Living at the Frat House - A College Romance

I don’t bother putting on a shirt as I head downstairs. The house is completely quiet. Everyone seems to have cleared out to let the mood fade. I don’t blame them, and it’s a good idea. I don’t want to see any of their faces. I can’t believe they thought that I would put Juno through any initiation, let alone one like that. We’re going to have to have a house meeting to make some things super fucking clear.

I grab us some water bottles, and some grapes and a bag of popcorn. No idea if she’s hungry or not, but showing up with food can’t be a bad thing, right?

She’s right though, in a way. We don’t know each other that well. I want to change that. Now that she’s here, I have a month to know her completely and get her to stay. Because I have a feeling that I’m going to want her to stay. Hell, she’s barely been here and I want her to stay.

Jogging back up the stairs, I knock on her door. “Juno?”

There’s no answer. It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t want to talk to me, but I’m hoping that she will. “Juno are you okay?”

Again, no answer. Maybe she fell asleep, has headphones on? I try the doorknob, and it’s not locked, the overwhelming need to see that she’s okay overcoming propriety. I peek inside the room just to make sure that she’s there, and she’s not.

Oh, shit.

I didn’t hear her leave the house, and she didn’t tell me she was going. Strange. I set the snacks I brought on top of the dresser, noting the messy state that Jack left all the furniture in. Another reason I need to beat his ass. And I make a quick sweep of the house. I don’t think it’s likely that we could have missed each other moving up and down, but there’s always a chance. She’s not in the living room, and she’s not going to be any of the guys’ rooms. Where did she go?

My mind immediately spins to the worst. Did Jack come back and do something drastic? “Juno?” I call, sprinting back up the stairs. “Juno?” I yell her name louder. Finally, “Juno!”

“What?” She sounds just as panicked as I do, and I turn to find her in the bathroom doorway, soaking wet in a towel. Her glistening skin makes me want to touch her even more than I already did. Dripping hair and big green eyes, she’s so fucking sexy that I can barely contain myself.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “You were yelling.”

“I couldn’t find you and…” I paused. “I’m sorry, I worried that Jack had come back and done…something.”

She smiles a little, relieved. “Just a shower.”

Again, I look at her body, almost nothing left to the imagination, and I can’t stop. I have to touch her. I stride to the bathroom and lock us both inside. “Can I touch you?” I say.

“I thought you were the one that tells me what to do?” she teases.

“Juno, please,” I beg. “After everything…”

She shudders. “Yes, you can touch me.”

The water in the shower is still going, and I rip the towel away from her, hauling us both under the warm spray. I don’t bother to remove my jeans. Holding her against my body is the best damn thing in the world, pure relief mixed with lust. I didn’t anticipate how the slipperiness of her skin under the water would make my body come to life. I need her now, but I also need her to know everything.

“I need to tell you,” I say. “I meant what I said to Jack. You’re mine. Only mine.”

“I like it when you say that,” she whispers, voice barely audible over the water.

“Now that that’s clear. I will never relay any commands to you through another person. I’ll even give you a code word for text messages so that you know that it’s me.” She’s looking up at me through the spray, and by some miracle she doesn’t look angry. “I understand if this changed what you wanted—if you wanted to move back into Collins, or if you wanted to live here without this,” I grip her harder to show her what I mean.

She still doesn’t speak, and I’m not sure what it means, but somehow I can’t get my own mouth to shut the fuck up even for a second. “I knew that Jack was pissed when I asked him to switch rooms, but I never thought that he would do what he did. I’m sorry I ever let him close to you.”

I lean down to kiss her, and she lets me, opening and yielding, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me closer. The kiss morphs into fire, hunger overtaking both of us in the need for the other. And I’ve already had her once today. I don’t want there to be a time that I don’t want her this much—need her this much.