by Eden O'Neill
LJ’s lingering gaze continued as I took my seat beside him, a couple of spaces between us. I did that on purpose because if I did sit directly next to him, I’d be pressed up on him, his massive size and extended limbs out of the ordinary in these tiny seats. I’d just eased myself in when LJ put a hand out. He gave the cushy chair beside him a small tap, and I rolled my eyes.
Forcing myself to get up, I held my dress, taking that chair. Immediately, I felt his heat pulse into my side, his reach long when he extended it behind my chair.
“What do you want?” I gritted, looking at the film and not him. I played a classic black and white film called Nosferatu, the ancient vampire on the screen while I stared at the back of the heads of LJ’s classmates. The film was intriguing, even for a second viewing, and since most film majors were into it, I knew no one would be looking back here until it was over.
I think LJ did too, that firm body of his hugging mine as he got adjusted in my direction. He had all his attention on me, a stark heat I felt despite not looking directly at him.
I swallowed. “You obviously know about the email.”
“Obviously.” His finger dragged down my naked arm and I forced myself from lashing out and force feeding the digit to him. But one thing I couldn’t stop was that undying warmth, a trail of lava flowing down my arm.
My body buzzing, I hugged my arms. “How did you get it and not Professor Douglas? He told me it was recalled.”
Our muted whispers went unnoticed by the other students and much to my dismay. A part of me wanted someone to see, to find this odd, LJ, a student, with his arm around me. The other part wanted no one to find out at all. I had no idea what looks I was giving or what my body was doing. I just knew what I was feeling, discomfort, yes, but also the slowest of burns. I absolutely hated myself for it. I should be reacting completely in the opposite way with him touching me.
But the thing was, the casual touch wasn’t normal for me. Obviously, my boyfriend touched me. Obviously, we’d been intimate, but it’d always been so routine for Sinclair and almost like a chore. Sex was something timed between football games and bed time and nothing out in the open. There was no touching in public. No intimacy.
There was no finger tracing lazily along my naked shoulder, no tugging of my dress strap. Feeling weird about it, I worked my arm away, and LJ leaned inward.
His lips parted. “Let’s just say I know someone who can take care of things like that.”
“Oh, a guy,” I said, thinking about what Davey had said. I faced him and basically jumped. He was so close to my actual face I could taste him, study every angle on his handsome face and chiseled jawline. He’d shaved that morning, no stubble, and his orange zest aftershave pretty much assaulted my senses he smelled so good.
He wet his lips. “Actually, a good friend.” His hand folded behind my neck, his lazy touch in my hair when he played with it. “He’s into computer stuff. More so in high school. He can hack his way into anything.”
My thighs simmering, I crossed my legs. “And in this case, my email account.”
“Exactly.” His grin as lazy as his fingers, he looked at me. “And I’m glad you think I’m sexy.”
Shooting off the chair, I tugged my hair away from him. “I so didn’t say you were sexy.” At least, I didn’t think I had. My mouth came together. “I didn’t type that because I don’t think you are.”
Much.
My discomfort making him chuckle, he held it in, a fist to his mouth. When no one looked back at us, he leaned in again. “Oh, I got proof, beauty queen. Solid proof, and it’s all sitting right there in my campus email account. Also, something about turds…”
I covered his mouth before I thought better of it, but by the time I attempted to remove the mistake, he had my hand.
His lips dragged against my palm, sending waves of hot fire through my skin.
“What do you want?” I quivered as his hand found my thigh, pushing my skirt up. His hand was so big it basically ate my entire leg.
“I told you what I want.” His teeth skidded down my ear, a tortured ache I had to mute. Especially when he tugged. “I want you to admit the truth. That you don’t want me to stop…”
My fingers bunched my skirt as his hand ventured inside my dress. No one was looking at us. No one could see. My breath hiked. “Stop.”
“Stop?” A question in his voice. “Or make you come, beauty queen?”
As if to emphasize he pushed my legs apart, a digit playing at my lower lips through my panties, and I hugged my thighs together, needing the friction.
He jerked my legs apart. “No. No, you don’t get to make yourself come. You don’t because you want me to do it. Say it.”
Shadows from the film played across his face, his eyes wild. He could do anything he wanted to me back here, something he knew and something he needed.
“Say it, Billie,” he mouthed my ear, forcing my eyes to close. “Say you don’t want me to stop. Say you want my fingers inside you. Say you want me to fuck you.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
A breath and a hand cradled my pussy, squeezing before a finger jerked my panties to the side. LJ immediately made good on his promise when his thumb dragged between my pussy lips and two lengthy digits entered me without volition.
I gripped his biceps. “LJ…”
I wriggled on his hand, biting my wrist just to quiet myself, and LJ chuckled, nothing if not light and quiet like myself. He wasn’t trying to draw any attention, his thumb flicking my clit like a drum while my body worked on his hand.
“That’s it, beauty queen,” he gritted, seemingly getting off on my muted pants as he grinned. His other hand gripping my scalp, he forced me to look at him. “Let me fuck you.”
His fingers curled, causing my body to rise as he stroked with vigor. I nearly cried out as he dug deeper, pushing my face into his neck the only thing holding me back. This rolled a deep laugh from his chest, one he kept in only because he had to. We couldn’t get caught, another one of his games. He obviously wanted to get away with this, his power play and intention clear. He was showing his hand here, showing what he could do to me with everyone else in the room, and I was not only letting him do it. I wanted him to do it.
And I didn’t want him to stop.
He looked me harshly in the eyes as I fucked his hand, not letting up for even a moment. A couple of times I thought he’d actually kiss me, but when he’d come close he’d only force me away by the hair, pulling me back. He was in control here, showing it, and no mercy was given to me.
A quieted grunt and his fingers turned piston-like, his eyes wild as he probed me over the edge.
I lifted my hips, coming apart and his hand moved over my mouth this time. I bit and the heat in his eyes sizzled to electric blue, his fingers digging inside me as I called out behind his hand.
I gushed completely around his digits, a never-ending river as I bathed his fingers in my essence. He only let my bottom return to my seat when he was done, and smiling, he tugged my panties back over.
His two digits glistened with my arousal in the room’s dim lighting, the film’s shadows spotlighting the sticky heat. Pinching his fingers together, he guided them toward my mouth. “Suck.”
I did and without much probing, wanting to, as I took his fingers deep into my mouth.
A muffled groan, and his muscled frame tightened, eyes especially wild when he pulled his fingers out of my mouth, then pressed his lips against mine.
It all happened so quickly the kiss, mind dizzying as LJ closed his eyes and he wrapped his hand behind my neck. He drank me in, his tongue dueling with mine, but when I started to grab his shirt, kiss him back, he pulled me away.
He had a confusion there, deep in his lustrous eyes. All too quickly he jerked my hand away from his shirt. He gripped my wrist. “Just in case you forget.”
Before I knew it, he was kissing me again. Kissing me hot, but different than it’d been before. He was commanding this time, rushed as he pinc
hed my lips between his. His hand moved between my legs, and next thing I knew, he was grabbing my pussy again.
I gasped.
“I own this,” he growled, squeezing and making me pulse. “Mine and you wanted me to have it. You understand?”
He let go, his chair snapping up when he stood.
That instantly broke the calm in the room, and everyone looked back. LJ didn’t seem to care as he grabbed his stuff, then crossed over me. The door on my other side, he shot right through it, everyone looking at each other while I adjusted my skirt. He was right, of course. I did want him to have it.
I let him do whatever he wanted.
Chapter Ten
LJ
My right hook sent one of my best friends flying, Jax hitting the canvas of the boxing ring like a box of rocks.
Eyes wide, my other best friends, Knight and Royal immediately crawled into the ring, and I rushed too to see if the dude was still alive. We got by his side, and with a grunt, Jax was up on his elbows. He frowned, rubbing his reddened cheek with his boxing glove. “What the fuck, bro?”
Cringing, I immediately took my glove off, offering a hand. “Guess I got a little too into it.”
“Ya think?” The chide came from Royal who was helping Jax up to his feet too, Knight on the other side. Between the three of us, we got our buddy steady, but he looked dazed to hell and definitely not ready for another round in the ring with me. We’d been sparing for only a few seconds, and I’d already clocked him cold.
Jax rubbed his cheek again, pulling off his glove. “What did I do to you?”
Absolutely nothing, all this in my head. I apologized again, and he worked himself out of the ring, getting his bottle of water off to the side.
The four of us tried to hit up the local boxing gym in our hometown, Maywood Heights, at least once a term. We’d met up over the holidays, of course, but today’s date stayed. Working out and hitting each other was generally a way to bond since the majority of us went to different colleges after high school. The exception was Knight and Royal, and this was actually probably the last time we’d all get to meet up like this during the academic year. Jax was planning on transferring to a school down in Florida soon. His dad was down there, a dad he rarely saw, and the move was supposed to be a way for them to connect again, his dad’s idea. Jax had wanted anything but, but he’d decided to go. This, of course, was to much disappointment of his moms. His mom remarried after his parents’ divorce when Jax had been a kid, and the woman she married pretty much raised him as if he were her own. As far as Jax would tell anyone, he had a bio dad and two moms and he wouldn’t let anyone tell him otherwise.
Feeling terrible, I apologized to him again, and cracking his fist, Knight told me to take on someone his own size before putting on his own set of boxing gloves. Tapping them together, he hunkered low, and I smirked at the size comment. I may have been taller but this dude was a big-ass motherfucker, bigger than all of this.
“Oh, I gotta see this.” Royal grinned, quickly getting out of the ring to join Jax. The traitorous fuckers pounded fists before hanging on the ropes like they were waiting for a prize fight. Boxing used to be pretty big in Maywood Heights, and as kids, we used to go to all the matches. We hung out outside the ring, peering on while idiots clocked each other.
It was the time of our lives.
My spar with Knight was reminiscent of that, and he did let me get a few good hits in before turning on his strength and tacking my ass. I didn’t make the fight easy, blocking every shot when he climbed on top of me with pummeling hits, and after punching the shit out of each other for a while, we took a break a bit and let some more of the locals take the ring. We wouldn’t be able to stay real long today. Jax and I had to travel across states just to get back to our campuses. We all went to school in the Midwest but varying parts.
“So was there a reason you were kicking my ass?” Jax asked me, his eyebrows bouncing. He smiled. “We should do that to you for what you keep doing to your hair.”
The three ragged on me good when I decided to lob it off my freshman year at Woodcreek. I’d had hair down past my shoulders for as long as I could remember, but once in college, I hadn’t had the time. Such a shame since it got me laid even more than my cut now. Don’t get me wrong. I was still getting it in, but the girls went fucking apeshit whenever they got a hand of the gold. I grinned. “Nothing. Just had a weird week.”
Billie Coventry weird, and since I had the boys with me today, I actually had some questions. I tipped my chin. “Any of y’all know anything about the name Coventry?”
My friends all were, and still are, in that high society shit, something I’d distanced myself from since going away to college. Those circles had never been mine, felt foreign since I’d been dirt poor growing up, so where I’d put space, they might be able to fill in some blanks. My buddy Niko had found out some stuff about Billie since she’d been local back in Indiana, but these guys may know even more. Surprisingly enough, the name actually got a reaction out of my buddy Knight. He threw his fingers through his dark hair, looking a little unsettled.
“Why you asking about Coventrys?” he asked, squirting water into his mouth, and Royal tapped his arm.
Royal frowned his way. “Isn’t that the guy that like offed himself in front of you?”
My eyes twitched wide, recalling the story Knight had told us all last term. Some guy had actually killed himself in front of him, and Knight had told us the whole thing over the holidays. It’d been a fucking long-ass story too, all of us drinking into the night about the evening Knight ended up finding his girlfriend Greer. The pair of them already had a history, but she was reintroduced into his life again upon the incident of that guy’s suicide.
Knight rubbed his head. “Yeah, man,” he said to Royal. “Fucking crazy.” Then Knight looked at me. “Why you asking about him?”
“Not him, the name Coventry. There’s this girl on campus, has the same surname.”
“What’s her first name?”
“Billie,” I said, my dick actually hardening. The stupid fuck kept imagining her little mouth as I drove my fingers inside her, a mouth perfect for my cock itself. The only thing keeping me from doing anything about it that day in class was the fact there’d been others around. I wouldn’t have been able to hold back with her mouth around me, making her gag and enjoying the sounds.
It was some kind of sick shit, the joy I got in breaking her. I’d made her admit the truth, that she wanted me, and that made me so damn hard that day my cock could have cut glass. It was some new kind of evil like Niko said, but I couldn’t even feel bad. It just felt too good.
Knight considered the name I said, and it kind of worried me there may be a connection there between Billie and that guy Bryce who killed himself. From what I understood, that dude and the situation hadn’t been a good one for Knight, and I wasn’t trying to work up shit that didn’t need to be worked up. He eyed me. “Her mom Genevieve?”
Because he was surprisingly right, I nodded and Knight visibly relaxed against the ring when I did.
“Yeah, there’s a relation there, but not much,” he said. “Distant cousins, and from what I understand, Bryce’s lot and the rest of the Coventrys don’t really talk to Billie and her mom anymore. Not since her parents’ divorce anyway. Her dad was a Coventry. Billie born in, so when the marriage ended…”
“Wait. How the fuck do you know all this?”
His eyebrows wagged, a cocky shit as he shrugged. “I know all, bro. Especially when it comes to that asshole Bryce. I had to do my due diligence after what he did. Found out all about him, who his people are, where his money comes from.” He paused, then arched an eyebrow. “Why you asking about them anyway? Billie?”
I passed off the question with a shrug. “Just wondering. She’s giving me problems.”
“What kind?” Knight moved in, my other buddies too in the wolf pack fashion we were known for. One of us got fucked with we made sure to fuck that person
up—together. This obviously wasn’t the case here, but I did feel I needed to know more. According to Niko, Billie did have money, some ties, and I wanted to know what I was dealing with if I continued to mess with her.
Or she messed with me…
My jaw working, I passed that off too. “Just tell me about the Coventrys. Who they are and where their money comes from?”
Knight braced his big arms. “Newer money, stocks or some shit. Made out like bandits, I guess, in the eighties. The younger generation is in tech. Making millions on apps and shit. Though they’re mostly on the West Coast…”
“And Billie and her family?”
Knight looked at me. “Like I said, estranged. Still loaded but the black sheep for not keeping their house together. Rich people can be fickle like that.”
Knowing that well considering the type of elitism I’d been around with the exception of my friends, I nodded, but then Knight’s eyes twitched wide.
He tapped my leg. “Her dad Dean is like this super high-powered lawyer.”
I eyed him, basically knowing that part because of Niko. I mean, I knew he was a lawyer, the DA. “Okay…”
“Well, what he’s known for is taking down members of that crime family I think you’re working with. The Marvellis?” My eyes twitched now, and Knight whistled. He shook his head. “I’d stay the fuck away from her. Her dad’s like a district attorney or some shit, got one of those hero complexes. Might make trouble for you with the Marvellis.”
I did work with the Marvellis, hard not to, but I wasn’t in deep with them. I could walk away at anytime, and of course, my friends knew all about what I did to earn my money. They also knew my ties to the Marvellis were a means to an end for me, which was probably a big reason they didn’t give me too much shit about essentially getting in with the mob.
“Why you asking about this girl anyway, bro?” Royal asked me, sliding a ball cap on backwards over his blond hair. He grinned. “You sweet on this girl or something?”
“Sweet on her?” Rolling my goddamn eyes, I chuckled. “Who even talks like that?”