“You did what?”

Julia’s screeched question and slack jaw told me that she didn’t miss a word of my confession though.

After the events of last night, I knew it was finally time to tell her everything. I needed to vent and get advice from someone.

“So let me get this straight. You got drunk and slept with, bi, not gay, Eric the night of your birthday. Thanks for telling me when it happened by the way,” she groused with a light hit to my arm. “Then you were so mortified you acted like nothing happened. Then Xander moves in and you realize he’s summer hunk Xander and things get uber weird because he’s a baby eighteen-year-old and totally lied to you about that.”

“Don’t call him a baby.”

“Fine,” she lamented “he’s too hot to be a baby anyway. No wonder you didn’t question when he told you he was twenty-three.”

I just roll my eyes, but don’t bother arguing her logic.

“Anyway,” Julia continued “you decide to punish Xander by using him as a human dildo.” I wince at her bluntness, but don’t say anything as she continued “Then Eric made a move, and while you were totally into it, you shut him down because of Gavin. Good for you by the way. You and Gavin both deserve way better. Then you totally have romantic make up sex with Xander under the stars only to come back and find out that Eric left Gavin for you?”

“No!” I exclaim. “He didn’t leave Gavin for me… I don’t think.”

Julia sighed in frustration. “Then what happened?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “After we ran into Gavin and Eric saw Xander kiss me and he reacted so badly to it, I thought he had left Gavin. I was so upset and confused that I just ran into my room and locked the door. They both tried to talk to me, but I begged Heather not to let either of them in. She almost didn’t listen when I wouldn’t tell her what was going on, but I think she didn’t want to make me more upset. Eventually they both went back to their room, but I could hear them yelling and fighting for a long time after that, so I just put my headphones in and tried to go to sleep.”

“Then how do you know Eric didn’t leave Gavin?” Julia asked.

“Eric just texted me that it’s not what I think and asked to talk to me in person to explain. I just haven’t been ready to hear him out yet. Xander… we were so happy yesterday, but Eric is my friend.” My head began to throb again and I could feel the burn of tears in my eyes again.

God, I was so tired of crying, and over something so stupid.

Julia pulled me into a hug just as the tears crested and began to spill over my cheeks one at a time. “Things are just so messed up. I don’t know what is going to happen with Xander now that he probably knows what happened between Eric and me, I don’t know what is even going on with Eric, the two of them are fighting worse than ever, Gavin is hurt and whatever happened with Eric and him, he obviously blames me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole mess gets all three of us evicted from University Housing.”

“And I thought I was going to be the one who had trouble keeping it in my pants.” Julia murmured.

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that and soon Julia and I were both bent double laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing.

When we finally recovered, Julia took on a more serious tone when she said “move in with me.”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“My roommate moved out, and you’re over here all the time anyway, plus it’s not against university housing contract to sleep with students living in another dorm,” she explained with a wink. “At the very least, it will put a bit of distance between you and the pissing contest that is the relationship between Eric and Xander. Let them fight it out where you can’t hear it.”

“I think that’s exactly what I need.”

Just then there was a knock at the door and Eric’s voice filtered in from the other side. “Delaine. I know you’re in there. Can we please talk?”

Julia just looked at me, clearly waiting for me to decide what I wanted to do.

I hesitated for a second, thinking, then nodded. She gave my hand a squeeze then went to open the door. She didn’t say anything to Eric, didn’t even look at him, but moved out of the way to let him in. Then she turned to me and said “I’m gonna let you guys talk in private. I doubt you’ll get that in your own dorm, so I’ll be back later. Text if you need me.”

When the door closed behind her, I finally let myself look at Eric.

He looked worse than I’d ever seen him, which wasn’t surprising considering everything that had happened. His hair was more disheveled than usual and his clothes were wrinkled. He looked tired and sad and even after everything that had happened between us, it broke my heart.

“How is he?” I finally asked.

Eric didn’t need to ask who “he” was. There’s only one “he” I’d ask him about.

“Probably not great considering he’s not talking to me. He won’t pick up the phone or answer any of my texts. His roommate also informed me that everyone in his dorm has been instructed to not let me in. They won’t even open the door for me after the first time I went over.”

My heart broke a little more hearing how hurt Gavin was.

“What happened, Eric?” I whispered.

He probably could barely hear me from where he still stood in the entryway, but he didn’t seem willing to get closer to me yet.

“I didn’t leave him for you,” he promised. “I didn’t leave him at all. He left me”

“You can’t expect me to believe that,” I accuse. “He ran out of our dorm sobbing and cursing my name. That’s sounds like someone who got their heart broken, not the other way around. What did you say to him?”

“I told him the truth,” Eric said blandly. “Well, what he needed to know of the truth.” The look on my face must have prompted him to clarify. “I didn’t tell him about your birthday or what happened during the movie last night.”

I sighed in frustration. “Then what did you tell him, Eric? Because whatever your idea of ‘the truth’ was hurt him pretty bad and he obviously blames me.”

“I told him that I love him. That I love him and want to be with him, but that I want you too. You didn’t want to have to lie to Gavin to be with me, so I told him.”

“That’s it? You told your boyfriend that you loved him, but that you want to fuck other people and that he’s just gonna have to be ok with that?”

“Gavin didn’t have to do anything. I just told him the truth!”

“Just like that? Well no wonder he hates me. He probably thinks I seduced you while you were together!”

Eric looked me straight in the eye and said “What does it matter? He made his choice and we know the truth. What does it matter what he thinks?”

His words scared me. I had never seen Eric so cold.

“Gavin is my friend. I made some bad decisions, but I still care about him and how he feels and if you cared about him at all then you should too. He’s hurt and we did that!”

“You’re right. We should clear things up if he ever decides to talk to either of us again, but I doubt that will change anything. He left me, and I don’t think finding out how hard you fought against your attraction to me is going to change that.”

“Why are you telling me all this? Do you think this will make me jump into your arms? Do you think I’ll be different if you pull this shit on me? Because I won’t be. I would leave any guy I was with if they asked my permission to screw someone else. That’s not the type of relationship I want.”

“I told you. This was about coming clean with Gavin. I’m done pretending that there isn’t something between us. I let him decide what to do with the information” He pushed off the wall where he had been leaning and came over to sit on the coffee table in front of where I still sat on the couch.

“So if you didn’t tell Gavin that to pursue a relationship with me, then what do you want?”

“You,” he said simply. “I know that we could have something great, even if it isn’t some exclusive, phone-screensaver-worthy, you’re-my-one-and-only romance for the ages. We’re so good together as friends and we’re exactly what the other need in the bedroom. I can tell.”

I didn’t say anything to his proposition. I just looked at him trying to process it all.

Eric took my hands in both of his and looked at me, pleading. “Please Delaine. Just try.”

“But Xander…”

“Fuck Xander!” Eric said cutting me off. “This isn’t about him. This is about us. You and me. I could make you feel good. I could give you what I know you need. We’re already such great friends and I’d never lie to you. I care about you so much, Delaine.”

I yanked my hands from his then. “How could you ask me to choose only you when you have flat out told me that I alone will never be enough for you? That’s some hypocritical bullshit, Eric.”

“I’m not making you choose. I would never do that. I’m saying that because I know you. I know you’re going to choose one of us in the end because not choosing is already tearing you apart. I just want it to be me.”

I couldn’t look at him. My mind was racing. Then he reached out and ran his hand lightly down my cheek before grabbing my chin to make me look at him.

His blue eyes burned into me and it only made my mind race faster and faster until I couldn’t make out a word of it any more than I could pick out one voice in a stadium full of talking people.

“Let me show you how good we are together.”

Eric’s eyes shone with promise of all things delicious and dirty and my mind and libido went to war once more, but with Gavin having left, and my decision to move out already made, my mind didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. All that was left was Xander, but one night did not a relationship make, and part of me knew that if I chose Xander without having gotten Eric fully out of my system, that wouldn’t be fair to him either. Part of me would always wonder and want.

Eric leaned in to brush his lips against my ear as he whispered “say yes, Delaine. I know I didn’t do this right the last couple times, but let me make it up to you.”

I stiffened at the reminder of our drunken romp and the night of forbidden and reluctant, but raw and heated heavy petting. I couldn’t tell if the memories were working in his favor or against it. The memories were hot, but so weighed down with regret of our morally questionable choices.

Then Eric kissed me, and just like my kiss with Xander, this one was so different than anything Eric and I had shared that it felt like our first kiss. It was soft and reverent, but not hesitant. It was the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted and fully intended to go after it. He just happened to want more than a hard and dirty fuck.

It melted the last of my resolve and I eagerly began to reciprocate with my own hungry kisses.

I ran my tongue lightly along the seam of his mouth and he groaned a bit before capturing my tongue and giving it a light suck and nipping at my bottom lip.

Without breaking the kiss, Eric pulled me from the couch and onto his lap until I was straddling him on the table. His hands cupped my ass and I felt his erection rising to attention as I ground into him.

Then the table gave a warning creek reminding us that we were putting a lot of trust into furniture of questionable age and quality. “Bedroom.” I managed between pants.

Eric looked over his shoulder to the front door.

“Not that one. Julia’s.”

He didn’t have to be told twice before he stood lifting me up with him. I wrapped my legs around his waist to allow him to swing the door open just long enough to get us through the door before kicking the door closed again and throwing me on the empty bed in the room.

I was surprised when he didn’t follow me. Instead, I propped myself up on my elbows to find him a few feet away from the foot of the bed breathing heavily as his eyes hungrily ran up and down my body.

“Strip,” he commanded.

I didn’t even hesitate. Now that my mind was fully made up, I was eager to be on with it. I already had my shirt over my head and discarded, and my hands were reaching for the waistband of my yoga pants when his stern voice stopped me with a word.

“No.” He didn’t yell it, but there was power in his voice. Power I had only experienced from him once, but at the time, I don’t think I fully realize how much that strength turned me on.

“Slower,” he instructed.

So he wanted a show? I’ll give him a show.

I crawled toward him and got off the bed to stand in front of him. With a little smirk, I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my pants and began to slowly rock my hips side to side as I pulled the pants down inch by inch.

He took a couple steps back to watch me work and I slowly turned until my back was to him. The pants inched lower and lower until the waistband was below my butt, then I made sure to bend as seductively as possible, bending at the waist and ass in the air to remove my pants the rest of the way.

When my pants were in a puddle by my feet, I stood up straight again, my back still to Eric. I glided my hands up my sides teasingly and I turned my head to watch him over my shoulder as I unhooked my bra and let it drop to the floor at my side unceremoniously.

My efforts were well worth the heated look on his face and the impressive bulge in his pants.

When I went to remove my panties, his hands covered mine at my waist. I felt his body flush up against mine and his hot breath over my shoulder made me shiver.

He brushed my loose hair over one shoulder and placed a tender kiss to the skin he had uncovered. “I want to do that part.” He said it so quietly, I wondered at why he whispered it. “But first, do you trust me?”

Trust him? With what? I wasn’t even sure where that little strip tease had come from. I wasn’t usually the type to put on a show for anyone, not that anyone had ever asked me to. Even so, I just never felt comfortable doing it with anyone else.

I felt safe with Eric though. He was Eric. Sex and relationship BS aside, he was my friend. He was the one I watched movies with in the dark with our legs tangled under the blankets. He was the one I told absolutely all of my secrets and never once used them to judge me. He was someone I knew I could trust with my life and all it was made up of. Why couldn’t I trust him with this too?

“Yes.”

“Then bend over and put your hands on the footboard.”

My mind took off racing, but I did as I was told. What was he going to do to me? Image after image flashed in my mind, each possibility more depraved and delicious than the last. I wasn’t a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but creativity and variety was something I seldom found in my sex life. I was ready to be daring.

I was so caught up in my thoughts, that I didn’t really pay attention to what was happening until my eyes were being covered with a sleep mask. I was startled by the sudden darkness, but Eric’s hands covered mine keeping them on the footboard when they would have moved.

“Don’t move, baby. You stay just like that.” That tantalizing thread of power his voice had taken on was still there and I knew that it would stay that way until we were done. He wanted to show me who was in charge, and I wanted him to. No doubt, this was his show. I would only get to be along for the ride if I could do as I was told.

I felt him move away again and return a few seconds later. That was when I felt the fabric wrapping around first one wrist and then the other. I gave an experimental pull when he was done, but it was obvious that he had used… something to tie my hands where they were.

“You look tense. Are you ok? I thought you might like what I have planned for you, but if not, you need to say something, Delaine.”

Was I ok? Nobody had ever tied me up before. I gave my hands another pull. There was some give, but it would take some effort to get free. The feelings rushing around inside of me were new, but none of those feelings made me want to stop.

“I’m ok,” I said, and while my voice had a breathy quality, I sounded sure.

I jumped again when I hand caressed my ass before traveling around to slip inside my panties.

Eric let out a satisfied hum when he found me soaking wet. “You’re better than ok, baby. You love this, just like I knew you would.”

There was a shift and I felt my panties being dragged down my legs and I lifted my feet one at a time to let him take them all the way off. Then there was an audible intake of breath and could image that Eric had my panties pressed to his nose as he inhaled my scent.

The thought had me rubbing my legs together.

“Stop that!” he snapped, then there was a sharp cracking sound before a burst of heat blossomed on my right butt cheek. “I told you not to move. You need to listen, Delaine.”

He had spanked me! The move genuinely shocked me, but not in a bad way. It helped that the sting of pain had quickly fled, replaced by heat as his warm palm rubbed the offended skin.

His other hand joined his first as he kneaded my ass. Eventually the hands settled as they worked to spread my cheeks apart. He told me to widen my stance and I did so until my feet remained a comfortable distance apart, but I still felt very exposed. He seemed satisfied though.

“I wish you could see how beautiful you are right now. I’ve been dreaming of getting you just like this for a very long time now. Tied down, ass up, spread wide, and dripping for me.”

His words painted a very lewd picture in my head of how I looked at that moment, but the desire in his voice meant that the words only served to turn me on more.

Then I felt it, the soft touch of Eric’s tongue as it slowly licked up my dripping slit from front to back. His tongue didn’t quite reach my clit, but the leisurely taste still sent shivers up my body and caused me to moan in pleasure.

“Yes, Delaine. Let me here you. I want to hear how good I make you feel.”

He adjusted his grip to pull me closer and spread me wider, then he struck. His tongue lapped at my cunt with slow, strong strokes. He seemed to be trying to capture every drop that leaked from my body, but I could still feel his face getting slick with my juices.

I felt my face heat with just how wet I was getting. Was it normal to be this wet?

As if he could read my mind, Eric whipped his face on my butt cheek before giving it a lick and a kiss. “I love how wet you are for me baby.” I was shocked when he plunged two fingers straight into my pussy and swirled them around. “Just listen to that.”

In the quiet room, I could easily hear the squelching wet noises as his fingers stroked inside of me. “That’s beautiful. Knowing how ready you are for me, how much you want me. It’s so damn sexy.”

Then he withdrew his fingers and dragged them up to circle my clit. The feel of his able fingers pinching my sensitive nub made me whimper with pleasure, but he didn’t linger. His fingers retreated back towards my opening almost immediately. The fingers traveled further south, gathering more and more of my juices as they went, until he reached my tight, virgin asshole.

I froze, but didn’t say anything as his finger circled my puckered hole again and again, spreading my wetness around and around. The move seemed like a tease and a question all at once.

He wanted in.

Eric wanted to be inside of me in an entirely new way, to give me something new and take something I had never given anyone else. I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to do with that finger, but he asked me earlier if I trusted him, and I did. So rather than allow myself to overthink every decision I made with him that night, I simply tilted my hips back and pushed back into his circling finger.

I let out a little whimper as the tip of his finger breached my tight hold and I heard him growl.

His other hand still held my cheeks apart and I felt so filthy with the knowledge that I was letting this man watch his finger disappear into my ass. But I liked it. I liked being dirty and wanton and slutty. And I liked the odd sensation of his little thrusts as he pushed and pulled his finger into and out of my tight little hole, even if it was just to the first knuckle or so.

‘’You’re a natural, baby. Look at how well you’re taking my finger.” He gave my butt another little kiss before asking “Do you want more?”

I let out a little moan and nodded my head, but he just laughed and kept his finger right where it was.

“You need to use your words, love.”

This time my groan was half in frustration as I thrashed around. I fought for words, but I was lost in sensation. It only got worse when I received another three slaps, this time to my left ass cheek and thigh.

Somehow I managed a wild “Yes!” and some incoherent babble through the haze, but it must have been enough, because Eric was once again thrusting his finger in and out of my ass. This time though, I could feel him delving deeper little by little with every thrust.

Every now and then, Eric gave his finger a little twist as he moved. One twist, a few strokes at just the right angle, and he hit something inside of me that I didn’t know existed.

It was my undoing.

A fire lit, my brain fogged, and before I realized what I was doing, I was shoving back onto that one finger again and again until I was riding him far more than I was simply letting him have at me. I cried out and begged, “Again! Again! More! More!” I was so close to something huge.

Suddenly, he pulled out. His finger was removed entirely, but I didn’t have enough time to protest before Eric was slamming himself deep in my pussy.

His strokes were harsh and wild and he grunted with the effort. I could feel his desire to punish me with every thrust, but it only drove me higher.

He pulled me to him by the waist on one particularly deep slam, then he held me there with him seated to the hilt inside of me. I felt one of his hands leave my waist to wrap around my long hair in a tight fist. With a strong pull, he yanked me to him until my back arched and my head was thrown back while my hands remained bound to the footboard.

“You thought you could come without me, Delaine? Not like that.” He growled in my ear.

He released my hip to give another set of sharp swats to my ass. “I said don’t move, and you moved.” Another set of ass-reddening slaps. “Now you’re trying to use my finger to get off like I’m some sort of emotionless object.” Another spank. “How do you think that makes me feel?”

I could feel tears leaking down my face. Not from the pain, either from the spanking or the hair pulling, but from the sexual frustration. I had been denied, driven higher, then denied again. The need was driving me mad.

I was so close now. I teetered on the edge, but I knew that he needed to be the one to pull the trigger and push me over.

“Please.” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry. Just… please.”

Eric released my hair, bent over me to free my hands, then removed the blindfold. “You are such a good girl, Delaine. I forgive you. Just don’t do it again.” He placed a soft kiss over my tear-streaked cheek and whispered “hold on baby. I’m gonna’ make this good for you, good for both of us.”

I returned my hands to the footboard and Eric’s hands slid until he held my waste. Then he began to move.

His thrusts was deep and deliberate, each one seemed to force the air from me until I was gasping for breath. He was hitting just the right spot inside of me that I was soon back to teetering on that peak high above anywhere I could have imagined before tonight. I felt like I was sitting at the top of a rollercoaster, holding my breath and waiting to tip over that edge and fall into the type of adrenalin-filled euphoria that makes your life flash before your eyes.

One of Eric’s hands reached around me to pinch my clit and the other slipped between us to press his finger back into my ass to stroke that new-found place of bliss, and with one last thrust, he pushed me over the edge.

I let out a cry that might have alerted the whole building had he not found my mouth with his own. I felt his fingers smear my juices across my cheek as he held my face in place. Our kiss was all teeth and tongues as we came together. My own climax flooding my body in sharp crescendos, then rolling waves, only being dragged out by the feeling of him pulsing inside of me.

The feeling was unreal, but all-consuming and I was suddenly drained.

I collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion just as Julia’s frustrated call filtered through the door “God damn it guys! That better not be happening on any of MY furniture!”

***

She had kicked him out. Why did she keep doing that? Giving so much before running away again?

Eric don’t know what he expected to happen after some of the most mind-blowing sex of his life with the girl he had been chasing for months now, but it wasn’t rejected cuddles and quiet mumbles about how he should go and she was crashing with Julia that night.

Then she left. Grabbed her clothes, walked straight into the bathroom still naked, and locked the door. He knew that she wouldn’t be out until he was gone, so he left. He dressed and headed for the door, avoiding eye contact with an annoyed, yet amused Julia on the way out.

Eric took a step in the direction of his dorm, when he stopped to consider whether Xander would be there. Maybe. He hadn’t stayed after the epic fight they had had over Delaine last night, but they both knew that he’d have to deal with last night’s fall out eventually, just like Eric was.

He thought about leaving. Turning around and going somewhere, anywhere but back into that dorm, but Eric refused to let the meat-headed child scare him away from his own bedroom. He was there first and he had had Delaine last. Whatever they had had together before, whatever had happened between them last night, he had had her last.

Armed with that knowledge, he marched back to his dorm.

He wasn’t surprised to see Xander sitting on the couch when he walked in. The kid looked tired and a bit defeated sitting slumped over, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He looked disheveled even compared to Eric. His clothing was rumpled and what he could see of his hair looked as if he’s been running his hands through it all day to the point where it was greasy and limp. When Xander looked up, Eric could also see the exhausted eyes of someone who hadn’t slept at all the night before.

Eric didn’t have to like the kid. He was a cocky bastard and a liar, not to mention that he acted like the human-embodiment of a keg-stand in a trucker cap. All that aside, it was obvious that Xander really liked Delaine. It was hard to say if he really cared about her, but he certainly cared for her.

He wished it was easy to write off Xander’s pursuit of Delaine as a player’s attempt to catch the hot chick playing hard to get. It would make this whole ordeal so much easier if he could claim the moral high ground and convince himself that he was the only one who wanted Delaine for more than her body, but he couldn’t. It was impossible to do when Xander looked so crestfallen and hopeless the day after getting said hot chick in his bed (a fact Xander was sure to throw in his face during their stand-off last night).

“You and Laine…?” Xander’s quiet, half-finished question broke the silence. He didn’t finish it though. They both knew the question and they both knew the answer.

All Eric said was “I’ve said my piece. The decision is up to her.”

Chapter 7 Coming Eventually