We did as commanded, and after a few minutes, I heard the door click open and several pairs of feet shuffle into the room. I sensed someone stand before me and nearly puked at the stench. He had liquor and strong, putrid body odour humming out of his pores.
Disgusting.
“When I tap y’all on the shoulder, make out, guess the food correctly, and you’ll be in—simple,” Shelly informed with a gleeful lilt.
I could tell I was at the end of the line because when I waved a hand out beside me, all I felt was thin air.
I would be the last pledge last to go.
The distinct sound of slurping tongues and girls making guesses filled the room, and a chorus of sorority sisters emitting bitchy laughs mid-process came from every direction.
I could feel my pulse racing in nervous apprehension and my hands fidgeted, betraying my burgeoning panic.
Time seemed to still as my turn approached. The frat guy smelled… bad. But I’d do it for Lexi.
A light tap on my back signalled that it was my turn. I braced myself and leaned forward, only to feel a rush of air pass my head and a loud crash come from the side, male laughter echoing around me.
“Move, Macmillan. I think you’re in my spot,” a voice drawled.
“Ah n-no… B-b-bullet! Shelly said… said…” Macmillan slurred from the direction of the floor, semi-coherently.
“I don’t give a shit what she said. Go and get a fuckin’ drink, or pass out, or somethin’. You get me?” The menace in this ‘Bullet’ guy’s voice was unmistakable.
“I-I get you. I get you, man.”
I had no clue what was going on or who would be fighting over kissing me. This day just kept getting weirder and weirder by the second.
“Wait! Mac has to—” Shelly shouted.
“Shut the fuck up, Shel.” His tone left no room for argument, and Shelly fell silent.
I was busy chewing on my thumbnail—a nervous habit I adopt in uncomfortable situations—when the new frat guy moved before me, smelling deliciously better than the previous person—summer, soap, and mint. It was familiar. Comforting. Enticing.
A large, calloused hand pulled my thumb from my mouth and placed it on a hard waist. My fingers crept along the cotton-like fabric covering his torso, identifying the ridges of hard muscle and defined abdominals underneath. Blindfolding was definitely a sensory awakening; you smelled, felt, and heard so much more.
Hands grasped both sides of my face and I could feel the moment he began to move in towards me, only to suddenly caress my lips, teasingly, softly with his own.
Without warning, my captor expelled a frustrated groan, dropping any gentleness, and his eager, wet tongue invaded my mouth, duelling against mine, fighting for control. I gave it over gladly. There was no other choice.
I’d never felt anything like it.
With every passing second, the kiss grew more frenzied, more intense, and I could clearly taste the cool flavour of mint—the food or flavour I had to identify was mint. I could taste it all over his mouth, in every corner, and along the surface of his full lips.
I suddenly broke from my lust and remembered where I was—in a room full of people—and before I lost myself completely to his touch, I pulled my thoughts back in check and reluctantly went to break the connection.
I withdrew my tongue first, holding onto his wrists, and his hands remained fixed on each side of my face. My lips slid from his, but I licked along the seam to relish in the last of his taste, earning me a satisfied grunt.
I tried to catch my breath and noticed that for the first time the room was absolutely silent.
My captor’s hands tightened on my cheeks in an unyielding, dominating vise, and his hot, sweet breath fanned across my cheek in rapid, shallow pants.
I cleared my throat and announced quietly, “It’s mint. The flavour in his mouth is—”
My answer was interrupted with a low groan and the frat guy’s lips smashed back onto mine with a lot more enthusiasm than before, his tongue immediately darting back in my mouth.
Soft hair, smelling of wood and forest, tickled my nose as his face pressed against mine almost to the point of pain. He moaned with each strike of his tongue and delved deep like he was devouring the best dessert in the world—I couldn’t do anything but reciprocate.
My hands lifted to wrap in his hair—long, soft hair—and I tangled it into my fists, earning a wicked, hard growl as we grappled with each other to get even closer.
I had no idea how long we kissed, but I thought my heart would leap out of my chest the longer it went on.
He controlled, I obeyed, and we both basked in each other’s embrace.
The moment I felt one of his hands move to ghost down my neck, somebody yanked on my shoulder and the hand cradling my face slackened.
“Enough! What the hell, Rome? Get off her, now!” Shelly trilled, her voice sounding remarkably like nails scratched down a chalkboard.
My blindfold was tugged from my eyes and when the cover of darkness dropped, Rome was before me—as in right before me, the tips of our noses almost touching. He was dressed in the same clothes as earlier, ignoring Shelly pitching a fit beside us, and staring at me with an expression of blatant want.
“Hey, Mol,” he rasped, all the time glancing from my eyes to my swollen lips and back again.
“Hey, you…” I whispered back, unable to find any other words in my frazzled brain.
Rome leaned in once more, like gravity pulled us in, and my chin instinctively tilted in response. Shelly reached for Rome’s arm, jerking him back several feet, but still, he did not break our strange little staring contest.
“Hey!” she screamed sharply and slapped his cheek with considerable force. That got his attention and earned reactive gasps of shock from everyone in the room.
Dropping his repositioned hands from my face, Rome grabbed her wrist, gently but firmly, and spoke through gritted teeth, a terrifying sneer on his face. “Don’t fuckin’ hit me. Ever. Again.”
Shelly’s eyes widened at his harsh and threatening warning while others in the room stared at me like I was a science experiment gone wrong.
“It was mint,” I blurted out, Shelly whipping her neck to face me. “Rome tasted of mint. That’s what you wanted, right, for this ridiculous initiation task?” Even to my ears, my words sounded ice cold as I stared Shelly down, trying to dissipate the crackling atmosphere that had descended over the room.
Rome’s hard, angry gaze focused on mine, and I momentarily lost my breath. No one had ever made me feel like this before and I began to panic at my unfamiliar attraction towards him.
His mouth tightened into a hard line and his nostrils flared as if he could smell my intense attraction. “She’s right. I’d just chewed gum.”
Ripping his arm from Shelly’s hard grip, Rome pushed her back, swiftly turned, and left the room with a hard slam of the door.
After several tense seconds, the rest of the frat guys followed suit and that only left the gawking pledges and sorority sisters regarding me with a cocktail of impressed smirks and astonished expressions.
Lexi and Cass came barrelling over, excitement radiating from their wide smiles. Lexi held my hand and squeaked, “Molly, do you know who that was?”
“Yeah, it was Rome. I met him earlier today—he’s in my Ethics and Philosophy class.”
Cass snorted. “Hell yeah, it’s Rome, but he’s more than just a student, Molls.”
“Okay?” I replied, confused.
Lexi leaned in. “Molly, he’s a senior and, just so you know, completely unattainable. He’s standoffish, all moody and dark, but more importantly, he’s the friggin’ starting QB for the Tide!”
“Official statistics—six foot three, two-hundred and thirty-five pounds of solid muscle!” Cass added excitedly.
“He’s a what? For who?”
Cass recoiled and placed her hands on her bulging chest like I’d just cursed out the pope. “He’s the star quarterback for the Crims
on Tide.”
“Oh, I noticed that was written on his shirt. It’s an American football team, right?”
“Right? RIGHT? Ain’t they got football in England?”
“Yeah, but it’s the kind we play with a round ball. Soccer, you guys call it. That and rugby, cricket, tennis. We don’t play American football, at least not professionally.”
“Sweet baby Jesus… I can’t imagine life without football. No tailgates, BBQs, or hot dog stands. Life would be unbearable.”
“I was brought up by my grandma in a small mining town in the north of England. Her idea of fun was knitting scarves and playing chess. Then I went to Oxford where I studied twenty-four-seven for my bachelor’s degree. Excuse me if football didn’t play a huge part of my life!” I tried to joke but felt the familiar anxiety start to rise in me at just the mention of my old life. I choked it down before it overwhelmed me.
Lexi waved her hand dismissively. “Fine, we’ll clue you in. Romeo Prince is the starting QB for the Tide—the football team here at UA—and he’s definitely heading to the NFL at the end of the year. He was expected to go for the draft twice already, but for some reason decided to stay on and finish college before hitting the big time. You, Molly Shakespeare, have just publicly made out with the most desirable guy on campus. A guy that never commits to anyone. A guy that other guys are shit scared of and girls would gladly give up a lung for.”
“Yeah, you lucky bitch!” added Cass, with a gentle punch to my arm.
My blank face must have hinted that I still didn’t understand the true impact of what’d just happened.
Cass dramatically rolled her eyes. “Let me put this in a way that you can understand. You, Kate Middleton, have just kissed the Prince William of The University of Alabama and possibly all of American collegiate football.”
The penny finally dropped.
“So Rome is kind of a big deal around these parts?” Their huge grins showed me that sentence was massively understated.
“Romeo Prince. He’s a bit intense, isn’t he?” I stated quietly, remembering his uniquely addictive taste, his possessive hands on my face, and his deep growls of satisfaction.
“Intensely fuckable! You wanna see him on the football field… Christ, it’s something! He loses his cool, a lot, kicks the shit outta folk when they get in his way, but girls kinda dig that moody thing and he’s fuckin’ sex on legs—cut, gorgeous, tan. Shit, I almost came just thinking ‘bout him!” I grimaced at Cass’s crudeness. She simply shook her head at me in dismissal. “But he couldn’t get enough a’you, girl! I thought he was gonna rip off your clothes right there on the spot! He nearly decapitated Mac when he went to kiss you. When he shoved him to the floor, the murderous look on his face was scary as shit. I got chills!” She held out her arm and rubbed it to demonstrate.
My brows creased as I absorbed what she said. “Romeo Prince,” I murmured in reverie. He’d kissed me with such desperation, such raw need, stirred something unknown from deep within me.
“Yep, and Molly Shakespeare—hey! Romeo and Shakespeare! How hilarious is that?” Cass said, getting excited, causing her toga to nearly drop and flash more than I was eager to see.
“Good Lord! It’s meant to be!” Lexi laughed, putting her small hand over her mouth.
Shelly chose that moment to get in my face, her tight blue eyes boring into mine. “Leave this house immediately, you… you… slut!” she snapped, spraying my face with her spit as she did so.
I removed my glasses and wiped away the offending liquid with the bottom of my toga. “With pleasure. I don’t need this anyway. Coming here was one huge mistake. Cass, Lexi, I’m sorry, but this let’s all be sisters love-fest is so not for me. I’ll see you guys at home.”
I needed to distance myself from this horrid girl and stop trying to be something I wasn’t. I’d tried for my friend and that’s all that mattered. I just needed to put this entire day behind me. By tomorrow, all would be back to normal.
Cass whistled using her fingers pulling everyone’s attention. “She’s in, Shelly. She kissed a guy and guessed what he’d eaten. Don’t test me on this; everyone witnessed it. Christ, Molls was blindfolded for fuck’s sake! It wasn’t like she went after him.” With that, she folded her arms across her chest with a threatening look on her face.
Shelly’s harsh façade dropped for a moment. I couldn’t blame her; I’d quiver if I were on the end of Cass’s wrath, too.
“She’s not meant to kiss him! He’s meant to be mine!” Shelly screamed to her fellow sorority sisters, who just regarded her with varied looks of indifference.
“I think you’ll find that he kissed her… twice,” announced a gorgeous brunette who winked at me as she headed in my direction from the back of room.
She placed her hand on my shoulder. “She’s in. Don’t contest it or you’ll lose, Shelly,” she said with a gratified smirk on her lovely face. “It’s your own fault for making pledges do this shit every year, just so you and your lackeys can get your kicks. Only this time it backfired on you. Too bad, I say.”
Shelly stormed past me, but not before she prodded her finger against my chest. “Stay away from him or there’ll be trouble, you hear? You’ve no idea who you’re messin’ with, no damn idea!” She slammed the door as she exited the room.
A deathly silence ensued.
The brunette addressed the pledges. “Congratulations! You’re all now part of this fantastic sisterhood—lucky you! Kegs are in the yard. Go enjoy.”
The pledges filed out of the room with happy grins, leaving Lexi, Cass, and me with the leggy beauty. She wore a short red summer dress and had tanned olive skin, long, dark hair to the middle of her back, and dark-brown eyes. She was stunning. Like supermodel stunning.
She walked to me and introduced herself with a megawatt smile. “Sorry about Shelly. She always gets on a power trip at events like this and she’s totally reelin’ about your very heated PDA with my cousin.”
“Cousin?” I squeaked.
She laughed. “Yeah, Rome’s my cousin, more like a brother really. I’m Ally Prince. Shelly’s wanted to be his girlfriend since we were, like, ten. Just ignore her. I do.”
“She did seem a bit overly possessive of him.”
Ally guffawed. “I don’t know why. They’ve never been together officially. They just sometimes hooked up in the past, though Shelly never tends to get the memo that they’re done. Rome’s not exactly the monogamous type—he only gives her attention ‘cause her daddy and Rome’s daddy are business partners. She’s exactly who his parents have picked out for his future wife. Ol’ money types stick together ‘round here. Their folks already act as though they’re all engaged.”
My heart fell a little at that bit of information. He was meant to get engaged to her?
Ally reached out to touch my shoulder, amusement exaggerating her features. “I’ve never seen him act like that before, girl. Nor has Shelly. Hence the fact she’s having a cow. Even I thought it looked hot, and I’m his cousin and totally not into incest, FYI!” she teased.
Ally linked my arm with hers. “Let’s go grab a beer. I can tell you and me are gonna become good friends, Miss Molly, even if it’s just so I can watch you torture Shelly. Plus, I’m nominating you for one of the rooms here at the house, your friends too. We only have a few rooms left, but if you move in, Shelly will be constantly pissed, and my year will get a lot more exciting.”
3
Two hours later, I found myself sat at a picnic table on the lushly landscaped lawn with Cass, Lexi, and Ally. Lexi was sucking up to Ally as much as possible, knowing full well that Ally had been a firm fixture on the varsity cheer squad, grilling her about the tryouts and what they were looking for in the new additions. Cass was busy making googly eyes at the huge Tide player (so she informed me) that stood just to the right in full-on cowboy attire, while sipping on her contraband Moonshine.
The lack of conversation involving my input allowed my head to drift to one topic only: Rome.
He hadn’t returned after the kiss. At least, I hadn’t seen him at the party, so I assumed he’d gone home. I unfortunately had to admit to myself that I was kind of disappointed by his absence. He’d gotten under my skin with his strange treatment towards me, and I couldn’t shake off that kiss. It made me think things that were not part of my usual modus operandi—things involving nakedness, beds, and a hell of a lot of sweat.
Refocusing on the conversation, I was dismayed to hear the girls switch topics from cheerleading to their family backgrounds. I decided that this was the perfect moment to take a quick breather.
“Hey, Ally, where is the bathroom in this place?” I asked abruptly.
“You can use mine, darlin’. It’s on the top floor, third on your right.” She fished a key from her purse and placed it in my hand. “I keep it locked so folks can’t use it to bang at parties like this.”
“Good thinking. Thanks. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
I walked through the patio doors and headed to the main set of stairs, climbing quickly up the three flights, trying to ignore the moans and groans emanating from behind closed doors. Ally was right to keep her door locked. It sounded like there was a pack of rutting wolves on every level.
I made it to the correct door and turned the key in the lock, shutting it behind me and locking it again for safe measure. I did not want to come out to a live sex show of some eager college freshmen on her bed.
The room was beautiful. The walls were crisp white, red linens covered a huge king-sized bed, and there was a large antique desk in one corner. The real winner, however, was her personal balcony. Red gauze curtains flowed in the gentle summer breeze over the open doors and starlight glittered against the strands of silver thread subtly woven into the fabric.
I shook my head at the fact that she had all this and she was still in college. Some people never experienced this level of luxury in an entire lifetime—my father and grandma lived in four small rooms their whole lives. I imagined it cost a lot to live here too. That thought snapped me out of my daze, and I began searching for the bathroom as intended.