With That Mouth
I didn’t feel any better after confessing my sins to Molly and Peyton, and of course, it didn’t change anything. Zac was still ignoring me, and I was still doing my best to avoid Taylor. My last night with him had to be the last night, even if I feared it was past the point of Zac ever believing that I didn’t want Taylor the way that I wanted him. I had to prove a point at least to myself, if to no one else.
With both of them out of my life, I didn’t have much of a social life at all. Instead I became entirely devoted to my classes, like the true nerd that I was. I spent late nights in the library, coming back to the apartment so late that I rarely crossed paths with my roommates at all. Not that I minded, given that neither of them really knew how to act around me after my confession.
The study rooms on the second floor of the library were the best place to avoid people, and if you got there just around dinner time, they were usually free. I had learned to avoid Tuesday nights, because that was when the football team was required to study—which apparently translated to eating Taco Bueno and being generally loud and rowdy. Any other night, though, and I was usually able to secure a nice, quiet study room in which to avoid the world.
That Thursday, I’d settled in to get down to work on an essay about romantic comedies—because it was just my luck that my genre class would be studying what my life had become–but I couldn’t really concentrate. Only a few minutes had passed, yet it felt like hours. When someone opened the door, which I had failed to lock, I nearly jumped out of my skin in surprise.
And of course, because that was just my luck, it was Zac.
“Oh,” he said, blinking at me a few times before narrowing his eyes. “George.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” I replied as cheerfully as I could manage, which turned out to be not very cheerful at all.
“I’ll find another room,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “Because it’s not like two best friends can share a study room. And that’s what we are, right? Best friends? Best enemies?”
“I don’t know what the hell we are,” Zac spat, stepping into the room and letting the door slam behind him.
For a few moments, we just stared at each other. I barely even recognized the guy standing in front of me, and I had a feeling he felt the same way about me. Even if Zac had never known how I felt about him, he certainly never would have expected me to sleep with Taylor. Not that I expected me to, either. And when it came right down to it, I never expected to sleep with Zac, either. I never expected to feel more used by him than I did by Taylor. I never expected any of this. And if it surprised me… it had to shock the hell out of Zac.
“Are you just going to stand there?” I asked. “Normally people use these rooms for studying. Or so I hear.”
“And what are you studying this semester? The male anatomy?”
I rolled my eyes. “That was the absolute worst joke ever. I expect better than that from you.”
“Yeah, well, I expected better from you, too,” Zac mumbled, but there was a bite to his words that surprised me—and scared me a little.
I didn’t remember the last time I had really seen Zac’s temper in action, but I knew he was not to be messed with when he was angry. Sometimes I couldn’t resist poking the bear, but right then, it really didn’t seem worth the trouble.
Shaking my head, I gathered up my books and my laptop and shoved them all in my messenger bag. I stood up and headed for the door, but Zac quickly flipped the lock, its click echoing through the room, and stepped right into my path.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “What is your problem now?”
Instead of actually answering me, Zac stepped in closer and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. For a split second, I thought he was going to hit me or something, but instead… he kissed me. It wasn’t the sort of sweet, awkward kiss we’d shared before. This was more like his brother than I really wanted to think about—forceful, passionate and utterly confusing.
But even being confused and angry couldn’t stop me from giving in to him.
I shrugged off my messenger bag and grabbed fistfuls of Zac’s t-shirt to pull him even closer to me. My bag hit the floor with a dull thud; Zac kicked it to the side and began walking me backward toward the table. Part of my mind was screaming at me to stop, that we were still in public, but the door was locked and had only small sliver of a window in it anyway. And besides, I knew I was incapable of stopping.
Zac’s hands slithered between us, fumbling with the button on my jeans. I attempted to help, letting out a yelp as I connected with the table behind me. As though I weighed nothing at all, Zac grasped my hips and lifted me up onto the edge of the table. He backed away and began peeling his own clothing off, and I was so distracted by the sight that I nearly forgot that I needed to get naked as well.
Of course, Zac had not forgotten.
Once he’d found a condom in his wallet and pushed his jeans down to his ankles, he went back to work on my jeans, raising goosebumps on my legs as he pulled the denim down. I managed to kick my shoes off so that he could take my jeans off entirely. I let out a gasp as Zac shoved my panties aside and slid a finger into me with essentially no warning at all.
“Oh, god,” I groaned, my head falling back.
“I usually go by Zac,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. He was worse than Taylor—in so, so many ways. And yet… I loved him as much as I hated him. Right then, I wasn’t sure which emotion was stronger. With another groan, I replied, “Just shut up and fuck me.”
“Do you kiss my brother with that mouth?” Zac asked.
“I’m not going to kiss you with it if you don’t stop acting like you’re PMSing,” I shot back.
Zac’s only response was to lean in and kiss me, whether I liked it or not. Of course, I liked it, and I kissed him back with just as much fervor. I hardly even noticed his hands working to slip my panties off and slip the condom on, but I snapped back to reality when I felt his dick brushing against my inner thigh.
I let out a pathetic whine and tried to inch closer to him. I knew I looked so pathetic, but I really didn’t care. He had to realize by now just how much I wanted him, at least physically. Judging by the way he was grinding against me, his fingernails digging into my thighs, Zac wanted me just as badly.
In that moment, that was enough.
I didn’t care about the fighting. I didn’t care that he may have actually hated me. I didn’t care that I should have been with him all along, not Taylor. I didn’t care about anything but Zac hovering over me, breathing heavily and trembling ever so lightly.
Finally, after what felt like years of teasing rather than just seconds, Zac shifted his hips into position and thrust into me. He let out a soft sigh, and I was positive he had never, ever looked more gorgeous. I reached up and touched the side of his face, then let my hand fall down to his chest as he began to roll his hips, building up a slow but steady rhythm.
The rest of the world dropped away and it was just me and Zac. Nothing else in the word existed except the table that was keeping me from completely collapsing into a puddle on the floor. My ass was going to hurt tomorrow, I was sure, but right then I really didn’t care. Zac placed his hands on either side of me, knuckles turning white as he pressed his palms onto the table to brace himself as he thrust even harder into me. I was going to be bruised, beaten and sore in the morning, and I was loving every minute of the torture.
It all seemed to be over in an instant, yet last forever, at the same time. Suddenly fireworks were going off on the back of my eyelids and I was biting my lip to keep from screaming out loud, a tiny voice at the back of my mind reminding me that we were still in public, after all. Zac let out a low growl but otherwise seemed to contain himself, thrusting deeply into me and staying that way for a moment until he let out a shudder.
“God…” Zac gasped out, then seemed to snap back to reality. He pulled back and glanced around the room, as though he had just realized the reality of what we had done.
I could do little more than sit on the table and stare at him, closing my legs quickly when he backed away and began peeling off the condom like it was going to hurt him or something. He tossed it into the small trash can by the door, his lip curling in what I could only assume was disgust.
Was he disgusted with himself? With me? I didn’t even know anymore.
I watched him fumble to redress and I stuttered, but couldn’t manage to form any actual words. I wanted so badly to ask Zac what the fuck he thought he was doing, but I couldn’t. I was too much of a coward. I had a feeling, though, that Zac couldn’t have answered anyway. He was just as clueless about what was happening between us as I was.
Not knowing what else to say, I simply blushed and asked, “Can you hand me my panties?”
Zac just nodded and picked up the little piece of lime green lace, holding it with just two fingers and flinging it in my direction. I rolled my eyes again, vaguely noting that Zac was seriously giving them a workout.
“Are you afraid they’re going bite you?” I asked. “Or afraid of what you’ll catch? Because I’m pretty sure the ship has sailed on that one. You’re not going to get anything from my panties that you couldn’t get from sticking your dick in me, and you can’t seem to stop doing that, so…”
“’Sticking my dick in you?’” Zac echoed, snarling. “You make it sound so appealing.”
“It must be.” I shrugged, sliding off the table and into my underwear. “I mean, you keep doing it. What does that say about you? You’re acting like it says so much more about me, but I’m pretty sure whatever it says about me, you’re just as bad.”
Zac glanced down, his eyelashes fluttering in that way that made butterflies flutter up in my stomach. “Yeah, well, I’d say we’re both pretty bad here.”
“Finally something we can agree on,” I replied, brushing past him to retrieve my jeans.
I turned my back to him as I wiggled back into them, tired of having his eyes on me. I had wanted him to look at me as a sexual being but not as a sex object. Now I really wasn’t so sure which of those he saw me as, but I knew that I couldn’t tolerate his gaze on me for so long.
How had things gone so wrong? I had finally gotten what I wanted, or so I thought, by getting Zac into bed with me. And he obviously still wanted me. And yet…
“Can you just go?” I asked, still feeling the heat of Zac’s stare on me.
“Yeah,” he rasped, some emotion in his voice that I didn’t dare turn around to try to identify in his eyes. I couldn’t look at him at all.
With my back to him, I could hear him shuffling around, and finally, a moment later, the click of the lock being turned and the woosh of the door opening. It clicked back into place, signaling his departure, and my tears started to fall.
Sure, I had what I thought I wanted, but it was all wrong. It had all gotten so twisted and turned into something so, so different from what I had hoped.