by Becker Gray
He shook his head, exasperation all over his face. “No, Aurora, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“That is what you’re saying. I’m not broken, Lennox.”
He ran his hands through his white-blond hair. “Fuck, look I’m just… I’m trying to take care of you, okay? I don’t think Phineas is the guy for you. Especially not when you need extra support.”
I thought of Phin’s bargain with me, of the blunt honesty he always had with me. He never treated me like I was fragile, and he always listened to what I said, even if he fought me on it after. “What’s really sad is that maybe you don’t know Phineas as well as you think you do. Because so far, he’s given me more respect than you have.”
My brother chewed his lip, uncharacteristic vulnerability shining in his eyes. “I guess I just wish I’d been here for you more. I wish I had been there for you that night.”
I wished he had been too. Maybe then someone could help me fill the holes in my memory. Maybe then someone could tell me all the things that happened that night.
Hell, maybe that was a way out of the mess with the Nichols. Tell my potential suitor and husband-to-be about how I’d been so hung up on Phineas that I got blitzed while partying with two other people I had no business partying with. Sometime during the night, one of them had left the party, leaving me alone with the other. Then things had turned, and there were large slots of time I didn’t remember.
The next thing I knew I was walking around New York in shredded clothes with no phone, no ID, and no money.
One good thing was that I had gone to a hospital to get checked out the next day. I’d read the results after the follow-up appointment while curled in the back of an SUV driven by a member of my security detail, trying to cry as silently as possible. No evidence of vaginal penetration.
It had been assault, but not rape.
Funny how it didn’t make the horror of that night any easier to live with, because the things I did remember were awful. Things that mocked me from the shadows in my dreams. Things I didn’t want to look too closely at even when I had my therapist’s help.
Things Lennox didn’t need to hear about. Things that would only depress Sloane and Sera. Things that would scare Phin off, never mind my mother and grandmother.
Despite what my therapist had gently told me, it was hard not to be afraid that everyone was going to mark me as damaged goods.
So yeah, I wasn’t racing to tell everyone in my life that I had fucked up like that. If everyone was giving me pitying looks now, what would it be like when they really knew how much the memories messed with my head? When they really understood the depths of how haunted I was?
Lennox and Phineas would be the worst. Lennox because as my twin, he would feel my misery as acutely as if it was his own, and he would feel responsible for it. And then Phineas, I knew how that would go. A lot of, oh, fuck, what did I do, how did I make you feel. And no one else knew that guilt.
One person living with the guilt was enough. I didn’t need it to be three of us.
“Are you all done here, baby brother?”
He looked at me. “Aurora, with everything the family has gone through with Dad and stuff, it’s you and me, okay? I’m here for you. You just have to talk to me.”
“Well, I’m done talking, Lennox. About this for sure. About Phineas too. He’s your best mate. If you want to make sure he doesn’t dick me over, you talk to him.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
“And not with your fucking fists, Lennox. Besides, Phineas is a better fighter than you and we both know it.”
He scowled at me. “Fuck you, Aurora.”
I laughed at that. “Wow, just being honest. Also, I don’t want my twin and my boyfriend duking it out like wankers. So tread carefully.”
He shook his head. “What has gotten into you?”
“Nothing. I’m perfectly fine.”
He nodded and brushed past me toward the door. With his hand on the brass handle, he called out, “If you’re perfectly fine, why is your hair still black?”
Fuck. The dyed hair was my little outward manifestation of my rage and my pain from Phin. I just… I knew how much Phineas liked my hair, so I’d changed it on purpose.
I didn’t let Lennox have that parting shot though. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a rebuttal. There was no point. He knew he was right, and so did I.
But right or not, I wasn’t ready to talk about Phin or Brantley or New Year’s Eve with Lennox.
Some things were best left unsaid.
Chapter Nine
Phin
A week later
“Tomorrow?” Aurora asked doubtfully. I couldn’t see her face, because she was currently sitting in my lap as she ate her lunch, but I knew there’d be an adorable line of displeasure between her brows. “What if I’m busy?”
I nuzzled my face into her neck, burrowing my way through all that midnight hair to get to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. “You won’t be too busy, princess. I’ve been pretending to be your boyfriend all week, and that means you’re back in the red again. It’s time to pay me what you owe me.”
She tensed in my arms, but it wasn’t a tense of umbrage, I didn’t think, because she pressed her thighs together and squirmed too.
“And what about the last time I paid you what I owed you?” she asked, and it sounded like she was trying to seem indifferent or dismissive. But she was still wiggling a little in my lap, like there was a pressure between her legs that needed relief.
I knew the feeling. I’d jerked off twice after going down her, and twice every day since then, and I still felt like I was losing my fucking mind.
“What do you mean?” I asked, running my fingertips over her knee to the place where the hem of her uniform skirt lay over her thigh.
“Well,” she mumbled as goose bumps erupted under my touch, “it didn’t seem like it was very much fun for you.”
“You’re wrong,” I responded, shifting underneath her so she could feel the thick length of my erection. She shivered as it pressed up against her bottom, and I gave a soft grunt at her reaction.
God, if only I could unzip right here and feed myself into her pretty pink cunt. If only I could feel around my cock what I’d felt around my finger a week ago…the tight, slick grip of her, snug and wet.
But I had a goddamn plan. The way I saw it, Aurora Lincoln-Ward owed me. She owed me for the two years we’d spent apart. And I wasn’t going to let her get away with making amends with her body, oh no.
She was going to pay with her heart.
People called me a playboy, and they used to be right. The only things I cared about were having a good time and having as much of a good time as possible. But then I’d kissed her, and something changed—something vital, deep down in my bones and marrow—although I hadn’t known what it was at the time. And of all the mistakes I’d made, and there were many, that was the one that haunted me the most. Because if I’d known, if I’d understood in that moment that I’d just kissed the only girl I’d ever truly, truly want, then I wouldn’t have jeopardized that shit even for a second.
But I hadn’t known. That kiss had left me stunned and unsteady and feeling not like the Phineas Yates everyone knew me to be. And then Aurora had left, and I felt like a castaway trying to navigate a roiling sea in a raft made of matchsticks and string.
So when that Croft Wells girl—Layla? Lily?—had slid out of the boozy fray of the party to purr and flirt, it had felt almost like a relief. Flirting I knew. Charming smiles and giggles out of people I knew.
It had been whatever giant, urgent thing that had been unleashed by Aurora’s kiss that I hadn’t known what to do with.
Anyway, if it had felt like a relief at first to find myself flirting like usual, it had quickly turned into panic as Layla/Lily/whoever had pulled herself up to my mouth to kiss me. As she’d slid her hands around my waist, I’d known from the first touch of her lips on mine that it was all wrong, all fu
cking wrong.
How could it have been right when I opened my eyes and didn’t see Aurora’s haunting golden ones looking back at me?
But my body hadn’t cared. Still fired up from Aurora, my dick had hardened, responding to the stimulus that my mind and my heart were already rejecting.
In the end, though, it hadn’t mattered that my mind and my heart knew better. It only mattered how it had looked. Aurora had been upset—I got that—but when I tried to find her later to explain, she was gone. I’d texted, I’d DM’d, I’d even tried to call so I could use my mouth-words to spell out what had happened, but she never answered. I found out later that Layla/Lily/whoever had smugly told everyone that we’d fucked that night. And when I tried to tell Aurora on the first day of third-year classes that the other girl had been lying, Aurora had refused to believe me.
She was ready to believe the worst of me. She wanted to believe the worst of me.
And that had stung if I was being honest. Yeah, maybe I was known for fucking around, for always being up for a good time, but I’d thought that she’d seen something else in me, something no one else had.
Which sometimes made me wonder if that thing I’d thought she’d seen had ever really been there at all. Maybe I was just a fuckboy. Maybe that was all I was good for.
But I’d had enough of being without her. She could fight me, she could hate me, but she was going to be mine, no matter what.
Maybe I was a playboy, but I was playing the game a whole new way now.
I was playing for keeps.
“Tomorrow,” I told her again and lifted her off my lap so I could stand. I didn’t bother hiding my hard-on from her or the rest of the dining hall as I set her back onto the chair. “And bring a coat. We’ll be outside.”
* * *
It was clear and bright the next morning—and thankfully dry too, since early April was still mud season at Pembroke Prep. Aurora showed up in the quad near the main building wearing a fitted leather jacket which perfectly highlighted the pert curves of her tits and the narrow dip of her waist. My hands itched to slide underneath the leather, to fondle her breasts until I could feel her nipples jutting against my palms. I wanted to see her wearing nothing but that jacket as I pressed the tip of my cock to her pretty cunt and began working my way inside.
But I couldn’t think too much about her pussy right now. If I did—if I remembered how it tasted and how it looked, tight and silky and crowned with soft, white-gold curls—then I’d be in for a miserable fucking day. Because I was taking a page from the Hellfire playbook and embracing what I really wanted from Aurora.
Everything.
“So where are we going?” she asked as we walked to my Jeep. “Are you planning on bingeing on my minge in the great outdoors?”
“We’re going for a little walk,” I replied, opening the door for her. “And no.”
I shut the door and then got to my side of the Jeep, climbing inside just as she said, “No cleaning my carpets today? Does that mean you’ve finally seen sense and you’ll let me toss you off like I’ve offered to?”
“Are you offering again?” I asked as I started the Jeep and pulled out of the school lot. Her security detail pulled out behind me. I’d had Lennox’s help arranging this excursion ahead of time, and while they’d be giving us some privacy during our excursion, there were some things they wouldn’t compromise on. Like following us to where we were going.
“Yes, I’m offering again!” she said, exasperated. “It was a blanket toss-off offer!”
“Do you actually want to jerk me off today?”
“Yes,” she said, and when I glanced over, her cheeks were pink. “But not because—well, because it’s the fastest way for me to pay you off for your…services. And if I happen to find it hot, that has nothing to do with you specifically, and everything to do with the circumstances. I’d find it hot if it were any other guy in your place.”
“Ouch,” I said, and it did piss me off a little, but I didn’t fire a retort back. We’d spent the last two years lashing out at each other, and that was stopping right now. Before I hadn’t cared about possessing her—I only cared about hurting her the way she’d hurt me—but now I was going to have her for good, and that meant a change of strategy.
It also meant being aware enough to realize that she was lying. Her cheeks were red, and she was fidgeting in her seat again. She wanted me as much as I wanted her.
I had her exactly where I wanted.
I pulled onto an overgrown lane in the woods that quickly narrowed to the point where the Jeep wouldn’t fit anymore. I parked the Jeep, turned it off, and then walked around to let her out.
She was already jumping down herself, of course, shooting me a vicious glare like my gallantry was some kind of trick meant to lure her into a false sense of security.
It was.
But there were some kinds of security I didn’t fuck around with. I handed her a small tube from the pocket of my jeans. “Here.”
She took it suspiciously. “What the bloody hell is this?”
“OC spray,” I said simply. “Let’s go.”
“Like for bears or something?” she asked as she followed me up the path into the woods. Behind us, I heard the crunch of her security detail’s tires on gravel and the opening and closing of doors, but no footsteps behind us. They’d stay down by the trailhead unless they were needed.
“There are only black bears in New England, they’ll leave you alone if you leave them alone,” I said. “No, the spray is for people. For me.”
“For you?” she asked incredulously. “Why?”
“Because I’m taking you into the woods alone, away from your security team, and I want you to feel safe with me,” I replied.
I wanted to stop and take her face in my hands and stare into those gorgeous eyes that had bewitched me so long ago. I wanted to hold her tight and keep her inside my arms forever. I wanted her to know that when I found out what that motherfucker Chad had done to her, I’d needed to light the entire world on fire for her. It was only the knowledge that Rhys had done exactly that as a favor to Lennox and Sera that had kept me from going full Frank Castle on that guy’s ass.
But I knew she wouldn’t want anything remotely close to compassion because it would feel too much like pity. And I especially knew she wouldn’t want it from me.
So I kept walking, and she kept following. After a minute, she said, “So you’ll bribe your way into cunnilingus, but you draw the safety line at a hike?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It feels arbitrary. Especially since I consented then and I’m consenting now.”
“Maybe it is arbitrary,” I said. “But in the dorm, we talked about what I was going to do beforehand, and I’m trying to surprise you now. And also there’s a definite creep factor about being taken into the woods by a guy you hate.”
She didn’t refute that she hated me, which wasn’t ideal, but she did say, “Well. I could take you if you tried anything dodgy. Sloane’s shown me a few things.”
“I have no doubt she has,” I said, ducking under a branch and then holding it out of the way for her to duck under too. We were walking uphill now, the path going all winding and squiggly as it curved its way up onto the base of the mountain. “But I want you to learn that you’re safe with me.”
“You don’t—” she sighed. “I’m not made of glass. Chad didn’t break me. This is exactly why I didn’t want you to know about what happened. Or anyone to know.”
This time I did turn to face her. I stepped close enough to see all the little golden threads and bronze crypts in her unearthly eyes. “You’re not made of glass, and you certainly aren’t broken. But how you feel matters to me.”
“That’s rich, coming from the person who’s essentially bribing me for sexual favors.”
I caught her gaze, but I didn’t touch her. “If it doesn’t feel different to you, what we’re doing and what happened over Christmas break, then I’ll stop.”
&nbs
p; I didn’t want to, but also it was possible that possession could have too high a price, and there were some things I couldn’t risk. I wanted Aurora scared of herself, uncertain of herself, not scared and uncertain of me.
I waited for as long as it took. And then she let out a long sigh.
“Yes,” she said finally. “It’s different.”
I gave a nod, and I’d started to turn back around when she said, “You’ve changed, you know.”
“I have?”
She started walking next to me as we continued up the hill. “Yes. You used to be so friendly, so charming.”
“You don’t think I’m trying to charm you?” I said.
“Orgasms don’t count,” she said, but her voice had gone a little hoarse as she said it, and I shot a wicked grin back at her.
“If you say so, princess. And if they don’t count, maybe I should give you as many as you can stand.”
“That, um,” she said. “That’s an idea. You never did answer me about me giving you a handy up here, by the way.”
“Oh,” I said, breaking through the trees onto a ridge carved from the mountain itself. “That’s because the answer is no.”
“No handy?” she asked. “Ah. A blowie then. Look, I don’t need all the theater of a chilly springtime walk, we could have done this in your dorm—” She cut off her own words as she joined me on the exposed ridge that overlooked the forested valley. In the far distance brooded the Pembroke campus, all stone and glinting windows. Flashes of the river peeked between the trees.
“Oh,” she said, stopping and staring at the view. “Oh.”
“No blowie,” I said. “But I do have a secret. Come here.”
She followed me with a curious expression on her face, and it was so fucking cute I wanted to die. But instead I led her to where the ridge widened into a craggy space which looked totally uninhabitable, the kind of place no sane person would ever try to live on.
Except someone had tried once, a long time ago.
Aurora gasped with wonder as she saw the half-crumbled walls and staircases to nowhere.
