Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) (27 page)

Two, if she’d accept me back in her ranks. I’d step up my game this time.

She straightened her shoulders, pulling herself together, too strong to show any weakness. “Thanks, Mackenzie. Weirdly, that does make me feel a little better.”

“And you two can commiserate about unrequited love,” I said.

She spit out a laugh. “That won’t be awkward at all.” Her head perked up and she smoothed her hair down, the honey-coated strands falling over her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking…I haven’t been fair to you. Holly told us how Harrison tricked you. And Corey told us you were getting help.” Her eyes focused on my empty hands, void of drinks.

“I’ve been seeing a counselor.”

“We
all
had too much to drink that night of
Never have I ever
. I didn’t land in the hospital, but I passed out in the Rho Sig foyer because I couldn’t make it up the stairs. I threw up all over that ugly floral carpet.”

“Finally,” I said, my lips curling into a smile. “I’ve been waiting for someone to ruin that thing! It hurt my eyes.”

She chuckled. “What I’m trying to say is, when we get back from Spring Break, we should hang out. Get coffee or something. I’m going to need something to drown my sorrows in.”

“Why stop there? Let’s get cupcakes too.”

Fallon wasn’t home when I got back to my dorm but a note telling me she’d gone to Liam’s was. I’d told Corey I needed to gather a few things before I came over. Really, I flat ironed my hair, changed into my sexiest undergarment set, and dropped a few toiletries into my purse for the morning.

When I arrived at Beta Chi, Corey wore scrubs and a long sleeve shirt, white, ribbed. His hair was still styled from going out, and he had renewed his cologne, his signature scent. He gave me a quick kiss on my lips then whispered in my ear, “I have a surprise for you.” He took my hand and led me back into the fraternity house that would only be his for one more night. A night he decided to spend with me.

On the way up, he told me he’d talked to Nate and told him about us. I hadn’t yet confessed to Bianca, there wasn’t really a good opening in the bathroom conversation, but I would, soon. I guessed Nate volunteered to sleep elsewhere because he wasn’t around when we got to Corey’s room. The only luminance came from the glow of several candles placed sporadically around his bed, flames dancing to their own forbidden rhythm. “We never did get to use those candles at formal.”

We kissed as if this was the first kiss, as if it might be the last. He hugged me tight then let go and hugged me again. We fell into each other in a way that seemed so familiar. I was home.

“So about that gray area?” I asked between kisses.

Love is never simple. A feeling as strong and complex as love couldn’t simply be defined and spelled out with letters, or fit into a paragraph as easily as the English language allowed. It was a word that spoke so boldly it needed no context, no camaraderie.

He let out a growl, nipping at my nose with his teeth. “I’ll show you.”

His lips took hold of my body. He brushed them against the soft skin behind my earlobe, unlocking a treasure trove of nerve endings. Tingles spread as he dragged his mouth over my collarbone. My breathing increased with each new piece of skin he kissed. He tugged at the bottom of my shirt and I raised my arms to help him lift it over my head. His hands circled to my back, snagging on the clasp of my bra, but I placed a palm on his wrist to stop him.

“You can’t take that off without appreciating the matching set,” I said.

“My bad.” He grinned against the tops of my breasts, sliding a finger beneath the black lace fabric to tease me. My back arched at his touch. In one swift motion, he seized my pants and tugged them over my legs so fast, a whoosh of cold air made goose bumps pop all over my skin.

He leaned back and studied my body, and I shivered under his appraisal. He pursed his lips. “Hmmm.”

My arms flew to cover my chest, a reflexive move. “What?”

“I still think you’d look much better
without
these on.” He snapped the strap of my bra. “But I’m willing to give this a try.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his evil mouth back to mine. My fingers worked at the waistband of his scrubs but he moved my hands back up to his neck. His lips trailed down the length of my body, dropping tiny kisses along the way. Each one left me breathless, panting in demand for his touch.

His fingers skimmed along the elastic of my lace underwear. I repeated a silent prayer in my mind that willed him to remove them, swift and fast. I wanted him to touch me so badly. His warm skin hadn’t been pressed against my own in far too long.

Instead, he slid two fingers inside the leg hole of my underwear and pushed it to the aside. His scruffy cheek scraped against my inner thigh, feeling both painful and amazing at the same time. Corey pressed an entirely different kind of kiss to me that tore a gasp from my throat at first contact. The initial sweep of his tongue forced my eyelids shut, and I savored the sensation. Desire slammed into me. God, this felt good. He kept his tongue flat, soft and gentle, for the first few laps, easing me into the pleasure. My hips rocked against his mouth until he abandoned the slow and methodical method. His tongue dipped inside me as my breathing increased.

When he used the hard tip of his tongue on my most sensitive spot, I gripped the bed sheet like handrails, the only thing keeping me from floating. His tongue stroked me in alternating swirls and licks. Thank God Nate wasn’t in the room because my moans grew so loud, I feared the sound would teem over into other rooms. Sensation rose until my body convulsed in waves of euphoria. I let out a single scream in the soon-to-be-empty room. The last hurrah.

He let my underwear drop back in place and rested his cheek against my belly button. His face glistened in the candlelight. “Good call. I’m glad we left those on.”

“Well, they don’t have to stay on any
more
,” I teased.

I expected him to laugh but suddenly his face turned serious. “I do, you know.” He crawled up my body and brushed my hair from my face. “Love you.”

I cupped his cheeks in my hands. “You know I do too.”

L
ATER, WE CUDDLED IN his Beta Chi bed for the last time. Our arms and legs were so tangled up in each other, I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began. I nestled into the crook of his shoulder, his arm sliding around me. “I have an idea for how to fix Rho Sigma,” I said.

Corey’s fingers danced along my stomach, soothing me. “I thought of one too. We get all the other sororities kicked off campus. That way, Rho Sig is in good company and the Greek Org
has
to let you all back in or they lose their jobs.” He let out his raspy laugh. “Foolproof, right?”

“Hmmm, that one’s good.” I made a grand show of contemplating it by tapping my finger against my kiss-swollen lips. “But what about starting it up underground? Keep all the girls involved, spend the rest of the semester improving our image, show the school the sorority has changed. Like Out House. We’ll focus on philanthropy stuff to impress the Greek Org.”

His arm stiffened around me. “Mac, that’s illegal on this campus, it won’t solve anything. Look at what it made Harrison do.”

I was about to say the craziest thing of all. I sucked in air through my lungs as encouragement. “Yeah, but it worked for him. And that’s what the girls want—they want to feel like they can still party with frats, they want organized events, someplace they belong. If I start it up, I’ll be in control. I can make sure things actually change.” I kissed his chest. “Plus, they’ll be the coolest sorority on campus. Everyone likes forbidden things.”

He chuckled. “Okay fine, let’s say you did this, there’s a lot of logistics to work out. First, you’ll need a place to hold meetings. You can’t do it at Rho Sigma, not while a school official lives in as a security guard. And you’ll need to make sure all the girls are fully on board, otherwise they could turn you in.” His arm tightened around me. “You yourself already have a warning. If Throckmorton gets wind that you started up Rho Sig, they’ll skip academic probation and go straight to expulsion.”

I rolled around to face him. “I’m good at getting people to commit.” I dropped a hard kiss on his lips. “I mean, I got you to buckle down. After that, the girls will be a piece of cake. Anything’s possible!”

He smiled, pulling me closer to him again, arms surrounding me. “But it took you several months.”

“Pssh. Details.” I shrugged. “And the place to meet…I was thinking your new apartment might be perfect. For the rest of this year at least. We’ll figure out a new game plan next year.”

“So that’s what you want me for? My apartment?” He scoffed, trying hard to look offended. “And here I thought you loved me.”

“No, I hate you,” I said, throwing his words from Quigley’s back at him.

But there was another risk he hadn’t said, a personal one. Could
I
handle the parties? I thought so. I hoped so.

He paused, thinking. “Can I be an honorary member? I’ve always wanted to be in a sorority. I want to see if those topless pillow fights are real.”

“Of course they’re real. What do you think we do at chapter meetings? Discuss upcoming events and rehash rules?” I giggled.

“I’m serious about the honorary member thing. I’m in need of a new group to join.”

“Well, if we’re breaking some rules to resurrect Rho Sig illegally, might as well break them all.”

“That’s the thing,” he said, voice low in my ear. “When your sorority is underground…there are no rules.”

“It’s so…empty,” I said the next day in Corey’s room.

“What did you expect?” He let out his raspy laugh, the one that made my heart squeeze with love.

I expected his Beta Chi room to be void of Corey, after all, he’d moved everything to his new apartment yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t expect the room to feel so lifeless. Cold, as if the only things left behind were the negative memories of all those frustrations, all those moments that should have been right but went horribly wrong. We could start fresh in his new place.

I sat down on the barren mattress. On his desk, a square of polished wood where his laptop had been gleamed between the thin layer of dust. All the empty bottles of liquor that sat atop the TV stand like trophies, gone. Specks of dirt stood out on the empty floor no longer covered by dirty laundry. An old, empty keg already replaced the clothes that had once hung in Corey’s side of the closet. It hurt to look at Nate’s side of the room, still so full of life.

Corey hovered in the doorway. “You’re not considering moving in here, are you? Because I’m about to head out.”

We’d come over to the fraternity because Corey knew everyone else had already fled the snow for warmer Spring Break climates and he wanted to raid the food storage, a parting gift, he’d called it. We’d stopped up here to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

I pushed myself off the bed, about to join him, but then I saw it. One of Corey’s t-shirts, scrunched up under the couch. I bent over, picked it up, and flung it a few times, dust flying. The wrinkled mess in my hands was the last piece of him in the room. It even still smelled like him.