered Greeks, Doug and I trotted over to the tunnels. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through the plastic tube. Doug followed close behind me. When his hand landed on my ass pushing me forward, I looked over my shoulder and hissed at him.

&nb
sp; “Hands to yourself, Pickles!”

  He chuckled. “Relax. Just helping you out, Denton.”

  After we got through the tunnel, and I stood up, Doug slapped me on the ass with a little squeeze. “Nice job, Denton. You have no idea how much I enjoyed that view.”

  “Argh,” I grumbled out an unintelligible sound. This was mortifying and degrading, and yet my stupid ass had agreed to do it. I groaned again. “You’re such a—”

  I didn’t get to tell him what he was before he was running toward the next obstacle and dragging me behind him.

  The walls were next. Doug lifted himself onto the top of the first wall, and when he noticed me dangling below, he reached down to grab my arm and pull me over with him. He grunted, lifting me over the wall, and tears pricked at my eyes. Why was I doing this? I had promised Alec I would stay away from Pickles. We toppled to the ground on the other side, Doug landing first with me sprawled on top of him. Shame burned in my veins and a light sheen of sweat covered my skin. I didn’t have to imagine how funny we looked, Julie was commentating the entire ordeal.

  “Taren Richards is using Doug Pickles to soften her fall like he’s some kind of mattress. Come on guys, we don’t need a play by play of what you used to do in that tent bed.” Julie screeched with laughter over the speaker system.

  Holy hell. I was going to kill her after this. I didn’t know who had thought it would be a good idea to let her commentate after she’d been drinking. She was inappropriate enough when she was sober. My chest, face, and ears burned red hot. I had the strongest desire to flee. I looked around, trying to decide if I could make a run for it. You are tethered to Pickles, dumbass.

  Right.

  As soon as we crossed the finish line for the obstacle part of the race, one of the coordinators waved us on to the next station.

  “The last station is the passing station,” Julie announced. “Competitors have to pass objects to one another without using their hands. Anything goes!” Someone handed Julie a beer, and I watched her take a large gulp before clapping her hands together in excitement.

  “Oh shit. How do we do this?” I peered down at the objects on the table in front of me.

  Doug jumped around in excitement. “Whatever it takes. We’re in second place. C’mon, c’mon. Let’s go, Denton.”

  I stared at the first object, a peach, and tried to figure out if I was coordinated enough to use my elbows without squashing it to a pulp. I bent over at the waist, attempting to use my arms as chopsticks, only to realize I was not as flexible as I thought I was.

  “Just use your mouth!” Doug shouted. “We can win. C’mon, Denton!”

  My mouth? Shit. “Fine,” I snapped. I bit down on the peach and stood up. Sticky juice dripped down my chin as I turned toward him. Doug leaned forward, mouth opened wide, and bit on the other side, pulling it from my teeth before spinning around and dropping it into his basket.

  I looked down to see that next up was a cucumber. Oh, fuckity fuck fuck. Of course it was something shaped like a dick. A juicy peach and a dick-shaped vegetable. Why was I not surprised? The Greeks and their love of all things sexual. What if Alec were to see this? How bad would it look? Bad. The answer was way fucking bad. The problem was, I wasn’t sure how to stop this runaway train. I bent over and bit down on the end of the cucumber, desperate to just get the stupid game over with.

  “Look at the tubular vegetable skills, people. The way Taren Richards has her lips wrapped around it to keep it secure...it looks like she’s done this before, folks,” Julie yelled through the mic. “And here’s Pickles on the receiving end. Will he? Can he? Yes! Yes! Doug Pickles, instead of grabbing it with his neck like all the other pansy ass guys, has taken the other end in his mouth like a pro! It doesn’t look like any of the other guys were willing to take one for the team like our man. It’s almost unfair how good Taren and Pickles are at this.”

  I glared at Julie as Doug dropped the cucumber into our basket. I knew she couldn’t see me, but I would get her back for that comment.

  “Hurry, final race to the finish line! Go, go, go!” Julie screamed.

  Doug whooped, taking off at a sprint and dragging me behind him. I tripped, unable to keep up. Doug reached down and threw my one free leg and arm over his shoulder. I was hanging upside-down while still partially tethered to him.

  “Put me down!” I yelled, smacking him on the back as he ran full speed across the finish line.

  “We won! We won!” Doug jumped up and down while I struggled to get him to release me. “Keep doing that, Denton. You’re rubbing me in all the right ways.”

  “Pickles!” Julie yelled as she ran up behind us. “You’re disqualified, moron. She had to run on her own. She couldn’t be carried.” Julie was red-faced and pissed. Doug had probably cost our match-up the Greek Week trophy. That meant I had done all of this…for nothing. I stared at the ground, not sure if I should laugh, cry, or scream.

  “Fuck. I need a brewski.” Pickles roughly set me down and cut our bindings. I rubbed my raw wrist, glaring at him and trying to decide what I wanted to shout at him first.

  “Sorry, Denton. Hope I didn’t hurt you, but I had fun with you today. Just like old times.” Before I even realized what was happening, Pickles grabbed my shoulders and placed a wet, sweaty, beer and peach-flavored kiss on my lips.

  Oh, hell no. I shoved him off and then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, which caused him to laugh. I turned away, dragging large mouthfuls of clean Pickles-free air into my lungs.

  His laughter turned into a grunt of pain, and I spun around, everything around me moving in slow motion. Someone dressed in a bright yellow campus security jacket shoved him down, wrenching his arms behind his back. From the terrified look on Doug’s face as it was pressed into the muddy ground, it wasn’t one of his friends fooling around. I tore my gaze away from Pickles just as the guy on his back looked up at me.

  Nope. Not a friend at all. The guy with his knee in Pickles’ back was one hell of a furious boyfriend.

  Alec.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ALEC

  I pulled Pickles’ arm back a little higher, pleased when it caused him to bark out in discomfort. “Don’t ever touch her again.” The words were almost a growl as I pushed them through my clenched teeth. My body vibrated with rage, and I wanted nothing more than to introduce my fist to his face. This prick needed to learn a lesson.

  I leaned forward, and my knee dug further into his back. He grunted and satisfaction curled through my limbs, urging me to make him hurt so he’d never forget.

  “Alec! No! Don’t do this.” Taren grabbed at my arm, but I shrugged her off.

  She should have stopped this from the start. She knew how I felt about him, and she’d made a promise. I was almost as angry with her as I was with him. My hands were shaking with the need to break something.

  “You will never touch my girl again. Do you understand me, asshole?” I wanted to rip him to shreds.

  Doug turned his head as his face contorted into a sneer. “I’m only giving her what you can’t.”

  I pulled his arm up higher, and he squirmed against the pain. “I asked if you understood.” I could barely control the words as they came out of me in a snarl.

  His face turned red, but he didn’t answer.

  “So help me God, if you ever touch her again…I. Will. End. You.” My voice shook as I said each word. Then, I pushed off his back and stood up. He rolled over, glaring up at me as he lay sprawled on his back, rubbing his wrist.

  I lifted my eyes to find that we were surrounded by people who gave us wary looks. I scanned the crowd, ready for his Delta Epsilon brothers to pounce on me, but they didn’t. Pickles pushed up from the ground, and when he got to his feet, he narrowed his eyes at me.

  I took a step forward, towering over him. “Walk away now while you still can.”

  He leaned in and spoke low so only I could hear him. “Next time we meet, you won’t have the safety of that security jacke
t to hide behind.” His lip curled in disgust, and he turned to walk away, pushing through the circle of people around us. I watched his retreat until he disappeared into the crowd. A long moment passed before I noticed that Taren was talking to me.

  “Alec?” Her voice was panicked, her eyes wide with worry.

  She reached for me, and I looked down to see that her hand was on my arm. The same hand that had just been tied to her ex. I pulled away enough that she flinched from my rejection.

  “I’m sorry about that...” Her words were full of regret, and she glanced over her shoulder toward the race course. “We had to be partners.”

  “Right. Had to be.” I scowled at her and crossed my arms. “You had no choice in the matter.” I shook my head. “That fucking asshole cheated on you, and yet here you are, partying with him like you’re best friends. You let him touch you. You broke your promise to me.” The words tasted dirty as I said them, and I both loved and hated the look of hurt that flashed across her face.

  “That’s not fair, Alec.” Her voice cracked, and she pursed her lips to keep from crying. “You knew I was here for the Greek Week games. I explained this to you last night. You knew what I’d be doing.” She reached out to touch me and I uncrossed my arms, so that her hand fell away from me.

  “I didn’t know you’d be doing your ex.” I glared down at her and my arms tensed at my sides like I was ready to go into battle. I blamed Pickles, but Taren had let it happen. I wanted my words to slice deep, to punish her. “You failed to mention that you’d be tying yourself to your ex so he could treat you like you were his fucking whore.” That last word ripped out of my throat, taking a piece of my heart with it.

  “Excuse me?” Her voice rose in indignation and she stepped back. She put her hands on her hips and her eyes blazed with fury. Her regret and remorse evaporated before my eyes, leaving nothing but disgust.

  “Did you like it when he kissed you and grabbed your ass, Taren?” I ground my teeth together, remembering what Caz had said last year. That I wasn’t her type. That she belonged to the guys on Frat Row. “Do you like being treated like you’re just another one of his hookups that he can yank around and grope at will?”