Living at the Frat House (College Romance) Read online

  The blood drains from my face and I turn to face him. “That’s not even remotely funny. I get the initiation. I’ll do it, but that? Not a good joke.”

  A couple of the guys in the peripheral fade away. Jack stands and comes over to me. “What makes you think it’s a joke? Why do you think Malcolm let you live here? Did you think that he wasn’t going to share you?”

  I step away from him for distance and start to actually work on the stove. I don’t say anything, resolving to ignore him now.

  “Juno, you live here because you’re going to be our little toy. I’ve heard Malcolm call you ‘pet.’”

  I turn and slap him, my aim true. It cracks across his face and elicits gasps and laughter from the other witnesses. “You think this is funny too?” I look at them. The only few that are left disappear almost instantly, leaving me with Jack and the fury that’s on his face.

  “How dare you, you bitch. I’m only telling you the truth. Might as well start right now, get you used to how things are going to be.”

  He reaches for me, and instinct kicks in—as well as the self-defense classes that I’ve taken. I step in, grab his shoulders, and thrust my knee directly into his balls. He grunts with the hit, and stumbles away. I hear a slamming noise, but I don’t register it because I’m busy putting distance between myself and Jack.

  I fling myself out of the kitchen door and directly into Malcolm’s chest. He’s here. He’s early, but he’s here. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve never been more relieved.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Malcolm says, rage on full display. It takes me a full second to realize that the words aren’t aimed at me. On the contrary, his hands are gentle on me as he moves me to the side. His eyes are on Jack.

  The asshole just grins, though that falters as he tries to stand up straight. “What both you and she deserved. You can’t just change shit, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm smiles, and I’m glad that I’m not on the receiving end of it. “Oh, I can. I’m the head of the house, and my family owns it. There are no fraternity rules here, so I can, by definition, do whatever the fuck I want.” He stalks over to Jack and grabs him by the shirt collar. “She is mine. No one else’s. My girl. If I ask her to clean this house and she agrees, that’s between me and her. If I decide that I have a pet name for her, again, that’s between us. Got it?”

  Jack looks pissed, but he doesn’t argue. “Got it.”

  “Good.” Malcolm throws him towards the door, making him stumble. “Now get the fuck out of this house.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You no longer live in Granite House. You are no longer welcome on the property. Get the fuck out, now, and we’ll dump your shit on the lawn of wherever you decide to shack up next.”

  Now Jack looks stunned. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I have no reason to joke about this,” Malcolm says. “Get out of my house, or I will have the police remove you. And don’t come back here, ever. Setting foot off the sidewalk is grounds for any member of this house to rearrange your face.”

  The anger is back, and for a second I think that he’s going to pounce on Malcolm, but he turns and stalks away, face absolutely terrifying. Malcolm follows him, I assume to make sure that he leaves the house. And he does, slamming the door so hard that the walls shake.

  And then I hear him speak. Voice deadly smooth and steady, like a snake ready to strike. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you?”

  There’s silence in answer.

  “I’m actually expecting a response.”

  There’s murmurs that I can’t hear from my place in the kitchen.

  “Are you serious?” Malcolm says. “We don’t have many rules in this house. It’s college, you want your freedom. So there’s only a couple ones that are unbreakable. And I expect those to be followed or there’s the door, you can follow Jack. What exactly would you have let happen in this house if Evan hadn’t texted me to come back from class early?

  “If Juno still wants to live here after this, she’ll pull her weight just like every other member of this house. If she chooses to do extra, that’s something she’ll choose to do.” He pauses, and sighs. “By tomorrow you all better have your shit together. Tomorrow, if you have questions, ask them. Right now I have some damage to undo.”

  I jump back from the door as Malcolm comes through it. His face is still stormy. He takes me by the arm and we walk upstairs together, the grip he has on me not as gentle as when he first found me with Jack. He doesn’t say anything until he’s pulling me into his room, not mine.

  He closes the door, and locks it, sighing. “What the hell were you thinking, Juno?”

  My jaw drops. “What the hell was I thinking?”

  “Why did you put on that dress? Did you want them to touch you? What made you think to play along with that? Why bother to instigate them at all? Are you crazy?”

  He’s managed to keep his voice low enough even though it’s clear he would be yelling if he could. I don’t have the same restraint. “Are you fucking kidding me? He told me it was your idea.”

  Malcolm goes deadly still. “What?”

  I tear the dress off and throw it at him, not caring that I’m only wearing my underwear now. “Jack said that it was a housewarming present from you. That it was your way of initiating me into the house, and that if I didn’t do it I couldn’t live here, or worse, that my enrollment in school was at risk.”

  He looks shocked. “Why would you think I would do that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I think that I had to? This arrangement we have? I have to do what you say. How was I supposed to know this wasn’t what you wanted? Jack lives—lived—here, and he said it was what you told him. No one contradicted him. This isn’t my fault. And if you think that I would risk wearing a stupid costume over my enrollment and going after my goals, you don’t know me very well.

  “So I thought I would get through it. I’m sure everyone else had to do something embarrassing for their initiation, so I just decided to take it. It was going fine, until Jack suggested the rest of the initiation was my providing everyone with sexual favors. That’s when I hit him.”

  Malcolm looks absolutely pale. “We don’t do initiations here.”

  “Yeah, well, I would have done it if I needed to. The things I want to do matter to me. I’ll do whatever I need to to get to my goals.”

  He’s quiet, “I’m sorry, Juno. I didn’t realize.”

  “How could you?” I ask. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We’re practically strangers who have been fucking.”

  For a second, I think he’s going to comment on it, but he doesn’t, and the moment passes so quickly that I think that I imagined it. Fine. I’ll go unpack and let him think about it. I brush past him, and he stops me. “Wait.”

  He strips off his shirt and hands it to me.

  “I’m just going across the hall, Malcolm,” I say.

  “I know,” he says quietly. His hands reach for me and stop, like he doesn’t know if he should touch me or not. “But we’re not the only people on this floor, and they’ve seen enough of you.”

  “Malcolm—”

  “You have no idea how beautiful you are, Juno,” he says, cutting me off but looking away. “You should only ever share that with who you want to.”

  The admission startles me. He hasn’t called me beautiful before, and the emotion that I hear in his voice is completely unexpected. I don’t think anyone is going to be venturing up here for a while, but I don’t want to hurt him further. So I slip the shirt over my head, still warm from his body and smelling like the cologne that I can’t get enough of.

  He’s still looking away when I slip out of the door.

  13

  Malcolm

  I’m an idiot.

  Rage is still simmering under my skin and I feel like I can’t quite get it under control. Jack is an asshole, and I knew he was pissed, but I didn’t think that he would pull something like this.

  And what
he tried with Juno…that’s not pulling anything, and I’m sick to my stomach knowing that someone like that ever shared space with me. How many times have I hammered consent into the people in this house? It’s one of the only three rules that we have here that there’s absolutely zero tolerance for. Keep your grades up, be a good representative of Granite House, and honor consent always.

  If I see him again I’m going to end up in jail.

  I’m unbelievably proud that Juno took him on. She’s a badass, and I know that she can handle herself, but I still feel ill that something could have happened to her. The urge to protect her is fierce and deep and pulling on my insides.

  Right then, I was going to tell her that I knew a little about her—that I had seen her before. But it really didn’t feel like the timing was right. I do want to tell her, and I want to beg forgiveness over again. She didn’t storm out of the house, so I can only hope that she’ll give me a chance to make it up to her.

  I don’t bother putting on a shirt as I head downstairs. The house is completely quiet. Everyone seems to have cleared out to let the mood fade. I don’t blame them, and it’s a good idea. I don’t want to see any of their faces. I can’t believe they thought that I would put Juno through any initiation, let alone one like that. We’re going to have to have a house meeting to make some things super fucking clear.

  I grab us some water bottles, and some grapes and a bag of popcorn. No idea if she’s hungry or not, but showing up with food can’t be a bad thing, right?

  She’s right though, in a way. We don’t know each other that well. I want to change that. Now that she’s here, I have a month to know her completely and get her to stay. Because I have a feeling that I’m going to want her to stay. Hell, she’s barely been here and I want her to stay.

  Jogging back up the stairs, I knock on her door. “Juno?”

  There’s no answer. It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t want to talk to me, but I’m hoping that she will. “Juno are you okay?”

  Again, no answer. Maybe she fell asleep, has headphones on? I try the doorknob, and it’s not locked, the overwhelming need to see that she’s okay overcoming propriety. I peek inside the room just to make sure that she’s there, and she’s not.

  Oh, shit.

  I didn’t hear her leave the house, and she didn’t tell me she was going. Strange. I set the snacks I brought on top of the dresser, noting the messy state that Jack left all the furniture in. Another reason I need to beat his ass. And I make a quick sweep of the house. I don’t think it’s likely that we could have missed each other moving up and down, but there’s always a chance. She’s not in the living room, and she’s not going to be any of the guys’ rooms. Where did she go?

  My mind immediately spins to the worst. Did Jack come back and do something drastic? “Juno?” I call, sprinting back up the stairs. “Juno?” I yell her name louder. Finally, “Juno!”

  “What?” She sounds just as panicked as I do, and I turn to find her in the bathroom doorway, soaking wet in a towel. Her glistening skin makes me want to touch her even more than I already did. Dripping hair and big green eyes, she’s so fucking sexy that I can barely contain myself.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. “You were yelling.”

  “I couldn’t find you and…” I paused. “I’m sorry, I worried that Jack had come back and done…something.”

  She smiles a little, relieved. “Just a shower.”

  Again, I look at her body, almost nothing left to the imagination, and I can’t stop. I have to touch her. I stride to the bathroom and lock us both inside. “Can I touch you?” I say.

  “I thought you were the one that tells me what to do?” she teases.

  “Juno, please,” I beg. “After everything…”

  She shudders. “Yes, you can touch me.”

  The water in the shower is still going, and I rip the towel away from her, hauling us both under the warm spray. I don’t bother to remove my jeans. Holding her against my body is the best damn thing in the world, pure relief mixed with lust. I didn’t anticipate how the slipperiness of her skin under the water would make my body come to life. I need her now, but I also need her to know everything.

  “I need to tell you,” I say. “I meant what I said to Jack. You’re mine. Only mine.”

  “I like it when you say that,” she whispers, voice barely audible over the water.

  “Now that that’s clear. I will never relay any commands to you through another person. I’ll even give you a code word for text messages so that you know that it’s me.” She’s looking up at me through the spray, and by some miracle she doesn’t look angry. “I understand if this changed what you wanted—if you wanted to move back into Collins, or if you wanted to live here without this,” I grip her harder to show her what I mean.

  She still doesn’t speak, and I’m not sure what it means, but somehow I can’t get my own mouth to shut the fuck up even for a second. “I knew that Jack was pissed when I asked him to switch rooms, but I never thought that he would do what he did. I’m sorry I ever let him close to you.”

  I lean down to kiss her, and she lets me, opening and yielding, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me closer. The kiss morphs into fire, hunger overtaking both of us in the need for the other. And I’ve already had her once today. I don’t want there to be a time that I don’t want her this much—need her this much.

  “Thank you,” she says, pulling back from me. Her toes are barely touching the shower floor the way I have her hauled against me. Wet body pressed hard against my skin. “I…I wasn’t sure for a minute. He threw it in my face. He knew you call me ‘pet,’ and I thought you might have told him. But I promised you this month, and I want to try it.”

  If she weren’t already heated from the shower, I know that she would be blushing. She can’t help herself when she talks about things like sex. “I like being your pet, even if I shouldn’t.”

  I kiss her again. We’ll deal with the shouldn’t thing later. Right now isn’t the time. But she’s slipping out of my arms, and for a moment I think that she’s falling, but she’s not. She’s sinking down intentionally, gripping my belt and trying to get it open in the water. Grinning up at me, she looks like a siren coming to fulfill my wildest dreams. “I haven’t practiced today,” she says. ‘

  “Fuck.”

  I help her get the belt open and chuck the sopping, heavy jeans out of the shower and into the sink. I was hard before she said that, but I’m a fucking rock now. And she doesn’t waste a second, sinking down onto my cock with her mouth, all the way to the back of her throat, and a little further. Deeper than she’s ever taken me.

  Holy shit, I could come right now. She grabs my hips and holds herself deep. Swallowing. Sucking. Making me go blind with the pleasure coursing through my gut. She pulls back to breathe, and grins. “How was that?”

  “That was very good,” I manage to say. “You don’t even know.”

  The smirk on her lips tells me that she may have an inkling. And she drops back onto me for a moment, licking before she grabs my cock and lifts it, and swallows my balls whole. Jesus fuck, I didn’t expect this today. Juno is taking this opportunity to show me exactly what she wants. She’s following every instruction I gave her, including extra points for taking initiative.

  “You want this, Juno?”

  She sucks my balls harder in response, the best yes that she could possibly give.

  “A little lesson then,” I say, gripping her wet hair and guiding her mouth back to my tip. She had it pressed up against her throat, but today’s the day that she takes more. “Relax entirely,” I tell her, and the does, letting her lips go slack as I press in, guiding her down and down and down, until I feel the entrance to her throat.

  My cock is curved, so this angle will be harder for her, but we can still do it. I angle my hips until I slip inside her deeper, that tightness making me groan. Juno jerks in shock under my hands, but I hold her still. She still hasn’t taken all of me, but t
his is progress. Good progress. Five more seconds, and I tear her off my cock so she can breathe. “Good girl,” I tell her as she leans her head against my leg. “One more time, and I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

  She takes my cock so eagerly that I laugh, and I pull her down onto me, working my way into her tiny throat and groaning as I do. I press just a little further than I did, enjoying that delicious squeeze as she reflexively swallows. I flex my hips in one gentle thrust, and then two. I want to fuck her throat, and we’re going to get there.

  Especially since Juno is such an incredible student.

  I relax and let her breath, pulling her to her feet. I’m careful not to let her fall. This shower isn’t big, and it’s cramped in the best way. We don’t have a choice but to be pressed together.

  Lifting her leg so I’m supporting her knee, I slip inside her. Her pussy is even hotter than the water from the shower, and I curse loudly. She’s moaning too, hands on my shoulders. “Yes,” she breathes. “Fuck.”

  I’m not going to last long this time. I need her too badly, and I’m already on the edge of spilling myself inside her. “Brace yourself,” I tell her, and she places her hand against the wall so I can reach between us and find her clit. She’s slick and not with the water pouring down us. I love the feel of that tiny nub, swollen with arousal from my attention.

  Juno whines in pleasure, and today is not a time when I’m going to deny her. Not after everything that happened and the way we’re clawing at each other. “Come,” I tell her. “As much as you like.”

  She starts to shake on my next thrust, pussy gripping me hard, milking me for all that I’m worth. I keep stroking and fucking, pressing forward to kiss her too. I want all of her, to consume her. This all started as nothing. As anger and using Juno as a toy for my own pleasure, but it’s spinning into so much more than that.

  I’m not exactly sure how it’s possible. I’m not someone who falls into feelings easily, but after today and the threat of losing her because I wasn’t careful, those feelings are rising up in full force.