by Becker Gray
He kept kissing me. “Uhh, Keaton, I’m tired. I went to bed at two.”
“I know. Come on, up you get.”
I rolled over reluctantly, but still I rolled over because well, it was Keaton. And the man was magic with his tongue. “Okay fine, convince me.”
He laughed, a low rumbling chuckle that made my pussy clench. Okay, he clearly knew definitive ways to do that because now I really was interested.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because of you, love. Yes, I absolutely would love to wake you up with my mouth on your pussy. But this time, that’s not why I’m trying to wake you.”
I groaned, irritated. “Then what is so worth getting up for? What time is it?”
He laughed. “It’s nine. You’ve had at least seven hours of sleep.”
I was going to kill him. “I hate you.”
“No, you love me. But come on, get your lazy ass out of bed.”
“Fine. I’m getting my lazy ass out of bed. Why in the world would you wake me up?”
He shook something that sounded like a paper bag, and my nose twitched. He shook it again, and this time my whole body moved towards the sound and the decadent smell of sugar. “Mmm, is that from La Maison Pichard?”
“It sure is.”
“Give me.”
“Tsk, tsk, is that how you ask for things that you want?”
“No, please give me.” I reached my hand up blindly, unwilling to open both eyes.
“You have to try harder than that.”
“I’ll be your best friend.”
“Already are. Try again.”
“I will blow you like crazy. Just bring your dick over here.”
His voice went husky. “God, are you serious? You would blow me for pastries?”
I nodded blindly. I would do anything for a bag of treats from La Maison Pichard. It was across town. It was a very tiny bakery, but they had my favorite pain au chocolat and they made these to-die-for beignets that they dusted in crack cocaine. Not that I had ever even seen crack cocaine, but I heard it was addictive, so that was what it must be. “There is no way you went all the way to La Maison. But I need them. I will do anything.”
He unsnapped his top button, the popping sound making both my eyes open, and I had to blink rapidly to diffuse the light. “Oh really, you’ll take the blow job?”
He grinned down at me and rubbed a thumb over my cheek. “I’ll always take your mouth on me. Anywhere you want to put it. But if you’re offering a blow job, I’m taking it.”
Feeling mischievous, I reached for him, slid my hand inside his jeans. When had he gotten dressed? I found him, steely hard and thick and long, and I moaned. What was that thing that made me always want him? That made my core wet and needy, made me desperate for him? I wish I could explain it. I wish I could bottle it. When I pulled him out of his jeans, he groaned. “Jesus fucking Christ, I was kidding. Your hands, they feel so good.” He groaned low, moaning.
Feeling excited, I leaned forward—bringing his cock to my lips—lifted my tongue, and licked the head.
He cursed with a little grunt. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Jesus Christ, take it. Take it now.”
I snatched the bag out of his hands and continued to lick him. I sucked him in, all the way to the back of my throat. And then there was a knock on our bedroom door.
“Are you two in there boning? It’s the last time I bring you pastries from La Maison.”
I released him with a loud pop and gasped. “You didn’t tell me there were people here.”
Keaton held up his hands as his dick bobbed furiously in front of my face. “To be fair, you didn’t give me a chance, before you started offering blow jobs, and you know me. I’m completely horned off for you.”
“Crap.” Then I stopped. Realized something. “Sera, is that you?”
“The one and only, bitch. I mean, how quick can you make that blow job? Because there’s shopping to be done.”
I glanced right back at Keaton’s cock as he was trying to take deep breaths and will it down. “Give me five minutes.”
Keaton’s brows lifted. “Five? Give me some credit.”
I reached for his balls and then licked my lips, and did it again. When his hands fisted in my hair, he groaned. “Okay, fine five. Five minutes.”
I pulled back. “Less.”
“Woman, you’re going to kill me.”
“Probably.”
Four and a half minutes later, Keaton was laid out on the bed, panting and laughing so hard that I worried for his sanity. I grabbed my bag of goodies, yanked it open, snatched a beignet, then shoved it into my mouth, with no jam or anything—just the powdered sugary goodness, and I moaned.
On the outside of the door, Sera hollered again. “Bitch, you said a blow job, not a full-on sex session. You don’t have time for that. Shopping awaits. Come on.”
Keaton coughed. “Hey, I do take longer than that in bed.”
Sera laughed. “Yeah, sure you do. Now come on, Iris. Get a move on, Briggs.”
I giggled and scooted out of his reach, but I forgot how fast Keaton was. His hand grabbed my wrist gently and pinned me down. He kissed the powdered sugar off my lips. “I love you, Iris.”
I grinned at him. “I love you too, Keaton. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go hug my best friend and eat my weight in beignets and pain au chocolat.”
He groaned. “Didn’t you tell me you were going to be my best friend?”
I shrugged. “That’s when you were withholding pastries from me. I would have said anything. Hell, I already did do anything to get them.”
He groaned. “You know payback is a bitch, right? When I get my hands on you, I’m going to tan that beautiful ass.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
I grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of boxers from the dresser drawer, not caring about dusting the sugar everywhere, or that I probably smelled like orgasms. And then I ran to the door and tugged it open. Sera immediately glanced away. “Lord, make sure the man is dressed. I don’t need to see all that.” She paused. “Unless the rumors are true and he really is hung like a—”
From inside the bedroom, Keaton cut her off, “Oh, but you’d be lucky to see it.”
Sera came right back with a, “I’ve seen better.”
Keaton just snorted a laugh. “I know exactly who it is you see in bed and you wish.”
The two of them had learned to bicker properly. “Come on, the gang is all here. We were waiting for you to wake up.”
I laughed with sheer, surprised happiness when she dragged me out towards the living room and found our friends. My friends, Keaton’s friends. “Holy shit, what are you all doing here?”
There were hugs and kisses all around, and then Keaton came back out from the bedroom, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Happy birthday, love. Your parents will be here tonight, but I figured you would want to celebrate with our friends.”
My parents still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of Keaton, but they were warming up. And my mother had said that as long as I loved him, she could love him. But if he broke my heart again, she was going to slaughter him.
I turned in his arms, snuggling in the warmth. “I love you so much.”
“I know. I love you too.”
I looped my arms around his neck and pressed my body to him, and everyone in the room made gagging noises and groaned. But I didn’t care. I had Keaton who I’d always wanted, and my freedom. And I had my freedom my way.
“So what do you say? A day in Paris with our friends?”
“I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
The Hellfire Club continues with Becker Gray’s Callous Prince. Order NOW.
Click here for an extended epilogue of Iris and Keaton.
Chapter One
Sloane
I changed my mind the minute I saw the ballroom.
“No,” I said, coming to a halt. “No, I think I’d rather not.”
“Come on,” Serafina wheedle
d. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. Pleeeease.”
“No, you’ve been planning this for weeks,” I corrected. “I’ve been dreading this.”
Through the doors, the entire student population of Pembroke Preparatory Academy was arrayed in a glittering panoply of wealth and privilege—silk gowns, elaborate masks, jewelry borrowed from Mommy or Grandmama…the works.
The ballroom itself had also been spared no expense. There were flickering candelabras everywhere, along with garlands of greenery threaded through with autumn leaves and berries. Entire trees with leaves the color of fresh flames had been brought in, along with green-leafed pumpkin vines hung with hefty, perfect pumpkins. The cumulative effect was to make the ballroom feel like an enchanted autumn forest—perfect for this year’s Halloween masquerade theme.
Fairyland.
The annual Pembroke Halloween Masquerade was one of the events that Serafina lived for—and one that I’d managed to successfully avoid for the last three years. I wasn’t really all that much for dressing up. Or being on display. Or being around people in general, actually.
I much preferred to hang back, to watch from the shadows unobserved, to escape notice. It would be essential if I wanted to follow in my father’s clandestine footsteps, but that wasn’t the only reason I did it.
The other reason I hid in the shadows would certainly be here tonight, watching the ballroom with disdain pulling at his beautiful, sullen mouth, candlelight flickering off his white hair and his eerily golden eyes.
He was the same reason I was regretting letting Serafina talk me into this. Last chance, my ass. What did I care that this was my senior year and my last chance to go to the masquerade? All I wanted was to be free of Pembroke—I certainly wasn’t going to be pining after a dumb costume party when I was carving through the world’s chaos and mayhem at INTERPOL.
“Look, you’re already dressed for it,” Sera wheedled some more. “Why not come in and at least give your costume a chance to be seen?”
I rarely felt self-conscious, but seeing the ballroom packed with silk and velvet and lace made me balk. “No one wants to see this costume,” I muttered.
“Uh-uh. I think it’s crazy hot,” Aurora declared. She plucked at the half cape I wore over one shoulder. “You look like a 16th century fairy assassin. Who fucks.”
Fairy assassin who fucks had indeed been the theme of the costume—Serafina’s theme, not mine. All I’d asked for was a costume with pants and boots. And maybe a sword.
Serafina had come back with skin-tight black pants and knee-high black boots, an ornately hilted rapier for my hip, and a velvet capelet which matched the light jade of my eyes and set off my lingering summer tan. And of course, the tight black corset that went over the white Renaissance-era blouse.
Before we’d come here tonight, she’d dressed me, slicked my short bob back, and fastened a mask over my face that matched my cape. “There,” she’d said proudly. “You look like you just got done fucking some gorgeous but dissolute prince, and now you’re creeping through the palace to kill his father.”
I’d smiled at that image, liking the idea enough that I’d let Sera and Aurora drag me all the way to the ballroom before my doubts crashed in again.
“I don’t know,” I said in the here and now. “I think I’ll just head back. You two don’t need me—”
“Is this about my brother?” Aurora asked. She let go of my cape so she could touch my elbow, and underneath her pearl-studded mask, I could see her golden eyes go soft with concern. The same golden eyes that belonged to her twin brother.
Lennox.
Lennox Lincoln-Ward. A literal, actual prince; the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.
And also the worst. The meanest and the most heartless. Callous beyond belief.
Aurora’s voice suddenly went bright and helpful. “I could kill him for you, you know.”
I gave a small laugh. “I think that’s my line.”
Sera crossed her arms, studying the ballroom. She had that look on her face—the one I thought of as the Queen Look. Like she’d just ridden up to a battlefield on her steed and was about to order the cannons to fire. Her thick curls were pinned up in an elaborate updo and set with flashing red gems, and her scarlet gown brought out the jewel tones in her medium brown skin. Aurora and Lennox might have been actual royalty, but Sera was every inch Pembroke’s real monarch tonight.
“He doesn’t get to do this,” Sera said, eyes on the ostentatious revelry in front of her. “He doesn’t get to keep you away from things you want to do.”
I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t actually want to do this, but then I closed it again as her words truly sank into my mind. She was right, as a queen usually was. It was stupid to let Lennox chase me away from anything. Despite the fact that he was Leichtensteiner royalty and part of the Hellfire Club—and despite his persistent hatred and low-key torture of me--this was my damn school too. I deserved to be at this silly ball just as much as he did, and I was done with this pointless game of ours. The Fairy Assassin Who Fucks was going to dance, drink, and laugh like she never had before, just to spite him.
For three years, Lennox Lincoln-Ward had tried to make my life a living hell.
And tonight, that ended for good.
An hour later, I was less sure.
I’d thought it would be as simple as ignoring Lennox; I thought I’d barely notice he was here.
But I hadn’t taken two things into account:
Firstly—there was no such thing as me ignoring Lennox, and there hadn’t been since the first week of freshman year when he started persecuting me for no reason at all.
His mere presence made me flare with awareness and trepidation; simply knowing he was in the room made my skin tighten and my pulse race. Tonight was no exception, and as I tried to laugh with my friends, as I accepted a few dances from boys I barely knew, I could feel his eyes on me, burning into my skin. Whenever I looked his way, he was already looking somewhere else, but I knew he was watching me. Hating me. It made me tense, electric. Like I was about to spar with my martial arts instructor—certain I was going to lose but eager to prove myself all the same.
Secondly—I had not adequately prepared myself for how Lennox would look tonight. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that he could be any more devastatingly beautiful than he was in everyday life, but here he was, putting everyone else to shame. His starkly blond hair tumbled white and silky around a circlet of golden stars set into his hair, and the crown only further set off the sharp gold of his eyes. The white mask he wore left his forehead, jaw, and mouth bare, and rather than disguise the near-inhuman elegance of his pale features, the mask only served to highlight them.
The jaw so gorgeously sharp that it looked rendered by an artist. The mouth so painfully sensual, even when pulled into its usual sulky pout.
And his costume . . .
While most of the Pembroke guys had used the masquerade as an excuse to show off their latest bespoke suits and imported Italian shoes, Lennox had taken the fairyland theme to heart and come fully as a fairy prince. He was barefoot and wearing tight leather pants, with a Renaissance-style white shirt and a doublet made of gold silk and velvet. Both the doublet and the shirt were open—the shirt was all the way unlaced, and it exposed a shocking amount of smooth, firm skin. The hollow of his collarbone, the lean but solid muscles of his chest—they were all on display.
He really looked like he had just strolled out of a fairy forest. He looked wicked and unearthly.
He looked perfect.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair that he hated me, when I’d done nothing to deserve it. It wasn’t fair that he looked handsome and delicious while I looked—well, less like an assassin who fucks and more like a girl who was uncomfortable wearing dresses and lipstick.
After I finished dancing with a boy from my AP Physics class, I went for a drink of water. There was stronger stuff on hand if I wanted it, not to mention all sorts
of artisanal punches that were all fairyland-themed, but I wanted to keep my head and stay hydrated. A hydrated body is a strong body, and a flexible one too, and I needed my body to be both.
I took my water behind a tree and watched the dancers from underneath its arching branches. I watched him, dancing with a girl a year or two younger than us. Whatever she said made him laugh; it made a smile carve itself across his normally-sulky mouth.
And as always, whenever he smiled, there was an answering slice across my heart.
“I’ve seen lions less aware of wounded gazelles than Lennox is of you tonight,” a low, silky voice said from behind me.
I turned to see the devil himself, Rhys Huntington, standing just behind my shoulder, pale, dark-haired, and dressed all in black—black suit that probably cost as much as a regular person’s car, black and silver vest underneath, black silk tie stuck through with a ruby-studded tie pin.
“Lennox doesn’t even know I’m alive,” I responded evenly, knowing it was a lie but also too wary to engage Rhys further. “And I thought tonight’s theme was fairyland—not vampire coven.”
Rhys stepped forward, a tilt to his sharp-edged mouth. We were shoulder to shoulder now. “I’m a dark fairy. From the Unseelie Court. Don’t you know your fairy stories?”
The honest answer was no. As the only daughter of an international operative, my childhood had often been stranger than any fairy tale, and anyway, my father wasn’t much for fantasy. He was all about what could be seen and touched and uncovered—all about this world and those who would sin against it. I suppose I took after him in that way.
If only there wasn’t a certain sinner that fascinated me so much . . .
“Anyway,” Rhys pronounced, still in that silky voice, “if you don’t think Lennox is looking at you tonight, just watch this.”