Little Devil

by Bethany Winters

  “Awesome,” he mutters, leaning his elbows on the island to level with me. “I’m the good looking brother, you know? He was the ugly one with all the talent.”

  “Of course he was, sweetie,” I feign agreement, dropping down on the bar stool opposite him to sip my coffee. “Your parents are hot.”

  “Jordyn.”

  “Did you know there were rumours going around back then that their sex scenes were real? That he actually put it in her right there on se–”

  He gags and I burst out laughing, taking my phone out from my purse with every intention of googling him. He swings around the counter and I squeal, quickly jumping up to run away from him. He catches me by the waist and bends me over the back of the couch, tickling my ribs until I’m screaming with laughter.

  “Give it up, princess.”

  “Make me, rich boy.”

  He tickles me again and I thrash against him, freezing when my phone rings in my hand. I straighten my spine and tap the button to answer it, holding his face away with my free hand when he tries to kiss me.

  “Kian, hey.”

  “Bitch, why didn’t you text me back?”

  “I, uh.. sorry, I haven’t checked my messages yet.”

  “Okay, well, I’m leaving Travis’ house now but I need to go home and grab my car real quick. Can I pick you up in a half hour?”

  Shit.

  “Um..” I hesitate, hiding behind Xan when I spot Kian walking up the driveway through the kitchen window. “I only just woke up. Can you make it an hour?”

  “Okay, fine,” he chuckles, lowering his voice before he speaks again. “Hey, JJ?”

  “Yeah?” I ask, craning my neck to look at him.

  “Tell your new boy I said sorry for stealing you away so soon,” he teases, winking right at us before he slides into the passenger seat of Travis’ car.

  I drop my jaw and he hangs up on me, probably laughing to himself like the bratty little fucker he is while Travis drives him away. Xan snorts out a laugh and I smack his chest, narrowing my eyes when he wraps his arms around my waist to pull me into him.

  “This isn’t funny, Xan.”

  “I think it’s funny.”

  “What if he tells someone?”

  “Who cares if he does?”

  “I care.”

  “He won’t tell anyone.”

  “He’ll tell Trav.”

  “Yeah, well, Trav won’t tell anyone,” he says simply, leaning over me to tease my lips with his. “You want me to give you a ride home?”

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll text my driver to pick me up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you need to stay here and feed Bear,” I remind him, tipping my chin at the bed where he’s still fast asleep on his side. “And walk him.”

  He nods and presses his mouth to mine, sliding his hands over my back to squeeze my ass. “Promise you won’t read any of those bullshit articles about me?”

  “Nope.”

  He growls his frustration and I grin, backing away from him to grab my dress from the kitchen counter. I go to the bathroom to change and check my hair in the mirror above the sink, silently pleading with my stupid heart to stop feeling for the boy who’s not mine.

  Not mine, not mine, not mine.

  But fuck, he feels like mine.

  20

  Xander

  “Aren’t you done yet?” I complain, folding my arms on the table opposite her to rest my chin on top. “I’m bored.”

  The bitchy librarian chick shushes me from her desk on my left and Jordyn fights a grin, sneaking a glance at me with a look that makes my dick hard. I’ve been sitting here for forty five minutes, watching her like a love sick moron while she writes whatever she’s writing for this stupid Princeton essay she’s working on. It was entertaining at first because she’s so fucking pretty but now I’m getting agitated, not so patiently waiting for her to finish so I can lure her into a dark corner, pin her back against a bookshelf and drop to my knees for her.

  I can’t get enough of her and it’s making me a little crazy, to say the least.

  I’ve fucked a lot of girls since I lost my virginity to some faceless stranger the day of my brother’s funeral, but none of them made me feel the way she does. I liked having her in my bed the other night, wearing my shirt, her hot body pressed right up against mine beneath the sheets.

  I want more.

  So much fucking more.

  “Xan,” she says quietly, not looking up from her laptop while she continues to tap away on it.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “Because I’m obsessed with you,” I say simply, enjoying the light laugh leaving her while she shakes her head like I’m joking.

  “Are you trying to be cute?”

  “Is it working?”

  “Maybe a little bit,” she admits, grabbing her pen to jot something down on a little yellow sticky note. “Just give me five more minutes and I’m yours, okay?”

  I groan at the word yours and the librarian shushes me again, glaring daggers at me when I lift my hands up in mock surrender.

  “Sorry,” I call out, wincing when her glare deepens.

  Oops.

  Jordyn sighs and I shrug it off, reaching over to grab one of her black notebooks from the small stack beside her computer. I flip it open to a random page and she lifts her head, her blue eyes widening with something that looks an awful lot like panic.

  “Xan, don’t–”

  But I’m already looking down.

  “You take pictures.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” she repeats, snatching the book from me to shove it into her purse.

  As soon as she’s done grabbing her stuff, she makes a beeline for the door and I move to follow her, amused by her lame ass attempt to run away from me.

  “Jordyn, wait–”

  “Jesus, can you just stop?” she hisses, spinning around to face me fully.

  “Stop what?”

  “Whatever it is you’re trying to do right now,” she says through her teeth, blowing out an aggravated breath when she catches the confusion on my face. “You don’t need to pretend to care about me and my life, Xan. I’m not your girlfriend.”

  “But I want you to be.”

  “I don’t care what you want.”

  “What do you want?”

  She blinks at that, frowning at me like I’m the only person who’s ever bothered to ask her. “What?”

  “You heard me,” I tease, closing the small distance between us to crowd her space. “What do you want, Jordyn James?”

  “I..” she trails off. “I don’t..”

  “Is it Washington?” I guess, somehow knowing she’s not ready to say it herself. “You wanna go to Washington to study photography?”

  She hesitates but nods once, chewing the inside of her cheek like she’s fighting tears.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  “I can’t go, Xan,” she whispers, and the sadness in her voice breaks my fucking heart in two. “My mom won’t pay for Washington and they won’t give me a student loan because she earns too much money. I can’t get a bank loan because I don’t have the credit or a full time job to pay it back. I’m going to Princeton.”

  The finality of her statement makes me feel sick and I take her face in my hands, gently swiping my thumb over her cheek to catch the single tear there.

  “Xan..”

  “Will you show me?” I ask softly, pulling her in to rest my forehead against hers. “Please?”

  She stares at me and I’m almost sure she’s about to tell me to fuck off, but then she steps back and tilts her head for me to follow her. I do and she looks around to make sure no one’s watching us, discreetly heading for the back corner where it’s less busy. As soon as we’re out of sight, she takes my hand and leads me to the science fiction section, pulling me down to sit on the floor beside her. I lean back against t
he bookshelf behind us and she takes the notebook out of her bag, pointing a single finger at my face with a fake glare.

  “If you laugh at me, I’ll never fuck you again.”

  “I’m not gonna laugh at you,” I assure her, wrapping my arm around her neck to kiss her temple. “Unless you suck really bad. Then I’ll probably laugh at you.”

  She jabs her elbow into my ribs and I grin, taking the book she passes me to rest it on my lap. I flip it open and look at the first page, carefully running my finger over the picture of the stars in the night sky. The moon looks huge, almost like she zoomed on it as much as she possibly could, but somehow the picture still looks clear and bright and really fucking beautiful.

  “How did you do that?”

  “My camera was really expensive,” she jokes, leaning into me to rest her head on my shoulder. “Keep going.”

  I do as I’m told and turn to the next one, finding page after page of cities and sunrises and people – several different people I’ve never seen before of all shapes and sizes, ages and races, most of them standing on the beach with the sun and sea behind them. I get to a page about a quarter of the way through and find two pictures side by side, one of a black woman posing in a dark green swimsuit with her hands on her wide hips and an awkward look on her face, then one of the same woman laughing her ass off with her head tipped back between her shoulders.

  “What happened there?”

  “I told her she’s got a nice ass.”

  I laugh at that, rubbing my hand up and down over her arm while I turn to the next one. I don’t know much about photography and editing and all that stuff, but I’m pretty sure these aren’t photoshopped. She’s embraced their imperfections, kept every curve and blemish and stretch mark and made these people look proud of themselves and the bodies they live in.

  It’s amazing.

  She’s amazing.

  “Baby, these are incredible.”

  “Really?” she asks, sounding genuinely surprised by that.

  “Yeah. Really,” I stress, pointing to the one of the young couple rolling around on the sand together in their swimsuits. “What’s their story?”

  “I met the girl in Miami on spring break,” she explains, grinning at the memory. “I was shooting her solo for a while and she kept looking at the guy behind me. I knew she thought he was cute so I called him over and told her to wrap his arms around her from behind. He did it and she looked like she wanted to die, but I kept going and they got really into it. It was awesome.”

  “They’re strangers?” I ask, pulling my brows in while I look through their series of pictures. “They look like they’re in love.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know about love, but I’m pretty sure he took her back to his hotel room when I got done with them.”

  “Was he hard?”

  “So hard,” she laughs, making me laugh.

  She relaxes against me and I take my time flicking through the rest, drinking up every ounce of information she offers me regarding the people she’s met over the years.

  “Do you give them the pictures?”

  “Yeah,” she answers, handing me another photo book to go through. “I take their contact information before they leave and get their permission to share them on social media, then I go home and send the pictures over from my computer, choose my favorites and post them to a separate Instagram account I made.”

  “Can I see?”

  She chuckles at the eagerness in my tone and passes me her phone, resting her head on my shoulder while I scroll down through the account. She’s using a fake name and a generic profile picture, but she’s still got just over seven thousand followers and hundreds of comments on each post, some even asking how they can book a shoot with her. I don’t know how much time I spend examining each photo she’s taken but I can’t seem to stop. Every little thing I learn about her makes me want her even more. Every thought she has, every memory, every secret.. I crave them like a drug. I want her to give me every last one of them so I can lock them up with my own and keep them safe for her.

  “Did you apply yet?” I ask, looking over at her when she doesn’t answer right away.

  She shakes her head and fiddles with the hem of her pleated skirt – something I know she does as an excuse to look down when she’s feeling nervous or embarrassed about something. “I’m not applying.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not applying,” she repeats, leaning forward to pack her books away.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because,” she sighs, doing everything she can to avoid my eyes. “If I don’t get in, it’ll break my heart to know I’m not good enough, and if I do get in, I won’t be able to go. It’s a lose–lose for me, Xan, and there’s no point hurting myself over something I can’t have.”

  “Baby.”

  “Xan.”

  “You’re applying to that school.”

  “Oh, really?” she asks, finally lifting her head to raise that bratty little eyebrow. “You gonna make me?”

  “Maybe,” I tease, pulling her into me until she’s straddling my thighs. “Maybe I’ll pin you down and tease your needy little clit with my cock, deny you and make you beg me to put it inside you, then I’ll smack your pussy and start all over again until you learn to listen to me and do as you’re told.”

  “That sounds awful,” she rasps, digging her freshly manicured nails into my neck to grind on me.

  My cock thickens between us and I groan, squeezing her ass to encourage her to keep riding it. “When’s the application deadline?”

  “January fifteenth,” she answers, dipping her head to tease my mouth with hers.

  I kiss her and slide my hands up over her thighs beneath her skirt, smirking when she moans and shoves her tongue into my mouth to get to my piercing.

  Five weeks.

  Five weeks to convince my girl that it’s okay to say fuck it and take what she wants for a change, to do what she loves instead of breaking her own back every damn day to give every other fucker what they want.

  Judging by the way she’s taking me right here in the corner of the school library in the middle of the day, though, I’d say I’m already half way there.

  21

  Jordyn

  “Did you get it?” he asks, leaning over the inner console to push the passenger side door open for me.

  I nod and jump inside, grinning at Bear over my shoulder while I pull my seatbelt on over my chest. He’s sitting down on the back seat with his big ass tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyes on me, seemingly excited to have me tag along for his weekly trip to the dog beach. He moves forward like he’s about to lick my face and I scrunch my nose, leaning away from him as far as I can to ensure he doesn’t touch me with it. Xan laughs at me and I flip him off, squealing when he hits the gas and speeds off through the open gate at the end of my driveway.

  “Xan!” I screech, squeezing my eyes shut when he almost clips the side of a Bentley, but he just laughs some more and keeps going.

  He drives like he’s late for a dentist appointment, reckless and fast and fucking stupid, and even though I’ve gotten through several rides in the car with him without dying, I still fear for my life every single time.

  “Why can’t you just drive in a straight line and wait your turn like a normal person?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he jokes, reaching into the cup holder to pass me an iced coffee with a purple straw.

  “Did you ask for extra syrup?”

  “And crushed ice instead of cubed,” he adds, smiling to himself when he catches me slurping it up like a coke fiend.

  He likes buying me treats I can’t have and I like having them, mostly because they taste good but also because fuck it, what my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

  “I bet if you sucked my dick like that I could come before we get there.”

  I choke on my drink and cut my eyes to his, quickly grabbing a napkin to wipe the spit from my chin. “That’s not
a dare, right?”

  He snorts and shakes his head at me, casually resting his hand on my lap to run his thumb over my thigh. I’m wearing a tight pair of skinny jeans and the faded black hoodie I stole from him the other day, my hair tied up in a thirty second bun and my face free of makeup. I wouldn’t usually look like this outside of the privacy of my own bedroom, but Xan has this weird ability of making me feel beautiful no matter what I wear. I’m pretty sure I could walk around with a brown paper bag shoved over my head and he’d still tell me how bad he wants to hold me down and fuck me stupid.

  We get to the beach and he chooses a spot in the almost empty parking lot, then he climbs out to open the back door for Bear. He smiles at me while he grabs what he needs and I chew my lip, nervously running my finger over the strap on my camera. He told me to bring it and I told him I would, but now I’m feeling a little unsure.

  No one’s ever taken an interest in me the way he does and I don’t know whether to love it or hate it.

  The passenger side door suddenly opens and I look up, finding Xan standing over me with his arm resting on top of the door frame. He eyes me and I clear my throat, climbing out to hold my hand out to him.

  “Can I walk him?”

  He hides a grin at my obvious distraction tactic and hands me the leash, falling in line beside me while we walk down to the beach. “How fast can you run?”

  “What?”

  He takes my camera and opens his mouth to explain, but then Bear yanks me forward and makes a beeline for the ocean like a bat out of hell. I scream and stumble to keep up with him, tightening my grip on the leash to ensure I don’t lose this fucking dog. He pulls me along to the edge of the water and I’m officially panicking, attempting to dig my heels into the sand to get him to slow down, but it doesn’t work. He’s too damn strong and my stupid legs won’t move fast enough.

  “Oh, shit!”

  “Baby, just let him go,” Xan calls from behind me, and I drop the leash to the ground, leaning over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

  He appears at my side and I feign a glare, smacking his abs when I catch him laughing his ass off.