by Becker Gray
“I’m not here for you,” Rhys said in a silky voice.
“Then god is real,” said Sera.
Rhys’s face didn’t change, but his eyes did, growing even blacker. “If I want you, I’ll have you.”
Sera looked away, her expression cool. “I’d like to see you try.”
And then—most frightening of all—Rhys smiled. “Maybe one day, van Doren. But only after you beg, and who knows? Maybe then it will be too late.”
Sera rolled her eyes and got up to leave. Rhys stepped forward, towering over my slender friend, and for a moment, I thought he might stop her from leaving. But then, with that eerie smile again, he stepped aside, and with a huff, Sera stalked away from the table with a muttered see you later to me and Aurora.
Rhys took her seat with a prompt grace which suggested he’d been planning on driving her off all along. “Now, Sloane,” he said, as if we were picking up on a conversation we’d started before. “What time should I have you picked up next Saturday for the gala?”
Aurora nearly spit out her drink. “You’re going to the Huntington Gala together?”
“No,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Rhys. “I’ve never been invited to the gala, remember, Aurora?” While my father made decent money in his work—decent enough to send me here—he didn’t make gala money, and I hadn’t exactly grown up with the gala set. The annual Huntington bash was one of the events that everybody knew about and only a chosen, insanely wealthy few could attend. And I had never been one of them.
Which I truly hadn’t minded—Tannith was as unconnected and socially obscure as me, and so we usually spent the evening in the near-empty common room watching a weird mix of BBC literary adaptions (her choice) and bloody action movies (mine). And I hated getting dressed up anyway.
Plus, the Huntington mansion was outside of Boston, which meant that attending the gala was a weekend-long commitment with the long-ass drive factored in. No thanks.
“Consider this your invitation then,” Rhys said, undaunted. “And of course, you’re welcome to come down early with me on Friday. Spend the night, see my childhood room.”
Even out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aurora’s jaw drop.
“Okay, this is getting weird. I’m out,” I said, standing up and slinging my bag over my chest. “I’ll see you later, Aurora. Bye, Rhys.”
Rhys was up and next to me in an instant.
“Let me walk you to your next class,” he said smoothly, taking my hand in his.
Just like his kiss at the masquerade, it didn’t feel unpleasant at all. It was nice, actually. I normally didn’t mind that karate and exercise kept my curves more flat than interesting, and I had no interest in changing how I dressed—usually a short ponytail and boots to go with my school uniform. But I couldn’t deny that I was hardly luring boys to my side this way and getting to hold hands with someone was a nice change. Even more so when he pulled me out into the almost empty corridor connecting the dining hall to the main lecture building and pressed his warm lips to mine.
“Come to my family’s gala,” he murmured, pulling back to look down at me. Those black eyes were inscrutable. I had no idea what he was thinking and no reason to trust that it might be good.
“Wouldn’t you rather go with someone else?” I asked. “Anyone else?” I wasn’t a knockout like Sera or royalty like Aurora. I wasn’t rich like Clara Blair and her friends. The most interesting things about me—what my father did for a living and all the things he’d taught me—weren’t apparent on the surface.
In short, there was no reason to believe that Rhys wasn’t playing some kind of stupid Hellfire joke on me right now. But then he said the one thing that made me believe him.
“I’m never going to fall in love with you, Sloane Lauder. But right now, you’re the most interesting girl at this school to me. And I like interesting things.” He gave me an assessing look, like he could see my bra and panties underneath my school blazer and skirt. “I like interesting things quite a lot.”
With another penetrating but mysterious look, he walked away, calling over his shoulder, “Five p.m. next Friday, Sloane. We’re going to my house.”
I didn’t answer him. Mostly because he was already prowling away, but also because the answer that leapt to my lips wasn’t an immediate no. As much as I thought I’d hate the idea of going to something like the Huntington Gala . . . it was really flattering to be asked.
Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I went.
With a glance down at my phone, I saw I had some time before my next class, and I decided to take the long way to the science building. I’d only made it a handful of steps down the stone-flagged corridor when the hair prickled on the back of my neck.
I spun around just in time to stop Lennox from grabbing my arm, my training flaring up instinctively. I blocked his grab and was about to seize his wrist and twist it when he did something I had no preparation for.
He hauled me tight against him with his free arm around my back, so tight that I could feel the angry heave of his chest and the firm wall of his abdomen, and at the press of his body against mine, all my instincts left me. Well, all except the dumbest one, which pleaded for me to rub against him like a cat and purr until he petted me.
“No need to fly into a fit, darling,” Lennox said, his British accent curling around me like the tendrils of a lovely but lethal frost. “We can be civilized about this.”
“Civilized about wha—Lennox!” He was dragging me into a nearby storage closet, throwing open the door with one hand as he easily pulled me inside. The only way I could have broken free was by hurting him—a finger rake to his eagle-gold eyes, a knee to the groin, maybe some broken fingers—and I found . . . well, I found that I didn’t really want to do that. Not until I had no other choice, at least.
“Let. Me. Go,” I demanded the minute the door was closed.
He flicked on a light, still keeping me close, and then looked down at me. We were surrounded by boxes of paper towels and industrial-sized rolls of toilet paper, but even in here, he looked like a prince; arrogant and majestic. The dim light from the single light bulb caressed his sharp cheekbones and pout-shaped mouth.
“Lennox,” I bit out. “I’m not asking. Let me go.”
He looked a little surprised at himself when he admitted, “But I don’t want to.”
I glared up at him. “You realize I can make you, right? And it won’t be pleasant.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said honestly. “But I don’t think you want to make me. I think you like being right here.” A cruel smirk twisted the corner of his mouth. “I definitely like you being right here.”
He tugged me even closer—and I could feel more than his chest and stomach now, I could feel his . . . oh wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
He might technically be a prince, but there was one place where he was all king.
No! Focus, Sloane!
I twisted away and this time he let me, dropping his arm and leaning back against a wall of shelves as I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Karate prepares you for chokeholds and grips, for locks and strikes, but it definitely does not prepare you for the feeling of a hot, hard cock attached to an even hotter and harder prince, and I needed a second. Maybe two.
Finally, I could think with a mostly clear head again. “What do you want, Lennox?”
“I wanted to warn you about Rhys.”
There were so many things about that statement that didn’t make sense. But the only thing I could articulate was, “You needed to warn me in a closet?”
He frowned. “Well, obviously, we can’t be seen talking like this. Think of my reputation, darling.”
“I’m not your darling,” I said irritably. I wasn’t darling; I was deadly, and also it was very unfair how sexy the word darling sounded with his accent.
“My apologies,” Lennox said with a slicing grin. “What would you rather I call you? Poppet? Dove? My sweet, heartless huntress?”
“I’d rathe
r you call me nothing,” I said emphatically, even though I didn’t entirely hate the way any of those endearments sounded on his lips.
Lennox kept smiling. “My nothing, my sweet nothing. Oh, I like the sound of that. It’s quite Shakespearean.”
I refused to indulge him a moment longer. “Okay, well, if that’s all—”
The frown returned. “That’s not all. I haven’t warned you about Rhys yet.”
“A warning is unnecessary,” I told him. “I know exactly what kind of guy Rhys is.”
Lennox took a step forward. In the small expanse of the closet, it brought him within touching distance again. I tried to ignore the thrill my body gave at that.
“I don’t think you know at all,” he said, and for once, his voice wasn’t dripping with scorn or crackling with hate. He sounded completely serious. “Rhys is practically sociopathic. He’s a monster. If he asked you to the Huntington Gala, it’s not because he wants to go on picnics and skip through the bloody park with you.”
Irritation surged within me.
Finally! Here was my fighting instinct!
I stepped right up to Lennox and lifted my face defiantly to his. “He’s already told me all of this.”
Surprise moved across Lennox’s aristocratic features. “He has?”
“Yes. He’s been nothing but honest with me. And you know what else?”
Lennox’s face was tilted down towards mine now, his soft blond hair tumbling over his forehead. “What else?”
“He can talk to me outside of closets. He’s really romantic like that.”
A muscle jumped in Lennox’s jaw.
And then in an instant, his hands were on me again, dragging me against his body as he pressed his lips to my ear. “How would you, my cold, heartless sweetheart, know anything about romance?”
His words whispered warmth over my skin and sent shivers skating down my spine.
I meant to push his hands away, I meant to wedge my elbows between us and drag them over the nerves in his forearms. I meant to shove my head into his, and then finish him off with a swift strike to the sternum.
I meant to do all of those things. But instead, I melted into him. I melted into the hard, arrogant heat of him, I melted into those sinful lips against my skin. And even though he whispered hatred and poison with those lips, my body responded like he was whispering the tenderest, naughtiest secrets instead.
“You wouldn’t know, would you? Because you, my sweet, frigid darling, are the lowest order of virgin. You are locked up so tight that no one’s ever been inside, and no one’s ever even been close, have they? Is that because you won’t let them or because nobody wants you—”
Of its own accord, my right hand reached up and cracked across his perfect cheek, slapping him as hard as I could. And for a single moment after that, neither of us moved. Me with my hand still stinging in midair, and him with his cheek and jaw growing red, his gold eyes blazing down at me like he wanted to light me on fire with his fury alone.
But he didn’t light me on fire. He didn’t even speak.
Instead, he slashed his lips over mine and took my mouth in a searing kiss.
A kiss that went from mere hungry lips to hot, searching tongues sliding against each other in seconds.
My slap hadn’t affected his erection in the least. If anything, he was even harder than before, his thick column digging into my belly as he hauled me closer and closer with impatient hands, and then finally—with a growl I’d remember for the rest of my life—he shoved me up against the door.
“Wrap those legs around my waist,” he grunted between wild, angry kisses. “I know you’re strong enough.”
“Fuck off,” I retorted. But I did it anyway, because I needed—oh God—yes. I needed this. I needed my legs around his waist and my skirt up around my hips and his big erection right against my center. It felt so good.
“Bleeding Christ,” Lennox muttered, tearing his mouth from mine to look down at where he rocked against me. “Even through your knickers, I can feel how hot you are.”
My head dropped back against the door as he moved his hips again, dragging his clothed erection against me, dry-fucking me. I’d never done this—I’d barely even kissed a boy before—and it felt so much better than anything I’d ever done on my own; it felt so good I thought I might die right there among the paper towels.
My panties were damp, and my nipples were beaded so tight in my bra that they ached. And every time Lennox moved, there was an answering surge from deep inside my center, an urgent clenching, like my body was trying to . . .
“Are you about to come for me?” Lennox breathed, dipping his head to bite at my neck. “Are you about to make me miserable? Hmm? Show me what I’m missing?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even think. My hands were in the thick silk of his hair and my lips burned without his on mine and I was so close . . .
“Can I touch it?” he asked, sliding a hand under my ass far enough that his fingertips could press against my cotton-covered seam. “Let me touch it, please, my darling—”
Nothing sounded better than his fingers on my bare skin, nothing, and the minute I moaned out a yes, his clever fingers were pushing my panties aside and searching me out, finding where I was wet and hot. Finding the place where I opened and then lingering there, pushing at my center but not quite going inside.
It was torment not having his fingers inside me, it was pure misery, and I squirmed in his arms, trying to seek out more of him.
He gave a low chuckle against my lips. “Want something, do we?”
“Screw you,” I said, still squirming. Fuck, I was so close, so very close, and I knew if he touched the inside of me, if he filled me with his fingers . . .
“Then perhaps I shall remove my hand, if it doesn’t matter to you either way—”
I scratched at his shoulders and back, I writhed like a wild thing, I leaned forward and bit his collarbone through his uniform shirt. “Lennox . . .”
He pulled back to look at me, his lips swollen, his hair a mess, his pupils blown so wide the gold was almost all black.
“You—” he said, but then he stopped. As if he didn’t know what he wanted to say next . . .or knew but didn’t want me to hear it.
It didn’t matter. He could have scalded my ears with insults, he could have mocked me, debased me, recounted every horrible thing he’d ever done to me, and my body still wouldn’t have cared. It was under his spell completely and utterly, it was drugged by his warm lips and rough, impatient hands, and it was poised to dissolve. And then finally, finally, I felt the breach of his finger.
We both froze, staring at each other.
Lennox Lincoln-Ward, prince and bully, was fingering me. And it felt better than anything in the entire world.
“This is mine,” he murmured.
My eyes fluttered as he went deeper, as he resumed grinding against me with that arrogant cock. “But you hate me,” I managed to whisper.
I could hear the dark promise in his voice when he said, “That’s exactly why it’s mine.”
And I came.
To the sound of his possessive, cruel words, I came—so hard that I had to bite his blazer to keep from screaming.
Shudders moved through me, detonating around his long finger and behind my clit, and I was feral in his arms, trying to fuck his finger, trying to rub my clit against his erection, trying to hold on for dear life as my inner thighs and lower belly were seized by delicious, animal bliss.
It took so long for the climax to finish that I was gasping for breath after, that I was nearly weak with holding myself against him. I slumped back against the door, my pussy still sporadically jolting with pleasure, and looked at Lennox.
He had a wild look in his eyes—a look so unlike his usual calculated cruelty that I was almost scared.
“Don’t go to the gala with Rhys,” he said in a voice just as wild as his expression.
His finger was still inside me, and it was so hard not to
start fucking his hand again. “Why not?” I asked. I barely recognized my own voice. It was as far from disciplined and reserved as could be—I sounded sexed-up and lazy and . . . happy?
He slid another finger inside me, and I moaned, rolling my hips. “Because this is mine now.”
“I don’t think so.” Rich words coming from the girl currently fucking herself on his fingers.
“You made a mistake, my darling, letting me feel it, because I’m not about to let it—or you—go. And I’m certainly not going to let Rhys anywhere near this.”
“You have literally zero say in who gets near me,” I countered, but again, my words were lazy and husky with pleasure. Not exactly ringing with authority. “Plus I kind of want to go to the gala now.”
“Then go with me.”
I stopped moving and stared at him. He stared back, that wildness still in his eyes, his body taut as a wire against me.
“You’ve got to be joking,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“You hate me.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t even want to be seen talking in public with me.”
“Correct,” he said.
“But now you want to go to the gala with me as your date?”
He blinked slowly, his long eyelashes framing those impossible eyes. I had the sense that even he didn’t know why he wanted to go to the gala with me, but for a moment—for a stupid, dumb, terrible moment—I thought . . .
No. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that he liked me. I wasn’t deranged enough to think that he suffered from the same sickness I had when it came to him. But I at least thought he’d tell me that he wanted to get under my skirt again, that he wanted to kiss me again.
Instead, what he said was: “Rhys doesn’t get to touch you.”
Somehow this was what shook me down to reality.
Not the best orgasm of my life surrounded by paper towels and toilet paper.
Not him admitting—twice—that he hated me.
Not even him asking me to the gala.
But this.
This reminder that no matter how much he enjoyed mauling me in the supply closet, no matter how desperate he’d been to touch me, I was nothing more than prey to him. Prey that he’d already marked as his own and wouldn’t deign to share with Rhys.