Wild: The Ivy Chronicles (2 page)

Chapter 2

I
HAD A VAGUE
recollection of a Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman movie Mom refused to let me watch but that I watched anyway during a sleepover at Bethany Grayson’s house (her mother let her watch anything) called
Eyes Wide Shut
. The movie featured a lavish, hedonistic sex club full of rich, beautiful people dressed in extravagant costumes. Annie’s kink club was a far cry from that.

I should have known it after Emerson’s one visit. Amid laughter, she had shared her experience . . . which had included a man in an anatomically correct squirrel costume. Chippy was in attendance tonight, too, weaving among the rooms and bumping against females. After stepping off the elevator, I stuck close to Annie, letting her guide me. I drove my own car, the memory of Emerson being abandoned by Annie still fresh in my mind.

Tonight’s kink club was being held at a large loft with few rooms. Just a single wide-open space with sparse furniture. Understandably there was little privacy. Not that that stopped people from getting down to business. Several made out. The bedroom consisted of a near-translucent screen that did nothing to shield the orgy happening on the bed.

Couples occupied couches and ottomans. In a corner there was a threesome. They were making out in earnest, but thankfully still in clothes. Their hands were everywhere, diving inside shirts and under dresses. I looked away as I caught sight of panties being slid down one girl’s thighs.

“Want a drink?” Annie asked loudly over the pump of music, stopping before a makeshift bar manned by a guy wearing nothing but a speedo, a Captain America mask, and a Superman cape. He was clearly his own brand of superhero. He danced as he shook, stirred, and poured, doing this crazy pelvic-thrust action that drew my eyes and then made me glance away. Repeatedly.

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

Not that I was opposed to drinking. I could have used a cocktail to calm my nerves, but I was a little uncomfortable drinking the purple-colored concoctions Captain No Name was making. He nodded at me with a jerk of his chin and sent me a wink. I smiled back lamely. I wanted a drink to relax me . . . not a roofie.

Annie took a drink from him. Bringing it to her lips, she muttered, “You’re a bucket of fun, aren’t you?”

“What’s over there?” I pointed to where a group congregated on one side of the loft.

“Let’s find out.” Annie wove through the crowd, smiling and stopping to greet people she knew. At one point, she halted and engaged in a long, sloppy-wet kiss with a guy. Gag. When they came up for air, a long string of spit connected them before breaking.

He turned his attention on me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hello, there, I’m Roger.”

He extended a hand and I shook it. Smiling, he bent his head, tugging me closer by the hand, clearly intending to kiss me, too.

I flattened a hand to his chest and pushed him away with a tight smile. Yeah, not happening.

Shrugging, he moved on.

Annie laughed. “Uh, you do know you’re at a kink club, right?”

I nodded and then shrugged. “Yeah. That doesn’t mean I have to be indiscriminating, right? Besides, my tetanus isn’t up-to-date.”

“You’re such a prude.” Laughing, she rolled her eyes and led us to the herd of people. Some stood and a few sat huddled cozily together in plump armchairs, cheering and chanting and holding their drinks aloft in salute.

As we approached, I saw that they surrounded a pool table. I stood on my tiptoes and peered between the bodies, catching a glimpse of some movement on top of the pool table. Bodies. There were bodies on top of the pool table. Instantly, I cringed, hoping they didn’t tear the felt. Then I cringed again, shaking my head that my first concern was for the pool table.

“Oooh, I gotta see this.” Annie squeezed between two bodies. I followed, able to look over her head. I was average height, but in my boots, I was at least six inches taller than her.

My jaw dropped. Two girls were on their backs, shoulders touching, side by side on the pool table. A single guy was poised over them, his knees planted firmly between their thighs. He kissed one of them. Then the other. He took turns, moving back and forth between them. Deep, slow kisses that looked nothing like the kiss I just witnessed between Annie and Roger. He took his time with each girl, taking her face between his hands and holding it in a way that was both tender and firm. Confident and sexy. A man who knew what he was doing.

I couldn’t even see his face, but I thought he was hot. A powerful back flexed beneath the fabric of his shirt. His forearms were strong-looking, too. Corded with tendons. Lightly dusted with hair. Something tugged low in my belly in response to him.

Suddenly, someone stood in front of me holding a bucketful of raffle tickets. Annie took one and nudged me to do the same. Without tearing my gaze from the debauched scene, I took a ticket.

The other girl waiting for her turn slid her hand under the guy’s black T-shirt and dragged the fabric up so her red fingernails could stroke his bare shoulder. I was right. Holy sexy back. It was broad and muscled. The expanse of smooth, tanned skin made my mouth dry and water alternately. She touched her mouth to his back, her tongue darting out to taste him.

My face flamed and I shifted on my feet self-consciously, horrified that I was getting turned on watching this intimate scene. I was unable to look away. I continued to gawk at the guy. I ignored the girls. I watched him. The way he kissed—like his whole being was focused on the act. The way the bottom of his spine dipped was sexy as hell. His jeans rode low, hugging an ass that looked like it could bounce quarters. Just the sight made my stomach muscles clench and twist. And
that
was a wholly new experience.

A James Taylor song slid on. A hard and fierce beat. His powerful vocals a demanding, urgent wail that added to the tension swirling in the air.

The guy on the pool table lifted up from the lucky recipient of his attentions then. Still on his knees, straddling the one, he twisted around to face the girl who was kissing his back. He took her face in both his hands and that’s when I spotted the full, rocking, masculine beauty of his features.

And my world stopped.

I sucked in a breath as recognition sliced through me. It was Logan. Logan Mulvaney. Reece’s little brother. Reece, as in Pepper’s boyfriend. Logan as in only eighteen and still in high school. About to graduate but still in high school. And here he was. At a kink club.

The fire in my cheeks intensified. This must be what it felt like a split second before spontaneous combustion. Mortification washed over me as I realized I was getting all hot and bothered over a guy I had no business feeling that way about. Off-limits was putting it mildly. It didn’t matter that the guy had more experience than I did. He had seen and done more sexually than I probably
ever
would. Rumor was he had already slept his way through the female undergrad population of Dartford and was moving on to grad students now.

I was on the verge of turning and fleeing when his eyes locked on mine.

Hello, awkward
.

Now he knew I had seen him. How could I ever act normal when our paths crossed over the course of the next few decades? And yeah, I had no doubt that our paths would cross that long into the future. Pepper and Reece would probably get married and I’d see this guy a couple times a year. First at the requisite wedding events, then the baby baptisms. Birthdays. Holidays. Each time I clapped eyes on him, I would recall this mortifying moment. And I’d know
he
would be recalling it, too. Damn it, where was the rewind button for tonight?

“Ohmigod! It’s Logan!” Annie gave a little hop beside me the moment she spotted his face.

Of course,
she
knew who he was. I seemed to recall they had fooled around once. Pepper had mentioned that tidbit. For the first time since knowing this, something ugly spiked inside me. I hated that Annie had gotten to kiss him . . . that they had maybe done more than kiss.

As embarrassing as the whole situation was, I did not spontaneously combust. The earth did not open up to swallow me. Still, I didn’t walk away. My feet were rooted to the spot, pinned by Logan’s dark blue eyes. With his gaze glued to me, he lowered his head to kiss the girl again. Eyes wide open. Trained on me. He didn’t look away from me as he kissed. Not even when the girl on the table brought her hand up and began working him through his jeans. He looked directly at me with a burning-hot stare.

Kissing one girl, his cock being rubbed by another, he stared me down.

I couldn’t look away.

“That’s hot,” Annie breathed near my ear. “He’s looking right at you like it’s you he’s kissing. Or wants to.”

I fought to swallow the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “No,” I choked out, not even certain what I was denying. He
was
looking at me. But he didn’t want to kiss me. That would be . . . weird. I was his older brother’s friend.

Suddenly someone started shouting: “Ten, nine, eight . . .” The crowd joined in, chanting out the rest of the countdown. “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!”

A tall, thin guy wearing a Charlie Brown T-shirt held up his phone as the timer started trilling. “Time’s up!”

I exhaled, so relieved to know there was an end to this. That Logan wasn’t about to engage in a full-scale threesome in front of this mob. In front of me. Because as much as I disliked the idea, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to look away. I would have watched it all.

Which made me wonder who in the hell I even was anymore?

People clapped and hooted as Logan hopped down from the table in one smooth move, landing lightly on his feet. Turning, he assisted the other two girls off the table. One clung to him, clearly eager to continue what they’d started on the table.

“Number 364 . . . 364!”

Logan’s gaze found me. Not difficult. I still hadn’t moved from where I was rooted.

“All right! Who’s got 364? C’mon now!”

“Georgia, did you check your ticket?” Annie grabbed my hand. I’d forgotten about the ticket I’d grabbed from the bucket. I didn’t even know what it was for, but I’d hung on to it, clutched it between my fingers as I’d watched Logan’s little exhibition. “Ohmigod! That’s you!” Annie jerked my hand high into the air. “Right here . . . 364!”

The skinny guy pulled me forward. “Here’s 364! Annnnnd.” He made a show of tossing the tickets in the bucket. He selected another ticket and brandished it in the air. “The lucky number is 349! Where is 349?”

Another guy emerged from the crowd. This guy was big. Like lineman big. And tall. My head fell back to assess him. He grinned. “Hey, sweet thing.”

Before I could even speak, his hands dropped on my waist and lifted me up on the table. I winced a little as I came down hard. My legs dangled over the side of the table. “Ready for two minutes on the table?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. For a split second, I tried to convince myself I could do this. Make out with a stranger in front of a group of strangers. I could be that bold. I could let go of my inhibitions for a few minutes and do something just that wild.

He leaned close to whisper in my ear, his fingers tucking the hair back from my face. “You’re a pretty piece. If you’re shy, we don’t have to do this here at all. Would you like to go somewhere else? Take more than two minutes?”

The words finally came. A big fat
no
materialized on my tongue. I opened my mouth to object, but someone else was suddenly speaking.

“Sorry. This one’s mine.” Logan reached for my arm, fingers closing around my wrist as he guided me down from the table. Relief coursed through me. Until I remembered that I was a big girl who didn’t need rescuing.

Lineman scowled at him. I added my own scowl. I wasn’t
his
or anyone’s.

Lineman stepped between us, blocking me from total retreat. Logan still held my wrist. “You already had your fun.” He nodded at the pool table. “Now it’s my turn.”

Logan grinned like he wasn’t challenging the thick-necked guy who probably added steroids to his Chex Mix. “Sorry, man, but she’s not playing the game.” Logan clapped a hand on his muscle-sloped shoulder like they were old friends.

Lineman looked down at Logan’s hand on his shoulder and then back to him. “She took a ticket.” He sounded like a petulant child now.

“I—I’m sorry.” I finally found my voice. Stammer and all. “I didn’t know what the ticket was for.”

Lineman grunted and stepped out of the way. He held up a finger in my face. “You should always know the rules before you play.”

I nodded, feeling like an idiot. Like a child being scolded for not following the instructions so clearly written on top of the paper.

Logan pulled me through the crowd and out into the more open space of the loft. Only he didn’t stop there. He didn’t release me.

His long strides moved swiftly, leading us through the press of bodies. As if it was his right to touch me. As if his brother dating my best friend gave him the right to interfere in my life.

His grip shifted to hold my hand. I tried not to think about his hand. About how warm and firm and large it felt wrapped around mine. Harris wasn’t big for holding hands, but when he had it had never felt like this. For a guy, Harris’s hands just weren’t that large. Our hands were about the same size.

I shook my head slightly. I had to stop doing that. Stop comparing every guy out there to Harris. It wasn’t healthy.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.

“Out of here,” he said over his shoulder, his voice deep enough that he didn’t even have to lift it over the thumping bass for me to hear. I didn’t protest. Didn’t stop him. Eyes followed us as we moved across the room, and I just wanted to get away from the stares. At least I told myself it was that. I told myself it had nothing to do with the way my hand felt in Logan Mulvaney’s. Or that I couldn’t get the image of him and the way he had looked at me as he kissed those girls out of my head.

Chapter 3

H
IS STRIDES WERE LONG.
I took two steps for every one of his, trying to keep up. I spotted the elevator ahead, at the far end of the loft, directly in our path.

A voice called his name. “Logan?”

He stopped, turning partly to face the girl walking toward us. She was dressed all in black. Even her hair was dark as a raven’s wing. Dyed, I suspected. The only other color was the slash of cherry-red lips in her pale face. Her blue eyes shifted from Logan to me and then back again. I tried not to shift beneath her intense regard. She was beautiful in a devour-you-alive kind of way.

“It’s all right, Rachel,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and turned with a sexy slink of her hips, heading toward the pool table and the crowd still gathered there.

Logan pulled me back toward the elevator. I wanted to ask about her. I didn’t think Logan had a girlfriend. After the pool-table scene that seemed evident. Girlfriends, plural, was more his thing. But something had passed between them. Something that wasn’t casual. Something proprietary.

He punched a button, calling the elevator, and then looked at me. His mouth lifted in a half smile that was familiar because I saw it almost daily on his brother. It almost put me at ease until I recalled that he wasn’t Reece. He wasn’t that safe, disarming guy who was head over heels in love with my best friend. This guy was wicked and immoral and trouble with a capital
T
.

He released my hand, waving me inside the elevator. I finally found my voice as he pulled the sliding door shut after us. Leaning against the back wall of the elevator, I swallowed a breath and willed the heat to cool from my face. “Well, wasn’t that very caveman of you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to make out with Bubba back there on that pool table in front of all those people?” He jerked a thumb behind him. “ ’Cause I can let you go back in there if that’s what you want. You just looked a little green. I thought you were going to puke.”

“I wasn’t going to throw up. And you don’t need to escort me. Hate to drag you away from the fun you were having, after all. Looks like your girlfriend Rachel might be missing you.” Or any number of females inside that loft.

“She’s just a friend,” he replied casually, thankfully not picking up on my catty tone. But I did. I heard it and I mentally kicked myself for it.

And yet I kept talking . . . still sounding like a judgy little shrew. “Somehow I doubt that you and any girl are just
friends
.” I knew his reputation well enough to conclude that. And I’d just seen Logan Mulvaney give the performance of the century on that pool table to back it up.

I crossed my arms as the elevator began its descent.

He crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking my pose. “I’ve known Rachel since seventh grade.”

“Aw. And you hang out at a kink club together now. How sweet for y’all.” I opened my mouth to ask if he knew those other girls on the pool table, too, but managed to stop myself.

He smiled, shaking his head. “You’re funny, G. Never noticed that about you before.”

But he had noticed me. A stupid little thrill coursed through me.

He continued, “I’m guessing Anna brought you.”

“You mean Annie?”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter that he couldn’t get the name right of a girl he had made out with once upon a time.

“I came with Annie but drove my own car.”

“Good. You can drive yourself home then. She likes to stay late at these things.”

Of course he would know that. Apparently he was a kink club regular.

The elevator settled to a stop and he slid the door open, asking, “What is it with you guys? First, Emerson, and now you’re here.”

I bristled as I stepped out. “You’re one to talk.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Emerson. This place is over your head. Hopefully, like her, you’ll have enough sense to never come back here again.”

This annoyed me. Maybe because I always prided myself on being so mature. I reveled when adults would tell my mother how composed and sensible and grown-up I was. It had always been a point of pride—for both Mom and me. But here he was treating me like a kid. And I was older than him!

Over my head
.

You have marriage written all over your face
.

Boring
.

We stepped out onto the empty porch of the building. Empty because why hang out here when there was privacy inside to do all kinds of wild and wicked things? The type of things one did at a kink club. Things I had yet to learn about. Thanks to him.

I chafed my hands up and down my arms.

Everyone thought they knew me so well. Resentment simmered beneath my skin. He didn’t know me. Who was he to pass judgment on me?

Maybe I just needed more time to get used to the place. To find the thing that worked for me. Logan ushering me away wasn’t going to accomplish that.

“You don’t have any say about where I can go.” I walked past him and out into the night. It would be too embarrassing to return upstairs now. Not after he dragged me out of there.

“Hey,” he called after me. “No need to get all butt-hurt. I’m just trying to help a friend out—”

I stopped and whirled around. “Are we friends, Logan? Pepper and your brother are dating. That’s all. There’s no other connection between us. I don’t know why you feel the need to act all big brother. You’re just . . .” I paused, grasping. “ . . . a kid.”

The minute I said it, I wanted to take it back.

He didn’t look like a kid. Or act like one. Especially now.

He repositioned himself, spreading his legs a little wider, bracing his feet on the porch of the building. He didn’t look mad or offended. Worse. He looked amused. He actually smiled.

And that grin was devastating. Seriously. No wonder he had such a reputation. Girls must throw themselves at him. His mouth was sexy as hell, too. His lips were well-defined and wide, the bottom fuller than the top.
Oh, the things I bet he could do with those lips. . .

I blinked at the totally wayward thought.

“You think I’m just a kid, huh?” His deep voice rippled over me like warm wind.

I nodded once.

He stepped down from the porch, coming at me, stalking like some kind of predator. I backed up.

He was just a kid. Just a . . . kid . . .

Aw, hell. My gaze skimmed up and down six feet plus of sexy man. Who was I kidding? He was so totally
not
a kid.

I tried to look down my nose at him the way I had seen my mother do countless times when squaring off with some mouthy delinquent. My sister and I called it her “principal look.” If she ever used it on us, we knew we were in trouble. But the effect was lost on him.

Yeah, he stood taller than six feet, but it wasn’t that. Logan had an air about him. A confidence rare for anyone, much less an eighteen-year-old guy. He held himself like someone who knew who he was and his place in the world. And that annoyed me. Why was he so damn self-assured?

“How old are you?” he asked, still smiling. A deceptive smile. Cunning almost.

“Twenty. And you’re eighteen. Still in high school.” I flung that at him almost like an accusation.

“For another couple weeks, yeah.” He nodded, absorbing this. “What month is your birthday?”

“November.”

“Okaaay,” he dragged the word out. “I’ll be nineteen in August. My mom held me back . . . didn’t want me to be the smallest kid in kindergarten.” It was hard to imagine him ever being the smallest kid, comparatively, at any point in his life. “So we’re twenty, twenty-one months apart, Georgia.” He arched an eyebrow at me, waiting for this to sink in. For me to realize we’re actually closer in age than I was willing to admit. That my calling him a kid was just . . . dumb.

I shrugged one shoulder, for some reason unwilling to give him that. “Maybe this place isn’t for
you
. Don’t you have a curfew or something?”

Pure contrariness had me tossing that out at him. I knew enough about his and Reece’s family life to know that he probably never had a curfew. Not since his mom died when he was a kid. His father was disabled and not exactly a check-the-homework-and tuck-’em-into-bed kind of parent.

He laughed deeply then, tossing his head back. It was a deliberate dig, and instead of getting offended, he laughed. It was a hypnotizing sight, the way his throat worked, tendons moving beneath that golden skin. The flash of his straight teeth. My belly dipped and I knew this was why girls my age and older forgot about his age and dropped their panties for him. He oozed sex and confidence. I blinked hard, disgusted with myself.

The sound of his laughter sent goose bumps over my flesh and settled in the pit of my stomach.

He stopped laughing to say, “I’ve never had a curfew.”

Never?
I shook my head, telling myself now was not the time to marvel at his lack of supervision. My mom firmly believed no good could come of staying out past midnight. When I went home on break my parents still imposed a curfew on me. As if I wasn’t in my second year of college. As if I hadn’t been staying out all hours of the night doing all manner of naughty things. Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t. But I
could
be.

This reminder of my sheltered existence just made me more determined to live my life on my own terms. To do tonight what I set out to do. To stop living such a boring existence. I was twenty and I’d been living the last four years like a married woman. School. Studying. Sex once a week.
Shit. Liar
. I couldn’t even be honest with myself. The last year with Harris we maybe had sex every month.

Standing there looking at this incredibly hot guy who had a hell of a lot more experience than I did
and
was younger only flustered me. I flipped the hair back over my right shoulder, noting that his eyes followed the move, skimming over the long trail of blond hair before moving back to my face. Suddenly, I was glad that I had styled it so carefully for my date and worn it down in soft waves tonight.

“I’ll leave. Fine. For tonight.” I started to walk past him, but he blocked me.

“Meaning you might come back?”

I edged back from the wall of his chest, careful not to touch him. I think Reece mentioned his brother played sports. It explained the breadth of his shoulders, which tapered down to a lean waist. The flat stomach. I’d glimpsed Reece without a shirt when he stayed the night with Pepper. It was criminal. Logan was in good shape. My gaze flicked over him. Okay.
Great
shape. He was probably ripped under the black shirt he wore. Just like his brother. Ridiculous six-pack, defined biceps and all. I swallowed against the sudden thickness of my throat. Shoot me. Was I actually drooling over a guy still in high school?

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He rubbed a hand over his scalp, dragging his hand over the close-cropped dark blond hair. “That guy you were talking to? The one you were about to get busy with on the pool table? Georgia,” he expelled my name on an exasperated breath.

“You don’t have a clue about the things he’s into . . . the things he’ll do to you.”

I shivered a little beneath the weight of his blue eyes. “I can handle myself.”

“Does Pepper and Em—”

“Pepper and Emerson aren’t my parents,” I snapped. “I’m a big girl, thank you very much. I don’t need permission to be here.”

He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering at my throat. “Sure you do, Pearls. You fit in here about as much as a bull in a china shop.”

My hand flew to my necklace. The pearl necklace had been a graduation present. For some insane reason the hot sting of tears pricked the backs of my eyes
. I would not cry. He would not make me cry.

“I’m tired of people telling me who I am.” First Harris.
Always
my mother. I lived halfway across the country and she was still trying to tell me how to live my life. Even Pepper and Em.

And now him. This guy who didn’t even know me.

I nodded toward the door. “Maybe I want to hook up with that guy and have him do those things to me. Ever consider that?” I deliberately let it sound like I knew what
those
things
were.

“You don’t even know what those things are,” he retorted, seeing right through me. And how did he do that, anyway? Did I have a sign around my neck that said
TOO BORING TO FUCK
? Harris’s face flashed across my mind.
I need more, Georgia.

I fumed. I could be more. I was
more
.

“Yes, I do. He told me,” I lied. “When he whispered in my ear.”

His eyebrow winged. “Really? I heard he likes it when the girl dresses up as a dude and puts on a strap-on. You into that, Pearls? I would have pegged you for the type of girl who’s only ever done it missionary-style.”

I sucked in a breath. Insulted, yes. Shocked, too. Shocked that he had guessed that about me.

He laughed, nodding. “Yeah. Thought so.”

“Asshole,” I spit out. Another first. I had never called anyone a bad word before. It wasn’t something ladies did.

“Why don’t you go home to your safe dorm room and forget about this place?” His look then was part pity and part smirk. I could have handled the smirk. It was the faint pity that got to me. I wasn’t pitiable. No way.

How dare he talk to me like
I
was the child? I was an adult. I came out tonight to have a good time. To put an end to my drought and prove to myself that I wasn’t boring. I could be spontaneous. I could be unpredictable.

I could be wild.

Before I could stop and think about what I was doing, I stood on my tiptoes, circled his neck with my hands, and pulled his head down to mine.