Page 58 of Game Night: Truth or Dare

Now that I didn’t hate him, I felt comfortable naming that nagging don’t go feeling I’d had ever since I’d gotten my teeth off his neck.

I was horny for him.

Sue me. He was hot. I hadn’t gotten laid in months. And it turned me on that he’d been brave enough to show me his vulnerability, literally exposing his throat to me, even though I’d kind of been a dick to him.

I liked that he could make me laugh.

I liked how I’d felt on top of him, gripping his shoulder in one hand and his soft-furred scalp in the other, tasting his skin and feeling his pulse, sucking at his warm throat until he hissed and whimpered under me.

I liked that a lot.

So at some point, as we’d been letting ourselves get closer and closer to each other, as we’d been whispering about concealer and living quarters, as we’d joked about keeping secrets…at some point we’d also started having a different conversation, a secret one, a silent one:

I want to kiss you.

Go for it.

It was nicer than giving him the hickey. The skin of his neck had been smooth and dry, but his lips were soft, his tongue slippery-slick. We went in too hard and clicked our teeth together, and that made us laugh—a few quiet, hot whispered breaths—then we were kissing again. I had a good grip of his body—his hard, muscled body with just enough give to be inviting—and I pulled him close to me like a drowning man clings to driftwood. I was desperate for warmth, for touch, for affection, for sex, and he seemed to have plenty to give.

“We should go,” he said, the next time we broke.

“Yeah.”

“You drive?”

“Yeah.”

“Room 218.”

“218. Cool.”

He let go of me then, his hand slipping off my waist, and slipped out of the room, pausing just long enough to give me a crazy little grin over his shoulder. I’d gotten hard while we made out, and my dick was sort of smashed up against me in my pants, and when he smiled at me like that, I felt it twitch—a disobedient little pulse that made me realize just how touch-starved I’d let myself get.

And then he was gone.

I turned to the ottoman and made an absolute shambles of things, pulling my overcoat out of the pile, snatching my scarf. Every second hit me like a mallet…I needed to get to Ben, get my arms around him, get my mouth on his. He’s a bottom, I thought stupidly, and it made me grin. Not just because that meant we were compatible, but because it felt important that he’d told me. Like, even before we knew we were going to fuck, we were talking about something intimate, something you don’t share with any old rando you meet. So what if Elliot was our common ground? He was gone, and Ben and I had connected.

Once I was bundled up, I hightailed it into the hallway. I thought about popping back into the party, making my excuses, thanking Callie, wishing Bianca a good night. But fuck all that. My dick was still crammed up against my thigh, still occasionally pulsing against my skin, and knowing that Ben would be waiting—Room 218!—felt like the most important thing in the world.

The second I stepped outside, a bitter January wind smacked me back down to earth, piercing through my coat and chilling me. There went my boner.

“Fuck,” I said, shivering, fumbling for the keys in my pocket. I found them, then made my way to my car.

Campus was only six or seven minutes away. It was late enough that I risked flooring it, even on the residential streets, cruising at a good fifteen miles per hour over the limit, cursing every red light in my path. Part of me started to worry this was all a prank—that I’d get to Ben’s room and he wouldn’t answer the door, just leave me in the too-bright hallway, squirming and unsatisfied. Maybe I deserved it, you know? I’d believed the worst about him, talked a lot of shit. The part of me that felt guilty about that, that wished I were nicer, that I weren’t such an asshole sometimes, spent the whole drive back to the dorm thinking about the ways Ben could torture me if he wanted to.

I was being dumb, though. Maybe I was an asshole, but Ben wasn’t.

Besides, I thought, daring to smile, he hadn’t kissed me like he was setting me up. No. He’d kissed me like he wanted me.

I was a mess by the time I slammed my car into park, my brain fucking with me, changing tactics every three seconds. But I was home. Carney Hall stood in front of me, a big, squat building of beige stucco and dark glass. As I locked my car, I glanced up to the second floor, scanning the windows that were lit up, trying to figure out which was Ben’s.

I sprinted inside, then sprinted up the stairs, thankful for my long legs. Scrawny, he’d called me. I smiled to myself as I pushed through the door that opened onto the second floor. I’ll show you scrawny, you dumb, sexy slab of beef.

Less than five seconds later, I stood outside of 218.

He’d left the door open. Not all the way. I couldn’t see inside. But the bolt rested against the jamb, so all I’d have to do was give it a little push. Just a little, tiny push. A single finger could do it.

I almost did. He must’ve wanted me to, right? But something made me knock. Gently, like tap, tap, near the frame.

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