Bring on the Psychobitch (Some Girls Do It Book 3)
Page 9
A MacBook Air of the first generation, bought used three years back, took up most of the room, and next to it, she carefully fitted her textbooks upright.
“Getting your bag ready for a photoshoot?”
Lily started, almost dropping her satchel, because the voice sounded close, and she hadn’t felt anyone’s presence.
One of the many reasons why she was a weirdo: she knew where living things were, feeling their energy around her – which had made her the worst playmate, ever. She owned the fuck out of hide-and-seek.
Lily lifted her head and her eyes narrowed as she took in one of the three pretty girls who’d hogged the new guy.
The stranger was tall, with sleek platinum hair bobbed into submission and she wore bright red lipstick; classy and carelessly elegant.
Now she saw her right in front of her eyes, Lily totally felt her, but even so, her energy was wrong – different, somehow.
Bigger, stronger.
What are you?
Her energy didn’t feel like one of a regular human, or a witch for that matter. Lily just itched to perform a scanning spell and…
No, she admonished herself firmly. You’re a boring old normal person and normal folks don’t do magic.
“Sorry, do I know you?”
It wasn’t the nicest thing she could have come up with, but come on – that girl was part of the pretty, popular trio; common sense dictated that they shouldn’t be on each other’s radar unless she planned on inviting her to prom and throw pig blood over her dress.
“Not yet,” Pretty Girl replied, extending her hand.
To Lily’s surprise, the girl’s nails were painted black. It so deliciously clashed with the rest of her persona, giving her a little edge.
“Raven,” she introduced herself.
Great. That girl was called Raven and she, the borderline goth, went by Lily Star, like your average fairly distressing maiden? There was something wrong with the universe.
“Cool name.”
Raven smirked.
“I know, I chose it. You don’t even want to know what my maker came up with. Anyway, I see the new boy and you had a little eye-fucking fest going on?”
And there it was, her reason for acknowledging her existence.
It meant that she really wasn’t crazy, the handsome newcomer had been looking at her. Right now, she had two options: brushing it off like she didn’t know what Raven was on about, or owning up to it.
Lily didn’t really have anything to justify; if there had been any eye-fucking, it had been one-sided, and regardless, it wouldn’t have been any of Raven’s business, so she lifted her chin, waggling an eyebrow and replied, “And you have a point?”
Raven smirked in response.
“I like the attitude. I don’t have a point, not exactly. Just… be careful, okay? He’s after something – and if you’ve got it, he’ll stop at nothing to take it from you.”
The Playgirls
She needed sex and she needed it now. Seriously. It had been thirteen months. Thirteen.
Alice set her music a peg higher, although it was well past midnight, and reached out for one of her dicks, almost shaking.
The curved pink dildo hit the top of her wall right away, poking at the bundle of nerves that needed to be eased. Her movements weren't very gentle. Savagely, without a care, she rammed it inside her, again, and again and again, ten times quicker than the rhythm of the blues blasting around her.
Eventually, she'd eased the ache – momentarily. No halleluiah for her, though – she'd never orgasmed in twenty-five years, and didn't think she ever would. But her body was sated. For now.
It didn't last long. She went back to her book – a boring romance; there was nothing remotely erotic, but the first kiss the protagonists exchanged had her reaching for Bob, this time. She needed the vibrations.
It had grown worse over the last couple of months, and it was completely their fault.
Her job at On Top, the newspaper Linda Donovan – an old school friend – had started up, was the stuff of dreams: she was needed at the office about three hours a week. The rest of the time, she was expected to write, attend cool events, fly around interviewing interesting people; Linda hadn't meant her columns to be about the A-List – not even the B or C-list – but genuinely fascinating individuals; there had been the occasional author, a few dancers, self-made businessmen, cut-throat lawyers who never lost their cases.
And at the beginning of the fall, there had been the Colburns.
Yes, those Colburns.
They had been a bit of a leap, because they were quite high up in the A list, but Linda had asked Alice to reach out nonetheless; her article hadn't been about Xander's latest movie, Kellan's match, Colt or Kane's business ventures, but about them, as a family unit. A little bit of a "yeah, we're normal people, actually."
The thing was, unexpectedly, Alice had clicked with Tamsin, Xander's wife. Tamsin was new in town, which meant that her contact list wasn't long; obviously, Alice's name was at the very top, because she somehow ended up meeting her two or three times a week.
She wasn’t complaining: Tamsin, a writer herself, was a bundle of fun.
But half of the time, Xander – or one of his three yummy brothers – had been around, hence Alice's desperate need for quality time with her fake cocks. Thank god she had a few.
She was giving it a third go when Skylar Grey's voice was replaced by the generic iPhone ringtone. Dammit. She'd been enjoying that round.
Without bothering to unsheathe Bob, she grabbed the phone, saw Tamsin's name and answered with a: “Bad timing, sweetie. Really fucking bad timing.”
She didn't try to hide her breathlessness, relishing in the idea of making the prim and proper British woman blush.
It was hilarious that Tamsin – a sex symbol in the flesh, exotic with massive tits and an ass like that – blushed to every suggestive comment, while Alice – who was pegged as the good girl – was the one whose mind resided in the gutter.
The response didn't come from the voice she'd expected, though.
“Do I want to ask?”
It was a guy; definitely a guy.
Shit.
There was no point guessing which of the Colburn she was now addressing; either way, the fact was, she was on the phone with a sex god, while a yellow dildo was lodged insider her.
Alice was mortified for about three long seconds, before laughter took over. Damn, she was so going to write something about that.
“Believe me, you don't.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” the man teased.
That immediately ruled out Xander; the tone had been on the flirty side and Alexander Colburn didn't flirt with anyone, save for his wife.
So, quite unabashedly, she reached out between her legs with her left hand and pumped Yellow Man inside her, a bit more discreetly, as though he might somehow hear it through the phone.
“Anyhow, why are you calling? Tamsin's fine, right?”
“Never better. We're in England, sorry if it’s late.”
“No worries,” she replied, not quite sure what he'd actually said. The main thing was, her masturbation was getting seriously good, with his low, rumbling voice in the background. “But stop stalling and tell me what you’re after, honey.”
They were friendly enough, but nowhere near a level of intimacy where he would have called from another continent just to say hi or see what she was up to, so he wanted something.
“Now you mention it, I have a favor to ask you.”
“Go on?”
Given the fact that he was providing a delicious soundtrack to her self-indulgence, she was somewhat in his debt.
“It's Tamsin and Xander's anniversary next month. Our parents are throwing them a party, and well, as baby Alexander has bagged himself a most unsuitable wife, dear mother has taken to pairing Kane, Colt and I up with what she considers perfect candidates.”
It was Kellan, then. Alice relaxed; he was by far the least intim
idating out of the four sex symbols.
“I'm desperate. I need a date who would get her off my back, and well, mom would love you, with the conservative thing you've got going on.”
That did manage to make her chuckle quite a bit. Might have had something to do with the fact that she was still fucking herself, her hips now up in the air to get a better angle.
His mother would find her real conservative, if she saw her now.
“Ok, no worries. I'll be your fake date, whatever. Sounds like fun.”
Kellan, she could deal with. At least, it wasn't cold, calculated, dismissive Colt Colburn.
“You did what?”
“I asked her out. She's gorgeous and single, for some reason; why not?”
There was a very long line of reasons why not. Alice Vaughan wasn't a valid dating option; Colt would have asked her out, if she had been.
“You don't have a problem with it, right? I mean, you met her first; if you've called dibs...”
He had met her first. It was he who had read her lighthearted email about setting up an interview and, against his better judgment, had accepted to discuss it.
Look, she’d written, On Top is a magazine for young professional women. My boss and I know that having the four of you on our cover would boost our sales to the moon and back for a good quarter, so give a little startup a hand; I’ll bring cake.
Colt handled public relations, because he was the most indifferent, focused and merciless amongst them; yet even he had laughed at that.
The meeting had been brief. He'd planned on quizzing the fuck out of her, get her angle, her goals, everything, but she'd appeared and put him on his ass.
He had no idea what had occurred but somehow, after a mere fifteen minutes, they'd set up an interview with the rest of the family.
There had been cake. Homemade apple pie, to be precise.
However, in no way had he done anything that could be conceived as calling dibs, despite his inclination.
She'd had her hair in a messy brown bun, off her neck, and seeing the elegant curve, he'd wanted to kiss the naked skin, put his hands around those hips, and...
But he hadn't, so his brother had every right to date her, if she was agreeable.
Fuck. The last time a brother of his had announced he was dating, they’d had a sister-in-law within three months.
What if Alice and Kellan actually hit it off?
“Chill,” his youngest brother said, joining him on the terrace where he’d isolated himself to think things through. “You heard the conversation. He asked her out to stop mom from setting him up. It wasn’t exactly romantic.”
Xander had grown uncomfortably observant.
“But she’ll have someone eventually – for real. If a fake date makes you look like this, you might want that someone to be you.”
“What about when we break up? Tamsin likes her.”
Save for Kane, – Colt’s twin – the Colburn boys were so close they’d developed an unhealthy codependence; they weren’t about to stop, it worked for them.
When Colt or Kellan needed eggs, instead of dropping by the closest store, they drove downtown to borrow them from Xander.
Ok, it may have to do with the fact that Tamsin couldn’t help herself from feeding them, and she was a great cook, but whatever.
Alice spent an awful lot of time at their place, and it would be incredibly uncomfortable to see her after she’d dumped him because he worked too hard.
She would, too.
Colt had dated two kinds of women: those who hated the fact that he often spent twenty-hours straight at the office, and those who didn’t mind.
The first lot dumped him, he dumped the second.
There was no doubt in his mind that Alice would be one of those who grew resentful; she wasn’t a gold digger, or a woman who just liked the stigma and advantages one got from dating a Colburn.
Whoever ended up in a relationship with her would get a genuine, full time, wholesome kinda love. And apple pie. In exchange, she’d demand some of her partner’s time and attention – two things he didn’t have a great track record at relinquishing.