“I…. Umm.” I ran a hand through my hair as I forced myself to keep my eyes locked onto his. “No. Of course not.”
He raised a brow at me. “Then you’re saying you’re not attracted to me?” He took a step toward me, forcing me to take a step back.
“I come from Florida. Guys with toned bodies in swim trunks aren’t exactly foreign to me, you know.” I lifted my chin defiantly. He took another step forward, but I refused to back down and let him win. He was enjoying the cat and mouse game way too much.
“I’m not just some guy.”
That he wasn’t. I swiped my tongue along my lower lip. Why in the hell was my mouth so dry? “So you say.”
He grinned and closed the remaining distance between us. I expected him to pull me into his arms and have his lips devour mine, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he bent down, and in one swift swoop, put one arm under my back and the other under my knees and lifted me up and into his arms. I didn’t miss the little wince in his expression as he carried me to the edge of the pool.
Foolish boy. Here he was with his rib still not fully healed and carrying me. I didn’t dare squirm or get away, I was too concerned I’d hurt him.
“Now, apologize or you’re getting the pool.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “First, I will not apologize. Second, I was planning on getting into the pool anyhow so you throw…” I squealed as I went tumbling though the air headed for the water. At this end of the pool the water was eight feet deep and got as shallow as four feet at the other end. Just before hitting the water, I plugged my nose as I plunged into the semi-warm pool.
The force took me to the very bottom. Releasing my nose, I kicked the bottom of the pool and propelled myself upward until I broke the surface. I coughed as I brushed the wet hair from my eyes. Treading water, I turned to where Jaxon had been and frowned. He wasn’t there.
“Jaxson? Where...?” I’d barely got the words from my mouth when a hand grasped my ankle and I felt myself being pulled down. Plugging my nose, I allowed myself to go down, spinning in his grasp so I was facing my assailant.
He released me and I once more swam up to the top. I broke the surface of the water a moment before he did. Wiping the hair from my face once again I glared at him. “Cute. Real cute.”
He started laughing, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward until my toes could touch the bottom of the pool. Once stable, he pulled me into his arms, his hand grasping the back of my head and his lips came crashing down onto mine with an intense passion. I moaned, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my body against his. His free hand slipped around my lower back and pulled me even tighter to him, our bodies so close they were practically melted together.
“Damn, you’re so beautiful, Keira,” he groaned, pulling his lips from mine and leaving me breathless in his arms. My body felt like it was on fire and there was a dull throbbing between my legs that demanded to be quenched.
“So are you,” I whispered, my gaze locking onto his. The hunger in his gaze made me shudder.
“Are you cold?” he asked, running his thumb along my jawline.
“No.”
“Scared?” His lips were so close to mine that our breaths intermingled, our breathing synchronizing.
“Yes…” I was embarrassed to admit it, the admittance making my cheeks burn. “I’ve never…”
“Never what?” he whispered, his lips trailing along the side of my neck and sending jolts of need through me, starting at the top of my head to the tip of my toes. His hands lowered to my ass, palming my bottom. My legs automatically, lifted and I wrapped them around his waist, relying on him to keep us stable in the water.
“Ohmygod,” I groaned.
“Never what, Keira?” he asked again, his lips dipping lower, his tongue trailing its way along my collarbone.
I sighed, my eyes closing, letting my head fall back, my wet hair draping down my back. “I’ve never…. Just…” Why was it so hard to just tell him?
His lips left my body. “Keira?”
Opening my eyes, I looked down into his eyes. “I’m a virgin.”
He was silent for a moment and we stared into each other’s eyes. “I can’t say that I am.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “I didn’t assume you were.”
His stony look broke and he retuned my smile. “Are you accusing me of being a slut, Miss Rigby?”
“I’d never do that.” I grinned, my arms tightening around his neck as I gave him a chaste peck on the lips.
“Sure, you would.” He laughed out loud this time. His laughter slowed and his expression took on a look of seriousness once more. “I’ll be happy to wait as long as you need, Keira.”
“Years, even.”
He opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut and nodded. “Years even.”
I gave him a coy smile. “Does this mean that we’re going out for real now?”
“I’m saying Keira Rigby that I want you to be my girlfriend for real now. Yeah. If you’ll have me.” He placed a tender kiss on the side of my neck that sent me soaring. “Would it scare you if I told you I was falling for you, Keira?”
I chewed at my lower lip and slowly shook my head no. “I’m falling for you too, Jaxson Weiss.” Taking a deep breath in, I slowly released it and said to him something that needed to be said. “But I don’t want to have sex right now. Not yet.”
His eyes searched mine. “I can’t have you until I love you,” he said, quoting one of the very first things I’d said to him.
I nodded, and that’s when he kissed me with the passion that was fueled by the passion deep within his soul. Damn was it ever going to be hard to resist giving it up to him? Maybe the can’t fuck me until you love me rule was a little too rigid?
I’m falling for you Kiera…
His words kept echoing in my mind well after we’d finished our swim and he went home. I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my lips. Everything was falling into place for me and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
Chapter 19
“No girl. You need to go more dramatic with your smoky cat eye,” Damien said, with impatience in his tone.
I frowned. “What do you mean?” I looked into the vanity mirror. What I’d done looked good to me. My blue eyes popped as the black liquid liner highlighted them with a little wing.
“Nope, not dramatic enough.” He grabbed the liquid liner from my hand. “Spin around. I do Olivia’s make-up all the time. She’s just as hopeless with it as you are.”
I sighed and did as I was told. “Fine. When is she getting here? Jaxson will be here with the car to pick us up within the hour.”
“Soon.” He leaned into me, his eyes narrowing as he began to work on my face. Why I even bothered was beyond me. I should have known Damien wouldn’t be happy. That being said, it was so much easier letting him take control; he was quicker and I’ll admit he was a damned good make-up artist.
“You should really do this for a living.”
“I will be. I want to get into special effects and costume design. Make-up. All that. Working in the movies is a dream.”
“What made you want to do that?”
“My father is an actor and my mother is a stylist.”
“No shit. Is he in anything I would know?”
“Most likely.”
I waited for Damien to expand on his answer, but he didn’t. Ten minutes later he straightened and took a step back, examining me as if I were some priceless artifact. “Okay. You’re done, you can look.”
Swiveling the stool around I looked at myself in the mirror and my mouth quite literally dropped open. I barely recognized myself. I looked so chic and sophisticated. Quite a ways from the trailer park. “Wow, it’s amazing,” I said, more to myself than to Damien. I leaned forward and examined my face from every possible angle. It was a miracle what make-up could achieve.
Turning back to Damien I watched as he typed with lightning speed on his mobile phone. A minute later he looked
up to meet my gaze. “Olivia will be here in five minutes, get dressed and I’ll go get her at the door.” It wasn’t a request, but an order as he spun and left my bedroom.
“Yes, sir,” I muttered, snickering. Damien was the absolute best. I kept missing opportunities to meet Olivia; she was huge into acting and spent all her lunches in the drama room. Discovering their father was an actor explained why they both had aspirations of being in the field, just in different capacities.
I already had the dress picked out for the party. It was a silver bandage dress by Herve Leger. It was tight, pushing my breasts up to making my B-cups look like C’s and the skirt fell to just above the knee. I’d never seen a dress make me look so shapely. It was sexy without being slutty. I was going to pair it would a black and silver mask that covered my eyes. I was going to drive Jaxson wild wearing this and savored the thought.
“Girl, you look perfect; he’ll be spending the whole night with the hard-on of the century,” Damien stated, entering the room, with Olivia in tow.
My eyes went directly to the woman beside him. She was stunning. Mouth-droppingly stunning. She was several inches taller than me with smooth, rich mocha skin and long black hair lying straight down her back. Her black jumpsuit was sleeveless and the front dipped low into her cleavage. Her boobs must have been taped up really well because one sudden move and she’d be falling out of the top. She kinda reminded me of the singer Normani.
Stepping forward, I extended my hand to her.
With a laugh and a wave of her hand, she closed the distance between us and gave me a hug. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. You’re all Damien seems to talk about. Or the whole school for that matter. I’ve never seen someone make such an impression.”
“I sighed. We’ll see. I’m sure Trina has something planned for me tonight. I cringe just to think about it.”
“Your secret has been safe with us.”
Us? I shot Damien a glare.
He popped a shoulder. “Sorry. She’s my twin. It’s a twin thing to share everything. Neither of us have told a soul. Your face was never in the media, just your mother, so unless she knows your mother’s name then she’d have to get a private investigator to dig into you.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, you think she wouldn’t? Paying someone a couple thousand dollars to destroy me would be nothing to her.”
“We can only hope you solidify your position before it all comes out. It will come out, we all know that,” Olivia said. “It’s just a matter of when.”
“I can’t keep worrying about it. When I first started at the school it was a priority of mine to fit in, you know? But now, I have Jaxson.” I spread my hands out motioning toward the twins. “And I have you guys. That’s the main thing. Anything else is gravy.”
Damien pushed his sister to the side and hugged me. “That’s a good attitude. And no matter what happens tonight, we’ll always have your back.”
My phone buzzed.
Releasing Damien, I went over to the vanity and grabbed my phone.
Hey babes, I’m outside.
My face lit up, just seeing his text. You’re early.
You complaining?
I looked up at the twins. “Jaxson is downstairs.” Not at all. Come inside to my room. We’re just finishing up.
“Is Gabriel with him?” I could see the hope gleaming in Olivia’s eyes when she asked.
“You’ve got a crush on Gabriel?” I asked, glad to have the conversation shifted from my social status to a topic that was more enjoyable.
A flush colored Olivia’s cheeks. “Nah. I just…. Maybe…”
My phone buzzed and I looked down to see the response. Be right up. Depending on how sexy you look we may not make it out of your bedroom. ??
“Is he single? Not that I care or anything…. Just curious on the status of school royalty and all…” The way she played it off was cute. She was a stunning girl; I’d challenge to say that she was the most stunning girl in the school. Gabriel would be damned lucky to score her on his arm.
“I’m pretty sure he is. I think Preston locked down Selena last week, but Gabriel is still on the market.”
“Oh.” She straightened a little while running a hand through her hair. “Perhaps you could introduce us?”
“I’m sure he’d love to meet you.” Damian and Olivia spun to watch Jaxson strut into my room as if he owned the place. “Olivia, isn’t it?”
“It is.” If I wasn’t mistaken Olivia actually swooned, like he was some sort of superstar. I’d noticed it to a certain extent with the girls who were around him at school, but I’d always dismissed it as my imagination. And truthfully, I was always so wrapped up in my own drama that I never did give it much mind.
“We have physics together, don’t we?”
“We do. Second period,” she confirmed.
“We’re going to be meeting Preston, Gabriel, and Selena at the party so I’ll introduce you to Gabe. Sound good?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
As they chatted, I took a minute to drink Jaxson in. He’d opted to go semi-casual, wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, with a button-down black dress shirt with the cuffs of the sleeves rolled up. He looked good, damned good.
Jaxson’s dark eyes focused on me and he brushed past my friends to come to stand before me. “You look fucking amazing, babes.” He hooked his index finger under my chin and tilted my face up to look at him as he lowered his lips down to mine. I moaned softly placing my palms flat against his chest and leaning into him, indulging in the feel of his lips and tongue playing with mine. The faint scent of his cologne drifted to me. It took every bit of willpower I had in me to step back and take a breath to steady myself.
Later. I could enjoy him later after the party. We still had a two-hour drive to get to the Hamptons to make it in time for the requested arrival time. Apparently, Ryan was pretty anal about start times and got severely pissed off at stragglers. Rumor had it he was the king of the late arrivers when other people had parties, the rule was just don’t arrive late to his.
“Not so bad yourself.” I kept my gaze locked onto his for a moment, pulling away when I heard the very distinct sound of someone—Damien—clearing his throat in a blatant attempt to end the PDA.
Jaxson wrapped his arm over my shoulders and we faced the other two. “Guess that’s our cue to leave?”
“No rush,” Damien was quick to jump in.
Jaxson looked down at me with a devilish look in his eyes. I mouthed “no” he could fuck with his own friends all he wanted, but my friends were off limits to his bullying.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against my ear. “You’re such a buzzkill, babes.”
“Hardly that. There’s just no time for your foolishness.”
“Foolishness?” He cocked a brow up at me. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You do too. And I’m putting an end to it before it starts.” Slipping out from under his arm, I tossed my phone and mask into my new black clutch bag that I’d bought to match the dress and grabbed the matching heels. I’d put them on downstairs. There was no way I was going to wear them any longer than necessary. I’d tried practicing wearing them over and over again, but couldn’t get the hang of it. Maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a heels girl.
Damien and Olivia gathered their things and exited the room before us. Jaxson held me back a moment, blocking me from leaving the room.
“Jaxson. We gotta go.” I tried to push past him, but he refused to budge, it was like trying to move a damned boulder.
He leaned down and nuzzled the side of my neck. I gasped, clutching at the front of his shirt, allowing myself a moment to indulge in the delicious feel of his lips on me. “You know,” he growled. “If we’d gone alone, we could have had some pre-party fun in the back, to entertain ourselves.”
God, it felt so good to be on his arms, but I had to be the strong one. At least for now. “It’s going to be fun. You’ll get to know my friends. We always h
ang with Preston and Gabriel. Now it’s your turn to play nice and make new friends.”
He grinned. “The entire school is my friend if I want.”
“But Olivia and Damien are special to me, which means since we’re boyfriend girlfriend for real now, they’re special to you too. So you’ll be nice and get to know them.” The grin on my face faded. “Besides, I’m sure Trina has something up her sleeve for me tonight and after this is all said and done they may be the only people at the school willing to talk to the trailer trash.”
“But you are some sexy trailer trash in that dress.”
I didn’t know if I should laugh or punch his smirking face. “You’re an asshole.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
Pulling out of his embrace, I grabbed his hand and pulled him along. “Come on, before they think we’ve decided to ditch them to fuck.”
“That’s an option?”
I just shook my head. No matter what hell Trina had planned for me I wasn’t about to miss a party in the Hamptons, not on my life.
Chapter 20
I may now have lived in a house worth tens of millions of dollars, but our car pulling up to the gated estate of Ryan Gallant still put me in awe. He even had a guard house! How important do you have to be to have a guard house?
“What does his family do?” I asked Jaxson.
“His father owns some tech company and his mother is a model. Or was. I think she just spends her time donating his money at this point.”
“Oh.” I looked over at Olivia and Damien, who were sitting across from us, and they looked just as impressed as I was.
The drive had been a good one. It was nice to see my friends getting along with my boyfriend, making me feel optimistic. If I could make a love connection between Olivia and Gabriel then all the better!
After a few minutes of verifying we were on the guest list the gates slowly opened up and our car began moving forward. The estate that appeared before us was a massive white two-story home with a large fountain in the front drive that you circled around to unload your passengers, complete with a valet at the front door.
Outsider: Upper East Side (Greisbach Academy #1) Page 13