Beautifully Yours: A High School Bully Romance (Voclain Academy Book Three)

by Jordan Grant

  “Why are you still here, sweetness?” he asks eventually.

  Despite the endearment, his words are not endearing. They are sharp and volatile, cutting across his teeth and landing like daggers.

  Because I miss you, I want to say. Because despite what you might think and what I did, this is torture for us both.

  I don’t say it though. Instead, I whisper, “Because I am worried about you.”

  Something about my answer must be funny because his lips curl into a cruel smile.

  “Your worry is unwelcome here,” he bites back.

  “I can’t help it,” I retort, my voice still small because I know exactly how pitiful it sounds to worry about the piece of trash you threw away.

  He blinks down at me as my gaze locks dead-center of his chest. “You are the one who fucking walked away.”

  He doesn’t yell the words, but he might as well have in the way they seem to resound in the hall as the vein at his temple bulges, his eyes midnight black, his teeth bared, his fists clenched like at any moment he’s gonna unclench his fingers and smite me like the god he is.

  “Let me help you,” I murmur.

  I don’t want to do this. I can’t stand it, seeing him in so much pain. I want to make it better.

  I am tired of it too.

  He laughs, the cackle cruel and bitter and damn near malevolent.

  “You want to help?” he taunts me. “Then get on your knees.”

  22

  Harlow

  My gaze lifts from the black cotton of his t-shirt to his face as I blink up at him.

  What did he just say?

  Surely, he didn’t just tell me to get on my knees, but I know he did, and when I look up at him, his stare confirms the challenge. His gaze is shielded, locked secure and tenable with his stone heart. His expression is carefully cavalier, and if it was on anyone other than him, I’d think it took an Augean effort to pull it off. Only Ian Beckett could wear insouciant arrogance this well.

  My gaze locks with his and doesn’t let go, even when my eyes begin to water and I need to blink. Off in the distance, there went the crack of the gun, and we’re off to the races.

  He expects me to cower and run, to maybe slap him in the process of extricating myself from this situation. From the moment he stepped foot in the exhibition hall, he wanted one thing, solitude, but it’s not what either one of us needs. Broken hearts don’t find bandages in the lonely dark.

  Before the words left his mouth, he was convinced victory was assured, that soon I would leave him alone, but he has another thing coming if he thinks I’m going to give up this easily, that he can bully me into abandoning him to his own miserable solitude. I won’t jeopardize his future and tell him about Finn’s threat, no matter how much I want to, but I’m also not going to recoil and run. I’ll take everything he has to offer and come back for more.

  Challenge accepted, Ian Aldrich Beckett.

  He purses his lips, exaggerating the already plump flesh, as he waits for my response. He’s so damn confident that he’s won this little battle of ours, but he hasn’t even thought about the war. I blink at last and meet his challenge.

  I don’t slap him.

  I don’t run.

  I don’t cower.

  Instead, I offer him a small smile, one that I can tell from the wrinkle in his brow immediately disarms him. I’ll rip off his prickly armor and toss away his weapons, piece by jagged piece.

  My heart hammers inside my chest as his mind reels, trying to figure me out.

  He doesn’t think I’ll do it.

  He probably doesn’t even want me to do it, but neither one of us wanted to enter this game to begin with, and I am so sick of it all, a heavy weariness in my bones.

  I am sick of the fighting and the mask of disdain that falls over his face every time he looks at me.

  I am sick of wondering when the next cafeteria incident will occur, how he will so easily embarrass me in front of the entire school without a second thought.

  I am sick of loving him and hating the way he’s acted.

  I need his arms wrapped around me, holding me tight.

  I need him by my side, linking our fingers together just because he feels like it.

  I need him the way he used to be—and us the way we used to be.

  I can feel him there, hard and prodding beneath his jeans. He’s pressed low against my belly, and he may not want to still want me, but he does, and that makes me powerful in a powerless situation, after Finn stole everything from me.

  If I move too fast, it might spook him, but I can’t blame him for being suspicious. I took the hot iron to his hand, and when it collided, I left a mark. I slowly reach between us and touch him over his jeans, stroking the length of him. He doesn’t react, only watches me. He is stone, immovable as I do it. I continue to stroke him, and he doesn’t stop me.

  I press harder, cupping him through the denim, and his mouth parts, his breath coming in rapid bursts as I touch him. Heat pools in between my legs, and a pulse knocks to life there. I press even harder against the thick fabric as my hand moves faster, and I feel the moment the facade of his control shatters and breaks.

  He inhales a sharp breath with a hiss that cuts across his teeth. His jaw clenches, and his eyes shut as I continue to stroke him. Up and down and back all over again.

  I am powerful.

  I am desired.

  No more cold detachment in the halls. No more pretending I don’t exist. I will incinerate that shit and bury it where it can never be found.

  When he’s in bed later tonight, he will think of me in this moment, my hand running up and down the length of his cock. When another girl offers herself to him, he will remember what I am doing right now and he will know that she can never replace me. And when he thinks about being an asshole to me again, he’d better damn remember that I’m the one who took control back from him and gave us both what we needed.

  As I continue to stroke him over the fabric, I run my other hand up over his chest, across the thin cotton of his shirt. The fabric is warm, and I can feel the indents of his abs and the stony rigidity of his stomach. It is hot—I am hot—in the cold of the theater. A fire burns across my skin and settles inside my belly.

  He hisses again as he watches me.

  Shit, I think, he’s going to tell me to stop, but when I look up at him, he’s staring at me, his gaze a little more unhinged than before, unfocused, as he watches me. His teeth bite into his bottom lip, white against the pink flesh.

  I keep my eyes locked with his and reach down blindly with my free hand to unbutton his pants. I undo his belt first, sliding it through the loops of his jeans before I carefully lower the zipper. His pants sag at his hips, catching on his hip bones and flipping open wide at the waist. I don’t want to look away from him, but I want to see. I need to see how I have affected him.

  My gaze falls to his pants, and he’s wearing briefs, blue silk maybe, but it’s too dark in this corner of the stage to tell. I push on either side of his pants, and they fall to the floor, his belt buckle hitting the stage with a clank. All the while, I feel him watching me. I hook my thumbs around the edges of his briefs and slowly tug on the elastic until I free him. It pops out, landing thick and heavy against me.

  I swallow. It’s as big as I remember, and I’ve only done this a handful of times and only for him. My heart bashes against my ribs. I cannot mess this up.

  Tentatively, I run my hand along the smooth length of him, and when I glance up at him again, I see that he’s watching me, his eyes dilated to black, his lips parted ever so slightly. I tighten my grip and watch as his breath kicks up a notch, coming and going in short, rapid bursts.

  I run my hand shaft to head and back down again, rolling pre-cum across my thumb to use it as lube. He swells in my hand, throbbing as I work him, and the feel of him, pulsing slightly, urges me on further.

  With my gaze still on his—blue on steel dilated to coal black—I slide down the long length of h
is body, pressing my breasts against his chest, down his stomach, and across the bare length of him. It’s a tight squeeze, and my feet hit the concrete wall, and he’s forced to take a step back for me to fit. I am on my knees before him, praying to his reign as he watches me.

  I make sure he is watching—because I want him to remember this—and take him into my mouth and begin to suck.

  I run my tongue along the underside of him and go as far back as I can before running it back up again, all the while looking at him.

  Why are you doing this? his gaze asks.

  Let me give this to you, mine says in return.

  Then I do it all over again until he hits the back of my throat, and I’m trying to not gag. His hands tighten in my hair as I reach a hand to cup him gently. I continue, sliding up and down the length of him as far as I can, and I’m maybe three pumps in before a low guttural sound tears free of his throat and he loses control.

  His hands fist my hair, his nails biting into my scalp. I give him what he needs and open my mouth wider as he takes control.

  Tears stream down my eyes, and it’s taking everything I have to not choke as he fucks my mouth. Every jerk of his hips is hard, powerful, and nearly violent as he pounds in and out of me, groaning with each thrust. My knees slide a little against the polished wood floor, my feet hitting the wall behind me.

  He tastes salty like a swallow of sea water, and my jaw is starting to ache as I try to open even wider for him. I look up at him, tears running from my eyes, which can’t help but water. He’s got his head thrown back, the column of his neck drawn taut. The line of his abdomen is rigid beneath his shirt, tightness in his shoulders and down his arms to the protruding veins there that run beneath his skin. He is in control of me but not in control of himself as he continues to pound into my mouth.

  “Fuck,” he bites out, the word gravelly and guttural. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

  He says the curse with each thrust like it sets the rhythm to his pace. Saliva runs down my chin and spills over to my neck as the silky hardness of him slams into the back of my throat as far as he can go. My gaze remains locked on him, and he must feel me there, watching him, because his gaze falls and he looks at me. His mouth is slightly parted, his bottom lip clenched between his teeth, as I wrap my hands around his ass, my nails biting into the flesh there, and urge him on.

  Give it all to me, I say without words. Let me feel your wrath.

  His hips start to move faster, his gaze losing focus before he throws his head back again. His fingers claw at my scalp as I feel him tighten, the moment before he explodes in my mouth.

  I swallow, drinking in every drop as he reaches out with a forearm to brace against the wall, his entire body shaking. I lick him clean as his eyes remain closed.

  When he finally pulls away, he tugs up his underwear and his jeans and redoes his belt quickly. Something in the atmosphere has changed, and I don’t like it. I feel empty again, alone, deserted, and that’s not how this was supposed to go.

  “Now, leave,” he says, discarding me.

  He doesn’t look at me when he says it, and it’s somehow worse knowing his cum is in my belly, his scent on my body, my hair tangled by his hands.

  I pick myself up off the floor and pack my violin quickly, tears threatening to fall, but I won’t cry. He may have won this battle, but he won’t win the war, and I’ll break down his walls brick by brick if I have to, until my fingers split open and bleed.

  He doesn’t even look at me as I leave. He’s already playing the piano as I beeline for the exit, the door shutting out him and the sound of his music before I disappear into the night.

  My spiderweb heart is ripped to shreds in the torrent of his storm.

  23

  Harlow

  It’s Friday night, and I am at yet another football game, sitting in between Molly and Raven. Ian told me to come to the Academy games, and despite everything that’s happened between us, I do.

  Maybe it’s because they provide a little spark of hope that I am finally breaking through to him and that one day soon everything will be back to normal. Harlow and Ian against the world again, do-over series.

  Maybe, but I don’t know.

  I heard from Molly, who was told by Everett, that Ian was benched, which explains why he hasn’t been at the last two games, but tonight, I am surprised. At first, I thought his dad must have gotten through to someone on the Board or maybe they realized their mistake after Voclain lost last week in a decimation the newspapers called “brutal and downright uncomfortable to behold” because now, Ian is on the field, front and center, dead middle on the fifty-yard line. Berkshire is nowhere to be seen.

  From what I heard though, Chase told the headmistress that he wouldn’t stand in for Ian anymore. Everett and Archie backed him up, and last Friday became a game of second string against one of the toughest teams in the state of New York, the Pinecrest Pirates. Molly said the Board got a lot of nasty calls after that game from donors asking how exactly their athletic grants have been spent.

  Turns out money talks even at an academy where the stairwell banisters are flecked with filaments of gold.

  “I heard Coach Wells got involved too,” Molly tells me, snacking on a box of M&Ms. “He had to tell the board the millions they’d lose when he shut down the football team this year because it was, quote, embarrassing to be a part of the program any longer.”

  “I heard that too,” Raven says with a nod, her eyes still on the game ahead of us. “Apparently the entire team hated Berkshire’s guts, and when Chase said he wouldn’t play pretend QB anymore, it got really ugly in the donors’ arena. They were banking on that money to expand the gymnasium next year.”

  I take another bite of my hotdog. It sort of tastes like burnt rubber, and I set it to the side after a long, hard moment of chewing.

  “Hey, ladies,” somebody says behind us, and, for once, it’s not all creeptastic like when Archie says it.

  We all turn in our seats, greeted by a guy who looks a few years older than us with messy mop of brown hair and a tan that would, as Raven likes to say, make Kim Kardashian jellybeans. He smiles at us politely, and it’s also nice and not super creepy, which is a good change for once.

  “Hey,” we all echo in unison.

  “You from around here?” Raven asks, always to the point, even when chomping down on a Twizzler like it offended her.

  “No.” The guy shakes his head as he takes a seat on the row behind us, setting down his water bottle and salad. I eyeball the vinaigrette-covered creation suspiciously. I didn’t even know concessions sold vegetables or grilled chicken, for that matter. I’m a little scared for our new friend.

  The guy points out at the field. “Anthony Pavelli is my brother. I’m just in town for the weekend.”

  Raven raises an eyebrow at me and mouths, He’s cute! like the guy isn’t right behind us and can’t see what she’s doing. He’s nice enough to pretend to not notice at least, but my desire to crawl under the bleachers and hide grows stronger by the second. I hold out my hand to Molly and wait for the best friend tax to be paid in M&Ms.

  “I’m Jonah,” the guy says, offering us a short wave.

  “Raven,” Raven says, hooking her thumb back at herself. “I’m in love with a boy lost in Europe at the moment.” She hooks her thumb at me next. “This is Harlow, my very single friend next to me,” Oh, God. Please kill me now, “and that one on the end is Molly, but she’s not ready to be in a relationship yet.”

  Molly looks like she wants to scream Fire! and run away in the ensuing commotion. I am debating whether I can actually fit into the space underneath the row in front of us. Also, if I can fit, how do I get out once I’m under there?

  Jonah, to his credit, flushes and laughs. “Thank you, Raven.” He nods at Molly and me, mirth igniting in his green eyes. “Harlow and Molly, nice to meet you both.”

  “Nice to meet you,” we both echo as Molly pays the friend tax, and I pluck my favorite out of my palm, a b
lue M&M, and pop it into my mouth.

  “Pavelli,” Raven muses, chewing on her Twizzler like it’s the end of a pencil. “That’s the boy wonder, right? A freshman?”

  Jonah nods and takes a bite of his salad. “Yeah, he was lucky to even get on the team though. I was told that hasn’t happened since, uh…”

  “Ian Beckett,” I offer, and Jonah nods.

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “The QB. They say my brother will be the new QB here one day, but I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Kid can throw, but not like that guy.” He nods toward Ian on the field.

  “Did you go here?” I ask, trying to remember if I’ve seen him before.

  Jonah shakes his hand and takes another quick bite from his salad. “Nah, I grew up on the West Coast. I went to live with my mom after the divorce. Little brother went to live with Dad. Dad and his new wife sent him here.”

  “Ah,” Raven comments, “it’s a tale as old as time, the divorce of rich people.”

  Jonah snorts and nods. “Yeah, but I’m sort of wishing I went to live with Dad now. This campus is sweet. I thought where I went to high school in California was nice, but this…”

  He whistles to emphasize his point.

  “Where’d you go in California?” Molly asks, though I can tell she’s only trying to be polite.

  “A private school in Los Angeles. I go to Stanford now. My dad and his new wife are on their yearly vacation, so I got called in to play babysitter this weekend. They think if one of us doesn’t go to his games, he’ll think we aren’t supportive and will drop out of the program or something.” Jonah rolls his eyes before he stands suddenly, his arms raised to the sky.

  “Get them, Voclain!” he shouts. “WOOOOOOO!”

  Molly giggles and looks around like she’s wondering if anyone else heard that. For the record, we all heard that, except maybe Raven. Raven tugs at her ear with two freshly French-manicured fingernails while I gawk at Jonah because that…that exclamation…was super loud, like fireworks plus an ambulance plus the space shuttle launching loud. Jonah flushes red beneath his California tan as he sits back down.