by Becker Gray
Even though I’d just come, my shaft thickened behind my zipper, wanting inside that red-lipsticked mouth.
I gave Aurora a lazy smile. “Already ready for our first hook up session, I see.” I watched as she slowly closed her book, seemingly fighting for control. I couldn’t help but goad her a little more. “A little sooner than I thought, but I’m ready.”
“Are you daft?” she hissed. “You think that’s why I invited you here?”
I quirked an eyebrow. “It’s not?”
“Fucking hell, are you that thick?”
I let my smile widen into my wickedest grin. “You’re not talking about my dick, are you? Because the answer is yes.”
She shook her head, inky hair spilling over her shoulders. “Phin, this is serious. You agreed to be my fake boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I did. What’s the big deal? Why do you look so freaked out all of a sudden?”
“Because it’s one thing for you to kiss me once in front of my mum, but did it occur to you that we have to lie to our friends? That this charade just doesn’t go away? We have to be on all the time. Here at Pembroke too.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, it had occurred to me. I agreed to do it, didn’t I?”
She barked out a hysterical laugh. “Did you realize that means no fucking around on your part? No random girls, none of it? You’re neutered now, officially.”
If she only knew how neutered I’d already been. “I don’t need other girls. You’re my hookup.”
“Shut up, Phin,” she said, even though I was already done speaking. “You know yourself better than that, and I’m not going to survive the humiliation if you’re caught with your boner in some third-year’s mouth. This has to be real enough to fool everyone. If it’s not, the second I graduate, I’ll be shipped off to marry someone who thinks owning horses is an identity and that groping women at a wedding is okay. Does that sound awesome to you?”
My hands flexed with a reflexive possessiveness. “That’s not going to happen.” I hoped she couldn’t hear the feral intensity in my words.
“Yes, it will! Look, I’m not saying that you can’t be discreet. Because fine, whatever I gue—”
I interrupted her. “If we’re doing this, I’m not fucking around.” There would be no other girls.
Because I’d been ruined for other girls anyway.
She laughed a bitter laugh. “Sure, you’re not. But this is vital to this working. Everyone has to think we have something real.”
I leaned my shoulder against the bookshelf next to me, looking down at her. I’d already thought of this and had identified the single weakness in my plan. “We can fool everyone with one exception: your best friend. Sera will see the stink off this for miles to come. And then she’ll dispatch Sloane to cut off my balls.” Sera had always been a good friend of mine, and I had a healthy respect for Sloane—the same way surfers have a healthy respect for sharks—but I knew that Sera and Sloane wouldn’t hesitate to destroy me body and soul if they thought for a moment I was fucking with their bestie.
I admired that kind of loyalty, and it satisfied a primal part of me to know Aurora had such good friends. But I wasn’t in the market to make an enemy of Serafina van Doren. No one could survive that—except maybe Rhys, but he didn’t count because he didn’t have a soul to destroy anyway.
Aurora took a deep breath. “Sera won’t figure it out. I’ll make her believe it.”
I laughed as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Would you be quiet?”
“I’m sorry. But Aurora, darling, Serafina is the last person on earth I’d try to pull the wool over on. She’s never going to buy this. We should just tell her the truth, so she knows that I’m helping you instead of being a fuckboy and all.”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed at fuckboy, but she didn’t argue with my use of it, which irked me a little. “We are not telling her the truth,” she insisted, “so she’s going to have to buy it. Because everyone has to buy it. Which means we have to sell it.”
I sighed. “Why can’t we tell her the truth again?”
“Because she could maybe keep it a secret from the world, but she won’t keep it a secret from Sloane. And Sloane will almost certainly tell Lennox. And above all, Lennox can’t know, because he’ll try to white knight for me, and then he and my entire family will be fighting, which will be horrible. And that’s if Sera doesn’t also jump in and try to Olivia Pope the situation, and it’s already complicated enough without everyone else trying to fix it for me.”
I supposed I could see that. It was already plenty complicated with only Aurora and me. “Fine,” I said, “we’ll sell it. But I’m telling you now, Lennox is going to kill me once he sees us together.”
“He’ll only to kill you if I get hurt.”
“No one’s getting hurt,” I said shortly.
“Exactly. Because this isn’t real. But…” She stood and started pacing around the small gathering of chairs in front of the window and back along the lines of the bookshelf. “It has to look real. We have to look like we’re into each other. So we need a good story as to how we got together.”
I pushed off the bookshelf and shrugged out of my coat. Her eyes followed the movements closely, lingering over the exposed column of my neck and on where my sweater clung to my shoulders and arms.
I didn’t bother hiding my smirk at her perusal, which made her chuff and look away.
“For starters,” I said, getting back to business, “if you’re going to lie, stick to the truth. It’s easier that way. Less details you have to remember.”
“What? So to lie you stick to the truth?”
She was already chafing at this, I could tell. So I added to clarify, “We’ll tell them we got together at the engagement party. Which is accurate and not really lying at all, when you think about it.”
She studied me closely. “Okay. But how did it happen? Because we famously hate each other.”
I shook my head. “No. You famously hate me. We don’t hate each other.”
“Well, I need a really good reason why I would do this. Everyone knows I hate you. Everyone knows I put ipecac in your yogurt that one time.”
What?!
“That was you?”
She shrugged. “Guilty.”
I stared at her, the smirk utterly gone from my face, my stomach cramping with the mere memory of that miserable weekend last year. “I was sick for two days. I knew I was poisoned. Everyone tried to tell me I was being crazy, but I knew. I knew.”
“Are you going to whine about it now?”
I was floored. Completely. Aurora and I had played our little hating game on a clearly defined chessboard of fooling around with as many people as possible…or so I’d thought. I’d had no idea that physical pain was an option, not that I would have used it myself, but still. I could have at least been prepared.
I blinked at her. “You tell me you poisoned me, and I’m supposed to be cool with it?”
“I’m sure Mandy Rogers was there to comfort you,” she sniffed delicately, turning back toward the window, and then I understood.
“Ah,” I said softly. “So it was about Mandy.”
“It wasn’t about Mandy,” she said, still facing the window. “It was about you. You sent me that note saying you still thought about me. And then I went to find you to talk about it, and Mandy Rogers was in your lap with your hand up her shirt.”
The memory was etched into my brain. Except it was shaded in with a lot more longing and a fuck-ton more obsession. I’d been tormented for a year by that point, tormented by needing Aurora and yet knowing that she’d never forgive me for kissing someone else at Sera’s party, and then one evening, my control had splintered entirely apart and I’d written her that note.
The moment I’d shoved it under her door, I’d regretted it. Not once had I shown her any vulnerability—anything that indicated my heart pumped its red, red blood for her alone—and I suddenly felt like an animal who’d just bared its throat.
And then hours had passed without any word from her, without so much as a text or a DM, and I couldn’t take it. When Mandy had crawled into my lap at that night’s rugby team party, it felt like being in control of something again.
Even if it was being in control of something I hadn’t actually wanted.
“Aurora—Rory—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, turning toward me. “My nickname is for friends only.”
“And I’m not a friend?”
“You know bloody well that you’re not.”
I took a step toward her, my veins full of fire. “You’re goddamn right I’m not. I’m your boyfriend now.”
“Fake boyfriend,” she replied, her eyes full of sparks. “And we’ve gotten off topic.”
“That’s because the new topic was secretly poisoning me.”
“Which you deserved. Besides, it wasn’t that secret. The girls knew. Sloane was even my lookout.”
It was probably Sloane’s idea, taken right from her spy father’s plausible deniability playbook. “Fucking Sloane. You know she’s a bad influence.”
Aurora’s face split into an evil grin. “She is the best influence.”
“Best at sending me to the infirmary maybe,” I muttered. “I knew you hated me, but I didn’t think you’d try to kill me.”
“I didn’t try to kill you, Phin,” she responded sweetly. “I just wanted you incapacitated. Think of it as a minor maiming, really.”
I looked at her, my red-lipped, poisoning she-demon of a princess. My blood burned hotter, even as something ached inside my chest.
My voice was quiet as I spoke. “Okay then. How about you say I apologized to you for hurting you so badly it made you want to maim me.”
I could see her sides heaving under the distressed band T-shirt she wore. I could see a slight quiver to her chin before she ducked her head so I couldn’t see her face anymore.
“That’s fine,” she said after a long moment, and when she said it, her voice was strange. Like she didn’t know what to think of my suggestion. Like she didn’t know what to think of me. “That’ll probably work. Considering that’s not something that’s eever happened before. Sera might believe that.”
I tore my eyes away from her, glancing down at my hands. My jaw was tight. “You know, you never did talk to me about that night. The night at Sera’s.”
“We’re not talking about it now either,” she said, looking up again. “I’m here to solve a problem.”
Old anger flared in me. Old pain. “Well, you know if you did want to talk about it, maybe like two adults, we could do that. Or you could finally fuck me and get it out of your system.”
She scoffed. “Never gonna happen. You are a means to an end.”
She’d run for the fucking hills if she knew how much I was planning to make her my means and my end.
“That I am,” I said. “And not to worry, princess, I’ll make the means easy as you like. I’ll put my arms around you every now and again, kiss your neck, and everyone will believe us.”
She crossed her arms and gave me an impatient glare. “I know you think you can just throw some kisses around and it’ll seem fine. But we should know things about each other. Personal things, like real couples.”
Wariness crept over me. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, considering we haven’t really talked in two years, maybe you should tell me what you’re planning for school or something so if anyone asks, it will at least look like we’ve had a conversation and not just made out.”
The corners of my mouth pulled upward. “You’re that desperate to kiss me, huh?”
Her pupils widened with an automatic yes.
“No,” she said, that adorable little liar.
“Sure, you’re not. Okay, if you must know, I’m supposed to be headed to Princeton in the fall. Dad’s pretty insistent, but Mom wanted Dartmouth, so there’s still some tension about it. They’re mostly concerned with the connections I’ll make at school than with what I’ll actually study.”
Aurora’s lips press together before she admits, “Yeah, I know that particular truth well.” I got the sense that she didn’t super love empathizing with me.
“What will you do after school?” she added.
I looked back down at my hands, annoyed by the question. Not necessarily by her asking it, but by the question in general. “Not sure. I’m supposed to go into property and investments like my dad, but I want to sand my face down to the bone with a roof shingle whenever I think about it.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked. “What do you like to do in your free time?”
Think about you.
I ran my hand through my hair. “I guess I like fucking around with code and stuff. You know. Tinkering with apps.”
Her eyebrows lifted up, like I’d just told her I hand-pulled saltwater taffy as a hobby. “Apps?” she asked disbelievingly.
I shrugged. “I’ve got a few on the app stores and stuff.”
She still looked surprised as hell. “You program?”
I let out a soft laugh. “Well, don’t sound so incredulous.”
“Oh, I—” She suddenly seemed unsure, looking at me and then looking away. “I just didn’t know.”
“I do have a brain. I’m not just a pretty face and a giant dick.”
“You know, generally people wait for someone else to tell them that they’re pretty.”
“And what about the giant dick part?” I said in a devious purr. Which earned me the tiniest flicker of a smile, and fuck, I felt that smile all the way in my internal organs.
In my bone marrow.
“One day, I want to do a mobile platform for micro-lending in developing countries,” I said, still feeling her smile deep inside my body. “Obviously, I don’t need the money from developing it or anything, but I just think I should leave something behind that’s worthwhile, you know?”
“But you’re a Yates. Your family owns real estate all over the world. There’s a Yates tower on five out of seven continents.”
I lifted a shoulder and told her the truth. “I don’t care about any of that.”
“I suppose your dad wants you to care though.”
“Wanting me to care and me actually caring are two very different things.”
Her gorgeous mouth curved down a little. “That I understand.”
I met her gaze. “What about you? You off to go do princess things?”
She gave me a look. “And what exactly do you think princess things are?”
“I don’t know, wear a crown, tell people what to do?”
“Not quite,” she snorted. “Cambridge first. Then I have a list of charities I’m supposed to take over from Mum. And I’ll be a working royal. A lot of events, that sort of thing. Honestly, I just want to help people. I want to stamp my name on something that is mine alone. Her charities are fine—she supports children’s hospitals and the usual non-controversial stuff. And that’s great, but I want my own. You know, not just the politically safe same old, same old. I think I really want to do things for people who’ve been assaulted or abused. Kind of like a blue phone help line you see on college campuses sometimes, except not only on campuses, but everywhere somehow. So that no one ever finds themselves alone and hurt and then has no idea how to call for help or what to do next.”
Her passion curled at the edge of her words, like a flame licking at kindling, and I was transfixed.
My delicious evil princess. My obsession. She was brilliant.
And she was mine.
Aurora shifted under my scrutiny. “I mean, I need to flesh it out more, and then I’ll get started,” she said in a mumble. “But I think it’s something I can aim for, you know?”
I nodded. And then I said, quietly, “Anyone who thinks that you’re only a princess is a fool.”
She swallowed. “Um, thanks.”
The moment was strung between us, trembling on an electric wire. One wrong move and we’d both fry.
I rubbed a hand along my jaw, fighting for control. “You want to do the basic likes and dislikes thing?” I asked, changing the subject.
She swallowed again. She looked as skittish as a kitten right now. “Um, we could do the basic stuff via text, couldn’t we?”
“You running from me, princess?”
She glared. “I’m Aurora Lincoln-Ward, I don’t run.”
I smirked. “If you say so. And don’t you worry. When we kiss again, it will be because you’re begging for it.”
She kept glaring, but I could see the truth in her eyes. She knew I was right.
She knew she was going to beg.
Chapter Six
Aurora
We were about to run the gauntlet.
This was the true test. One we were certain to fail. Because this was the one where everyone was actually going to see us.
For the last week, I’d managed to avoid being seen with Phin in any kind of romantic way. Not that he wasn’t trying, because he was. Sometimes I would turn around after class and there he would be, grinning at me like a jackass. Sometimes he would wink at me, sometimes he would pull his lower lip between his teeth. Sometimes he’d look at me like he wanted to swallow me whole and then my heart would pound in my chest like I was running a race.
Jackass. Fuckwit, colossal arsehole.
But now, we were being put to the test. Iris, Keaton’s girlfriend, was back for a visit, and Keaton wanted to celebrate. Which I was all for because I missed Iris. But that meant there would be no avoiding anyone today.
Phin wrapped an arm around my waist. “Are you ready for this?”
