Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  I withered and died under his gaze.

  “Edward Harlington,” he said.

  “Yes, Edward Harlington,” I said quickly.

  His red lips thinned. “I’ve been too lenient, too understanding. You are worse than a disappointment; you are a liability. I should have listened to your mother.”

  There were no swans anymore, the sky dark and stars too bright. My main course punishment had already been doled out by Mother; Papa was handing out dessert, taking away his love. Leaving me alone, empty and bereft, like the sand.

  He lifted one finger, signaling for his guard to follow him, heading toward Main Street.

  I couldn’t breathe. My heart was crumbling inside my chest.

  I know there’s a reason there’s a no-tolerance policy on marriage in our family. It’s not some archaic tradition, it’s our lifeboat. After my dad died and a string of bad luck and bad business decisions nearly left us ruined, marriages saved us. When Uncle Albert canceled his wedding and we almost collapsed, it became law.

  As my grandpa likes to say, “You can’t be a Crowne without many sharp points. You’re either part of this family, or you're against it.”

  Grandpa was my one constant after Dad, the only love I’d felt in a home of strings and conditional affection. I was watching it burn down, frozen as debris floated past me, breathing in the ashes.

  Without another word, he turned away. Panic strangled my lungs. My world was giving way beneath me. I couldn’t breathe.

  Paparazzi had gathered around the perimeter, sensing something was happening in the Crowne family. I knew I had to let him leave. We could combust in private, but never in public.

  “Grandpa!” I ran after him and tried to grab his arm. “Papa, please. I want to get married. I’ll get married tomorrow.”

  Just don’t leave.

  Papa eyed the sharks.

  “Goddamn it, Abigail!” He shook me off with distaste that ricocheted through my entire body.

  I stood, watching him walk farther and farther away.

  “When will I see you again?” I yelled.

  He stopped. People walked on either side of him in pretty sundresses and polo shirts, the twinkling lights making the night that much blacker blurred.

  Then he kept walking, and the crowd ate him.

  I locked eyes with Theo as a slow smile spread across his face. When he saw me hurriedly swipe my cheeks, his smile grew.

  He mouthed one word.

  Point.

  I will not cry for him.

  I will not let him see me cry.

  I knew without a doubt he was behind this. Theo had been in my room. He’d seen the pictures. He’d had my laptop. The point I thought I’d gained had actually led to my demise. He’d made me the Crowne Slut with the one person who always saw me otherwise. He’d taken the one thing I had in this family. The one person who loved me.

  THEO: 1

  ME: 0

  Tears were threatening to fall, and I was using all my energy to keep that from happening, so I didn’t see the change in Theo. I definitely didn’t see what was happening a few feet away. Theo grabbed my wrist. In the same instant, I tried to yank myself free.

  Theo was unaffected.

  Someone must have been talking in his ear, because he pressed his thumb to it, nodding, saying something I couldn’t catch.

  All at once his attention was on me. “It’s time to go.”

  Incredulous, halting laughs broke free. As if I would go anywhere with him ever again.

  I gave him the finger, still trying to break free. “Let me go.”

  “No dice, Reject. If I let you die, I’ll get a real shitty Christmas bonus.”

  “I don’t want you to fucking save me.” I kicked the back of his knee. Success! He stumbled forward, only a little, which was more than I’d ever managed with him.

  “If you don’t stop struggling, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder.” He turned around, tongue edging the seam of his top lip. Anytime his tongue pushed his upper lip it meant Theo was frustrated.

  So what did I do?

  “Fuck you.” This time I really did spit in his face.

  The moment was heated. Pressurized. A second teetering like a penny on its side as I waited for him to react, our stares locked and unblinking. Theo slid his tongue between his teeth.

  Why was there a small part of me that wanted him mad?

  Mean.

  Punishing.

  With one, heated exhale, he wiped my spit from his cheek, and I was in the air, his strong arms locking my ass in place. I slammed my fists into his back, even though it was useless.

  A few feet away from where we’d just been a fight had broken out, but that’s not what had my heart hammering, the blood in my veins turning to ice.

  No… no, no, no. It had been weeks since he’d bothered me. Weeks. I was starting to believe he was leaving me alone. He was gone.

  Anyone might believe it was a coincidence, but not me. I learned to take coincidences as deliberate. Resting inside the melted black ice cream Theo had dropped to the ground was a single gold rose.

  A message from my stalker.

  6

  THEO

  Abigail slammed her fists against my back, but they may as well have been raindrops. Once we got to the safe house, I dropped her to the sea-warped wood, and she immediately jumped back. With both hands she wiped hair out of her face, finishing with a searing glare.

  Fuck, she was cute. Her pale cheeks red with anger, nostrils flared. I liked her mad.

  Too much.

  The perfect size for me as well. Small, but never someone to overlook, despite what she might think. The thought pierced me like a bullet, fast and without any way to defend against it.

  “Theo!” she yelled, waving a hand over my face, and I realized she’d been talking. “What are you doing?”

  “The fuck does it look like, Abs?” I shoved her aside, checking the lock on the door behind her, giving the place another once-over.

  Abigail’s only memories of me were as a teenager. She had no knowledge of the man I’d become. I’d been trained. I knew what I was doing. This was one of the many safe houses scouted and assigned in the city of Crowne Point. It wasn’t designed to be lived in, merely a place to stay until a threat passed. Right on the beach, small and inconspicuous.

  Abigail might even think I was a bodyguard in title only, that I was here only to mess with her.

  I should be.

  I should be here just to fuck with her. Shouldn’t give a shit that there weren’t enough exits in this supposed safe house. Shouldn’t care that a glass window was bullshit. They should be tempered.

  After checking the window, I went back to Abby.

  “A Crowne Industries protest turned violent. We’re staying put until further notice.”

  Her brows furrowed. “And that’s definitely all it was?”

  I folded my arms, arching a brow. “Did you have something else in mind?”

  She cleared her throat, raising her chin. “I don’t want to be within three feet of you, and you want me to stay in this cramped closet? Fuck off.”

  She tried to unlock the door so I grabbed her by the elbow, planting her against the many colored wood planks holding up this ramshackle cottage.

  I pinned her with one arm.

  “Be a good girl and stay fucking still.”

  “A good girl?” Abigail started in on me, but a shadow near the window caught my attention, and I tuned her out. The ocean was just outside, as were swans. The occasional hiss or snort or whistling as they feathered their large wings, drifted in.

  The life of a Crowne had its perks, but the higher you rise, the deeper you fall. Beryl Crowne received at least thirty death threats a day, and of those at least ten were substantiated. Abigail was a bit too naïve to the darker side of being a Crowne.

  “I’m trying to think of another way to say fuck you,” Abigail said. “Because it’s clearly not getting through. Go do some unaccompan
ied fornication.”

  After a moment, once I was sure the only things outside were swans, I turned my attention back to Abigail.

  “Someone has to make sure you’re safe.”

  It was meant to be cutting, not a confession. Of all her siblings and family members, Abigail received the least attention. At least, that’s the girl I remembered. Sad. Lonely. Like me.

  But the girl I remembered was never real. She was always spoiled and privileged; she just did a better job of hiding it.

  Her glare sharpened. “And that’s you?”

  I ground my jaw, pressed my arm tighter, trying to ignore the way her breasts rose and fell beneath it.

  It used to only be me, but like everyone else, she abandoned me. She stomped on my fucking heart. Left me bleeding, lonely—and just like with my mom, for years I wondered what I did to make her leave.

  Anger made my voice raw. “Unfortunately. I’m your bodyguard.”

  She laughed, blew out a breath that made the dark strands of her hair whisper against my jaw. “You’re the asshole ruining my life. And you know what, I don’t even know why! Why are you doing this? I don’t understand what happened to make you this way. You didn’t used to be like this. You used to want to help people. I remember the boy whose biggest dream was to save kids like him.”

  Her words nearly made me drop my arm.

  Yeah, I didn’t dream of being a bodyguard. My life’s goal wasn’t making sure assholes like Beryl Crowne could safely keep being assholes.

  “Don’t you remember?” She peered at me. “You wanted to make sure no one was left behind, no one was abandoned. What the hell happened to you?”

  Abigail didn’t just play games, she played dirty. She really was so fucked up that what happened between us meant nothing.

  I pushed her deeper into the wall, her nails clawing the wood behind her, and my free hand wrapped around her neck. Her lips parted, too pretty and fucking distracting.

  “What the hell happened to me, Abigail?” I didn’t recognize my voice. It was low and without feeling, venom the only thing left. “You fucking happened to me.”

  “Let me go,” she breathed.

  I leaned forward until my lips were against her ear, my words singeing her skin. I dug my thumb into the hollow beneath her jaw and ear, torn between the part of me that wanted to mark her and destroy her.

  “You’re stuck with me,” I growled.

  “What about Gemma?” The bite to her words had me pulling back. There was anger in her eyes to rival mine.

  The fuck about Gemma? She had an entire legion of security forces.

  A moment later, the head of security came through my earpiece.

  False alarm. All clear.

  I let them know I’d heard the message, still studying Abigail, locked on her anger. She rubbed the spot where my thumb had been. I ground my jaw. I wanted to pull her back, rub the spot out with my thumb. Fuck.

  Possessive.

  Too fucking possessive when I came here to ruin her.

  I should take her back.

  Put much-needed space between us. Get my head clear. I needed to focus on why I took this job. I had a win today. I’d separated the daddy’s girl from her only living father figure.

  “Well, we have some time to kill. What should we do?”

  “I have an idea,” Abigail said. “You shut up and I’ll stare at the ocean and imagine I’m anywhere but here.”

  She walked to the other side of the one-room cottage, sitting on a stack of crates covered in thick, ropy fishing net, folding her arms. I leaned against the wall, one foot propped. True to her word, she stared out the window.

  “You really fucked up this time, Reject. No daddy alive to love you. No grandpa to pretend to love you.”

  Abs shifted at my words but said nothing.

  “Is that why you’re so angry, Reject? I’ll be your daddy, if you ask nicely.”

  Eyes still out the window, she said, “Fuck. You.”

  I shook my head, halting my smile with my tongue. “That’s not very nice.”

  The whistle of swan wings sounded. I walked to her, taking a spot next to her against the window, blocking her view. She shifted her eyes to the door, muttering, “Asshole.”

  “You think that’s all I am?” I pulled one of the crates from the stack beside her. It caused the one she was on to rattle, and she fell to the floor.

  I stepped on either side of her, pinning her with my legs so she couldn’t get up. “If I was only an asshole, you wouldn’t have anything to fear.”

  She stared up, eyes wide and betraying her hesitation, before she shook it off with a glare. I bent down, leaning forward until I could taste her breath, placing a knuckle to her chin. She jerked but didn’t move.

  “When I make you cry and scream, it’s because you’ll like what I’m doing so much…” I placed my other hand on her bare thigh, just beneath the hem of her dress, and she swallowed, throat bobbing. “You’ll beg me not to stop, Reject.”

  I trailed my knuckle along her jaw, stroked behind her ear, and grasped her silky hair, tugging her ear to my lips.

  “And now you have no one left to love you. No one. Not your daddy. All you have is me.” I licked her ear, tongue caressing along the shell, top to bottom, before biting the lobe. She breathed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a sigh. I tightened my grip on her hair. On her thigh. “Only me.”

  At the same time she shivered, she said, “Stop.”

  There was no force in her voice, but I did. I stood back up, and she tried to scramble away, but I stopped her with my shoe, digging into her thigh.

  “Let me go, dog,” she spat.

  Her dress had ridden up, her panties now visible.

  “God, you’re so fucking wet.” I laughed, then kicked up the rest of her dress with my other foot. “Is that for me, or are you really a whore?”

  I wanted to rub my thumb across the lace between her thighs. Press the fabric against her. Feel how wet she was.

  I dug my heel into her thigh.

  “You look like you need to be fucked, Reject.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Nah…” I shook my head on a smile. “I don’t fuck rejects, but admit all you have is me, and maybe I’ll touch you.”

  I dug my shoe into her thigh until she gasped. Her eyes found mine, lips parting. Wet. My eyes fell to them, to the way her spoiled, pouty pink lips parted, her tongue begging to lick them.

  Was she enjoying this?

  I shifted, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarser. “You want me to let you go? Just say the words. Admit the truth and I will.”

  She didn’t speak, but her breath was like the wings of the swans outside, and she was wearing the most painfully see-through white lace panties.

  Fucking white.

  Fuck. I was hooked on that.

  “Say it,” I pressed.

  My heel would leave bruises on her thigh.

  “Just say it,” I growled.

  Fuck.

  I was losing myself. I used to torture myself over what Abigail Crowne sounded like as she came. Turns out, it was nothing like my imagination. My imagination was a scratchy recording compared to this. She was a live symphony.

  And she wasn’t even coming; this was just the fucking prelude.

  She gripped the ropy netting behind her for dear life.

  “Do you still want me to let you go?”

  A heartbeat passed like an eternity, and then she whispered, “No.”

  I took my heel off her thigh, kicked apart both of them until she was obscenely spread and I could bend down between them. Moonlight made her eyes bolder, rawer.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t.” I caressed my knuckle along her jaw. “Maybe I should rip off those panties and finally find the truth of you, see how wet and wanting you fucking are.”

  In that moment, I almost did.

  I almost kept going. Nearly slid my hand inside her thigh, up to those torturously tempting white panties, inside to what I�
�d been dreaming of since the day she’d picked me up on that fucking beach. Would she be hot, as wet as I’d imagined? Would she moan when I slid inside her? No… Abigail Crowne would be a meteor shower.

  Quiet, magical, over too fast.

  I untangled myself from her, standing up slowly. I didn’t bother adjusting myself. Abigail’s stare focused on my jeans, before she tilted her chin.

  Her wide, violet-brown eyes were still hazy. I was always thankful for being sent to California; at least I didn’t have to see Abigail every time I looked out the window. The night sky there didn’t glow the same dark-red indigo. Back here… I can’t say the same.

  I dragged my thumb across her still-parted bottom lip. “Told you it would feel good.”

  Shock and recognition hit her at once, and she tore her face from mine.

  “Can we go?” Her voice shook.

  “Sure. Threat’s been gone for a while now.”

  I couldn’t see her face; she’d hidden it in shadows. When she didn’t respond, I bent down until we were eye to eye.

  “Are those tears?” I reached out to thumb them.

  She slapped me away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Is that really what you want, Reject?” I thumbed her chin. Abs tried to jerk away, so I gripped her hard, yanking her back. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was her red eyes. The fact she still hadn’t fixed her dress. Or it could be the pounding in my chest that wouldn’t stop. I don’t know. It happened in a split second. One minute she was glaring, the next I was kissing her.

  Hard. Brutal.

  Addicting.

  Until sanity returned, and I let her shove me off.

  When I was done her cheeks were wet, her glare was fierce, her bottom lip bruised from my teeth—and her taste was fucking imprinted inside me. I wiped her off with the back of my hand, as if it would do something. Then I threw her a smile.

  “Remember, I’m the only one you have left.”

  7

  ABIGAIL

  Theo and I climbed the stairs to my wing in silence, and he took his place just outside the doorway to my bedroom. Part of me itched to slam the door, but I knew I’d lose that battle.