The Deal (Off Campus #1)(3)

  

And now I'm right back to where I was before Hannah-not-with-an-M gave me that faintest flicker of hope.

Royally screwed.





2

Garrett


MY ROOMMATES ARE piss drunk when I walk into the living room after study  group. The coffee table is overflowing with empty beer cans, along with  a nearly depleted bottle of Jack that I know belongs to Logan because  he subscribes to the beer is for pussies philosophy. His words, not  mine.

At the moment, Logan and Tucker are battling each other in a heated game  of Ice Pro, their gazes glued to the flat screen as they furiously  click their controllers. Logan's gaze shifts slightly when he notices me  in the doorway, and his split second of distraction costs him.

"Hell to the yeah!" Tuck crows as his defenseman flicks a wrist shot past Logan's goalie and the scoreboard lights up.

"Aw, for fuck's sake!" Logan pauses the game and levels a dark glare at  me. "What the hell, G? I just got deked out because of you."

I don't answer, because now I'm distracted-by the half naked make out  session happening in the corner of the room. Dean's at it again.  Bare-chested and barefoot, he's sprawled in the armchair while a blonde  in nothing but a lacy black bra and booty shorts sits astride him and  grinds against his crotch.

Dark blue eyes peer over the chick's shoulder, and Dean smirks in my direction. "Graham! Where've you been, man?" he slurs.

He goes back to kissing the blonde before I can answer the drunken question.

For some reason, Dean likes to hook up everywhere but his bedroom.  Seriously. Every time I turn around, he's in the midst of some form of  debauchery. On the kitchen counter, the living room couch, the dining  room table-dude's gotten it on in every inch of the off-campus house the  four of us share. He's a total slut and completely unapologetic about  it.

Granted, I'm not one to talk. I'm no monk, and neither are Logan and  Tuck. What can I say? Hockey players are horny motherfuckers. When we're  not on the ice, we can usually be found hooking up with a puck bunny or  two. Or three, if your name is Tucker and it's New Year's Eve of last  year.

"I've been texting you for the past hour, man," Logan informs me.

His massive shoulders hunch forward as he swipes the whiskey bottle from  the coffee table. Logan's a bruiser of a defenseman, one of the best  I've ever played with, and also the best friend I've ever had. His first  name is John, but we call him Logan because it makes it easier to  differentiate him from Tucker, whose first name is also John. Luckily,  Dean is just Dean, so we don't have to call him by his mouthful of a  last name: Heyward-Di Laurentis.

"Seriously, where the hell have you been?" Logan grumbles.

"Study group." I grab a Bud Light from the table and pop the tab. "What's this surprise you kept blabbing about?"

I can always tell how plastered Logan is based on the grammar of his  texts. And tonight he must be shit-faced, because I had to go full-on  Sherlock to decrypt his messages. Suprz meant surprise. Gyabh had taken  longer to decode, but I think it meant get your ass back here? But who  knows with Logan.

From his perch on the couch, he grins so broadly it's a wonder his jaw  doesn't snap off. He jerks his thumb at the ceiling and says, "Go  upstairs and see for yourself."

I narrow my eyes. "Why? Who's up there?"

Logan snickers. "If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise."

"Why do I get the feeling you're up to something?"

"Jeez," Tucker pipes up. "You've got some major trust issues, G."

"Says the asshole who left a live raccoon in my bedroom on the first day of the semester."

Tucker grins. "Aw, come on, Bandit was fucking adorable. He was your welcome back to school gift."

I flip up my middle finger. "Yeah, well, your gift was a bitch to get  rid of." Now I scowl at him because I still remember how it took three  pest control guys to de-raccoon my room.

"For fuck's sake," Logan groans. "Just go upstairs. Trust me, you'll thank us for it later."

The knowing look they exchange eases my suspicion. Kind of. I mean, I'm  not about to let down my guard completely, not around these assholes.

I steal two more cans of beer on my way out. I don't drink much during  the season, but Coach gave us the week off to study for midterms and we  still have two days of freedom left. My teammates, lucky bastards, seem  to have no problem downing twelve beers and playing like champs the next  day. Me? Even a buzz gives me a rip-roaring headache the morning after  and then I skate like a toddler with his first pair of Bauers.





  

Once we're back to a six-days-a-week practice schedule, my alcohol  consumption will drop to the usual one/five limit. One drink on practice  nights, five after a game. No exceptions.

I plan on taking full advantage of the time I have left.

Armed with my beers, I head upstairs to my room. The master bedroom.  Yup, I was not above playing the I'm-your-captain card to snag it, and  trust me, it was worth the argument my teammates put up. Private bath,  baby.

My door is ajar, a sight that snaps me right back into suspicion mode. I  warily peer up at the frame to make sure there isn't a bucket of blood  up there, then give the door a tiny shove. It gives way and I inch  through it, fully prepared for an ambush.

I get one.

Except it's more of a visual ambush, because damn, the girl on my bed looks like she stepped out of a Victoria's Secret catalog.

Now, I'm a guy. I don't know the names of half the shit she's wearing. I  see white lace and pink bows and lots of skin. And I'm happy.

"Took you long enough." Kendall shoots me a sexy smile that says you're  about to get lucky, big boy, and my cock reacts accordingly, thickening  beneath my zipper. "I was giving you five more minutes before I took  off."

"I made it just in time then." My gaze sweeps over her drool-worthy outfit, and then I drawl, "Aw, babe, is that all for me?"

Her blue eyes darken seductively. "You know it, stud."

I'm well aware that we sound like characters from a cheesy porno. But  come on, when a man walks into his bedroom and finds a woman who looks  like this? He's willing to reenact any trashy scene she wants, even one  that involves him pretending to be a pizza guy delivering pies to a  MILF.

Kendall and I first hooked up over the summer, out of convenience more  than anything else because we both happened to be in the area during the  break. We hit the bar a couple times, one thing led to another, and the  next thing I know I'm fooling around with a hot sorority girl. But it  fizzled out before midterms started, and aside from a few dirty texts  here and there, I haven't seen Kendall until now.

"I figured you might want to have some fun before practice starts up  again," she says, her manicured fingers toying with the tiny pink bow in  the center of her bra.

"You figured right."

A smile curves her lips as she rises to her knees. Damn, her tits are  practically pouring out of that lacy thing she's wearing. She crooks a  finger at me. "C'mere."

I waste no time striding toward her. Because … again … I'm a guy.

"I think you're a tad overdressed," she remarks, then grasps the  waistband of my jeans and teases the button open. She tugs on the zipper  and a second later my dick springs into her waiting hand. I haven't  done laundry in weeks so I've been going commando until I get my shit  together, and from the way her eyes flare with heat, I can tell she  approves of the whole no-boxers thing.

When she wraps her fingers around me, a groan slips out of my throat. Oh  yeah. There's nothing better than the feel of a woman's hand on your  cock.

Nope, I'm wrong. Kendall's tongue comes into play, and holy shit, it's so much better than her hand.


AN HOUR LATER, Kendall snuggles up beside me and rests her head on my  chest. Her lingerie and my clothes are strewn on the bedroom floor,  along with two empty condom packages and the bottle of lube we hadn't  needed to crack open.

The cuddling makes me apprehensive, but I can't exactly shove her away  and demand she hit the road, not when she clearly put a lot of effort  into this seduction.

But that worries me too.

Women don't get all decked out in expensive lingerie for a hookup, do  they? I'm thinking no, and Kendall's next words validate my uneasy  thoughts.

"I missed you, baby."

My first though is shit.

My second thought is why?

Because in all the time we've been hooking up, Kendall hasn't made a  single effort to get to know me. If we're not having sex, she just talks  non-stop about herself. Seriously, I don't think she's asked me a  personal question about myself since we met.

"Uh … " I struggle for words, any sequence of them that doesn't consist of  I, miss, you, and too. "I've been busy. You know, midterms."

"Obviously. We go to the same college. I was studying, too." There's an edge to her tone now. "Did you miss me?"

Fuck me sideways. What am I supposed to say to that? I'm not going to  lie, because that'll only lead her on. But I can't be a dick about it  and admit she hasn't even crossed my mind since the last time we hooked  up.