The pulse of the music was mesmerizing as my new friend and I explored each other. His hands roved across my belly as he pushed against me from behind. My arms went around his neck, pulling his head closer. I felt his fingers inch up under my shirt, dangerously close to the bottom of my bra.
He spun me around so we were chest to chest. He was a more manageable height for me. I could see over his shoulder. As I did, I saw right into the eyes of Logan.
He was glaring at me. The anger poured from him.
We were a casualty of ourselves.
This was never going to work. How could we think it could? A secret relationship?
Ain’t gonna happen. The sooner we got on with our lives, the better off we’d both be.
I stared back at him as my stranger’s hands brushed against my ass. At the same time, a group of girls were fawning over Logan. They surrounded him, each fighting for his attention. That’s what being on this team would be: weekend parties full of cronies looking for a hookup. If we couldn’t come out as a couple, we would deal with this endlessly.
I couldn’t.
It was better this way.
“Let’s go upstairs,” my new friend whispered.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s nice to have secrets, isn’t it?” he said as he pulled me along.
My heart sank at his words.
I still went.
CHAPTER 23
Logan
Watching her go upstairs with that fucking asshole tore me apart. I thought bringing my roommates tonight would be fun. Enjoy a new part of my life together. Then when she tookmeupstairs, I had a renewed hope that what we had might outlive her desire to keep it a secret. The initiation was unexpected, and it had to be hard for Ava to watch. But when we all wound up together upstairs, awkward didn’t even describe it.
She probably thought more happened than did, but I literally only kissed the other girl gently on the lips.
Once. That was it.
My feet couldn’t get me to the basement any faster, but it wasn’t fast enough. Ava was already dancing with that dickhead.
Her Tink attitude mixed with drinking was going to really fuck up this night.
“Hey, man, I’ll be back,” I told Sutton. He was one of the guys I was getting to know. One of the guys who also didn’t drink. He’d been talking it up with a bunch of girls while I forced myself to watch the show taking place a few yards away.
“Sure, man,” he said.
There was no way I was letting her do something she was, or we were, going to regret come morning. If I had to drag her out of whatever bedroom she went into, I would.
Scanning the first room, I found it empty. I stood still, listening. Nothing. No sound on this floor at all. I moved to the staircase that went to other bedrooms.
That’s when I heard it. I heard her voice.
I heard the panic.
“Stop,” Ava said.
Jesus Christ, that motherfucker was going to die.
I took two, maybe three, steps at a time, and made it to the top within seconds. They were at the end of the hall, a dark corner leading into a room. They stood in the doorway, he was obviously trying to get her inside. He held her firmly against the wall, her hands restrained by his above her head. She fought furiously against his hold, to no avail.
