Page 18 of Best Man on Campus

“Your voice is mesmerizing no matter what you sing.” I tell her the truth because she has me mesmerized. She must because every speck of my good sense is gone. But even with the half smile from my words, her wariness remains now and her prickliness starts shooting out like she’s transforming into a porcupine.

She pronounces the sauce ready and fills two plates with spaghetti and meatballs and pours on the sauce.

“Let’s eat in bed,” she says with challenge in her eyes.

“It’s your party. Does this mean I can get you naked again?”

“We’ll see.” Her smile shows, but no amount of my joking dissipates the troubled aggression just under the surface.

We take off our pants in a half-dressed compromise and sit in bed cross-legged. I eat carefully but greedily because I’m starved and this meal is only a small portion of the calories I usually consume on a daily basis. But I don’t tell her that.

“I suppose you’re going to want more food.” She’s staring at me as I put my empty plate on the doily-covered side table. I notice she has no photos and wonder who her friends are or if she has any. Hard questions I’m curious about, but I’m not ready to let go of the bubble we have.

“What makes you say that?”

She snorts. “Aside from the fact that you finished your fucking ginormous plate of food in under a minute, Majik’s told me all about your eating habits—the whole house is full of bottomless pits, according to her. She says you boys are a cook’s worst nightmare. She can never cook enough food. Even when she doubles or triples the amount she thinks is right, you eat it all and ask where the fuck are the leftovers.”

“We’re not that bad.” Maybe we are. “We love her cooking. I appreciate how awesome her food is.”

“Yeah. You are one appreciative bastard aren’t you?” She gives me a sly smile.

I nod and reach out, grabbing her foot, and take away her half-empty plate of food.

“Hey fuck you, what are you—?”

I answer her question by covering her mouth with mine, covering her body with mine, because I want to drown in her vulnerable beauty, to drown out whatever troubles her with a day she’ll never forget—a day neither of us will ever forget.

Pinning her arms above her head, partly because I’m not sure if she’ll claw at me on general principal and partly because it turns me on to subdue her, to see her chest heave, the war in her eyes between lust and distrust. My first instinct is to reassure her, but I don’t because I want her to trust me, I want her to reassure herself. Hovering over her, kneeling between her legs, I watch her, fascinated, knowing I’m getting sucked into her world and whatever hell exists there and not caring. No, worse, thrilled by it, by her and everything about her, the tough-as-fucking-nails spitfire of a girl that she is, the promise of her passion, the daunting demons, her talent, her beauty, the caring in her soul under the meanness.

She loves Majik. She loved someone else once, the one who hurt her. And in that moment I want with all my fucking body and soul to find out who the bastard was and beat the motherfucking shit out of him.

“You going to fuck me or what, hockey boy? Let’s see that stick you got there.”

I laugh. I know her dare is a bluff. Her quick wit is a defense mechanism to keep me at arm’s length, but she doesn’t realize how it draws me in, makes me want to uncover whatever she’s hiding all the more.

Shaking my head, I realize I have no condom. I didn’t go out last night looking for this. Fuck. I squash the urge to call her bluff.

“I’m not finished eating,” I say. “It’s time for dessert.”

Her eyes go wide and she squirms under me. There’s no way I can eat her out without letting go of her hands, but I start with her mouth, lowering my lips to hers, watching the taut challenge in her face disappear as I nibble lightly, lick and suck on her lips. She bites back and I capture her mouth, kissing and soothing and taking whatever she’ll give.

Shifting so that I hold her wrists with one hand, I reach down and slide my fingers under her flimsy panties, lowering them down her thighs as I slip a finger inside her wet folds. The slickness of her swollen flesh makes me groan.

“Goddamn, Jazzy, you’re so ready and wet for me. You’re going to be so delicious.” I move my kisses to her chin and down her throat.

“Don’t,” she says in a pained voice as she squirms under my touch, arching up to me in the most mixed message I’ve ever heard, but I stop and look at her.

Her eyes are squeezed shut, her face taut and I’m not sure what demons she’s seeing in her mind, but I know it’s not me. I let go of her hands and whisper close to her ear.

“What is it, Jazzy? You know I won’t do—”

“It’s too late, you fucking asshole. Don’t you know? You’ve ruined me.”

There’s no way I can decipher what the fuck she’s talking about and I don’t bother to ask. I pull my fingers from her pussy.

She bucks up violently chasing my fingers, arching high.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Her eyes fly open and sparks fly out and burn me with scorn. I almost want to laugh. My heart pounds with the sensation of being spun out of control. But I move my fingers back between her thighs as she pulls at my arm, begging me to return to her.