CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CAYDEN
Less than eight hours. That’s all it took for campus security to come knocking, a personal escort to the Dean’s office no less.
We haven’t got our story straight, haven’t even talked since last night.
Dean Smith looks far from pleased as we sit before her. “You know what the problem here is?” she starts.
You need a good razor for that lady-stache of yours, but I don’t dare push the limits today.
“You look like you’ve been cage-fighting,” she continues, “all of you. Faces messed up. It’s a look I, we, cannot have at Abbotsleigh.”
I bite my tongue.
She focuses on Hunter first. “What happened at The Lab was unacceptable. This is Abbotsleigh goddamn University, one of the finest colleges in the blessed United States of America and you are pissing over it like you’re bar-brawling out on Route 66 somewhere.”
“To be fair—” I begin, unable to hold back any longer.
She jabs her finger at me. “Not another word.”
She pauses, composing herself. “In short, it is unacceptable. Someone has to pay.”
She stands, rubbing her forehead. “No one’s going to come forward as a witness. Practically the entire team was in there, and I can’t exactly expel the Trojans, can I?”
She’s right about that.
“But,” she continues, “like I said, someone has to pay.” She eyes us each in turn.
I think she’s looking for a volunteer, but I’m sure as shit not about to step forward when things are suddenly going so right, and neither are the others. None of us can afford to lose our place here.
Her eyes fall on Colton. “Colton Beckett, you are hereby expelled from Abbotsleigh University, effective immediately.”
Hunter stands, knocking his chair over in the process. “What the fuck? You can’t do that.”
I stand too, but even though we tower above her, the Dean isn’t intimidated. She plants her hands on her desk. “I need a scapegoat here, boys, and as far as I can ascertain, he started the fight,” she says, glancing at Colton.
“We all started the fight,” spits Hunter, jumping to Colton’s defense.
The Dean sits. “That may be, but Colton is a freshman, his performance on the lacrosse team…”
Hunter kicks the side of the desk. “The hell? This is about sports?”
“No,” she says, firm as a fucking brick. “This is about you idiots treating this place like you own it, but you do not, so it’s one or all of you. That’s how this goes.”
“Our father won’t allow this,” Hunter protests. “Do you know how much money he injects into this place?”
“Two-million-seven-hundred-thousand last financial year,” the Dean answers, not missing a beat. “But I can tell you not a single dime is going to save you now.”
Hunter is grasping at straws. “He’ll sue you.”
The Dean smiles. “I’ve already spoken with him. There will be no legal action, no big hoo-ha. He understands the situation—one son out on his ass, or three.”
That hits Colton hard, that the old man would so willingly accept this.
Hunter looks across me to Colton. “Well, aren’t you going to say something? Stand up against this bullshit?”
Colton simply sits there quietly. “What’s there to say? The Dean’s right. I’m pulling the lacrosse team down. Everyone knows that. I just started here. I can afford to leave. I’m not an integral part of this college.”
His eyes are stony as he says it. I don’t know what to do, what to say myself, so I stand there, trying to look outraged, but somehow failing to do so.
“Cay?” begs Hunter. “We all go, right?”
But I don’t want to.
“You have until tomorrow to decide,” says the Dean, standing one final time. “But the offer’s not getting better. Colton here goes… or every Beckett on campus does.”
*
We spill out of the admin building into a perfect day, but it’s not. No, it’s far from it.
We circle around each other. Hunter’s got his hands on his head. “You’re not taking the fall for his, Colt.”
“I am,” he says, arms crossed. “And you two are going to accept it.”
I can’t stop shaking my head. How did this get so fucked up so fast? “He’s right, Hunter.”
Hunter suddenly winces, reaching for his head before shaking it off. “Fuck that.”
“If you’re going to be angry at anyone,” I continue, “it should be at Dad for not putting up more of a fight.”
“What do you want him to do?” questions Colton. “This is too much. You heard her. I did throw the first punch. I go down or we all go down, and I’m not going to have that on my conscience, because I can start over. I mean, fuck it, I wasn’t that serious about lacrosse anyways.”
“You’re lying.”
Colton shakes his head. “No, bro, but you guys?” he points between us. “Abbotsleigh is home. You’re fucking Trojans, champions. This is where you belong.”
All of us stand there silent, stunned.
“I’m begging you,” pleads Colton, avoiding eye contact. “Let me do this one thing.”
“I don’t know if I can,” says Hunter.
Colton places a hand on his shoulder. “You can.” And I swear to god I’ve never seen him so serious. “And you fucking will.”
*
We split up. I don’t ask where the others are going and they don’t tell. We need space right now, to think.
I hit the old gym, grateful to find it empty.
I look at myself in the mirror, nothing more than a common jock, and I cannot fucking stand it. I pick up a dumbbell and heave it across the room with everything I have. It smashes against the free weights, rolling across the floor.
But it’s undamaged.
It’s been around for seventy, eighty years doing what it was designed to do. An angry punk like me can’t even put a dent in it.
I stoop down and pick it up, enjoying the weight of it in my hand, the dull pain it brings. “Sorry, buddy.”
I shouldn’t be taking out my issues on gym equipment, but I do know I need to blow off some steam, do something to release the pressure.
I text Indy one simple message: I NEED YOU. NOW.
*
I open the door and there she is, the answer to every problem in the world.
“What happened?” she asks. “I saw you guys being taken to the admin building?”
I place a finger against her lips. “I can’t, not now. I just want to be inside you. Please.”
She nods.
We attack one another the moment I’m through the door.
I crush her against the wall, my hand fisted in her hair, pulling her to my mouth. But what I really want is to taste her, see how wet she is for me, lose myself in her.
I brace her stomach with one hand as I lower myself to the ground, lifting her skirt. I kiss the soft flesh of her inner thighs, my stubble rasping against the tender skin there while I draw her panties aside.
She whimpers, fingers webbed in my hair, as I lick her long and wet. She groans, begging me for more, as I repeat the motion.
She’s fucking delicious. I bring my fingers up beside my mouth, teasing and caressing her folds, covering her hole with the flat of my tongue before working my way up to her clit.
I insert my middle finger and look up to her, my lips wet. “You’re going to come so fucking hard for me, baby. Wait and see.”
I growl, low and deep, licking her again, my tongue flicking over the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of her sex.
It’s not enough. I want her naked. I want all of her, and I want it now.
I stand and strip as fast as my fingers will allow, buttons popping off and pinging to the floor in my haste. She’s panting, lifting her shirt off and unclasping her bra, her skirt peeled away. I unbuckle and unzip, gripping her panties with two hands, tearing them at the side.
She gasps, face caught somewhere between fear and pleasure at my sudden aggression, but she doesn’t know how much I need this, how much I’ve been craving her body.
And then, finally, she is naked, raw.
She quivers when I run my hands up her side, her skin pebbling with goosebumps.
I breathe hard, raking over her with my ice-blue eyes.
I take a breast in one hand and gather her hair in the other, turning her head sideways to kiss her neck. My thumb brushes over her nipple. It turns to a taut peak at my touch.
“I fucking love you,” I tell her, speaking into the pink cornucopia of her ear. “I need to be inside you. I need to feel your pussy squeezing my cock.”
“Cayden,” she exhales, breathless.
All rational thought is lost when I kiss her again, her desire still fresh on my lips.
She reaches between us and finds my hardness. It pulses in her grip.
Enough.
I pick her up, cradling her in my arms to the bed. I toss her onto the mattress, just like our first time.
She lies there in wait, slowly allowing her legs to spread, her glistening center opening. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, so fucking sexy.
I fall on top of her and take a nipple into my mouth, sucking it—desperate, hungry, unable to quench my thirst for this woman. I moan as I lick her, taking my time to enjoy the small, minute sensations. I’m trying to be gentle, but the animal inside me is straining at its leash.
I kiss her again and she returns it with even greater urgency, her mouth hard on mine. I never thought I would know passion and hunger like this, love at its most primal and powerful.
I lift myself and set my forehead against hers, looking into her eyes. I take hold of her thigh in one hand and draw it up, opening her wide.
My naked cock sits against her opening.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
She nods with approval.
I groan as I fill her, losing myself in the slick heat of her pussy.
“Cayden,” she gasps, fingers digging into my shoulder.
I pull back and drive in again. I love the feel of her, the feeling of nothing standing between us, skin on skin.
I fuck her harder, bending her right leg back, her ankle dancing on my shoulder, her body opening up even further and allowing me to plunge to new depths of pleasure. I’m deeper than ever, buried to my balls inside her.
She whimpers. I silence her with my mouth, my tongue slipping between her lips as my cock does likewise below, the lewd sounds of the act filling the room, sounds I could happily listen to on repeat for all eternity.
I take her other leg and bend it to match, amazed at the new sensation it creates, my cock completely enveloped by the slippery channel of her sex.
“You’re so deep,” she pants.
I rock forward. “This deep?”
“Yes. Oh, god. Cayden.”
I drive into her again, her legs dancing on my shoulders.
I fuck her like it’s our last night on earth. She clenches as I do, her muscles gripping the hot length of my cock as it sluices in and out of her pussy.
“Squeeze me,” I tell her. “Squeeze my cock with your pussy.”
“Yes,” she pants, eyes closed in concentration.
They flicker open as she comes. I hold them with my own, enjoying it just as much as she does until I’m too close to the breaking point to hold off.
Her next words undo me.
“Come,” she says. “It’s okay. Come inside me.”
I roar in climax, my mouth capturing hers, my cock jerking inside her until I’m dry and spent.
We lay there, tangled together, for the next few minutes staring at the roof. We separate naturally, stretched out beside one another.
Her dove eyes are glassy as she takes me in. I hold the back of her head and draw her closer, locking us.
I snake a hand between her legs, using our mutual arousal to lubricate the tight pearl of her clit.
Her mouth drops open, a shock of pleasure running through her body.
I hook a thumb inside her, curling it up to rub against her g-spot. I love the sound she makes. It’s all a major fucking turn on—her scent, our scent, driving me fucking crazy with want.
She lightly thrusts her hips up to meet my hand, quietly pleading for more.
I ease my thumb in—in, out, in, out, working on her clit in tandem.
She starts to thrash, her head whipping from side to side, desperate for more.
I take her hand and wrap it around my cock. “Feel how hard you’re making me.”
It doesn’t take her long—a simple lick of her nipple does it.
Her back bends, spine lifting from the sheets, as she comes once more.