Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(158)

The question was supposed to show how willing we were to follow orders. And I honestly wasn’t sure how far they would go, all to prove this point.

What do I get out of it?

The prize would be a membership into a social clique. I believed I could obtain this a different way. I saw a path that no one else did.

“I think you have it backwards,” I told him, my smile peeking through. “You should suck my cock. You would enjoy it more.”

The pledges broke into laughter, and the blond stepped forward, his nose nearly touching mine. “What did you just say to me?”

“I thought I was perfectly clear the first time.” He was giving me the opportunity to bend down again. But if I wanted to be led by a group of testosterone poisoned monkeys, I would have joined the football team.

“You weren’t.”

“Then let me reiterate.” I leaned forward, confidence seeping through every pore. My lips brushed his ear. He liked that more than he thought he would. “Suck. My. Cock.”

He pushed me back, bright red, and my eyebrow arched.

“Problem?” I asked him.

“Are you gay, Cobalt?”

“I only love myself. In that respect, maybe. And yet, I still won’t blow you.” With this, I left the secret society behind.

Eight of the ten pledges joined me.

Three.

I was nineteen. I attended the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League, and stood with forty other Student Ambassadors. Eager freshman filled the auditorium, hoping to be admitted to the prestigious Honor’s Program as I once was. I would take a group of them on tour of the campus before their interview with the Dean.

“Look around the room,” the Dean told them. The freshman glanced over their shoulders to meet the faces of their competition. From my place by the wall, I briefly locked eyes with a brunette in the third row. Her narrowed, brutal stare caused the girls next to her to shrink into their seats.

But she was focused only on me.

I mouthed, Hello Rose.

She read my lips well. Die Richard, she replied back, using my real first name.

Faust defeated her prep school at the Model UN Conference over a year ago, and it was her last chance to beat me at something before I entered college. The girl smoked with anger every time she neared me, every time she was forced to hear me speak.

She made me realize that nothing was better than winning. Not even sex. Although, I had never touched Rose. She more or less spit on any guy who got too close.

“Make sure you look around,” the Dean repeated. “Because there’s a ninety percent chance that someone in this room will be your future spouse.”

I watched Rose and rubbed my lips to hide an even larger grin because I knew she was incensed by the mere idea. She would be more likely to cut a dick than ride one. Rose Calloway was the heiress of Fizzle, the daughter of an international soda empire that rivaled Pepsi and Coca-Cola. But she never let the fame define her. She worked hard and she was naturally gifted at telling men to f*ck off.

I didn’t believe in luck, but by some strange coincidence, she was randomly assigned to my tour group.

“You again,” she said.

I hadn’t seen her in over a year. And yet, we picked up right where we left off. We always did.

She added, “I beat your stupid boarding school this year at Model UN, you know.”

“I wasn’t there, so I’m not surprised that Faust lost to Dalton.” I had graduated one year before her.

She sucked in a sharp breath, her yellow-green eyes trying to penetrate me, a gaze that would cause a flurry of boners among the male student body. And she wouldn’t even know it. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You aren’t,” I agreed. “You’re perceptive, but ten meters to the right is Ashley Gracen. She’d school you in any match, intellectual or athletic. In the far back, fifty meters away sits Beth Anne Johnson. She’d beat your test scores without studying.” But Rose Calloway was different from all the girls at Penn. She was fashionable. But not a sorority girl. She was a genius on paper. But not a team player. She was quick to loathe others. But not against loving.

She was a complicated equation that didn’t need to be solved.

“All that proves is that you have a high proficiency to stalk girls.”

I like to know my competition. “You must possess the same skill then.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t stalk girls.”

“No, you just stalk guys. You searched the room for me when you came in here.”

Her lips pressed in a thin line. After a long pause, she said, “I did not.”

I tilted my head, my smile bursting through. And we stared at each other for a long time. Everyone nearby watched us. But we were stuck in our own world. In our own personal battle. I wasn’t sure there would ever be a winner. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the day where one of us demolished the other.

Then the game would end. And where was the fun in that?

“Fine,” she retorted, crumbling beneath my persuasive gaze. “I was looking for you. But only because I think you’re the most narcissistic, egotistical, self-righteous human being in the universe.”

“The universe? I didn’t realize you’re so well-traveled.”

She glared. “Shut up.”

I looked her over and thought of one thing. I heard that during a health class at Dalton Academy, her prep school, she took her baby doll and stabbed the stuffing with a pair of scissors. Another person said she scribbled over the baby’s forehead and handed it to the teacher. The note: I won’t care for an inanimate object unless the boys do it too.