2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
“W here are we going to put her?” Ms. Tissdale asked over the phone to Xander.
Dean Bennett, Dean Bennett, Dean Bennett.
It would never come naturally to me, but I had to try.
Where to put me, indeed. There was a long, long response from Dean Bennett, during which I nonchalantly sniffed myself. I smelled like sex and sin, of lust and reckless abandon. Good thing this wasn’t a church college, or I’d likely go up in flames.
Finally, Ms. Tissdale made a face, hung up, and shuddered her adorably wholesome cardigan open. A pretty golden broach with a pink pearl in the center cinched the high collar of her shirt together.
“Wait here, please, Miss Tuesday.” She scrunched up her delicate nose. “I’ll find another student to show you to your…room.”
“Hesitation noted,” I said. “Whatever you have will be fine for gutter trash like me.”
She gasped and actually clutched the little pearl in her broach. “Well, I never.”
“Obviously.” I shooed her toward the door.
She couldn’t get away from me fast enough. The poor thing probably thought I’d rub my corruption all over her.
“Another student” turned out to be the hot creeper who’d been spying on Dean Bennett and me through the office window. The one with a half-chewed pen dangling from his full lips. He stood in the doorway, a whole head taller than me. He wore combat boots, black ripped jeans, and a black hoodie. He also wore a devilish smile that turned into a scowl as one of his crafty brown eyes lingered on my cum-covered chest. The other was covered by his sandy-brown hair.
“What’s up, Trouble?” he said, his voice a honeyed, deep timbre.
I rolled my eyes. “Actually, my name’s—”
“Actually…” He popped his pen from his mouth, the slide of wet plastic along his lips making them glisten. “I was talking to Ms. Tissdale.”
He winked at her, and the resulting blush on her wrinkled cheeks kind of made me feel sick.
“Oh, you ,” she gushed.
“Got any of those muffins for me?” he asked.
A little frown puckered her mouth. She glanced at the empty basket, then back at me. “I don’t, sadly. They all seem to have disappeared.”
“Well, you’ll be sure to save one for your favorite senior next time, right, Ms. Tissdale?” the guy said.
I cleared my throat loudly to help move this fascinating discussion along.
“Of course. Anyway…” Ms. Tissdale tossed me a glare. “Could you show our newest student to her room, please, Connor?”
“Anything for you, babe,” the guy—Connor—said.
He actually pursed his lips at her in a little air kiss. Every last muffin I ate threatened to make a reappearance.
“Where is it?” he asked.
She whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Connor’s face blanked. “I need to speak with him. Now.”
So… Prince Smarmy was an entitled prick.
“He’s on a call,” Ms. Tissdale said.
Connor groaned. “I’ll be back.” Then to me, he said, “Looks like we’re roomies, new girl. At least for the time being.”
My mouth popped open to protest, but I snapped it shut again. It didn’t matter. Literal beggars couldn’t be choosers. I’d sleep standing up in a bathroom stall if I had to. Anything to find out more about Whispering Ivy and its secrets.
Find out everything you can about the Lifewell, Mom had said. Do whatever it takes. Don’t trust anyone.
“As you wish, Ms. Tissdale.” With a crooked smile that made the secretary’s flush pinker, Connor led me out into the hall. His fingers trailed over my arm when he turned to shut the door. He grabbed my elbow and squeezed painfully, leaning in. “I could smell the cum on you a full five minutes before I walked into Ms. Tissdale’s office.”
I sniffed, but all I could smell was him—smoked cedar and rain. Rugged, earthy. Sexy.
I hiked up my eyebrows. “Congratulations?”
“I saw what you were doing in the dean’s office. You gave me quite a little show.”
“It got me admitted, didn’t it?”
“You think you’re the first little slut who’s tried that with Dean Bennett?”
“Has it worked before?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking every bit like a broody bad boy from a teen soap opera with his all-black ensemble. “Touché.”
A strange sense of relief washed over me. For some reason, it bothered me to think that any rando could wander into the dean’s office and bend him to their will. I just wanted it to be me. Weird, I know, but it also gave me some satisfaction that I had that kind of power over him.
We walked in silence until Connor stopped at a door to a building I assumed housed the dorms. He slid a key into the lock and turned the knob. I expected to see a lobby or common area, but no. He ushered me into a huge living room that looked like it belonged in a mansion.
Expensive-looking rugs decorated the polished black concrete floors. High, domed ceilings met floor-to-ceiling windows hidden with red velvet drapes. Everything was finished in chrome and black, accented with more pops of red here and there.
Connor eyed me closely and then snorted. “Come on, but don’t make yourself at home.”
I took a few steps over the plush rug by the door, wondering if I should wipe my feet on it or not. “Who lives here?”
“Not you. You’re going to be in the servant’s quarters.” He led the way down a dark hallway.
Heavy grunts and moans came from inside one of the open rooms, and when we passed, I peeked inside. A completely naked guy with a great tan stood next to his bed, his powerful, bulging muscles rippling while his hips thrust forward. In front of him, another shirtless guy with a Scream mask on knelt on his knees, sucking him off. The tanned guy’s veiny cock glistened while Ghostface deep-throated it again and again.
There must’ve been a large hole in Ghostface’s mask; otherwise, that wouldn’t have worked. A few strands of blond curls poked out from beneath the mask’s hood while he gulped down the other man’s cock.
Impressive. And fucking hot.
I swallowed hard, the taste of their lust on my tongue.
Heat kindled in my cheeks and rushed south, curling deep between my legs. I must’ve gasped because the guy getting sucked jerked his head up and caught me staring.
His shuttered eyes widened, revealing a shocking pale gray color. A slow grin tilted his mouth as he slowed his pace to a languid, damn sexy rhythm. His whole body flowed into the other guy’s mouth like water.
“Like what you see?” His voice, which held an accent I couldn’t place, sounded raw and gravelly, like he was desperate to come undone, but not quite yet.
His hands fisted in Ghostface’s curls, eliciting a deep, cock-muffled moan.
I nodded, so turned on I couldn’t do much else. Was it bad form to start humping a doorframe before you’d even been introduced to all of your roommates?
With his gaze stuck to me, he licked his lips and thrust a little faster, deeper into Ghostface’s mouth. His fingers brushed Ghostface’s broad shoulder in an almost loving caress.
I gripped the doorframe and ground my thighs together, not even caring that I was watching them like a creeper. Like Connor had watched me touching myself for Xander.
Dean Bennett. Dammit.
Connor snapped his fingers from the other end of the hall. “Yo, street leech, let’s go!”
That ripped me out of my sex haze real quick.
“Actually, I prefer back-alley icon, Conman, and do not snap your fingers at me like I’m your well-trained labradoodle.”
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Connor demanded.
“Basically, I said I’m never going to come for you. In either context of the word.”
The guy giving head turned toward me without slowing his pace, and I could feel his dirty look even through his mask. I was pissing all over their fun parade.
Reluctantly, I backed away, the ache between my legs growing teeth.
Yes, I’d just made myself orgasm in the dean’s office, but my sex drive often ran me ragged, exhausted, and ready to come again in minutes. It wasn’t a matter of being ready to orgasm. It was a matter of needing to.
“Don’t ever call me street leech again, you hear me?” I hissed at Connor while marching toward him.
He shrugged and turned toward the rest of the hallway, which dead-ended in a solid, decadently wall-papered wall. “What else do I call you?”
“How about my name?” I fired back. “Tuesday Dare.”
“Did you say Tuesday Dare ?” He shot me a hard look, his eyes dark and dangerous in the dim light.
Startled by the intensity in his gaze, I nodded.
“You’re serious.”
“W-why would I lie about my name?”
Connor stiffened, his movements jerky, as he took several steps, like he couldn’t wait to get away from me. He stopped at the end of the hallway since there was nowhere else to go.
“Eh, hello?” I moved next to him and waved a hand in front of his face.
Ignoring me, he pounded his fist against the dead-end wall twice. A three-foot-tall door popped open with a long, low creak.
A secret door? What in the escape-room hell was this place?
The seams blended in with the wallpaper so well, I never would’ve known it was there had Connor not forced it open. Nothing but darkness lay on the other side.
He waved vaguely inside. “Your room.”
“You’re serious about this?”
I would have to crawl inside on my hands and knees.
He spun on his heel and strode back down the hallway. “There’s an entrance on the other side you can use to come and go. Don’t come back into the apartment. We don’t have any street-leach bleach.”
I fisted my hands. “But…”
Not only would I have to crawl inside, I would have to fumble in the dark to find a fucking light switch?
I hated the dark and all the unknown things within that always slithered closer to me. I’d had spiders, centipedes, and especially men crawling all over me in the dark. It was why I kept the light on, to help chase away those terrors. Sometimes it even worked, but too often, it didn’t.
“Hurry up.” Down the hall, Connor rapped loudly on the wall next to the door I’d been all but dry-humping minutes earlier. Groans still drifted out. “We need to talk.”
About what? Me? Why my name had affected him so strangely?
When Connor turned the corner at the other end, I tiptoed back down the hall. Voices carried from the living room, tense and clipped, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Connor was on the phone with someone. Xan…er…Dean Bennett?
Oh, fuck that nonsense. He was always gonna be Xander to me.
I slid along one wall, my back against where the groans morphed into grunts and then finally one long sigh.
“No coming until I say so, Jones, or I’ll punish that mouth again,” the heavily accented voice said.
Jones—or Ghostface—swallowed loudly. “Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
Sir ? Really? What exactly had I walked into here?
My buzzing questions had nearly ruined my libido, but I could still picture them clearly. How close they were to the door. Whether they’d see me dash past. What the cum dripping off that massive dick would look and taste like.
I stopped at the edge of the doorway, my gaze stuck to the other end of the hall. I didn’t want them to see me. Otherwise, their conversation wouldn’t play out naturally. I needed all the info I could get about this place and the people in it.
With a shallow, quiet breath, I darted past the open door. Straight ahead was the kitchen. Good. I could hide behind the island.
A large silhouette stepped into the hall in front of me and drew closer. I shrank back as he pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants, but he’d already noticed me. It was the muscled tan guy who’d been getting sucked off.
But how the fuck had he made it to the kitchen without me seeing if he’d been behind me?
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Tuesday. And you are…?”
I sure as fuck wasn’t calling him sir .
“Annoyed. Are you lost?” His deep, accented voice vibrated in the space between us and sank down to tingle my toes.
The air tensed for several breathless beats. The gladiator-looking guy stared me down with his gorgeous pale-gray eyes, one eyebrow hiked while he waited for me to answer his question that I’d already forgotten. His smooth, tan skin could barely contain his muscles.
Then Connor came back into the hall and strode up next to his roommate. Two pillars of intimidation.
But I’m not that easily intimidated.
“Get back in your hole like the vermin you are,” Connor ordered, his voice low and deadly.
“No. Not until you tell me why you reacted the way you did to my name.”
He knew me. He’d heard my name before. But why?
Connor stepped forward, popping my personal bubble, and ducked down to slice me open with his glare. “We aren’t playing. Your place is back there. That’s where you stay. Go there now, or I will put you there myself.”
“Not until—”
He slapped his hand hard over my mouth, the resulting sting drawing tears.
He jerked his chin at the large, muscled guy. “Malcolm and I make the rules here, Tuesday Dare .”
The stark white around Connor’s eyes looked like panic. Maybe fear. He shoved me violently the rest of the way down the hall. My head cracked against the wall above the open servant door, streaking stars past my eyes.
Tears dashed down my cheeks as I gazed up at this vicious monster.
The joke was on him. Little did he know that I was used to being tossed around in the hopes that I would shatter. All my mom’s boyfriend’s punches created callouses. Their cruel words and wandering hands built impenetrable walls around my heart. Despite her faults, Mom had been the only person who brought down my defenses and made me feel something rather than nothing.
And now she was dead.
Connor pointed into the darkness, his mouth a cruel twist. “Inside your hole. Now. Or it will be so much worse for you in the morning.”
“Can’t wait.” I said, my tone even and strong despite the throbbing in my head.
He’d heard my name before. He knew something about me. Maybe about Mom, too?
I’d find out what. He could goddamn count on that .
Under the watchful gaze of two of my new roomies, I ducked down into my “hole,” as Connor had called it.
There was no point in arguing anymore anyway. I had a whole semester. Time enough to find out all his secrets and more.
He slammed the door shut behind me, plunging me into pitch blackness. There wasn’t even a window for a sliver of moonlight to shine through.
Immediately, I switched on the flashlight app on my phone and swung it around, searching for a light switch, a pull cord, anything. I found boxes, a toilet, and a sink. The sink produced only cold water, but hey, I’d take it.
After gulping down several mouthfuls, I sank to the floor of my new living accommodations. I hadn’t expected Xander to take me quite so literally when I said I’d live in a broom closet, but that’s basically what this was.
Happy first night at Whispering Ivy to me.