The Hating Season

by Linde, K. A.

  I turned my head away from her as she flagged down a waiting cab. That was when I saw a man appear from around the building. He was a lanky, disheveled fucker with a giant camera around his neck.

  “English,” I muttered in confusion.

  She whipped around, trying to figure out why I’d spoken. Her eyes narrowed, and she reached for me in that moment. As if she were going to stuff me in the cab before the man could get any closer.

  But the instant her fingers wrapped around my bicep to try to steer me clear, the man yanked up the camera, and the flash went off.

  “Fuck,” English groaned.

  “Anna, do you have a comment about Josh?” the man asked.

  And then I put it together. Paparazzi. Us Upper East Siders weren’t hounded by the paps like movie stars and rock stars were, but I’d seen my fair share around Fashion Week and in the Hamptons. The press had tried to get a statement out of me after Jane and I were arrested. This guy was different though. He clearly worked for a tabloid and cared less about crimes and more about the scandalous lives of the people he photographed.

  “I told you earlier, no comment,” English said.

  “He already bothered you?” I asked. For some reason, that made all my anger boil over.

  I stepped forward, getting right in the guy’s face. “You need to stop harassing her.”

  “What is this, the new boyfriend?” the guy asked her.

  “She’s going through enough without you hounding her, you piece of shit!”

  “Court,” English muttered. She pushed me away from the photographer. “God, I’m sorry about that. Ignore him. He’s just a client. You do know that I’m a publicist, right? This is what we deal with.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, sounding disbelieving.

  “Could you just delete the photograph you took? It’s not what it seems. I can get you an exclusive or probably a favor with Poise PR.”

  She dug in her bag and removed a business card. The man swiped the card, stuffing it in his pocket without looking at it.

  “I’d take an exclusive. With you or Josh.”

  She sighed. “Not happening. I can get you something else. Or owe you a favor.”

  He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll call you, and we’ll set something up.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks. What’s your name?”

  “Jeremiah,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Jeremiah. I’m English. I hope to work with you more regularly in the future. You can discontinue stalking me for more valuable prey.”

  He laughed and nodded. “Have a good night.”

  English grabbed another cab since ours had sped off and shoved me inside. She whipped around on me as soon as the door closed. “What the hell were you thinking? Do you want to add assault to your rap sheet?”

  “How was I to know that you wanted to befriend the dick who was harassing you?”

  She sighed and pressed on her temples. “He was just doing his job. I don’t like his job, but then again, most people don’t like my job either.”

  “In that, we’re in agreement,” I grumbled.

  She just ignored my comment and pulled her phone back out.

  I’d about fucking had it with Anna English. Something was going to have to give, or we weren’t going to survive each other.

  6

  English

  “I cannot believe that you’re following me up,” Court said.

  “Well, I don’t trust that you’ll stay put.”

  “What are you going to do, spend the night to make sure I don’t leave?”

  I shoved my phone back into my purse and ignored him. Like I’d been ignoring the dozens of texts that I’d gotten from Josh ever since I hung up on him. He clearly didn’t think that I was going to divorce him. And I had every intention of doing so.

  The elevator dinged open into his apartment. I thought I’d feel relief that I’d gotten Court back to his house where he couldn’t accidentally fuck up the entire election, but no such luck. It was clear that he had no clue how closely his actions were still being watched. It wasn’t the media circus that it had been right after he was arrested, but people were waiting for him to fuck up again. The opposition was desperate for a reason to come down hard on his mom. Any reason.

  Court strode into the living room, and I followed him inside. He held his arms aloft. “See? I made it. Just like a good boy.”

  “Why do you insist on acting like this?” I demanded.

  “Maybe because you’re ruining my life.”

  I snorted. “What life? All you do is fuck around like an idiot.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and his nostrils flared. “Just because I don’t work a hundred-hour weeks like you or Camden or Lark doesn’t mean that I have no life.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I want to fire you.”

  I shouldn’t laugh at that, but I did. I couldn’t stop it from exploding out of me. But all it did was piss him off more. And maybe I wanted that. I wanted someone else to be as mad as I was. Ready to throw down.

  “You think that’s funny?” he demanded. “I’m going to go to my mother tomorrow and tell her you’re not fit for the job.”

  I took a step toward him. “Do it. See what she says.”

  Something sparked in those impossibly blue eyes. “I’ll tell her that you’re not subjective after what Josh did.”

  “Fine,” I said, taking another step. “How do you think that will go for you? Do you think she’ll fire me, or do you think she’ll call you a petulant child who can’t deal with his own problems?”

  Court bridged that last bit of distance. He looked like he was ready to put his fist through a wall. It was hot as fuck… and it shouldn’t have been. I’d never seen him look like that before. Primal.

  “You ask me those questions as if you aren’t off your game. You put me on lockdown for basically no reason. You let that photographer take our picture. You went out drinking instead of coming back here.”

  “I put you on lockdown because you’d almost gotten arrested,” I snapped. “And yeah, maybe I wanted to go out drinking to forget about Josh and to forget about you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “And why exactly do you need to forget about me?”

  The space between us sizzled with energy. Had I said forget about him? Had I meant to say that?

  “Because… you’re a fucking train wreck, Court.”

  His gaze shifted in that second. “I don’t think that’s the reason at all.”

  I sucked in a breath at the implication in his words. At his heated gaze. The way he seemed to see straight through me. All the rage that built between us. And suddenly, the scales tipped over. Straight into disaster.

  Court didn’t hesitate. His hands came up into my hair. His grip possessive and controlling. No question in that hold. Then he bent down, bringing his lips hard against mine. He tasted like whiskey, and it burned all the way down.

  He moved against me then, flicking his tongue against the seam of my lips and opening me to him. I groaned deep in the back of my throat as he acquainted himself with my mouth. Our tongues meeting and falling back and meeting again like a courting ritual.

  He tilted my face up just a little bit more perfectly to his taking. And then I came crashing back into my body.

  This… this couldn’t happen. I had… I had rules. Rules that I shouldn’t break. He was a client.

  I yanked back away from him, trying to force him backward. I reared back and slapped him hard across the face. His head tipped sideways, and a muscle flickered in his jaw. He stared off, away from me, for a matter of seconds. His chest rising and falling with the anger within him.

  Then he slowly turned back to face me. A smirk spread across his face. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, English?”

  “Fuck you, Court.” The venom in my voice was palpable.

  I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t… even if I wanted to.

  He nodded once, as if making a decisio
n. He took another step back into my personal space. I didn’t move. I just glared up at him.

  “Tell me to stop,” he teased, his mouth mere inches from mine.

  The word was on the tip of my tongue. And I couldn’t say it. Because it was the wrong word. As much as it was utterly wrong… I couldn’t deny that, this moment, I wanted it. Fuck the consequences.

  “Didn’t hear you, English.”

  I glared at him harder. But I didn’t say a word.

  His hands moved back to my hair, yanking my head backward so that I was forced to meet his gaze. I moaned at the sharp pain that electrified through my body. The fucking sway he commanded from me.

  His head dipped down into my shoulder. He dragged his nose along my collarbone and then slowly over to my neck. His fingers hovered over the button at the back of my neck that held my dress up. He swirled it temptingly, as if waiting for me to tell him to stop. I didn’t.

  His mouth moved to my ear. “Say yes.”

  I said nothing.

  “Tell me you want me, English.”

  I closed my eyes as he nipped on my earlobe. “I hate you.”

  His laugh was gravelly against my ear. “Then tell me to fuck off. Walk away right now.”

  “Bastard,” I croaked.

  “Call me whatever you want,” he said, pulling back just enough to gaze at me. “Just say yes.”

  I bit my lip. Anguish at the implications of that word. At how fucking bad I wanted this. I closed my eyes as he sucked on my bottom lip, nearly groaning again.

  “English…”

  “Yes,” I finally gasped out against his lips. “Yes… fuck, yes, Court.”

  That smirk returned, and I was tempted to slap it off of his fucking face again. But he was having none of that. In that moment, Court Kensington was in the room. He was in complete control. This wasn’t the man child I’d had to deal with after he was arrested. This was the man who could very easily be running an empire. I could see it in the smile and how he moved and the way his body just radiated power. This was the Court Kensington hiding beneath his mask. And it was fucking sexy as hell.

  “I knew it,” he said, backing me into the wall. “I wasn’t wrong last week, and I’m not wrong now.”

  I swallowed. “Fine. You’re not wrong. I wanted to kiss you.”

  His smile just grew. “Then kiss me.”

  He didn’t wait. He tipped my chin up and fitted his mouth to mine. Our lips tangled as they moved together. As if neither of us could get enough. My hands moved up into his hair. That fucking unruly hair that I’d had to bring someone in to tame for interviews. And god, it was thick and full and fucking perfect. It was better mussed than ever in order. Just like the rest of him.

  His hand returned to the button on my dress that held up the backless top. He flicked it open as if he’d done it a million times. The material fell to the skirt, baring me from the waist up. A tiny zipper in the back was the only thing keeping me from being completely naked.

  “Fuck,” he ground out as his hands slipped down my body.

  He grasped my breasts in his large palms. He kneaded them as he grew acquainted with me. He pinched one of my nipples, and I gasped against his lips.

  He pulled back with a cocky smile. He pinched me again. He wasn’t being gentle, and fuck, I liked it. Heat shot straight to my core.

  My back arched off of the wall with the next pull between his fingers. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. But then he replaced his hands with his mouth, sucking my nipple in, his tongue laving across the erect peak. I couldn’t stop it then. When he dragged my nipple between his teeth, a sound like a whimper escaped me. I couldn’t remember ever making that noise before. It was as if something had unlocked in me. I was out of my body. I wasn’t even Anna English. In that moment, I belonged to Court Kensington.

  Court didn’t know the difference. Didn’t know that I hadn’t made noises like this. That I was unraveling right before his eyes. He just moved to my other breast and made me cry out all over again.

  His hands slipped behind my dress, found the spare zipper, and yanked it down. The pink material made a puddle at my feet. Leaving me in nothing but a nude thong and bright white high heels.

  The bastard was still fully dressed. Though I could see his erection straining against his suit pants. I reached out to get acquainted with it, but he fell to a knee in front of me. He grasped the edges of my thong and dragged them down my legs. I stepped out of them and opened my mouth to say something. To stop him? To urge him on? Fuck knew where my head was.

  But he wasn’t looking up at me. He just grasped one of my legs and lifted it up onto his shoulder. My only anchor was my back against the wall and one measly high heel. How much had I had to drink earlier?

  Fuck.

  His face was level with my pussy. And he didn’t wait for me to urge him on. He ran his hand down my inner thigh and up to the lips, where he spread me open before him. I clenched tight at his fingers on me, swishing through the wetness that was already there and then pressing up into me.

  “Oh fuck,” I cried out.

  Two fingers without hesitation. No waiting for me to be ready or easing me into it. He just took it.

  Then his tongue touched my clit. I thought I was going to black out. That my high heel wasn’t going to hold me up. My body shook as he rolled his tongue around my most sensitive area. He increased the pressure, sucking and then biting my clit. I tried to pull away, to resist the intense sensations coursing through me. But his free hand slammed my hips back against the wall. He braced me with his forearm against my lower abs. There was no escape. And for some reason, that made me even wetter. I wanted to escape, and I wanted to stay precisely where I was for all of eternity.

  “Court,” I groaned. My fingers ran through his hair. “Please, please…”

  I didn’t even know what I was begging for. If I wanted him to continue or if I wanted him to stop. I’d never come from oral. It sounded insane, but I’d dated selfish douche bags in college, and then Josh had always been so impatient to fuck me. We’d just skipped foreplay most of the time.

  Court was having none of my squirming. He wouldn’t let me get away from this.

  “I like it when you say my name. Say it again.”

  “Court. Oh fuck, Court.”

  Then he curled his fingers into me while sucking. I didn’t know if it was how he had me braced so I couldn’t get away from the orgasm or the way he demanded me to use his name. But something clicked in me. I hit a wall and waves rolled through my body.

  “Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck,” I said on repeat as the climax struck me like a tornado, fast and unforgiving.

  Court licked me one more time just to watch me jump and then removed his fingers from inside me. When he set my leg back down, I nearly collapsed. My legs gave out.

  He chuckled as he caught me and then effortlessly lifted me into his arms.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever made someone actually fall over,” he said with that sure grin on his face.

  I didn’t know if he was even telling the truth.

  He set me on the couch where I tried to control the shaking in my legs. Then he disappeared for a minute. My mind was blessedly blank. Everything was still pulsing in my lower half, and I was too blissed out to consider what the fuck he was doing.

  When he returned, he dropped a condom on the coffee table. He held out his hand for me.

  “I should take these off,” I said, nodding to my shoes.

  He laughed. “Not a chance, English.” He hoisted me back to my feet and then put my hands on the buttons of his shirt. “Take this off.”

  I arched an eyebrow, but my fingers were already moving. I plucked each one out individually before letting the shirt drop off his shoulders. Then I moved to his pants, unbuttoning them and then dragging the zipper to the base. He stepped out of the pants, leaving him in nothing but black boxer briefs.

  For a moment, I salivated at the sight. I never gave blow jobs. Like… never. W
hat the hell was I even thinking?

  When I didn’t move forward, he freed his dick. My eyes rounded. I’d seen big dick before, but fuck. How was this even fair to humanity? To be this fucking hot and charming and have money and have a huge cock? Like… fuck everything in life.

  He laughed at my expression. “Come here.”

  I stepped into him, reaching forward and taking him into my hand. He grunted at the first feel of me. But his hands moved into my hair. They were pulling the tangled mess of Hollywood platinum-blonde hair up into a makeshift ponytail. He had control with all of that in his hands.

  “Lean over the couch arm.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’d have you suck me off, English, because fuck knows that I want to see it sinking in and out of that goddamn mouth that yells at me,” he said, pulling my hair back so I had to look at him. “But I want to fuck you. Right now. So, bend over the fucking couch.”

  I bit my lip. The bastard. I wanted to argue. But we were a bit past arguing.

  I didn’t recognize the person who did what she was told. I was so used to issuing orders, expecting people to do what I said, that I couldn’t even believe I was following his as I turned and bent forward at the waist over the arm of the couch.

  My ass was high up in the air. He still had a tight grip on my hair. So tight that my head was pulled back, making my back arch and giving him an even better view of my ass.

  “Just like that,” he said and then released my hair to fan around my head.

  His hands roamed my ass, getting to know it like he’d done with my breasts. He slapped his hand against one ass cheek.

  I yelped and glared back at him. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  He smacked the other cheek as he reached for the condom and rolled it on. “Whatever you want, babe. But you’re mine right now.”

  I ground my teeth at his words. His filthy words. I hated him as much as I wanted him right now. It made no sense. None. And yet, I couldn’t stop the want. The way he silenced everything else. All the voices in my head went perfectly still. Even as he slapped his open palm against my bottom, making it sting. Even as I was bent over, head down, ass up, with him ready to fuck me like I’d never been fucked.