“I think you’re mistaken.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“I beg to differ.”
And then Greg grabbed his dick through his warm-up pants. Ethan glimpsed the outline of his thickness. It was long, imposing, commanding. And it wasn’t even hard.
Ethan wanted to jump with shock. He wanted to scream at Greg for being obnoxious and disgusting and immature. But that’s what Greg expected. That’s what everyone expected.
Greg let go of himself. “Toldja you were mistaken.”
Before Ethan could double-think his actions—hell, before he could think about them at all—instinct and impulse conspired together. He grabbed Greg’s dick. He felt the heat radiating from under those pants.
Greg’s reaction was priceless to Ethan. Now he was the one shocked, caught completely off-guard. Ethan’s heart pounded in his chest. Neither of them said a word. Both of them held still. Surprise remained etched onto Greg’s face.
Ethan was going to remove his hand, but then he noticed that Greg was not doing anything about it. They looked at each other and shared some weird telepathic moment. Greg’s expression changed. His pupils got wide, and he seemed not to hate this. They both got locked into this moment, where Ethan forgot where he was—who he was.
Ethan felt Greg’s dick hardening up, so he began stroking it over his pants. Slow strokes. Greg’s eyes remained fixed on Ethan, watching his hand slide back and forth. Someone in front of them could turn around at any second. Professor Sharpe could call on them. Someone could exit through the adjacent back door. All of these things could happen. Ethan ran the risk assessment, and it kept coming back as,Abort.
And yet, somehow, that made him stroke harder. Greg reached for Ethan’s notebook and used it as a cover, then readjusted himself so Ethan could get better leverage.
Ethan didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know what Greg was thinking. They’d crossed a threshold. Fear and exhilaration coursed through his veins, gave his body a jolt of energy. He felt alive.
“We’ll continue this tomorrow,” Professor Sharpe said to the class.
Students started up conversations again. The flapping of closing notebooks broke Ethan from this trance. It had to be a trance, right? Suddenly, he looked down at himself giving Greg Sanderson a semi-hand job in the middle of the most important class of his undergraduate career.
Ethan swiped his hand back. Exhilaration scampered off. Now he was left with terror. Greg readjusted himself, and the realization of the moment struck Ethan. He was in the real world. He was Ethan Follett.What am I doing?
He swooped up his books and backpack and rushed out of class.
CHAPTER ten
Ethan shoved past his fellow students, surely making some new enemies. He galloped down the stairwell, but made sure to hold onto the banister so as not to tumble and break every bone in his body. All noise faded as he focused on getting the hell out of there. He had to get out of there. Greg was going to ruin his life. He might as well have the last few minutes to himself.
Ethan busted through the double door, and a student entering the building had to jump out of the way to avoid a broken nose. His face surged with redness. Had he really just groped a student in class? A student he hated? Ethan wondered if temporary insanity could be used as an excuse outside of the courtroom.
The sun shone brightly and glinted off the stately campus buildings, but Ethan couldn’t take it in. He kept his head down, looking only at the pavement. Once the shock wore off, Greg would realize how disgusting Ethan had been. Greg had just been being his obnoxious self. He had only grabbed himself to get a rise out of Ethan. He didn’t expect to get touched. In the middle of class. Ethan could see what would happen next. Greg would race back to his frat and tell all of his brothers that some weird gay kid came onto him during class. They’d come after Ethan, pounding their fists into their hands, all, “How dare someone mess with our brother!”
Ethan’s pulse banged against his temples. “Idiot!” he whispered. Passersby gave him a strange look.
Up ahead, the path split. One led to his dorm, but Ethan’s stomach twisted even harder when he thought about returning there. He didn’t want to face his friends. Sure, they didn’t know anything yet, but Ethan was in no mood to deal with people right now. He stood at the fork and let people walk around him, trying to decide where he could get privacy.
Ethan thought he heard someone calling his name behind him, but he refused to look. It was probably someone from class. “Oh, hey. Um…were you rubbing your classmate’s dick in class today?”
He wouldn’t take the chance. It was time to go.
He took the other path and ran to the library.
Φ
Browerton’s library was a concrete monstrosity made up of uneven slabs of gray that looked like a futuristic prison. It was the only building on campus that was designed for function over form. Ethan supposed that when you had to house over a million books, you couldn’t worry about pleasing the eye.
He bounded up the front steps and took the elevator to the top floor. Fluorescent orange carpeting and bone-white walls greeted him. People rarely came up here, except during finals, and that apparently included designers, too. The floor hadn’t been upgraded since the 1970s. Ethan wasn’t even sure what books were housed up here.
He walked down a hall, admiring the view of the lake, until he reached the north stacks, a silo of bookshelves with study tables lining the windows. Ethan could catch his breath. He leaned against a shelf and heaved in the musty air.
Now, with privacy, Ethan could think about why he’d done what he’d done. Greg had been egging him on. Ethan remembered that Greg hadn’t tried to stop him. He didn’t know how long his hand had stroked Greg through his pants, but it had been more than enough time for Greg to say no. Ethan flashed back to that moment, to Greg’s manhood surfacing through the mesh, like a balloon being blown up. A rush of adrenaline flooded through him, just like it had in class. He hated that he enjoyed the feeling.
