Chapter 6

SIX

Iflicked on the basement lights as I headed down the stairs. I could hear Briar's heels tapping on the hardwood treads behind me. The basement had a concrete floor and blue walls. The floor was covered in a carpet that didn't quite reach the corners, but it helped deaden some of the sound once you got a bunch of loud guys down here. Alpha Tau memorabilia that dated back more than a century covered the back wall: flags, banners, jerseys, scarves, and—hanging just below the crest painted in the center of the wall—a broad wooden paddle that had probably bruised the asses of generations of Virginian lawmakers and politicians. Hazing was fucking brutal back in the day, and that paddle sure as shit wasn't the worst of it. That paddle represented everything bad that Briar thought about us—hell, it represented everything bad I'd thought about Alpha Tau before I'd pledged. The only reason I hadn't pulled it off the wall and burned it was because that reminder was important.

We weren't that fraternity anymore. Those guys on the wall who stared down at us from sepia photographs? They were spinning in their fucking graves right now because our chapter president was Black, a whole bunch of us were some flavor of not-straight, and we were about to kick out Ethan Brooks—probably the one guy in Alpha Tau they would happily have called their brother. We weren't any sort of Alpha Tau they'd even recognize, and I was damned proud of that.

Briar's heels tapped to a stop beside me. "I said I'm sorry." He jutted his bottom lip out, and I tried not to stare at his mouth.

"Yeah, I know you're sorry, but we're still going to go over the charter so you remember it for the future." I forced some lightness into my tone. "It'll be a breeze. You're the academic whiz kid, remember?"

He looked away. "I guess." The neckline of his mesh top slipped off his shoulder, and he shrugged it back into place. "Whatever. Let's do this."

I let out a long breath. "What's with the attitude, Briar? Like, you're all over the place when it comes to us. You told me you wanted to be here, but you're acting as though the second we have to do something like this, it's all bullshit."

"Because it is," he said. "Reading the rules. It's... it's dumb. At least selling candy is helping out a kids' hospital. Who does reading the rules benefit?"

"Well, it's supposed to benefit you."

Briar rolled his eyes and stalked over to the side of the room. He sat on one of the old wooden chairs there and crossed his legs. He let his heel dangle from his foot, and I couldn't stop my gaze from following the long line of his leg up every rung of those pink-and-white striped thigh socks.

"I get it," I said, waving my hand at the wall and the paddle. "I get what this looks like. I get what you think. But I guess I'm confused, because this is the second time I've had to ask you if you really want to be here. Shit, it's pretty clear you don't respect us, and, okay, maybe we have to earn that—but do you even like us, Briar?"

Something I said must have hit harder than I'd thought because Briar blinked rapidly and then looked away again.

"I like you just fine," he said at last, softly, his voice hitching a little. And then he lifted his head and held my gaze, chin jutting up as though he were a stubborn kid. He stood up. "Maybe I like you a little too much."

"What?" I stepped back as he stalked toward me.

"I'm not talking about the fraternity. I'm talking about you, Casey," he said. "Just you."

I stepped back again, and a picture frame rattled against my skull. "Briar, I?—"

And he lunged forward and kissed me.

I had a hundred things I could have said about how inappropriate that was, but it was impossible to get any of them out with Briar's tongue in my mouth. And, by the time he drew back, I suddenly had nothing to say at all.

I could barely even remember to blink. Or to breathe.

I'd never been kissed the way Briar kissed me—part pissed, part desperate, and hot as all hell. And now he was glaring at me like he didn't know if he wanted to do it again or punch me in the face.

"Briar, we?—"

He snorted. "Here it comes."

"What?"

He lifted his chin. "You're gonna tell me that was a bad idea."

"I'm the pledge master, Briar." I blinked at him, still breathless, my dick hard in my sweats.

"So what? Is there anything in your precious charter about not messing around with pledges?"

"I—" My mind was blank for way longer than it should have been because Briar was so fucking hot, I couldn't think past that kiss. I wanted it again, except this time I wanted to give as good as I got. I wanted to grab him by the hip, dig my fingers into the fabric of that skirt. Wanted my other hand in his hair, holding tight. "No, it's not in the rules."

"Of course it's not," he said. "Because those rules were written by straight guys. They never saw me coming."

"Pretty sure they weren't the only ones."

He shot me a wicked grin. "Besides, Archer's my big brother, not you. So how about it, pledge master? Want to make out some more?" His fingertips danced along the short hem of his skirt, the light gleaming on his nail polish. "Do you wanna..."

I couldn't fucking breathe.

He bit his bottom lip and drew the hem of his skirt up an inch or two. "Do you wanna get dirty, pledge master?"

Who the fuck was this guy? I'd come down these stairs thinking he could hardly stand any of us, and suddenly shit like that was coming out of his pretty mouth? Even if all my blood hadn't been in my dick instead of my brain, I didn't reckon I'd be able to figure him out.

Briar grinned, like he knew he had me on the hook. Had me flopping on the dock drawing in air, even. He stepped forward, his slim, lithe body pressed against mine, and blew hot air against the side of my neck. My whole body erupted in goose bumps, and my sweatpants were doing nothing to control my dick. And then Briar leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear, and said, "But I think the wrong one of us is being pressed up against this wall, Casey."

Maybe it was because he'd called me by my name that the last straining thread of my self-control shattered, or maybe it was because I knew he was daring me to do something, but I acted. I grabbed him by the wrists and spun us around. Pushed Briar against the wall—he was shorter than me, so his head didn't hit the framed photograph of the 1932 rowing team—and leaned in to kiss him. Except I changed my mind at the last second and licked a stripe up his face instead. It was maybe the filthiest, most feral thing I'd ever done.

But, you know, the night was young.

Briar moaned, a low, breathy sound, and then wriggled. "No, hold on. Just wait a second."

He twisted in my grasp until he'd managed to turn all the way around. He braced his hands on the wall and looked over his shoulder at me. "Put your dick between my thighs."

"What?"

He pushed his ass back, connecting with my dick. "You've never done that before?"

I hadn't. Like, there was third base and then a home run, right? There wasn't a third-and-a-half base. Except what the fuck did I know, apparently?

Briar arched again. "Come on, Casey." He wiggled his ass.

I blinked at the sepia photograph of the rowers—Avert your eyes, boys—and reached down and ran my hands up the backs of Briar's thighs, lifting his skirt up until I could get a look at his ass. He was wearing pink goddamn underwear.

I rubbed my still-clothed dick against the satin of his underwear, and we both shuddered. Briar moaned again.

Fuck. Was I seriously going to do this?

It was the hottest situation of my entire life. Of fucking course I was.

I shoved my sweatpants and underwear down. Held my dick in my shaking hand and leaned back so I could watch as I ran the head up and down the cleft of Briar's ass. The sensation was incredible, and the sight of the pink fabric of his underwear turning darker with my precum was almost enough to push me over the edge. I squeezed my eyes shut to stop from coming too soon.

"Casey," Briar said, pushing back against me. "Come on, please."

I guided my dick into the space between his thighs, my breath catching. It was hot and tight—tighter as he clenched—and the first few thrusts were a little too dry. But only the first few because my dick was leaking so much precum that it didn't take long for everything to get slippery and wet. My dick slid against the damp fabric of his underwear.

"Yeah," Briar said, arching his back. He lifted one hand off the wall. "That's it."

I put my hands on his hips and dug my fingers in. The hem of his short skirt bounced as I fucked between his thighs. His shoulder began to bounce too, and I realized he must've had his hand down the front of his underwear, and he was jerking himself off. Jesus, that was hot.

I leaned in and pressed my open mouth against the juncture of Briar's neck and shoulder. Not kissing, not biting, just sort of... tasting? Fuck if I knew what I was doing, but Briar tilted his head to give me the room to do it. He tasted like sweat, like heat, and I could feel the vibrations in my lips and tongue every time he moaned.

I moved one hand from his hip to his abdomen, my knuckles knocking against his as he worked himself hard. God, I wished I could see his dick, underwear bunched up, his fist moving fast...

I sucked on his neck for a moment and then straightened up again. Rediscovered the rhythm of my thrusts and pulled Briar away from the wall. He made a surprised squeaking sound, his heels clattering on the bare concrete at the edge of the room. Then he caught his balance again and squeezed his thighs together hard around my dick as he pushed back against my thrusts.

I looked down over his shoulder. His flat chest heaved with heavy breaths. My hand was against his abdomen, my splayed fingers bridging the gap between his mesh top and his skirt, the heel of my hand pressing against the expanse of bare skin between them. Briar's fist was closed around his dick, the rosy head bouncing as my thrusts jolted him, and he jerked himself off.

"That's so fucking hot," I said.

Briar answered with a breathless groan. "Fuck me harder, Casey. I'm almost?—"

And then he came, harder than I was expecting. His thighs clamped like a vise around my dick as his body shook and shuddered, and he cried out. Strings of cum shot over his belly, and it felt almost scalding hot against the back of my hand. I came too, dragged over the edge by Briar, my cum hitting the wall in front of us.

"Holy shit." Briar put his hands on the wall again, and I sagged against him. We both gasped for breath. "Holy shit." His body shook, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing. "Somebody's gonna have to clean that banner, and it's not me."

"Shut up," I said, but I couldn't help laughing a little too. I turned him around by the shoulders and helped him smooth his skirt down. I reached up and tucked a hank of his sweaty hair behind his ear. He was still grinning, but I thought that maybe there was something vulnerable in his expression now, a little uncertain, like he didn't know what the hell was going to happen next.

Well, that made two of us.

"I—" I began, and Briar cut me off.

"Well, this was fun!" He smiled, but it didn't seem real. "Let me know how the cleaning goes." He pushed past me, and I was too surprised to stop him. "We should do this again sometime!"

And then he clattered up the stairs in his heels, and he was gone, leaving me wondering what the fuck had just happened.

There might not have beenanything in the charter about not messing around with pledges, but that didn't stop fingers of guilt creeping down my spine. There was the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and I was pretty sure I'd just jizzed all over the second one. It wasn't the most elegant metaphor, but it was the only thing that came to mind as I sponged the Alpha Tau Debating Team banner clean before heading upstairs.

"Hey," Trey said as I tried to scuttle past the executive office without him seeing me. "Is Briar good?"

Briar was better than good. Briar was fucking phenomenal.

"Uh," I said. "Yeah. We went through the charter and stuff."

"Okay, man," Trey said. "Thanks."

He looked like he believed my lie, but Trey was the smartest guy in the fraternity. What if he saw straight through me, and he was just giving me enough rope to hang myself with?

"I'm just gonna..." I gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchen and then slunk away before Trey could keep me there. My head was still spinning.

"Hey!" Marty was in the kitchen, digging through one of the refrigerators for a soda. "You seen Ethan, that fuck?"

"Nah."

"That asshole ditched me during the candy drive! I mean, Ethan might have shit for brains, but I thought he'd at least be good at lifting heavy things. But no, I had to drag that cart all over campus by myself."

"Yeah, well. Ethan's getting what's coming to him as soon as he surfaces. He tried to pull some shit with Charlie."

Marty swung around, eyes wide. "What sort of shit? Can I punch him?"

Honestly, I'd asked myself the same question. I didn't tell Marty that, though. Instead I said, "No, but you can watch when Trey kicks him out of the chapter if you want?"

Marty's face fell. "Oh, it was really bad, then? Not like, just being a bit of a dick but being a whole entire dick."

"Yeah. He's out."

"That asswipe." His expression softened. "Is Charlie okay?"

It made me smile to know that Marty had a soft spot for our baby pledges. "Yeah. He was pretty shook up, but Trey told him Ethan was out, so he should be okay."

Marty cracked his soda can open. "I'm glad we're keeping Charlie. He's a good one."

"Yeah," I said, and then, because I couldn't help myself, I added, "What do you think of Briar?"

"What do you think of Briar?" Marty countered with a grin, and yeah, I never got why some people thought he was stupid. He did dumb stuff sometimes, but stupid? Hell, no. Marty was a long way from stupid.

I pulled a face. "You seen him around?"

"Nope."

"Okay. Thanks, bro." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Did you sell all your candy?"

"Of fucking course," Marty said, plucking at his ill-fitting skirt. "Look at me. I'm hot."

I headed out of the kitchen and said over my shoulder, "You're delusional, is what you are."

Marty's laughter followed me.

I wanted to go looking for Briar, but like my guilt reminded me, I was pledge master. So before I could do anything else, I headed upstairs to see if Scout was in his room. The door was open, and he was sitting at his desk working at something on his computer.

"You got a second?" I asked.

He gave me a death stare. "What's up?"

"Just wondering why you're not checking in with Charlie," I said. "Since he's your little brother."

Scout raised his eyebrows. "I already checked in with Charlie. And right now, Charlie and Luis and one of the Jameses have gone back to their dorms to get changed, and then they're coming back to have pizza. Meanwhile, I'm figuring out how much candy we sold to see if we can lord it over the Zetas later or not."

I moved closer and peered at the spreadsheet on his computer screen. "And can we?"

Scout's mouth twitched, which was the closest he ever came to a belly laugh. "Depends what they made. But yeah, I think we're sitting pretty right now."

I grinned. "You're some kind of genius coming up with that idea, you know that?"

Scout shrugged, but I could tell he was pleased.

"Hey, is Briar coming for pizza?" I asked.

Scout shrugged again. "I sent a text to all the newbies, and he said he already ate."

Well, that was bullshit, since he'd been selling candy all night, and then he'd been in the basement with me.

I knew the uneasiness in my gut wouldn't settle until we'd had at least some kind of conversation. He'd been the one to come on to me, so I was certain he hadn't felt pressured or anything, but I still wanted to talk to him. And okay, maybe part of it was a selfish need to find out if he'd be interested in doing that again—because I sure as hell was.

But first, keeping an eye on all the pledges meant making sure they were getting three squares a day, right?

My heart wasin my stomach when I climbed the stairs at the Brewster Building. Brewster was one of the smaller dorms on campus. One of the nicer ones too, though that was all relative, frankly, when compared to the houses on Fraternity Row. It was humming, even at this time of night, not because of any raucous parties or anything but just because there were a couple hundred people living under the one roof, and every tiny noise echoed off the vinyl flooring. If I hadn't gotten into Alpha Tau, I probably would have lived somewhere like Brewster.

Briar lived in 308, and my thighs were feeling the burn by the time I climbed the stairs clutching my takeout bag full of Chinese food. I figured that everyone liked Chinese food, and I'd bought a bunch of different things in case he was allergic or vegetarian or something like that.

I knocked on Briar's door, and he opened it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I brought you Chinese food," I said. "Since you didn't want pizza."

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then opened the door to let me in.

It was a small room, with twin beds and desks and not much space for anything else. One-half of the room was neat enough, but the other half—Briar's, judging by the skirts and glittery tops tossed on the floor and all over the bed—was a disaster.

Briar was wearing satin boxer shorts and a worn gray T-shirt. He saw me staring at the mess and said, "I was gonna clean it up before my roommate gets back."

That wasn't why I was staring. "These are all yours," I said. "You didn't have to go to the thrift store or anything, I mean. You already have all these."

His expression shuttered, and he hunched his shoulders. "So what?"

"Nothing," I said. "It just explains why you looked so good when the rest of us looked like a bunch of trolls." I met his cautious gaze. "And Briar? You looked real good."

He shrugged and turned away, but not before I saw his mouth curl into a pleased smile, and a hint of a blush lit his cheeks.

I didn't want to be weird about this, but right now it felt like there was a neon light above both our heads that was flashing AWKWARD, AWKWARD, AWKWARD, and there was no use pretending we couldn't see it.

"So," I said, holding up the bag of Chinese food, "do you like wonton soup and egg rolls? Because if you're willing to let this go cold, we can never be friends."

Briar looked back at me and raised his eyebrows. "We're friends, huh?"

"We're friends like wonton soup, Briar," I said. "It's just for starters."

For a second, he stared at me, and then he snorted out a laugh. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Just for starters. And I hope you brought spoons, or we'll be drinking that soup."

I took that as an invitation to stay and set the food down on his desk.

I figured that with a guy as prickly as Briar, getting out of here tonight after supper with friendship on the table—and my balls still attached to my body—was just about the best I could hope for.

And I'd take it.

For now, at least, until I figured out if maybe we both wanted something more.