Bang Out: A New Adult College Romance (Main Desire Book 2) Read online

  “Deal,” Natalie holds up her hands. When her arms move, my keys jingle under her shirt. She winces. “These things are trying to saw off my nipple anyway.”

  Morris chokes taking a sip of water. He coughs, “Nat.”

  “Everyone has nipples, Theo. Get over it.”

  As I head to the bathroom, I hear Gray slur, “Did you know the average nipple height is the size of a ladybug?”

  That at least earns a laugh out of me. Even drunk, our resident know-it-all can’t resist getting in one of his nonsensical factoids.

  There’s a bathroom off the dining room in the back of the house, but a line forms outside it. If I wait, it’ll take longer than my allotted time. And Natalie has my phone, so I wouldn’t be able to entertain myself by checking for baby photos of my sister Aileen’s eight-month-old daughter.

  I turn away from the line. It’s a big house. Lakewood University’s off-campus student rentals have a tradition of naming their homes. This one’s no different. The name, The Six-Pack—as I’d heard explained—denotes the fact there are six bedrooms. A six-bedroom house should have more than one bathroom.

  So I head upstairs, passing Rylie and Levi dancing in the living room. I pause on a step, watching them. Levi dips my friend so far back, strands of her short bob almost touch the floor. He gathers her up, and she shrieks with laughter. She’s unsteady on her feet, whether from the dip or drinking, I’m not sure. Levi holds her tight, until she looks up at him and he down at her, and through silent communication, they bring their heads to each other, mouths touching…

  Don’t be a creep, Kennedy.

  I shake my head, carrying up the rest of the steps. Luckily, one of the first doors I find leads to a large Jack and Jill bathroom, with two doors and two sinks and no line. I lock the door behind me, needing a moment to compose myself.

  Ashton may have broken up with me months ago, but the pain still feels fresh. Especially in the face of others in love. Not that I begrudge Rylie. No, Levi makes her happier than anything in the world. Except maybe her art. Or cats. But…

  I miss having someone look at me that way. Like when he opens his eyes, I’m the only thing he sees. All that he wants. That he would do anything to make me happy. I miss kissing someone comfortable and familiar. Movie nights and cuddling and falling asleep in each other’s arms.

  I step up to one of the bathroom sinks, digging in my purse. I find makeup removing wipes and set my purse against the mirror. When I see my reflection, a mopey Kennedy stares back at me.

  Sure, Ashton had stopped doing a lot of those things near our relationship’s end, but that only makes me miss them more. Miss him more. Because when he’d put effort into dating me, it had been good.

  Don’t go down that road. You’ve been there before, and it’s a dead end.

  Reflection Kennedy snaps out of it. Pulls out a wipe and smooths it over the strawberry smooches on her throat. She won’t cry in the bathroom, despite her watery eyes.

  I grab a tissue, drying my eyes. When that blots my mascara, I heave a sigh. Well, it’s not like I need a full coat of makeup to go home. Intending to wash my whole face, I reach for another wipe…

  …and then I hear it.

  A moan. Low and purring, so quiet I don’t think I’m hearing correctly. Until it sounds again. Louder. Followed by a grunt.

  I drop the wipe, jaw dropping as I stare at the door opposite of the one I’d entered the bathroom from.

  There’s whispering on the other side. Another moan. Another grunt. The unmistakable rhythmic squeak of a rocking bed frame.

  Reflection Kennedy’s face blossoms pink—curse of gingers everywhere.

  The sounds from that room are nothing out of a wholesome romance flick. They’re categorically X-rated. Pornographic. How long had they been in there? How had I not noticed?

  I should go. Ten minutes or no, I can’t listen to this. I reach for my purse—

  And halt when the guy groans louder. A thick, throaty timbre. I grip the side of the sink, knees suddenly weak when a distinctive thrill zips down my spine. Looking at the closed door again, I grab the makeup remover wipe that I’d let go. I brush it over my lip, slowly, so I don’t miss a spot of lipstick.

  And I stay rooted where I stand.

  Here’s the thing: I’m not a perv. I have a vibrator and a tastefully curated collection of steamy romance novels on my e-reader. Both of which I use to scratch the itch, so to say, late at night when my housemates sleep.

  But here’s another thing…

  I miss sex. With another person. With a man. I miss having a guy who knows how I like to be kissed. Miss feeling a body move over mine. Miss a deep voice panting in my ear how much he’s wanted me.

  And though he’d never made me moan like the girl in the other room, sex with Ashton had been special. Because we’d been in love. Until we weren’t. Or, at least, he wasn’t.

  So I finish removing my makeup. And after the last bit of it is gone, I dig in my purse for that tube of Fresh Strawberry and reapply. Not that I need it. Because I’m leaving. I just have seven more minutes to kill, is all.

  I mean, it’s not like they know I’m here. Listening.

  No, whoever they are, they’re too wrapped up in each other. The girl, calling out how hard she wants it. The guy, giving it to her, grunting and groaning and the bed quaking and skin smacking on skin and—

  She finishes. Right after, so does he. In one drawn-out, hoarse sigh that has me squeezing my eyes close and biting my tongue so I don’t gasp.

  I don’t hear anything else for a minute. Then rustling. Soft whispers. A door inside the room opens and closes. It quiets again.

  I release a breath. They’re gone. Back to the party. Back to booze and socializing and dancing—

  Crap. What if that was Rylie and Levi?

  I hold my lipstick aloft, cringing. Please don’t tell me I’d just drooled over two of my friends going at it like rabbits. How will I ever look Rylie in the eye again? We live and work together, it’s not like I can avoid her. And even if Levi spends half the time not wearing a shirt anyway, that’s different from the fact that I now know what he sounds like at the moment of—

  The bathroom door opens. Not the one I came in. Because it’s locked. The second door. Connected to the bedroom.

  It’s not Rylie. Not Levi.

  It’s no one I want to see right now. Or ever.

  Because the man standing in that doorway… is Spencer Armstrong.

  2

  Kennedy

  How do I loathe Spencer Armstrong? I don’t need a list to count the ways—though, let me be clear, there are enough reasons to warrant one, the least of which is that I enjoy making lists.

  Where do I even begin? Maybe with the start of the school year, when he and Levi had entered the coffee shop where Rylie and I work, and he nearly flashed me? All because I’d had the audacity to enforce my place of employment’s dress code policy.

  Or how he’d punched Ashton twice?

  Or that he’d placed doubts in Rylie’s head about Levi’s feelings for her?

  That all occurred last semester. Which doesn’t even take into account freshman year—

  Nope. Cool it, Kennedy. Keep that temper in check.

  Unlike Spencer, whose anger issues are known far and wide on this campus. I witnessed it myself when he beat up some rando at his favorite watering hole, a low-key German-themed bar named Kellermann’s.

  Admittedly, that rando had been skeevy. He hadn’t taken kindly to my saying ‘no’ when he hit on me. So Spencer hit him instead.

  Also, one of the times he’d punched Ashton had been after our breakup, so I really can’t count that against him. Additionally, both times, he’d been defending Levi from Ashton’s relentless journalist persona, which I know to be pushy.

  And… he’d apologized to Rylie. Contritely. Humbly. With fewer than ten cuss words.

  Though that doesn’t excuse everything he’s done. Because every time I give Spencer Armstrong the benefit of the doubt, he takes it and punches it into someone else’s face.

  He may be the football team’s prized running back. He may even live with Levi, Morris, and Grayson in their house on Main Street, or be friends with Natalie—meaning there’s virtually no escape from him, no matter where I turn. But let’s set the record straight, here and now.

  He’s no leading man.

  He’s a brute. A bully. Someone who uses their fists before their words. In short, a villain. No one the heroine would be tempted to seriously consider for her happily ever after. Maybe for a night, but not forever.

  My gaze slides over him. Though he holds a shirt in his hand, he’s yet to put it on. Which gives me an eyeful of wide, bulky shoulders, bulging arms, and a solid trunk of muscle. Lines cut into his midsection, and a remote part of me thinks how appropriate it is we’re meeting in a house called The Six-Pack. I follow that path, realizing too late it’s led me to the v-shaped arrow of his hips…the one that points directly to his slouching, unzipped jeans. I snag a glimpse of dark curls in a place I definitely should not be peeking.

  No doubt about it, he’s got the looks to put a Hemsworth brother to shame.

  Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an attitude to match.

  “Done looking?”

  My eyes shoot up. A dark, severe stare awaits me. His lip rises in a snide smirk. “If you ask nicely, maybe I’ll wait here ‘til you find your camera, princess.”

  And that, that right there is why Spencer Armstrong is the bane of my existence.

  Because he’s attractive and plays football, that somehow makes him a female fantasy come to life? Nuh-uh. Like I’d swoon for a guy who, after three years of taking photos of him from the football field sidelines, still can’t be bothered to remember my name? My ideal is someone warm and sweet and caring, who will sweep me off my feet—

  Which Spencer had done once. Only because I’d been in his way. Large, warm hands wrapping around my waist…

  I wrinkle my nose at the memory.

  Still doesn’t change that he’s the antithesis of rom-com heroes everywhere. Case in point: the bedroom bacchanalia I’d just eavesdropped on. There’s no sign of the girl in the room behind him, so I assume she left, forever reduced to a faceless notch on Spencer’s belt.

  It’s a long belt.

  Because Spencer doesn’t do love. Spencer does one night stands. Spencer does a new girl every night, according to his friends, the football team, and the entire Lakewood student body. Now here I am, seeing a first-hand account of it myself. He spits in the face of love. Mocks it. Cheapens it.

  If there’s one thing I find more intolerable than him, it’s repudiating love.

  I breathe through my nose, count to three, and erase all emotion from my face, as easily as I’d cleaned off my makeup. I sweep over him again with an unaffected stare, then turn back to the mirror to finish swiping on my lipstick. “If any of that impressed me, I’d ask nicely to be lobotomized.”

  “Your loss.”

  “My win, on the contrary.” Out of the corner of my eye, Spencer ditches something in the trash can. A condom. Well, point in his favor for practicing safe sex. Less so for conducting it in such an unromantic location as a house party bedroom.

  Except then I remember it had been his guttural sounds unleashing in that bedroom. I put my lipstick away and undo my ponytail. It’s a bit wonky since my makeout with Pete. Also, I need something to focus on before my traitorous skin unveils another blush.

  “I forgot,” Spencer says, finally tugging on a long-sleeved hoodie. It’s fitted and clings to his abdominals. Not that I notice, I’m so busy wrangling this ponytail. “Your type comes in khakis.”

  My temple twitches as he rolls up his sleeves, displaying iron forearms as he turns on the second sink faucet. Don’t react, Kennedy. You will not be provoked.

  I count to five this time, neglect remembering Pete’s beige slacks, and tweak at my ponytail until it sits just right. And then, to show Spencer he doesn’t intimidate me, I grab my mascara and flick the wand over my eyelashes.

  “You fucking listening in on that?” he asks, washing his hands. He jerks his head towards the bedroom, not that I’m looking at him.

  “That was you?” I sniff. “I thought someone was watching a nature documentary.”

  “That what does it for you?” He runs water over his face, through his short hair. “Animals humping? I thought for sure you needed a trust fund and boat shoes.”

  The twitch returns. I press a finger to my temple.

  “But fuck, if all I need is to turn on Planet Earth instead of buying a shitty promise ring, I’ll get a Netflix subscription right now.”

  I snap the mascara cap close. My shaking fingers slip attempting to jerk my purse shut.

  “That what that prick Keeland used to do? Set up the Discovery channel and go fucking nuts?”

  I wheel on him, face red. From fury. “Might I suggest a stop by a neurologist’s office? Obviously, you’ve been hit upside the head with too many footballs lately, because I cannot possibly fathom the delusion that could ever convince you I have any interest whatsoever in sleeping with you, you vacant-brained meatball.”

  His nostrils flare, his chest rises, and he scowls. But he says nothing. We glare at each other, silence falling over us.

  Spencer Armstrong is a nasty piece of work. And he brings out the most shameful parts of me. If that’s not enough to teach me to keep my distance, then I don’t know what is.

  I grab my purse and leave the door I came in. My time’s up. I’m going home.

  3

  Spencer

  She slams the door behind her. Good fucking riddance. I lean against the sink. Inhaling, exhaling. Counting slowly in my head like Morris tells me to do when I want to punch something. The closest breakable object is the mirror, and as much as the smash will calm me, I know I’ll regret it after. Glass shards in your knuckles are a bitch.

  Like her.

  I turn around, brace myself on the sink counter, press my forehead into the mirror. Close my eyes and focus on breathing. Because what I really want to do—charge out that door after her—is not the best course of action. No, that way only leads to trouble with a capital K, F, and W.

  Kennedy Fucking Walsh. The motherfucking ice princess herself.

  Her words flood through me, and my knuckles turn white gripping the sink. I restart my count, steady my harsh breath. It’s nothing less than what I should have expected from her, especially since I practically steamrolled her into it.

  A little voice tells me I crossed a line. A louder voice tells me she fucking started it first. Brushing me off with that apathetic stare of hers. Face blank and unfeeling. Casually dismissing me with a haughty tilt of her chin.

  Like she’s better than me.

  So I took the bait. When I know damn well to leave it alone. I let my annoyance and anger get the best of me, and I bulldozed right over that line. Spoke out of turn. Goaded her into responding, to acknowledging she can’t ignore me, no matter how hard she tries.

  Because she won’t let me ignore her.

  Not when she glides over those pink lips with a darker, tantalizing shade of red. Or fluffs that red hair in its swinging ponytail. She struts around this campus, never a hair out of place or clothing in disarray, like a picture fucking perfect fairy tale princess.

  What I’d fucking give to mess up all that pristine perfection.

  I snort, running more water over my face to cool myself down. Like I’d ever get the opportunity. Girls like Kennedy? And guys like me? We mix as well together as a long motorcycle ride through a raging blizzard. As in, we just fucking don’t.

  Kennedy is one of those girls with ‘relationship material’ written all over her. And I stay the fuck away from those. One girl. One night. Who needs all that personal bullshit when I can get in, get out, and move on to the next? It’s not like they’re complaining, either. Everyone leaves my bed happy. Drained. Disheveled. Damn fucking satisfied. Something I’m sure Kennedy, with all that copper hair severely tied back, has probably never felt.

  My groin tenses. Shit. I’m ready to go again, even though I’d just rolled around with a very enthusiastic theatre major. One who hadn’t looked at me like I’m scum of the earth.

  And all over again, I’m remembering her. Those scathing comments—vacant-brained meatball? Who the fuck says shit like that? Kennedy Fucking Walsh, that’s who.

  I finish washing up in the sink. Blood rushes through me, a vein twitching in my neck. No one gets under my skin like she does. Breathing exercises won’t help me. I leave the bathroom, make my way downstairs. The only thing that will get me out of this irritable mood is a fight. Though Morris would kill me if I sought one out.

  I hit the last step, my eyes meeting a blond’s across the room. She sips from her drink as she eyes me up and down. With appreciation. Like any other normal fucking girl on this campus. Not like a frigid, prickly redhead.

  The blond smiles. Curls her finger to invite me over.

  I smirk.

  The only thing to get me out of this irritable mood is a fight…

  …or a fuck.

  * * *

  I wake to the distant sound of running water. Hart must be in the shower, and for a moment, I panic, thinking I’m late to practice, that Coach will kick my ass for missing that morning’s drills.

  Then I remember, it’s the middle of fucking winter, and the season’s over. And while I like to keep up my football training regime in the off-season, it’s Sunday, I drank a shit ton last night, I’m exhausted from the theatre major and then the blond, and I have nowhere to be. So I close my eyes. When I wake again, it’s quiet and I need to piss.

  I grab my phone, seeing I have a new voicemail notification. It’s from Meegan, and I instantly delete it. The only messages my psycho ex sends me these days are meant to rile me. Usually, it’s the sound of her fake-ass moans as some other guy rails her, making me listen as she tells the asshole how much better he is at making her come. Her latest efforts have doubled since I hadn’t reacted how she’d wanted when she’d filmed herself and Hart fucking—and then released the footage—before last summer.