Page 32 of Study Games

“Still letting others take your power away.”

“I’m a college student. A broke one. The only power I have is over how badly I cook my noodles each night.”

“Ew. Not sexy.”

“I did say that.” I gusted out a breath. Jax offered no further distractions. My time was up, maybe with him forever after what I just fessed up. Boring, slut, and broke? So not sexy. “I went to a party during my first week at Rippton. Like everyone else, I had some drinks, which I’d done before college, at home. I have an older brother who was determined to ensure I was piss fit before I came onto campus. I used to be a jeans and white tee girl. Had blonde hair. All that changed when Key and Kash decided I was their project for the first semester, and it sort of never stopped.” I swallowed.

“What happened at the party?” Jax’s face remained carefully neutral.

“I think I was slipped something. A drug. I’ve never taken anything so I have no idea.” He nodded, and I continued. “I stayed on beer, didn’t do shots or anything. I might be naive but I’m not that stupid. After beer pong, I felt woozy. I barely had to skull anything as Celia is an absolute pro—my housemate—and saved both our tushes. Someone helped me upstairs and I woke up between a pair of men I didn’t know, covered in—” I closed my mouth, swallowing back the taste that never left me no matter how many times I brushed my tongue or drank mouthwash.

“Jesus.” Jax stilled.

“They had clips of us running on the TV in the bedroom on loop, like a never ending porn film. I looked half awake on the screen and did whatever they suggested. It was really obvious that I didn’t object to anything. I had– I hadn’t– It was my first,” I whispered, tucking my chin to stare at my hands that trembled in my lap. “The twins turned up an hour later with a suggestion of a ransom for the night’s…activities. And the recording that was saved everywhere, or it would go out to everyone, with my name all tagged over it.”

It wasn’t just my future work life that was ruined. My father would see that tape. My mother. My brothers had been over protective in some senses and the best I could ask for. Both left for the military before I hit my first year and the back up I'd relied on all my life disappeared. Celia stepped in as best she could but it was too late. Ice cream, tissues and hugs patched me up, and hence the girls night only parties.

“What did you do when you woke up?” Jax stroked my back in long passes with his whole hand, his touch warming and soothing at once.

“I tried to scream the house down, but they were prepared for that. Two tall, strong experienced and apparently genius guys versus one small farm girl coming off a drugged hangover isn’t much of a challenge. I don’t like a hand around my throat, by the way.” In case he did, or in case he cared. Jax hadn’t thrown me on the floor yet in disgust or walked away, and a tiny flicker of hope remained in my heart.

“Noted,” he said seriously. “So they—what, threaten you with exposure?”

I nodded. “The tape’s fairly graphic. And it’s everything you could expect. Everything,” I emphasized, so he was under no delusions. “All the things I never thought a body, my body, could do.” I kept my mind clear of the film that was etched there against my will anyway. While my mind didn’t remember it, my head sure as hell did. Bees were so much safer. “I do their work for them. Assignments, projects…I give it to them and they submit it. Not that they need the help. They’d both be smarter than almost anyone else around.”

“You said you didn’t know the guys in the bed when you woke up,” Jax started thoughtfully.

“No.” I shook my head.

“What about today? Have you seen them around campus? One of the sports jocks?” He watched my face, his brow dipping. Lines tightened around his mouth but he didn't say anything more and it didn't take a genius to figure out where that line of the thought traveled.

He lived with the sports jocks. And though he didn’t know where the party was I attended that night, there was one party frat on campus that outweighed all the others.

The one he lived at with the Rippton Allstars.

The Kingsman frat.

I searched his face, trying to think up the faces that brought bile to the back of my tongue, and came up empty. “No,” I realized. “I haven’t.”

“Okay.” Jax nodded as if he’d made a decision.

“Okay?” I echoed. “Do– do you want me to move so you can leave?” I searched his face, but all I read there was that he was lost somewhere inside his own head. “My story isn’t deep like yours. I’m sorry,” I added in a small voice.

Just a stupid girl who made another statistic on her first week at a college she shouldn’t have gone to, in over her head.

Yup, that was me in all the ways, and now in my second year, I was a full eighteen months into paying my tolls to the devils and completely exhausted.

“What are you sorry for?” Jax stroked light fingertips over my cheek and drew me closer to him, settling my hands over his heart and clasping them there. The regular beat of his heart thrummed beneath my palm.

I blinked, forgetting to pull away. “Why aren’t you throwing me off you and running?”

“My girlfriend just told me she was raped at the hand of two evil dicks, held hostage by others, and feels she has no way out of it. I want to hold you, Waverly. Actually, I’m staying. What do you wear to bed?”

“Boy shorts and a singlet top,” I answered on automatic. “Jax–” My brain jammed. “Go slow for me. Please. That might have gone by a little fast.”

“For a clever girl, you’re behind on this one, honey.” He tucked me into the curve of his shoulder, angling me so I stared up at him. “I want you. If you feel the same as I do—caught in a whirlwind and waiting for the house to drop on a wicked witch or pair of warlocks—then we’re on the same page. Give it a try?” He waited until I nodded, and let out a long breath. “Good, cause I wasn’t sure you wanted what I did. Good,” he repeated, nestling me closer and feeling like he wasn’t about to let me up to get changed at all.

I was kinda okay with that.

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