Fearless (The Privileged of Pembroke High #5)

by Ivy Fox

  Our gazes lock, our chests heaving at the desperate misery and longing in them. And as if someone turned on a switch to shed light onto our grueling darkness, his lips fall on mine. Our tongues wage war on each other, as our hands work double time to get his towel and my clothes off. He rips my T-shirt over my head, devouring my mouth and filling it with his sweet poison. My hands grip onto his wet hair, tugging at it so hard I’m surprised I don’t yank each strand from his scalp. My cock weeps in joy when he unzips my jeans and pulls them and my boxers down my legs in one quick, fluid move. He pulls my head back by my hair, his teeth scraping down my jaw, leaving open-mouth kisses on my chest as he trails down until his warm mouth is wrapped around my cock.

  I hiss at the sensation as I pound into him. My balls tighten, feeling my long, hard length go down his throat with ease. We’ve barely started and I’m already so fucking close to unraveling, it takes inhuman effort on my part not to surrender and cum. Sensing my need to come undone, he pulls my cock out of his mouth, skates up my body, and plants an earth-shattering kiss to my lips so I can taste my arousal for him.

  Fuck, he tastes good.

  Boy Scout moans into my mouth, his throbbing cock rubbing against mine, making me even more delirious. He releases his captive hold of my lips just to roll me onto my stomach. I squirm under him, needing his mouth on me, when the sound of his bedside table drawer opening brings me out of my lust-filled haze. My chest heaves up and down in anticipation as he rises to his knees behind me, squirting lube into his hands. My first instinct is to push him off me, but his grip on my neck and his knee on my back keeps me in place, just like he wants. Boy Scout falls on my back, kissing and biting my neck, while his fingers massage my puckered hole.

  There are so many words I want to say in this moment.

  I want to tell him no.

  To stop.

  That we can’t do this.

  Yet none of them come out.

  Instead, I lie there willingly, needing to feel this connection with him. Even if this is the only thing he’ll ever give me.

  With his mouth to my ear, his ragged breathing has my skin breaking out in goosebumps.

  “You have no idea how many times I’ve lain on this bed, fantasizing about taking you like this. How I would stay up late at night fucking my hand with images of you obediently following my every order, my every command. The way I’d make you feel so good, you’d never leave my bedside again.”

  My teeth bite into his pillow as he primes my ass with his fingers, the foreign sensation making my cock leak onto his comforter.

  “But you never gave me the opportunity, did you? Too selfishly wrapped up in your own pain to ever consider how much I ached for you. How much I wanted you. No, you preferred to give yourself away then seek solace in my arms,” he whispers, pained. “Do you know how it felt to see and hear that you fucked your way through almost every girl at school? Do you know how it felt to hate and envy every last one of them for being able to touch you? To love you? I hated them with a passion because they got to have you in a way I never could.”

  I wince in pain and pleasure when he forces two digits into my channel, fucking me with his fingers while he continues to whisper his contempt in my ear.

  “And when I thought you couldn’t hurt me more than you already had, you went after the one girl that was always off-limits to you. The one girl I envisioned walking down the aisle with someday. I fucking lived and breathed for you, and you betrayed me,” he croaks, now fully plowing into me.

  My teeth tear his pillowcase open as he fucks me without mercy, without restraint. My cock thrashes against his bedspread, using the friction to get me off.

  “You stole my future, Saint. Stole it like a thief in the night in the same way you had stolen my heart. What a fool I was not to realize you were the villain in my story all along. I’ll hate you forever for what you’ve done to me. Forever.”

  Shaking, I lift my head up to the side until I catch his gaze.

  “Fuck you,” I growl, throwing him the same disdain he’s lavishing me with.

  His sinister smile returns, but it never reaches his green eyes. Those are still filled with remorse, misery, and longing, and God help me, love.

  “If you insist,” he utters before spreading my legs wide and positioning the tip of his cock at my entrance.

  My eyes roll to the back of my head, my teeth piercing into my bottom lip when he thrusts inside me in one ruthless motion. Boy Scout groans in my ear, panting as he tries to center himself. He doesn’t move, just lays still on top of me, his cock swelling inside my ass. Sweat covers my brow, my body sizzling with electricity as I focus on his breathing, to keep my heart from jumping out of my chest.

  “I could have been good to you,” he chokes on a wail, the sound of his voice punishing me more than his cock ever could. “I could have loved you, too. Why couldn’t you wait for me? Why did you have to betray me like this?”

  Long gone is the man who slung curses at me, and in his place is the lost boy I had fallen hard for. My lids shut tightly as I reach out for his hand on top of his pillow, entwining my fingers with his.

  “Don’t stop.”

  That’s all I say before his lips find the crook of my neck. He sucks and bites at it as he begins to move on top of me. Slow at first, since his rude, brash entry still hurts like a motherfucker. But as he keeps kissing every patch of skin he can find, his thrusts begin to pick up speed. He pulls me up by my hips, just enough to skate his hand around me and fist my cock in his hand.

  “Fuck,” I grunt as he begins to pound inside me at the same tempo he jerks my cock.

  We refuse to say anything else, aside from grunting and moaning each other’s names, too transfixed on how our bodies perfectly align and become one. His lips continue to burn my skin with their kisses, while he drives into me so deep that I’m not sure where I end and he begins. His tongue laps at the sweat coating the nape of my neck, squeezing my hand with his, as if that small connection is just as vital to his impending orgasm as his complete possession over my body. My cock starts leaking onto his fingers when Boy Scout finds that pressure point inside me that unlocks all my secrets and wants.

  “FUCK!” I roar, now actively fucking his hand until I’m cumming so hard that every inch of my body trembles.

  He bites into my shoulder, his teeth sinking into my flesh while his hips roll into me three more times before I feel his cum marking me from within. We’re both breathing erratically, unable to move or break the spell that took us over.

  But all too soon, Boy Scout shifts, pulling away from me and jumping off the bed, walking back into his bathroom. In a state of daze and confusion, I sit at the edge of his bed, running my hand over my face while I hear him running water in his sink. He comes back to the room, chucking a wet washcloth into my lap, his silent command to clean myself up. I stare at his impassive face, strangling the small towel in my grip.

  “If you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you,” he says before turning his back on me and locking himself in his ensuite.

  Then kill me now because I think I just did.

  I jump out of his bed, a deep shiver running down my back, cringing at what we have just done.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here,” I mumble to myself as I grab my clothes and quickly put them on, not even caring to clean the blood off my face.

  It’s only when the cold midwinter air hits me that I’m slammed with the repercussions of what I let transpire between us.

  Quickly I text Princess, asking her if she’s still at the hospital, my shoulders slumping when she replies she’s back at her place grabbing a quick shower before she has to return to her stepsister’s bedside. I text her to wait for me there at the manor and tell her I’ll be there in fifteen. When I get to her place, I text her again to come to meet me outside. I don’t have to wait long for Elle to swing her front door open and rush over to me standing in the middle of her street.

 
“Oh, my God! What happened?” she asks worriedly, gently touching all the cuts and bruises I have on my face. “Were you mugged? How did this happen? Are you okay? Should we go to the hospital?” she adds, panicked when she sees me hugging my bruised ribcage.

  I shake my head, bowed in shame.

  “I went to see him.”

  Those are the only words I have to utter before Elle pulls her hand away from my bloody cheek, taking two steps back away from me. The weight of her silence feels like a boulder’s been placed on my lungs.

  “Did you hear what I said?” I ask after a long, excruciating pause of silence.

  “I heard you.”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  “I can see what happened,” she counters, her previous concerned tone turning arctic.

  “There’s more,” I add, feeling as if my knees are about to fall out from under me.

  “You slept with him.”

  It’s not a question. Just a fact.

  I nod, my gaze never wavering from hers.

  “We said we would never lie to one another,” I stammer, feeling as if there is a Grand Canyon of a gap suddenly between us.

  “I know,” is all she offers in reply.

  “So, what now? What do we do?”

  The nervous chuckle that leaves her has my heart falling to the pit of my stomach.

  “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? All he has to do is show up, and we falter.”

  I bridge the space between us and slide my hand around her neck, using the other to cup her cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” I reply wholeheartedly.

  “I know you are, Santo. God, how I know you are, but it still doesn’t make this any easier.”

  “What can I do? How can I make this right?”

  Her lids close shut, her little hands clutching the lapels of my winter jacket.

  “I don’t think either one of us can do anything. We tried, Saint. We tried to be happy. But you can’t deny there is always something missing. A little hole inside of us that only Chad can fill. It’s okay. I don’t blame you, just as you didn’t blame me when I let him kiss me earlier tonight. It’s just how we will always be. Rotating around each other until one of us breaks for good. That’s no way to live.”

  I swallow dryly, fear gripping my throat.

  “Are you… are you breaking up with me?” I ask outright.

  She lets out a pained sigh.

  “I’m just putting an end to our perfect illusion.”

  I tip her chin up, her eyes watering.

  “But I love you.”

  My words break apart the damn, her tears freefalling down her face.

  “And I love you,” she whispers in utter misery. “But one day, you will resent me. I know you will.”

  “I won’t.” I shake my head.

  “Yes, Santo. You will. Because in the back of your mind, you will always wonder how things might have played out differently if you had chosen him instead of me.”

  “I was never given a choice. And even if I had been, I would have picked you,” I say in earnest, knowing I mean every single word.

  “I want to believe that. I truly do. But it wouldn’t matter even if I did. His ghost will always come in between us. I can’t live like that. And I can’t force you to live like that either.”

  “So that’s it? We’re done?”

  She rises to the balls of her feet, plants a sweet kiss on my lips, her cherry taste tainted with the salt of her tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobs, turning around and rushing back to her house, unaware she’s taking my broken heart with her.

  Chapter 22

  Elle

  ‘I love you,’ his green eyes beckon.

  ‘I love you,’ his obsidian gaze vows.

  “Miss Grayson? Miss Grayson? Eleanor Grayson?!”

  “Huh?” I reply absentmindedly, the sudden burst of snickering laughter bringing me out of my chaotic thoughts.

  “I was going to ask you to solve the equation on the board, but it’s obvious that daydreaming is preferable to passing algebra this semester,” the teacher reprimands at the head of the classroom with a deep-rooted scowl. “Please continue fantasizing about whatever boy band you girls are into nowadays. I’m sure spending precious time thinking about boys will do wonders for your future.” She scoffs, calling on someone else to solve the problem for her.

  I don’t even have the will to rectify her rude, demeaning assumption. Mostly because she nailed it right on the head. Even with everything that has happened in my life these past couple of months, all my thoughts go straight to them sooner or later.

  Discreetly, I tilt my head to the side, so I can catch a glimpse of them both. Chad’s head is bowed to his desk, completely oblivious of everyone else in the room. While two desks right behind him, Saint is slumped back in his seat, eyes closed, grabbing some shut-eye.

  But while everyone would never bother to give them a second glance, I do.

  Chad’s head is bowed because he’s hiding the phone in his hands, his locked screen visible from where I’m sitting. It’s a picture his dad once took of us when we were kids, playing Twister on game night at the Murphys. All three of us are a tangled mess of limbs, laughing away as we all fall down on the mat. My heart swells at the memory as it weeps for the innocence we lost along the way. Will we ever get that back, or will we grow further apart until we’re nothing but strangers?

  My stare then falls to the dark-eyed boy who shifts in his seat, pretending he’s trying to get some sleep while, in reality, his thumb keeps grazing over the new ink on the inside of his wrist that he got a few weeks ago. The new tattoo is purposely placed so he can have easy access to it at all times while keeping it hidden from wandering, prying eyes. And oh, have my eyes wandered. They wandered until they were able to come into perfect view of the halo and devil horns branded on his skin. A permanent reminder of Chad and me since we’ve both taken turns playing the role of one or the other in his life. It leaves me to question which one am I now to him?

  His salvation, or his ruin?

  I’m so caught up in them that when the school bell rings, I gasp in surprise, simultaneously drawing the attention of black and green eyes to me in an instant. I tear my gaze away and shove all my belongings into my backpack before rushing out the door, thankful for the lunch period I have next to get my head screwed on straight. My heart is still beating like a drum as I make my way through the sea of students coming out of their classrooms. My steps never falter as I zig-zag my way out of the building, rushing toward Pembroke House where the library is, and my new lunch buddy awaits.

  “Elle.” Maya waves, the librarian shushing her for her loud greeting.

  Even though it hurts my face to do so, I crack a smile and pull a chair up next to Maya.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” I retort breathlessly, taking out the meatball sub that Henry made me this morning.

  “You look flushed. And not in a good way.”

  “Is there a good way to be flushed?”

  “If you don’t know the answer to that question, then Saint is all talk and no game.” She giggles, biting into her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “Ew, Maya. Please don’t tell me Saint talks to you about his sex life.”

  “Of course not. That would be gross. He’s like my big brother.” She rolls her eyes, picking up a few of my go-to moves. “But on the other hand, it’s not like he needs to. This school loves to gossip, especially when it has to do with sex.”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard,” I grimace.

  One of the rumors going around school is that I’m a cold fish. So cold that both Chad and Saint dumped me because they could get more enthusiasm from fucking a vacuum than they could with me. Worse still was when Maya had to explain it to me just how that comparison worked. I mean, do guys actually stick their junk in vacuums to get off? Is tha
t even a thing? I used to give Ash a hard time about being a horndog, but at least I never ran in on him getting sucked by a Hoover.

  “Hey, I mean it. Are you okay?” Maya asks again, this time more concerned.

  “I’m fine. Truly. It’s just one of those days.”

  “Ah. I know what you mean.” She sighs, picking at the crust of her sandwich. “Those days are hell. When you want to talk to him or just touch him, but you know you can’t, so all you do is pray that he doesn’t catch you staring, just long enough to get your daily fix in.”

  “Reid still hasn’t reached out to you, huh?” I ask, cutting to the chase.

  For the past month or so that I’ve been hanging out with Maya in the library for lunch, I’ve gotten to know her better, and any time her gaze flickers in sadness, Reid is usually the culprit behind it.

  She shakes her head solemnly.

  “Give him time, Maya. He’s going through a lot right now.” I try to console her, thinking this time he has a good reason to be a sucky boyfriend.

  “You’re defending Reid? That’s a first.”

  It’s true. I haven’t been exactly pro-Reid where Maya is concerned, especially after she confided in me everything he put her through.

  “I thought you hated him,” she adds, her eyebrow lifting high on her forehead.

  “You’re exaggerating. I’ve known Reid Hurst for most of my life, so I know deep down he’s not a bad guy. Do I think he should treat you like a queen? Yes. Yes, I do. Do I think you can do better? Again, yes, I really do. It’s kind of hard to root for a guy who used to be Ash’s wingman when it came to fucking anything that walked in this school.”

  “He’s not like that anymore. And when I said I thought you hated him, I was thinking mostly about his mom. I mean, it’s because of her that your brother was almost convicted of murder.”

  “Almost being the operative word there. However, I will admit it did come as a shock that Claire Hurst would do such a thing—kill my father like that and then pin the blame on Rome.”