“Do it. Do it!” the guys chant.
I’ve never seen Carmyn play when the brothers get a game going. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her watch much of our games before, either. And that pussy of an ex-boyfriend of hers has never had the balls to throw down any money. Shit. I gotta do it. I present the darts to her. “Do you wanna start, or shall I?”
The crowd whoops, and Ava runs up and hugs her. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers louder than she probably intended. Carmyn pats Ava’s arm and steps forward, wrapping her fingers around the darts in my palm.
I curl my hand, catching the beveled darts between our fingers. “Do you know how to play?”
“Outer ring is double, inner ring is triple. First to zero wins.” She yanks the darts out of my hand when I’m too stunned to do anything but let them go.
Shit.
Is she trying to hustle me?
She walks back to the line we’ve taped on the scratched hardwood. It’s sexy as hell seeing her walk over there like she owns it. That doesn’t mean she’ll win, though. My shot is straight and accurate. Even if she does know how to play, I doubt she’s better than me.
She shoots pretty well. I’m surprised she doesn’t play more; she could win a shitload of money from these drunken clowns.
Still, I should win this round. Carmyn has one hundred nine points left, and I’m down to fifty-four. I could hit a triple eighteen, but I can’t win on the first dart because I’ll appear too eager. And I can’t win on the third and final dart of this round because I’ll look like a chump. I survey the board and do some quick math, figuring out where I have to hit to get the numbers I want from each dart. I shoot the first dart and hit a single four.
The guys cheer.
“Only the inner bullseye left,” Nate says. He’s keeping score.
“He’s got this,” Randall calls.
I do. I look over at Carmyn and she’s holding back a smile, shaking her head. “Nope. You’re not gonna hit it.”
I’ve been avoiding this the whole game. She doesn’t think I can hit it. I wet my lips. That kiss is mine. I throw the second dart and it sinks into the center of the board.
I raise my fists into the air and hop on my toes while the crowd of drunken college co-eds cheers.
Carmyn’s jutting out her jaw and shaking her head.
I move the couple of steps over to her, taking my time. “I’ve come to collect what’s mine,” I warn her.
“Right here?” She glances around at all the bystanders.
“They’re all invested too. They aren’t about to look away now.” I drop my voice. “Better make it good.”
She swallows, hesitating.
“I believe this is yours.” I hand her the last dart in my hand. “And this is mine.” I cup her face in my hands before she can think anything else, and I kiss her.
Her lips pucker, but I’ve worked for this, so she better give me more than that. I open my mouth slightly and she mirrors me. My tongue strokes her upper lip gently. Hers reaches out and caresses mine. When she pulls her tongue back to stroke again, I open my mouth to a full kiss. Our tongues run along one another’s, tasting, taking in the firm but giving sensation as they meld together and then pull apart.
The room is loud around us, but I tune everyone out. I’ve kissed a lot of women before, but Carmyn’s is more than that. From her breaths mingling with mine, to the delicate way she tilts her head, I knew the bet would be worth it.
“Get a room!” someone shouts in jest, but it has Carmyn pulling away. She looks up through her eyelashes. She feels it too. She wants me, probably as badly as I want her.
Ava bounces over. “That was hot!”
Carmyn looks at her with a sheepish smile.
“You ready?” Ava asks.
I glance up at the clock. It is really late. Shit. It isn’t happening for me tonight. “You gonna be at the Kappa Delta Psi party tomorrow night?”
“Yes!” Ava says.
“Maybe.” Carmyn gives her friend a stern look.
“You should find me.”
Her smile turns wicked. “I doubt that. I’m not looking for anything.”
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance,
you must keep moving.”
–Albert Einstein
AVA and I walk back toward campus. “Are you having fun yet?” she asks with a smile.
“Yeeeeessss.” I’m actually surprised. I thought I would get drunk and end up even more depressed.
“Dallas?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.
I laugh. “Him, and you, and everything.” Not worrying about Becker, tomorrow, ten years from now, or the past makes me feel so much lighter.
“He can dance, though, right?”
I smirk. “Uh-huh. And kiss and shoot darts.” I’m taken aback by how attracted I am to Dallas. I’ve always avoided men with tattoos because Mom’s drug dealers always had tats.
“That was awesome! And you? You were amazing! Betting to kiss him or drive his motorcycle—both things you’d never have done before. You’re straight-up gangsta!”
My laugh is scratchy, my voice strained from the shouting and laughing over the loud music at the party. “It’s probably a good thing he won because I don’t think I’d have the balls to drive his bike. At least not sober, which is just stupid to do it any other way. They’re too reckless. I would have won and got nothing.”
“Plus, you lost and definitely got something, which is even better.”
I can’t hold back my smile. “And boy knows how to kiss.”
“Holy shit, that was so hot. I think he wants you.”
I shake my head. “This is Dallas Brown we’re talking about. He wants everyone. Well, at least all the girls.”
“Yeah, but did you see the dirty looks Vicky kept giving you guys? And he didn’t give a shit. He was all about you. He liiiiiikes you,” she teases.
“Ha! Again, Dallas—campus’s most notorious womanizer. He likes all of us until he gets with us. Then he moves on.” And I don’t see myself being one of them.
She looks at me with bright hazel eyes.
Oh God. Now what? “No, I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Just hear me out.”
I purse my lips at her.
“You should sleep with him.”
“Ava!” I squeal before she can continue her thought.
“No, this is gonna be good. You sleep with him, you’ll know it means nothing, but he rocks your world for one night. And then you can see what a real man, a man with a large pecker, can do.”
“Sex does not heal a broken heart, Ava.” I know because I witnessed my mom trying to fix hers with sex and meth. “And you know this about his pecker how?”
“It might. And, come on! He has to be stacked. Girls drool over the swagger, sure, but they don’t fall all over themselves like they do with Dallas—unless they know something about what he’s packing. Girls always think guys have a dirty mind. But it’s we who have the dirtiest.”
We do talk about sex quite a bit. Come to think of it, I have heard girls talk about Dallas’s anatomy before. I ignored it, disgusted. “Yeah, and then I’d be the slut who got with Dallas. It’s crazy.”
“No, you would not. You have been with the same guy for three years. If anyone accuses you of being a whore for sleeping with the second man of your college career, I’ll cut a bitch. And because it’s crazy is exactly why you should do it.”
“Haha!” Ava gets feisty when she drinks. It’s so cute. “Still, I don’t think that’s a good-enough reason to hop into bed with him.”
“Well, if not for that, then simply for the fact that you’ll realize how glad you are that you didn’t marry Becker. Problem solved.” She wipes her hands together. Her grin is one of achieved brilliance.
I’m still mostly drunk, so I can’t help but laugh. “I am not sleeping with him. A dance. A kiss. The fountain. I can do that.”
“Oh! The fountain! We are so doing that.” She gr
abs my arm and speed-walks me toward the quad. Late August in Texas means it’s warm enough this time of night that a dunk in the fountain isn’t really out of the question. But that’s not why I’ve always been against it. Who knows what kind of trouble we’ll get into if we get caught?
Ava points to my feet once we reach the fountain. “Take off my shoes. Oh! And your shirt too.”
I take off the borrowed heels. “I am not taking off my shirt. I only have a bra on underneath. And it’s white.”
“Suit yourself, but this night is supposed to be about doing and not thinking. The lame white bra excuse is thinking.” Ava throws off her shirt and jumps into the fountain, slipping and falling on her ass. She drops her head back and laughs. There is no restraint in the sound. She’s free, enjoying probably the only time we’ll do this thing she’s been bugging me about since freshman year to do.
“Fuck it.” My shirt comes off and I jump in with her. The bottom is slick and my feet slide. I do some arm flinging to catch myself. I don’t know which was more ungraceful: Ava’s ass dive or my Big Bird impression. We bust up laughing. My eyes dart around the quad to see if anyone hears us.
The coast is clear, so I bend over and splash Ava.
She shakes her head and attempts to stand up, only to slide and fall again.
I bend over laughing. It reminds me of the time we went to a roller skating rink for a Beta Alpha Psi activity last year. Ava couldn’t stay on her feet. She fell all over the place, yelling at me like I was the one responsible for her crappy balance.
“Help me up, hooker.” She reaches her hand out to me, but I’m hesitant to take it.
“Crawl over here. It’s less grimy this way.”
“Bitch, I am not crawling. Just help my ass up.” We’re both laughing.
“You’re the one who wanted to frolic in the fountain. So frolic.”
She does some ugly, half-body roll thing toward me. “I’m a mermaid!”
“Oh God, no. You see? This right here is why I’ve avoided doing this with you for so long. You are not a mermaid. You don’t even look nearly as badass as Ariel did. You look more like a drunk, handicapped person. Maybe even a drunk handicapped person on ’shrooms.”
She does it again. “How about now?” she asks, flinging her hair.
“Definitely not.” My best friend is a lunatic. Hilarious, but insane in the membrane.
Voices echo between the buildings, coming this way. Ava and I shut up and look toward the sound.
Deep voices.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she squeals, crawling toward me. She grabs my pants and tries to use my balance to find her own, but neither one of us are very sturdy in our rush to hide behind the statue. We both go down, splashing loudly as the manly voices get closer.
My ass hurts, but I don’t care. And I’m not above crawling along the fountain’s floor to spare my almost naked boobies from some random guy’s eyes. I pull myself up using the statue.
“Ava?” one of the guys asks. They’re in the quad now.
Double shit! I know that voice. Denton is in Beta Alpha Psi with us. He can’t see me like this.
Ava slithers behind the statue, knocking me with her backside.
I catch myself on the horse’s bronze tail. It’s doing a piss poor job hiding us because it’s raised on its hind legs in some heroic warrior pose with its rider. Yeah, well, it sure ain’t acting very heroic now, is it?
“What are you guys doing?” Denton asks. He and James laugh at us and step closer.
OhGodohGodohGod! Do they not see our clothes lying on the ground in front of the fountain?
“Don’t come any closer!” I yell and put my hand out. Denton’s dad is the chemistry department head. If this gets back to his dad, we’re in deep shit.
“What are you doing?” They’re still headed toward us.
“Yeah, great idea, Ava!” I whisper down to her. “Let’s take our shirts off,” I mock. “Let’s frolic in the fountain half naked. It’ll be so much fun.”
Ava’s laughing. The bitch is laughing.
“This is not funny. It’s killed my buzz, and we’re about to get caught, damn it.”
“Denton,” Ava chuckles, trying to catch her breath, “we’re in the pond without our shirts on.” She laughs harder. “Can you be so kind as to go about your business and act like this never happened before Carmyn has an aneurysm?”
“Ava!” I knee her in the back hard enough she knows I don’t think this is funny.
“What will you give us if we do?”
“Oh, hell no!” I yell at them. They are not about to negotiate as to whether they get to see my goods. “Denton, I swear to God, if you come over here, I am sending you anthrax in the mail!”
“Well, tell me this—is it going to be worth it?”
Ava laughs so hard she snorts and then laughs harder because of it. “Yes, it will be so worth it.”
“Stop, Ava!” I cross my arms over my chest and waddle toward the back of the fountain to get out. If I fall, I’m doing it behind the statue. I stomp around to the front, keeping the girls hidden behind my arms, turn my back to Denton and his stupid friend, and grab my shirt. I throw it over my head and spin around to glare at Denton. “Anthrax. In your mailbox.” I storm toward our dorm, a grin growing on my face. My life is falling apart, my buzz is gone, my best friend is a bitch, and my tailbone might be bruised, but this was the most fun I’ve had in … ever.
“Some of the best thrills are those you have to chase.”
—Dallas Brown
I’M playing cards with Randall and some of my other brothers at the Kappa Delta Psi welcome-back party while I wait for Carmyn to show up. I’m not sure if she will, but there’s no way I’m gonna miss the possibility that she might. I just hope her girl Ava is persuasive enough. It sounded like she wanted to come tonight.
I’m in the middle of a trick when the aroma of black currant teases me. Carmyn has an unusual perfume. It’s not overbearing like honeysuckle, or jasmine that demands to be noticed, but more delicate, like it’s awaiting your approach. And being that close to her, my nose against her skin last night, I’m hyperaware of that scent now.
I look up and meet Carmyn’s black-rimmed eyes, as sweet and dark as maple syrup. Her cheeks rose slightly, enough to let me know she’s reminded of our kiss last night. The lush brunette strands of her hair are softly curled and bounce with her stride. She looks fucking amazing.
She walks right past me like nothing happened. No “hello.” Not even a head nod. Damn, girl plays a tough game.
Ava smiles as she passes by, though.
I haven’t had a chase in a while. Carmyn should be hella fun. I smile, imagining just how much fun as I bet and play my hand.
Carmyn’s and Ava’s heels clap against the hardwood floor and then the tile as they make their way to the drinks in the kitchen. Denton’s in there too. This isn’t my frat party so I didn’t have any say whether the bastard was invited. He’s avoiding me, which is good, but he could be talking to Carmyn, which is not. I’ve worked on staying as far removed from him as I can. I’ve done a fine fucking job too. He and Carmyn know each other, but I doubt she knows the other stuff. I’d prefer to keep it that way.
I play a few more hands—the girls have been in there for a while. When they come out and start dancing in the living room, I can tell they’re already drunk. I keep a sly eye on them as I finish out my game. I fuck a lot, but I’ve never taken advantage of a drunken girl, and I’m not about to let anyone else do so while I’m around. I doubt I’m the only one who’s wished Carmyn and her boy would call it quits.
As if to prove my point, Will moves in and starts dancing. They allow it, but Carmyn pushes him back when he tries to grind up on her. He settles with what he can get and dances with them until the song ends. The girls turn back to each other, efficiently cutting him out. They dance a few more songs, working up a sweat and an audience before they’re on their way back into the kitchen.
My drink’
s almost empty anyway. I fold my hand, tossing my cards in the middle of the coffee table, and grab my cup. My feet follow the path the girls walked. Some KDPs are moving that way as well, but it could only be for drinks. It will be now that I’ll be in there.
When I cross the threshold, Ava is pouring tequila into two shot glasses. She takes one, and Carmyn takes the other. They clank their glasses and throw back the tequila.
Carmyn drops her glass from her lips first and bites into the slice of lime she’s holding in her other hand. Her lips wrap around the flesh of the fruit, and my dick flexes in earnest. I’ve watched women suck on me and not look nearly that seductive.
Becker cheated on that? At least according to Nate. Fucking idiot. I look away and grab the rum out of the fridge, concentrating on easing my boy down so I’m not walking around with a damn hard-on all night.
“Whoooo!” Ava yells and tosses her lime into the trash.
I think I’ve tamed the man at attention in my pants enough and turn back to the fridge, placing the rum bottle in the door. When I look over, Carmyn’s pouring more shots—how drunk are they trying to get?—and Denton and most everyone else is watching them the same way I am. Little fuckers.
I stride over to the counter. “You may wanna slow down,” I advise Carmyn.
She places the liter of tequila down, looks up at me in challenge, and pounds the shot. When the last drop of amber fluid empties into her mouth, she slams the glass down with finality, like she’s making a statement that she’s her own woman and will not be told. She turns around and struts away.
“Damn,” I say under a hot breath.
Her firm ass has the perfect amount of bounce. It’d give and flex just right under a good smack.
Will crosses my path, breaking off my line of sight, and I realize everyone is looking at that same ass.
I go after her.
She turns down the hall instead of staying in the main room, so I turn down it after her. I follow her nearly to the end.
She spins around, surprising me, and pushes me against the wall with a loud thud. She possesses my lips. Her mouth burns of liquor and heat, and it’s the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever tasted.
Wicked Thing Page 4
