Wicked Idol: A Hellfire Club Novel

by Becker Gray

  I arched an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted me naked.”

  “I can’t remember a single thought I’ve ever had,” he said darkly, “when you bend over like that.”

  I gave him my naughtiest smile and then dove into the pool without another word. The water was warm—so much warmer than the fall air outside—and when I broke the surface, I could see little wisps of steam hovering over the pool like fog. Above me, stars twinkled, and all around the terrace, the city twinkled back.

  The illicit feel of the water sliding over my pebbled nipples and past the exposed secrets between my legs hit me harder than liquor. And even more intoxicating were Keaton’s eyes, glowing in the near-darkness as he sat on the edge of the pool. While I’d jumped in, he’d kicked off his shoes and socks too, rolling up his pant legs so he could sit with his feet in the water.

  “You’re not coming in here with me?” I asked, swimming up to him.

  He leaned back on his hands, his eyes raking over my naked form. His voice was all hunger and stormy greed when he said, “No, Iris. I’m going to watch you swim for me.”

  I could see where his cock strained against his pants, but he made no move to touch it; he did nothing that would interrupt this visual feast for himself.

  The intensity of his gaze was—heady.

  Flattering.

  So very easy to confuse with something more than lust.

  I flipped over onto my back and kicked my way to the far edge of the pool, knowing he’d enjoy seeing my wet stomach and breasts as I did. When I got to the wall—which was made of thick glass and gave me a dizzying view down to the street far below—I asked him, “Do you make all the girls swim naked in your pool?”

  “Just the bratty ones,” he replied. His voice was low and soft—so soft I could barely hear him over the lap of the water and the whipping breeze. I turned to face him.

  “So I’m not just the latest in a long line of naked pool nymphs?”

  The corner of his mouth curved up. “Jealous, Iris?”

  Yes, I wanted to say. The idea of another girl doing this with him, doing anything with him—it sent scalding knives of jealousy stabbing into my chest. And I hated it. I hated being jealous. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t crawled into his bed with my eyes wide open.

  Okay, so I didn’t so much crawl as I was scooped up and carried to his bed, but the point stands.

  I knew what kind of guy he was. I knew I couldn’t expect much.

  Then why do you care so much about the other girls?

  “Not jealous at all,” I lied, pushing off the wall and swimming back to him. His eyes slid over me appreciatively as I cut through the water, his tongue slipping out to lick his lower lip. Like he was thinking about tasting me.

  “You can rest easy,” he said as I swam up to his feet. “You’re the first girl I’ve ever brought here.”

  “Really?” I hated how happy that made me. I hated how happy I sounded about it.

  Keaton nodded, and his expression had changed—less hunger, more inscrutability. I had no idea what he was thinking right now. “This place is full of memories for me. Some of them happy, and some of them not so happy. But even when it comes to the unhappy memories . . . I never wanted to bring someone inside my home unless they were worth it, if that makes sense. If I didn’t feel like they could understand those memories. And me.”

  I could feel my cheeks glow with pleasure. He was saying that I was worth it. That he thought I understood him. Maybe even that he cared—

  Don’t get carried away.

  I refused to fish for compliments, no matter how badly I wanted to, so I just wrapped my fingers around his ankles under the water. I was about to ask a follow-up question—not about me but his house and how long he’d lived here—when he said, “What about you, Briggs? Brought any boys back to the headmaster? Snuck someone into your twin bed and kissed them there?”

  I gave a humorless laugh. “And reveal to my father that I do anything other than zealously prepare for college? No, I’m smarter than that.”

  “He wants you to go to an Ivy that badly, huh?”

  Keaton didn’t sound incredulous or disbelieving. He sounded like he understood. It truly was par for the course in our world.

  The only difference between me and the other Pembroke students is that I had to get into my chosen school on merit alone, because I didn’t have the guarantee of a legacy or money that could be conveniently endowed.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s all he wants from me.”

  “And you want to go to Paris instead,” he stated. “And fall in love with a French guy.”

  He frowned rather adorably at that last part, and my heart gave a leap, before I pushed it firmly back down where it belonged. The frown wasn’t because he was sad I might go somewhere else, and it wasn’t because he was truly jealous. It was just caveman possessiveness, and while it was kind of hot, I was too smart to mistake it for anything more.

  But I still found myself confessing, as if to reassure him. “The French guy is optional. The real reason I want to go to Paris is so I can attend the Sorbonne. To study photography.”

  I let go of his ankles, feeling suddenly awkward. I tried to swim away, but before I could, he reached down and snatched my wrist, pulling me between his legs so he could look at my face.

  “So that’s the real reason for Paris,” he said softly. “Not for some European guy or for petit fours at a cafe, but to follow your heart.”

  When he said it like that, I felt a little embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had such an earnest, pie-in-the-sky dream. Embarrassed that I was that easy to read.

  “I mean, the petit fours and the European guy are still part of it,” I joked weakly.

  His gaze was so intense right now, so penetrating, and I wondered if this was what his opponents saw on the rugby field. This stare that allowed me no secrets, no quarter. This stare that said you, and everything you hold dear, is about to be mine.

  It made fresh goosebumps prickle all over my skin. It made heat pool low, low in my belly.

  “Don’t hide from me, Iris,” he said finally.

  “I’m not—”

  Abruptly, I was hauled from the water—first by my wrists and then by his large hands firmly under my arms—and then with no effort at all, he lifted me in his arms as he got to his feet. Once again, I realized how massive he was, how powerfully built, and my toes curled with lust as I realized he was using all that power to sweep me off somewhere to have his way with me.

  “Joking about what you really want is hiding,” he said as he carried me inside. “We’ve been real with each other from the start. We’re not going to stop now.”

  15

  Iris

  We were close to his bedroom, but he walked right past the door to the adjoining door, which opened up into a spacious bathroom with a freestanding marble bathtub and a glassed-in shower the size of a small principality. He set me carefully on my feet, and then tugged off his shirt—slowly enough for me to appreciate the flex and play of the muscles banding his lean abdomen and broad chest.

  “Well, Briggs?” he asked, starting in on his jeans. I had no idea why it was so sexy to watch him as he popped open the button of his fly and tugged down the zipper, but it was. I felt like I was being hypnotized by the subtle flex of the muscles in his forearm. By the vein tracing along the back of his hand. By the slow revelation of his lower abs, with their dark trail of hair leading deeper into his jeans.

  “Briggs,” he prompted, sounding amused. “I’m up here.”

  “Sorry,” I breathed, not sorry at all. He had me naked and dripping in his bathroom—what else did he expect?

  “I want to know if you’re going to be real with me,” he said, kicking off his jeans. “No hiding. Just us.”

  He walked forward, his erection yet another display of shameless male power. It was big and thick and dark, framed between his narrow hips and those giant, rugby-playing thighs.

  “No hiding,” I said. “What doe
s that mean?”

  “It means no pretending like you do for the world. You want something? Own it.”

  A smile pulled at my mouth. “I want you.”

  His eyes hooded, and without breaking eye contact with me, he reached out and slid something off the bathroom counter. A condom.

  “Is that so, Big Red? What else do you want?”

  I could feel the flush starting on my chest, I could feel how my nipples drew even harder. “I want you inside me again.”

  He tore the packet open with his teeth, and within seconds, his proud erection was sheathed in clear latex. He gave himself an idle stroke as he stalked towards me, backing me towards the shower. “Inside your pussy, Iris? Fucking that sweet, tight place so deep that you’re standing on your tiptoes while you beg to come?”

  Guh.

  Was it possible to have a heart attack from being too turned on?

  “Yes,” I whispered, stepping backwards into the shower. “That’s what I want.”

  He reached past me. With a few deft movements, he had the water turned on, warm and already starting to fill the shower with steam, and then he spun me to face the wall.

  “Hands here,” he murmured, guiding my hands to the wall so that I was braced against it. The water fell hot and pleasant against our sides as he pressed his giant foot to mine and nudged it to the side so my legs were spread. He stepped between them with a satisfied noise that had my core fluttering in response.

  “You still sore?” he asked as one big hand found my breast and kneaded it.

  “A little,” I admitted.

  His other hand slid around my hip to circle my clit. “Tell me if it hurts,” he whispered, and rubbed me so exquisitely that I couldn’t even remember what hurting felt like. He waited until I was arching against his touch and panting into the steam before he notched the plump head of his cock at my entrance. And slowly—so slowly that I could feel every thick inch of him as he pushed in—he slid home with a muttered Jesus.

  “It’s so deep like this,” I moaned, pressing my forehead to the shower wall. There was a tiny bit of soreness and sting with the intrusion, but it was nothing compared to the building knot of pleasure currently cinching between my legs. And when he answered me by thrusting again and doing what he promised—pushing me up to my tiptoes—I needed the wall more than ever.

  “Fuck,” I whimpered, and then whimpered again when he reached down and gave my clit what it needed.

  He bent his head and bit my neck as he began pumping between my legs and giving me all the desire that had been coiling inside him since we first left the penthouse this morning. Every dark promise he’d made, every sultry look he’d given me—he was settling up now, demanding payment from my body. And not just with his pleasure, but my own too. Because the minute I broke apart around him, he followed, surging heavy into my body with a delicious growl, and before I had time to catch my breath, he was on his knees, stripping off the condom and sealing his mouth between my legs.

  He ate me like that—him on his knees behind me—my hands still braced against the wall, and he spared no amount of filth. He licked where he shouldn’t. He fucked my entrance with his tongue. His fingers worked me as he reached down with his free hand and jerked off.

  And after we both came a second time—me against his mouth and him with hot ropes of seed between my feet—and I slumped to the shower floor next to him, he asked me again.

  “What else do you want?”

  I only had one answer, and it was the same one from yesterday.

  “Everything.”

  I was sore the next day, but it was the kind of soreness that felt good. Like the sting after a giggling belly flop into a pool. Like the ache of a muscle well used.

  And the way Keaton looked at me as his car pulled away from the Park Avenue curb and we started back towards Pembroke—god, that look. He looked at me like he was a conqueror and I was the fresh, green country he was about to claim.

  But I also couldn’t help the doubt that slithered through my thoughts. Of course we’d have a weekend of secrets and orgasms in the magic tower of his penthouse, but now that we were coming back to real life? To the world of gossip and grades and bonfire parties and my status as the headmaster’s daughter?

  What then?

  I looked over at Keaton, who pulled my feet into his lap the moment the car started and was now stroking up my bare legs with greedy fingertips. “Are we—do you want to—” I cleared my throat, feeling awkward and needy and repugnantly anxious. “Are we going to do this again sometime?”

  His hands went still on my legs, and when he looked over at me, that lock of hair was hanging over his forehead, like he was a cartoon fairy-tale prince made real. “Tell me what you mean by this, Iris. A trip to New York? Staying at my place?”

  I was already shaking my head, even though I wouldn’t say no to either opportunity if they arose again. “I mean us spending time together, Keaton. The hanging out. The fooling around. When we get to Pembroke, are we going to pretend this weekend never happened?”

  Now all of him was completely still. Tense. I couldn’t read his expression when he said, “Is that what you want? To stop?”

  An instinctive pain welled up inside me at the very thought of stopping. And then a wave of fear followed that pain. If I was this far gone for him after only a weekend, what would happen after weeks of this at school? Months? I’d be broken over him. He’d break me, and then I’d just be the stupid girl who fell for the king of the school. The girl that fell for the rugby idol and his arrogant smirk.

  No better than a fool.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, looking away. “I don’t know what I want.”

  He didn’t seem to like that answer at all. My seatbelt was unbuckled and I was in his lap before I could blink. He yanked me to his chest with one burly arm while his other hand slid up my skirt. Not to toy with me or tease, but to cup me. Hard. And with his hand molded possessively over me, he said in a fierce, rough voice, “Don’t keep me from this. Don’t keep us from this.”

  I couldn’t help how I reacted to his touch. Just like in the library that very first time, his breathtaking arrogance only fired me—and my half-glaring, half-aroused response only stoked his need higher. He curled his hand over me even tighter, sending quivering heat to the place that needed his touch the most.

  Focus, Iris!

  “What about Clara?” I demanded, scowling at him.

  He looked confused. “What about her?”

  “We can’t be having sex while everyone thinks you’re with her!”

  Keaton’s brow wrinkled. It made him look unfairly cute. “Why not? She’s got nothing to do with us.”

  My stomach knifed. “So you’re just going to continue dating her,” I said dully. “While you fuck me on the side.”

  “Iris,” Keaton said, the arm around my waist now moving up my back. He buried his fingers in the wavy mass of my hair. “You’re making this sound worse than it is. She and I don’t fuck, we don’t fool around, we don’t even kiss, and you know why? Because I only kiss the girls I want.”

  I blinked at him.

  I didn’t want this ugly doubt nestled inside me. I didn’t want what we’d shared this weekend to end up poisoned and ruined. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to imagine that the next few months or longer would be full of the same heady, thrilling fun we’d had this weekend.

  A long minute passed while I thought. “Are you saying you don’t want her?” I asked shyly. A little miserably.

  Blue eyes searched my own as his hand tightened in my hair. “I want you,” Keaton swore. “Your body. Your mouth. Your sass when we argue.” He pressed his hips up underneath my bottom so I could feel exactly how much and how hard he wanted. “You’re the one who’s tied me up in fucking knots for weeks, and you’re the one I can’t stop thinking about, can’t stop jerking off to, can’t stop touching. Clara and I are playing a part. But you and me?” He let out a low, rough exhale. “We’re the real
fucking deal, Briggs.”

  As declarations went, it wasn’t exactly Jane Austen-worthy. He didn’t love me. He wasn’t even willing to give up his fake relationship for me. He wanted to fuck me in secret, and that wasn’t exactly a happily ever after.

  But there was no mistaking the earnest ferociousness in his gaze, nor the colossal erection underneath me. And I wanted to believe him, I wanted to believe that he could chastely play his part with Clara and save all his desire for me.

  God, how I wanted to believe it.

  I pressed my hand to his sharp, sculpted jaw and pressed my forehead to his.

  “You better mean that, Keaton,” I whispered. “No wanting her. No touching her. No kissing her. You have to promise.”

  “I promise,” he said seriously. “You and I together? We’re real. Clara and me? We’re fake as fake can be. You’ll see for yourself when we get back.”

  I hoped so.

  And I threw myself into that hope like a thrill seeker throwing themselves off a sea cliff into the waves, praying the whole time they didn’t die on hidden rocks below, but also laughing with sheer adrenaline the whole way down.

  I kissed him, and he kissed me back, his fingers finally nudging beneath my panties while he ducked his head to suck on my neck. And then I was lost to him the entire way back to school.

  16

  Keaton

  Nearly a week later, I woke up thinking of Iris, just as I had every damn morning since I met her.

  With a groan, I rolled over and grabbed my phone to send her a quick text.

  Keaton: I woke up thinking of you.

  Iris: ☺ I woke up thinking about you too.

  That warmth in my chest spread out to my extremities. God, is this what it felt like? To really care about someone and have them care about you back? It had been so long for me. Maybe never. With Iris, I felt like myself. Like I belonged somewhere. This girl owned me, and she had no idea.

  I was already making plans. There were plenty of design schools in Paris. I was a little late to get a portfolio together but given the money I’d have access to after graduation, I could make anything happen. I knew how important Paris was to her. I had no set plans, so I could try Paris. I loved the city. And any city with Iris in it was one I could stay in for a while.