Undecided (19 page)

Kellan
whistles. “She’s definitely
not
going to be a nun.”

“Oh
Jesus.”

“Can you
ask Dane for their numbers? Um, and their names?”

“Kill
me.” Crosbie looks at me. “Please, Nora. Just put me out of my misery before
Dane does.” He turns to Kellan. “How did you meet them? They don’t even go to
Burnham.”

“They
were at the Halloween party.”

“You said
you didn’t hook up that night!”

“I didn’t
say I didn’t get a few numbers and call them the next week!”

“What
about Miss Louisiana?”

“I got
her number, too.” He holds up a hand proudly. “And her name is Dana.” A pause.
“Or Darla.”

“You’re
making everything worse.”

“Guys!” I
exclaim. “Let’s focus.” The sooner we find the girl, the sooner we end the
hunt. Given the timeline, I’m probably either blank space forty-one or
forty-two, which gives me twenty chances to end this search before they start
trying to track me down. “What about number eight?
Super hot kinkster
?”

Crosbie
looks intrigued. “Kinkster, huh? How kinky are we talking?”

I forget
about wincing and kick him in the shin. He curses and scowls at me, but Kellan
doesn’t even notice.

“Very,”
he assures us dreamily. “Remember when we went to that club earlier this year
on the track team trip?” This is directed at Crosbie.

“The one
with the foam or the snakes?”

“The
foam.”

“Yep.”

“She was
a waitress, and she was wearing this white leather dress—the tiniest thing I’d
ever seen, despite her massive—” Kellan breaks off as he remembers I’m sitting
three feet away. “Ah, she had a great body. Anyway, we were dancing and the
foam was piling up, and she kept grinding back against me, inching up her dress
until her whole ass was on display, just split in half with this little red
G-string. So I’m like, ‘Your dress is riding up,’ and she’s like, ‘I know,’ and
I’m like, ‘Want to go someplace?’ and she’s like, ‘Right here’s good.’ And next
thing I know we’re fucking, right there on the dance floor. It was hot.” He
rests his chin on his hand. “I miss her.”

I know
I’m supposed to be outraged or offended or somehow off-put by this story, but
those last three words—
I miss her
—only make me think of Crosbie. His
text. His fingers. His body. And how much I want him. I dart a glance at his
face and he’s looking at me, the same thoughts mirrored in his eyes.

Crosbie
clears his throat. “Okay,” he says, shifting in his seat. “So you know where
she works. You can probably call the club and leave your contact information.
Hopefully she calls you back.”

Kellan
nods. “Good one. Will do.”

I take a
breath. “Number nine?
Lin from stairwell at gym?
You meet girls in
stairwells?” Is there any place he can’t meet women?

“We
didn’t exactly ‘meet’ there, if you know what I mean.” Kellan grins
thoughtfully. “Or rather, we met there, but for the express purpose of—”

“I think
I get it.”

“She’s a
volleyball player,” he supplies, though I hadn’t asked. “And we’d been eye
fucking for a while, then after one of her matches we bumped into each other
and decided to just go for it. She kept the kneepads on, if you know what I
mean.”

I rub a
hand over my hot face.
Be indignant,
I tell myself.
Be righteous!
But all I’m doing is picturing myself on my hands and knees, Crosbie behind me,
in front of me, under me, doing so many dirty things.

I’ve lost
track of how many times we’ve had sex since that night in the front seat of his
car. He picks me up after work regularly and we drive some place to mess around
as best we can. Because it’s cold out and I’m not willing to get arrested for
public indecency—again—we’ve had to be creative. Hand jobs in the back row of a
mostly-empty movie theater, a quickie against the wall in the supply closet at
Beans after I let him in the back door, one painful attempt to squeeze into the
backseat of his car that left us both with seatbelt-shaped bruises and vows
never to try again.

We’d finally gotten so frustrated that I’d
pulled up the hood of my jacket and hidden my face as we ran up the stairs to
his room at the frat house, so desperate to just have fully-naked, proper sex,
that I’d been willing to ignore the consequences. Unfortunately we weren’t the
only ones with sex on the brain, and his next-door neighbor and his very vocal
partner were doing their best to bring the house down with their sex sounds.
When the wall shook so hard it rattled Crosbie’s bed, he’d thrown on jeans and
a shirt and stormed out of the room to threaten the guy with castration if he
didn’t keep it down. When he got back neither one of us were in the mood.

By the
time Kellan’s walked us through the details of his romp with number ten (
either
Tiffani or Brittani, but it definitely ends in an i
), I’m ready to combust.
I can barely sit still, my thighs clenching with need, and I’m familiar enough
with Crosbie’s flushed cheeks and darkened gaze to know he’s on the same dirty
page. The problem is, we have nowhere to go to
read
this page.

Kellan’s
phone rings suddenly, jarring us all out of this strange sexual haze. “It’s
Dane,” he whispers, before picking up and saying hello. “Good,” he says. “You?”
He nods and listens, nods and listens, then for some reason, gives us a thumbs
up. “He’s right here,” he says. “I’ll tell him, absolutely. Cool. See you
soon.” He hangs up and gapes at us as though he can’t believe his good luck.
“This is perfect!”

Crosbie
and I exchange wary looks. “Is it?”

He turns
to Crosbie. “Dane said they’re going over to prank the Kappa Deltas tonight,
and we need to be there. In fact, we need to go right now, to help prepare.
Come on. You walked over, right? I’ll drive you back.”

Crosbie’s
flush is deepening and I see his chest rise and fall as he takes a calming
breath. “Right now?”

“Yeah,
right now. You can talk to Dane and get those numbers for me. Let’s go.” He
snatches up the notebook and tosses it into his room, where it flutters to the
floor like a bird dying of sexual frustration.

I stare
miserably at my hands, twisted on the table to stop myself from lunging at
Crosbie and dragging him into my room, shouting at Kellan that the deal’s off,
feel free to bring any girl he wants back to the apartment.

“Actually…”
Crosbie says tentatively. “I’ll follow you over in a bit. I wanted to ask Nora
to look over my English paper. She said she wouldn’t mind proofing it before I
turned it in. It’s just a few pages.”

I’ve
never agreed to proofread this paper, because it doesn’t exist. But Kellan
doesn’t know that and I’m more than willing to play along. “You finished it?” I
say. “That’s great. Of course I’ll take a look.”

Kellan’s
frowning. “Can’t you just email it?”

“I
brought a hard copy,” Crosbie says. He reaches into his bag and passes me a
stapled sheaf of papers. It’s a bunch of recipes for protein shakes to help
build muscle faster.

Kellan
grabs his jacket from the couch and pulls it on. “Okay, whatever. Will it take
more than fifteen minutes? I have to get gas, so we’ll just run over, fill it
up, and come back to pick up the paper—is that enough time? I know you’re both
trying to keep your grades up, but tonight is really important. Last year the
Kappa Deltas covered the Alpha Sigma Phi house in toilet paper.
Dirty
toilet paper. Remember that?”

“Er…”
Crosbie and I exchange tortured looks.

“Why
don’t you get gas and stop here on your way back?” Crosbie suggests. “I don’t
want to come to the gas station.”

“Why
not?”
“The, uh…fumes. They make me sick.”

“They do?
Since when?”

“Since
always.”

“Geez,
man. I never knew.” Kellan looks a bit incredulous, but then just shakes his
head. “Fine. I’ll get the gas and swing back here to get you. Think you’ll be
finished in time?”

We both
freeze. I speak first. “If I work fast.”

“I don’t
think it’ll take that long,” Crosbie adds. “The paper is really ready to go.”

Kellan
stares at us like we’re morons, then shrugs. “Okay, fine. Whatever. I’ll text
you when I’m back.” Finally he puts on his sneakers, grabs his keys, and
leaves.

The
door’s been closed for exactly one half-second before Crosbie’s on me. “Oh,
thank God,” he mutters. He snatches the papers out of my hand and hurls them
onto the floor before hauling me in for a frantic kiss.

“Finally,”
I mumble against his lips. “I’m dying.”

“
You’re
dying? I’ve been dying for days.”

“I bet I
died more.”

“I bet I
died harder.”

We fumble
to our feet and I feel his erection against my belly. Hard is the perfect
adjective. “You win.”

“If we do
this right, we’ll both win.”

I moan
into his mouth as his fingers carefully unbutton my shirt. He doesn’t even
bother to unhook my bra, just shoves down the cups and fills his hands.
“Crosbie,” I pant. “Faster.”

“I want
this all the time,” he says, pulling back long enough to look at me, his fingers
tugging lightly on my nipples. “I think about you every day.”

He’s
wearing an old concert tee over a long-sleeve shirt and I pull off the top
layer and throw it on the floor. “Me too.” I stand on my toes to kiss him
again. “It’s not enough.”

“No,” he
groans. “It’s not.”

The
rattle of keys has us lurching apart. I clutch the front of my shirt together
and dash into my room, trying to fix my bra. I hear Crosbie curse, then his
T-shirt sails past me and lands on my bed, a very weak stab at hiding the
evidence.

I keep my
back to the room as I hear the thud of Kellan’s feet climbing the stairs. “I
forgot my phone.”

“Oh.
Right.” Crosbie sounds hoarse and annoyed.

“Are you
guys done already?”

My body
spasms unhappily at the possibility of this being over before it even begins.

I turn around to find Kellan looking at the
floor where Crosbie’s “essay” sits, discarded. Hastily I pick up random papers
from my desk and wave them to distract him. “I thought it’d be easier to read
in here,” I lie. “So Crosbie wouldn’t be breathing down my neck the whole
time.”

Crosbie
crosses his arms, making his biceps bulge. “I just want to make sure you do a
good job.”

“Nora
always does a good job,” Kellan replies, oblivious. “And she’s fast, too.”

Oh God.
“I’m going to get back to work.”

“Right.
I’ll be back soon. Don’t give her a hard time,” Kellan adds, pointing at
Crosbie. “She’s doing you a favor.”

“I’m very
grateful,” Crosbie replies, straight-faced.

“You
should be. Back soon.” Kellan jogs down the stairs and disappears outside. This
time we scurry over to the front window and hide behind the curtains as we
watch him climb into his car and drive down the block.

“Fuck
me,” Crosbie mutters, grabbing me by the waist and backing me into the wall.

“That’s
the plan,” I say.

He
laughs. “C’mon. I’ll show you how grateful I really am.”

We strip
down to our underwear in record time and Crosbie squeezes my ass and boosts me
up so I’m pinned between his chest and the wall. I wrap my legs around his
waist and feel his cock against the cotton of my panties, grinding into me. I
gasp for breath and rotate my hips, desperate for more friction. Just
desperate, generally.

“I wish
we had more time,” he mutters, tongue trailing over my neck, teeth nipping
lightly. “And a door with a lock he didn’t have the keys to.”

“I know.
I know.” I can’t think much beyond the hand he’s sliding under my panties,
coasting over the skin of my ass and lower, down between my legs, finding the
wetness that waits.

“Oh
fuck.”

I echo
the sentiment when one of his thick fingers pushes inside. It feels like only
seconds before I’m clinging to his neck, my short nails digging into the
muscles of his back as I switch between begging for more and swearing I can’t
wait any longer.

“Nora,
I’m gonna—Oh, fuck, Nora, I think—” He lowers me so I’m standing, then hurries
to his pants to retrieve a condom. He’s shaking as he rolls it on and I know
there’s no way he’s going to be able to hold me up again. Truth be told, as
long as he fucks me, I don’t care how he does it.

There’s
no time to debate, so I just pull off my panties and bend over the arm of the
couch. “Like this,” I tell him.

His brows
raise. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”
Our previous encounters haven’t really given us the opportunity to do much more
than face to face, a few hands sliding into pants whenever possible. We’ve
never done it from behind or so much as tried oral, and when he eases into me
I’m thinking about how much more time we need to do everything we haven’t done.
Everything we want to do. Just everything, really.