I'm in the front row of my political science class, head bowed forward so I can create a little world of my own inside the safety of my hair. It shields me from the rest of the class and stops me from getting too overwhelmed by the sheer number of people surrounding me. If I think about it too much, my stomach will pitch and I won't be able to concentrate on a single word the professor is saying. Although this morning, it's difficult to concentrate no matter what, isn't it?
What happened last night?
Humiliation is a rotating ball of fire in my belly. I can't believe…so many things.
Where do I start?
One, after doing some Googling while waiting for class to start, I found out how weird it is to orgasm so quickly—and without any stimulation between my legs. I'm a freak. A total freak. The star of the football team breathed on me and I basically acted like I was possessed.
As if that wasn't bad enough, I fell asleep.
He brought me home for sex, obviously. He's a virile athlete and he was erect—I felt it—and I was too exhausted from being touched, from the rush of exhilaration and pleasure, to even keep my eyes open. God, he must have been disappointed. He brought home a dud. A dud given to bouts of narcolepsy.
My face is crawling with fire ants. I sink lower into my seat. Tug down my skirt to cover my knees, because I can tell they're pink, as well. I'm flushed everywhere. Not only from the memory of him looking at my breasts. Licking them. No, the memory of him holding me as I slept is enough to make me achy and restless. I've never been held before. Not like that. Not so tightly, every inch of me fitted to hard male muscle. Not to mention that big, stiff part of him that was wedged between my butt cheeks when I woke up.
Did he really want to put it inside of me?
Like, all of it?
I'm ripped from my ongoing worries when everyone around me breaks into hoots and whistles and applause. What's going on?
I glance up and find my political science professor looking reluctantly amused, his gaze fastened to the entrance. Carefully, I push aside some of my hair so I can figure out what is causing the commotion.
My breath is swiped clean out of my lungs when I see Gage leaning against the wall, just inside the door of my lecture hall. Arms crossed, stance cocky. He looks like the cover of those Sports Illustrated magazines I see sometimes at the drugstore. Everyone is going wild, pounding their desks and chanting his name, reciting some football cheer I've never heard. He salutes the admiring crowd and they go absolutely wild. Girls are screaming and fanning themselves. A group of guys are trying to start a wave. But Gage…
His attention is zeroed in on me.
I attempt to breathe, but I can't. My nipples bead inside my big, loose button-down shirt—a hand-me-down from one of the smaller priests at the monastery. Fists pound the desks behind me, matching the rapid beats of my heart.
Oh God.
What if he's here to make fun of me? To all of these people?
I'm the girl who he carried across campus last night, completely comatose. He brought me home expecting something and I slept like the dead, instead of giving it to him. On top of that, I had the nerve to leave him a note. Hope I see you later. He probably thinks I'm pitiful. Pathetic. He—
"Mr. Weston," calls the professor, signaling for the class to quiet down. "To what do we owe the honor of your illustrious presence?"
He wets his bottom lip, those eyes never leaving me once. "Just here to pick up my girl," he explains in that deep, rich voice. "We have plans."
Every head in the lecture hall swivels in my direction, whispers and full-on cries of denial rising up around me. In the matter of a split second, I'm the center of attention. People are speculating on my name, they're judging my attire and asking where I came from. I sink lower into my chair, my chin buried in my chest. This has to be a nightmare. This can't be real. He's definitely joking about me being his girl. He probably already wheeled the suitcase back to my dorm and washed his sheets clean of my scent.
A brand new pair of black Nike running shoes appear in front of me.
The lecture hall is dead silent now.
"Ready to go, honey?"
There goes the whispering again.
"Uh, Mr. Weston," ventures my professor. "We're in the middle of a lecture…"
Gage ignores the man, holding his hand out to me. When I say that my body gravitates toward him like the ocean to the shore, it's no exaggeration. Especially when I finally look up through my curtains of hair and his intensity sinks into me, hot and deep, and my pulse becomes cannon fire in my ears. My savior. It's what my heart and body and mind, maybe even my soul, insisted on calling him last night. I'm right back there now, getting lost in the burn of his light brown eyes, the blatant hunger etched into every line of his handsome face.
"Stella," he says.
I'm standing before I realize what I'm doing, my small hand locked inside his much larger one. He picks up my books in the opposite hand and guides me out of the classroom to a renewed chorus of hoots and whistles. My face burns at the attention and I have the impulse to bury my face in his shoulder. As if Gage can read my mind, he hauls me into his side, using his body to shield me from attention. But it's too late for that, isn't it? I've just walked out of class twenty minutes early with the campus hero. Farewell anonymity.
"What are you doing?" I whisper, once we're in the empty hallway. "Is s-something wrong?"
"Yes," he says without missing a beat, that square jaw grinding. "You left my bed, honey. That's a huge problem."
My back is flattened against the wall, his hard body pressing me there. Tight.
The books he's holding are dropped to the ground and he moans, dipping his hips and rocking them into mine, a long, shaky male exhale releasing into my neck.
"Woke up so motherfucking hard for you, Stella," he groans. "God."
More heat blasts my cheeks. "I know. I know…you probably…I didn't mean to disappoint you like that. I—"
His gaze pins me sharply. "Disappoint me?"
"Well I went home with you and that's kind of an, um…unspoken understanding that we're going t-to have…to have…"
He's nodding. "That we're going to fuck."
"Yes," I whisper. "And then I passed out like an idiot after…after giving you the impression we would do…more. I bet that's never happened to you before."
"We're never going to talk about what I did before you. That shit doesn't matter." Suddenly, he looks nervous, his throat muscles shifting in a pattern. "Does it? You don't think less of me because I…" Regret is visibly eating him alive. "I didn't know you were out there, in the world. But now I do. Now the thought of anyone but you makes me sick."
I don't have a chance to answer him—or marvel over the fact that he doesn't seem the least bit disappointed, at least not in anyone but himself—because he's picking me up and carrying me across the hall to another room. A lecture hall. This one is empty.
Gage kicks the door shut behind us, carries me to the front of the room and settles me on the professor's desk. Then he plants his hands on either side of me, bracing himself, breathing hard. Erratically. "Gage—"
"Punch me in the face."
"What?"
"Punch me. Hard. Make me suffer for what I did before you."
"No! No." I launch myself off the desk, wrapping my arms around his neck. Holding tight. He makes a hoarse animal sound and crushes me to his body, breathing hard into my neck. "I don't want to hit you. I'm not upset. You don't have any obligation to me—"
"Yes, I fucking do," he growls. "What aren't you understanding? I brought you home last night to live with me. You are my girlfriend now. You…" He sort of deflates, stumbling forward with me, my butt hitting the surface of the desk again, and then he's gathering me close, so close, his hips making a home between my splayed thighs. "The second I saw you sitting in there, so sweet in the front row, the anger went away. You take it all away. I will die to be obligated to you. Do you get what I'm saying?"
How can I not?
He's holding nothing back.
This is…happening. It's real. But of course I'm having a hard time understanding why. Why this modern-day god wants me. Needs me. I'm meek where he's demanding. I'm small while he's huge. I'm private while he's public. It shouldn't make sense and yet, it's there. I feel the inescapable nature of this relationship, too. This inevitability between us. The gravity. My body is clamoring, pulse pounding, heart in my throat. His mouth on my neck is tightening my womanhood and I'm gasping, yanking him toward me, too, desperate to feel as much of him as possible.
What is this? Obsession?