“Because doing all of this actually turns you on.”
“I think I might die if you don’t, to be honest.”
“Undo your jeans for me, then.”
She could see he thought she was going to hesitate. But she was too far gone to even think about it. She simply yanked at the buttons and zipper, then started working on pushing the whole lot down. He had to stop her, and show her what he had really meant—just two fingers slipped beneath the elastic of her panties, to search out her bursting clit.
Though she didn’t get a chance to be grateful that he was trying to take things so slow. Or feel foolish, for suddenly being the one racing on ahead. All that mattered were those tight, firm circles on her slick little clit, followed by him bending his head to attend to her breasts. And he did attend to them this time. There was no sense that this was what he wanted at all—only what she did.
He knew what would happen when he teased one stiff nipple with his tongue, as he rubbed over her aching bud. He seemed well aware of the connection between those two things, and how good it felt to have them toyed with at the same time. Then when she moaned and bucked, he went one further. He slid two fingers inside her, thumb still on her clit, mouth still at her breasts. Sometimes licking now and sometimes sucking and always, always making her lose her mind.
She barely knew where she was by the time her orgasm swelled through her. All she could think or see or feel was her clit swelling against his thumb and her cunt clenching around his fingers, every part of her completely present and unself-conscious in the moment. Abandoned to it, she would later think, so eager that she didn’t hesitate when she saw the shadow over his shoulder.
It was only in the aftermath, still glowing with pleasure and lax in his arms, that she realized.
There was someone there, over by the ladder. Chad, her mind informed her.
About a second before the flash of a camera phone lit up the darkness to make his intentions perfectly clear.
Chapter 20
She tried not to think about it too hard. Thinking hard over something like this was her enemy. It made her want to not look at him when he started up the steps that bisected the lecture hall, and maybe pull her hand away the moment he took hold of it. It was resting on her desk and he just casually dropped his over the top, as though nothing had really happened.
Which was kind of true.
It was just her brain that kept telling her otherwise.
It kept whispering that his reaction hadn’t been good enough. He’d immediately bellowed at his friend to get the fuck out of there, but he had said very little about the picture he might have taken. And though he’d told her he had nothing to do with it, she couldn’t help wondering. Maybe it was all part of some elaborate prank—even though the word elaborate could never possibly cover something like this. To pretend to like her, to gradually wear her down, to seduce her in the strangest and most unintentional seeming way…it was all way too much effort for a nude picture he could make a joke of. Even Lydia had deemed the idea ridiculous, and she had spent the half hour prior to being told shaking her head over them dating.
He tried to murder you, she had said, which put her firmly in the not-on-his-side column.
If he did something wrong, Lydia would definitely tell her. She would know.
There was just no way.
“Are you okay honey?”
He leaned very close to whisper the words. So close his breath brought up goosebumps in places they didn’t usually occur, like the side of her throat and the curve of her jaw. And then there was the expression on his face—so anxious and vulnerable.
It made any anger or doubt very hard to maintain.
Harder yet when she saw Chad slink into his seat about five rows down. Then he turned just a little, and she saw the reason for his bowed head. He had a black eye the size of a small grapefruit. The lids had swollen to such an extent that seeing was completely impossible, and there were only a couple of explanations. Fewer than a couple, if you factored in Tate’s fist. She hadn’t noticed at first because it was his left, not his right, and he’d kept it out of her line of sight.
But when he reached down for his textbooks and piled them onto his desk…
There it was. A nice, livid corresponding bruise all across his bulky knuckles.
One of his knuckles was almost as black as Chad’s eye, and twice as swollen. Broken, she thought, then got a hot shock of something through her body. Annoyance, she wanted to call it, but annoyance rarely made your heart thump like this. It didn’t make your palms sweaty.
And it definitely didn’t give your voice an awestruck tone when you whispered a question.
“Did you punch him in the face for taking a picture of me?”
“I literally have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Just saying the word literally really strongly doesn’t make it sound more true.”
“I didn’t say it strongly. I said it in a totally normal way.”
“Even having it in there at all is kind of dubious.”
“Dubious in what way?”
“The lady doth protest way too much.”
He snorted at that, loud enough to almost interrupt Professor Harrison midflow. He was saying something about the grade criteria for the joint projects, and his attention flicked upward. Only briefly though, and not enough to stop their conversation.
They just had to do it more quietly, leaning close enough to feel each other’s breath on their lips and cheeks. To see each other’s eyes in color-streaked snatches.
“How do you know I’m not protesting the exact right amount?”
“Because your left hand looks like it was hit with a hammer.”
“Maybe it was. Maybe I—”
“Had a confrontation with Thor?”
He rolled his eyes, which seemed pretty convincing.
But glanced away, in a manner that wasn’t.
“My hand doesn’t look that bad.”
“I think the middle knuckle is broken.”
“Man, those are some good X-ray eyes you’ve got.”
“I don’t need X-ray eyes. It looks like it’s on backward.”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing. I did it in practice.”
“You haven’t been to practice for a week. Coach stopped me in the hall yesterday to ask if I had seen you and pretty much suggested that I had poisoned your mind.”
He had acted fairly casual until that point.
But now he whipped a look at her. He raised his voice an octave, loud enough that a pixie-haired girl in an absolutely gorgeous red jumpsuit turned around and shushed them.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“He bugged you about it?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“I’ll punch him, too.”
She knew he was being funny. He boxed the air with his one good fist, like some cartoon from the 1930s. Why I oughta, she thought, then wanted to laugh.
So it was a surprise when her voice came out so furious.
“You shouldn’t be punching anyone, ever.”
“Not even when the punching is justified?”
“Punching is never justified, you lummox.”
He wanted to laugh, over lummox. She could see it in the flash of brightness that suddenly lit in his eyes and the way his lips trembled at the corners.
But he managed to swap it for withering dismissal at the last second.
“Yeah okay, I know, I know, it’s brutal and aggressive and—”
“I don’t care about the brutal aggression. I care that your hand looks like raw beef. I care about you getting kicked out of college because you pounded some asshole who took a nudie picture of me.”
“He didn’t get a nudie picture of you. He got like half of your elbow.”
“Well then what did you hit him for? An elbow isn’t so bad.”
“An elbow is worse, are you kidding? How dare he invade the privacy of your right arm.”
He slapped
his desk, loud enough to make the girl in the red jumpsuit turn again.
Though when she did, he did a masterful job of pretending to read one of his textbooks.
“Okay, now you’re just purposefully being ridiculous.”
“I know, but I’m enjoying myself, so just go with me on it.”
She loved the grin he snuck her after those words. It was lopsided and somewhat sheepish and so conspiratorial. As though they were partners in crime, and he’d just asked her to rob a bank with him. It’ll be fun, she imagined him saying, and then she was just grinning back.
It wasn’t hard. His amusement was contagious.
And she had contracted a fatal dose.
“I think I have to just go with you on it.”
“You don’t have to. You could tell me to be serious.”
“I see, and what good would that do me?”
“It might help convince you to trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” she said.
And in that moment, she really was.
She held his warm and sincere gaze as he leaned in for a kiss, and everything was okay.
—
“You know, we really have to have something to show for our hours supposedly spent on this project.”
She turned on his bed and looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Pen still poised over the flow chart she’d just drawn in his room, to illustrate how the various parts of their project went together. Tone as stern as she could make it.
But it made no difference. He just kept right on fondling her under her T-shirt, oblivious to her concerns. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking at the progress his hand was making on her bra. Then when the progress proved inadequate, he tried with two. He pushed her T-shirt all the way up and went at those little hooks, tugging and wrestling until she was swinging completely free in front. All he had to do to see her completely bare breasts was lift the material.
Though she could tell he was wary about making that his goal. Stripping her had hardly gone well the last time. And besides, there were other things for him to do. Really cool things, like sitting up a little so he could reach all the way around and inside, to where the already stiff points of her nipples were.
And then he teased.
He skimmed his fingers back and forth over those sensitive tips, pausing only to lick his fingers or gauge her reaction. Not that he really needed to: she was making her reaction pretty clear. The pen was the first casualty. It rolled out of her hand and under her desk before she could take hold of herself. Soon her notepad followed, forgotten in her rush to lean back against him.
Oh, and she was gasping.
She wasn’t sure when it had started, but she definitely was. He made two fingers extra slick and then just circled one tight little bud, and the sounds just spilled out, despite all of her efforts at staying aloof. She reminded herself how long they had left to finish work they’d barely started, but it had no effect. Everything was his hands now, and his greediness. God, his greediness. It took him all of twenty seconds to progress from circling her nipples to getting big handfuls of her breasts. The kissing he was doing all over the side of her face soon became hotter, and wetter, and went lower down. Suddenly he was biting the curve of her throat, in between the hottest words she could imagine.
“Ohhh man, I just want to lick and kiss these beautiful tits. Can I do that? Is it okay if I do that?”
“I really want to say no. But if you don’t, I think I might die of sexual deprivation.”
“I’ve been dying of sexual deprivation since we were so rudely interrupted. Honestly, your breasts have haunted my every horny dream. Swear to god I had one last night about fucking in between them and woke up to find I’d pretty much come all over myself,” he said.
After which, she pretty much lost it.
“Ohhhhhh my god oh my god.”
“You like that huh, dirty girl? You want me to coat those beautiful tits? Or was it the idea of me in my bed all covered in my own come? Dick still hard, wanting more. Wanting me to fist it until I shoot again, while moaning your name. Because I did, you know. I jerked off with the first hot load slicking the way, everything all slippery and easy, head full of the idea of those tits bouncing as you ride me.”
“Fuuuuck, are you kidding me? Are you kidding stop Jesus I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I just need you to fuck me now. Please fuck me now I want to feel that big dick inside me.”
She turned on the bed as she spoke, so eager she didn’t think to check that he was with her. She just sprawled back, legs already mostly spread.
Only to find he wasn’t following.
He was just staring down at her with this blank look on his face.
“You do? Are you…are you serious or…?”
“God yeah, I’m serious. Of course I am.”
“You’re not scared?”
“No, baby. No.”
“Holy shit, okay. All right. Um.”
Again he seemed to go blank, as though he couldn’t quite process what was supposed to happen or what he was meant to do. After a second of watching him sit there, frozen, hands not reaching for anything and gaze turned inward like some robot searching for a system error, she had to jostle him.
She sat a little way back up again and put a hand on his forearm.
“Tate. We need a condom.”
“Uh-huh, yeah, I just…”
He made a gesture she knew meant I don’t have one. It was caught somewhere between a shrug and a look of despair, empty hands spread out to really illustrate the total lack of them anywhere here.
Yet still she couldn’t quite believe it.
“You don’t have any? Tate Sullivan, super stud wrestling champ, has no condoms in his dorm room? Not even one in his wallet, or in the free pack they gave out at orientation?”
“No, I have the free pack. I just can’t actually use the tiny things they put in the free pack.”
“That has to be the hottest way anyone has ever said they can’t use a condom.”
“Are you fucking with me right now?”
“Not even a little bit. I don’t even know why you would think I was.”
“Most girls I get this far with don’t really want to go any further.”
He said the words slow slow slow. Like he was trying to spell out the concept for her.
But she got it. She had it. It was just other stuff she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Are you saying that you’ve not actually had sex since you got here?”
This time his silence was deadly. She watched him lapse into it and almost died.
She was still almost dying as she squeaked out the words.
“Oh my god. Are you saying you’ve never had sex?”
“No. No. Fuck no. That would be insane. That would be the weirdest fucking thing in the history of ever,” he said, and to his credit he was laughing as he said it. He snorted and rolled his eyes and generally made a good show of dismissing her. It was just that all of his efforts were immediately decimated when he decided to add one little extra thing. “But let’s say for the sake of argument that I’ve only…kind of had sex…”
He didn’t even get to finish.
She was already covering her face with her hands.
“Noooooooooo, Tate, no, come on, this cannot be true.”
“I just said it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, but you’re lying! How is it possible that you’re lying? I must have seen you with, like, seventy different girls in high school. I once caught you getting a blow job behind the science block! You claimed to be some kind of sex expert, when actually you’re a virgin?”
She said the word way too loudly, and knew it. It practically reverberated around the room.
Though luckily it seemed to have no impact. Or at least, not the impact she expected. His cheeks didn’t go pink. There was no blustering after the fact, or sneering at the idea of virginity. Instead, his answe
ring expression was almost scornful—and so were his words.
“Hey, just because I’ve never stuck my dick all the way into some pussy doesn’t make me a virgin. I’ve done just about every other fucking thing you can think of. I’ve had two threesomes—one with another guy. I made a girl come just by kissing and sucking on her tits. Bondage, spanking, sex toys, fingers in my ass, fingers in her ass, voyeurism, exhibitionism…you name it, I’ve done it.”
Now it was her turn to fall silent, as several cogs turned in her head at once.
Spanking cogs. Bondage cogs. Cogs that featured someone fingering his ass.
And finally, the best one. The one she had to bring up, if only in passing.
“Okay, can we revisit the guy thing at some point when my mind is not still being blown by this other completely incredible revelation?”
“It’s not such a revelation. You’ve seen my dick. You know my problem.”
“The only problem I know of is that it isn’t in me.”
“You really wouldn’t be saying that if you did have it in you.”
“Why don’t you try and we’ll find out.”
She didn’t really mean it in a sexy way.
It just came out like that, all husky and teasing.
And now his cheeks turned pink.
“Okay. Okay. Look, if we are actually going to do this we need to do a lot of other shit first.”
“Like threesomes with another guy? Or do you just want me to finger pop your asshole?”
“This is not the time to be a smart-ass, Letty. This is the time for me to panic about splitting your vagina right down the middle like a dress that’s way too small for me.”
“Now is exactly the time to be a smart-ass if you really think that’s going to happen.”
“No I don’t really think it is. But you know what I mean. I have been with girls who screamed over barely the tip. Usually I at least get a grimace. I really don’t want our first time to be you grimacing while I squeeze a watermelon into an opening the size of a grape.”
“I’m not sure my opening is grape-sized.”
“It feels grape-sized. It feels like I can only just get two fucking fingers in there, so we’re gonna do this my way or no way. Are we clear on that?”
“Absolutely clear. You just tell me what you want me to do.”
Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1) Page 19
