Chapter 10 Sev
Sev
Weston isn’t there when I get back to his room.
I look around like I’m investigating a new planet, because I may as well be on Neptune. Weston keeps his room like a picture-perfect rental, as if he’s preparing to show it for a magazine.
He has hats neatly placed on wooden hooks along the wall. Framed art, pictures, and posters above his bed. Lamps that look like they belong in a designer’s home. His sheets aren’t the usual grey crumpled ones in most guys’ dorm rooms, but instead a cozy navy blue plaid with good stitching.
Never knew a jock as prim and proper as him, but apparently that’s actually how Weston Knox lives.
But you dropped all of that formality the moment my cock was inside you.
You became an animal for me.
The way his whole body responded when I had my hand on his neck… the way he needed my cock, too. If I wasn’t spent I’d be hard again now just thinking about it.
I hear footsteps on the floorboards behind me and Wes comes into the room a moment later, shutting the door behind him.
His hair is wet.
He’s wearing a plush, fancy shower robe that’s tan with white accents.
“You’re still here,” he says.
He seems utterly bewildered by that fact.
“You showered off and you didn’t come to do it with me?” I tease him.
He gets that skittish look on his face for a moment, like he doesn’t know if I’m joking or not.
“There’s another bathroom down the hall, and I just used that one.”
He walks past me smelling incredibly fresh. I drop the towel around my waist and look for the clean clothes he lent me, and he comes behind me and goes to hang my dropped towel on a hook.
Proper, proper.
As I’m tugging on the sweatpants I see him eyeing me, watching what I’m doing like he’s waiting for… something.
Waiting for some sort of permission, maybe.
“Wes,” I tell him, and his eyes go from my abs back to my eyes again. “Do you want me to spend the night here?”
He blinks like he’s snapping out of a trance.
Suddenly the Weston I remember is in front of me again, and he gives me a scowl, becoming combative like he usually is.
“You don’t need to act like I’m a lost little lamb in the woods. I can hook up with someone and not need to be spooned to sleep.” He pauses for a moment, pulling in a breath before he continues. “I came. You came. We can both just go back to our lives now.”
He turns toward his dresser and removes his robe, facing away from me.
His body is so much better than I ever knew it would be. I knew Weston was fit, but he has an ass that should be fucking illegal. I never thought I’d be lingering on another guy’s ass like this, but it’s impossible not to stare.
He tugs on soft-looking sleep shorts and glances back at me.
“I’m going to stay the night,” I say.
“Sev,” he protests, and the slight begging whine in his tone is like catnip to me.
“Lie to me and tell me you’d rather sleep alone. I’m tired. I just want to pass out here. Is that such an awful prospect to you?”
“Thought it would be your worst nightmare. Not very lone wolf of you.”
“I want to stay.”
I say it firmly enough that he knows I’m serious. Because I can tell when a person needs somebody warm beside them in bed, even if it’s just for one night.
Every wall that Wes puts up around himself seems so obvious to me now.
For the first time, I’m starting to realize why they’re there in the first place.
Yes, he’s a frustrating motherfucker with the ability to piss me off royally.
He’s also a deeply hurt person, though, and it’s something he shoves so deep under the surface that I was blind to it before.
There’s an intensely vulnerable man behind those walls.
I’m not the kind of guy who can provide any long-term commitment, but I can tell when someone looks utterly, painfully lost.
I watched my cousin feel that way, growing up, and it felt like a spike in my soul.
I still watch my mom spiral into isolation, every time another failed relationship hits.
And I’ve never been able fucking fix any of it, no matter how hard I’ve tried.
Weston gets in bed and faces toward the wall.
I slide in beside him. The bed is full-sized, not a skinny twin, but I’m still close enough to his body that I can feel his warmth.
The pillow smells like him, whatever fancy body wash he uses that makes him smell like God’s gift to masculinity. I stare at the wall for a moment, watching the moonlight and the shadows, wondering if I’ll be able to get any sleep tonight at all.
Wes shifts in bed a little, and I feel the mattress move.
“Do you still want to kiss me?” I ask softly.
He brings a foot back to kick me under the covers. “Go to sleep.”
“I could give you a goodnight kiss, if you need it.”
“You’re so obsessed with me, Sev.”
I can tell he’s half-asleep by the way he murmurs it.
It’s another couple of minutes before I start to hear him breathing a little more deeply and evenly, and I turn and lean over, pressing a soft kiss to the center of his back below his neck.
He hums in his sleep and the sound already makes my cock start to thicken.
How fucking short is my refractory period with him?
I reach down and squeeze my dick for a moment, then let it go and decide to ignore it.
Maybe I am a little obsessed.
I’m up by eight in the morning and I slide out of bed without waking Weston.
It’s about time I left, and I have a massive engineering project I’ve been avoiding all semester that desperately needs my attention.
I pull on clothes, grab my stuff and head downstairs, and the entirety of Onyx House looks like a wreck after the party, with cups on every surface and a couple of people sleeping on couches downstairs.
As I’m about to walk out the front entryway I hear a voice from beside me.
“Yo. Didn’t know you were still here.”
I turn to see Noah.
He’s in the little room by the front that looks like a library. He’s in an armchair, surrounded by bookshelves, and he’s still wearing the blazer, shirt and tie he was in last night.
He has liquor in his hand, even as sunlight pours through the paned windows. Not a cup, but a full bottle.
He smiles at me, giving me a little wave. “Fucking some lucky girl upstairs all night?” he asks.
He gets up from the chair and sways a little.
“I, uh, passed out upstairs,” I tell him, which is at least partly the truth. “Did you have a good night?”
“No. It was pretty bad, not going to lie,” he says.
“What happened?”
He takes a breath and begins spilling out a level of raw honesty that must have to do with the liquor. “Just reminded that my past mistakes will probably ruin the rest of my college career. No big deal. Really used to be proud of being a fuckboy, but I don’t want it anymore.”
“What do you want?”
He shrugs. “To feel something.”
Real.
Relatable.
A little bit too relatable.
“You can change how people see you. It just takes time. And maybe drinking until dawn doesn’t help.”
He laughs. “Guilty as charged. You know, you’re not so bad for a Daggers guy,” he tells me. “Wes needs to chill out about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Noah shrugs. “You know. His whole rah-rah, Sevan tries to sabotage everything we do shit. He thinks you tried to ruin that last car wash we did before you got hurt.”
I know what Noah’s referring to.
At that car wash, there was a guy who came through with a classic Mustang, like mine but red. I heard the engine making a sound that tipped me off to the fact that it needed major work done.
So I told the guy he needed to fix his car. And he didn’t like that.
When he said “stay in your lane and wash my car, kid,” I took that exactly how anyone would take it.
I told him to fuck off.
And rolled up my sleeves.
Weston naturally had a stick up his ass for weeks afterward.
He said I “sabotaged the car wash,” lost us a customer, and made a bad reputation for Crimson College and the secret societies in general.
But I don’t kiss ass for strangers when they treat me like a peasant, especially when I was only trying to help with the Mustang.
“Can’t say I regret what I did.”
Noah nods. “I’m gonna go find something else to drink,” he says. “Maybe water.”
“Sounds like a very good plan.”
As he walks out I catch a glance of the big, leather-bound planner that Noah always keeps.
There’s a part written in green ink, right along the top of the day the alumni dinner is happening:
VIP - Private table - Onyx Only. Talk with Roman and Wes beforehand.
I don’t know what that means.
I also don’t want to know.
And if Kieran caught word of anything close to bribery happening in Onyx House…
My chest clenches as I walk out onto Red Row and I’m shocked to find a light dusting of snow over everything.
It’s as if spring has surrendered back into winter for a day. The sky is muted gray, and my shoes crunch over the coating of white on the sidewalk.
When I arrive back at the Daggers house, I don’t go to Kieran.
Not yet.
Because even if the Onyx guys aren’t bribing anyone, just the prospect of that could be enough to make things very ugly.