Bright Like Midnight: A Dark College Romance (Savage U)
Bright Like Midnight: Chapter 16

LIKE DÉJÀ VU, I arrived at the boys’ house early on Saturday. I was a little more trepidatious, but still hopeful, than I’d been the previous weekend.

The house was quiet. I didn’t know what I should do first. Despite the shift between us over the last week, I hadn’t gotten over the sting of the perfumed sheets to chance waking Amir up again. So, I killed some time by dusting the living room, which was really an excuse for me to sit at the piano and run my fingers over the keys. Touching them without playing a note only took the slightest edge off my yearning to play, but it was something.

I wandered back into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Marco preferred his iced, so I poured him a mug and placed it in the fridge to cool so he could have it when he woke up. Then I set out the mugs I’d noticed Amir and Julien using most often so I’d have them close at hand when they were ready for their coffee.

Hadn’t I become the good little house servant? Jeesh. If my mom only knew she was shelling out big bucks in tuition for me to learn how to properly fold fitted sheets.

A creak in the hallway floorboard alerted me to someone approaching right before they appeared in the doorway. I flinched when the person turned out not to be one of my three boys.

“Oh.” Vanessa stopped short when she noticed me. “Hey.”

“Good morning,” I squeezed out. My throat had become tight at the sight of her bed head, smeared mascara, and bare legs—because she was wearing a T-shirt and nothing else. Vanessa, the girl from the fight who’d volunteered to take my place on her knees in front of Amir, had spent the night here.

She shrugged and continued across the kitchen to the coffee maker. I scooted down the counter, giving her access. She chose the mug I’d set out for Amir, filled it halfway with coffee, then moved to the fridge to add a heavy dose of creamer.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she propped a hip on the counter across from me, eyeing me over the brim.

“So, what’s your deal? Amir said you’re like his servant or something?” Vanessa took one long sweep of me with her eyes, then dismissed me by studying her fingernails.

“Or something,” I replied.

This girl’s presence made my stomach hurt. On one level, I understood what it meant, but I was having trouble accepting it on every other level. If I did, I wouldn’t be on my feet anymore. I wouldn’t be able to stand in this kitchen and hold my head up.

The shirt she was wearing was Amir’s. The same Savage U T-shirt he’d been wearing yesterday when he’d talked about taking me dancing. It shouldn’t have been a gut punch, but it was. Oh, it was.

Vanessa looked at me and curled her lip. “Stare much? God, don’t be a freak.” She rolled her eyes, taking a long pull of the coffee I had just made.

I wished I could have been mad. Mad would have been easier than scraped and raw. If I left now, I’d be okay. I just needed air and perspective. This only hurt because I was here, in this house. When I walked back into my life, this would shrink down until it was barely anything.

Resolved, I opened my mouth to tell Vanessa goodbye when Amir came sauntering into the kitchen wearing just a pair of lounge pants, rubbing his taut, golden belly, and yawning. His eyes landed on me, and his mouth morphed into a smirk.

“Hey, mama. I was disappointed not to see your face first thing like I did last weekend.” His voice was gritty with sleep and entirely without shame, even though his hookup was standing across the kitchen from him. “Seeing you in my kitchen makes up for it, though.”

When I didn’t respond, Amir stopped in his tracks to look me over. When he got to my face, his mouth parted, and a deep furrow ran between his brows.

“Zadie? What’s up with you?” His head whipped to Vanessa. “Did you say shit?”

I would deal with the consequences later. My feet became unglued, and I strode toward the archway that led to the hall where I’d left my shoes. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t stand to see Amir with her. How sad was that? Falling for my captor and being jealous when he didn’t fall back. I couldn’t believe myself.

Amir was faster than me, darting into the hall to block my path to the front door. “What the fuck?”

He reached for me, and I flinched, backing up a step. “I need to go.”

“No you don’t. You’re staying right the fuck here and talking to me.”

He came at me, arms out. I dodged, going right. I’d leave my shoes behind. Maybe that was crazy, but I just needed to leave. I had to get out of here before he figured out why I was upset. Before he saw the green-eyed monster riding me like a wraith.

“Let me go.”

He didn’t. As soon as I moved, he was there, coming at me, and I knew he would never let me leave. Panic took my logic and ground it into dust. I whirled around and ran in the opposite direction, taking the stairs as fast as I could. Heavy footsteps beat the wood behind me, but I didn’t falter. My only endgame was to get away.

I rushed through the first doorway and shoved the door closed. Only, it didn’t close all the way. Amir came crashing through, then he closed it, flipping the lock to drive the point home that he’d caught me.

I backed up until my legs hit his mattress. The second I took my eyes off Amir to check for an alternate escape, he pounced, driving me onto the bed. I rolled to my stomach, clawing at the comforter to pull myself to the other side, but Amir landed on top of me, straddling my hips and leaning over my back. I tried to get my knees under me, but he had me pinned to the bed.

“Let me go,” I whimpered. “Please. I need to go.”

He stroked the side of my hair, pushing it back off my face. My cheeks were flaming with half embarrassment, half fury. I couldn’t let him see me like this. I wouldn’t, so I pressed my face into the bed. But that was a mistake. I was instantly engulfed in Amir’s warm spice, and it went straight to my head, making me dizzy.

“The fuck, Zadie?” he murmured. “You gotta calm down. I’m not letting you go, so you need to relax and tell me what the fuck is the matter.”

“No, get off me!” There was no strength behind my demand. He had me here, trapped in his room. My captor. If he wanted to shove my face in his conquests, he could and would, and I would just have to bear it. It was my own damn fault for falling for the villain. I knew better, but here I was anyway.

“I’m not getting off you. Not until you talk, and even then, I might not. I like it here.” He rocked his hips forward, and there was no mistaking the bulge rubbing my butt. “Talk, mama. Right the fuck now.”

“I can’t,” I mumbled miserably.

He brought his face close to mine, rubbing his cheek against my ear. “Zadie…give me something to go on here.”

“Get off me.”

“No.” His weight lifted, and for half a blissful second, I thought he was letting me go. Then he grabbed my shoulders and rolled me to my back. His hands came down on either side of my head, caging me in. I squeezed my eyes shut. He growled. “Fuck, Zadie, you’re killing me. I thought we were friends.”

I shook my head. “We’re not.”

“Did Vanessa say shit?”

My breath hitched of its own volition. Amir stilled. Neither of us spoke, but we didn’t need to. He heard me, and I felt his understanding.

“Please,” I pleaded.

“No.” He skimmed his nose along mine. “I need your words. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

I shook my head. “You can’t fix it. It’s my head that’s the problem. I just need to go. Then it’ll be better. Please, Amir.”

He cupped my cheeks, keeping me still. “Open your eyes.”

I squeezed them tighter.

“Open, Zadie. Right the fuck now or I will redden your pretty ass.”

My eyes flew open. He didn’t laugh at me like I thought he would. He stared at me hard enough to see straight through me. But still, he wasn’t getting it, and that made me mad. How could he not see how I felt? How could he not understand what it was like for me to stand in a room with him and the girl he fucked last night?

“I don’t want to be here,” I whispered.

“Too bad.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Talk. Tell me why you were liking me yesterday and now you can’t even look at me.”

“Because…” He wouldn’t let me turn my head. His eyes burned into me. He was all I could see, smell, feel. It was too much. I wanted out and away, and since he wasn’t allowing that, I snapped. “Because I hate changing your slutty sheets and seeing that girl in your shirt. I hate everything about it, and I need to go. Please, please let me go.”

Amir reared back, giving me breathing room. I would have been relieved if he hadn’t laughed at me. Full and hearty, his shoulders shook.

“My slutty sheets?” He peered down at me, grinning wide. “What the fuck does that mean, mama?”

I dug my heels into the bed, pushing myself up the mattress. I got maybe a foot before Amir followed, pouncing on me again. Frustrated, I slapped my hand down on the blanket and balled it in my fist, yanking hard.

“These slutty sheets. I hate them. I hate that you want me to change them after you’ve had another girl in them. I know you don’t care, I know I’m your pet, but I hate them, and if I have to smell that perfume again, I’ll throw up all over your expensive, slutty sheets.”

Amir caught my wrists, cuffing them together over my head with one hand and holding my face with the other.

“What is this?” His eyes searched mine until light shone through his midnight. “Is this jealousy? Are you jealous, Zadie? You think…what? I had Vanessa in this bed last night?”

My nose scrunched at her name on his lips. “She’s wearing your shirt. I know you had her in your bed. It’s none of my business, but I—”

“What shirt?”

I scowled at him. “You know what shirt. Your Savage U shirt. The one you were wearing yesterday.”

He pressed his thumb to my lips. “You’re jealous.”

He wouldn’t let me turn my head, so I averted my eyes. “No.” My denial was so damn weak.

“You are, mama, and I like it.” Reaching over my head, he brought his pillow to my face. “Smell this.”

I sniffed, and all I was hit with was Amir. Warm, spicy Amir.

He tipped his head down to the foot of the bed. “Look down there. Tell me what you see.”

Black fabric was carelessly tossed on the far corner of the bed. The longer I stared at it, the more it dawned on me what it was. My urge to escape tripled.

“Tell me what you see,” he ordered softly.

“Your shirt.” My throat was five times too small, barely squeaking out my response. His shirt was on the bed. That meant…

“Mmhmm. The same Savage U shirt half the campus owns. Including Marco.” He ran his nose along mine. “Did my sheets smell slutty?”

“No. Not like last weekend.”

His laugh was barely a breath. “Strippers. They bathe in that shit then rub it all over you, even when you’re not asking for it.”

That didn’t make me feel better. “’Kay.”

He lowered his chest to mine, and his fingers flexed around my wrists. “Come on, mama, tell me how jealous you are. You want to be the only girl in my sheets? You want me to smell like you, baby? Give me those words. I need to—”

My teeth sank into his chin, giving him a sharp bite, then I fell back onto the bed and mewled. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d lost it. With Amir on top of me, the heat of his skin warming mine, his scent invading me, his lacquered words coating my ears…it was far too much.

He stared at me with wide, shocked eyes.

“Zadie,”—he released my wrists and slid his hand under my head—“you bit me.”

“You won’t stop talking.”

His fingers curled in my hair, and he tipped my head back. Then he shifted, shoving my legs apart with his knees to fit himself in the cradle of my thighs and ruck my skirt up to my waist. His cock was rock hard, and when he lowered his hips to meet mine, he rocked against my core. My panties and his thin pants were the only things separating us. And I felt him. I mewled again, bucking my hips, but that only drove him against me.

“Tell me you’re jealous,” he gritted out.

I would never say it. Never, ever. I looped my arms around his neck and tugged until his mouth was close enough for me to latch on to. I bit his bottom lip, then licked the spot where my teeth had been. Amir groaned the second my tongue touched his skin and answered back with his plunging between my lips.

I’d unleashed him without meaning to, but even as I lost my mind in his dominating kiss, I knew there was no going back. Mistake or not, this was his show now.

He yanked at my hair, tipping my head back farther, taking my mouth to its limit. He bit and sucked, licked me everywhere. I nipped at his lips and sucked on the tip of his tongue. He must’ve liked it when I did that, groaning and grinding his erection into me.

He had my shirt up, under my chin, the cups of my bra down, and his mouth on my nipples. He suckled one, then the other, drawing them into beaded points.

“Beautiful tits. Never forgot the taste of them,” he murmured as he raked his eyes over them. “These are my tits now, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I would have agreed to a lot—even though I was mad at him and didn’t really believe it—to keep his lips fastened to my nipple.

My breath got stuck in my throat when he slid his hand between our bodies, pushed my panties to the side, and trailed his fingers down my folds. At my entrance, he swirled the tip of his finger around, dipping in slightly before traveling to my clit and applying firm pressure.

My eyes flew open, replaceing his staring back at me. His mouth and mine were grazing, barely touching, but still connected. Each time his chest rose, mine fell. Our air mixed and swirled until I couldn’t tell if I was breathing or he was.

His fingers worked between my legs, touching me like he’d done it a hundred times and knew exactly how I liked it. I’d been soaked before he started, worked up from his body on top of mine, but now, I was drenched.

“Yeah, jealous, mama,” he murmured against my lips. “This pussy’s been mine since the first time I touched it, hasn’t it? You’ve been waiting for me to come claim it.”

“Stop talking,” I rasped. He was far too close to the truth.

“I’m sorry for making you wait.” He snagged my bottom lip between his teeth then sucked it into his mouth. “This pussy’s angry at me, but I’ll make her better.”

Without warning, he sat back on his knees, yanked my panties off, and dove down to feast on me. His lips latched onto my clit, sucking and flicking his tongue. My mind raced to keep up, but it was no use. Once his mouth was on me, my mind was out of the equation.

My spine arched. I clawed at the sheets beside me. I wanted to claw at his shoulders and scalp, to push him off me or tug him closer. He laid claim to my body without asking if I wanted to be claimed. But he’d been right. I had been waiting for him to come back to me. Despite everything, I’d longed to feel his mouth between my legs again since he’d walked out of my room.

Amir held on to my hips, pulling me tighter to his mouth. His fingertips dug into my flesh. I whimpered and sighed as heat rushed down my belly, settling in my clit. His tongue took the heat and used it to make a spark, igniting me. Each pass of my clit stoked it higher and higher, until I burst into flames for him, crying his name, singing my pleasure to the ceiling. And he kept at me, sucking and licking until I was nothing but ashes, helpless in a pile in the center of his bed.

And then he was over me, rolling a condom on without taking his eyes off mine for even a second. He didn’t give me time to come down or think clearly. Not before he fitted the head of his cock with my opening and notched it inside. He stopped there, exhaling a heavy breath over my lips, then pushed in a little more.

“Amir…what..?” I could have protested. A big part of me wanted to. This was way too fast, and I wasn’t sure I was over being mad at him. But if I asked him to stop, would he? Moreover, would I even be able to ask?

He tapped my lips. “Quiet. I only want to hear my name out of these lips. Get out of your head.”

My inner walls rippled with a leftover wave of pleasure, making him squeeze his eyes shut and tighten his grip on my hips.

“Fuck. Shit.” His eyes opened and glared at me with something like accusation.

“Was that bad?” I wasn’t so naive not to know he liked the way I felt around him.

“I’ll show you bad. Open for me,” he said through clenched teeth.

My legs spread wider, like I couldn’t help following his command. He hitched one of my legs up, pressing my knee almost to my chest, spreading me so he could sink inside, inch by inch. I whimpered as his body speared mine, creating space for himself in my core. A space that was only his, now designed to fit his body.

Tears pricked my eyes from the pain, from the magnitude of the act, from the relief that it was finally happening, from the person it was happening with. His eyes tracked the one tear that trickled down my temple as he held still as deep in me as he could get.

“You want to be the only girl in my sheets?” He wiped the tear away. “Is that what you want?”

My lips parted. Only a wisp of air escaped.

Shaking his head, Amir started to move, retreating slightly, then pushing back in. He was holding back, going slow for me, letting me get used to how incredibly full he made me. That surprised me. I’d rarely known him to be gentle.

“Touch me,” he murmured. “Touch me, Zadie.”

When I stayed frozen, he took my hand and brought it to his shoulder. Then he grabbed my other hand, placing it on his cheek.

“Fucking touch me,” he ordered softly. “Move with me. Show me you want my sheets smelling like berries and not anything else.”

Once my hands were on his hot skin, something in me flipped. The floaty feeling of watching myself from above disappeared and I came crashing into my body. I dragged my palm along the scruff of his jaw, to his nape, holding on to him there. My other hand ran along his shoulder, down the sinewy muscles in his arm, to his back. He made deep, pleasured sounds as I explored his skin. I hoped that meant he liked my hands on him, because I couldn’t get enough of the feel of him.

“Is this good?” I asked.

He glared at me, frowning like he was angry with me. Then his hips reared back until he was barely in my body.

“Is this good?” He slammed inside, taking my breath, my guts, my eyesight away.

“Amir,” I whimpered, clinging to his taut biceps.

“Don’t ask me if having your hands on me is good. You’re smarter than that, mama. You feel my cock in you. I know you can feel how hard you make me. Tell me you know.” He drove forward, hitting me so deep, stars sparked behind my lids. “Tell me you’re mine.”

I nodded, bringing my hands up to cup his neck. “I know, I know. I feel it.”

He dropped his head so his nose grazed mine. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me.”

“I’m—”

He swirled his hips, replaceing a raw, flaming nerve inside me. My spine bowed, and my neck arched back. Amir slipped his arm around my middle, holding me in that position while he fucked me with determined precision, rubbing that magic spot until I released a tremulous scream.

He kept holding me, grunting into my neck as he rode my body like a wave. Over and over, he thrust into me, drowning me in everything him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, letting him take me where he needed to go.

His movements became more frantic, the noises escaping his lips desperate. I held him tighter. He said my name like an exaltation, plunging in deep and staying there. My walls clamped around him, hugging him as he pulsed.

“That’s right, baby girl. That’s right,” he murmured as his movements slowed. Hot lips dragged along my neck, then teeth grazed my pulse. “Mmm…good little pet.”

My eyes fluttered open. Heart stuttering in my chest, my arms fell to the side.

Pet. I’m his pet.

Oh no. What had I done?