14. Ivy
The walk through Killwater Woods back to the dorms vibrated with a magical and preternatural effervescence that I’d never experienced before. The nightlife buzzed around us and a dreamy navy blue tinted the sky, painting a romantic backdrop to the way Carter looked at me. We’d both fallen under its spell. Maybe the stories were true and the fairies had enchanted this night for us.
Carter tugged me into the dorm room, his lips consuming mine, greedy and demanding. His hands were everywhere all at once, crushing me to him and like he was desperate to touch parts of me he hadn’t felt in years. Even though it had only been a few hours.
We should’ve talked about what happened or at least pumped the brakes so we could check in with each other and make sure we were both in the same headspace. But I was too lost to the lust and the alcohol, a deadly combination that sucked me into its ravenous black hole.
I pushed him onto my bed and kneeled between his legs, clawing at his jeans, desperate to taste him. He tugged my tank top over my head, exposing my overheated skin to the stuffy, humid night air. Trying to calm my nerves, I forced my hands to stop shaking as I slid his boxers and jeans off, freeing his cock.
He’d stepped over a line tonight, one I didn’t even know existed, and although I enjoyed it, I needed to tease him for it.
“Tonight was a lot,” I told him, giving his shaft a long lick, watching as he squirmed and gripped the bedsheets on either side of his thighs. “You shouldn’t have provoked me like that.”
“You love it when I provoke you,” he teased, eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Even more if Lex is involved.”
As if they were summoned by some satanic ritual, Lex and Miri burst into the room, the door bouncing off the wall behind it before slamming closed again. They were attached at the mouth, and Miri’s legs were wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck, and her fingers in his hair as he dug his hands into her ass. He maneuvered them over to Miri’s bed, and it was only after he dumped her in the center of it that they stopped to notice we were there and the position we were in.
Despite how close the four of us were and how adventurous Carter and I had become, we’d never crossed this boundary. Now, things were so screwed up that it was difficult to tell where that line had originally been.
Miri looked at me, bit her bottom lip, and smiled. Lex swept hungry eyes over both of us before going to back to Miri. Unsure, I glanced up Carter’s body, my arms on his thighs and his hard, proud cock poised at my mouth.
“Just like old times. Right, Chicago?” Lex said.
I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t care. Carter gave me a nod, and suddenly, my inhibitions disappeared. I sucked Carter into my mouth, fucking him with my face like I could own every inch of him. His hand fisted in my hair, telling me exactly how much he enjoyed it, and tears welled in my eyes as I gagged around him. He liked that the most, liked knowing how much control he had over me in this position. I, likewise, had possession of him, capable of bringing him right to climax, and just when he was about to explode in my throat, I stopped and pulled back.
He groaned, curling into himself and staring down his body with angry, pleading eyes.
“You fucking tease,” he snarled.
In the background, Miri moaned and Lex spanked her, the wet sounds of their bodies sliding together punctuated by the bed squeaking. Fuck, that sent a hot lurching jolt right between my thighs, my cunt searching for release, for something to fill me up.
I stood and pushed my jean shorts down to my ankles, crawling into Carter’s lap with my knees on either side of his hips. I impaled myself on him and linked my hands behind his neck, slowly working myself against his body.
“Look at them,” Carter whispered, grabbing my chin to tilt my face their way. “Look at how beautiful she is. Look at how amazing he is. Look at them together.”
I tilted my pelvis against him, his cock hitting that spot inside of me that made both of us hiss in a breath.
“God, Weeds,” he murmured. “Why won’t you stop it? Why can’t you stop it?”
I met his eyes again, but before I could question what he meant, he kissed me. Rough and hard and deep, biting my bottom lip and tugging it between his teeth. Fuck, I loved that. I pushed him back with my hands on his chest, holding him down and taking what I wanted from him. Working him fast and…Oh…Oh…
Right when I was about to come, I looked across the room and connected with a heady, dangerous, hazel stare.
The soft caress of Lex’s lips and the sweep of his thumb across my neck ghosted across my skin, a searing memory on my skin that continued to burn. My hand went to the X on my neck, and he widened his eyes.
The connection between us shifted as our souls lined up. I rolled my hips against Carter in time with Lex’s thrusts into Miri, like he fucked Carter through me and I fucked Miri through him. Or maybe…maybe we fucked each other.
Jesus Christ.
The filthy nature of everything set me off. I became so aware of everything around me—Carter digging his fingers into my hips, Lex eye fucking me, the intensity of Miri’s moans. My orgasm ripped me under its weight, incinerating me and turning me to ash and dust.
Carter flipped us over so he was on top, and he pounded into me hard and fast, driving himself over that precipice, too. He growled and groaned and murmured, “Yes, fuck yes, yes, yes,” into my ear, and when he climaxed, he pulled out to come on my stomach, stroking himself as hot spurts landed across my stomach and breasts. But I could swear, I felt his ecstasy as if it were my own. He collapsed on top of me, both of us sweaty and panting and exhausted, and somewhere across the room, the sounds from Miri and Lex died down.
Reality caught up to my semi-sober, sex-addled mind.
I’d fucked my boyfriend in the same room where my fiancé fucked his girlfriend, my best friend and former girl-crush.
How terrible is that?
* * *
I woke to the sound of Caroline banging on our door.
“You’re fifteen minutes late to check in,” she said. “Move your asses.”
Fuck.
It was only three hours after we’d gotten in last night, and the stench of sex and alcohol still hung in the air, salty-sweet on my tongue.
“Oh my God.” I sat up, my head throbbing and my throat burning.
Memories flicked through my mind as I struggled to piece together where I was and what had happened.
Me on my knees in front of Carter, his dick in my mouth.
Miri bent over in front of Lex, his cock buried inside her.
The look Lex gave me right before I came. The way he fucked me with his eyes while I did.
Oh, God.
We’d done something bad, and we had no time to deal with it. Cold, slimy apprehension slicked through me when I met Lex’s gaze across the room and quickly looked away. Never in our twenty-two years together had I been afraid to stare him down. Now, this heavy mistake hung between the four of us. I sensed it in my molecules.
Carter sat up behind me. “We had a wild last night, huh?”
Panic seized my chest. These were my closest friends in the world, and if I wasn’t supposed to betray two of them by marrying the third, last night would have had an entirely different meaning. But…Lex and I had a secret that was going to crush us. The look we’d shared last night coupled with the amazing kiss at the pub bordered on a depraved wickedness I didn’t want to name.
“I need a shower,” I announced, pushing out of bed and grabbing my towel before hauling ass out of the room.
“Weeds, wait.” Carter ran after me, catching up to me in the bathroom and slipping inside my stall before I could lock it. We were already late so it would have to be the quickest shower in the world, but I smelled like beer and sex and regret, and I needed to scrub it off my skin as soon as I could.
“C’mon.” He rubbed his hands over my upper arms. “Talk to me.”
“Last night was?—”
“Last night was almost like that time in Atlantic City.” He took a step closer, bringing his pelvis in contact with my hips. “Remember that blonde you liked so much?”
My lips pulled into a smile at the memory. She’d been gorgeous and a lot of fun.
“That was different.” I turned on the water and stepped into the tiled compartment. “She was a stranger, and we both had masks on. No one knew it was us.”
“So what? It’s worse because they’re our friends?”
I cleared my throat and winced.
No, it’s worse because I’m going to marry one of them.
“I love you, Carter.” I wrapped my arms around his neck when he stepped in beside me. He put his hands on my waist and pressed his forehead to mine. “I don’t want to lose you.”
He looked like he was waiting for me to say something else, but when I didn’t, he nodded and said, “I know. I don’t want to lose you, either.”
I fought the tears building in my eyes and cleared my throat, resting my forehead on his sternum, perhaps wishing we never had to get out of that shower again.
By the time we got back to the room, Lex and Miri were already gone, so Carter and I dressed as quickly as we could. I didn’t know where my clean pair of jeans was, so I put on the shorts from last night and one of Carter’s TWU football T-shirts, relishing in how much his sandalwood scent calmed me.
I was about to leave when I reached into my back pocket for the flyer Siobhan had put there last night. I didn’t need that piece of paper poking me in the ass the entire hike, so I went to lay it on the dresser, but as I did, something tiny and green fell out of the folds.
A ring in the shape of ivy vines with little emeralds decorating the leaves. It was beautiful and likely expensive.
Were those real?
I brought it closer for inspection, and a pulse echoed in my blood, like everything in my body recognized this piece of jewelry and urged me to put it on my finger, to wear it as I’d always worn it. I almost moaned at the intensity of the tremble that went down my spine.
Where the hell had this come from?
I figured maybe it was Miri’s, so I put it back in my pocket, reminding myself to ask her when we went downstairs.
“You ready?” Carter asked, holding a hand out to me and flipping his hat on with the other.
I took it, nodding and following him out of our room.