Reprisal: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Montlake Prep Book 3)

by Nora Cobb

  Somewhere in the house, a clock chimes. Jacob starts, and I laugh. “It was a gift from Uncle Phil’s boyfriend. He gave him a grandfather clock for Val Day. Want to see it?”

  We get off the couch and hurry to the end of the hall, hand in hand. The clock is an antique in a cherrywood cabinet. The dials show the sun and the moon rotating around the earth. The earth is covered with trees that depict the four seasons. It chimes midnight as we admire it.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Jacob rushes the words before the last chime as he pulls me into a kiss. “I wanted to say it before it was over.”

  I smile. “You are sweet.”

  His eyes are bright as he hands me a slim box. “I have something for you.”

  Inside the velvet box is a necklace with a diamond charm—a gold heart with a diamond in the center. It’s the first real Val Day gift I’ve ever gotten, and I wrap my arms around Jacob’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Oh, but I feel bad. I didn’t get you a gift.”

  Jacob rolls his eyes and smiles, “Natalie, you’re the best gift I could ever have. I was afraid I would die a virgin.”

  I poke him in the chest and laugh. “You’re a brat.”

  “Seriously, I’m sorry for how we met, but I’m glad we did.” He looks shyly at his feet as he says the sweetest thing. “You’ll never be like the other girls at Montlake. You cared about me even when I was an asshole. And that’s when I needed you the most, though I didn’t know it at the time.

  “When you said you loved me, it meant something, because I knew you were talking to me and not about what I have. I want you to stay the way you are inside your heart, Natalie, and I hope that no one ever hurts you and makes you change.”

  Jacob reaches out and brushes the tears off my cheek. He fastens the beautiful necklace around my neck, and it means even more to me because he gave it to me.

  I reach out and toy with his collar. “Perhaps we could go upstairs?”

  He smiles and grabs me in his arms, carrying me upstairs to my bedroom. My tongue dances with Jacob’s for a moment as my hands bury deep into his thick hair. He lets me go long enough to open the door.

  “Are you disappointed not to be with Lucas?” he asks softly.

  “I would’ve liked to have been with you both,” my cheeks flush as Jacob grins. He doesn’t comment but pulls me onto the bed, and I wrap my arms around him as I sit on his lap.

  I can feel him growing hard against my bottom, and the tingles start. I’m almost embarrassed as my breath becomes louder. Jacob’s hand slips under the neckline of my dress, and he slides his hand over my nipples until they’re both hard.

  “I can barely pay attention in class with you sitting in front of me looking sexy,” he whispers.

  I run my hand along his shirt, his hard muscles under my fingertips. “I can’t do much for you in class, but I can do plenty for you here.”

  “Like what?” he whispers against my neck.

  I push off him and stand up away from the bed. “You have a condom?”

  He shakes his head, and I let my arms drop in disappointment. He laughs. “But you have some in that drawer.”

  I pull out the drawer in my bedside table, and it’s filled with boxes of condoms. “Jacob!” My hands are on my hips. “What if my uncle had seen this?”

  He grabs hold of me and nuzzles my neck. “You’re responsible. That’s a good reason to stock up.”

  I punch him playfully, but I let him tug the zipper down on my dress. The silky fabric slides down to the floor, and I step away from it, watching him as I unhook my bra and push my panties down my legs.

  Jacob sits on the edge of my bed, admiring my nude body, and all I can think about is touching his. My body tingles as my skin heats, and I fidget while waiting for him to take off his clothes. He looks great in a suit, but without it, he’ll look even better.

  “What are you thinking?” he says.

  I smile, stroking my hands along my breasts, making my nipples harder and tighter. “I think you have too many clothes on.”

  He winks and grabs a box of condoms out of the drawer. He laughs at my surprised look. “I thought your uncle was spending the night in the city?”

  I nod my head as I lie down on the bed.

  “Then we’ll have time to use up the pack.” He pulls off his tie and the rest of his clothes while I lie on my back, content to watch his body slowly reveal itself. He’s proud to show off how hard he is and how much he wants me. I moan, wet and needy, as he climbs on top of me. I wrap my legs around his waist.

  “Not quite yet, Princess.”

  Jacob kisses me. His tongue swirls against mine while his hands touch my skin with a light touch. I want him, and I press myself against him, but he ignores my encouragement as he softly strokes the sides of my hips. He places my hard nipple into his mouth and kisses it gently. My heart is pounding with anticipation as I want more than being gently touched.

  “Are you going to do something?” I whisper.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Fuck me.” My voice is quiet and shy. I press myself as close to him as I can.

  Jacob rises up on his elbows and gives me a wicked grin. He slides down my body, stopping at my pussy. His tongue touches me, and I moan so loudly that I’m glad no one else is home. His tongue circles around my clit but doesn’t touch it. With him between my legs, I’m drenched, and I grab his thick hair, trying to make him do more. And then he does. My senses hit the ceiling as he strokes me over and over again. I tremble until I’m shaking as he grips my hips and gives me patient pleasure.

  Jacob lifts up and grins as I lie, panting, on my bed. “What about you?” I ask.

  “Today, it’s all about you.”

  “Shouldn’t it be every day?” I tease him, poking his hard thigh with my toe.

  “I want you happy, Natalie.”

  Jacob grabs my thighs and slides me down the bed. I yelp as he enters me. I’m more than ready. I grab two fistfuls of my blanket as I bite on my lower lip, and he fills me completely.

  He holds my hips firmly in his hands, and begins to move inside me, sending waves of pleasure to my brain. Slowly, he moves above me as his gaze never leaves mine. Slow and full, shifting to find the perfect position, I wrap my legs around his waist.

  I become perfectly silent, as my eyes squeeze tightly shut. My mouth opens wide. Gradually, my body arches until I take all of him in me. Trembling, I feel the pulse inside me build.

  I shudder, taking in a lungful of air and another deep breath after that. Our bodies are covered in sweat, and I moan faintly as he continues to move in me.

  I release my breath and whisper, “How the fuck can this feel so good?”

  Jacob grins. “Because you feel so good!”

  I open my eyes and smile softly. Jacob holds my calf up and turning his head, he kisses my ankle, and I squeal with delight. I hold my breasts in my hands, turning my head from side to side, and freeze as the wave starts again.

  My body shudders underneath him, and Jacob grins as I come down, hot and sweaty. I press against his hard body tighter, feeling his muscles against my sensitive skin. I tingle all over as he leans down and kisses my chest with soft touches.

  Both of us are breathing hard, sprawled across the bed, but I grab his face and kiss him long and hard as he releases inside me.

  “Happy Val Day,” I whisper.

  “Natalie, I love you,” he says. “And I know Lucas feels the same. Don’t worry about us. Let us take care of you.”

  I smile as tears slide down my cheeks. I hug Jacob, resting my head on his broad chest. I misjudged him. I thought he would walk away from me when I told him that I loved him and Lucas and ...

  I press my lips against his sweaty skin, tasting the saltiness.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  “I’ll always love you,” he whispers as he rests beside me.

  His hand is intertwined in mine as we fall asleep.

  CHA
PTER 20

  Troy

  Valentine’s Day is anything but loving in our household as my mother berates me for losing the Blackwater marriage to the Bellmans. It isn’t about me, Arielle, or Lucas. I could have married Arielle’s weird dad, and my mother wouldn’t have cared. All she cares about is a legally binding contract linking us to the Blackwaters forever. Divorce is out of the question in both our families. ’til death do us part, or worse. No contract was ever drawn up between the Blackwaters and us, so there is no legal action that my mother can take.

  I sigh, poking at my steamed asparagus as it rolls across my dinner plate. Thank God my mother didn’t print up the invitations, or she would’ve taken the loss out of my trust fund. Why send a gold-leaf invite that will end up in the trash?

  Dad abandons the table after twenty minutes of mother’s rant against the fickleness of teenagers. His Valentine’s Day gift to her lies unopened on his side of the table. Dad looks pissed when he walks away, and I want to join him. A red rose from the massive centerpiece keeps sinking onto my plate. I use my fork to yank it out and toss it onto the table.

  I should walk out of the room with Dad. Or at least, not remain here. If I had been in love with Arielle, would I have wanted to listen to my mother’s opinion of her on Valentine’s Day? If I had been jilted at the altar like my mother is imagining, would I want to listen to her commentary while the room stank of roses? I toss my napkin down on my plate and push my chair away from the table.

  “Where are you going?” She finally notices me.

  “To my room,” I reply, grabbing my glass of water. I need an aspirin.

  “I didn’t say you could leave the table. Sit back down so we can talk.”

  We? I’ve hardly spoken. I waver for a moment, but I don’t sit down. I remain standing by my chair, which I push under the table. The maid comes in to take away my plate.

  “He’s not done!” Mother almost shouts.

  I pick up the plate and hand it to the maid. She looks confused and looks from me to mother and back again. Mother’s face remains contorted from her ranting, and the maid looks petrified. There’s no point in her losing her job over our power struggle. I take the plate out of her hands, and she lowers her head and hurries away to the relative safety of the kitchen. I toss my plate down on the table, and the creamy asparagus jumps into the air and falls onto the white tablecloth, soiling it. I suppress a grin of satisfaction.

  “Get her back, Troy. Make her clean it up.”

  “Do you want to continue our conversation first?” I reply coolly. I almost sound like Lucas.

  My mother tightens her lips and starts raging again. “That girl messed it up, didn’t she? You had Arielle in your hands, but that girl messed it up. Phillip Page’s niece.”

  I know I look shocked, but I’m surprised my mother would mention Natalie. “Natalie didn’t mess it up,” I reply. “Arielle messed it up. Arielle thinks she can manipulate people, but all she’s really doing is messing up other people’s lives.” I refrain from adding anything else.

  Mother scoffs, folding her arms. “You messed it up on your own. You only had to be nice to Arielle. She just wants attention.”

  My eyes widen as I laugh. “Be nice to Arielle? That’s like me not eating meat and hoping that I won’t be attacked by a bear in the woods because I’m a vegan. Arielle is coldhearted; kindness doesn’t work on her. You should know that.”

  My mother lets the comment slide. That is her tactic whenever she doesn’t agree with what is being said. “That’s what you might think, but you were led astray by that low-class bitch. She tricked you and your father.” She scoffs. “Like father, like son.”

  I look over at Dad’s empty chair, and soft jazz is drifting down the hall from his study. I should have walked out of the room with him, but I couldn’t move fast enough. It’s shocking that mother would ruin Valentine’s over me and Arielle breaking up. Our relationship was fake from the start and was always going to end badly.

  I lean my head back and take in a deep breath. I may have really screwed up. I tried to warn Lucas that something would happen, but who gets married before graduation? Even we were going to wait.

  “Natalie Page didn’t trick us,” I start again. “We didn’t ask for voting shares, and they weren’t given to us. We will still make money on the deal, probably more than what we would’ve gotten if I had married the upper-class bitch and not the lower-class one.”

  My mother’s palm slams the table, and the other asparagus that had been teetering on the edge rolls off the plate and rolls to the center of the table, stopping under the centerpiece of roses. I tug at my collar; the house is too hot, and I need to change. I need air.

  “Don’t you dare use that language around me,” she says with a straight face.

  I look at my mother in amazement. “Didn’t I just hear you say—”

  “Troy, I don’t want to hear it from your mouth.” My mother throws her napkin over the mess on the table. “I fixed her, anyway. Your father was soft, so I fixed her myself.”

  “Fixed who?” Asking would delay another rant.

  “Natalie Page.” She looks pleased as I gawk.

  “And what did you do?” I ask.

  “I called your father’s friend on the admissions board at Columbia and torpedoed her acceptance. I told them that she was the student involved in the sex scandal.” My mother’s eyes gleam. “And that there was some truth in it.”

  I feel a bit ill. I started it, but I didn’t mean for it to go this far. Uploading her selfies to a sex site for hire was beyond a prank. I remember the day Arielle showed me what she and Beth had done. Why should I care? Natalie wasn’t one of us, but it was still wrong. Exposing her selfies was meant to piss off Lucas and Jacob, not ruin the school’s reputation and Natalie’s.

  “And what do you plan to do to Arielle?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She rejected me,” I try hard not to smirk. “What are you going to do to the girl who jilted me, mother?”

  Mother has no answer for that, and I stalk out of the dining room and run upstairs before she can recover. Her clicking footsteps hurry down the hallway before I can open the door of my bedroom. My mother cannot leave it alone. She must win every argument. She must make a point. It was like this with Vicki. I turn to block her from the open doorway of my bedroom.

  “Neither you nor your father know how to stand up for yourselves,” she says. “And to let some gutter tart get the upper hand,” she scoffs, “that’s the worst insult. You let one get her way, and the others smell the blood in the water. They swarm, Troy. That’s what you and your father don’t understand.”

  She tries to push past me into my bedroom, but I block her with my body. Standing up straight, and not sitting hunched over that dining room table, I realize something. I tower over my mother. I glance down to see if she’s wearing flats, but she has on heels. It’s bizarre, but at that moment, I don’t feel like a kid anymore. I’ve always looked up to my mother’s authority. I’m so used to being told what to do that I hadn’t realized until now that I don’t have to listen. The only time I’ve ever questioned my mother is about Vicki, and now, about Natalie. It isn’t right. Natalie protected her uncle the same way that I tried to protect my sister. Natalie isn’t an outsider to m. Not anymore.

  “Dad left you a gift on the table,” I look down on her. “Don’t you think you should go open it?”

  “Is that all you can say?” Her dark eyes are hard. “You’re like your father after all. I tried to make sure that you would be a fighter.”

  “And you wanted Victoria to be the punching bag!”

  I catch my mother’s wrist before her hand makes contact with my cheek. She struggles as I hold fast. Her face turns into a furious scowl as she jerks her arm violently away. I barely move as I watch her try to break free. I maneuver her over the threshold of the door and let her go.

  My mother’s face is pale. “How dare you raise your hand to me?”


  I scoff. “To protect myself? Take my advice: go be a wife to Dad, because pretty soon, he’ll be the only family member still talking to you.”

  Her eyes grow wide as I pivot her away from the door. And the look of surprise when I slam it is worth any punishment I have coming.

  ***

  Tired, I toss myself onto my bed and look around my bedroom, which my mother has decorated since the day I was born. Every year, the scheme changed while I was growing up, but she hasn’t touched it in recent years. Not after I fumed when she threw away my baseball posters. It wasn’t the posters, but the lack of respect for me.