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Three beers in, I realized a girl from my English Lit class last year was flirting with me, leaning close and touching me, laughing at everything I said and praising my performance at today’s game.

She was cute and friendly. I realized now that she’d flirted with me last semester, even though I hadn’t been paying much attention. I’d been with Arden, so it hadn’t mattered.

But now, I was single. And I hadn’t had sex since Arden and I had snuck out on her parents’ boat last summer and fucked on the floor while it bobbed in the lake. I was horny as fuck.

After another twenty minutes of talking and flirting in the hall by the kitchen, I leaned in and kissed her, moving my hands from her waist to her side in preparation for sliding my thumb along the curved edge of her breast.

It had been a long time since I’d hooked up with a random person at a party, and suddenly, my brain got in the way. I worried I was going too fast. Not fast enough. I wondered what she was thinking. What my friends were thinking as they passed us on the way to the bathroom. I pre-worried about how things would be when I ran into her on campus after this. Would she expect this to mean something? Would I want it to?

No.

I had no interest in a relationship. What I really wanted was someone making all the fucking decisions. Telling me what to do and to stop fucking overthinking everything.

The image of Elliot Vaughn flared hot and bright behind my eyelids. Someone who didn’t hesitate to tell me what to do, to boss me around and expect me to follow his own desires.

I couldn’t help but remember the night I’d gotten off to those commands. The times his voice had been the one in my ear—or in my memory—as I touched myself.

The woman in my arms murmured her approval of whatever was happening between us, and I snapped back to the present.

Right. The girl. The party. The kissing.

Except… it wasn’t good. Wasn’t nearly as exciting as just listening to Vaughn’s taunting across a dark room could be.

“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling away. “Sorry.”

Her hand pulled away from my now very soft cock. “You okay, Bett?” she asked, true concern in her voice. “Did I do something wrong?”

Ugh. This was horrifying. “No. Not at all. I just have a splitting headache. I’m sorry.”

It was a lie. The alcohol had helped my head, or maybe all the water I’d forced myself to drink on the bus had finally done its job.

It wasn’t my head that was pounding anymore. It was my heart. Or maybe my rage.

Fuck Elliot Vaughn straight to hell.

“You want me to rub it?” she asked. It took me a minute to realize she meant my head and not my dick. Either way, I was no longer interested.

“Er, no. No, thanks. I think I just need sleep.”

Which was ridiculous. It was 10:00 p.m. at the latest. I was still too keyed up to sleep, and I sure as hell wasn’t going back to the dorm to get provoked and ridiculed by my roommate.

Or worse.

I excused myself and went to find Marcus, who was in the kitchen opening a giant bag of tortilla chips and dumping a jar of salsa into a paper bowl.

“Hey, man, you mind if I crash on the futon in your room?” Maybe if I laid low for a bit, I could come back to the party after the girl left. Or maybe I just needed a minute to convince my dick what a sweet deal it just fucked up before coming back and trying again.

Marcus’s grin faded. “Uh. About that…”

Garrett popped his head out of the open fridge. “Nah, man. Sorry. You know the rules.”

I glanced at him. “Papi’s out there talking about doing keg stands. You’re not seriously going to tell me you’re concerned that me chilling in your room for a while is breaking the terms of your fucking lease.”

Marcus’s dark cheeks got even darker as he met my eyes. “He’s right. Sorry.”

I was missing something, and it infuriated me. “Why not?”

Garrett closed the fridge. “Listen. Jed told us you spent the night here last night, and that’s fine or whatever, but we can’t let you do it again.”