Urging his head up, I pulled him so our lips met. But when they did, he didn’t apply the pressure I wanted. I wanted him. I wanted him to take control how he always did. Groaning, I felt the tension in him and knew he was going to speak again. Enough with the talking. My hips pressed up against his. Hearing his swift intake of breath, my lips curved against his in a smirk.
“Shit, Alex. Your friends are upstairs.”
Reality crashed over me and my eyes snapped open. I shoved him back and shook my head, needing to clear all the sensations and lust from me. I needed to think clearly.
He chuckled, but I saw the same struggle in his eyes. His hand reached out to my arm as he murmured, huskily, “I was saying before that I was jealous. You’re involved with my friends through Cord and not me. I wanted to introduce you to the gang, but as mine. You’re Cord’s friend to them.”
“I’m not Cord’s.”
He lifted a shoulder, frowning. “You are in their mind. Not as his girlfriend, but I know they think you were a hook-up. Cord doesn’t keep his hook-ups around. He drops ‘em right away. They don’t know why he’s looking out for you.”
“Is he?”
Jesse nodded. “Yeah, he is for me. But maybe he shouldn’t have to anymore.”
My breath hitched in my throat. My heart slowed. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he shouldn’t have to look out for you.”
I frowned. “He doesn’t, not really. I would’ve been fine in someone else’s group. He did that for him. Trust me. The hyenas were circling until he pulled me in.”
“I know, but I’m just saying…” A darker frown appeared and he started picking at his bedcover. What was going on? A sliver of panic started in me. It grew with each breath I struggled to take until I heard him say, “Maybe we should go public about us?”
Ice cold panic blasted me. I couldn’t handle this. No, no, no, no. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t want that. That meant—no. Shaking my head, I lunged off the bed and for the door.
“Hey!”
I slammed a hand into the door and fumbled for the handle, but Jesse was there. His arms trapped me in. The door wouldn’t budge now. Instead of turning me around, he pressed me against the door. His hips pushed into my backside and his mouth fell to my throat. He rasped out, against my ear, “That sends you into this? Are you fucking kidding me?”
The fury was back. Unease clawed into my gut as I knew I’d awakened his beast. Jeesuz. I needed to settle this. We couldn’t explode. “Jesse,” my voice trembled as he continued to move his hips into me. Oh god. In two seconds, I was writhing in his arms again. But this time, he wouldn’t turn me around. He wouldn’t do what I wanted. My head tipped back and his lips seared a path up. Sucking on the corner of my lips, his hand made its way underneath my pants and he worked his fingers between my legs. In one motion, he tipped his hips into me, lifting me up as his fingers took advantage of the slight opening. They went inside of me.
He’d been gentle at other times. Not this time. As his lips moved up the arch of my jawline before going back to my lips, he pumped his fingers furiously into me. He was angry and pissed off at me. He was taking it out on me. I groaned, searching for his lips with mine greedily. I wanted him in me, but his fingers kept thrusting, going harder each time.
I tried turning. His hips slammed me back in place; he didn’t care about hurting his own hand. Reaching behind me, I clamped a hold onto the back of his head and anchored him to me. His lips were fighting against mine. We were both trying to hurt each other as we fought to fulfill our insatiable hunger. As it began rising in me, a whimper left me and I couldn’t move. Another finger went inside. He kept going. My hand and head fell away to the door. I could only gasp for breath as he continued assaulting my body. My forehead rested there. Wave after wave crashed over me. I was unable to control the attack he was having on me and then I crested. Hurdling over the edge, my body lifted in the air from the climax, and Jesse’s arm went around me and held me suspended in the air as he flipped us around.
He threw me on the bed and shucked my pants down the rest of the way.
Then he was inside of me and I gasped. My body hadn’t stopped trembling from my first climax before he was working me back up once again. Thrusting into me, his body was rigid and determined. This wasn’t for me. This was for him. The coupling was rough. His hips pistoned into me until both of us tensed together. He shot himself into me as I climaxed, again.
Then he was off me. His shorts were pulled up and he was gone in the next second. I heard his car’s engine as the lights flooded into his room. He reversed his car and gunned the engine, soaring away.
Shit.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even think. What had just happened?
Beth came to check on me. I’d been gone over thirty minutes. Still weak from the explosion from Jesse, I was mortified as well as angered when she told me. I didn’t ask what Tiffany and the other girls might’ve been thinking from my long absence, but then Beth said that Jesse called when he left. He told Jamie that some girl was sick in the basement bathroom.
He covered for me.
Beth had volunteered first to check on me and everyone was grumbling already. They didn’t want to get sick so when we went upstairs, Tiffany and Chandra gave me a wide berth. Even though they had moved into the living room, leaving Cord, Jamie, and myself in the dining room, I caught the sidelong glances they sent my way. The glares were bordering close to a mean girl snub. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were going to ask that I leave, but they kept quiet. However, later in the night after Hannah and Tiffany got into a yelling match, she was asked to leave. Beth went with her.
It was late in the night when the girls finally started to leave. Chandra went to her place, wherever she lived, while Tiffany and Kara both went to their boyfriends’ rooms. Drunk from wine and full from pizza, Kara whispered loudly to me that she couldn’t be seen in that state at the dorm. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but I shrugged. I didn’t care. And I didn’t think RAs were supposed to always be in their rooms. They had lives too.
Derek, her boyfriend, gave me a polite nod as he ushered his girlfriend up the stairs. Jamie slapped him on the ass when they moved past, but Derek didn’t react. It must’ve been a common thing among this group of friends, so at one in the morning, I was left alone with Cord and Jamie. A box of wine had been opened and left on the table, alongside three opened boxes of pizza.
That was when Jesse returned home.
His headlights were visible as he pulled inside his own garage. Doors were heard and it wasn’t long until the basement door was shoved open and he came through.
Jamie lifted his hand in the air. “My man! Where the hell have you been all night?”
Jesse’s eyes flashed to mine, pinning me in place, but he turned to his roommate. He shrugged, grabbing a glass from the kitchen before he took a seat at the table, across from me. He said to Jamie, “Out and about.”
Jamie’s head bobbed up and down. “Cool. Get laid?”
I lowered my gaze to my book, but I felt his gaze on me, burning into the top of my head when he murmured, “You could say that.”
“You always get the best ass too,” Jamie grumbled, lifting his hand in the air. “Pound it, Hunt. You’re my hero.”
I heard the fists meeting before Jesse replied, “You’re slow in the head, Striker. What’s your deal tonight?”
Cord snickered behind his laptop. “Tiffany was here all night. Jamie’s going through withdrawals.”
“She never puts out. Is that what marriage is going to be like? Never having sex? It’s been since the end of sophomore year, five months of abstinence.”
“From her.”
“So what? The other girls are good, but Tiffany’s talented in bed. You don’t know.” A long pregnant pause. “Right? You don’t know, right?”
Cord dissolved in more laughter. “He thinks you laid his wife.”
Jesse’s t
one was dry. “I’ve never touched Tiffany. You’re safe.”
“Oh good.” Jamie’s relief was strong. “Cause I know she’d do you if she could.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Yeah, but you might one day. Can you refrain on that day, please?”
Cord spoke up, “Dude, why do you care? You get laid every night Tiffany’s not around.”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I don’t love them. I love her.”
“Are you asking me to stay away from your girlfriend? If this wasn’t so entertaining, I’d be pissed at the insult. I don’t touch my friends’ girls.”
“No, but friends’ sisters are another thing,” Cord piped in.
I slapped my book shut and glared at him. Fury like I hadn’t felt in a while scorched me. I wanted to lunge across the table and wrap my hands around his neck.
“Tatum,” Jesse snapped.
Jamie’s eyes went wide. His mouth formed an O as he sensed the sudden shift in the room. It’d been easygoing with undertones of tension, but that tension was loud and clear now. It rose to the top and there was no going back.
His eyes darted around the table. “What’s going on?”
“Take that back.” Jesse spoke to Cord, but his eyes caught mine. His head moved in the tiniest of shakes. He wanted me to stand down. Fuck that. My gaze was simmering at Cord, a whole host of anger rose in me, anger that probably had nothing to do with him, but I was bursting to let it out. I needed to let it out.
Jesse’s eyes narrowed. He saw I was nearing my end. “Jamie, take the girl out.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” he clipped out, “no stranger should know this shit about me. Take her home.”
“No way. I don’t even like her.”
“Take her home!” Jesse shouted now.
Jamie’s mouth closed with a thud and he shoved back his chair. Flicking an impatient hand at me, he shot Jesse a dark look. “Come on, girl. Let’s go.”
I didn’t go. I didn’t even move.
“Hey! You!” Jamie grabbed a hold of my arm.
The contact sent me in motion. I lunged for Cord, needing to hurt someone. Before my hands touched him, I was caught in the air. Jamie wrestled me down, but I gave it my all. Kicking, hitting, punching, I didn’t care if I was hurting him. I needed to get at Cord. He had opened a can of worms that he shouldn’t have.
“Fuck, bitch.”
“Here.” Jesse’s arms slid around me. I was transferred to him and he wrapped his arms tight as he murmured for my ears only, “Stop it. Stop it, Alex. Jamie will start wondering. Calm down.”
I bucked at him, trying to get free. Rage like no other was clawing to get out of my chest. It was seething up and down, my breathing labored. The need for vengeance had overtaken me.
“Her name’s Alex,” Cord spoke, startled as he backed away from the table.
“Alex,” Jesse spoke again. “Alex, calm down.”
“The girl’s a whack job. We should kick her out of the group. Fuck this. I’ll call the professor tomorrow.”
“Jamie, shut up.” Jesse’s arms had an ironclad hold over me. He started to carry me from the room and spoke over his shoulder, “Cut her some slack. Being in a room with you, I’d snap too.”
“Ha ha. Not funny, Hunt.” As Jesse started up the stairs, he called after him, “Where are you going?”
But he wasn’t listening and I was carried all the way to the second floor. He kissed my temple, whispering, “Calm down. Don’t wake up Tiffany.”
I tried. I really did and managed enough so I stood on my feet now, still encircled by him, with my chest heaving up and down. He knocked softly on a door. When it opened, Derek was there in boxers and shirtless. He rubbed at his eyes, his hair sticking in the air. When he took us in, his eyes lurched awake and he stepped through, closing the door behind him. He asked, a low murmur, “What’s going on?”
“I need the codes for the backdoor from Kara. I have to take her girl home.”
Derek frowned. “Why you?”
“She flipped out on Cord.”
“Oh.” He nodded in understanding, going back inside.
I thought it was funny that Jamie wasn’t brought up. A giggle started in my gut and worked its way up my throat. It was loud and nearing hysteria by the time I let it loose. Jesse hushed me, clamping a hand over my mouth, and turned me into him so my head was pressed against his side. My shoulders continued to shake as the laughter boiled from me. I was unable to stop it, not anymore, and I scraped my teeth against his chest, through his shirt, before biting down on his nipple.
He jumped, muffling a curse, as he covered my mouth again. “Stop it!”
Derek emerged again, shutting the door once more as he joined us in the hallway. He handed Jesse a piece of paper. “She said it’ll open the back door, but don’t go until the hour mark. I guess they got a security guard to make the rounds. She doesn’t know when he walks through, but he always has to be at his office on the hour mark.”
“Thanks.” Jesse took the paper and glanced at his watch. “We can go now. I’ll get her in right away.”
“Hey, man.”
Derek stopped him, a twinge of concern in his voice.
“Yeah?”
“Secrets get out, Jess. This one will get out too. I don’t know who she is, but I know that’s her brother downstairs.”
I’d been giggling softly into his chest, but at that, they turned to sobs. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t even know why I was crying, but I was. Jesse stiffened, but his hand cupped the back of my head and his hold turned from controlling to sympathetic. He bent low to my ear and whispered, “Ssh, Alex. Hold it together, just for a little while.”
I tried. Drawing in a deep breath, filtered through his shirt, I tried to quench the hysteria unleashed inside of me. No avail. More sobs burst from me and I doubled over into Jesse’s chest. Tears trickled from my eyes and I couldn’t stop them. He bent over and lifted me in his arms.
“She okay?” Derek asked.
There was no response. Jesse carried me back downstairs. When he stepped through to the kitchen, I heard, “Oh shit. What the fuck’s wrong with her?”
Cord’s voice was closer, quieter. “What happened?”
“Breakdown.”
“Dump her on the streets. Why do we have to take care of all the emotional chicks?”
“Jamie!”
“What? I’m just saying. Make sure there are no pics on her phone. I can see her turning around and claiming rape or some other crazy shit. Look at her. She’s nuts.”
“Go to bed, Jamie.” The irritation settled in Jesse’s chest as he went rigid against me. His hands tightened on me. I knew the signs. He was gearing up for a fight. His roommate had two seconds before Jesse was going to let loose on him.
Pushing past the pain that was blinding me, I looked up and touched the side of his face. When I felt moisture on his cheek, I withdrew my fingers. Surprised, I saw what must’ve been tears on the tip of my finger. Jesse had shed a few of his own tears. He looked down, a mirror of my agony clouding his face. I held my breath. He understood.
“Go to bed, Jamie. Go and get laid by your woman,” Cord growled at him.
“Get laid?” He smirked back. “More like get shot down you mean.”
“Go.”
“All right, all right. Why are you two worked up? You’re like girls. Seriously.”
“Jamie.”
“I’m going.” He lifted his arms in the air, surrendering his defeat as he left the room and disappeared up the stairs.
Cord came closer and softened his voice, “I’m sorry for my dig.