His jaw twitches, and when his finger pushes past the resistance, it’s slick and easy, making my jaw go slack at the deliciousness of the burn. I curl my hands into his leather jacket, barely recognizing the sound that emerges from my throat.
He pecks a slow, teasing kiss at my lips. “You like it, baby?” I nod frantically, forgetting about the wrestling match, tuition, Sutton—anything but the drag of his finger sinking into me. He licks into my mouth, and his tongue is so warm, as slick as the finger he’s fucking into my ass. “Soon,” he breathes, knuckle curling inside of me, “I’m going to bury myself in this tight little hole and listen to you beg for more.” He kisses down to my jaw, my throat nosing into the space below my ear. “We’ve been arguing about it for days. Who should be the one to take it?” His voice is a low, hot whisper. “I won.”
“You guys talk about me like this?” I wonder, feeling breathless. “Fight over me?”
“We talk about you all the time. You’re our Lady.” He continues kissing down my neck. “Usually it’s cordial, but sometimes, like with the big stuff, your virginity, or… this,” he curves his finger slightly, applying more pressure inside, “we have to fall back on the system—the points—to declare the winner.”
“Please.” I barely know what I’m asking for, but I know I want it. Whatever it is. Fingers. The cock I feel hard and eager against my belly. I’ll take anything. I’ll take any of them. All of them.
The thought alone has me gasping, knees shaking.
Suddenly, he pulls away, eyes flashing at the sound of my agonized whimper. “Sorry, baby. Now it’s your turn to win. If you want it, that is.”
“You,” I pant, squeezing my slicked-up thighs together, “are such a jerk.”
Smirking, he extends a hand toward the door. “After you, my Lady.”
Tristian is the first to grab the back of my head, hauling me up against the ropes to take my mouth in a short, but no less scorching, kiss. He pulls away to say, “Good luck,” and Dimitri is next, planting a hard kiss onto my lips.
“Eye on the prize, baby girl.” He gives me a dark, devilish grin before reaching down to give my ass a light slap.
Instead of a kiss, Killian takes my hand, looking around with a weirdly hunted expression as he tucks something into my palm. “Don’t lose it.” Confused, I uncurl my hand to find a tattered, faded ribbon. I immediately recognize it as one of the crazy, superstitious game day trinkets I’d stolen, and then later, given back to him. “Trust me,” he plucks it from my palm, “this is better than a kiss.” I hold still as he ties it around my bare wrist—the one without the cuff. “I’ve never lost a game with this. Not once.”
“What is it?” I ask, turning it on my wrist. Obviously, it’s a ribbon, but it must have some significance.
He looks up at me, brows knitted together. “You don’t remember?”
I frown, but before I can pay much mind to it, a Delta Kappa Sigma guy announces my match.
I’m not sure if it’s the escalation of the atmosphere or the fact everyone’s had time to ply themselves with the beer they’re paying seven dollars a cup for, but the crowd seems louder than it had the previous match. I stare at the Baroness, who’s kneeling in the Jell-O across from me, and offer her only this: “No hard feelings.” It’s a lie. The only feelings I have for the lot of them—Bianca excluded—are of the hard variety. I call up the memory of that day in the courtyard, when the three of them looked me in the eye, laughed with me, and treated me like the friends I was so excited to finally have. I remember the way it felt, so happy to have people who understood. Who I thought understood.
I remember what it felt like to be betrayed.
The match against Marigold is admittedly a bit of a blur. All that runs through my head is the knowledge that she’s standing between me and beating Sutton’s ass. The way I go after her is borderline mechanical. It’s a vicious instinct, just like the sharpness that was present in the locker room with Dimitri. I don’t need to showboat it, it just happens, her skin beneath my hands as I wrestle her into the stick gelatin.
She gnashes out a word now and then. “Fuck,” and, “Bitch,” and, “Let go, whore!” but I hardly hear them. I’m so focused on taking her down.
In the end, I don’t even know what makes her tap out. Maybe it’s my forearm against her windpipe, or the way my knee is jamming into her pelvis. Possibly, she’s just not built for this. The fight, the struggle, the pain of the blows. Not everyone is.