by Jordan Grant
Beautifully Yours
Jordan Grant
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, or distributed in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Copyright © 2021.
Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Playlist
Ian & Harlow
One Week Left In Summer Break
1. Ian
2. Ian
3. Harlow
4. Harlow
5. Ian
6. Harlow
7. Ian
8. Harlow
9. Ian
10. Ian
11. Harlow
12. Harlow
13. Ian
14. Harlow
15. Ian
16. Harlow
17. Harlow
18. Harlow
19. Ian
20. Ian
21. Harlow
22. Harlow
23. Harlow
24. Ian
25. Harlow
26. Harlow
27. Harlow
28. Ian
29. Harlow
30. Harlow
31. Ian
32. Harlow
Midwinter
Warning
A Note From Oliver
Thank You
A Wicked Empire: A Tentative Schedule
About the Author
Author’s Note
Are you new to Voclain Academy and its wicked king? Well, this is the point where I recommend you turn back now and read Beautifully Wicked and Beautifully Wanted, the first two books in the series.
It’s not required though.
This book, along with all others written and to be written in the Wicked Empire universe, may be read as a standalone, if the reader so chooses.
No cliffhangers ahead.
Just an iron-fisted king and the girl who brings him to his knees.
— Jordan
Acknowledgments
This one’s for those who have rooted for Ian and Harlow through it all.
Playlist
Get Up — Shinedown
Under Your Scars — Godsmack
Grace — Lewis Capaldi
Stay — Black Stone Cherry
Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart — Chris Cornell
Albinoni: Adagio in G Minor — Tomaso Albinoni, et al.
Hate Me — Blue October
Fine Again — Seether
Call Me — Shinedown
Before I Lose My Mind — Etham
Footsteps — Pop Evil
Tough — Lewis Capaldi
Wild — John Legend, et al.
Ian & Harlow
— Harlow —
When I broke my arm in fifth grade, the doctor told my parents and me that it would grow a callus, a protective shield that would make it stronger than ever before. I’m like that bone. I won’t break. I’ve already been broken, and I’m stronger for it.
I’ve grieved for my brother.
I’ve hated myself.
I have healed.
Bring it on, Voclain Academy.
— Ian —
I’ve ruled these grounds for three long years. I should have been expelled on at least six separate occasions, and those are just the ones I remember between the booze and the blackouts. I was a king known for a quick fuse and a devastating right hook.
But I promised Harlow I would holster my fists senior year.
Some of my classmates bring out the worst in me though, and keeping that promise is going to be harder than I thought.
She’s the only tether on my wrath. Pull that tether too tight, and it will snap.
Then hell will be unleashed on all of us.
Watch your back, Voclain.
One Week Left In Summer Break
— Harlow —
I watch him as he helps my grandmother clean the dinner table, carrying dishes into the kitchen. I drink the sight in, and when my belly is full, I let the light, feathery feeling swell even further, filling me like I’m a cup until the thing that beats below my ribs belly-flops with delight. His jawline is dark and bristled below lips that were carved for me. As he walks back into the dining room, he raises a hand to brush away the inky strands of hair that feather his eyebrows. Even that slight movement seems to exude strength. He’s got a body made for control, but his blood sings with love for me.
He’s a beautiful brute force of nature, my boyfriend. In a week, we’ll be back at Voclain Academy, even though I want nothing to change. This is the boy I knew lived under a mountain of brutal dominance, brawn, and angst, who kept his heart locked away in a sealed, gilded cage.
This is the boy who loves me.
— Ian —
Damn. I would drown willingly in her eyes, the clearest waters I’ve ever seen. I’d let myself sink below the surface, and as the water crested my forehead and the warmth of the sea flooded my lungs, I’d smile because she is my counterpart, my equal, the only one in the world capable of making my knees meet hard earth.
That delicious pout and those straight white teeth, it’s all a guise, a pretty present wrapped in decadent paper and topped with a nice, lush bow. Beneath that facade is a mouth that doesn’t throw stones. It rains hellfire and brimstone and war. Every time I look at her, I hear the battle cry erupting over the horizon, the sound of war drums beating to the cadence of doomed footfalls, and the cold, dead thing in my chest thumps to life once again. I live for her and her fiery mouth, for the wise-ass comebacks that are her armor, protecting her from the world.
She is tormented, broken, and fragile in the way porcelain glued back together is never as strong as it was before. As I reach her side and let my fingers slide through the single black lock that runs through her white-blonde hair, I think she is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
1
Ian
Harlow’s using my thighs as her own personal lawn chair, not that I mind. She smells like apples and feels like an angel, and I am in blissful agony as I hold her. I sit in one of those rattan wicker contraptions my mother and her friends spend dinner parties fawning over as Harlow lets me, like a division-champion weirdo, play with her white-blonde hair. The weave of the chair pokes at the underside of my knees exposed by my khaki shorts, but I’d sit here all night, mildly uncomfortable, for her.
A fire blazes in the stone fire pit to our right as our Voclain Academy classmates mingle about, dancing, drinking, and, for some, skinny-dipping in the infinity pool. I haven’t touched a drop of beer or smoked so much as a cigarette, but I feel weirdly relaxed as I watch them. I’ve probably got a contact high from the stoners’ circle a couple hundred feet away. The air above them is misty and cloudy like their own personal storm brews over their heads.
Ha! More like their own magic carpet ride.
Harlow laughs, the sound soft and girly, and her whole body shakes atop my knees. She’s hot, her skin damp with sweat, against my legs. I stifle a groan with a swallow and let my eyes roll toward the skies.
Blissful. Perfect. Agony.
She hops down, her hair sliding across my fingers with the movement, and I lean back, my arms laid on either side of the wicker chair like it’s my throne and I’m a king, watching her.
She’s not drunk from the b
eer and a half she’s had. She’s more of a wine cooler and flavored malt beverage girl than a fan of a kegger, but when she gets up and grabs Molly’s hand and drags her onto the green lawn, she’s got a massive, silly grin plastered on her face.
She’s barefoot, having left her sandals on the ground beside my feet, and she raises her hands to the heavens like she’s twirling for her deity. There’s no music right now, but she’s making her own chorus in her head, laughing and giggling with Molly, her hair even lighter, more snow-colored than usual, save for that singular black lock near her temple. She is happy, and I am happy, beneath the glow of her sun.
I slide my vape pen from my pocket and press the button as I take a hit. With the inhale, a wash of nicotine hits my lungs and a hint of mint flavor bursts across my tongue. I watch her, my eyes drifting between Harlow and Molly, my girlfriend and my friend since our years of juice boxes and sand castles. My gaze keeps latching back onto Harlow, and the smile tinting her lips as she twirls, sending the curtain of her hair cascading under the moonlight. She stops twirling abruptly, a little wobbly on her feet from her sudden stop, and smiles at me when she catches me staring. My heart somersaults to the cliff and tumbles right off into oblivion.
I’m so fucking whipped.
And I so don’t care.
The reverb from a guitar being plugged into an amp sounds from the outdoor speakers and catches our attention. Everyone looks over at the makeshift stage on the back patio of one of Raven’s parents’ vacation homes. My brother in arms, who I’ve shared blood and sweat and tears with since our teeter-totter days, looks out into the crowd. An introduction isn’t necessary. We all know who the asshole is.
Chase Tallum.
Voclain Academy senior like the rest of us.
Future rock god, unlike the rest of us.
Chase starts strumming his guitar with inked fingers that are definitely not allowed on campus. Not that he cares. Chase is like me in that way. Does he want to be expelled? No. Is he scared of being expelled? Also no. His parents, just like mine, have donated enough money to fund an entire new generation’s tuition at the Academy. Yeah, he’ll probably be threatened with a demerit, and Headmistress will certainly tell him to wear gloves all the time like he’s a Las Vegas strip magician. Will either happen? Absolutely not.
Chase has more ink than anyone I know. He’s basically a human mural, and he’s added even more tattoos over summer break. With his shirt unbuttoned down his chest, I can see the colors of the rainbow crawling up his neck. He sings his heart out, strumming the guitar as sweat pops up on his brow. He’s got mad Post Malone vibes but a voice like Chris Cornell, and I gotta say—and did say that one time I was entirely too wasted—that if I die and am reincarnated as a girl, I’m definitely going all-in on the Chase train.
Shit, I must be high to admit that again.
His black hair creeps down past his ears and curls there, and it’s weird as fuck for me to see it on him. He’s kept it short as long as I can remember, buzzed off nearly to the bone, but the record label wants it longer, and he wants freedom from the expectation he’ll take over the family business, so he’s growing it out.
Everett plops down in the empty lawn chair next to me and says, “Dude, it’s all about to change.”
He sounds whimsical or some shit. I look over at him and raise an eyebrow.
“Man,” I laugh, “what have you been smoking?”
My best friend, a man of few words, points to the stage and the girls recording with their phones. Chase is playing an original he wrote this summer and demoed for me in his basement. He’s got it down now, and it needs some kinks worked out, but it’s damn good.
The fourth member of our bro-bond—and let me stress that’s his made-up term and not mine—finally shows up, late to the party as usual. Archie’s got this Fabio-vibe thing going on as he grows out his shoulder-length hair, and despite all the shit I’ve given him for it, he pulls it off. He puts a hand on my shoulder and then his other on Everett’s. By the exaggerated swagger in his movements and the slow smile that pours over his lips, I can tell he’s in the express lane to trashed and is currently lost somewhere in the touchy-feely stage.
“If I am a friend of a famous rockstar,” he says, entirely too loudly for how close we are, “does that mean I get cross-continental groupies, preferably of the female variety, like he will?”
Molly lets out a bark of laughter and wrinkles her nose at the lot of us. “Gross!”
Harlow giggles, her ice-blue eyes twinkling with amusement.
“He’s not famous yet,” Everett remarks.
“But he will be,” I mutter, though I’m pretty sure none of them hear me.
This must be what good feels like.
Harlow’s hand wraps around mine and tugs, and I follow blindly, knowing by the feel of her fingers against mine that it’s her. She tugs me onto the manicured lawn, a silent invitation to dance.
I wrap my arms around her waist and tug her close as Chase belts about heartbreak in the background. I bury my nose in her hair and breathe in deeply, letting my eyes roll back into my head as I do it. My hands clench around her waist and hold her tighter. My dick really wants to drag her back behind the pool house and fuck her against the stuccoed wall until she screams for me.
Her hands climb up my neck to let strands of my hair curl around her fingertips. She presses herself closer to me, and I feel everything.
The swell of her breasts.
The hard peaks of her nipples beneath the thin fabric of her cotton jumper.
She pulls away for just a moment and looks up at me. The soft glow from the hanging lights strewn around the backyard illuminates her like an angel. I smell the hint of beer on her breath as she blows one long, steady puff between her bee-stung lips.
I know what she wants: for me to kiss her. To end this torture. But it never ends, not really, not for either of us.
Not when I’m inside her and she’s got her legs wrapped around me, urging me on.
Not when we’re lying in bed afterward, her head nestled in the crook of my arm as she runs a hand across my chest.
Not even in sleep, when all I do is dream of her.
Still I give her what we both want. I duck my head and kiss her as she stretches up on the tips of her toes to reach me. She tastes like peppermint and the lingering fade of beer, and when she moans, I drag her against me, pulling her flush until I know she can feel everything, and there’s just the taunting friction of thin clothes between us. I’m one more breath away from losing it and going all caveman on her behind the aforementioned pool house. I want to stay this way forever, the feel of her soft skin against mine and the promise of forever on the horizon.
My chest burns for breath as she breaks away, her exhale heavy as it escapes her lungs. Her heart pitter-patters beneath my palm, a runaway rabbit beating against her ribs. Chase croons his last note, and the song ends to cheers and claps, but we still stand there, holding each other beneath the stars, the start of another semester less than a weekend away.
“Oh, what the fuck,” I hear Raven curse somewhere nearby, and the spell is broken, extinguished into thin air, because Raven doesn’t just sound annoyed. She sounds angry, and Harlow knows it too by the way she pulls away from me, the promise of a furrow on her brow. Raven’s basically the most chill girl I know, with a knack for navigating rich people’s soirees and appearing entirely genuine, when you know she’s less than impressed by the jewels dripping from Botox-ed necklines and across thin wrists. If I hadn’t met her parents, I’d swear she’d been born at Coachella.
Harlow and I both follow her line of sight across the lawn to her red-headed twin, Aurora. I should be annoyed the evil sister made an appearance after the shit she pulled last semester trying to break up Harlow and me, but I can’t manage to ignite my wrath.
Shit, maybe I really do have a contact high.
“That bitch,” Raven spews, staring daggers at her twin like she might actually find a dagger and
throw it at any minute, “is the reason Daddy is so far up my ass. He’s convinced that one rotten apple means two.”
“She’s gone-zo from NYU, right?” Archie asks.
“Mm-hmm.” Raven nods with a satisfied smirk. “I can’t believe the bitch had the guts to show up after what she did.”
We all look over at Aurora and her sad gang of wannabe queens. We aren’t the only ones either. Chase starts up another song, but most of our classmates are still staring and whispering at Raven’s twin.
The public humiliation I unleashed on her last semester trended on TikTok for weeks after the semester ended. I didn’t even get a demerit for interrupting the school assembly either. Turns out that all the nasty shit Aurora pulled, primarily cheating on her SAT, trumped my relatively minor infraction. I’m still waiting on that demerit. Her parents probably donated a fortune to make sure she didn’t get expelled.
Now, though, Aurora and her crew—Blythe, Ivy, Arabella, and Lilith—they just look unsure of themselves, and it’s sort of a buzzkill, seeing them standing there.
“Let them be, Ray,” I tell Raven with a shrug. “She learned her lesson.”
