Chapter 40
Creed
Bass thrums through the North Wing common room, the lights are dimmed, and alcohol flows every which way.
People pat me on the back, congratulating me on another knockout.
Due to my recent exceptionally good mood, I granted Felix’s wish tonight.
The guy’s been asking for a rematch since I knocked him out inside half a minute two years ago.
He walked into the cage tonight, high on speed or some shit, eyes bloodshot, and walked out with a broken nose but his head held high.
The punches he landed did wonders for his ego. He even told Hyde he’d almost had me.
The fucking audacity.
He didn’t have shit. Yeah, he roughed me up, but his skills are not the real reason my lip’s busted and my jaw’s bruised.
Millie is.
Millie in that short denim dress that accentuates every curve and that wasp waist I can cinch with my hands.
Millie, with Noah hovering beside her the whole fight, their shoulders brushing, his lips moving by her ear. He didn’t move from her right-hand side until I left the cage.
So yeah, I was fucking distracted.
I saw Noah leaning close, listening to whatever Millie was saying and Felix drove his fist into my stomach. She smiled at him and Felix’s fist rattled my teeth.
I never came out of the ring so bloodied.
Or worked so hard to keep my shit together. It was all I could do to stay inside the cage instead of tearing out of there, hauling Millie over my shoulder, and taking her to bed.
Now, we’re at the afterparty, and again, I’m distracted because Noah, with Millie tucked under his wing, trails behind me, Hyde, and Dash as we move in formation toward the back of the room. Every one of my muscles is locked harder than stone.
They’re friends. Just friends. Noah bowed out. He wouldn’t fucking do anything. I trust him, but it’s not about him. It’s about her. Every time she smiles at him, I hear her moaning his name.
“What’s wrong?” Hyde asks, leaning into me. “You look like you want to kill someone.”
Many someones. Millie clearly doesn’t realize how gorgeous she is or how many heads turn to take another look at her in that cute dress. I have half a mind to tell Hyde he should send her away, but he’ll ask why, and then what?
He won’t buy it if I tell him she’s not safe here. I’m here and that means she’s as safe as can be.
He won’t buy it if I tell him it’s not her scene. He’s elated whenever she steps out of her comfort zone: the library, Noah’s dorm, the cafeteria (and lately my bed, though he doesn’t know about that). Tonight, he’s double happy, father-level proud, because she’s wearing that fucking dress.
So I can’t demand she leaves or he’ll ask questions, and my temper’s so volatile I’ll probably spill the hard truth right in his face ‘Get her out of here before I fuck up anyone who breathes too close to her.’
Wouldn’t that be a shortcut to hell?
I push toward the table at the back of the room, bending under the weight of kegs, then further still, until I reach the Coke cans stacked in a mountain encircled by whiskey bottles, the amber liquid calling my name.
I don’t listen.
Things are hard enough to control without alcohol running rampant in my veins. The way I’m feeling tonight, it’d take one drink to loosen my self-control and then... I’d riot through the crowd, picking every guy I saw eyeing Millie.
They’d all bleed.
Spinning around to keep an eye on her, I lean against the table, whiskey out of sight and out of mind.
“There’s my fucking killer,” Brock’s voice reaches my ear.
He comes closer, a drink in his hand and a grin on his lips. He’s the guy who started the fight club and the whole campus wonders who’ll take over when he graduates in May.
“That was quite a show,” he says. “I’m glad you finally pulled your head out of your ass because you had me worried.”
“Worried?” Hyde scoffs, taking a long swig from his beer bottle. “Don’t insult him.”
“Wasn’t my intention. Tonight was more entertaining than watching him walk away unscathed. Better for my wallet, too.” He laughs, squeezes my shoulder, then moves along.
My eyes go back to Millie. She’s tugging on Noah’s sleeve, summoning his attention and he leans in, but his cold, hard eyes are on me, not her. I’m pretty sure he knows he’s the reason behind my extremely fragile temper.
I’m also pretty sure he’s deliberately testing my patience.
He says something to her, and her pretty face lights up in a cute little smile. I white-knuckle my Coke, the can denting beneath my fingers.
People come and go, patting me on the back and congratulating me on the win.
Rich, a guy I’ve bumped into at the gym twice, wraps his arm around my neck like we’re best fucking friends, then disappears into the crowd with a bottle of whiskey.
Someone else laughs and ruffles my hair.
I barely acknowledge them. My attention keeps sliding back to Millie, no matter how many times I force myself to look away.
She leans in toward Noah, closer, her shoulder brushing his as she rises on her toes to speak in his ear. Someone bumps into her from behind and Noah wraps his arm around her to keep her steady. He leaves it there and she doesn’t fucking move away.
My jaw locks. She never stands so close to me in public. Everything between us happens behind closed doors. Empty rooms, hidden alcoves, and my bed after the world’s gone to sleep. All I get are stolen moments.
I’m her therapy at best. An escape from her past, a way to reclaim her agency. I knew that the moment I touched her. The moment I let myself want something I have no right to want and no hope to deserve, but I keep fucking forgetting...
Because when we’re alone it feels real.
A group of girls approaches the drinks tables, giggling and clinging to each other, their dresses tight, short, and drawing Dash’s attention. One of them steps into my space, flipping her dark brown hair over one shoulder as she reaches for a Coke.
“Hey, Creed,” she chirps, her gaze moving over the bruising along my jaw. “That looks sore.”
It is. My jaw hurts every time I swallow.
“What do you want, Flora?”
“My boyfriend didn’t get a single shot past you last year.” Her tongue peeks out to wet her pink lips. “You, on the other hand, broke his nose.”
I remember the guy. Ash Rowan.
Half the guys on campus were in a dick-measuring contest with him over Flora Herring. She was dubbed Gravemont’s resident beauty queen back in freshman year and everyone thought I challenged Ash because I wanted her.
Flora did too, but the truth is, Ash just pissed me off. He dinged my car door when he opened his without looking.
Too bad for him, I was looking.
Flora inches closer and I glance across to find that Millie finally remembered I fucking exist. Her narrowed eyes bounce between Flora and me.
The little scrunch of her nose sends a jolt of satisfaction through my system and I angle my body a bit more toward the brunette, craving Millie’s jealousy. I wouldn’t poke Flora with a pole, but if Millie’s cozying up to Noah right in front of me, maybe she needs a taste of her own medicine.
I could’ve had Flora last year, the night I fought Ash. She knocked on my door, dressed in just her lingerie, but I don’t touch girls who spread their legs for anyone with a dick.
I’d need two hands and most of my toes to count how many times I walked in on her getting fucked in various semi-secluded places on campus.
She sucked Hyde’s dick a few days before summer, then offered Dash her puckered little hole. I heard her screaming through the ceiling for an hour straight.
“Isn’t he your ex-boyfriend?” I ask.
“He is. Which is why I’m on the market for a new one.”
Hyde chuckles behind her back. “Then you’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart. Creed’s not boyfriend material.”
Those words shouldn’t bother me because he’s right. How can I be boyfriend material when I’ve never dated anyone? I have no experience and no clue where to even start.
But they do bother me.
“Why not?” Flora purrs, leaning further into me, her lips not far from the shell of my ear. “You’ve got the looks, you obviously know how to fight, and I hear you’ve got the largest cock on campus.”
My eyes go to Millie. She’s holding her Coke with both hands, shoulders angled toward Noah, but her hazel-blues are on me, cheeks flushed, lips tight.
“Blasphemy,” I tell Flora, not sparing her a glance. “Small cock, toxic personality.”
“You think too little of yourself.”
“No. It’s you who thinks too highly of me. I’d maybe scratch that itch you want scratched if I weren’t afraid to catch whatever filth Dash left behind.”
“Hey!” Dash exclaims, feigning insult. “I wrapped it.”
Flora laughs. I mean, sure, because implying she’s a walking STD is fucking hilarious.
“I’m not buying this act, Creed,” she says, her voice dropping to a seductive whisper. “Your room in ten?”
I wouldn’t sleep with her even if I weren’t obsessed with my best friend’s sister. I’m fucking uncomfortable having Flora so close, but the look on Millie’s face is dangerously close to jealousy, and I want more.
Her softness is gone, replaced with a hardness that’s highlighted by her pinched lips. Noah’s talking but she’s not listening, staring daggers into Flora’s hand sitting on my arm.
The blood in my veins grows hot, a pleasant calmness settling deep inside me. Millie’s envy shouldn’t make me feel so good. It shouldn’t feed that obsessive part of me I’ve been trying to starve to no avail, but it does.
The calmness doesn’t last long, though.
Some guy bumps into her, his hand landing on her ass, fingers spreading and squeezing. Millie jolts straight into Noah and I spring forward as if shot from a gun.
One second, I’m at the drinks table with Flora’s perfume cloying at the back of my throat and the next, my fingers are buried in the guy’s collar.
I yank him back, grab the front of his t-shirt, and nail his fucking face. His head snaps back on impact, the dull crack swallowed by the pounding music. People step back, either making room or afraid they’ll be next.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I snarl, shaking with fury.
I hit again, his nose snapping beneath my knuckles, warm blood flowing down his mouth and chin. My fist pulls back but Hyde grabs my shoulder before it finds its mark again.
“That’s enough,” he snaps. “He got the message.”
I don’t think he did so I shrug my best friend off and get in the guy’s face, my chest heaving, skin crawling. He’s shaking, eyes wet, blood seeping between his fingers as he cups his ruined nose.
“Touch her again and I’ll break your fucking hands.”
He frantically nods, backing away. His friends huddle around him, creating a wall between us as they lead him out.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hyde snarls, but I ignore him, turning to check on Millie.
And the fury burning low in my stomach flares once more, followed by a gut-punch feeling. She’s right where she was, three feet away, clinging to Noah.
His arm is around her back, her fingers grasping his shoulders, body pressed close like she’s trying to crawl under his hoodie. Those gorgeous hazel-blues are wide and glassy, locked on the blood dripping from my knuckles.
She looks shaken... and she’s in. His. Arms.
That’s enough to twist the knife she’s been slowly sliding between my ribs all fucking evening. My insides hollow out, and instead of the music or my stammering heartbeat, I hear is her moaning his name in my bed.
I ball my hands into fists, the room spinning around me, my vision tunneling and distorting into a montage of Millie and Noah... smiling, talking, kissing, fucking.
My emotions, feelings, my fucking sanity... gone, replaced by something reckless as I close the distance between Flora and me in two strides.
She doesn’t pull away when I grab her.
I don’t stop to question my actions.
My hand wraps around her throat and I kiss her.
Her mouth opens on a surprised little gasp. I use that opportunity to slip my tongue inside. She tastes all wrong, so I kiss her harder. She doesn’t miss a beat, goes with the flow, body pliant and eager, perfectly willing to be used.
I squeeze her neck and grab her ass, self-destructing in the middle of the common room.