Slammed #3 (2 page)

I was struggling to pay attention during the last
class of the day but failing miserably as my mind kept drifting back to the
incredibly hot sex that Zack and I had in the aftermath of our fight. I smiled
to myself as I remembered telling him that I could get him off just as
thoroughly as he’d brought me to orgasm, and the silly wager we had made—and of
course how I’d won it. Zack’s words, in his low, pleased voice, filled my mind.
“God, you’re going to ruin me. Good at
oral, full of great ideas for how to make sex better—I’m going to fail out.”
I made myself pay at least enough attention to get the notes off of the board;
it was lucky for me that my last class of the day was English Literature,
something that I could do well in even if I occasionally lost myself in
thought. In spite of the bone-deep satisfaction I felt after my afternoon
tryst, my mind kept coming back to the question of whether it was all going to
end this time the way it had before; was Zack just going to move on once he
graduated? Or would he wait for me? I shook off the thought as best as I could.
We’d had sex twice, and Zack had publicly declared his love for me—but that
wasn’t exactly an indication that there was anything serious between us, no
matter how tempting that possibility might be.

****

After class ended, I walked back towards the dorms,
still distracted by thoughts of Zack. He wanted to see me again; well, I
thought, of course he did. Even if he wasn’t serious about me, I knew good and
damned well that I was an excellent lay. I didn’t need his confirmation of it,
but his words had expressed how much he’d enjoyed himself—just as much as I
had. So of course Zack would want more of that. I grinned to myself as I swiped
my card to get into the building, barely noticing the world around me, my
thoughts alternating between the homework I had to do and the thought of when I
might see Zack again. Would he ask me on another date? And if he did, where
would he take me?

I took the stairs once more, climbing them slowly
and dreamily, able to feel the aching tenderness between my legs. I would text
Zack once I got back to my room, I thought; he should be out of practice and
maybe we could make plans. I had to get my homework done, but maybe Zack would
be willing to come up to my room and we could study together and then have sex
again. That was a good date, no matter who you were. Or maybe Zack would be up
for going to the movies in a few days, and coming back to my room afterward; in
spite of the fact that our first sexual encounter at the college had taken
place on the couch at his frat house, I didn’t like the idea of going to the
frat house to be with Zack. I could still remember his brother’s comment about
me being Zack’s piece of ass. I didn’t think that Zack took the same view—I
hoped he didn’t—but I didn’t want to hear it from anyone else, either.

My mind kept going back to the way Zack had improved
in the time we had been apart.
The thought of him—of what it
was like to have sex with him—was so intense that I felt myself getting turned
on in spite of the fact that I was walking around campus, into the dorms, up to
my room.
I thought about calling Zack, inviting him over to have one
more little quickie in my room before dinner. I could still feel the ache
between my hips when I moved, the sweet feeling of tenderness between my thighs
that was so satisfying. I wanted more of it—I couldn’t help but want more. I
smiled to myself. I could easily just offer Zack a massage; after practice he’d
definitely want one, and he’d know right away that it was the perfect opening
for sex.

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t spot the guy
in front of my dorm room until I was nearly at the door. I looked up and saw
one of the guys who had been sitting with Zack in the dining hall at lunch
standing right there, looking up and down the hallway. The sight of him
confused me; since he was on the team, I had to suppose that I’d been
right—practice was over for the day. But what was he doing hanging around in
front of my dorm room? The guy was bigger than Zack—bulky and hefty where Zack
was lean and muscled, with dark hair already starting to thin at the top in the
crew cut he wore. He shifted uncomfortably and watched
me as
I approached, his pale gray eyes firm and his lips pressed together
.

“Uh, hi?
Who are you and what do you want?” I shifted my backpack, feeling an
instinctive fear creeping up from my stomach.

“Hey,” he said, trying to give me a friendly smile,
but I could tell he was tense about something. “I’m Robbie—I’m on the team with
Zack. How’s it going?”

I shrugged, feeling impatient. “I’m doing pretty
well—or I was until I found some strange guy standing outside of my door
looking like a creeper.” I raised an eyebrow and Robbie shrugged uncomfortably.
I set my jaw. “Maybe you’d rather just get the point of why you’re here.”

Robbie looked at his feet for a moment before
meeting my gaze. “Look,” he said, “You need to just cut Zack loose.”

I frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?” My
heart was beating fast, and I wondered if Zack had told all of his teammates
about me.

“I know you don’t know me and we’re not friends, but
consider it a personal favor. Don’t hang out with him, don’t go on dates with
him, leave him alone.”

I felt anger mixed with confusion rising inside of
me. “Excuse me, but I don’t have any reason to do you a favor. I don’t know
what’s going on in that big blockhead you’ve got going on, but this was
probably the dumbest way to ask me to stop seeing Zack.” I shook my head in
disbelief. “You don’t know me and you can’t do anything about what Zack wants
to do.”

“Listen—hey—I get it, but just hear me out…” The guy
started forward, giving me an opening. I darted around him and got my key in
the door quickly, unlocking it with a wrench and yanking the door open.

“Get the hell out of here before I call one of the
RAs and tell them you’re harassing me,” I told the big, beefy guy, scowling at
him before I slammed the door in his face. I twisted the lock and stormed away
from the door, telling myself I’d give him two minutes before I checked to make
sure he was actually gone.

I went into my room and threw myself onto the bed,
shaking slightly. Who was that guy to tell me not to have anything to do with
Zack? I shook my head, feeling the anger boiling up inside of me, twisting my
stomach into knots. I couldn’t get comfortable. I sat up, threw myself back
down, got out of bed and sat down at my desk; I couldn’t even manage to get
into the reading assignment for one of my classes. Part of me wanted to call
Zack and tell him what his teammate had just done. I went through my bag to
find my phone and looked at it for a long time; but I couldn’t quite make
myself make the call.

I put my phone back down and considered it. What
reason would the guy have to ask me to stay away from Zack? The guy would have
had to
have come
directly from practice to be waiting
at my dorm when I got there; had something come up during practice—had Zack
told his teammates about ending up in bed with me? The thought of that brought
the anger boiling up even more; if he had told his friends he’d gone straight
from the dining hall to my dorm and convinced me to sleep with him, I would
kill him. But then, I remembered the spectacle he’d created. The guy who’d been
at my door had been sitting right next to him—he had probably taken the
proclamation of love at least a little seriously.

I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking about it. Even
if Zack hadn’t told his teammates about getting into my pants, I doubted that
Zack went around jumping onto tables and proclaiming that he was hung up on
girls on a regular basis. The team was reaching the end of its season, and they
were close to that elusive ideal—the perfect win-loss record. I got up from my
desk and left my room, going to the door to the common area and opening it
hesitantly. The guy who’d stood there waiting for me was gone. I went back to
my room and climbed into my bed, thinking about the situation from the team’s
perspective. I could see where they’d be worried that Zack would get distracted
by the prospect of dating
me—or anyone
. The team only
had one more game in the regular season to get through, and then they would be
into the national championships. With their record they would be playing
against a top-tier school for sure—but a perfect record would definitely
bolster their hopes.

I looked at my phone again and decided that at least
until the end of the season—only a couple of weeks or so away—I could afford to
put the possibility of a relationship with Zack on hold. It wasn’t that I was doing
what I was told; it was that I didn’t want to distract Zack, and I didn’t like
how fast things were going between us. I told myself firmly that I would just
put the brakes on things for a little while, let things cool down. There would
be time after the season ended to reconnect with Zack if he was really, truly
serious about being with me—if I wasn’t just some kind of convenient fuck buddy
for him.

I felt a wrench in my chest at the possibility that
if I did decide to slow things down—in reality, to stop them until after the
season had ended—I might lose Zack altogether. It was a risk I had to take, I
told myself firmly. If Zack moved on to another, easier girl while I wasn’t
around, that was on him, and I would just have to move on. It wasn’t as though
we’d been dating seriously anyway; or even, really, at all. We’d gone on one
date together, and at that it was because Zack made it a condition of answering
my interview questions. I thought about the fact that about a week after we’d
had sex for the first time since high school, he’d told me flat out that it was
just sex; if that had been his attitude, then I could easily give him up. I put
my phone down and turned my attention back onto my homework as best as I could,
even though I was still haunted with the possibility that I would really,
really regret my decision.

CHAPTER
TWO

For the next few days, I buried myself in
schoolwork. I barely left my room except to go to classes or the library, and I
always made sure to get in early enough to book a private study room. Midterms had
passed, but I knew that if I gave myself too much free time, I would come to
regret it. Jess rolled her eyes at my diligence, reminding me of her “
all work and no play makes
Evie
a dull girl
” crack—but I couldn’t quite bring
myself to tell her exactly what had happened, only that I had decided to take a
little break from Zack and even dating in general.

It was harder than I had even imagined; I knew that
it was easy for me to become infatuated with him—but I hadn’t counted on how
quickly it could happen. I couldn’t exactly tell Zack what had happened either;
I didn’t want to start a fight amongst his teammates, and I honestly didn’t
know how to explain it to him. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t think of any other
way to deal with the situation. The first time Zack texted me—right before
dinner hours at the dining hall—I simply responded to his invitation to sit
with him that I planned on getting something to go and studying in my room.

After that I couldn’t bring myself to answer any of
his messages or calls. While I sat at my desk in my room going over the class
readings the day after my altercation with Zack’s teammate, my phone buzzed.

Practice
was canceled today,
the message read, with a little smiley
face.
We could hang out…maybe you could
show me more of those skills you picked up.

I pressed my lips together and didn’t even pick my
phone up to contemplate replying. It buzzed again, breaking through my focus.

Or
if you don’t want to get down we could just hang out and watch a movie.

I took a deep breath. No—I wouldn’t respond to him.
I wouldn’t even reply to tell him that I was too busy with homework. If I did,
he might offer to come up and study with me; of course, knowing Zack, he would
be able to very quickly convince me to do anything but study.

The next day, he tried again. I was in the library,
in the private study room that I’d reserved for the afternoon trying to make
heads or tails of the new Stats lesson. My phone buzzed, on silent per library
rules.

Hey,
are you mad at me? Can I at least get a chance to figure out what I did wrong?

My heart wrenched in my chest. It took all I had not
to open the message that was flashing on my screen and reply to it—tell him
that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that I wasn’t mad at him, that I just
needed some space and thought he did too. But instead I turned it off
altogether and tried to bury myself in my textbook.

When I got back to the dorm, there was a note taped
to my door.

Jess
let me in—I’d hoped you were here. Call me, please?

It was signed in Zack’s messy scrawl. I ripped it
off my door and went in, closing myself into my lonely room and deciding that
I’d rather just curl up and go to sleep rather than risk running into him at
the dining hall. I turned off the lights and tried not to think about the times
that Zack and I had been together, or the sound of his voice, or the way that
he seemed so interested in being with me. He would give up soon enough and
maybe later—if I hadn’t ruined things for good—I could explain to him that I
had just needed space, and wanted him to have the ability to focus on the game.
Even if he couldn’t forgive me for that, I needed to be able to tell him.
Maybe, I thought with a mixture of dread and hope, he would just forget about
me completely, and move on with his life. The frat he belonged to must be
having parties; there would be plenty of girls all around him vying for his
attention, more than happy to take his mind off of me.