The Living: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Thorns of Rosewood Book 3)

by Cassie James

  I stagger forward as she takes the last step gracefully, despite the mile-high heels that makes our height difference much less dramatic than usual. “Piper, you—holy shit, you look amazing,” I somehow manage to spit out. I lean forward to kiss the hell out of her, but my mom fucking ruins it. She comes bustling down the stairs, voice panicked as she screeches about how late we are. Damn her.

  Our limo sits in line, crew bustling around outside as they prep everybody before they actually reach the red carpet. They’ve already explained we’ll enter behind the director but in front of the lower-billed actors. Despite the panic over being late, we’ve still managed to arrive at the perfect time. Such is Hollywood.

  “I can’t believe you wanted to come tonight, Piper,” Mom suddenly pipes up. I guess she’s finally tired of incessantly checking her Twitter feed for news about the movie. “You haven’t been to one with us since, oh gosh, when was it? Freshman year, maybe?” Eighth grade.

  “Of course I came, Jude asked me.” She seems to hesitate before adding, “You do realize we’re dating, right?”

  I can’t help but snort at the genuine shock that crosses over Mom’s face. She’s usually got a much better poker face than that, but she can’t seem to school her face fast enough. The old Piper and I were friends from the time we were in diapers, and I’d had to explain to my mom more than once over the years that yes, we really were just friends.

  “Well,” Mom says finally, “isn’t that something.”

  “Jude really didn’t say anything?” Piper asks, turning to me with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. It’s adorable she thinks I tell my parents things. Mom might be putting on a good show right now, but she never actually gets involved. Not in my life in general, so certainly not my dating life. Which, to be fair, was more a sex life than a dating life before Piper. “We’ve been together since, what? January?”

  Piper looks at me for confirmation but I shake my head. “September,” I correct.

  She scoffs and shakes her head sharply. “No, definitely not,” she insists, her tone hard as her eyes narrow even further. “It’s only been since like January.”

  “Mmm, no. September’s when we—”

  Piper punches me—hard. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” she whisper-yells at me. She breathes hard, an angry flush starting to creep up her neck, but all it does it turn me on to see her angry. I try to force myself to think of literally anything besides fucking her. I can’t walk the fucking red carpet with a hard-on. Jesus, I’d never live that shit down. “We’ve been together since January,” Piper announces with a hint of finality to her voice.

  September, I silently correct anyway. I’m definitely counting September.

  Mom hums in the back of her throat as her eyes drift toward the window. I lean back in my seat, and reach up to drop my hand on the back of Piper’s neck, squeezing and massaging it gently to work loose some of the tension she’s been carrying ever since we got into the limo. My fingers sink into the hair at nape of her neck, and Piper shudders violently when my fingers brush over one particular spot. Interesting. I store the information for later, fully intending to explore her reaction when we’re not trapped under my mother’s watchful stare—which is back on us again.

  I let my hand fall back into my lap as Mom eyes us silently. Fucking seriously, I need the cars in front of us to hurry the fuck up because I can’t handle her when she’s bored like this. “What happened with that other boy—what’s his name? Tyson?” Yeah, because I’ve only been friends with Tyler for almost as long as I was with Piper. Fuck, she’s clueless.

  “Tyler,” Piper supplies oh-so-helpfully.

  “Right.” Mom nods as if she knew his name all along. “You were with him before, right? I had to move Jude’s prom picture the other day while I was doing a cover shoot at the house. It didn’t match the aesthetic.” Get to the point, Mom. “You were matching with that other boy at Prom. That’s not much time between then and when you started dating Jude in September.” I would laugh at the way she says September, not January, if it wasn’t for how decidedly uncomfortable this whole fucking conversation has become. She’s still going, too. “So, something happened over the summer? You two broke up, I presume?” No and no. Fuck, Mom is really putting her foot in her mouth right now.

  “Uhm…” Piper hesitates to answer, and I can feel her gaze on the side of my face.

  The way Mom says it, it’s obvious she has no recollection of the real Piper’s death. Shit, now I can’t remember if I ever actually said anything to her about it. Was she even home around the time of the funeral? Fuck, I’m drawing a blank. Now’s not the time to start talking about deaths and replacements. Instead, I force the conversation to pivot.

  “Piper’s still dating Tyler.” Piper lets out a small squeak as Mom’s eyebrows rise and we finally get Dad’s attention away from his phone. “She’s dating my friend Brennan, too. She really has quite the collection going at this point.”

  “Jude!” she hisses my name.

  Dad makes an interested sound low in his throat. “How progressive.” Mom nods along, the two of them taking it all in stride the way I figured they would. I’m sure Mom’s already thinking of the spin her PR company could put on this.

  “Oh,” Mom suddenly remembers, “Jude, darling, don’t forget to talk to Jeremy Carmichael tonight. He’s got that Netflix deal, and I hear he’s been shopping for something teen-centric. You’re ready for more leads. The cameos and one-offs are becoming exhausting.”

  And just like that, everything else is forgotten.

  Piper shifts next to me, the smile on her lips falling a fraction as my attention gets pulled in a thousand different directions, occasionally by photographer and reporters but more often by people who have worked with me or my parents on projects. I drop my hand to her shoulder after a short round of photos and squeeze gently before moving to our next assigned spot on the carpet. She’s so stiff that I’m surprised her legs can actually move enough to carry her from one spot to the next. At this rate, with her legs locked like that, I’m worried she’s going to end up passing out.

  I should have prepared her better.

  I lean close so I can brush my lips against her ear as we stop a few feet behind Mom and Dad. They’re giving an interview together, the two of them playing up the romance for the cameras. They’re one of the few couples around here still together after fuck knows how many years of marriage. Spending at least half the year apart while they film separate projects probably helps a whole hell of a lot.

  We make it through a few more rounds of handshakes and photos before we find a more secluded spot off to the side. I stop to let her take a breather. “Are you okay?” She responds with a tight nod but her shoulders don’t loosen and her legs are locked at the knees again. “Are you sure? You look like you’re getting ready to pass out.”

  “Do you think they know?” she asks from the corner of her mouth.

  I’m not sure what she’s talking about. I start to ask, but before I get the chance one of Dad’s director buddies circles around with his wife. Sean and Caroline Vinsant. They’re familiar faces around here.

  Sean asks me what I’m working on while Caroline makes a few halfhearted attempts to engage Piper in conversation. A couple times, I have to prod her for answers so that she doesn’t seem like she’s being rude. I’m surprised as fuck to see her act this way. She looks amazing, but her behavior is shit tonight. She hasn’t seemed this self-conscious and uncomfortable since her early days as 2.0—and back then she had every reason to be.

  I wrap up the conversation with the Vinsants so that I can pull Piper away. We’re supposed to hit one last mark, but I skip it, pulling Piper into the quiet of the theater, instead. I push her into the little alcove off to the side and try not to think about how perfect the spot would be for a quick fuck.

  “Piper, what the fuck is going on?”

  “I don’t know.” She stares down at her feet. “I just feel weird, okay? Like I don�
�t fit in. It’s just that, some of the people we were talking to—ugh, fuck, I don’t know, Jude!” I slide my fingers into her hair and force her to look up at me. I’m not playing at this bashful shit with her. My eyes urge her to say whatever it is she needs to say. “I think some of them could tell that I’m not, you know, normal or whatever. They know something’s weird about me. That I don’t fit in.”

  “Piper, it’s Hollywood. No one really ‘fits in.’ I promise you, not a single fucking person we talked to tonight thought anything about us or you, other than how goddamn lucky I am to have you here on my arm. If anything, people are probably staring because you’re so fucking breathtaking.” I massage the back of her head with my fingers, taking comfort in the way her eyes nearly close with pleasure. And I decide it doesn’t matter that she’s wearing all that expensive fucking makeup, I kiss her anyway. Long and hard, until I’m positive she can’t remember what the problem was in the first place.

  When she stares up at me dazed as I pull away, I give her one last reassurance. “No one will ever fucking question you as long as you’re with me. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” she says softly.

  I reward her with another kiss.

  Piper’s quiet during the ride back to my house, chin propped on her palm as she stares out the window of the car. It’s not quite dark enough for me to see the reflection of her face in the window, but I can tell I don’t like whatever she’s thinking based on the way her shoulders keep stiffening. She looks like she keeps trying to make herself relax before I notice it, but that little plan obviously doesn’t work.

  It burns me up that she doesn’t believe me when I tell her she doesn’t have a fucking thing to worry about. Everything’s been so good. I don’t know why there’s this big fucking roadblock between us all of a sudden.

  I’m barely holding back my irritation when the car drops us at my house and Piper has still barely looked in my direction. I want to grab her and shake her and tell her she’s being so fucking stupid.

  “It’ll just take me a few minutes to get changed then you can take me home, okay?” she asks quietly as we step into the otherwise silent house, but I don’t respond, knowing that I’ll likely just snap at her if I do. She’s got to be fucking blind to not see what I do. “Jude, is that okay?”

  I don’t answer, focusing on letting her into the house instead, fingers skimming over her bare back as she passes in front of me. She shivers before pulling ahead of me, and even though she hangs her head as she stands a few feet away, my cock still twitches at the way her body responded to my touch. My irritation melts away in an instant. “I have a better idea,” I purr as I let the door slam closed with a heavy thunk.

  Her shoulders stiffen, and when she glances up at me, there’s literal fucking misery in her eyes. I close the distance between us with a few long strides, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck when I stop to stand in front of her. I brush my lips against hers, but start to pull away when she puts her arms up and tries to deepen the kiss. She makes a sound of protest, but I grin as I reach up to tug her arms from around my neck.

  “Let me make you feel better.” It’s barely a whisper, and her mouth falls open slightly when she takes a shuddering breath and nods. I grab her hand and lead her toward the stairs, and she trails along behind me easily.

  I tug her into my bedroom, the first girl I’ve ever brought in here—I barely tolerate the cleaning lady entering the room I consider my sanctuary. I don’t give Piper a chance to study her surroundings. I lead her to the bed and push her down until she’s sitting on the edge.

  She chews her lip as she glances up at me from under her dark eyelashes, and my dick pulses at the heat in her eyes. I bend down to swipe my tongue over her lips, preening at the way her mouth falls open for me immediately. I dominate her mouth, working her into a fucking frenzy before pulling away from her again—getting another protest from her lips as I take a step back. I toss my tuxedo jacket into a haphazard pile on the floor before making quick work of my cuff links and rolling the shirt sleeves to my elbows.

  I drop to my knees as I work my bowtie loose, pulling it from the collar and tossing it in Piper’s direction. She picks it up, running it through her fingers as I undo the first few buttons on my shirt and roll my neck experimentally, stretching some of the tension from my muscles. She watches me as I slide my hands along the exposed skin that’s peeking out from the thigh-high slit of her dress. Piper lets out a breathy moan as my fingers pass her knee and I shoot her a smirk.

  She leans back on her elbows, eyes hooded as she keeps staring down at where I’m kneeling between her legs. My dick is fucking throbbing, but all I can think about is the promise I made to her. That I’d soothe her. I am a man of my word. I grab handfuls of her frilly dress and toss the fluffy shit up over her chest as I turn my attention to the part of her that I have every intention of devouring.

  Her hands work through the scratchy material until it’s divided on either side of her body and she can stare at me as I run my fingers from her ankles to her knees, pausing there for a short second as she groans low in the back of her throat. “Do you know what’s real and what matters?” I ask as I hook my fingers around the edges of her tiny, flesh-toned panties.

  “What?” she pants as she lifts her hips like a good girl. I yank the panties down her legs, pulling them over her shoes and tossing them somewhere behind me as I return my hands to her legs. She gasps when I wrench her legs apart.

  “This, Piper.” I murmur before I lick a trail from the inside of her knee to the crux of her thighs. She squirms as I take my time tasting her. I lean back just enough to mutter, “This is real, and you don’t ever get to fucking question it.”

  16

  Piper

  Whispers follow me through school the next day, and it starts to wear on my nerves. I thought I’d resoundingly got over the fact that people were going to talk behind my back regardless of who I was and how I acted. But after last night, I can’t seem to stop replaying that feeling of people obviously knowing I’m different. The whispers are only making it worse now.

  I check the internet between my first two classes, worried as hell that something might’ve come out after the premiere, but everything’s quiet, and it seems I’m just being insecure and paranoid. The whispers don’t stop, though, and I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. I consider dragging the gossipy girl from my English class to the side again to ask her what’s going on, but then I remember how terrified that made her last time, and I manage to refrain.

  It doesn’t end up mattering. As I head for the cafeteria, there’s finally an onslaught of talking that tells me exactly what everyone is talking about.

  “… thought she was dating Tyler Hamilton, but…”

  “… seen her with Brennan, too…”

  “She has to choose eventually, right?”

  I thought these rumors had died down. Right now, I can’t even pretend to have the energy in me to work on setting the record straight. Admitting to the student body about being in a relationship with all three would only lead to more questions than I’m willing to answer.

  The last thing I want to give any of these people is fodder for their gossip, but everything I do is under a microscope here, and it’s not until I’m closer to the cafeteria that the whispers get a little louder and much more disconcerting.

  “She went to a movie premiere with Jude Alton last night…”

  “Do you think she’s finally stopped fucking around with the other Thorns?”

  “It’s a pretty clear choice, isn’t it? You don’t just go to a premiere with Jude Alton if you’re not dating him.”

  “… other two are finally up for grabs again…” I shoot a glare in that particular girl’s direction, and even though she cows to my narrowed eyes and hard-pressed lips, I still tuck tail and turn in the opposite direction. My quiet corner in the library is calling my name like a siren song, and I’m tired and confused enough to answer that call. />
  One last statement catches me off guard, though, making me feel like I’m going to be sick. “What can any of them really get out of dating her, anyway? She’s not even real.” I wrap my arms around my middle as I push my way through the crowd, not ready or willing to face the fact that my very own insecurities are being whispered through the hallways for the entire school to hear.

  Jude’s words repeat over and over again in my head. This is real, and you don’t ever get to fucking question it. I’d let him talk me down the night before, ultimately taking comfort in the fact that if people were suspicious about me, none of them commented on it. Even Naomi Alton, who’d known Piper from infancy, couldn’t tell me apart from the girl she clearly hadn’t realized was dead.

  There’s no comfort in Jude’s words now.

  She’s not even real.

  How can anything with Jude—or any of The Thorns—be real when I’m not?

  My heartbeat is erratic as I slip into the quiet of the library. I try to tell myself to calm down. No good would come from going into cardiac arrest over this. The thought sends my mind in the opposite direction. Can I even go into cardiac arrest? My body’s as high-tech and as close to human as they come, but surely Stan wouldn’t program health problems into my code… it would be pretty counter-productive to my purpose, I would think. God, how fucking inhuman can I get?

  I collapse into a chair in a dimly lit corner. I think back to 2.0, to the way she struggled to understand humanity. I was a fool to think I was any better. That somehow I had grown, become more human.

  I will never be human. And if I’m not really human, what do I really have to offer The Thorns? I can’t grow old with them. I can’t give them babies. Or a real future. The only thing I can really offer them is sex, and that’s not something to set the foundation of a whole relationship on.