Beautifully Yours: A High School Bully Romance (Voclain Academy Book Three)

by Jordan Grant

  The guy looks like he’s already at a steady simmer and the burner is still set to high. Still, he closes his mouth and swallows whatever retort sits on his tongue as Ian’s father arrives, demanding someone call the police chief now.

  The roar inside the hall grows louder as we cross the tensile carpet, down past the line of student seats, and toward the emergency exit door, illuminated by a red LED sign overhead. Ian doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t offer to climb the stage and take us through the performance doors at the back of the hall or up front to the audience exits. He hits the panic bar despite the warning sign above it and sends the door knocking into the exterior wall.

  The fire alarm blares, emergency lighting flashing to life in the hall. Students dart out behind us, but we don’t stop walking. His steps don’t even falter. He just holds my hand like he will never ever let go of it again.

  My mind whirls with all the words left unspoken. There are so many things I want to tell him, starting with I’m sorry and ending with I’m sorry again, but not now, not here after what just happened, on campus, at the place where I broke his heart.

  We cross the lawn quickly under skies of winter gray. The cold nips at my fingers and brings a faint blush to Ian’s cheeks, the wind tousling his hair. I may not have saved him, but at least it is the way it should be, with us together.

  I follow him as we walk to the garage. We should go back to our dorm rooms and study for impending finals, but I don’t think we could focus, even if we tried. Right now, it’s just us.

  Ian and Harlow, escaping the world.

  Ian swings the door to the garage wide, and we enter with a hiss of air. My shoes click against the painted concrete, the muffled clacks of the heels of his loafers filling the silence. Like a magnet, my gaze finds his, and I am lost there, in the storm clouds of his irises. I am hot all over, my coat suddenly too itchy and too heavy. Warmth pools in my belly and suffuses through me until I burn beneath his gaze.

  It happens in an instant.

  One second we are walking, and the next, I am against the wall, my back straightening against the concrete, Ian in front of me. His lips collide with mine, and the kiss is brutal and bruising and everything we both need. He tastes like the whisper of a cigarette, the lingering hint of smoke with an undertone of vanilla.

  His teeth knock against mine, and his hands cinch around my waist and pin me there.

  The kiss is explosive and hot and it burns everywhere like we are standing beneath our own fireworks show. His tongue sweeps inside my mouth, an unapologetic conquest.

  It is violent. Beastly. Perfection.

  My hands flatten against his chest, trapped there, as my lungs ache for breath. Just when I think they might burst, he breaks away, a wolfish grin on his face, his lips turgid and wet.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asks, his words breathless.

  “I don’t know,” I say, my words just as soft and airy. “I don’t care. Anywhere with you.”

  His grin spreads wider, and he smiles down at me.

  “Let’s drive,” he shrugs. “We’ll see where we end up.”

  “Okay,” I reply, beaming back at him.

  This is the man I love, the Ian hidden away from the rest of the world. I am light and fizzy beneath his effervescence.

  He grabs hold of my hand again, and we are running through the garage, stumbling over our shoes, and laughing as we slide and skid across the concrete floor. We arrive at his car, and he holds the passenger door open for me to climb inside. As soon as I’m in, before I’ve even had a moment to buckle my seatbelt, he jogs around the car and hops in beside me. The engine rumbles to life, and I feel like it’s our own miniature earthquake, only instead of creating debris, this one is cleaning it up, creating a fresh start for the both of us.

  He cranks up the heat, and it warms my toes with toasty air as we leave the garage and start onto the road leading away from campus.

  He doesn’t look at me, his eyes fixed on the black asphalt, but he slips his free hand over to me, laying it on the console between us. There goes that effervescent feeling again as I interlace my fingers with his and hold on tight.

  Sunlight enters through the windshield and hits his profile just right as he merges onto the highway. It brings a tinge of blue to his hair, coloring it like a raven’s feathers. Although it should wash the color from his face, it doesn’t. If anything, it makes him seem to glow, the pink blush from the wind on his cheeks reddening even rosier.

  This is the man I love, the one hidden beneath an ancestral fortune that dates back centuries. Right now, he is not burdened by the expectations of his family’s legacy. He’s not laden by the wrath of a violent father either, with no immediate means of escape, not for both him and his mother.

  Here, with me, he is no longer the king of Voclain Academy, wearing a savage crown of iron and brutality on his head. He’s not the quarterback or the captain of the baseball team, expected by his peers and the Academy’s donors to bring home the win. This isn’t the guy given everything you could ever dream of since birth, the one girls never say no to, whose teachers ignore his transgressions.

  This is the man I love, who is spontaneous, without a care in the world, and who’s happy to hold my hand as we drive to nowhere. This is the guy who is content just because he is with me.

  His heart isn’t black. It’s shiny and made of pure, polished gold.

  At times, it may appear tarnished or downright ugly, but it is heart-stopping when you catch it just right.

  He is beautiful and wicked and mine.

  Midwinter

  — Ian —

  I stand at the bay window in our kitchen, looking out across the manicured lawn of evergreen shrubs and dormant grass. Harlow dances on the frost-covered ground in front of me, twirling as the first snowflakes of winter fall. She’s got her mouth open and her tongue sticking out as she tries to catch them.

  If I saw anybody else doing it, I’d think maybe it was their first time seeing snow. With Harlow, I know better than that, though she would most certainly die of embarrassment if she knew I knew her little wintertime habit.

  Maybe it’s a reminder of a happy childhood.

  Maybe it’s a game, and she’s seeing how much she can catch.

  Maybe it tastes good, but that’s… doubtful.

  I feel Rosalind, my parents’ housekeeper, staring at me as she pretends to clean the coffee pot for what feels like the fifteenth time. She’s definitely wondering what my girlfriend is doing—Harlow would double-die if she knew Rosalind was watching too—but Rosalind is almost certainly also wondering what I am doing, and why I am so different when my parents are away, tending to my father’s business.

  My father doesn’t stand and admire the views at our estate. He can’t be bothered to stop what he’s doing and look at anything, not unless it involves a plan to make him money. My mother wouldn’t admire the view either, not unless it involved a new Hermès handbag or came with a certified seal of my father’s approval.

  I should go outside and stop being such a creeper. I probably shouldn’t have snapped the pics I took three minutes ago or the two-minute long video before that, but I can’t help myself. I give Harlow five more minutes before she goes back to making snow angels on the ground again—though in no universe is there enough snow on the lawn for that.

  Finn’s landed himself in a juvenile detention center upstate until he graduates.

  His father’s company is being traded for penny stocks at the moment.

  Harlow and I have enrolled into Columbia to start in the fall.

  The last semester of our senior year is looking better than ever.

  Baseball season.

  Touring Columbia’s campus.

  Graduation.

  It all awaits us, but for right now, I am happy to stand back a little longer and watch the one I love play in the snow.

  Warning

  Want cuddles and rainbows until the final installment?

  Then stop he
re.

  I repeat, DO NOT PASS.

  This next villain is the worst combination of cruel and cunning, and if he has his way, the entire gilded empire at Voclain Academy will crumble, his son most definitely included.

  A Note From Oliver

  I’ve sat back and watched as my son fucked up his life for far too long. First, I watched him nearly end himself last year with the pills and the booze. Then, this past spring, I kicked and screamed as he broke up the best damn arranged marriage in North America’s history. A union between him and Lila Hildebrand would have solidified the Beckett name as American royalty for the next hundred goddamn generations. Now, in the past four months I’ve spent enough money to buy an entire Swedish village protecting him from Berkshire’s hometown justice.

  He was the perfect, albeit mildly annoying, son before that girl showed up. He obeyed. He didn’t cause problems, nothing extraordinary anyway. But she came in like a tidal wave and ruined everything, and I’ve spent the last year and a half cleaning up the mess left in her wake.

  I’m fucking tired, and I won’t let anyone threaten the legacy of our bloodline. If Ian won’t come to his senses, then I’ll hammer them into his insolent skull myself bit by bit.

  He will do what I say.

  He will end it with the girl.

  And he will carry the torch of our family’s legacy as a good son should.

  He’s a child, and children need guidance. Well, dear boy, your father has arrived.

  Now, pour a scotch and get ready for the final round ‘cause I don’t play children’s games, and I may lose a battle, but I never, ever lose a war.

  — Oliver Aldrich Beckett, III

  Thank You

  Thank you for reading the third installment in Harlow and Ian’s story! I hoped you loved it as much I loved writing it. If you have a moment, would you leave a review here? This the number one way to support indie authors like me.

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  Thank you again.

  — Jordan

  www.authorjordangrant.com

  A Wicked Empire: A Tentative Schedule

  Voclain Academy: Ian and Harlow

  Beautifully Wicked (Book One).

  Beautifully Wanted (Book Two).

  Beautifully Yours (Book Three).

  2021: Beautifully Mine (Book Four).

  Standalones

  Fall 21: Archie’s book.

  Winter 21: Everett’s book.

  2022: Chase’s book.

  2022: Gabriel’s book.

  About the Author

  Jordan Grant is a lover of all things romance! She likes to write about edgy bad boys and romances that delve into the blur between love and hate. She is an avid fan of all things sweet including red wine and cupcakes (red velvet, please!).

  Want more enemies to lovers? Give Cruel Cravings by Jordan a try here.

  Always had a crush on James Bond? Checkout The MI6 Playboy by Jordan here.

  www.authorjordangrant.com