I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that every man should at some point in his young life be under the tutelage of an older woman, but I do know that if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t even consider changing what happened during my freshman year in college.

What did Mrs. Toni Franklin teach me that was so valuable? It wasn’t what you might think-it wasn’t the tips or tricks or techniques she taught me to use with a woman in bed, although I have to admit, those were undeniably helpful. It wasn’t really the sex at all, to tell you the truth.

Toni was a goddess, and she knew it. She taught me to worship her the way all women should be worshipped-not from afar, put on a pedestal like some untouchable, but in the flesh, as the sleek, voluptuous creature of the earth she was.

Women are amazing, amorphous, changeably delightful creatures, and I know most men spend their whole lives trying to figure them out. Toni made me realize that most men too often hit the tree, but miss the target. The lovely mystery of woman was meant to be experienced and enjoyed, not measured and controlled.

Toni taught me that women are the weather.

If you want to know what the weather is like, open the window. Can you predict the weather? Sometimes you can feel a storm rolling in, or see a gorgeous blue sky and know rain isn’t anywhere in the near future. But how much energy have we wasted trying to control or manipulate it, living in fear of storms? Men have created all sorts of instruments in an attempt to predict the path of the weather, and while we have advanced to some degree, there are always rainbows that go missed, tsunamis that could never have been foreseen.

It is an impossible and futile task, when a man makes a woman a problem or puzzle to be solved. They are and always will be unpredictable. I’d rather spend my time basking in the sunshine and walking in the rain than fiddling with instruments and planning a siege against the next onslaught. If you’re not living in the present, you’re not living at all.

I was nineteen when I met Toni. I would never deny or discount how much I learned, the invaluable gifts she gave as my tutor-and not just in the lessons of love and women. Toni opened my life, unlocking parts of me I hid from everyone, even myself. And when she discovered my deepest secret, she still didn’t falter.

Instead, she just taught me how to read.

Henry hated libraries. He couldn’t think of a place he felt more uncomfortable than standing in the shadows of thousands of books. He was in the basement of the UGLi-the University of Michigan Undergraduate Library-and he couldn’t have come up with a more apt name for the place than the one his fellow students had coined, the stacks looming, the florescent lights casting a dull, eerie glow.

“Four seventy-five.” His whisper was barely an exhale but it felt loud in the silence as he ran his finger along the spines of books, their plastic covers crinkling. He repeated his excuse for checking this particular book out in his head. It’s for my nephew. He’s in kindergarten.

Of course, he didn’t have a nephew. His older sister, as far as he knew, was far from hooked-up, let alone ready to get married and have a baby. But what were the odds he would run into anyone who knew his family here on campus? It’s for my little cousin. He changed his head-story, just to be safe. He’s having trouble.

Trouble. Yeah. He was in big trouble all right.

“Can I help you find something?”

Henry gave a strangled, smothered cry, taking a step back when a pretty redhead popped her head around the corner of the stacks.

“It’s okay, I work here.” The redhead stepped around to his side of the shelves, smiling, and he felt his heart pounding again, but for a different reason this time. “You sounded a little lost.”

“I need a book.”

Smooth, Henry.

He held out the paper scrap he’d copied the call number on to avoid any further talking and possible embarrassment.

She took it from him, studying it, and he studied her-gray skirt and black sweater, making her long red hair, straight and almost to the middle of her back, seem even more like fire, even in the dim light. She had to be a student, he thought, as she turned to the stacks, running her fingernail over spines the same way he had. She was young, about his age. He watched her fingers caressing the books, long and delicate compared to his big old paws, the nails neatly manicured.

“You’re in the right place,” she murmured, moving her finger up to the next shelf. “Would you get me that stool?”

He went to the end of the aisle where she pointed, dragging the rolling stool over toward her in response, not daring any more words. They’d just get him in trouble.

“Thanks.” She gave him a grateful smile, stepping up onto the stool and reaching for the top shelf. Her legs were long, too, her skin pale and creamy. He realized, watching her stretch, one of her feet slipping loose of her heels, that she wasn’t wearing any nylons. Seeing the intimate pink flesh of her instep as she went up onto her toes made his breath catch and he swallowed his immediate response, trying to look anywhere else.

She glanced down at him, still smiling. “Would you hold me?”

He gaped up at her, dumbfounded. Hold her? That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do to her-but hell, it was a start.

“Hold…you?” He faltered.

“I don’t want to fall,” she explained. “Just hold me. Here.” She reached for his hand, guiding, placing his palm flat against the curve of her hip. He matched the gesture on her other side, squeezing gently, feeling her skirt shift over her skin underneath as she stretched up again. He steadied her, his eyes level with her back, her hair tickling his nose. Not that he was complaining.

“Ah, got it!” she announced, triumphant, turning around on the stool so quickly it startled him and he grabbed her waist, finding himself eye-level now with the tiny buds of her breasts in her black v-neck sweater. He realized, too late, that he should have offered to retrieve the book, but he was too distracted by his current view to lament his lack of chivalry. “Oh. Wow. This is the book you wanted?”

He flushed, glad for the dark shadows now, his story all ready in his head. “It’s for my little cousin. He’s having trouble in kindergarten.”

He waited for the anticipated response. Hell, it might even earn him some points.

Oh how sweet you are to help him. You must like little kids.

The redhead was silent. She stepped off the stool, out of Henry’s arms, and held the book out to him. Glancing down at the cover, his eyes widened, mouth dropping. If he’d been red before, he was positively purple now.

“That’s-” He couldn’t get the words out, staring at the picture of the completely nude, entwined couple on the front. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra. “That’s not-”

“Not what?” She blinked at him, trying not to smile. “Not appropriate for kindergarteners?”

“No,” he croaked, desperate to correct the mistake. “That’s not the book I was looking for.”

“You sure?” She smirked. “It’s the number you wrote down.” She showed him the slip of paper, and sure enough, the Dewey decimal matched perfectly-375.4 W.

“But I looked it up on the computer!” He pointed desperately to the end of the aisle.

She hesitated, looking like she wasn’t sure she was ready to believe him.

“Come look!” He stalked down to the end of the stacks and around the corner. There was a row of computers near the elevators and he went straight to the one he’d used to look up the book. He turned to find her behind him, curious, and he pointed to the screen. No one had touched it since and it was still up there, plain as day. “See!”

She leaned in, glancing from the title to the slip of paper she held. “Well, I found your problem.” Sitting down at the computer, she began to type. Another title came up on the screen, the one Henry still had in his hand. He dropped it on a chair face down when he realized, glad it was out of sight. Not that he hadn’t appreciated the subject-or the picture on the front, for that matter. If he’d been alone, he probably would have flipped through it, just out of curiosity. But with the redhead there, it was all too embarrassing to be contemplated.

“The call number for the Kama Sutra book is 375.4 W.” She pointed to the scrap of paper. “That’s what you wrote down.” She hit the back button on the screen to the book Henry had originally looked up. “The call number for the book you wanted is 372.4 W. You transposed the five and the two.”

“Brilliant, Henry,” he muttered.

She used one of the stubby pencils to correct the number on the scrap of paper, trying to hide a smile. “Well, the good news is this book should be on the same shelf. And it’s much more age-appropriate.”

“Pretty diverse subject matter to be on the same damned shelf,” he growled as he followed her. She had picked up the other book to re-shelve it.

“They’re both guides,” she explained, getting back up on the stool. Henry reached out to hold her hips again without thinking and she smiled a thanks down at him. “You know, those Idiot Guides and the books For Dummies, they’re all shelved in the same place, by last name. Just so happens both are written by an author with a last name starting with W.”

“Oh damn.” Her shoulders slumped. “ Teaching Kids to Read for Dummies isn’t here.”

“Is it checked out?”

“I don’t think so.” She slipped through his hands on the way down to the floor and the feel of her lithe little body gave him a jolt. “It would have said so on the computer. I bet someone’s stolen it.”

“That’s pretty low, stealing from a library.”

“Happens all the time. I can’t wait until books go all-digital. No more stealing, no more late fees, no more re-shelving!” She regarded him, cocking her head to one side, and he didn’t point out the obvious no more librarians conclusion implied in her train of thought. “Do you have an e-reader?”

“You mean, like one of those Kindle things?” He shook his head. “I’ve got a laptop, though.”

“You can check it out digitally if you want.” She sounded excited as he followed her down the row and back through the aisles of books. Pausing at the row of computers, she frowned. “But I don’t know if it would work so well for your little cousin, reading it on the computer.”

“Oh that’s okay.” He waved her concern away. “I’m just reading it so I can help him. The ‘Dummy’ in the title is me, not him.” That he believed the statement to be more true than he wanted to admit, even to himself, was another point he wasn’t going to bring up.

“That’s so sweet.” The look she gave him made him want to melt. There was the reaction he’d been expecting in the first place.

He hoped his blush appeared properly humble. “Thanks.”

“Let’s see if we have a digital copy.” She sat back down in front of the terminal, typing away again, and this time Henry sat beside her. He was big for the little chairs, but she fit perfectly, crossing her slender, shapely legs and leaning toward the screen.

“So are you a librarian?” He didn’t believe it for a minute.

“I’m just a student assistant,” she explained, frowning as used the mouse to scroll down the screen. “I started working here last year and love it so much I changed my major to library science.”

“So you’re a sophomore?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

At least she’s not a senior, he told himself, not volunteering the fact that he was just a lowly freshman. She could probably tell anyway, the way he’d been stumbling around the stacks, looking lost. His roommate, Dean, said freshmen were like baby pigs, lost and rooting around looking for something to get into. Of course, Dean didn’t really consider himself a freshman, even though he was. His parents were both alumni, his brother had graduated the year before, and his sister the year before that. He was like a celebrity on campus, a first string wide-receiver on the U of M football team.

“I’m sorry.” She pointed to the screen. “It’s not available as an ebook.”

“Ah well.” He shrugged. “We tried, right?”

Her eyes were a bright, shocking blue, and that, combined with the red hair and the smattering of freckles across her nose, and the way her lips pursed and her brow furrowed, made him think he’d never seen anything cuter in his life.

He’d seen lots of girls in his five weeks on campus-blondes, brunettes and redheads alike. Dean had introduced him to most of them. Some of them had been real knock-outs, the sort you couldn’t even approach without stammering and going cross-eyed, the kind you knew had to spend hours getting ready to go out every night.

But this girl…she was so naturally pretty it was hard to even wrap your head around it. She was the kind of girl that would grow old gracefully, who would spend her whole life looking beautiful not because she tried to be, just because that’s who she was, at her very center. It radiated out of her like light and he gravitated to it like a moth, feeling like he was bumping his head against glass the whole time.

“How about this one?”

He just observed her as she spoke, trance-like. “Huh?”

“We’ve got Phonics for Dummies.” She tapped the screen with her fingernail. “And most beginning reading problems usually stem from a phonics issue anyway.”

He stared at her, not really understanding a word she was saying, just sort of basking in her light. Now he didn’t feel like a moth-he felt more like a lizard on a rock, lazy and slow to respond, with no other thought in his head but his own basic need, which was growing more apparent by the moment.

“Um, okay,” he agreed. She could have said, “I think you should set your hair on fire and jump out the window,” and he probably would have agreed. Good thing they were in the basement.

“How exciting!” She stood, smoothing her skirt, and he remembered the texture of the material, wooly and soft, under his hands. He couldn’t have agreed more about the exciting part. “Let’s go upstairs. The ebook system is brand new, and this will be my first digital checkout!”

“So I can say I was your first?” Henry grinned as he followed her to the elevator.

“Dubious honor.” She pushed the button, giving him a sly, slanted look as she reached down to pick up the book he’d left in the chair. “But I suppose you can say you broke my digital-checkout cherry.”

He laughed. “Not quite as fun as the other one.”

“Print books, you mean?” She winked as the elevator doors closed behind them.

“Right.” He nodded. “That’s what I meant.”

Of course, now he was thinking things he shouldn’t and silently cursing the guy who got to hit that for the first time, if he was being totally honest. Which he wasn’t about to be, at least out loud, with the girl standing next to him.

“Have you ever read the Kama Sutra?” She leaned in close, as if there was someone else who could hear her, leafing through the book she’d picked up on their way into the elevator.

He eyed her, surprised, brain devoid of any snappy comeback. “No.”

“Look at that.” She paused at one of the pages. The book didn’t just have drawings of people, no-it was fully, pictorially illustrated. Christ. Henry swallowed, studying what was essentially porn open in the girl’s hands.”Do you think that’s even possible?”

“Ouch,” he agreed, noting the position, the guy standing, the woman’s legs bent at an awkward angle. How was he even holding her up?

“Oh, but this one’s nice,” she said, stopping on another page. The couple was kind of spooning.

“Nuh-nice.” Henry stammered.

“Sure you didn’t want to check this book out?” She winked and he noticed that even her eyelashes were red. A natural redhead. That meant that wherever else she had hair on her body, it was most likely red, too. She interrupted his straying thoughts. “No law saying you can’t. Thank god.”

“Yeah, censorship sucks,” he agreed, boldly reaching over and flipping a page. Then another. He could smell her, a light, clean scent, soap or shampoo maybe.

She stopped him, a small noise escaping her throat. “That one.”

The guy’s face was buried between the woman’s thighs, her legs up over his shoulders. You couldn’t really see anything, but you knew just what was going on.

“One of my all-time favorites.” Henry’s arm brushed hers as he reached out to turn the page again.

“Mine, too,” she breathed, making another noise at the position on the next page. “That’s a fun one. Ride ’em, cowgirl.”

“Is it just me or is it hot in here?” He shifted from foot to foot, peeking at the lights on the elevator. They were passing the ground floor now. Checkout was on the second floor.

“Got kind of intimate all of a sudden, didn’t it?” She was so close he could count her freckles. “Elevators do that to me anyway.” Her voice was low and sexy. The tone made his mouth water. He saw a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Closed spaces.”

“You’re obviously not claustrophobic.”

First floor. Almost there.

She laughed as the elevator doors opened, stepping out and walking toward the checkout. Henry followed, giving up his student ID, which doubled as his library card, watching her as she typed and swiped and did whatever she needed to do.

There was another woman watching them-probably the real librarian, a pudgy woman with short black hair and thickly painted on red lipstick that was bleeding into the faint outline of her mustache. She was a far cry from his wet dream archetypal image of a librarian, but her demeanor was similar, the serious frown, the watchful eyes. She looked like she was about to say, “Shhh!” at any moment.

The flirty, suggestive girl from the elevator had disappeared-the redhead turned into all-business when the librarian was around.

“Okay, I think I did this right.” She handed back his card. “You’ll get an email with a link. Just click it and download the ebook file. It will expire in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Henry gulped. How in the hell was he going to learn to read in two weeks?

“You can check it out again, as long as it hasn’t been requested by someone else,” she explained. There was a line behind him now, and the red-lipstick librarian was watching them with raised eyebrows.

“Okay you’re all set…Henry,” the redhead said loudly, squinting at his card as she handed it back to him.

“Thanks.” He leaned forward onto the counter, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You know, they say you never forget your first.”

She smiled. “But you don’t even know my name.”

“I’m such a dog.” He pulled out his wallet so he could put his card back-just an excuse to talk to her longer. “With a long string of ebook checkout firsts all through the state…”

“Olivia.” She leaned forward to tell him, so close he felt her breath on his cheek. “Libby.”

He heard the girl behind him grumble loudly as he slipped his ID into his wallet.

“Maybe I’ll see you around, Libby.” Henry put his wallet into his back pocket, stepping away from the counter.

Libby winked. “I’ll be here.”

“I hate football.” Libby was shivering, even in her oversized matching gold and blue scarf and knit hat and mittens, all with the U of M logo on them. She seemed so small sitting next to him.

“You’re cold.” Henry started taking off his jacket for her, but she stopped him, shaking her head and sliding her body closer, as close as she could with the armrest in the way.

“Just put your arm around me,” she urged, teeth chattering. The wind was wicked and Henry happily did as she asked.

“Better?” He smiled when she tucked her head under his chin. He could feel her body already beginning to relax.

“Much.” Her voice was muffled in his jacket. Down below, the band looked like little toy soldiers marching across the field. It was all a big show, the first game of the season.

“So if you hate football…” Henry’s arm tightened around her as they both tried to make themselves as small as possible while a man and his son squeezed by.”Why did you come?”

Libby didn’t say anything for a minute and he wondered if she was going to answer at all when she finally changed the subject and asked, “So, you play hockey?”

“Uh-huh.” In his pocket, Henry’s phone went off for the third time. He’d put it on vibrate, but it still startled them. He ignored it anyway.

She lifted her head and he liked how close she was, how her breath smelled like the cinnamon Trident gum she had been chewing on their walk to the stadium. “Think I could come watch a practice?”

“You like hockey?” She hated football and liked hockey. It had to be a sign.

“Oh I love hockey,” she agreed, snuggling closer again. “I just wish I could afford season tickets.”

“I get two free tickets for every home game. You can have them if you want. Unless my parents are coming or something. Mostly they can’t make the games. It’s too far.”

“I’d like that.” He thought he heard a smile in her voice. The stadium was on its feet now, ready to welcome the home team, but they both stayed put. “So what’s your major, Henry?”

He snorted. “Hockey.”

“Are you good enough to play pro?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. The dream of becoming a professional hockey player was so enormous for him, it was unspeakable. “Maybe.” Now he was desperate to change the subject. “So you didn’t always want to be a librarian?”

“No, I wanted to be an investigative journalist.” Libby clapped her mittened hands as the team burst out onto the field, but Henry didn’t take his arm from around her to do the same.

“What happened to that plan?” He was far more interested in their conversation than the upcoming game. Damn, there went his phone again. He jammed his hand into his pocket to silence the vibration.

She shrugged, leaning forward in her seat now to see, and he didn’t like it when she moved too far away. “Well, for one thing, newspapers are disappearing.”

“There’s always TV.”

She mock-shuddered. “I couldn’t do TV news.”

“Why not? You’re gorgeous. You’d make a great news anchor.” It was true. Of course, she could have made a great anything in that regard-model, actress, whatever. Although Henry thought it would be a waste of her real talents, he also believed someone should bask in her beauty. He selfishly thought it should be him.

“Well thanks for the compliment, but I get tongue tied.” Libby pulled out her cell phone and clicked the camera on, taking a picture of the field. “There, now we can show Dean proof we were here.”

“I bet you could overcome it,” Henry encouraged.

She made a goofy face at him, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes. It made him laugh. “You haven’t seen me. I freeze up. I stutter. It isn’t pretty.”

“Well, librarians are cool.” He thought whatever she did would be cool.

“So are hockey players.” She turned her attention fully to him, pressing close, her thigh brushing against his. He insanely wished, even though it was only forty-something degrees outside, that they were wearing shorts so he could feel her skin. His phone buzzed again and he swore, taking it out of his pocket.

“Who keeps calling you? Is it your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” Henry made sure to say that first. “It’s my mother.”

“Shouldn’t you answer it?”

He clicked silence all with one hand and slipped it back into his jacket pocket. “She just wants to yell at me about my grades.”

“Oh, you have those kinds of parents too.” She had a sad sort of knowing expression in her eyes.

“Actually no.” Henry couldn’t help being fair to his mom. She hardly ever yelled at him about anything, except maybe the time when he was seven and he’d taken his dad’s spray paint from the garage so he could paint the entire lawn blue. He just wanted to play “shark,” he’d told her-and it didn’t look enough like an ocean. Mostly, she was kind and sympathetic and understanding. It drove him crazy. “She’s just worried. She wants to help.”

“Are you going to let her help?” Libby gave him a sly glance.

He shrugged. “She wants to get me a tutor.”

“Hey, that was my suggestion.”

“I know.”

“So what do you have against tutors?” She nudged him in the ribs and he grunted. “Is it a pride thing?”

“I guess.” He pretended to be interested in what was going on down on the field.

“Everybody needs help sometimes.” Libby leaned in to say this, almost whispering. “It doesn’t mean you’re stupid or anything.”

“Gee thanks.” The wind had picked up and he hoped it explained away the redness in his cheeks.

“I’m freezing.” She was shivering again and he pulled her closer, wishing the armrest between them would disappear. The band had started again, the fight song this time, and people were on their feet. At least it blocked the wind.

“Hey, do you think Dean would know if we went back to your room?”

Her words made him stiffen. In more ways than one.

“Probably not.” He tried to sound casual. “He wanted me to take you back there afterwards anyway. He’s got some frat stuff to do first.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Alpha Pi Alpha?”

“That’s the one.”

She made a face. “The worst of them all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but Dean had convinced him it was a great group of guys, that if he pledged, he would have friends for life. “Brothers, “Dean said. That was what convinced Henry. He had an older sister, but he’d always wanted brothers.

“You’re not pledging, are you?” Libby gave him a funny look, frowning.

He loved the way her brow crinkled. Those lines would probably develop into something permanent when she was older. She’d probably hate them and curse them and want to get Botox injections or something. And he thought, if he were lucky enough to still be alive and around when Libby hated those lines, he would love them just as much then as he did right now.

Henry deflected the question. “Why?”

“I did a story for The Michigan Daily about hazing last year,” she told him. “They do some awful stuff to their pledges.”

“Ah hah!” Henry exclaimed, still deflecting. “So you were a reporter!”

“ Were is the optimum word there.” Libby stood and Henry lamented this, scanning her pretty, round face. She held a gold and blue mittened hand out to him and he couldn’t resist. He would have said yes to anything she asked. “Come on, let’s go get warm.”

Libby kept close the whole walk back to the dorm, her arm linked through Henry’s-and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just because she was cold. Bel’s door was open as they went by and he waved from his bed, the TV loud. The game was on, and the cheers of the crowd sounded both on the television and far in the distance, an echo.

“This is better than shivering in the stands!” Libby pulled off her mittens, hat and scarf, shaking her hair out as she left her coat on his bed, already wandering around the room. He threw his coat next to hers, shoving them both over to sit cross-legged on the bed, watching her touch things, pick them up, put them down again.

She explored Henry’s desk this time, marveling at the volume of mini cassette tapes he had there. “Why so many?”

“I record all my lectures.” He grabbed his iPod out of habit, flipping through for something to listen to.

“Whatcha got?” Libby crawled onto the bed and he welcomed her warm weight as she settled herself beside him. “Anything good?”

Without a word, he reached over and opened his desk drawer, pulling out two pairs of headphones. He had a splitter that allowed them both to listen at the same time, and he handed her a pair. She slipped them on just as he hit play.

“The Runaways?” Libby listened, a smile curling the corners of her mouth.

He found it hard to not lean over and kiss her, both because she was so irresistible and because she’d instantly recognized the band. He held his breath as she situated herself with her head in his lap, her long legs stretched out, settling her yellow-and-blue stockinged feet halfway up his wall.

“Awesome,” she murmured, her eyes tilting back to him, and he noticed they were a shade of blue so incredible he was sure the color couldn’t have occurred anywhere in

nature. “Spin me some tunes, Mr. DJ.”

They say men hit their sexual peak at eighteen, Henry thought, watching his fellow pledges, seeing their dicks slowly getting hard again, while at the same time trying to seem as if he wasn’t paying attention. I hope I haven’t hit mine yet.

Someone had turned up the sound on the television and the two women were on their knees in front of the guy now, giving him a hell of a blowjob. The blonde’s mouth was lipstick-red, but the redhead’s was pink and open, soft and natural, her tongue licking at the cock on the screen like she was trying to catch all the drips on a melting ice cream cone.

Henry’s dick began to jerk to life again, even without any aid. Condoms were passed out once more, and Marcus stood at the end of the shortened aisle of chairs holding a Fleshlight in each hand like a bizarre double-fisted Statue of Liberty. For a moment, Henry couldn’t believe he was doing this. He had just masturbated naked in a room full of other guys-and was about to do it again.

But he wanted to win.

Maybe it was just the peer pressure. Or maybe it was Dean sitting across from him-again, directly across from him! He’d even seen his roommate move his chair so it would work out that way, like he wanted to be in direct competition. Well fine. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he was going to get, Henry decided, wrapping his hand around the expanding length of his cock and squeezing.

He gazed up at the television screen for inspiration. Damn, but that redhead looked like Libby. He wondered briefly if Dean had planned this, even down to the porn choice-but how much influence could he have? He was a pledge, too, after all. Had he known about this, though? Somehow Henry just had a feeling…

The first two guys were condomed up and ready to go, although he didn’t know if they were going to last very long. Neither had gotten a chance to fuck the sex toy in the first round, because the guy they’d been paired up with had been disqualified. Marcus handed each of them a Fleshlight and they all watched, the eight in chairs and the crowd of guys surrounding them, as the two pledges poised their dicks right at the entrance of each toy.

Just like a pussy, Henry thought again. The feeling had been so real, so different from a hand or a mouth, it was staggering. It triggered something primal in his brain, something deep and uncontrollable, seeing something so realistic, watching a hard cock parting the flesh-like wetness, ready to enter. He knew it wasn’t real, but oh, it looked and felt so real, he could almost believe it.

It seemed to provoke something primitive in all of them as Marcus counted down the beginning of the round with a “Mark, set, go!” and they were off. Not just the two holding the toy, but all the guys, even the ones standing out of this round. Many of them had their hands between their legs, pumping their cocks as they watched, and even the older frat guys were rubbing at their clothed crotches.

Henry had been right-the first two guys didn’t take long at all. He couldn’t see the guy in his own row very well, but he could hear the Fleshlight’s natural suction and see it flying up and down his cock. The first guy across from him, though, an Asian guy with long dark hair that didn’t quite cover the way he was biting his lip, his face twisted in pleasure as he rocked his hips up against the toy in his hands.

The chant was building again: “Come! Come! Come!” Both pledges did their best to comply, but it was the Asian kid who made it there first, his hips thrusting up so far into the air when he climaxed, his ass came right off the chair. The other guy, probably prompted by the sound of his fraternity brother’s orgasm, erupted immediately after him, but it was too late. Looking embarrassed but proud, the Asian guy stood and pulled off his condom and held it up, his cock still dripping cum down between his feet.

“Goddamn!” Marcus slapped the pledge on the back. “We’ve got our first round-two winner!”

Which meant Henry had two more of those to get through before it was his turn. His cock was so hard in his fist he felt like he could have mined diamonds with it. He knew his body well enough to know he could come twice pretty quickly. In fact, if he had enough stimulation, he could come just minutes after the first. He’d just done it early this morning, the light faint through the blinds, biting his lip to keep quiet and not wake Dean as he imagined coming first all over the soft, pale skin of Libby’s belly and then into her sweet, pouty mouth.

The problem for Henry wasn’t whether or not he could get hard and come twice so quickly. The problem was going to be holding back until he could get his hands on the Fleshlight again. He didn’t, however, know if he could do it a third time. And a fourth? Impossible.

Henry had already put his condom on, hoping the tight end near the base might help him hold back. The next two guys, he knew, would take longer, because they’d both gotten off in round one.

“On your mark…get set…go!”

Henry watched his dorm mate, Bel, slide the Fleshlight slowly down, letting it envelop his shaft. Not gonna win that way, he thought, but then it occurred to him that Bel was likely a virgin and had probably never been inside a woman before. No wonder he was savoring the sensation.

Bel had gone off like a rocket the first time, but he was clearly determined not to go so fast this round. He moved it slow and easy, eyes closed, taking it all the way up so the silicone pussy lips rubbed the head of his cock and then sliding it all the way back down again, grinding his hips, as if he could push in any deeper.

Across from him, the guy with the tribal tattoo on his forearm was pumping his fist, his breath coming hard and fast. That’s how I have to do it a second time, too, Henry thought, watching the pistoning action out of the corner of his eye, too fascinated by Bel’s restraint to stop watching him.

Bel’s mouth was open, eyes closed, head back, his cock just gone, buried into the deep recesses of the simulated pussy shoved against his pelvis, hips rocking, and Henry tried to imagine how it must feel, all those lubricated ridges in there nuzzling the sensitive head of his dick.

I have to own that thing.

A low moan started in Bel’s throat and, across from him, the tribal tattoo guy’s muscles were tight, his eyes closed too, his body literally shaking with his impending orgasm. They were close. They were both close-one fucking himself like a rabbit, the other going at a turtle’s pace-and yet they were going to arrive at the same destination any minute now.

“Come! Come! Come!”

They were coming, all around.

As the chant began, Henry heard a loud groan behind him as another pledge lost it, jerking his cock to a shuddering completion. Like firecrackers going off, it began to happen across from him, cum running in rivers down their thighs or splashed onto the backs of chairs. His cock throbbed. It ached. It begged to be touched.

“Oh! Oh!” It was Bel-what was he doing? He slid out of the chair to kneel on the floor, both hands on the Fleshlight as he shoved his hips up and forward, making low grunting sounds with every movement. The crowd roared their approval but Bel didn’t even hear them.

“Ahhhhhh!” Tattoo guy was close. Really close. This was a hell of a tight race. Henry would have laughed at his own pun if his cock hadn’t felt swollen to ten times its normal size between his legs. He didn’t dare touch it now.

“Fuck that little pussy,” Bel murmured, totally lost in whatever fantasy was playing in his head. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so strangely arousing. Here he was watching his dorm mate get himself off, his skinny arms straining with the effort, the white expanse of his belly practically concave, and Henry’s own cock was as hard as it had ever been. What was wrong with this picture?

“Oh god I’m gonna come inside that hot… ahhhh… fucking… ahhhh… hole… ohhhhHHH!”

Bel’s gonna win, Henry realized, glancing over at the tattoo guy, his face red, his cock and balls, too, the wet suction sound of the toy loud and fast. The turtle’s gonna win the race!

“Fucking pussy!” Bel cried, arching his back and thrusting deep. “Oh that fucking tight cunt!” He growled like an animal, his whole body convulsing as he came, and Henry couldn’t help but wonder what girl he might be imagining, just whose pussy he was filling as he gritted his teeth and gave it everything he had.

More guys were going off around them, jerking their dicks fast and furious. Henry swallowed as, down his row, the tattoo guy finally got off, hips jerking, twisting the sex toy around on his dick again and again as he shot his load into it. There’s something a real pussy can’t do, Henry thought, as the tattooed guy twisted the toy right off to reveal his thick cock, the condom on it wet and filled with cum.

“Winner!” The frat brother behind Bel announced. Bel had finally given up the toy, reluctantly slipping it off the end of his cock and peeling down the condom. Bel threw himself happily back into his chair, still panting, the guys all cheering and pumping their fists-the ones not wrapped around their dicks, anyway.

Well, actually, they were pumping those, too…

“Next pair up!” Marcus took the Fleshlights, stepping down the line.

Henry glanced next to him at the guy with the frizzy red hair, the one that made him think that if Carrot Top and Danny Bonaduce ever had a kid together, he would be it. Cody was across from him, sitting next to Dean. Henry avoided his roommate’s gaze, but he could see Dean had started already, fisting his cock and jerking it as he watched the next two pledges each take a Fleshlight and poise them above their condom-covered dicks.

By the time Marcus said, “Go!” Cody was already moaning, his eyes wide at first when he slipped into the wet recesses of the sex toy, and then closing in pure delight. He hadn’t had the chance to fuck it yet and Henry stared, fascinated, as Cody caught a quick rhythm, the low groan in his voice building to a growl. It was hardly fair, considering Carrot Top had come once already, but it was over almost before it began.

“Oh fuck! Oh my fucking god! That’s too good!”

The whole room laughed and brayed in agreement as Cody grunted and thrust deep, shuddering as he came. The redheaded kid was jerking himself with the toy as fast as he could, but it was no use. Cody’s condom was off already, his cock wilting as he was declared the winner.

But the redheaded kid wasn’t giving up. He was inside the thing now, and he wanted to finish. Not that Henry could blame him.

“Come! Come! Come!” The chant started again and behind him, Henry heard another groan as someone else obeyed.

“Goddamn!” Carrot Top turned his head toward the television screen for incentive. The blonde was sitting on the guy’s face, rubbing her pussy all over his tongue, while the redhead sat up on his dick, riding him. The camera moved in for a close-up on the blonde’s shaved pussy and Henry couldn’t help but make the comparison between toy and cunt. Pink and wet and open and waiting…

Fuck.

Henry had to turn his head when the camera moved in on the other girl, the redhead who resembled Libby. Her pussy was stretched with the guy’s cock, her fingers down there rubbing her little clit, nipples hard, the skin around them puckered. He could barely stand to listen to her soft cries of pleasure over the roomful of whistles and shouts, guys urging Carrot Top on.

“Yeah!” Carrot Top stood, facing the television, blocking Henry’s view, and he was glad. He could barely catch his breath as it was, his own cock pulsing in time with his rapid heartbeat. “Take that, bitch! Take that up your hot little snatch!”

Henry gulped as everyone around him exploded in approval. This was getting really out of hand. Henry, quit with the puns, he told himself, closing his eyes and trying to breathe normally. It wasn’t easy.

“Last two!”

Henry barely heard him, but he took the Fleshlight, eyes still closed. He knew Dean was getting ready right across the aisle, but he didn’t focus there. He did it all by feel, sliding his fingers through the toy’s little slit, finding the hole. Oh, yes. Those wet open lips, that tight sleeve. That’s just where his cock wanted to go.

“Ready.” Yeah. Fuck yeah.

“Set.” Right there. Oh that sweet pussy is mine. All mine.

“Go!”

It was seconds, just seconds. Maybe thirty, even with the slight loss of sensation because of the condom. He pumped his fist fiercely, his cock swollen to bursting, and silently mouthed her name. And then he was coming, not inside of her, not on her, not with her, but for her, everything for her, his toes curling, pelvis thrust up like an offering.

“Winner!”

His ears were ringing too much for him to really hear, but he tied his condom up with shaking hands and tossed it into the trashcan making its way down the line. He didn’t see Dean glaring at him until they got up to rearrange the chairs again. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he seemed really pissed off.

But when Dean noticed Henry looking, he saluted. Henry shrugged back.

“Now it gets tough.” Marcus passed out more condoms.

Henry studied his poor, withered, wet cock. He couldn’t get the condom on now if he tried. Way too soft.

“But we have incentive for the four guys who’ve made it this far!” Marcus signaled toward the door and one of the frat brothers opened it and peeked out.

Henry’s jaw dropped when a woman, a real, live woman, walked into the room. She was dressed up like a goth girl, her hair streaked half black, half red, her lips and fingernails painted dark. She wore a black corset and fishnet stockings with garters that were mostly covered by patent leather boots that went far up on her thighs. But she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were big, heavy, the nipples fat and a dark, dark brown. And she wasn’t wearing panties either. Her pubic hair was shaved into a dark landing strip just above her bare mound.

She strutted past them, snapping her gum, and then turned and paced back toward the place where she’d come in, the door closed now. Back and forth, like a panther, and they were all struck silent by her presence. They had become predators and she the prey. Even Henry felt himself leaning forward, his pupils dilating in excitement. To hell with plastic pussy. This was the real thing!

Then she stopped in the middle of the row of chairs, turning toward Henry’s side. Her face was pretty, her eyes dark and round. She half-smiled at him as she bent forward, her breasts swaying, reaching behind and smacking her ass, first with one hand, then with the other. Henry heard the guys on the other side gasp.

Then she was turning again, the other way this time, and he saw her own handprints on the white globes of her behind as she bent, showing his row what she had just shown them. He gaped as she did it again, one hand, then the other, using them to spread her pussy and ass open for them to see.

“Holy fuck.” Cody gulped beside him. Henry was up against the Asian kid this time. Cody got Carrot Top again. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Henry couldn’t have agreed more. He’d been to strip clubs before. They’d gone during his senior year in high school, even though he’d had to procure fake I.D. for the venture. He’d been in the company of strippers. He knew how it worked, he knew all the rules. This woman…this girl…she wasn’t a stripper. Strippers didn’t…

“Want to touch it?” Her voice was low, husky, and it sent a shiver through him as she looked back over her shoulder at his row. “You can touch it if you want.”

She took a step toward them in those incredible fucking boots and Henry’s jaw dropped when she straddled his thigh, putting her arms around his neck and rubbing her pussy against his leg. Jesus, it was so hot — her cunt was on fire!

“You want to feel a real pussy?” she whispered, grabbing his hand and guiding it between her legs. “Touch it.”

Henry did as he was told, groaning as his fingers moved over her lips, parting them and finding wetness. He whimpered when she stood, swinging her leg over Cody’s and letting him feel. His eyes were glazed. Henry knew just how he felt. When she stepped over to the other side of the aisle, he noticed how the entire group watched her, how much they all wanted her.

She’s a hen in a fox house, he thought as the Asian guy got his feel, grabbing her breast in his hand as well. Why didn’t I think of doing that?

“Okay, boys, that’s it.” She turned to face the room. “No more touching. Got it?”

Like she could stop us? Henry felt that energy emanating from every guy in the room. It was crazy. Even guys who had come twice already were hard again. Henry was too, his cock responding without any thought at all. His body wanted what it wanted. And it wanted it now.

“No more touching during this round.” Marcus took a step toward her, putting an arm around her waist. She smiled up at him, her eyes softening, and Henry understood. She was with Marcus. That much was clear. But Henry couldn’t help thinking, this round? Did that mean they could touch her during the next one?

Oh please, God, let it be so.

He had to make it to the next round. He just had to.

“Val is going to give you all a little show for the next round.”

An air mattress got pulled in from the hallway and put on the floor between the chairs. Henry watched, they all did, as Val unzipped her boots, taking her time, her legs finally revealed, the fishnets torn and held together in places by safety pins. Then she crawled onto the mattress, turning herself over and spreading her legs.

“Ready?” Marcus handed the Fleshlights to the first two pledges-Cody and Carrot Top. Thank god I don’t have to go first, Henry thought, although his hand was already moving on his cock. It was getting harder by the minute as he watched Val’s hands running over her body, cupping her breasts, tweaking her nipples.

“Set…”

Cody and Carrot Top were already hard enough to roll on their condoms. The porno was still running on the television-the scene had changed from the redhead and the blonde to something else-but no one was paying attention. It was amazing how focused an entire room full of men could be on one woman.

“Go!”

That was an understatement. The whole room was going. It was vibrating with excitement. The place had a thick smell now. It was the masculine smell of sweat and sex and cum. But there was a new scent in the mix, something more delicate, a uniquely feminine smell that made his nostrils flare and his heart pound.

Val moaned softly as she rubbed her nipples, her legs wide open. He could see her pussy, the lips totally shaved, the pink inside showing. Cody and Carrot Top were fucking themselves with the Fleshlights, and now Henry knew just what they were fantasizing about. She had every gaze in the room on her as she began to finger her pussy.

“That’s a girl.” Marcus smiled and Henry wondered at his generosity. If it had been his girl, he didn’t think he would have allowed such a thing.

“Ohhh, yes, that’s so good.” Val was like a cat purring as she parted her pussy for all of them to see, her fingers delving deeper. “I wish I had a nice, big cock inside of me.”

Her words made Henry’s balls ache and his mouth water. The girl wasn’t just flirting with danger, she was jumping on it. Okay, so her boyfriend was a giant, but he was only one guy. What if this whole room of men just decided to…pounce? Because he knew that’s what he wanted to do. And it had to be what every guy here wanted, too.

“Oh baby, right there,” she moaned, her fingers moving faster. “Fuck me good and hard!”

Cody was watching her through half-closed eyes, fist pumping. He was cupping his balls with his other hand, as if he could force his cum out by squeezing them. He had an even better view of Val’s pussy than Henry did, and that’s just where his gaze was focused. Not that the rest of them weren’t all doing the same thing. Even the clothed guys had unzipped their pants and taken out their cocks. There wasn’t a man there who wasn’t out and stroking it, aside from Marcus, and Henry marveled at his self-control.

“That’s it, just like that.” Val’s breasts moved as she rocked on the mattress, fucking her own hand. “I want that big cock in my pussy. I want it in my mouth. I want it in my ass.”

Henry rubbed the head of his cock with his thumb, shivering at the sensation. There was something about her. Maybe it was just being in the midst of a group of hungry wolves, but he didn’t just want this girl. He didn’t just want to fuck her. He wanted to take her. Make her his. He wanted to own her. It scared and excited him at the same time.

“I love all those beautiful cocks.” She opened her eyes and studied him. Looked right at him, then at the cock in his hand. “Look how big and hard they are. Jerk yourself off, baby, yeah, just like that.” Her gaze shifted, moving all around the room. It was a huge circle jerk now, all of them stroking for her, wanting her.

“You wanna come for me?” Val lifted her fingers to her mouth, her soaking wet fingers, and Henry heard a guy behind him groan. “Where do you want to come? All over my face?” She rubbed her juices there. “My tits?” She lifted them, squeezed, hard, let them fall. “My cunt?” And her fingers were back there, rubbing, spreading, showing them. “You want to come inside this hot little pussy?”

“Yeah!” Cody stood, moving toward her. Marcus took a step forward but Cody stopped, his attention focused on her as he fucked the Fleshlight. He was imagining it, Henry just knew it, seeing her spread open like that, he was fucking Val, shoving himself in as hard and as deep as he could. “Oh baby, I’m gonna come inside you!”

And then he did, his body arching, the toy slammed all the way down to his pubic bone. Val moaned, her eyes bright, watching him come. Not to be outdone, Carrot Top jumped up, too, growling as he looked down at her spread open pussy. She bit her lip, focusing on Carrot Top as Cody was declared the winner.

“That’s right,” she murmured, watching him fuck himself. “Slam my pussy. Do it hard. Come up inside me. Fill me!”

He groaned, thrusting, as Val pulled her legs back, showing him just where, and he came, too, shuddering and collapsing to his knees.

Henry was ready. He couldn’t believe it, but he was ready to come a third time. His balls were swollen as he tugged the condom on, taking the Fleshlight from Marcus and considering his opponent. It was the Asian kid this time, and it appeared that he was ready, too.

“Come on, boys,” Val murmured, turning onto her belly. Henry watched as she arched her back, reaching underneath to spread herself for them. “Stick it in and fuck me. I want all of you.”

Behind him, someone else let out a frustrated groan, but he was too focused on the task at hand. He had to get to the next round. Maybe they were allowed to touch her in the next round. Or maybe she was allowed to touch them. All he had to do was come. He just hoped he had some of the stuff left to deposit in the condom!

“Ooooo that’s a good boy.” Val watched the Asian kid as he stood over her, stroking fast. The Fleshlight was a blur on his cock. “Does it feel just like a real pussy?”

He grunted, giving a brief nod and going even faster.

“Think it feels as good as mine?” Val turned her face to Henry now, still fingering herself. He was sure it wasn’t quite as good, but it was good. Really fucking good. Did he want to crawl behind her, toss off the toy, and plunge into her cunt? Hell yes. But if he couldn’t do that, this was the next best thing. And it was sure as hell better than jerking off with his hand.

Henry knelt, frustrated that his body wouldn’t cooperate. He felt so close, so very close, and yet he couldn’t quite push himself over. He watched Val’s face, her eyes closing as she touched herself, her mouth open in a delightful “O.”

“I want you to come.” Henry leaned in to tell her, not touching, but close.

“For real?” Her eyes widened in surprise and he felt his cock swelling just at the thought.

“Do it,” he said. “For real.”

He could tell she was getting off on this. She really liked it, being surrounded by all these guys watching her, all jerking off. He wanted to see her get off for real.

Val’s hips dropped and she began to touch herself. Henry couldn’t see-her pussy was at the wrong angle-but he didn’t care. It was her face he wanted to watch. Her tongue moved out to lick her lower lip and her cheeks began to flush as she rubbed herself faster and faster. The motion increased, her body swaying, rocking.

“That’s it.” Henry twisted the toy around his cock, moaning. Fuck, that was incredible! Every ridge inside the sleeve massaged him as he turned it again, making him quiver. “Make yourself come. Do it for me.”

“Oh yes.” Her eyes were closed, mouth open, breath coming faster, faster. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. “Oh, it’s so close.”

Yes, it was. Henry’s balls drew up tight. So very close. Across from him, he heard the Asian kid groan. Fuck!

“I’m gonna commmmme!” Val moaned, her hips rocking, biting her lip, her brow crinkling. He could see the pleasure on her face, could read it clearly, more clearly than he’d ever read anything, including words. This was a language he understood completely.

“Me, too,” he whispered, never taking his gaze from her face as he came, the spasms rocking his body. When Val opened her eyes, they’d already declared Henry the winner and she was smiling at him.

“I give up.” The Asian guy pulled the toy and the condom off. He hadn’t made it to orgasm number three.

Then there were two.

Marcus had them move the mattress and put two chairs across from each other. The excitement in the room was palpable. This was the last round, and Henry knew he’d won at least one of the Fleshlights. He didn’t care about the porn collection. He didn’t really even care about the Fleshlight that much anymore. He just wanted to find out what this round might entail.

“This round is different.” Marcus picked up the black bag and dropped both Fleshlights in. “Whoever gets hard first wins…and gets to fuck Val.”

Henry stared at him, sure he’d misheard. Then he looked over at Cody, whose eyes were lit up like stars. Oh no. Cody had only come twice. Henry had just finished a third time. How in the hell was he going to manage?

The guys around them went crazy at the thought, shoving and nudging the two of them in their chairs, saying things like “Lucky bastard!” and “Save some for me!” but Henry wasn’t paying attention to any of it really. There was no way. He would have to stand on his head to get his dick hard again.

And then Marcus surprised them. “Of course, you’ll have help.”

Val walked over, kneeling between the two chairs. Seeing her down there like that, her knees parted, her breasts shoved up by the corset, gave Henry some hope. His cock actually twitched. It didn’t do much more, but at least it was something.

“No way,” someone behind Henry murmured, but it was already happening. Val had Cody’s cock in one hand and Henry’s in the other. They were both soft. It wasn’t going to be easy. Of course, she was surrounded by plenty of guys with hard cocks who hadn’t come yet, who would be perfectly willing to take their places. That bolstered Henry.

“You like that?” Val’s hand was like velvet as she squeezed him, rubbing her thumb expertly over the head of his cock, hitting all the sensitive spots. He let out a whimper when she raked her fingernails lightly over his balls. Her other hand was busy in Cody’s lap, doing the same thing to him.

“I know you want my pussy.” She coaxed him, pulling on his cock like it was taffy, drawing him out. “I saw you looking at me.”

She was talking to both of them, turning her head back and forth, trying to pay equal attention, but he could have sworn she was talking just to him.

“That fake pussy doesn’t feel as good as mine, I bet.” Val let go of them both, sliding her hands between her legs and getting her fingers wet. Then she rubbed her juices over their cocks. Henry noticed how it made the head of his dick glisten.

“I want your cock,” she murmured, pulling, tugging. “I want it so bad. I have to feel you inside me.” Oh holy hell. He was starting to really feel something. Just the pleading sound of her voice was getting him hard again. He glanced over at Cody, but he was still just as soft as when she started. Henry figured he was about halfway there.

The crowd of guys noticed. They started chanting. “Hen-ry! Hen-ry! Hen-ry!”

“That’s it!” Val’s hand squeezed him, stroked him. She was excited to see him respond, and that made him even more aroused. She was still working on Cody, too, but it just wasn’t happening, and Henry made a mental note to thank his genes or God or something for his ability to get hard again so fast.

“I want to come all over your hard dick, baby,” Val urged, her eyes bright, and Henry moaned, beginning to thrust up into her hand. The whole crowd cheered and Val smiled, turning away from Cody and focusing her attention all on Henry. He gaped when she took her gum out and stuck it deliberately under his chair before taking his cock into her mouth.

“Oh man. No fair!” Henry recognized Dean’s voice and glanced up, seeing his roommate standing in the circle, watching.

But he didn’t have much more time to think about anything. Val sucked him until he was completely hard again, and they didn’t even get the mattress down on the floor. Instead, she climbed up into his lap, her breasts in his face, her pussy rubbing against his dick. She was very wet. She really came for me, he realized, and the thought made him crazy with lust. The crowd closed in on them, whooping, hollering, practically slobbering, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the girl in his lap.

“You’ve got a gorgeous cock.” Val whispered this in his ear. “I want to come all over it.”

Henry couldn’t think of anything he wanted more. He leaned back, letting her lead. When she reached down to grab him, rolling yet another condom on, he took a deep breath, feeling her flesh give as she rubbed him up and down her slit. He’d won the sex toy, but he’d completely forgotten about everything but Val’s body, her eyes, the soft feel of her ass in his hands as he guided her down onto his cock.

And her pussy. Oh my god. There was nothing better. She rode him nice and slow at first and he could feel her breath, hear her soft moans and sighs. Then she really got into it, hips rolling, tongue slipping into his ear, teeth biting at his neck. He could barely hold onto her.

“Fuck me,” she insisted, climbing off his lap and turning around to bend over a chair. He was dazed, clearly too slow to respond, because hands moved him, nudged him out of his seat, and then he was standing behind her, thrusting deep into her cunt. “Oh yeah, baby, fuck me hard! Come on! Do it!”

He could barely breathe. She looked back at him, eyes half-closed, and he felt her hand between her legs, rubbing at her clit. Every time he thrust into her, his balls touched her there, a rhythmic sway. Henry observed his cock sliding into her, her hot pink center stretched open to take all of him, and he was lost. He gripped her hips, thrusting deep, and heard her moan loudly.

“Make me come!” she begged, panting, fucking him back. Oh god, this was it. He was going to die. “Make me come, please, please, make me come!”

He couldn’t hold back, not for a second. He growled and thrust and came and felt her whole pussy clamping down on his cock like a vice. Plastic pussies don’t do that, he thought, grunting with pleasure as he emptied himself completely, sure that there wasn’t an ounce of fluid left in his body to give.

When it was over, when she turned and kissed him, long and soft and oh, so slow, that’s when he thought he would wake up. He would find himself sitting upright in his dorm room bed, sweaty and hot and hard as a rock from this crazy-ass dream and then go back to sleep only to wake and tell Dean all about it in the morning.

But he wasn’t asleep. And Dean was standing across from him, grinning with so many teeth he resembled a shark. From the look on his roommate’s face, Henry had a sudden, sinking feeling that maybe it would have been better if he had been dreaming after all.

The dragon-lady sat quietly sorting through papers on her desk, her door half-open. Henry hesitated in the hallway, heart beating too fast for him to knock yet. It had been racing since that afternoon, when she handed back his term paper with another big “F” marked in red on the last page and the words, “Come to my office at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon.”

What a letdown, after the weekend of partying at the fraternity, getting clapped on the back over and over, his new fraternity brothers grinning knowingly. It still made him blush to think about what had happened, but he was also rather proud of it in a sick sort of way-especially since Dean seemed so perturbed by Henry’s win. Or more to the point, Dean’s loss.

Henry might have thought it was all a dream, but he had a box full of porn shoved under his bed and a Fleshlight in his possession to prove it wasn’t. If he could have stopped time back then, he would have. Going back to class on Monday and facing the dragon-lady was the last thing he wanted to do.

She knows. He could see it on her face when she handed his paper back, the slight purse to her lips, the brief flash in her eyes. She was calling his bluff. He cursed himself for not finding someone he trusted, but he had been in a hurry, the paper due, and there was just no time.

“Henry Baumgartner.” Her voice made his stomach clench. “Come in, please.”

There was no more putting it off. He stepped into her office, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat when she asked him to. She still wasn’t really acknowledging him; instead, she was writing with her red pen. The same red pen that had failed him. That anyone held so much power over him made him nauseous.

“I’d like to show you something.” Professor Franklin reached over and took a paper off a stack to her left. She put it on the desk in front of him, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. Her skirt was a soft, dark green, a respectable length, but her legs were very long. He felt like a mouse trapped between her paws.

“Go ahead,” she urged.

He picked the paper up, staring dumbly at it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read at all. He could pick out words. He could read sentences if he focused, guessing or skipping over the words he couldn’t figure out, but it could literally take him an hour to read a full page. And when faced with paragraph after paragraph, especially in front of an audience, his brain completely froze. The words swam in front of him and he stared up at her, mute.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Professor Franklin crossed her arms, the cream satin-like material of her blouse stretching over her breasts. No one liked her-but every guy had talked about fucking her. She was an older woman, probably his mother’s age, but with her long dark hair and tall, curvy figure, she was the stuff freshmen wet dreams were made of.

“Henry, do you know what that is?” She sat up, rolling her chair closer to the desk, looking at him quizzically.

He just shrugged, hands clammy, heart galloping. He wanted to bolt, but he knew it would only make things worse. Until he could figure out what she wanted from him, it was better to stay quiet.

“You know, I was going to keep this between us.” She tapped her fingernails on the desk’s surface. They were long and painted red. “But if this is how you’re going to act, I suppose I’ll be forced to get the dean of students involved.”

He looked back down at the paper in his hand. There was no title page and the words made no sense. Why was she showing him this? He felt slow, stupid, and he hated that feeling, because he wasn’t either of those things. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, why he couldn’t remember the same word from one sentence to the next, but he could remember every state in the union and recite them alphabetically. He could find them all on a map, by shape and location. But he couldn’t read their names.

“I don’t…” He cleared his throat, trying to buy himself some time.

“Okay, let’s do it this way.” She pressed her lips together into a thin line, folding her hands on the desk. “Read it.”

He glanced down again. His hands were trembling. His eyes scanned the page, left to right, but nothing made sense.

“Out loud,” she insisted.

He gaped up at her, his mouth dry, no words coming out, and finally he understood. This was his paper. Not his paper, but the paper he had purchased online and printed out and put his own name and cover page on. Of course, he hadn’t read it. He couldn’t.

“Oh my god.” Professor Franklin’s eyes widened. They were dark and round behind her reading glasses, and even rounder in her surprise and realization. She reached out to touch him, surprising them both, her hand soft, clutching his. “You really can’t…Henry, can you read?”

“Leave me alone!” He stood quickly, letting the paper fall, jerking himself away from her touch. He took off down the hall, ignoring her calling after him. He turned the corner and hit the door hard, opening it and gulping the cool autumn air into his over-heated lungs.

He’d faced down teachers before. He’d lied, manipulated, apologized and weaseled his way out of a million punishments and reprimands. He was incredibly charming once he got his bearings. He had managed to convince everyone, including his parents, that he was just lazy and irresponsible sometimes. None of them had ever once guessed his secret.

So how does she know?

“Henry.”

He steeled himself, not turning to face her. Why had she followed him? Why wouldn’t she just call the dean of students, report him, have him removed from class? Or suspended. Even expelled. He felt like passing out just at the thought.

“Hey.” Her voice was soft, softer than he’d ever heard it. “Please.”

She touched his arm through his jacket and he glanced down at her. She’d taken time to put on a long, black wool coat. He tried to pull himself together. It was time to deny everything. He opened his mouth to do just that but even spoken words failed him when he caught sight of her face.

She was crying.

What the hell? Nothing could have surprised or disarmed him more.

“Henry, let me help you.” Tears streamed down her face. She cried openly, unashamed, squeezing his forearm, pleading with him. He was aghast. “Please. I can help.”

“I don’t need your help,” he sneered. “Or your pity.”

“Oh, no, Henry, you don’t understand-”

He turned and ran for the second time that day, determined to escape this time. He heard the click of her heels, her calls, but then they faded and he could only hear the sound of his own heart beating, the ragged pull of his breath as he ran, ran, ran, as far and as fast as he could.

Henry knocked, barely getting out the words, “Professor Franklin?”

“Come in!”

It was like deja-vu, a replay of the events of last week. He didn’t think he would ever be able to face her again, let alone be standing across from the woman actually asking for help.

“Hi Henry.” Professor Franklin stood, coming out from behind her desk to shut the door behind him, gesturing toward a seat. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Not likely, he thought, sitting stiffly in the chair. His hair was still wet from the showers-hockey practice had gone long, and although the coach had warned him he’d be off the team if it happened again, he’d managed to smooth over his absence the week before.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Professor Franklin didn’t sit in the chair behind her desk this time. Instead, she came to lean against it, half-standing, half-sitting on the surface, right next to him. “Can we start over again?”

“Sure.” Henry focused his attention out the window. It was cold and windy, dead leaves chasing each other out on the lawn. “I guess so.”

“I’d like to do an assessment with you.”

He frowned, glancing up at her. “You want me to take a test?”

“No, not a test,” she assured him, her eyes softening. She really was a very pretty woman, although Henry couldn’t remember, for the life of him, anything about her coming over to their house like his mother indicated she had. “It’s just an assessment. It will give us an idea where you are and what you need to work on.”

“I can’t read.” He’d never said those words out loud to anyone, ever, and he didn’t even know how he’d managed to say them now. They made his breath turn shallow, his stomach flip. But there was something about the way she looked at him-understanding in her eyes, but strangely, no pity.

“That’s the first step.” Her smile made her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Admitting you have a problem.”

He shook his head and gazed back out the window. “You can say that again.”

“How did you make it this far, Henry?” She sounded both incredulous and sad.

“The truth?” He watched a black squirrel scurry across the quad and up the nearest maple.

“The truth,” she insisted. “It’s safe with me.”

He met her eyes, leaning back in his chair. Why not spill it? What did he have to lose? “Sometimes I cheated. Sometimes I lied. Sometimes I paid people to write papers or essays for me. But mostly, I just played hockey.”

“Hockey?”

He continued, “I went to a private school and they guaranteed me a varsity spot before I even tried out for the team. It was all about hockey. They even cut the budget for the football team my senior year so the hockey team could go to the International tournament. We were state champions three out of my four years. College and NHL scouts were around year long. They kept a count at the local Best Western. And I had my pick of colleges.” He said it all matter-of-factly, without any hint of arrogance.

“Hence the scholarship.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, as if it meant nothing, but it meant everything to him. Everything.

Her lips were pressed together in a line, an expression Henry had come to recognize as annoyance or anger. “So your coach and your teachers had an arrangement?”

“Something like that.” He looked back out the window. The squirrel was down on the ground again, digging. “I never really asked. They just…passed me.”

“And your parents have no idea?”

He glanced up, panicked. “You can’t tell them.”

“I should.” She pulled herself up onto the desk fully and crossed her legs. She was wearing a skirt of course, a white one with brown spots, and Henry couldn’t help but admire her legs, even in his sudden state of panic. “I called your mother with every intention…”

“Please!” Henry reached out, grabbing her wrist, the touch startling them both. He took his hand away, trying to breathe. “You can’t. You just can’t.”

“My father was illiterate,” she explained, one of her feet swinging. She always wore heels and today was no exception-soft brown pumps-and one of them hung precariously from the end of her toes. “He spent his whole life unable to read. It’s no way to live.”

Henry stiffened. “Don’t feel sorry for me.” Now he understood how she had known, why her thoughts had immediately jumped to the conclusion she had when he sat there, frozen, staring dumbly at the paper she had given him, unable to read it out loud.

“I don’t,” she assured him. “My father was born in an era that didn’t even have names for learning disabilities, let alone ways to test for them. You don’t have that luxury.”

“I…I guess not.” He blinked at her, trying to remember a time, way back in elementary school, when he’d first started having trouble. He’d been so embarrassed by his affliction that he’d convinced his older sister to read to him from his school books over and over, thus memorizing the text, and when he was “tested,” he passed with flying colors. That was just the beginning of his ruse.

“I’m angry that someone didn’t notice before this.” Her eyes narrowed at the thought. “That you were able to slip through the cracks simply because you were good at some stupid sport.”

Henry narrowed his eyes right back at her. “Hockey means everything to me.”

“Well, if you want to keep playing, and you want to stay in school, you’re going to have to learn how to read,” she said simply.

She had him there.

“I got a book,” he admitted.

“What book?”

He flushed, remembering the snafu of checking it out, meeting Libby. “Phonics for Dummies. ”

The professor smiled. She had a dimple in one cheek when she did that he’d never noticed before. Maybe because, in class, he didn’t really see her smile very much. “Decided to start at the beginning?”

“Where else are you supposed to start?” He shrugged helplessly.

“Here.” She leaned forward and he caught a whiff of her scent, something flowery, when she got near. “With me. Are you ready?”

“I guess.”

“No guessing.” She was the professor again, all-business. “You either want to work or you don’t. I’m more than willing to give up my time to help you learn, but you have to be committed. Can you commit?”

Henry watched the squirrel holding onto his found nut for dear life, peering from side to side, as if something could take it away at any moment. He knew exactly how the little guy felt. “I really don’t have much of a choice.”

“Of course you do,” she countered, still in business mode. “You always have a choice. My father had a choice. He died still not knowing how to read, but at any point in his life, he could have chosen differently.”

“It’s so hard…” Henry blinked, willing tears not to fall. Christ, he couldn’t believe he was letting himself get emotional about this in front of her. “You have no idea.”

“Yes, I do.” She leaned toward him again, her eyes on his, steady. “You walking in here today and telling me you can’t read may be hardest thing you ever have to do, but it was also the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He couldn’t answer her and if he’d had a voice left at all, it would have disappeared completely anyway when she lifted her hand and ran it tentatively through his still-wet hair.

She laughed when she saw the bemused look on his face. “I’m sorry. You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember?”

“Well you were young…my ex and I used to come over and play cards with your parents…” Her voice trailed off, as if she was reminiscing, but Henry couldn’t recall a thing about it. “You were such a sweet little blonde boy. I wanted to steal you and take you home with me.”

He shrugged, offering her a lopsided smirk. “What happened, huh?”

“Well the little towhead disappeared, that’s for sure.” She laughed, a sound he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard, her hand still moving in his now-dark hair. “But I think you turned out all right.”

“Except for the whole reading thing,” he reminded her, frowning.

“We’ll work on that. Yes?” She stood, going back behind her desk to sit and pull out some papers.

“Yes,” he agreed. He still had a rock sitting in his stomach, but at least it didn’t feel quite so heavy now.

She was like a different person when she smiled. “Let’s get started.”

Thanks to an unseasonably warm week in December, the ice in the rink was far too slushy for Henry’s liking, but he wouldn’t have cared if he’d had to skate on water-under Professor Franklin’s tutelage, he was now passing English, off academic probation, and most importantly, the coach had put him on the ice for an actual game!

He thought things couldn’t get any better when he scored his first official college hockey goal-a gorgeous shot that slipped into the five-hole like it had been meant to be-until he saw Libby in the stands. He wouldn’t have seen her if the camera hadn’t panned in on her reaction to the goal and showed it on the screen high above-she was standing and actually dancing in the aisles, her red hair like a beacon the cameraman obviously couldn’t resist.

Henry couldn’t either.

He actually stumbled getting back onto the bench, taking the congratulations from his teammates with a distracted smile, scanning the rink for Libby, finally finding her, still standing in the aisle and waving. At him. He raised his hand, grinning like a fool. It was the first time he’d seen her since that night in the hot tub. He’d called her several times and she hadn’t returned any of them. Had she been coming to games all along? He continued to give her the tickets he’d promised, slipping them under her dorm room door in an envelope, hoping to run into her in the hallway, but he never had.

He usually gave her both tickets, but today he’d given another one to Professor Franklin. His parents hadn’t made it up for a game-he kept putting them off, embarrassed to tell them he’d been benched. But he’d given a ticket to her just that day as they sat in the late afternoon sunshine, working on Henry’s worst nemesis-phonemes.

He’d tried subtlety. “Do you like hockey?”

“Henry, you’re distracting yourself.”

He’d sighed. “I just wondered if you wanted to see me play. My parents can’t make it.”

“Funny, I was going to ask if you wanted to see a movie tonight.” She had smiled when he blinked at her in surprise. They saw a lot of each other lately, but they’d never seen each other outside of a school-type setting. The idea intrigued him. “It’s foreign. Subtitled. I thought it would be a good experience for you.”

“Oh.” Another learning experience. Go figure. “What time?”

“Show starts at nine.”

“We can go after,” he’d suggested slyly. “The game starts at five.”

“It’s a deal then.” She’d agreed, putting a white sheet of paper in front of him with one word on it. “Now, what is that word?”

“Volcano.”

“Look again.” Toni-she’d insisted he start calling her Toni if they were going to work together four times a week-had put a clear blue-tinted sheet over the page. For some reason, the change in color helped him shift his focus.

“Tornado,” he’d corrected himself, shaking his head. “Why do I do that? I’m so stupid.”

“No you’re not. You’re just dyslexic.”

“Which means stupid,” he’d countered.

“Did you know Thomas Edison was dyslexic?” No, he hadn’t known. Every time he put himself down, she always managed to find a way to build him back up. “So was Albert Einstein.”

“Really? Mr. E Equals M.C. Squared?”

She’d laughed. “Your memory is amazing sometimes.”

“Yeah, and then I can’t tell the difference between a volcano and a tornado,” he’d grumbled.

“You know the difference,” she’d insisted. “You just have a hard time with the symbols that represent the things.”

He’d beamed at her. “Hey, maybe someday, some tutor will tell another guy like me, ‘You know Henry Baumgartner, the famous hockey player? He was dyslexic.’”

“Anything’s possible,” Toni had agreed, turning his focus back to the work at hand.

She was a slave driver sometimes, but she claimed he’d gone from a third-grade reading level to a sixth-grade one in just the short time they’d been working together. He’d even managed to write his own paper for her class, and she’d been willing to give him an oral exam separately from the rest, which he’d passed with a ninety-six percent. He understood theme and symbolism in The Great Gatsby perfectly well if he didn’t have to spell it.

Now Henry sat enjoying the fruits of his labor, his first goal of the year showing on the scoreboard above, the woman who was responsible for his progress sitting proudly in the stands, and now there was Libby, too, sharing the moment. He wished he could go talk to her, ask her why she hadn’t called. It was probably a roommate thing, he’d long ago decided. Elaine wouldn’t talk to him-was probably mad he’d gone after Libby. And Libby probably just felt a normal loyalty toward her roommate in the whole thing. It put him in an impossible position.

Libby’s not here just to see you, he reminded himself, secretly hoping she was.

Her presence buoyed him so much he scored again on the very next shift, carrying the momentum of the goal he’d made just five minutes earlier. He felt the pass coming to him long before it was on his stick. He had sensed it coming moments before, when they were all tussling in front of their own net on the other end of the ice. He didn’t know how he knew, couldn’t explain the incredible body awareness he experienced on the ice, but he could anticipate, not only his own teammates’ moves, but the opposing team’s as well, with eerie accuracy.

That’s how he knew to put a rush of speed on toward the net, sensing a defenseman in red moving in behind him but he would be unable to check or block Henry-he was too fast. There was a pass coming from the right, unseen but coming anyway, and he put his stick out for it, stopping the puck’s trajectory without another thought and not even looking at the net before pulling back to take the shot.

The puck went in over the shoulder, the goalie twisting to get it, upended, staying there on his ass, winded and cursing himself for missing the shot, as Henry howled and pumped his fist in the air. The four of his teammates who were on the ice surrounded him, cheering and jostling and there was more of that again at shift change, guys slapping him on the back, the coach giving him an approving wink.

They won the game two to one, and both his team’s goals belonged to him.

He was flying by the time they headed off the ice toward the showers, and then Libby was waiting for him. How she’d managed it, he didn’t know, but she was standing outside the locker room, hugging herself against the cold and smiling. He wanted to put his arms around her to warm her up. Hell, he just wanted to put his arms around her.

“Hi Henry.”

His teammates trudged by him, admiring the girl he stopped to talk to. “Hey.”

Just be casual, he told himself, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm. His heart was thumping like a rabbit’s.

“I just wanted to say great game.” She had to crane her neck way up at him because his skates gave him several inches in height.

“Thanks.” He couldn’t help smiling, even though the expression felt too big and goofy on his face. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Busy.”

“Yeah, me too.” They just stood there. Smiling. It was kind of awkward, but then again, it wasn’t. Henry said the first thing he could think of. “How’s the library?”

She laughed. “Still standing.”

“Well that’s always a plus.” Henry couldn’t keep his eyes off her and tried to make conversation so his staring wouldn’t seem so obvious. “Seen any good vampire movies lately?”

“No, I haven’t been out to a movie since…” It was the first time her gaze shifted away from his. “Well, I’ve been busy.”

Impulsively, he took a chance. “Want to go?” When she didn’t answer, he pushed ahead, ignoring the vibe she was putting off, hoping it was just nervousness. “To a movie?”

A movie. That reminded him that Toni was taking him to a movie after the game and he had to get into the shower. For some reason, the thought made him feel guilty, as if he was betraying someone. Going out with Toni, even just to some artsy education movie, excited him. He couldn’t even say why, and wouldn’t have admitted it out loud to anyone, especially Libby. But it was the truth.

“What’s playing?” Libby asked.

He shrugged, his grin widening. “I don’t have a clue.”

“I don’t know, Henry. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Libby sighed when she saw him frown. “Maybe…maybe after we get back? I’m going home for break. My parents live in North Carolina.”

“That’s far.” Henry was already ridiculously planning the road trip in his head.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta run.” She reached out and touched his arm. He couldn’t feel much through all the padding and she must have known it because she found his wrist, bare skin between his glove and his jersey, squeezing there. “I just wanted to tell you…great game.”

He tried to think of something to make her stay, watching her retreating form, and called out, “So I’ll see you January?”

“I’ll be here.” She waved back at him and then disappeared around the corner.

“Henry, you’re not concentrating.”

“Yes I am,” he lied. They were in her office, trying to work, but he was studying her skin, the pale expanse of it at her throat, where her pulse beat as fast as a bird’s. She wasn’t concentrating either.

She nudged him. “On the word.”

“Oh.” He glanced down at the page, scanning. He’d lost his place three times in the past three minutes, and he’d just lost it again.

“Henry,” she whispered, nudging him once more. “Do we have to make this any harder than it already is?”

He ignored her unintended pun, but his cock didn’t. Just sitting next to her, feeling the shift of her body, hearing the sound of her breath, made him want her. It was crazy. It was wrong. But he couldn’t help it.

“This is where you were stuck.” She put an index card over the page, covering the line above it, using her fingernail to point out the word. Just remembering the way she’d raked them over his crotch made him breathless.

“World,” he said.

She tucked her hair behind her ear as she leaned toward the page. “Does that make sense in context?”

“No.”

“Stand up.”

Henry reluctantly got out of his chair. He had an erection that just wouldn’t quit and he was putting it on her eye level. She was sure to see it. When he glanced down at her, he was sure she had, indeed, seen. Her face was flushed, her gaze moving from his zipper over to the page.

“Okay, now look again,” she breathed, tapping the word with her fingernail. She often instructed him to do strange things like this-standing up, turning around. She said it was to jar his brain. It usually worked.

“Wuh…” It wasn’t happening. He couldn’t concentrate on anything but the hot bulge between his legs, and this vantage point only made it worse. Toni was wearing a button-down blouse and he could actually see the black lace edge of her bra from this angle.

“Okay, here.” Reaching behind her, she took down a white tray and a plastic container, putting them on the desk. She opened the container, spilling thousands of small, black grain-size particles into the sand-tray. “Write it out.”

He did as she asked, spelling the word in the black sand with his finger:

W-O-U-L-D

“Would.” He pronounced it correctly this time, effortlessly, as if he had always known it and hadn’t been stuck at all. It was like that a lot. Of course, he knew what the word meant, but as he said it, he heard the phonetic version and shifted from foot to foot.

God knows, I’ve got plenty of wood.

“Yes.” Toni was pleased and he loved pleasing her. There was something about it that made him want to wriggle around on the floor like a little puppy. “Go on.”

Henry sat, pondering the page, determined to concentrate. If his dick would just cooperate, everything would be fine…

“He would give them…huh…” Henry stopped, stuck again. He hated when his brain refused to work. His body insisted on doing what it wanted, out of his control. “I can’t do this today.”

“Yes you can.” She was admirably patient, shaking the sand tray gently free of the word would. “Try writing this one out.”

He did as she asked, but it meant nothing to him.

H-E-L–L

“Hole.” Now there was an image. If he could just get his mind off the subject…

“You’re guessing.” She sat back, crossing her legs, and it distracted him even further. “Stand up,” she commanded, and he did, seeing her gaze shift up from eye-level. He was still noticeably hard. “Write it in the air.”

His finger made the motions. H-E-L–L. She waited, expectant, but he had nothing.

“I think I’ve got too much blood being diverted from my brain,” he joked.

She stood, smiling. “Turn around.”

Henry gave her his back, sensing her behind him, the sway of her hips as she approached. He felt one of her hands resting on the side of his hip, her breath against the back of his neck. She might have devised this to help his word issue, but it wasn’t helping his other problem, not at all.

“Okay, let’s try this.” Her words were soft and he couldn’t help but believe that she was just as excited by their proximity as he was.

Using her fingernail, she traced the words in large letters across the hard planes of his back through his t-shirt. He shivered.

“Anything?” she murmured.

He made a noise, a denial, shaking his head. He got the message all right, but it traveled in the wrong direction, straight down to his cock. Nothing was making sense except sensation.

“You do it, then.” Toni turned around, putting her hands on the desk surface, slightly bent over, and he thought he would pass out at the sight of her like that. His head swam and his vision blurred. “Go ahead,” she urged, glancing back over her shoulder. “Do it.”

Do it.

He wanted to do it. He couldn’t even verbalize just how much he wanted it. Approaching her, he kept some distance, a foot maybe, between them, but her body radiated heat, the outline of her luscious perfection. He wanted to bend her over completely, shape himself around her, mold her into something he could put into his pocket and carry around with him everywhere.

Henry traced the word slowly between her shoulder blades, his breath not fast, but hard, as if breathing was a chore. H-E-L–L

“Hell.” He whispered the word as if in a trance, flattening his hand on her back, feeling her bra strap under his palm through the fabric.

“Yes.” She turned her face back to him, eyes bright, but she couldn’t move. He’d shifted his weight forward, his aching cock wedged between the crack of her ass through her skirt. They both felt it and Henry knew this was it. The tension that had been building since the first time he’d glanced behind him to see her walking up his row of desks-skirt hugging her swaying hips, heels clicking on the tile-was about to break.

“Oh hell…” she whispered, closing her eyes and shifting her weight too, so she was pressed fully back against him. It unbalanced them both and Henry’s arms went naturally around her, catching her around the waist. She put her arms over his, tilting her head back to search his face.

“Henry, if we do this…” Her eyelids fluttered closed. “I don’t know how we’ll ever live with it.”

“And if we don’t?” His voice was hoarse in her ear, his hands moving slowly up and down her sides. “Because I don’t know how I’m going to live with not doing this…” He grabbed the full, round globe of her ass in one hand. “And this…” She moaned when he cupped her breast roughly in his other. “And this…” The hand squeezing her ass moved around front, wedging between her legs, and she whimpered as he used that leverage to jam his cock with delicious precision again the crack of her behind.

“Oh no.” She arched and turned her face to his, eyes still closed, a denial. He felt it, too, but the urge to do what he was doing overpowered any sense of propriety that might have fleetingly crossed his mind. “Henry, I want you. Oh god help me, I do.”

He grunted as he lifted her by her crotch with one hand, taking all of her weight as she leaned back against him, her bare feet coming out of both of her heels as he kissed her, tongue probing. She snaked one arm back around his neck, pulling him in closer, squirming in his arms, her pussy hot even through her skirt.

Henry couldn’t hold her. He collapsed backward into the chair across from her desk, taking her with him, the jolt of her ass grinding against his crotch making him groan into her mouth as they kissed. She sucked eagerly at his tongue, turning in his arms so they were belly to belly, and Henry was frustrated with the amount of clothing they were still wearing. He wanted to feel her skin against his.

Toni cried out as Henry grabbed hold of her ass, rocking up, seeking the heat between her legs. His cock was trapped in his jeans and he moaned as she wiggled in his lap, feeling desperate for her. He ran his hands up her back, pulling her blouse free of her skirt, her bare skin a silky heaven. He undid her bra as Toni broke their kiss, panting and arching.

“Suck them,” she urged, not even unbuttoning her blouse, just pulling it and her bra down so her heavy breasts spilled over the V. Henry didn’t have to be asked twice, pressing them together with both hands, his tongue lashing at her nipples. He’d expected them to be dark, but they were a delightfully light pink and pursed, her areolas huge but so light they were barely there. He sucked first on one, then the other, lost in her soft cries of pleasure.

“Oh god,” Henry groaned when Toni wiggled her hand between them, rubbing the thick length of his dick through his jeans. He didn’t think he’d ever been harder in his life. “Easy. Easy.”

Her eyes brightened as she slid out of his arms, kneeling between his jean-clad thighs. She was quite a sight, her soft gray and white plaid skirt pulled up to her waist, revealing black panties underneath, her blouse gaping, buttons either popped or undone, her breasts swaying heavily.

“Oh Henry.” She pressed her cheek against his zipper. He was throbbing. “You’re so hard.”

“You have no idea.” He reached out to touch her hair, just as silky and soft as he’d imagined, as she worked his pants open and started pulling them down. He lifted his hips to help, gasping when she pulled his boxers down too, his cock springing free and bouncing against her cheek.

“Ohhhhh,” she breathed, her eyes lighting up as she took him in her hand. “Oh my god, it’s gorgeous.”

Henry blushed-he actually blushed-although part of the heat filling his cheeks and chest was also a strange sort of pride. He was really going to like pleasing her, in every way, and she clearly liked his cock. Her tongue snuck out to lick the tip-it was already wet with precum but that didn’t deter her at all. In fact, the taste of it seemed to compel her, forcing her to take the length of him into the hot cavern of her mouth.

His eyes began to close in pleasure, but he kept them at least half-open, wanting to see her stroking and sucking him. He couldn’t help reaching down for her breast and she arched, giving the weight of it over to him. Her nipples were perfection and the one against his thumb was so hard he could flick it back and forth, making her suck him even deeper.

“Easy,” he begged, pleading, but she wasn’t having any of it. Her mouth was latched on him now, sucking hard, hand working up and down his length. At this rate, he was going to fill her mouth with his cum and there wouldn’t be a damned thing he could do about it. “Oh please. Toni, please!”

She made a low growl in her throat, her tongue liquid velvet, and there was no holding back anymore. Her greedy mouth enveloped him, her breasts heaving, her hand pumping so fast he could only see the red blur of her nails.

He grunted and thrust up, squeezing the heavy flesh of her breast, twisting her nipple. She moaned but didn’t take her attention from between his legs, his balls drawing up even tighter as he felt the first hot spurt of his cum leaving his sac. Toni swallowed that blast, her throat working silently, her eyes never leaving his. Then she swallowed the next, and the next, letting it flood her mouth and bathing his cock in his own hot cum before downing it.

“Oh damn,” he groaned, his hand moving in her hair, still panting. “I wanted-”

“You will,” she assured him, moving to stand between his legs. She stepped toward the door, turning the lock, and then began to unbutton her blouse the rest of the way. It hadn’t even occurred to him that anyone could walk in on them.

Henry watched as she stripped, blouse and bra on the floor, skirt unzipped and left there too. She was wearing only panties and Henry found himself staring at the apex of her thighs. Approaching him slowly, her hands moved over the soft flesh of her belly, a smooth, pale expanse of skin, her navel shockingly pierced. It was that detail that made Henry almost instantly hard again as she stood in front of him, toying with the edges of her panties.

“Take them off,” he begged, pulling his shirt over his head and smiling at the light in her eyes when she saw him fully naked. “Let me see you.”

Toni hooked her thumbs in her panties and pulled them down, revealing a triangle of dark hair between her legs. Henry gave a moan, leaning forward to grab her hips. She let him, her hand moving in his hair as he began to explore her slit with his fingers, parting her swollen lips. She was so wet!

“Ohhh!” Toni rolled her hips as he slid two fingers inside of her, his thumb riding against the hard edge of her clit. “Yes! Right there!”

“There?” he murmured, his cheek pressed against her belly, his lips even with the top edge of her pubic hair. She whimpered, her hand tightening into a fist as he fingered her slowly. Then he slipped his fingers out and sucked them. He had to taste her.

“Henry!” But it wasn’t really a protest as he shoved her back against the desk, lifting her onto it and kneeling between her legs to return the favor. He was already hard again, his cock aching, but he wanted to taste her, needed to feel her come in his mouth.

Toni leaned back on her elbows, spreading her legs for his eager, probing tongue. Her juices were thick and elastic. Henry swallowed the taste of her and went back in for more, parting her thick swollen pussy lips with his thumbs and fucking her with his tongue.

“Here,” she whispered, putting her bare feet up on his shoulders and flicking her clit with one long red nail. “Right here.”

She gave a soft cry when he worked his tongue slowly upwards, taking her juices with him and spreading them all over her clit, lashing back and forth. Her clit was a hard little ridge of flesh in his mouth, her thighs beginning to tremble as he licked her. He couldn’t help reaching down and grabbing onto his cock, stroking it slowly as he tasted the hot flood of her in his mouth. It was going to be so good to slide into her wetness, feel her from the inside out.

But not yet. Not yet. Her nails raked over his shoulders, trying to pull him in closer, deeper. He explored the soft, pink folds of her flesh with one finger, his tongue never leaving the spot where she’d directed him. When he slid first one finger inside, then another, her hips began to move, fucking him back with the motion.

Her eyes closed, head going back. Her belly was quivering, the navel ring there silver and glinting in the light from the window. Thankfully, the blinds were closed, or someone walking by on their way to class might get quite an eyeful of Henry and his professor having sex on her desk. The thought made his cock swell, even if it was horribly wrong.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

He swore he could feel each of the soft cries of her orgasm deep in his belly, at the base of his cock, as if her voice was calling to the cum left in his balls. She whimpered and rolled and writhed on the desk, her pussy spasming around his fingers as she came, her clit practically disappearing so he had to suck it between his lips to hang onto her climax.

When she stopped trembling, her knees now hooked over his shoulders, Henry took the time to really examine her pussy, the inner lips a hot, glistening pink, her juices thick and white, almost like a man’s cum, slipping slowly down the crack of her ass. He wanted it. He wanted her.

“Come here,” she urged, still panting, holding her arms out to him, and he went, letting her pull him close, on top of her. She cradled his head against her breasts and he felt her chest rising and falling, her breathing still fast. When she slipped her hand between them, searching for his cock, he shifted his hips and let her have it, surprising her with his hardness.

“Oh that’s good,” she murmured, beginning to stroke him against her hip. “You’re so hard again! I want you in me. Come on.”

He wasn’t about to argue, feeling the hot give of her flesh as she rubbed him up and down her slit. Henry propped himself above her, his feet still on the floor, her legs dangling, letting her guide and aim him. Toni moaned when he shoved his hips forward, not waiting anymore, pushing in deep.

“Feel how wet I am for you?” she murmured, her hands running up the muscles of his forearms, his biceps, his shoulders, exploring. “That’s how much I want you.”

There was no doubt. She was like butter, soft and open, and he began to fuck her, thankful that he’d come once already, because he wouldn’t have lasted two minutes otherwise.

“You feel too good.” He closed his eyes, his cock now poised at her entrance, her hands on him, moving over the hard planes of his chest.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, thumbing his nipples, making him squirm. “Come on, Henry. Give me that cock.”

His legs and calves were strong from years of playing hockey, and he had an incredible amount of leverage at this angle, allowing him to do exactly as she asked. He groaned and gave into her request, hips pumping, cock buried to the hilt. He wasn’t fucking her so much as rutting, sounding the depths of her cunt, and with every thrust, Toni’s bare heels dug into the tight, working muscles of his ass.

“Henry,” she whispered, wrapping herself around him, arms and legs now, her mouth right next to his ear. “Oh that’s good. You’re gonna make me come all over your cock.”

That drove him in deeper, if that was even possible, determined to feel her pussy around his cock as she climaxed. Toni whimpered and sucked at his shoulder, leaving dark purple marks there, her body tense, almost rigid, her softness turned to stone as she rode him to completion.

“Ohhhhh!” She muffled her orgasm against his shoulder, face buried, teeth sinking into his flesh. He would have marks and bruises there later, but he didn’t even notice as she began to come, her muscles taut, contracting, as if her whole body was reaching a delicious zenith, focused in her fiery, spasming cunt and spreading outward in ripples.

He couldn’t hold back another minute and he didn’t have time to ask her, hadn’t even thought once about protection, he’d wanted this so much. He groaned as he pulled himself out of her still-clenching cunt, his cum flooding the dark, curly mass of her pubic hair in white hot spurts. He stroked himself against the hot bud of her clit, feeling her quivering still, her breath hot in his ear as she moaned his name, begging him to come, come, come all over her.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Toni panted, her face hot against his chest, hanging onto him. “That was so good…and so, so bad.”

He tilted her face up, kissing her deeply. He didn’t want to think about it, any of it. He just wanted to be with her, experience every part of her, without any thought at all. And they managed to do just that, twice more, before Toni insisted she had an appointment across campus-and even then, he sat her in her office chair and sucked on her clit until she came all over his tongue once more, just so he could keep the taste of her in his mouth on the long, cold walk back to his dorm.

“I suck.” Henry slumped on his sister’s bed, watching her gazing into her dresser mirror, twisting her long blonde hair up onto the top of her head. “I didn’t get anyone anything.”

“No one expects you to.” Janie took out the bobby pin she’d been holding between her teeth and shoved it in her hair. “You’re a poor college student.”

“Yeah, but Mom put money in my account so I could buy everyone gifts.”

Janie snorted. “Let me guess. It turned into beer money?”

“No, I loaned it to a friend,” he admitted. He hadn’t told anyone else how Dean was borrowing money, or why. He’d put it together, of course-Marcus was running the betting ring out of the frat, and Dean had a serious gambling problem. He was a bottomless pit, and the times Henry had said no, Dean had managed to make his life pretty miserable. Socially, it was easier to say yes. Of course, it was harder on the wallet.

“A girl?”

He shook his head. “My roommate, actually.”

“What for, so he could spend it on beer?”

“Not exactly.” It was a hell of a lot more than beer money, Henry thought.

“You shouldn’t loan friends money.” Janie turned from the mirror, frowning at him. “Seriously. It’s not good.”

Henry decided to change the subject. “Hey, Janie, do girls have a code?”

“A code?” She cocked her head, curious. “What do you mean?”

“You know.” He flushed. “Like guys have the ‘Bros Before Hoes’ thing.”

Janie laughed. “Well yeah. Except we aren’t so adolescent about it.”

If only Dean had respected the code in the first place, Henry thought, instead of making everything into a damned competition. “So let’s say your roommate dated a guy once…would you consider him off-limits?”

“Yeah,” Janie agreed. “Probably. I assume you’re the guy in this scenario?”

Henry nodded miserably. “Is there any way to get a girl to break the code?”

“Sort of.” Janie smiled, coming to sit on her bed next to him. “So, who’s this girl?”

“Her name’s Libby.” He wasn’t ready to give up too much more.

“And you dated her roommate?”

“Once,” he reiterated. “Just one time. Dean set me up.” In more ways than one, he thought bitterly.

“Well, if I was Libby, and I liked you enough,” Janie said, qualifying her statement. “I’d talk to my roommate and ask her if she minded. It was just one date, after all.”

Henry considered this, musing out loud, “Maybe I should talk to Elaine…”

“That’s the roommate?” Janie asked. “Was she into you?”

He remembered the way Elaine had kissed him, had snuck her hand under the water to stroke him, how she’d practically jumped at the chance to…

“You could say that.”

Janie cocked her head at him again, frowning. “But you only went on one date.”

“Yeah.”

She made a face. “She couldn’t have been that into you!”

“We got kind of drunk,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Just because you had sex with her doesn’t mean anything. Necessarily.” Janie waved the idea away. “Did you have sex with her?”

“Hang on.” Henry dug his phone out of his pocket. He knew it was Toni-his ringtone for her was Bolero. “I gotta take this.”

“Is it Libby?” Janie tried to look over his shoulder, but he got up and headed toward the door.

“Hi,” he said, flipping open his phone and ignoring his sister making faces at him as he went down the hall to his room.

“I miss you.” Her voice was thick as honey.

“I know,” he admitted, closing his door. “I miss you, too.”

Here he was asking his sister advice about Libby, but it was Toni he was talking to. What was wrong with this picture? He’d fallen head first-or maybe leapt was more accurate-into this thing with Toni and it was like a snowball going downhill, just picking up speed as it rolled along.

“You know I’m right around the block,” she reminded him.

He hadn’t forgotten. She had an apartment on campus-one he’d been invited to twice now-but the house she’d lived in with her husband was just kitty-korner from his parents’ place. If he peered out his sister’s window, he could have seen her backyard, and maybe even the “For Sale” sign posted out front, from that angle. No one lived in the house at the moment-Toni’s soon-to-be ex had taken a job somewhere on the east coast-but she had mentioned she was going to get it into “for-sale” condition over break.

“It’s weird. You’re closer now than when we’re at school,” he said.

“Do you want to come over?”

He could almost see the smile playing on her lips. “Do you really have to ask?”

“How long?”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“This will be perfect.” Libby popped a mini-tape into Henry’s recorder, snapping it closed and clicking record.

He stood at his desk, arms crossed. “I’m not letting you do this.”

“Don’t be a sexist pig.” Libby stuck her tongue out, hitting rewind and then play. Their voices came out of the little machine, sounding tinny but clear enough.

“I should be the one,” Henry insisted. “He already told me. It would be easy for me to get him to talk about it.”

“We’ve been over this!” Libby rewound the tape to the beginning again, leaving the recorder on the bed. “If it’s you on that tape, and the NCAA comes in to investigate, it could jeopardize your hockey scholarship.”

“But-”

Libby hopped off the bed, shaking her finger at him. “Listen to me. I’ve already lost everything. I gave up my job at the paper. I have nothing left to lose.” She stopped as she got close to him and saw the fierce expression on his face. “Well, almost nothing…”

“I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Henry’s jaw was working just thinking about it. This was insane. It was beyond insane. It was downright dangerous. “No way. Not after what happened to Elaine.”

Libby glared at him. “You don’t have any choice.”

“I’ll hide under the bed.” He couldn’t leave her alone in this room with Dean. He wouldn’t.

She laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“It will work,” he insisted, going over and picking up the recorder. “And you don’t have to worry about working this. I’ll do it.”

“You’re awful big,” Libby said speculatively, but she actually seemed relieved at the thought of him being in the room. She dropped to her knees, lifting his Hudson Bay blanket. “Is there room under your bed?”

Henry flushed when she pulled a box out. “Hey, what’s this?” Before he had a chance to shove it back under, she’d flipped it open and her jaw dropped. “Well… that’s a lot of porn.” She winked at him. “And you said you’d never read the Kama Sutra?”

Henry sighed. “You know that long story I didn’t tell you earlier?”

Libby just studied him with raised eyebrows, so he took a deep breath and told her-about pledging at the fraternity, about the Fleshlight and Val.

“So that’s what they did this year,” Libby mused, taking the cap off the Fleshlight and staring at it. “They had a competition last year too…”

What sort of competition had they had last year-involving prostitutes? He wanted to ask, but he was almost afraid to.

“And you won?” Libby murmured, using her index finger to prod the Fleshlight, as if she could bring it to life. Seeing Val holding it had been hot, but seeing Libby with it just felt…weird.

“Do you like using it?” She was half-smiling, amused.

He shrugged. “What’s not to like?”

“And that girl who called you…” Libby put the cap back on the Fleshlight and dropped it into the box. “That was the girl?”

“We’re just friends.” He made sure to make that point.

“Friends huh?” Libby arched her eyebrow. “Friends with benefits?”

“No.” He watched her shut the box and shove it back under the bed. “She’s a sweet girl and all, but…”

“But…what?” Curious, she crawled up onto the bed to sit next to him and he remembered bringing her back here after the football game, months ago now, how they’d spent hours listening to music and talking. He’d never felt anything like it before, that feeling of being with her, just being. It was intoxicating. Addictive.

“But she’s not you,” he finished.

“Oh, Henry.” Libby leaned her red head against his arm. “I wish I didn’t like you so damned much.”

His mouth felt dry. “Do you really?”

“What?” She lifted her head and gazed up at him.

“Do you really like me?”

Her eyes softened and she reached a hand out, linking her fingers with his. “Did you ever doubt it?”

He shrugged, swallowed, couldn’t speak. He’d thought nothing could be more important to him than doing what he loved, being on the ice-pursuing that dream and whatever made it possible was all that would ever matter to him-but he was wrong.

This girl made everything else in his life seem small in comparison.

Libby knelt up on the bed beside him, taking his face in her soft little hands. “Yes,” she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Yes, Henry.” She kissed his other cheek, her mouth impossibly soft. “Yes and yes and yes,” she whispered, the words muffled and lost in their kiss.

Henry felt it happening and knew it wasn’t the best timing in the world, but neither of them could stop it. It was as if their kiss had kindled something deeply buried in them that gave them both a heady fever.

Her mouth was soft, but demanding, asking more of him, and he gave it to her, pressing her back onto his bed. She welcomed him, her slender jean-clad thighs squeezing, arms wrapped around his neck.

Then she broke the kiss, struggling with her hoodie and he helped her, groaning when he saw her in just her bra and jeans, her red hair fanned out under her. Henry took his shirt off too, and her eyes brightened as she explored his skin with her long, delicate fingers, tracing the dark line of hair down from his navel to the button of his jeans.

She undid the button, then the zipper, tugging at his jeans, and Henry hopped off the bed, shoving them down his hips as he watched her do her own, wiggling out of them and tossing them with his on the floor. Now she was just wearing a white bra and panties and little pick socks.

“Come keep me warm.” She shivered, reaching her hand out for him, and he joined her on the bed again, the two of them kissing and rolling around, fumbling, moaning, exploring. He discovered she really liked her neck kissed and licked-she made soft kitten-like sounds when he did that, her hips bucking under his.

He tried to take his time, but he was so eager for her that her bra was undone and her panties gone before he could even savor the sight of her body with them on. Her nipples were a pale, puffy pink, so very tiny under his tongue. Her breasts were little handfuls that practically melted into the flesh of her chest when she lay down, giving her a more boy-like appearance-yet everything about her was all-girl, from the beyond-soft silk of her skin to the tender cries of pleasure he extracted from her slender throat.

When his tonguing exploration reached the dip of her navel, his cock throbbed as if he’d found the promise land. Her belly was soft and pale and taut and he kissed his way down to the curly edge of her pubic hair. She whimpered in anticipation, her hand moving in his hair, waiting for him to part her red sea and drink her soothing waters. As soon as he tasted her, he was addicted, her clit a tiny, hidden treasure, the pink folds of her pussy a traceable map.

“Oh Henry…” She sighed as she came, so very pretty, her eyelids fluttering closed, her hips moving. He could fit her whole ass in the span of his hands and he did, lifting her to his mouth to drink her all up.

“Kiss me,” she begged him, sucking the taste of her own pussy off his tongue. He didn’t think his cock could get any harder, but then she was tugging his boxers off and stroking it against the skin of her inner thigh as they kissed.

“Ohhh, I want you inside me so bad.” She opened her eyes, still breathing hard. “Do you have anything?”

He didn’t want to leave her, but he managed to just sit up, letting her keep her delicious vice-grip on his cock, and lean over to open his night table drawer. He grabbed a huge handful of condoms from the pile, at least a dozen and threw them up into the air, letting them rain down like confetti.

“Atta boy!” Libby laughed, grabbing one and tearing it open with her teeth. The laughter stopped, though, when she rolled the condom over the swollen head of his cock with her thumbs and welcomed him back into her waiting arms.

Henry nudged against her as they continued to kiss and cuddle, his cock seeking entrance but not finding the right angle. Finally, Libby reached between them, sliding the head of his cock down through her swollen slit, positioning him, just right.

“There.” She whispered the words into his ear. “Now.”

He shifted his hips slowly forward, feeling her flesh give, but just a little. He pushed in deeper, her thighs silky and opening under his, feeling the snug hollow of her little hole opening too. Her pussy was wet from his tongue, wet from her orgasm, but she was still so tight! Thank god for condoms, he thought. At least it helped lessen the sensation-a little. She whimpered, her breath in his ear, when he was finally as deep as he could go.

“You okay?” he panted.

“Fuck yes,” she moaned, rolling her hips, moving his cock around deep in her cunt, making him groan and start alphabetizing states in his head. “Hey,” she said, kissing his jaw, his cheek, his chin. “Don’t stop now. Come on. Let’s go for a ride.”

“Let the motor calm down a bit,” he panted. “Otherwise we’re gonna overheat.”

Libby ran her fingernails lightly over his back, his shoulders, and they waited, breathing together, Henry’s face buried in the sweet-smelling mass of her hair, until he had some bit of control again.

“Now?” she whispered, her hips shifting, her pussy clenching. “Please?”

This girl was going to be the death of him, he decided, gritting his teeth and beginning to move. There was nothing soft and yet tight enough to describe the sensation of her flesh, the way she felt enveloping his cock. There was no silicone that could match it, and no other woman or girl he’d ever met, either. It was beyond pleasure, beyond good. It was perfection.

“Henry!” Libby moaned, and he felt her hand moving between them, touching her clit, working to get herself off. “Please! Oh god your cock feels so good!”

“Honey, I can’t do this very long,” he apologized, holding back, every muscle strained, as her pussy began to flutter and pulse. “Libby, baby, I can’t-”

“Come!” she cried, her back arching, her long legs wrapped around his waist, driving his length deep into her waiting cunt. He couldn’t have stopped then if he wanted to, the explosion through his body beyond fire-it was nuclear. He saw flashes of light behind his eyes, the red heat consuming him completely as he buried his face in Libby’s hair, and gave himself over to pure sensation.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, kissing him over and over as they rolled on the bed, condoms sticking to them. “I’ve wanted that for so long.”

“Me, too,” he breathed as they finally slowed and Henry curled beside her, his cheek resting on her tiny breasts.

He didn’t know where it came from, why he said it. Like the climactic explosion they’d shared, it just welled up in him and spilled over.

“Libby, I can’t read.”

And then it was all flooding in, a dam bursting.

He told her about tutoring. He told her about Toni. He talked and talked and Libby listened, silent. When he finally stopped, spent, he found himself filled with a cold fear. Would she pity him? Hate him? Walk out of his life forever this time? He cursed himself for ever opening his mouth when he lifted his head and looked at her closed eyes, tears slipping down into her temples.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “You must hate me.”

“Henry, I don’t hate you.” She finally turned toward him, opening her wet eyes and cupping his face in her hands. “I luh-” She pursed her lips, blinking, holding back, and then kissed the tip of his nose. “I like you.”

He smiled. “I like you, too.”

“Uh-oh, we missed one.” She reached over and peeled a condom off his hip, holding it up. Then she tore the wrapper off with her teeth. “Oops, it’s open! Shouldn’t let these go to waste.”

“No,” he agreed, finding himself back in her welcoming arms. “We definitely shouldn’t.”

His cock was already getting hard again.

Henry nuzzled Libby’s neck, not paying attention at all to the news report everyone else was glued to on Bel’s widescreen TV. It wasn’t just big news on campus-it was big news everywhere.

“News out of Ann Arbor today-Dean Mosher, son of University of Michigan Board of Regents director Stephen Mosher, was arrested Friday on charges of racketeering, fraud and embezzlement…”

“Serves him right,” Elaine said under her breath, but it was loud enough for Henry to hear her on the other side of Libby.

“Unreal.” Bel sat at his desk, shaking his head in disbelief.

The newscaster, a pretty blonde in a navy suit, went on, “Mosher senior paid back the missing funds to the Literacy Tutor Foundation charity himself and has resigned from the LTF board.”

“In other related news, reports of widespread gambling on-campus at the University of Michigan have focused on Fraternity Alpha Pi Alpha and members of the fraternity leadership are under investigation for racketeering.”

Elaine hopped off the bed and went to the window, gazing out. “Snowing again.”

“Cold, too,” Bel chimed in. “Nearly froze my balls off walking back from the library.”

Henry snorted. “What were you doing in the library?”

“Not making out with the redheaded librarian,” Bel replied with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Unfortunately.”

Henry put his arm protectively over Libby’s shoulders. “She’s not the librarian anymore.”

On the TV, the news was switching segments, the anchors talking back and forth.

The blonde turned to talk to the sportscaster. “Even in all that snow, University of Michigan won Saturday’s game against EMU, didn’t they?”

“No surprise there, Heather.” The sportscaster flashed a smile. His tie was awful. “They haven’t had a winning season since ninety-five. But good news for Michigan fans, even though Dean Mosher was one of U of M’s rising stars, the current word from the NCAA is that there is no investigation planned for the football program…”

Henry perked up at that news. The game had been won, so at least the guys who had been pressured or bribed by Dean to throw the game were off the hook.

“Hey, I gotta get to work.” Libby leaned over and kissed Henry’s cheek. “I left my shoes in your room.”

“Got your magnifying glass and your reporter’s hat, cubby?” Henry stood and held his hand out to help her up. The local paper that broke the story had given her a job, nothing major, just a copywriter position, but it was something-and today was her first day.

“You coming?” Libby called over her shoulder to Elaine.

“I’m gonna stay here a while.” Elaine stood talking to Bel, waving her roommate out.

Henry slowed as he neared his dorm room door. It was ajar. His heart leapt in his chest as he glanced back at Libby. Dean? Dean’s stuff had been boxed and moved out already-he’d heard Dean’s mom did it, but he hadn’t seen her. He’d just come home to half the room empty. But Dean’s family had connections. Had Dean sent someone after him? Or maybe Marcus’s guys had gotten wind of who had turned them in?

He pushed Libby back into the hall, slowly opening the door to reveal a guy with a suitcase and a duffel bag standing there studying the room. Henry breathed a sigh of relief-he’d almost forgotten the call he’d received just that morning from the housing department.

“Hey, you must be my new roommate.” Henry gave the kid his hand and the guy shook it. “I’m Henry Baumgartner.”

“John Hill.”

The guy seemed normal enough. Nerdy, maybe. But that was no crime.

“So do you, uh… play football?” Henry plopped down on his bed as Libby started putting on her tennis shoes.

“No.” John lifted his suitcase onto the bed.

“Into gambling?” Henry inquired.

John gave him a funny look. “No.”

“Got any buildings named after you?” Libby stood and held her own hand out. “I’m Olivia Stowe. Libby. I’m Henry’s girlfriend.”

“Nice to meet you.” John smiled, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

Henry frowned. “Are you into redheads?”

John glanced between the two of them, bemused. “I don’t have anything against them.”

“I gotta go.” Libby leaned over and gave Henry a kiss. He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her properly.

“Good luck,” he whispered into her flushed ear. “Call me later.”

“She’s cute,” John remarked as Libby closed the door behind her.

“Don’t get any ideas.” Henry’s eyes narrowed as he watched his new roommate begin to unpack. Then he brightened. “As a matter of fact-here-if you ever get any ideas about my girlfriend and I’m not around…”

Henry reached under the bed.