“I need to get these clothes off,” I confessed, lifting the hem of my tank up. The friction was bothering me, and in my current state, the only way to rectify the problem was to get rid of them. And I’d waited long enough.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath before hauling me over his shoulder, his long strides carrying us toward the house.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
MICAH
I’d done my fair share of drugs. My life from a young age had been nothing but a stream of endless parties. What started out as business functions and high-class soirees turned into beach bashes and high school bingers. One thing they all had in common: booze and a cocktail of drugs, from street to prescription.
Those pretentious high rollers were no different from thugs in the streets. Dressing it up with glass tables, expensive tools, or hidden platinum gold jewelry didn’t make the contents any less potent.
Mads, despite growing up in the same uppity world I had, rarely partook in the drug side of parties. The girl could down a bottle of champagne without taking a breath, but she never touched theparty favors.
The fact that Sterling had given my girl a drug without her consent nearly put me over the top. The only thing stopping me from storming the Chi Sigma house was Mads. Tonight, Sterling got a pass, but tomorrow, all fucking bets were off.
I would be gunning for him, fully loaded and ready to hunt.
As I carried her upstairs to my room, I tried not to let my mind wander to what might have happened if Brock hadn’t called Grayson and Fynn for the weekend. It only made me respect him more for the role he took in our crew. What if he hadn’t called them? What if they had been five minutes later? What if Sterling’s sadistic plan had gone off without a hitch?
I fucking hated the what-if game.
I don’t know what made him change his mind, but I would be forever grateful.
The smoke. The crowd. The chaos on the field. All of it contributed to the panic I had felt when I lost sight of Mads. My gut immediately understood what was happening. I’d been the foreman for too many pranks in my day not to recognize what was going down.
And now she was suffering. I only knew one way to relieve the agony she felt. The idea that Sterling might have been the one to touch her, to ease her distress, sent blistering fury blazing through my blood.
“Micah, the world is upside down,” she whined, and the little quiver in her voice broke something in my chest.
Anger wasn’t what Mads needed. I had to bank the flames and find a way to remain calm. “We’re almost there,” I reassured her, kicking the door wider with my foot.
I set her down in the middle of my bed. She shoved tangles of hair out of her face, glancing up at me with those teary starlight eyes. “What did he do to me?”
My jaw clenched, and I fought the urge to punch a wall. “The bastard shot you up with Molly.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Why?”
I trailed a finger over her jawline. My desire to take away her confusion and make her forget the heightened emotions coursing through her slowly overrode my anger. “It would do neither of us any good to theorize about his motives.”
She reached up, her hands slipping under my shirt, pulling me between her legs. “You’re right. Let’s not talk.”
“Mads.” I put a bit of sternness behind her name. “I want you to stay here. I need five minutes to shower. Can you do that?”
“Micah,” she pleaded, her lips forming the most adorable pout. In a different situation, I would have been amused.
“Stay put,” I ordered, pointing to the bed.
Her fingers went to the elastic waistband of my shorts, brushing over my lower belly. “Don’t leave. I don’t want to be alone.”
I sucked in a breath. “I’m not going anywhere. Why don’t you lie down?”
She scuttled back on the bed, tugging at my waistband as she went. “I like touching you. It feels good.”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed, removing her hand gently from my shorts before I jumped on her, stinky and sweaty as I was. Backing up to my bedroom door, I shut it, flipped the lock, and glanced one more time over at Mads to make sure she hadn’t moved before strutting into the bathroom. I left the door open.
Taking a two-minute shower to rinse off, I didn’t bother to shampoo. The water was cold, but damn if it didn’t alleviate the churning of both desire and fury pumping inside me. It seemed like a dangerous concoction that I needed to gain control of fast.
Lucky for me, the moment I stepped back into my bedroom with just a towel draped around my waist, one emotion became predominantly brighter, snuffing the anger out completely.