Purity: A Friends-to-Lovers College Romance

I’M SHAKING.

It’s been hours since my conversation with Livvy, and just thinking about it makes my whole body tremble.

Ancient fantasies of her are racing through my mind. Images of those thick thighs spread open for me. Of her pretty mouth wrapped around my cock while she stares up at me with those big brown eyes. These thoughts usually only break through the darkness of my consciousness in moments of complete abandon. But they race through my head now as I stand in my kitchen while my party is winding down around me.

This isn’t good.

I need to do something, or else I won’t be able to resist her.

Fuck, who can I call right now? I should have thought about it earlier. It would have been easy to find a hot girl at the party, but I’d been too consumed by thoughts of her…

Someone I’ve already fucked won’t be distracting enough. I’d probably imagine she’s Livvy, which would make me feel like a piece of shit. I need novelty if I’m going to get her out of my head.

I glance into my living room where two of my friends are passed out. They won’t notice if I leave now. It’s only midnight. I have plenty of time to find someone at a bar, especially if I work fast.

A little while later, I’m in the backseat of an Uber and headed back home after less than an hour in a bar downtown. The beautiful brunette straddling my lap presses a kiss against my neck before inhaling softly. “You smell good.”

The words send a jolt of heat into my groin. Livvy has said that to me countless times, especially when I wear cologne. She never means for it to turn me on, but it always does. She’s even put her nose up to my chest and inhaled, humming afterward—

Fuck.

I’m thinking about her again.

Why did I have to find another short, curvy brunette? I should have forced myself to only approach women who look nothing like her.

Sophia presses a trail of soft kisses from my neck to my jaw. When she licks my ear, I hold back a groan. “Do that again,” I whisper.

She smiles against my skin. This time I can’t help but groan as her slippery tongue heats the inside of my ear. I pull her close and place a kiss on her collarbone. “Good girl,” I say quietly.

“Mmm,” she hums. “I’m going to be a bad girl for you soon.”

A pleasant shiver runs through my body. I work my mouth down lower until I’m flush with her cleavage. God, these tits are perfect, and the belly under my hand is soft, just like Livvy’s.

I’m forced to pull away from her when the Uber driver stops in front of the gate at the entrance to my parents’ property. I tell him to drive up to the post so I can punch in the code. I’m just about to roll down the window when Sophia jerks in my arms. “Holy shit!”

I turn to her, frowning. “What?”

“This house. That ‘W’…” She stares at the curling letter on the iron gate.

“For Walker. It’s my last name.”

She stares at it for several seconds with an unreadable expression. “Are you related to Mark Walker?”

A buzzing sounds in my ears, pulling me back to that moment long ago when I opened that hotel room door. “He’s my dad.” My voice is somehow coming from outside of myself. “Why?”

She doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t have to.

“I need to go home,” she eventually says, her voice tight.

She tells the Uber driver we need to make another stop, or at least, I think she does. I hardly hear her.

Oh my God, he fucked her.

And not just fucked her… He fucked her somewhere in our family home. Maybe even in my parents’ bed. He actually had the audacity to bring one of his women into my mom’s private space.

How could he do that to her?

I should be disgusted, like I always am when I hear whispers of his affairs from people who don’t know he’s my dad.

What is this strange aura settling over my body and making my teeth chatter? It’s faraway because I’m drunk, but I think it’s panic.

This feels eerily similar to that night five years ago. I couldn’t even move after I caught him fucking that woman. I must have sensed that my life was about to change.

Nothing felt the same after my dad and I came home from that trip. It was like the world had become a shade dimmer, and only I noticed. It left me disoriented and off-kilter. Inside jokes with my friends weren’t funny anymore. High school drama suddenly seemed so stupid and insignificant. I couldn’t even remember why I ever cared about it before. Even baseball, which meant everything to me back then, seemed like a silly remnant from my childhood that I refused to let go, like a grungy stuffed animal.

But why am I feeling it all now? My mom is going to be fine. Pretty soon, she’ll be free of him.

He won’t be able to hurt her with his recklessness.

Or maybe years of mistreatment has permanently damaged her.

It seems like only seconds later we’re pulling up in front of an apartment complex. Thank God.

I turn to Sophia but can’t find the right words. She waits for me silently.

When I’m finally able to speak, the words are clipped. “I’m sorry.”

She frowns. “For what?”

My mind goes blank. “I’m not sure.”

Just as she sets her hand on the door handle, I grip her forearm gently, and she turns to me. “I don’t know how well you know him,” I say, “but he’s a piece of shit, and you deserve better.”

She opens her mouth and closes it. Is she questioning how much she should tell me? “We only…

hung out once. He seemed like a nice guy. You actually remind me of him now that I think about it.”

That buzzing starts again. My throat is too tight to speak, so I only nod. In what feels like a flash, she’s gone.

I shouldn’t pity myself. In a way, I ought to be thankful for my cheating, piece-of-shit dad. If I hadn’t walked in on him all those years ago, I never would have felt that strange, itching need for escape. That uncomfortable feeling that made me convince my mom to let me transfer to a public school to see if a change of scenery would make it go away.

That led me to her, as if we were destined to be.

Livvy was like an angel coming into my life to rescue me. She was so soft and sweet and caring, I finally had someone to talk to. I laughed again. I finally started getting excited about college and my future. Her presence alone made the world bright again.

I can’t ever lose her.

Why the fuck did I tell her I’d think about her proposition? I should have told her no the second she asked me. Sex will complicate our relationship in a way I won’t be able to undo. Romantic feelings would probably enter in for both of us. How could they not when we already care for each other so much?

None of it would last. Romantic feelings would fade away, and she’d go back to her old life.

Marry her perfect Christian guy, and I’d become part of her past. Her former best friend and ex-lover.

No matter how tempted I am to give in, I have to do everything in my power to resist her.