Page 11 of Speak

Except something happens. As soon as she reaches the dorms, they’re intercepted by none other than Dean Whitmore. He holds out his dark brown hand and after a minute she takes it, hair still wild. I decide I like it. Her hair, I mean. The guy takes his hand, too. I quirk my eyebrows. Why would Dean Whitmore make a personal appearance to greetthem?

“You think they’re famous?” I ask the stoney bastard to my left. “Like,celebrityfamous, I mean?”

Nothing.

Ah, just as well. They go inside the building, the guy tugging the suitcase behind him, Whitmore carries the cello case. That’s… new.

Hmm…

A white BMW pulls up but instead of stopping at the front, circles and comes to the back, parking by the faculty dorms. A handsome fucker with black hair and a little bit of silver on the sides pops out. He too, goes to his trunk and pulls out two suitcases. The leggy blonde, Ms. Overly from the admin office greets him and points at the faculty building where he’ll be staying. I watch him come out a second time to retrieve another suitcase and a crate full of stuff.

New professor? No. He looks a little more put together than most of the professors around here. He has that air of sophistication about him that’s already wildly annoying. But that’s Rayne-Moore for you.

I curse when my phone rings. “Yeah?”

“Yo, Jonas, where are you?”

“Around.” I reply. I’m not giving away my little spot up here to fuckingChaseof all people. He’ll just bring chicks up here to bang and probably leave his used condoms lying around, fucking up my vibes. “What’s up?”

“We’re heading to the dining hall. See you there?”

“I could eat.” I respond. I ate two hours ago but I’m a growing boy. I’m twenty-two, but still, a growing man that plays college football in an elite university. Sometimes, all I do is eat. Food or pussy, but I’m always hungry. I mean, if I don’t feed my muscles, who will?

“Great, see you there.”

We hang up and I drop my binoculars, not seeing the brunette that I know will have a gorgeous face to match that physique. God, with hips like that, I bet the recoil would be great. I bet she smells like vanilla or something. Nah. Something better than vanilla. A chill rushes down my spine and straight to my cock when I think of all the different ways she could possiblytaste. I haven’t even met her and I’m hard for her. For all I know she could be a royal bitch. That would be a bummer.

“See ya later, George.” I say, reaching over and patting his weathered stone head.

It takes me a full thirty minutes to get down to the cafeteria, get through the line and sit next to Riordan and some of the other guys on the football team. I’m halfway done with my spaghetti when Chase, our Quarterback and Riordan’s twin, puts his elbows on the table and leans halfway into the table, blue eyes looking at all of us. He swallows what he’s chewing. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Riordan asks, blonde brow over his own set of baby blues.

“Melissa saidRaven Monroewas moving in across the hall from her dorm.”

I swallow. Holy shit.

Back when Dean Whitmore was an English Lit professor and not the Dean, Raven Monroe’s story was headline news for weeks after what happened to her. The camera from outside of the music hall only captured really grainy footage of four people (it was never known if it had been students) going into the hall after the custodian, Lex, left for the evening. Crude pictures one of the paramedics had taken and then sold during the whole ordeal and plastered everywhere got him fired from the fire department and her parents pressed charges. The things those people did to her were awful.

My sister Cadence was a senior when it happened, Monroe was barely a sophomore, having just turned twenty. Cadencefollowed the entire thing, but with no new leads, Cadence kind of forgot and moved to London after graduation to work at a publishing company. I never forgot, though. I mean, I ended up coming here. But, because of what happened to Monroe, a curfew was set into place. The entire campus shuts down after midnight and Dean Whitmore kept it. After my sister graduated and moved, I took a “gap semester” and then came back for my junior and senior years before I go to law school.

Thankfully, Coach let me back on the team.

“Melissa said Dean Whitmore personally escorted her to her dorm, her brother, Axel was there, too.” Herbrother. Fuck yeah. “Apparently, she can’t talk.”

“Can’t talk?” I ask.

Riordan shakes his head. “She’s not just mute, but she doesn’t talk at all. Not even sign language. It’s crazy.”

I quirk my eyebrows. “No, that’s stupid and I don’t believe that part. How is she supposed to participate in classes if she won’t talk?”

Chase sits back in his chair and shrugs his heavy Quarterback shoulders. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

Riordan looks at his brother and Chase smirks. I hate when they talk to each other with their eyes. It’s fucking weird. “No secrets, fuckers.”

“She was fucking hot. I mean, before the whole thing happened. The news only showed those bad pictures that paramedic took, but our cousin, Tyler was the football captain when she was here. She came to one of the parties at his house. We snuck out and went. She had this ass… fuck man, it was unbelievable when she was nineteen. Curvy as fuck. Can you imagine what she looks like now?”

I don’t need to imagine. I saw her. And they’re right. She has the body of a woman – plush inallthe right places. Enough for me to grip in my hands, enough for me to pummel into from the back. Fuck, I’m getting hard just thinking about it.

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