“Come on, stay awake,” I encouraged myself, poring over the two text books I was using to study simultaneously. I had an exam tomorrow and I had a difficult time staying up. This semester was proving to be the hardest yet. Too much happened at once. I still fought the bouts of nausea that overcame me at unexpected times, I had lost concentration, getting tired too easily, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Lucas’ visit at the restaurant yesterday.

Had he simply been curious as to whether or not I’d taken the morning-after pill? Then why was he jealous when Rick had given me a lift to campus? What? Did he expect he was the only one who was able to garner the interest of others? Because he wasn’t. As though I had a big sign on my forehead, proclaiming I was no longer a virgin, guys on campus had started approaching me, wanting to know my name or if I wanted to go out sometime. So far, I’d turned them down, but was now wondering whether I didn’t owe it to myself to go out with someone else, even if only once. Maybe that was what I needed to get over Lucas.

“There you go, thinking about him again,” I muttered and skipped a book page. I still had to read six more pages before I finished the chapter. I’d never found studying to be this tedious before.

With a sigh, I managed two more pages and started dozing off again.

“Why don’t you call it quits and go to bed?”

I snapped my eyes open and squinted to bring Rick’s voice into focus. What was he doing here? He’d brought me home an hour or so ago and I remembered making idle chat with him that I would be up in the library studying all night. Had he followed me? He was a nice enough guy and it had been a blessing when I’d found out he also attended Regis. He was a year younger than me, though, and the interest he showed in me was misplaced. I didn’t see him as anything more than a friend. Or was that because I didn’t allow myself to think of anyone who wasn’t Lucas as more than a friend?

“Hey, Rick, what are you doing here?” I asked as he pulled out the chair opposite me and sat.

“I just stopped by to see how the studying was going,” he replied. “By the look of things, not very well.”

“I’m just so tired,” I sighed. “I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Do you need company?”

I refused the offer. “No, not really. I work better studying on my own, but thanks, though.”

He stood to leave but hesitated. “Are you doing anything tomorrow? I know you’re off.”

I shook my head without thinking. “No, why?”

“I wondered if you’d like to get something to eat and catch a movie.”

“Like a date?” I asked.

“We don’t have to put labels on it. Two friends doing something together.”

That sounded reasonable. And when was the last time I’d done something just for pleasure? He had said friends.

“Sure, as long as it’s not eating at Lulu’s,” I responded, making a face. “There’s nothing like eating where you work to take the taste out of what you used to love.”

He chuckled. “Definitely not Lulu’s. I was thinking more like McCoys.”

“Oh, I’ve never been there.”

“That’s where we’ll go then. I’ll call you.”

“All right.”

I waved as he walked by and wondered why I couldn’t have fallen for a guy like Rick. While he was wealthy, one would have never guessed. I’d learned his parents hadn’t come from old money but had worked from the ground up, lawyer and doctor. While he didn’t hurt for money, they were adamant that he learned the benefits of hard work.

I returned to my studies, reading another two pages while my eyes burned. I had read the same paragraph three times without grasping what it meant and decided maybe I should close my eyes for a few minutes. The dorm was too far away so I crossed my arms on the desk and rested my head. I yawned. Just a few minutes…

“Debra, Debra.”

I groaned in my sleep and tried to push away the annoying voice that had woken me. Until my shoulders started to shake gently. What in the world. I opened my eyes slowly.

“Lucas?” Lucas? My eyes widened but his image remained. Was I conjuring him up or was I wide awake? I made the mistake of reaching up and touching his face. Real. The stubble of a beard scraped my hand and I pulled back as though stung.

“Deb, it’s late. What are you doing here at this hour?”

“What time is it?” I asked groggily.

“Almost three.”

“In the morning?” I squeaked. “Oh no, I didn’t finish reading this chapter. And what are you doing here so late?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, resting his hip on the edge of the desk close to me. “Do you want to know why, Deb?”

“I…uh, not really.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.” He reached out to stroke my cheek. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Debra. It’s beginning to matter less and less if you only wanted me for my money.”

The mushy effect his confession had on me in the beginning faded at the last thing he said. I stiffened and slammed the text books on the table shut before getting to my feet.

“I’m not going to stay here and listen to you.”

I evaded the hand he reached out to me and found the shelf I’d taken the books from, inserting them in their proper places. The task done, I turned to leave the third floor but he stood directly in my path.

“What do you want now?” I asked in exasperation but noted my breathing was shallow from his nearness.

“I want you to take the car.”

I frowned at him. “What the hell does it matter if I take the car or not?”

“For one thing, because I carted yours off to the junk yard without asking your permission,” he answered. “And two, because I bought it for you. Before anything even happened between us, Deb.”

My heart thumped crazily at his words. “It shouldn’t be too hard to gift it to your current girlfriend,” I commented and tried to push by him but he held my arm. He walked me back into the bookshelf until my back was pressed into the shelves.

“There’s no girlfriend,” he admitted. “Not since you.”

“You’re lying! I see you with-with different girls all the time.”

“And I’ve never done anything with any of them. I swear it to you, Debra.”

“I—”

He swallowed my words with his lips pressed against mine. I told myself it was shock that had me opening my mouth, which gave him access to sweep his tongue inside. Once he did this, I was helpless. All the emotions from the first time we were together and which I had denied for these three months hit me with full force.

I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and raised onto the tip of my toes to deepen the kiss.

“God, I missed you,” he muttered and before he could say more, I smashed my lips against his again. I didn’t want to hear the words, didn’t want to assess how much of what he said was truth and how much falsehood. What I could trust was the way we reacted in each other’s arms. That was real, and despite what he thought about me, he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

Lucas ran his hands down my side and to my back to grip my ass through my jeans. He squeezed the round flesh, pulling me up hard against him so I could feel the pressure at the front of his pants. Pressing me to himself, he grinded his pelvis into mine, causing an instant meltdown in my panties. I could feel the throbbing of my clit, pulsing with desire.

“Not here,” he groaned and dazed, I followed him as he kept a hold on my hands and pulled me in the direction of the stairwell for the emergency exit. The floor was empty and we slipped through the closed doors which should only be used in the case of an emergency. What we wanted from each other hardly classified as an emergency, and yet it felt that way.

Lucas pushed me back against the door and took my lips again. I leaned heavily against it, gasping into his mouth when his hands crept beneath my top, over my ribs, and up to cup my aching breasts. He groaned into my mouth now, pushing his hands past my bra to roll the nipples between his fingers.

“Lucas!” I gasped, tearing my mouth away from him to drag oxygen into my deprived lungs.

“Yes, babe,” he groaned, pushing up my top. He dipped his head, his hands holding my sides as he took a nipple into his mouth. Thank God for the door at my back because I couldn’t feel my legs. Oh, God, I’d missed this. He’d given me only one taste and I’d missed it so badly. I cupped the back of his head, threading my fingers through his long hair as he made love to my breasts.

His busy hands found my belt and unbuckled before he unsnapped, unzipped, and tugged the material down my thighs. He splayed his hand over my mound through my sensible cotton underwear soaked through at the front with my juices. He proceeded to make me even more wet by slipping his hand into my underwear and rubbing it through the folds of my pussy. I widened my legs for him, my gasps and throaty moans echoing in the empty stairwell.

“I need to remember your taste,” he murmured with one last flicker of his tongue over my tightened nipples. “Turn for me, Deb.”

I turned eagerly, prodded by his guiding hands. With my face turned to the door so I could see through the glass enclosure at the top, I braced my hands either side of the glass, resting my fevered cheek against the coolness of the pane. Behind me, Lucas knelt and murmured words I didn’t understand while he peeled my underwear from my ass. He pulled my shoes, jeans, and underwear off, leaving me in my disheveled top and socks.

He rained kisses over my bare ass, squeezing the cheeks apart and together. He tugged my hip lower and angled his head between my legs, his mouth closing over my pussy lips.

“Oooh,” I gasped and rolled my hips to the strumming of his tongue playing my clit. He kissed down to my wet center and sucked at my opening, drinking from my dewy fountain.

The mini contraction started deep inside me but he pulled away. I mewled in disappointment.

“When you come for me, I want to feel you clenching around my cock.”

I would have turned to face him but a hand on my back stayed me. “No, I want you just like this, Deb.” He kissed my neck down to my shoulder and I could hear the sound of his zipper pulled down.

“Deb, tell me you’ve not been with anybody else,” he demanded, biting my shoulder. “Swear it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I gasped at his teeth nipping on my flesh.

“It matters more than you’ll ever know. Tell me, Deb.”

He rubbed his cock between my butt cheeks and down to my wet slit. He rubbed the head into my tight opening, but barely before retreating then repeating the motion, frustrating me. I wanted him thrusting into me and I didn’t care this time if it hurt. I’d missed this with him, had wanted to do this again and again since that first day.

“Tell me, Deb,” he pleased. “Tell me so I can satisfy us both.”

I pushed my hips back eagerly to make him thrust deeper into me but he wasn’t complying. “You’re not playing fair,” I mumbled.

“I want to know if you’ve given your sweet body to another guy,” he stated, sucking my earlobe between his lips. “We don’t got all night, Debra. Any minute now, someone can walk in and we’ll be caught. Do you want to have to stop before we both get what we want?”

“No!” I cried, desperately. “No, I’ve not been with anyone but you.”

“You swear it?”

“I swear,” I said on a loud moan that pealed through the stairwell as he finally pushed his cock deeper into me.

“Fuck, you’re still so tight,” he murmured, sucking the flesh at the side of my neck. “Even better than I remembered, Deb.”

I had to relax against him to accept his girth tearing through my tight flesh. It still hurt, but each movement of his hips and the wetness of my arousal soon had me gasping in pleasure from his hips pumping and grinding.

“Oh, God…oh, yes. Oh…Lucas.”

“Do you like that, Deb?” he grunted, his pelvis slapping against the firmness of my ass as he picked up pace.

“Yes,” I gasped. “You feel so good.”

He withdrew and turned me to face him, my back against the door. Lifting my left leg over his arm, he laid claim to my lips once more and slid his dick back into me. I moaned. God, this just got better. We sucked at each other’s tongue, grunting and moaning as he thrusted harder and deeper into me. I clutched his shoulders to steady myself but I didn’t have to bother as a climax tore through my womb. I lost my balance but before I could fall, he swept my other leg over his arm and anchored me against the door. I rode the waves of my climax, my legs spread wide and my back banging into the door as he pummeled into me.

“Shit!” he groaned, placing his forehead against mine, his body going rigid, his cock buried deep inside me as he spilled his seed inside my body.

Fuck, I thought, coming down from my high. Now that he’d sated me, my senses returned. His eyes were closed and he had a half-smile on his face, but thoughts were racing through my mind. Could I be any more stupid? Three months and not a word after he had falsely accused me, and I’d let him fuck me against the door of a stairwell? Where was my pride? Why was I willing to throw away all sense of decency and everything I stood for before because of him? Had I really allowed him to take me so hard against the door? And what for? So he could share the news with his friends and brag about it again?

“Lucas, let me down,” I told him, trying to remain calm.

“Not just yet,” he hummed. “You still feel so good with me inside you, Deb.”

I pushed at his shoulders and his eyes flew open on a frown. My heart tripped over the blue depths before I found my tongue. “Please, pull out. You finished inside me again without a condom.”

“Shit!” he uttered and pulled out quickly as though the damage wasn’t already done.

I leaned heavily on the door when he placed me on my feet. My legs were unsteady and shaking, and if I’d attempted to walk away I’d have fallen.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take another morning after pill,” I said sardonically and avoided looking at him as I reached for my jeans and underwear to get dressed again.

“Deb, we need to talk about that,” he murmured, reaching down to help me with my shoes when I’d hauled my jeans up.

“I need to go back to my room,” I hedged, not wanting to mention the horrible things he’d said about me trapping him with a baby. “I’ve an exam tomorrow and I need to get some sleep. Shit.” The latter word I said as I could feel his cum running out and into my underwear. I needed to get to my dorm ASAP before he soaked the front of my jeans.

“I’ll walk with you,” he offered, checking through the glass enclosure of the door to ensure no one else was on the floor before he ushered me out the stairwell.

“You don’t have to bother.”

“Don’t be pigheaded, Debra. It’s very late and unsavory characters are everywhere, especially at this time of night.”

Because I didn’t have time to argue with him, I hurried to the desk where I’d left my belongings and slipped my laptop back into its sleeve without shutting it down properly. At this minute, I didn’t care if I lost any file I’d had opened. I just needed to get to my room and as far away from Lucas as I could.