Rushed (The Rushed Series) (27 page)

I kissed the hollow of her neck, running my tongue in a circle around it until she gasped. "Seriously, pledge, only that awful perfume you're wearing is stopping me."

"You mean Jordan's?"

My heart stopped. I pulled back and stared at her. "Shit! How do you know her name?" I paused and swallowed hard.
 

"Dakota told me. The perfume reminded him of her."

"He told you about her?" My heart pounded. Things were worse than I imagined. "Just how good a time did you have in there?"

"I had a fantastic time!"
 

It wasn't what I wanted to hear.

She dropped her legs from around my waist until they dangled again and she reached for the ground. "But not the way people think I did. Don't believe the rumors." She laughed like she was flirting. "Frat guys exaggerate."

"What the fuck? What rumors?" I set her down with my heart beating out of control.

She took my hand and laced her fingers through mine. "The mind-blowing sex I had with Dakota." She squeezed my suddenly limp fingers in hers. "It was all faked. Just sound effects."

She laughed again. She was clearly trying to lighten the mood, but her voice shook like she was nervous. "We got carried away and broke his bed. That's what happens when you bounce too hard. Just like Mom used to warn."

"You were alone in his room?" I scowled and turned took a step toward the frat house, ready to beat the shit out of Dak like I had promised.

She held me back with our locked hands. "We faked it for a reason."

I froze. "Are you screwing with me? You faked sex with Dakota?"
 

"Yes." She stroked the hand she was holding as she looked me in the eye. "Don't be angry. Just listen, okay? I have so much to tell you!"

I stared at her, trying not to blow up and blow things. Remembering how I'd lost my best friend by losing my head. The excitement in her voice fueled the jealous burn in my gut, threatening my control.
 

She leaned in to me. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Shit, I kept a secret better than anyone I knew. But how would she know that?

She laughed, still trying too hard. "Brace yourself for some scandalous gossip—Dakota only invited me to this stupid date dash as a cover! He's in love with someone else."

"What?" I frowned, confused. "Why?"
 

"Because he's expected to date the hottest sorority girls." She stroked my arm and laughed. "And I'm evidently one of them. And she's not up to standards."

She mocked herself, but she was wrong. She wasn't one of the hottest girls. She was the hottest.

"He doesn't want to date the hottest girls? What the fuck is wrong with him?" I didn't trust Dak.

"He's in love with someone his parents, and frat brothers, don't approve of. Sound familiar?" She rested her head against my shoulder. "Delicious irony, huh?"

I had to ask, though I had a sick feeling I knew whom. "Who?"

She smiled like she was happy I asked and eager to share. "Jordan."

The bottom fell out of my stomach. I masked my expression so I didn't give anything away.
 

"They're keeping it secret. Like we are. While I was using him, he was using me. He went to get a beer and I caught him outside talking to her on the phone. Checking in with her! And she was pissed he was with me."

"I can't believe Dak had the balls to get back together with her." Things had just gotten more complicated.

"His guts are our good luck." She kissed me again, just a quick brush of lips.

I was startled by the sweetness of it. It was enough to get me hard again. A burst of laughter stopped me short. A group of drunken girls was stumbling toward us.
 

I untangled our fingers. "We'd better get back to the house before we got caught. If anyone asks, you texted me to come walk you home."

"I hate this," she said as we started toward the Double Deltsie house, walking side by side while I ached to touch her.

"How long have they been back together?" Morbid curiosity was hell.

"On and off since he graduated."

I bit back a curse, remembering how Dak and I used to know everything about each other. I was still pissed at him. But I guess you could be pissed and still miss someone.

"There's something you should know," she said as we turned the corner. "Dakota knows about us. He figured it out."

I stopped short and stared at her. "If he figured it out—"

"Don't worry. He knows you better than anybody. No one else will know, especially now. Dak and I have agreed to help each other. We're going to be in a decoy relationship. Go to enough functions together, flirt just enough, to throw everyone off and leave us free for the relationships we're really in. No one will have any reason to suspect a thing."

How could I feel so cold when my heart was beating so fast? She sounded so confident and assured of her plan's success.

"Zach?" She looked at me with concern.
 

"Dak was my best friend. Now I'm supposed to watch you act like his girlfriend?" I shook my head. "No! I can't do it. I don't trust him."

"Why?" She grabbed my arm. "He has as much to lose as we do. If he betrays us, I'll out him to his frat brothers and parents for the fake he is."

I couldn't speak. I didn't want to tell her why.

"He's sorry for what he did to you." She sounded sincere, like she really believed him. "He told me all about it. He misses you. He wants to be friends again. That should count for something."

The pleading in her voice felt like a slap. Dak had sucked her in. If she was going to be on his side now…

My mouth went so dry with fear the words stuck in my throat. I searched her face for some clue she knew the dark truth about me. "What,
exactly
, did he tell you?"

"Exactly what you told me before." She stared at me like she was waiting for me to flinch.

Shit, I had the feeling she knew something.

"He said he got drunk at a party and spilled a secret you'd asked him to keep. He wishes he could take it back," she said. "I believe him. It's hard to fake regret and guilt like that." She paused. "He's trying to make up for it now by helping us. Let him help. All of us win this way."

I shook my head. She knew more than she was telling me. I grabbed her by both arms. "Tell me the truth.
All
of it. No lies of omission. What did he tell you? What do you know?"

Chapter Seventeen

Alexis

Zach held my arms too tightly. The planes of his face fell into hard, worried lines. His muscles were taut and tense, like he could snap at any minute. Maybe I should have been afraid. Instead, I ached for him.

I made a split-second decision. Right here. Right now. This was going to end. Either Zach was going to trust me and let me love him. Or he was going to break my heart. But I would be damned if I would betray Dakota. I stared into Zach's eyes and ramped up my courage, raising my chin like I wasn't afraid. "He didn't tell me anything I hadn't figured out already myself."

Even though the lighting was dim, I swore Zach paled. If I backed down now, I lost him.
 

I made my voice as gentle as I could and still maintain control. "I know about your sister, Zach. And the accident. It doesn't change how I feel about you."

He was stone silent, scarily so. His grip on me loosened just enough so it didn't hurt. But I felt him slipping away from me, like he was letting go emotionally, too.

I had to explain. "Sarah told me, though she doesn't know she did. She doesn't even know you have a sister. She repeated what Dakota said at that party about how you would kill your sister to get attention." I said it as gently as I could, but he flinched like I'd slapped him.

I kept talking, hoping I wasn't pushing him away with every word. "You told me about the tattoo on your arm. When Dakota said he'd betrayed you, I put it all together. I
made
him give me the details. That's it. That's all. I should have come to you. I'm sorry."

Zach dropped my arms. His Adam's apple bobbed. Once. Twice. Again.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

"Fuck! No. Drop it, Alexis." His gaze was stony.

"You were three, Zach," I said. "
Three
. You weren't responsible. You didn't even know what you were doing. You shouldn't have been left alone in a car. Your mom should have known better."

"Don't try to blame her. I ruined her life." He turned his back on me.

I was desperate. I pleaded with him. "I'm not blaming her. I know you've heard all this before. But I mean it. No one's to blame. It was an accident. A tragic set of events."

"That doesn't change things." His voice was hard and final, like death. "She's still dead." He started walking away, leaving me before I could leave him.

I couldn't let him go. But he had to come back on his own or nothing would work.

"You're alive, damn it. Live!" I took a deep breath. "Nothing can change what happened," I called after him as tears welled in my eyes.

If he walked away now, I wasn't going to get him back. I felt the urgency as my heart cracked, ready to shatter for both of us. "But you can change what happens from now on. That's what you decided in the woods. Why are you giving up now that I know the rest? I know the truth and I still love you. I'll always love you."

He froze. His misty breath rose in the dark night like he was a breathing statue.
 

I came up behind him with tears streaming down my face, wrapped my arms around him, and pressed my face against his back. "Forgive yourself, Zach. Forgive Dakota. Live the life your sister would want you to live."
 

I let the tears stream down my cheeks. I wasn't too proud not to beg. "Don't walk away from me. Don't walk away from us. I
love
you. Believe you can be loved. Let me love you."

I felt the rise and fall of his chest. I watched his breath curl out in the cool night air. And I held on to him like I would never let go and never stop loving him.
 

"Shit." He leaned his head back against the top of mine. "I love you, Alexis."

I came beside him and took his hand. "I love you, too."
 

He needed me and I needed him. I pulled him into the alley that ran between the frat houses, into the dark where a brick wall separated two houses. It smelled like chimney smoke, asphalt, stale leaves, and beer. None of that mattered. I didn't need the romance of rose petals.

"I want you. Right now." I reached for his pants and unzipped his zipper.

"Shit, Alexis. I need you so bad." He pulled up my jacket and T-shirt and lifted my breasts, kissing the mounds at the top of my bra, licking the valley between them.
 

When he started sucking them through the thin fabric of my bra, I gasped and shoved his pants down on his hips. I reached for his dick, stroking him until the tip was wet.

By the time he undid my pants, I was wet, too. He slid his fingers into my panties and stroked the building heat between my legs. His fingers were rough, cold, and tender at the same time as he caressed me.
 

I slid my jeans down and pushed his hand away. "I can't hold on much longer. Come with me." I wrapped my legs around his waist again, rubbing against him like I had earlier. This time, though, I was naked against him and barely hanging on. I slid him into me as he backed me up against the wall and thrust in deeper.

Then I hung on and held him tighter and tighter as I grasped his shoulder in my teeth to muffle the scream of pleasure building inside me. He pierced me again and again, with his hands at the small of my back to cushion it from the rough, unforgiving, unyielding bricks of the wall behind me.

I felt the tension building in him as it reached higher and higher in me. And then every muscle of his tensed and he let go. "Alexis!"

I came with him then and let the waves crash over me, trembling with the power of the climax and being with him.