We stumble backward, and my head bangs against the wall as his hand cups my cheek and our lips angle to meet each other with a perfect, desperate sear.
My mouth parts to let him in, despite my better judgement’s cry to keep him out. I push my chest into his, starving for the friction, aching for him to fill the void he left so wide and echoing when he strode out of here, leaving me in his wake.
Don’t think about that, I chide. Not if you’re doing this with him. Take it for what it is. What you want.
Chase rips the towel from my grip, my naked body molding against his uniform, dampening the school colors with my scent. My hands tangle in his hair when I rise up on my tiptoes, matching his need at the same time he straightens, and I jump so he can catch my thighs around his waist.
He breaks off the kiss. “I care about you,” he repeats on a growl. “And it would’ve been so much worse for you if I hadn’t intervened.”
I cup his face, my fingers leaving indents in his angular face. “Shut up.”
An approving sound comes from his throat as he spins, and it’s with the graceful, rower’s balance that he carries me into my bedroom and kicks the door shut.
He places me on my bed, but instead of covering me with his body, he takes a long, drawn-out survey, from the top of my head to my toes.
“Chase,” I say on a nervous laugh, battling against the need to pull the covers over myself.
“I meant what I said. You’re gorgeous.”
“You’re drunk.”
Chase cocks his head. “I’m not so fucked-up that I can’t see your beauty.”
He unbuttons his collared white shirt, exposing his hairless, carved-in-bronze chest, his six-pack rippling with the movement of his arms.
I try not to gape, because I’m not the beautiful one, but I refuse to look away from the visual treat of his muscular, athletic body before he uses its talents.
With a flick of his thumb, his belt’s unbuckled and his uniform slacks undone and pooled to the ground. He steps out of his boxers with the same, rapid grace, then puts one knee on the bed as he strokes his straining erection.
And I think, God, yes. I missed this.
My core aches for him to fill it, and my starvation must be written all over my face, because he smirks.
With that kind of introduction, I expect him to take me with one thrust, but instead, he moves to settle himself between my legs, but softly strokes my inner thighs. His calloused fingers travel up my stomach, tracing my breasts, leaving shivers along their path, and I’m so lulled by it, so attached to its sweetness, that my heart falls to pieces as his fingers carve their destiny across my naked chest.
Breaths heaving, I internally beg for patience. Noticing my distress, Chase smiles again and dips his fingers down until he’s stroking my folds with the same light caress he’d used to trace my body.
I can’t meet his quiet seduction with the same amount of grace. It’s been so long. Too long. I buck under his hand, twisting and writhing to try to coax his fingers deeper, but he won’t comply.
“You’re so wet,” he rasps out, his focus on his finger, curling it in and out. “So damn ready for me.”
“Chase,” I moan, so aching and wanton, I have to shut my eyes and whine into the blackness. If I watch him much longer, I’ll explode.
His silky voice hits my ears. “Stroke me.”
Chase lifts my hand until I curl my fingers around his shaft. During his worship of me, he hadn’t touched his dick, nor did he grind it against me. It throbbed and bounced with the same need he was enticing from me, but now I realize, he was doing it to match my desperation, to draw out our need.
Why?
He groans at the tightening of my grip. I stroke, as he asked, then pump, the tender pinkness of my hand and wrist forgotten as I increase the friction, then, needing moisture, rise up enough to draw the tip of him in my mouth.
Chase sucks in air through his teeth at the contact, tipping over the precipice as he watches my lips encircle his cock.
He grits out, “I need to be inside you.”
I release his dick with a pop, then ask as I look up at him, “What’s stopping you?”
Chase gnashes his teeth, then bends and rifles through my nightstand for a condom. Once he slips it on, he towers over me, pressing my legs apart. But instead of taking me with threatening, animalistic prowess, Chase reins it in, lining himself up with my entrance with trembling, enraging, slowness.
“Chase,” I beg, but he doesn’t acknowledge my pleas.
Inch by tortuous inch, he sinks into my folds, his jaw tight. When his arms come down on either side of me, and I grip his shoulders to bring him closer, I use that momentum to thrust my hips up and wrap my legs around his torso, taking him all the way in.
He buries his face in my neck, groaning, fighting some unseen force. I stroke his hair and whisper in his ear. “You have me. Right now, I’m yours.”
Chase lifts his head to kiss me, and it’s with such urgent desire, my teeth cut into my lips, but I don’t cry out, though it’s dizzying and confusing. I press against him harder.
He thrusts, but not with the same possessiveness as before. He’s not demanding ownership. It’s more like he’s asking permission to go slow, to stretch me to my limits with tender strokes.
When the orgasm builds, I bite down on his neck, my cry of release muffled and tinged with blood.
Chase has his own release, his thrusts deep and quick, before he collapses, his chest falling against mine.
I tangle my fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp, and hope he doesn’t move. I like the warmth of him, and his weight has a calming effect, like he’s squeezing all the angst from my heart so it can maybe find its lost pieces again.
His head moves. “You okay?”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, tracing spirals in his hair.
“I don’t … I don’t want to hurt you.”
My circles stop.
“It’s best for both of us if I stay away from you, but I—you’re so damn addictive, with your smell and your taste … and the darkness you try to hide.” He lifts his head. “Like me.”
We take a long study of each other, but instead of getting lost in the golden flecks of his eyes, I’m the first to break the silence. “It’s okay. I know what this is.”
He bows his head, blond locks slipping forward. “You don’t. And I hope you never will.”
My brows furrow, but Chase lifts off me and bends to get dressed.
I want to plead with him to stay the night, but the futileness of the request prevents my tongue from forming the words.
Why should I ask him for comfort, when I swore to hate him the instant he sided with Falyn and her friends? Or how about when he decided protecting Briarcliff’s secret society was more important than exploring the budding relationship between us?
With that in mind, I sit up, gathering the sheets around myself, and watch him dress.
Though I’m liquid and docile with the orgasm he gave me, I’m reminded that the physical is all he’s willing to give.
“Emma’s probably in the library,” he says.
My brows push together. Why would she go to the very place where her life, as she knew it, went up in flames?
“It’s where she goes sometimes,” he continues. “You may not believe me, but I really was looking for her when I came in, before you and I…”
I nod but don’t say anything else. It’s not like he’d answer my confusion over Emma’s choices.
“And Callie?”
I watch him carefully. “Hmm?”
“I’m sorry.” He shrugs on his collared shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. “For what it’s worth.”
I set my jaw, folding my arms over my knees and waiting a few more minutes, ensuring he’s left, before I reach under my pillow and pull out what I’d managed to dig from his pocket in the midst of our foreplay.
I flip it around in my fingers a few times, watching the light play against the laminate, but I
don’t feel bad for using his sexual weakness for me. Not after what he’s done.
After one last glance through my open doorway, I twist and shove his room card into the crack between my mattress and bed frame, then turn over and try to chase dreams instead.
23
Saturday morning dawns early and bright—for my side of the dorm room, anyway.
Emma came back late, and I assume is still sleeping behind her closed door as I get ready. It’s a relief not to face her the night after my impromptu sex with Chase. Not that she and I are known for sharing secrets, but I’m wary she might notice a change in the air, an electric charge to my step, or anything slightly off that I don’t think to hide, sending her twin senses tingling.
I couldn’t get much rest after Chase left, my mind alive with our sex and his motives and my plans. Too many possibilities flitted behind my eyes. Not only the risks, but the repercussions would be astounding if I get caught.
They’ve left me no choice. If Chase can’t or won’t speak about Piper’s involvement with the Virtues, I’ll have to dig up the evidence myself.
Just the thought sends shivers along my spine, but I refuse to shake the idea that Piper’s murder doesn’t stop with Jack, just like it wasn’t solved with Dr. Luke. Not only is Jack Addisyn’s boyfriend, both Addy and Piper have Virtue connections, a secret society created by Rose Briar that, from what I’ve seen, prefers unscrupulous activities over wholesome ones.
It begs the question: why did Rose create a rival society to the Nobles? And are they still implementing her wishes, or have they gone rogue, beginning with Piper’s downfall?
Ugh. I’m so confused.
And determined, goddamnit.
Before I can get to any of that, however, I have an important meeting which I can’t be late for.
Ready just shy of eight o’clock, I throw my tote over my shoulder and head out, taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
I have nothing to hide, so I exit out the front this time, lifting my hand in a wave to the campus officer standing beside our usual college girl and her closed laptop. She’s looking more alert than usual these days, and not too happy about it, but permission to study in the public library in town couldn’t be denied by Marron—especially considering my relationships with other girls in this school who are known to use the school’s library.
It’s better for everyone involved if I stay away.
The automatic double-doors slide open as I approach the exit. When I hit the sidewalk in hopes of seeing Yael (who I requested ten minutes ago), I almost run into Eden.
“Oh. Hey,” I say when I come to a halt a few steps away from her back.
Eden stiffens, then raises her head and shoves her phone into her back pocket. She turns, and I’m hopeful the sound coming out of her lips is a reciprocal, “Hey.”
But probably not.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Eden shrugs. “Are you saying the only place I belong is Scholarship Row?”
“God. No.” I step up beside her. “I’ve just never seen you hanging out around here.”
“I have feet,” Eden retorts. “I use them sometimes.”
I lift my hands. “Okay. I come in peace.”
Eden sighs, going back to staring at Rose House across the drive. “Sorry. It’s been a rough morning.”
“Already?”
An incoming crosswind causes strands of Eden’s black hair to tangle around her nose, and she tucks them behind her ear with an aggravated jerk. “Maybe I’m here waiting for you, to give you a message. How’s your treasure hunt going? Have they scared you off yet?”
I cross my arms, mirroring her pose. “Pretty sucky, since most people pretend they don’t have tongues when I ask questions. Including you.”
Eden purses her lips. “Maybe because I’ve been you. Before. In ninth grade. I got involved in trying to figure them out and they made me pay for it. I wasn’t a chosen one.” Eden snorts, continuing her stare-down of Rose House. “So, go ahead and construe my silence as trying to keep you from the same fate.”
I huff out a breath. “Another protector? Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Don’t you get it?” Eden turns to me. “You’re not allowed to know about them until they invite you to. Give up, Callie.”
“Then why tell me Piper was a Virtue?”
“Because I thought it would make you back off out of fear, not blindly pursue it like a moron.”
I roll my eyes but decide to change tactics. “I’ve figured out most of the players. Falyn, Addisyn, you know, the usual witches of Briarcliff. But what I can’t quite confirm … is Emma a Virtue?”
There might as well have been a car backfiring nearby, with the way Eden startles. But she reconstructs her emotionless mask before I can remark on it. “Why, Callie? Seriously. Why keep doing this to yourself?”
“I’m not going to stop,” I tell her in a low voice. “These Virtues? They’ve messed with the wrong girl.”
“They’re not even close to messing with you. Don’t you understand?”
“Then make me.” My hands go to my hips. “Because if Emma is a Virtue, then that fire she was trapped in had something to do with them. And her attack. It involved the Virtues, too. Didn’t it? That’s the level of messing with that you’re warning me about.”
Eden thins her lips but won’t break eye contact. I take that as my answer.
“So, the Nobles didn’t retaliate?” I ask. “What about Chase? Wouldn’t he have done everything in his power to protect his sister?”
Eden takes her time answering. “I suppose it depends on Emma’s level of betrayal.”
As it sinks in, I whisper, “What?”
“It’s a rigorous process to even become a prospect of the Virtues. The hazing is even worse. But betraying the society? Even the Nobles’ highest member can’t protect you from that kind of downfall.”
“Highest member? Who, like their father?”
Eden tucks her hands in her pockets, gesturing to the road. “There’s your ride.”
I glance in that direction, but by the time I look back, Eden’s walking away. “Eden, wait! I—”
She waves at Yael, who gives a cheery salute, but Eden might as well be deaf to my voice.
“Damnit,” I mutter as I open the car door. “She’s escaped me again.”
“Hey there, Callie,” Yael greets.
I murmur a hello while buckling my seatbelt, unable to bring my mind in the car with me. It’s still under Thorne House’s awning, interpreting Eden’s explanations.
“What were you and my daughter whispering about?” he asks as he turns from the dorms.
And just like that, my attention dives into the passenger seat. “Eden’s your kid?”
“So they tell me,” he says with a good-natured laugh, but sobers when he meets my eye in the rearview mirror. “She’s had a tough time of it, so if you’re getting to know her despite her … prickly nature, I’m grateful to you.”
I respond with a thin smile. “I’m sure the more I get to know her, the more open she’ll be.”
“I was hoping you’d connect with her,” Yael says as we slope through the winding roads of Briarcliff Academy. “I wasn’t about to push it. Eden would kill me if I did, but I couldn’t lose the hunch that you’re dealing with something similar involving the privileged kids on campus.”
My gaze darts from the window to my hand, and Yael’s fatherly concern.
Yael asks quietly. “Are they bullying you, too?”
I lick my lips in thought. “Not quite. Well, not since Piper, you know…”
“Yes. She was the roughest with my Eden as well. Lord, the shit that brat pulled. Excuse my disrespect of the dead, but she was terrible. Eden’s been with these kids since fifth grade, for as long as I’ve been working as a driver. It’s part of the deal. My kids get free room, board, and education so long as I’m employed here. My wife and I thought to remove her many times, but Edie insisted we shouldn’t.
This is where she can get the best education. The best start. Neither me nor her mom ever went to college, and to think of Edie attending an Ivy League? It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, wondering whether we should keep her here.”
I nod in sad understanding. “Eden’s stubborn. I doubt she wanted Piper and her crew to win.”
“Hit the nail on the head with that one.” Yael turns right on to the forested road heading to Main Street. “But it was … filthy, what they did to her. She tried so hard to fit in with them, but got garbage tossed at her for her efforts. Her uniform ripped to shreds while she was in a swim meet. Rumors spread about her through social media. One time … they took a picture of her getting changed in the locker room. Circulated it.”
Yael’s voice has gone hoarse, his dark-skinned hands clenched around the wheel so hard, his skeleton almost bursts from his skin.
Hearing all this makes me yearn to talk to Eden, to assure her I’m not one of them and I could be there for her as a friend if she wanted me, but … most of me understands these are nothing but futile words until I gain her trust. And that is so much harder to show than pity.
“Did you speak to the headmaster about all this?” I ask Yael.
“Absolutely. But you can come to your own conclusions on what happened.”
I grumble in response. Briarcliff’s motto shouldn’t be Rise with Might, it should be Money Over Child Welfare.
Yael and I don’t speak for the rest of the trip, but I think hard on his confession. The constant brutality Eden faced probably caused her to pinpoint the source of her suffering: the Virtues. Maybe that’s why the bullying escalated, because she knew too much and they had to keep her silent. Especially if, according to her, she tried to become one and failed.
My head falls back against the seat. I want so badly for Eden to confide in me, but is it because I want her to heal, or would I rather satisfy my selfish motive to know more about the Virtues?
No wonder she doesn’t trust me.
“We’re here,” Yael says. His eyes crinkle into a kind smile in the rearview. “Thank you for hearing me out. I hope I haven’t…”
Virtue (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 2) Page 15