“God, yes,” I breathe. My lips collide with his, his tongue parting my lips, entering me the same way his cock is as he draws back, thrusts his hips against mine again. He builds up a steady rhythm, in and out, until my whole body is crying out for release. My hands are fisted in his shirt, and when he breaks away from our kiss, I press my face against his neck, burying it there to muffle the sound.
He pins me against the tree and begins to fuck me hard, now, pounding into me with each thrust, his balls slapping against my ass. I moan into his neck, and he tightens his grip on my body, one hand gripping my ass tight, the other pinned around my waist.
“Fuck, Missy…” There’s something in his voice. A break, a catch. “Fuck.”
I squeeze my pussy tight around him, my hands digging into his shoulders, my legs tight around his middle. His cock keeps moving, keeps driving into me, and then he angles his hips, so the tip of his cock drags along my inner wall, right over my G-spot. I cry out again, louder than before, my body already sensitive as hell after he ate me out.
It only takes a few direct thrusts right over my G-spot before I hit the peak again, nearly screaming this time, and still he doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop. He just keeps thrusting into me, again and again, until his whole body tenses, too.
“I’m going to come. Fuck, Missy, I’m going to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He groans instead, and I can feel his muscles contract as he comes deep inside me, his cock jumping inside me.
I cling to him, panting, every inch of my body afire with sensation, practically glowing.
He lowers me back to the ground slowly, and when we separate, we’re both sweaty, breathless… and grinning. Before I can react, he steps closer again, brushes a strand of hair back from my forehead, and ducks to kiss me. It’s softer this time. Slow and sweet. When we separate, his lips hover an inch from mine. “Now that,” he murmurs, “was worth the wait.”
7
The meager social life I’d managed to scrape together has vanished by the next morning. Leah and Sara mumble awkward excuses, then beeline past me in the dining hall at breakfast to cluster with Yvette, none of them willing to meet my gaze. A minute later, all three of them take seats beside Bette, who beams, reaching over to squeeze their hands like some sort of benevolent queen.
As if sensing my stare, she turns and catches me watching. Bette smiles like a cat with a canary in its mouth, and I turn away, suddenly no longer hungry.
My phone buzzes with a text halfway through my morning classes.
When can I see you again? There’s no name attached, but I can guess who it must be. Keanen walked me back to my dorm last night after our hookup on Senior Row, and wouldn’t let me close the door until I gave him my number.
Working tonight.
Then I’ll be there, he replies simply. At least that puts a small smile on my face, in spite of the rest of the drama my life has become.
And he shows. That night, and several other nights of the rest of the week—all the nights he doesn’t have football practice or other activities keeping him busy. Most nights, he brings his homework to do in the corner of the pub while I joke around with Henry on slow nights or rush around filling orders on busy ones. Sometimes I’m able to duck away and sit with Keanen for half an hour or so, curling up beside him on the bench while we talk.
After work, we can’t keep our hands off each other. One night after I finish locking up, he pins me against the wall outside the door, right where he nearly had me the first time. This time, I let him finish the job. Kissing his way all the way down my shirt until he peels it up and off, then licking his way up to the strap of my bra. We wind up naked in the alley, him fucking me up against the wall so hard that the next morning, it’s a struggle to walk across the quad to my first class.
The only sour note is that aside from Keanen and Henry, I don’t have many people to talk to anymore. I manage to work out from Yvette eventually what happened at the party after Keanen and I left. Bette told Leah and Sara that I’d gotten her brother into trouble with their whole family, and that I was just using him for his money. That I’m a scammer and a grifter. Yvette had the grace to look guilty, at least, while she explained it. But that still didn’t stop her from sitting with Leah, Sara and Bette the next day in the cafeteria, all bright smiles and happy laughter as they likely made plans for all the parties I’d never have been able to attend with them anyway.
I try not to let it bother me, but it does. I wanted my first year at college to be… I don’t know. More than this.
“You need cheering up,” Keanen tells me one night, after yet another dragging shift, as he’s walking me back to my dorm—ever the protective gentleman. I’m not letting what happened to you that first night we met ever happen again, he told me, and I remember him attacking my would-be assailant, winding up with a black eye in the fight. My stomach does a little flip.
It helps, to have him on my side right now.
“I guess,” I murmur.
“When’s your next night off?” he presses.
“Monday again,” I say. “But don’t you have practice that night?”
He waves my concern away. “I’ll figure it out.”
So, on Monday night, I get a text at half an hour to seven. Check your room.
On my bed, I find a large square box wrapped in a red ribbon. I don’t even ask how he got in here. Keanen has resources I can’t begin to understand, I’m realizing. Still, my heart jumps into my throat as I undo the ribbon and rifle through the paper inside. Nestled at the bottom is a little black dress that instantly makes me understand how Bette was able to pick out my cheap online outfit from a mile away.
This one looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The fabric is silky smooth, but not cheap feeling. It pours from the box like liquid. I strip to just the cute panties I wore for this occasion, and pull the dress over my head. It falls to my hips, clinging in all the right places. I understand now what the saying fits like a glove means.
When I glance at myself in the mirror, my breath catches.
This. This is what Tanglewood girls look like. And it makes my chest tighten to realize it. Is fitting in really this simple? All it takes is a beautiful outfit?
But I can’t deny I look good. The dress hugs my hips, dips just low enough at the neckline to be stylish without straying into too revealing. At the bottom of the box, I find a pair of heels too, simple kitten heels with a broad base that make me smile. Keanen clearly knows me well enough already to know he shouldn’t send me spike stilettos to wear.
I head out to meet him, all too aware that the moment I descend the staircase of my dorm steps, the whole common room falls quiet. But whereas lately all I’ve gotten are glares when I walk past, today, everyone is gawking.
That draws a small smile to my face. That’s right, I think. The scholarship girl cleans up well.
At the doorway, before I head outside to meet Keanen, I give a little wave over my shoulder, gratified to notice the way everyone snaps back into their former conversations immediately, pretending they hadn’t been staring. All except for Yvette, who gives me a small wave back, looking guilty.
I head out into the evening air, sighing. Don’t let Bette get to you. If for no other reason than that I know it would give her too much satisfaction.