by Becker Gray
What if you don’t get in? What if they reject you?
The seeds of doubt were right there in my gut along with the seeds of discontent. The doubt had this gray smoky flavor to it. Hard to pinpoint, hard to make dissipate.
I pushed aside the Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth applications, and I pulled out my letter for the Sorbonne program instead. And then I cracked open my laptop to the tab I’d had open on my browser since I’d gotten the letter.
The online application for the program was already done. Complete, ready. All I had to do was hit submit. But for over a week I’d been unable to do it. Unable to just pull the fucking trigger.
My father’s lecture reverberated in my head.
Get your act together, that lecture said. Be what we need you to be.
Keaton’s words came rushing back to me too.
Are you always going to be what everyone else wants you to be? Or are you going to do what might actually make you happy?
I didn’t even need to think about it anymore. I knew what I wanted. I clicked submit.
The Sorbonne. Photography. An early escape. The last thing on earth my parents would ever approve of.
But it was the first thing I’d done in months that felt entirely like me.
12
Keaton
“You can’t stay angry with me forever,” I said, watching Iris stare determinedly out my car window. Outside the car, there were trees and trees and trees, heavy with leaves that were newly flushed with fall. You’d think we were still in Vermont with all this foliage, but no, we were driving through Yonkers, which meant we’d been in the car for four hours.
Four long hours.
Four hours of Iris pretending I barely existed, four hours of her answering all my questions with one-word answers. Four hours of her glaring at me when I nudged her knee or brushed against her hand.
Actually, the entire past week and a half had been strained between us, which was not great timing because it had finally come time to take the pictures that would eventually turn into our project, and we needed to cooperate now more than ever.
We’d both managed to agree that we wanted to get away from Vermont to get our images at least. Everyone else was doing trees and mountains and lakes, and I’d turned to her during our last session and said, “I want to do the city.”
Because fuck that trite bucolic crap. Any idiot with a cell phone could take a picture of some trees, dial up the contrast, and then write a douchey exhibit label for it. But Iris and I weren’t idiots. We were better than the obvious answer. And what was less obvious for a landscape than a city?
Iris had immediately seen the appeal, dropping her cold shoulder act to look at me with a thoughtful expression. “Skyscrapers instead of woods. Streets instead of rivers. I can see that.”
“We could contrast it with what a typical landscape is expected to be,” I’d said, tapping my pencil against the table we were sitting at. “I could integrate some illustrated landscape shit between buildings or on top of them. On the sides. Rooftop farms, you know, like a solarpunk feel . . .”
Iris had shaken her head. “Too futuristic.”
“It’s conceptual,” I’d defended.
“It’s season three Westworld. It’s Wakanda. It’s Zootopia. It’s been done.”
“Yeah, it has. Because it’s fucking cool.”
She’d narrowed her eyes at me. She’d been pissed since that night in the woods when I’d dry-fucked her to orgasm and then called her “bait” ten minutes after, and it seemed like she took a particular, resentful delight in saying, “It’s fan art, Keaton. Is that really what you want your semester project to be? Fan art?”
“Fan art is badass stuff. Don’t be such a fucking snob.”
Her eyebrow had arched. And then she’d continued on like I hadn’t spoken at all. “We’ll do a fake double exposure. One of the city, one of the landscape it would have been if it had never been developed.”
I’d considered it a moment. It wasn’t a terrible idea, and as much as I’d like to get her to admit that my idea was cooler, I couldn’t deny that her vision was probably more reflective.
And reflective was the kind of shit that got top marks and written up in the local papers, which I wasn’t about to say no to.
So Iris’s idea it was.
And now here we were, using my family’s car and driver to get us to the city, planning on staying at the Constantine penthouse while we worked since my mom was currently in Bishop’s Landing and we’d have it all to ourselves. I’d pitched staying at my place to Iris as a way for her to save money on splitting a hotel room and as the option that made the most logical sense—but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about her swimming naked in my family’s rooftop pool. Showering in my shower. Sleeping in my bed.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of all those things constantly.
God, I wanted her again. I wanted to kiss her so badly that sometimes I caught myself licking my own teeth. I wanted my fingers back in her panties so terribly that I had to curl them into fists to keep from grabbing her.
I wanted to nudge those thighs apart and show her everything I could do, everything I could make her feel.
I just wanted her.
The good news was that we had a pretty good track record when it came to fooling around when she was pissed at me. And with that comforting thought, I crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat, giving her my smirkiest smirk.
She very pointedly didn’t look at me, but I knew she could feel my stare heating against her face. She frowned out the window.
“So does your dad know that you’re spending a weekend in the city?” I asked. “With me?”
She sighed. “No, of course not.”
“It’s for school, Big Red. I figured he’d understand.”
She cut a look at me that very clearly said, I know you are trying to irritate me and it’s working.
Unfortunately for her, I knew the secret. And the secret was that a provoked Iris was a horny Iris.
Not exactly incentive to stop.
“And I’m sure your father wouldn’t have minded that you’d be staying at my place,” I teased. I let a hand trace an idle circle on her knee, just below the hem of her uniform skirt.
She shivered a little, but she didn’t stop me.
“And he wouldn’t have minded knowing you’d be in my bed. Wearing something cute. Needing kissed good night.”
“Keaton,” she scolded. Her eyes were on the driver’s partition in front of us.
I circled her knee again, a bit higher this time, flirting with the bottom of her skirt. “He can’t hear or see us.”
“It’s still not right,” she protested. Although her objection wasn’t very convincing when she was also parting her legs the tiniest bit, like she couldn’t help but want me between them.
“Tell me where your parents think you are,” I persuaded, letting my fingers drift higher. I was caressing the soft skin of her inner thigh now. It wouldn’t be much longer until I felt cotton.
God, I was hard just thinking about it. Hard thinking about plain, cotton panties.
I was good and fucked for this girl, and she had no fucking clue.
“They think I’m with Serafina,” she finally admitted, and when I rewarded her with a graze of my fingertips right over her cotton-covered core, she instinctively arched against my touch. “On—on a campus visit to Columbia.”
She was breathless now. I stroked her again and grinned evilly as she mewled and shivered, now shamelessly spreading her legs.
“There. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
“You’re cheating.”
I plucked teasingly at the edge of the cotton, so close to her heat. “I had to, Briggs. You weren’t playing fair.”
“You weren’t playing fair when you accused me of being bait.”
“Aha,” I crowed softly. “I knew you were upset about that.”
“Of course I was—” Her voice broke of
f as I slid a finger between her panties and her skin and caressed her there.
“I’m sorry I said it,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have.”
The pad of my index finger found her clit and I started working it in small, light strokes.
“It’s okay,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed. “I forgive you.”
“Huh. That was easy.”
She opened her eyes to look at me again. It wasn’t a glare this time, or even one of her suspicious sidelong glances. This time, she looked at me like she wanted to spend the rest of her life with her mouth on mine.
“You make me forget why things should be hard,” she said, and then her hand slipped down to cover my own.
Together we pushed my finger inside her sheath. I hissed when I felt how wet she was. “Jesus Christ, Iris.”
“I want to see you,” she whispered, her eyes dipping down to where my cock was currently trying to drill a hole through my pants. “I still haven’t seen you.”
I was ready to do it, ready to give her whatever she wanted, if only it meant I could keep my finger inside her, when I looked out the windows and realized we were on Park Avenue, and almost in front of my building.
I pulled my fingers free and sucked them clean, wishing I could take a video of her watching me as I did it. Because with her eyes like this—dark and glazed with desire—with her full pink lips parted and her cheeks flushed under all those freckles—she was the sexiest thing in the entire goddamn world.
“We’re going to finish this,” I promised her in a growl as the car rolled to a stop.
She made no move to close her thighs, and her hand made a naughty movement downward, like she was going to finish it by herself if she had to.
I caught her wrist. “Uh-uh, sweetheart. As much as I need to watch you get yourself off, it’s not going to be where I can’t savor it.”
“And why can’t you savor it right now?” she asked, squirming and squirming with her uniform skirt pushed high up on her thighs. My erection surged, and for a moment, I nearly said fuck it, and gave in. Fingering her while I jerked off suddenly felt as necessary as breathing.
Think of the pool, Constantine. Think of her all adorable and whimpering in your bed.
With superhuman strength, I clawed back my control and smoothed her skirt back over her thighs as the doorman opened my door.
“Because we’re here.”
“Wow,” Iris said, spinning in yet another circle. “Wow wow wow.”
“It’s a good thing you want to go to Paris, Big Red, because you seem to only know one word in English.”
She flipped me off, but kept spinning, eventually spinning her way out to the rooftop terrace, which had a northern panoramic view of the city, including the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. It also had a private heated pool and lots of big outdoor couches and beds at the side—perfect for kissing and petting while the city lights glowed around us. It might get chilly, though, so I’d need to grab a blanket to wrap Iris in . . .
I followed her onto the terrace, shaking my head at myself.
Since when had I become that guy? Blankets-so-a-girl-wouldn’t-get-cold guy?
I wasn’t an asshole—at least, I wasn’t a super-asshole—and I was always good to the girls I was with. I just couldn’t remember the last time it had occurred to me to be chivalrous. To make sure the girl I was with didn’t just leave with a satisfied body, but a happy heart too.
Iris stopped spinning and smiled at me, the wind ruffling her bright hair all around her face. Her blue eyes were the same color as the autumn sky, and a dimple was denting her cheek, and she was so gorgeous, so sexy, that I couldn’t stand not to be touching her for a single moment longer.
“I need to thank your mom for letting us stay here,” she was saying as I was striding towards her, my hands already itching to grab her and haul her close. “I’ll have to thank her at Parents’ Weekend next week.”
I seized her by the arm and drew her into me. “You’ll have to settle for a note, Big Red. She never comes to Parents’ Weekend.”
“Never?” She looked surprised as I slid a hand into her perfect hair and then tightened the tiniest bit. Her eyelids fluttered in pleasure as I did it again.
It made me want to growl in satisfaction. I knew she liked me bossy, I knew she liked me a little rough, but god, to see it out here in broad daylight and without me warming her up for it first . . .
I needed to taste her again.
Now.
I tugged her head to the side to open up her neck to me. “Never,” I confirmed for her as I started kissing along her jaw and throat. “She usually can’t be bothered. My other siblings take up most of her time.”
“But why?” she asked, sounding confused. “You do all the right things. The grades, the rugby. The girlfriend . . .”
And at the mention of Clara, I felt her stiffen under my kisses and start to pull away.
Shit.
“Every time,” Iris said, almost to herself. “Every fucking time. I say I’m not going to let you get to me, I’m going to keep my distance because you have a girlfriend, and yet—”
I couldn’t let her pull away. I couldn’t let her go another minute without knowing that I was fucking obsessed with her and nothing else mattered but us.
Sorry, Clara.
“She’s not really my girlfriend,” I confessed.
It felt strange to say it aloud, finally, after all this time—I felt both heavier and lighter all at once.
“We aren’t dating, we aren’t in love, we don’t fuck. We are nothing, Iris. She and I are a lie.”
I still had my hand in Iris’s hair, and I guided her face to look up at mine. She blinked at me with so much wariness and hope and uncertainty in her autumn-sky eyes.
“But why would you pretend to date someone for this long?” she asked.
I let out a long breath. “My mother. She’s close with Clara’s parents. They’ve always seen us as a destined pair, I guess, since a Blair and a Constantine marriage would be good for both families.”
Iris wrinkled her nose. It was unbearably cute. “Can’t you just tell them that you’re not interested in each other?”
“We’ve tried. But then Clara had to go and fall in love with a boy her parents would hate, and then us dating became a convenient cover for her. I became her alibi when she needed to sneak off to see her real boyfriend, and she became a way to keep my mother happy with me. Well, maybe not happy so much as ‘less disappointed,’ but you get the idea.”
She stared up at me, searching my gaze. “So . . . you’re not really dating Clara? She isn’t really going to kill me for kissing you?”
“She might be pissed that you’re blowing her cover, but that’s all.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
My cock responded like she’d shoved her hand in my pants, and I dropped my forehead to hers, closing my eyes. “Let me kiss you again,” I said. Begged. “Let me taste you.”
“Is that . . . is that all you want to do?” she asked. Her voice was strange. Not hesitant exactly, but more like—more like shy. Like she wanted to ask for something but didn’t know how.
I opened my eyes. “Babe, you can’t expect me to answer that honestly.”
“Why not?”
Why not? Because I had an entire folder in my brain full of fantasies and scenarios so filthy they’d send her running. Because all I want to do had a very easy and short answer.
Everything.
I wanted to do everything with her.
I wanted time to stop and the world to freeze, and then I wanted to fuck her in every position I knew of and some that hadn’t even been invented yet. I wanted to finger her in public, I wanted to eat her out while she looked at the stars. I wanted to come all over those freckled tits.
I wanted to make her climax so many times that she’d be as obsessed with me as I was with her.
“Keaton,” she said, sliding her hands up to my face. “
Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I leaned down and nipped her lower lip. “No way.”
She did the thing again, where she ran her fingers through the place where my hair curled behind my ears. It sent hot, shivering thrills all over me. “Then show me,” she whispered. “Show me everything you want to do to me.”
I pulled back. The breeze ruffled between us as I studied her face.
“You sure?”
She blushed. “Yes.”
I palmed her hips, pulling her lower half tight against mine. My thick erection dug into the softness of her belly. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to go through an entire box of condoms with her.
But I also needed her to be sure.
“You know me,” I told her. “I’m not the hearts-and-flowers type. I’ll make it good for you, but I can’t promise it will be sweet.”
She pushed back against me, licking her lips. “Keaton,” she said, her fingers brushing the hair behind my ears.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
I laughed as I kissed her again, sliding my hands around to cup her bottom and then lift her into my arms. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I carried her back inside the penthouse, kissing her the whole way.
13
Keaton
“You’re a giant,” she told me between kisses.
My chest swelled a little. Working out meant I slayed on the field, yes, but being able to sweep Iris off to my bed like this was pure magic. I’d endure Coach’s brutal conditioning every single day for the rest of my life if it meant being able to kiss her while I carried her off to be fucked.
“You’re just tiny,” I said, but I couldn’t hide the smugness in my tone.
“More like you’re just full of yourself,” she teased back, but she didn’t sound upset.
I bit her jaw as we walked past the kitchen island. “You’re about to be full of myself too.”
She groaned, and I stopped walking, because I needed to touch her again, I needed to taste her again. Right now.