Chapter Text
Ethan pulled at the fabric of his crop top. He rolled his shoulders back and straightened his posture—trying to hold onto whatever scrap of dignity he could. The other two pledges were rising sophomores, a year or two younger than Ethan’s twenty-one. One was stocky and wide, his shoulders curled in and his eyes on the floor. The other was skinny and tall, his eyes scanning the library, his face flushed pink.
The upperclassmen that had come to oversee this fiasco couldn’t contain their smiles, and kept shoving at each other’s shoulders as they waited. Ethan was pretty sure two of them were drunk.
Ethan wished he was drunk.
They’d dressed the pledges in spandex shorts, and the fabric was tight against Ethan’s junk, riding up his ass crack. His whole body felt hot, and if he got hard he thought he’d split through the flimsy crotch of the shorts.
He wouldn’t get hard, of course. This was a humiliation trial meant to show their loyalty to the frat and test their limits. It wasn’t sexual, not really.
“Alright, pledges,” Connor said, his eyes bright. “Welcome to the library.”
Ethan pulled his hands behind his back and linked his hands, a resting posture they used in ROTC. They were in a small, hidden alcove of the library, near the entrance but far from the reference desk. Three pledges and four upperclassmen. Connor was their pledge master and he took the position seriously.
“Your task tonight is to see who can get the most signatures. But,” Connor paused dramatically and looked each of them in the face before continuing. “You must not get caught. If the librarian sees you, you lose. And if she asks if this is for pledge week, or what frat you’re pledging, what do you say?”
“Nothing,” they all three said in unison.
Connor smiled, his full lips quirking. “Exactly.”
Ethan looked up at Connor and their eyes met briefly, the brightness of the blue sending a jolt of something through Ethan’s chest. Connor smiled.
“Alright, pledges, mouths open.”
Ethan swallowed thickly before he opened his mouth, the air cool against his tongue.
The other brothers filed around and placed a sharpie in each of their waiting mouths.
Ethan closed his lips around the pen, the cool plastic held between his teeth.
“Alright. No speaking from now on. We’ll be your first signatures. On all fours.”
Ethan’s heart began to pound as he heard the movement beside him. The other pledges dropping to their knees like it was nothing.
Ethan swallowed and closed his eyes.
He felt hot breath on his face. The sour smell of old beer filled his flaring nostrils.
“Problem, pledge?” Came Connor’s voice, low and challenging.
Ethan’s face heated and he opened his eyes. Flickering blue met his, severe and endless. Connor’s eyes said try me and, for some reason, Ethan’s skin prickled at the idea.
Ethan shook his head. He lowered his gaze and shifted slowly to the ground. He came down on his left knee, then his right. He kept his gaze low as he shifted to bring his palms to meet the floor.
The carpet was scratchy against his skin, his hand lightly callused from football, his knees tender and alive with feeling. The tight fabric of the shorts pulled on his balls, as he shifted into place, pinching the sensitive skin. He breathed carefully through his nose, holding the marker between his lips. He tried to keep his breaths even.
Don’t let them see you crack, he reminded himself. He rolled his shoulders and lifted his head, gaze high.
He watched as the upperclassmen bent to take the wet sharpies from the other pledge’s mouths. And then his own. Connor’s fingers grazed his wet lip as he pulled the marker free and uncapped it.
Connor pressed his hand against the skin of Ethan’s lower back, pulling it taut as he pressed the cold marker to his back and signed his name. A hot spark of pleasure shot up Ethan’s spine as he did it.
Ethan locked his arms and legs, staying as still as he could, as Connor passed the marker and three other sets of hands pressed to Ethan’s flesh, scribbling words on his body.
Ethan’s heart was pounding in his chest when the last brother stood and held the marker out for Ethan to take back into his mouth.
The thrill of it was terrifying, and Ethan tried to swallow the feeling. He glanced at his fellow pledges and he saw only determination and focus, a we’ll-get-through-this look to both men’s eyes. They didn’t seem to be fighting a confusing semi.
Ethan refocused, his tongue rolling over the marker in his mouth.
This is not about sex, he reminded himself.
“Alright, pledges. You have thirty minutes.” Connor’s voice was low, but the words carried a finality. It was time.
At first no one moved, and Ethan’s body was on fire as he waited. He could see the big man beside him trembling lightly. Ethan’s nostrils flared with an inhale and he knew he had to start things off. A sick part of him wanted Connor to see him be first.
He was clumsy on hands and knees, and each shift caused the shorts to tighten against his sac, like a hand squeezing his balls with each movement.
He kept his eyes on the floor, only glancing up to check where the sight line from the reference desk was. He would not get caught. He could hear the other pledges starting to move behind him, indicated by the low sniggers of the upperclassman watching from the shadows of the stacks.
Ethan spotted a study carrel with a nerdy looking guy in all black wearing big over-ear headphones. A table nearby had a woman in pajama pants and an oversized hoodie with her hair in a messy bun. A big comfy chair held a girl with her mouth hanging open, asleep.
He decided on the woman in the hoodie.
His crawl was slow, and each drag of the carpet against his skin sent an unwelcome surge of arousal through him. He couldn’t think about it too much, about what wires were being crossed in his brain right now. Wires crossing and sending direct signals to his hardening dick.
He stopped next to the table and waited for the girl to notice him. He held the marker out and tried to smile, tried to look nonthreatening. Maybe he should have started with the guy. If she screamed, this would be all over.
Her eyes were still on her laptop screen, the slight glow reflecting off her glasses and casting a blue sheen on her clear skin. She was pretty, Ethan thought.
Look at me, Ethan pleaded.
He wondered if Connor was watching him wait here, as the woman typed away at her laptop, unaware.
Ethan decided he was allowed to clear his throat.
He did. Loudly.
The girl startled, looking around and then down to the level where Ethan sat, looking up.
Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something. But, Ethan lifted one hand from the ground and brought a finger to his mouth, a universal, but silent shhhh.
She giggled and turned bright red as Ethan placed his palm back on the carpet. Her eyes were taking him in, taking over the exposed skin of his lower back, the cluster of words written there. He felt her gaze like a touch, and her nervous excitement pulsed between them.
“You want me to write on you?” She whispered, her head bent down.
Ethan smiled around the marker and nodded.
Her breath was shaky as she exhaled but she nodded and took the marker carefully from his mouth. She pressed the cold tip of the marker to his bicep and scribbled quickly.
She capped the marker and held it out for Ethan to take back.
He just narrowly avoided touching her fingers with his lips.
She giggled softly as he turned to go and he wondered if that had turned her on. Maybe it was normal.
Ethan’s skin prickled as he shifted, moving towards the guy with the headphones, which were now shoved down around his neck. The stocky pledge was crawling silently away, a fresh signature on his neck.
Ethan glanced back at the reference desk, the librarian facing the other side of the library, her back still to the pledges.
The approach to the study carrel was different, because the guy knew he was coming. Dark eyes watched him, which caused fire to lick at Ethan’s skin. His stomach churned with unease, with a fear that the man would say something, do something, or worse—touch him.
The man’s fingernails were painted black and he had a silver ring through his septum. He had a locked down expression that could have covered arousal just as much as it could have covered boredom.
Ethan sat before him and presented the marker, his face flaming at the gesture. He felt like a dog with a bone.
How much time had passed? How much more could he take?
“Where do you want me?” The man whispered, his voice husky.
Ethan ignored how it sent more heat between his legs, a pulsing, aching feeling that couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be him.
Ethan shook his head.
“Not allowed to talk?” The man whispered.
Ethan shook his head again.
“Okay,” the man smiled. He reached for the marker and brushed Ethan’s lips as he took it between his fingers.
“Can I do your neck?” The man asked softly.
Ethan nodded, fighting another shudder as the man’s cold fingers found his neck and pressed into his skin.
“Tilt your head,” he said.
Ethan sucked in a shaky breath. The man smelled like vanilla and faintly of cigarettes.
The marker moved slowly, sliding against his skin.
The man spoke against Ethan’s hair, his face close. “All done.”
Ethan shivered as he sat back and opened his mouth for the marker.
The man’s eyes were a little brighter as he held the marker out, expecting Ethan to lean forward to take it.
Ethan swallowed and he tried not to acknowledge how his cock throbbed as he leaned forward to take the marker between his lips.
The man laughed softly and whispered, “Good boy.”
He patted Ethan’s hair and then couldn’t seem to control the giggles that overcame him.
A flash of arousal surged, so strong it scared Ethan with its intensity. The man was only joking, he reminded himself. It was just a joke.
But Ethan’s cock pulsed, a throbbing heat heavy between his legs.
He shuffled to his next target.
By the time he was on the other side of the library, his spandex shorts were soaked. They were black, with a shimmer to them, so he thought they were good at concealing a wet spot, but Ethan knew. Ethan knew how each hand that touched him, each person he knelt before was like another tight stroke to his needy cock.
He occasionally saw the other two pledges crouched in the stacks or kneeling before another student. But they didn’t seem to be near mad with arousal. They seemed to just be doing the task as assigned. They looked embarrassed, sure, but they didn’t look needy for it.
God, Ethan hoped he didn’t look needy for it.
He wouldn’t let himself glance back and search for Connor. He thought with one look Connor would just know.
A girl was leaning against his shoulder as she pulled up his crop top to find some space on his back to add her signature. Ethan breathed through his nose as he felt her fingers ghost over his skin and he tried to fight the thoughts that were trying to surface.
He wanted her to slide those fingers lower, to ghost over his spine, down to the hem of his shorts. He wanted the man across the way to touch him while she touched him. He wanted the girl to tell him he looked like a needy slut, he wanted—fuck, he thought.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ethan’s breath rattled as he sucked it in.
The girl capped the marker and handed it to her friend. New fingers pushed his shirt up, pressed to his hot skin.
Sweat prickled at his hairline and he glanced around the library.
His time had to be nearly up.
His eyes came to two guys seated at a table across from him, one looking at a textbook, and one so fully fixed on Ethan, his breath stuttered for a moment. The man’s eyes were brown, but not soft. They studied Ethan with a curiosity that barely contained the heat beneath it.
Ethan wanted to whimper as the girl pulled his shirt back down and put the marker back in his mouth. He wanted to crawl to that man—to those eyes—and roll onto his back, show him his belly and show him how wet he was. What a dirty boy he’d become, what a depraved little—
“I think they’re calling you,” one of the girls whispered.
And Ethan’s chest squeezed as he tore his eyes from the man, only to see Connor waving him back over.
Time was up.
Ethan shifted to move, but he glanced back at the man, those brown eyes unapologetic in how they scraped over Ethan’s body. It was like the man’s breath was ghosting over his skin, like his hands were holding him down, like his tongue—
God, Ethan, didn’t know how to put this raw need back in the bottle, how to go back to before, to find the Ethan that hadn’t known this about himself.
He stared at the man and begged with his eyes.
Touch me, please, I’ll do anything.
The man’s throat worked and he licked his lips. They parted, like he might say something from across the library, but then he turned back to his textbook, facing forward once again.
Ethan deflated, like it had been a real rejection, like a whole history had sprung up from nothing only to collapse before his eyes.
Ethan swallowed thickly and shifted away from the girls, his crawl slow and deliberate. His cock was so heavy against his stomach, pressed tight by the spandex. He wanted to rub it against something, the carpet, a table—that mans’ leg. He was so desperate for it that he didn’t realize how labored his breathing was when he finally got back to the dark corner where Connor waited.
And as the brothers counted the signatures, Ethan couldn’t hear it. He could hear nothing but his own harsh breathing. He imagined that man with his heated gaze coming over here and shoving him down, calling him names. He imagined Connor’s hand around his throat as he held him down for the man to abuse him.
He felt a fresh bead of arousal wet his shorts, and his thighs clenched.
“Ethan.” Connor’s voice. Connor’s real voice.
Ethan glanced up. Where had everyone gone?
Connor crouched down and tipped up Ethan’s chin.
“You didn’t hear a word, did you, Ethan?”
Ethan swallowed thickly, still fighting a shiver, his thighs clenched.
“No,” he croaked.
Connor’s blue eyes studied him.
Ethan tried to stay still, tried not to lean into Connor’s touch, to beg for it with his eyes. He felt desperate and needy and on the edge of ruin.
“You won, Ethan.”
Ethan looked away, toward the floor.
“You got the most signatures. We sent the other pledges home.”
Connor’s fingers were firm on Ethan’s jaw.
Ethan swallowed a whimper. Connor wasn’t doing what he thought he was doing—what he hoped he was doing. He wasn’t.
“You don’t care that you won?” Connor whispered, his breath ghosting over Ethan’s flushed cheek. “You don’t want to know what your prize is?”
Ethan couldn’t swallow the whimper that time. It was needy and low. A pathetic whine.
Connor laughed, low and rough. “Fuck, Ethan. What has gotten into you?”
Ethan looked up, meeting blue eyes. Heated blue eyes. He swallowed with an audible click. He said nothing.
“You can speak now, you know,” Connor said, shifting to speak right into Ethan’s ear. “What do you want for your reward, you little slut?”
Ethan moaned, and wriggled in his stance rubbing his thighs together.
Connor’s hand ghosted down his chest and moved lower, searching.
A finger moved up and down the outline of Ethan’s leaking cock.
Ethan heard Connor’s intake of breath. “Why,” he whispered. “Are you so fucking hard right now.”
Ethan whimpered and tried to buck into the soft pressure of Connor’s finger. “I don’t know,” he whined.
Connor laughed softly, hot against Ethan’s ear. “You liked all this people touching you, did you?”
Ethan nodded. Bucked again.
“You’re about to come in your pants, Ethan.”
Fingers glided up and down the sticky fabric, causing a fire to blaze up and down Ethan’s shaft. His balls tightened and drew up. He moaned again.
Connor laughed softly. “Jesus.”
But then he stood and walked away, further into the shadow behind the stacks. “Not here,” he whispered.
Ethan nodded, his legs shaky beneath him. He moved to crawl to Connor.
“For fuck’s sake,” Connor rasped. “Stand up.”
Ethan’s face heated as he looked up at Connor and nodded again. He stood slowly, his wet cock sliding against his shorts as he straightened. Connor’s eye’s didn’t leave Ethan.
“Come here,” Connor grunted.
Ethan stepped closer, until he was standing just before Connor.
Connor pulled him close, into the shadow of the stacks. Ethan’s body pushed flush against Connor’s
A hand came around to Ethan’s waist and held him tight.
“I didn’t know you liked cock,” Connor hissed.
“Same,” Ethan whispered.
Connor laughed softly. “There’s a place,” he said. “A place some of the guys go.”
“Some of the guys?” Ethan whispered, his heart beating in his chest.
Connor’s hand shifted, fingers ghosting over the curve of Ethan’s shorts.
“Yeah,” Connor exhaled. “The place got shut down a time ago. Back when hazing was…a lot more intense.”
Ethan laughed softly. “I don’t know, this was pretty intense.”
Connor sucked Ethan’s ear into his mouth and worked it lightly with his teeth. “I think it was only intense to you, you little shame slut.”
Ethan whimpered.
Connor’s hand cupped Ethan’s ass cheek and squeezed meaningfully.
“Anyway,” Connor said. “They call it The Hole.”
Connor’s thumb worked the flesh of Ethan’s ass. “Not very creative, I know. But it’s a straightforward kind of place.”
Ethan shivered against Connor. “And you want to take me there?”
Ethan could hear the wicked smile in Connor’s voice. “Yeah. Once you pass one little test for me, pledge.”
Ethan breathed in the scent of Connor’s spicy after-shave and felt Connor’s hand come to the back of Ethan’s neck.
“Meet me in the fourth floor bathroom. Turn the light off and wait on your knees.”
Ethan shuddered but he nodded quickly.