by Becker Gray
I stepped back toward her, but she stopped me with a booted foot to my chest.
“I don’t think so,” she said smugly.
“Aurora,” I growled, feeling very close to feral. “You don’t want to do this to me.”
“Oh,” she said, “but I think I do.” She hooked her other leg around the side of the desk, which spread her wide open again. She pushed her panties back to the side, giving me a clear view of her wet, satisfied cunt. “If you want to come, you can do it like this. Looking at me. If you don’t want to do it like this, then I’ll leave and you can wank off alone. Your choice.”
The sound that came out of me was something like a snarl, but my hand dropped to my cock as I started masturbating myself. I leaned into the boot still braced against my chest and dropped my gaze to the slick heaven beneath her skirt, my fist shuttling hard and fast on my dick.
Her lips parted as she watched me, and she was breathing faster again, as if watching me jerk off for her turned her on.
“Take a good look,” I rasped. “Next time I come, you’re going to be bouncing on this.”
A hot glare belied by the little squirm her hips gave at that. “We’ll see.”
The release chewed at the base of my spine, hot and hungry, and with a grunt, I pushed her boot off my chest, and stepped close to her just in time to jet long stripes of white across her skirt and thighs. I painted her as well as I could, stroking myself with vicious fucks of my fist until my balls were drained. And then I stepped back to admire my handiwork.
She looked pissed off and horny too, exactly how I liked her, and with my cum sprayed across her thighs and her skirt, she looked like mine.
Which was even more how I liked her.
“Now I owe you a new skirt,” I said with a smirk, zipping up.
She called me something nasty in German—I wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t take Noam Chomsky to figure out that it wasn’t something nice—and then pushed off the desk with another glare. “Verpiss dich, ziegenficker,” she seethed as she stalked to the door.
“I love you too!” I called after her, a smile spreading across my face.
She left with a middle finger in the air and a slam of the door, and then I grabbed my satchel, deciding to skip the rest of the day.
As fun as it was to be dragged into random rooms for energetic hatefucking, I wanted more.
And I was going to get it by giving her everything that I could.
Maybe even part of her dream.
Chapter Nineteen
Aurora
Okay, so I fucked Phin again the next day. And the day after that.
And the day after that too.
Not that it changed anything—I wouldn’t let it change anything. Even though every time we touched felt like I was being lit on fire from the inside out. Even though every night I fell asleep with tears sliding out of my eyes as I ached to feel his arms around me.
I was still in love with him. Because I was a brainless fool.
In the week that followed, we fucked every day, him even showing up at my window twice like a fucking vampire in the dark, sucking me dry of pleasure and then leaving me limp and panting before he disappeared back through the window again.
But he didn’t fight me anymore, and he didn’t try to convince me that he was innocent. In fact, he barely spoke at all, unless it was to tell me to show him my tits or to bounce harder on his cock. He was a lustmolch—a sex maniac—so I told myself that he wasn’t talking because he knew there was no point and he was just there for the sex. I told myself he wasn’t talking because he didn’t care.
But even as I thought those things, I knew that I was lying to myself. Because there was no missing that despite how snarled and tangled everything between us had become, he still cared so damn much. His eyes were full of it, scorching me with the things he wasn’t saying. And the way he held onto me as we fucked sometimes… It was like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver.
If that weren’t enough, there were the bags under his eyes and the way he kept missing classes and meals, along with the looks the other Hellfire boys gave me, like I’d ripped out his heart and spat in the bloody cavity where it used to be.
Which wasn’t fair! He’d ripped mine out first!
I was sitting cross-legged on the library floor, brooding at a wall, when my twin came in and sat down next to me.
“You haven’t dyed your hair recently,” he said, gently poking at my fresh blond roots.
I didn’t bother swatting him away. “Haven’t felt like it.”
“Doesn’t seem like you’ve felt like much recently.”
I didn’t answer. The only things I’d felt like doing were having sex with Phin and then crying alone in my bed after having sex with Phin. “That’s what happens when you’re cursed to fall in love with a heartless and sophomoric shithead.”
Lennox didn’t answer at first, just dropped his hand from my hair. “You’ve fallen in love with him?”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest. “He’s just like Daddy. A charmer and a liar and a cheat. I should know better, and yet, I’m just like Mum, just like all his victims. A sucker for a pretty face and some sweet words.”
Lennox sighed and stretched out his legs. “He’s not like Dad, Rory, and I think you know that, deep down. Dad wanted everything, didn’t he? A family and mistresses and money and property, and he wanted to play the doting father, the English country gentleman, and the cosmopolitan London financier all at the same time. He was the brand of selfish that would never be satisfied, no matter how much he swindled or how many mistresses he shagged. But Phin has only ever wanted you. For two years, it’s only been you. I know it must have hurt seeing him with that girl at Sera’s party that summer. I know it’s hurt every time you’ve seen him with another girl since. But you’ve hardly been celibate either.”
I scowled. “He fucked around on me first.”
“He kissed a girl after he kissed you for the first time. Yes, it was shitty of him, but you were hardly betrothed to be wed.” From the corner of my eye, I could see him drop his head back against the bookshelf we sat against. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from loving Sloane,” he added softly, “it’s that nobody ever actually wins the game when you keep score.”
I stared out into the stacks, my scowl fading. He was right. I hated it, but he was right.
And I thought maybe that I’d known that for a while now, somewhere inside myself. That this hurting him because he hurt me spiral never made me feel better. That maybe, in the grand scheme of things, a wayward kiss two years ago could be forgiven.
After a few moments of silence, he nudged me with his shoulder. “Keaton told me something interesting today.”
“I don’t care,” I mumbled.
“I think you will care. He told me that Lea Clayton’s baby for sure isn’t Phin’s.”
I started to scoff, but Lennox kept going. “It’s Brantley Nichols’s baby.”
The scoff died in my mouth, along with all the thoughts in my brain. “What?”
“Mmhm. The same Brantley who was creeping on you at the engagement party, remember?”
The same Brantley who Mum and Oma want me to marry.
I was about to tell Lennox this, but then I changed my mind, because if I told him about the arranged engagement, then I’d end up telling him about the fake relationship I started with Phin in order to get out of it. And I didn’t really feel like talking about that right now.
Also, I had to know more. “So Brantley is the father?”
“Yes,” Lennox confirmed. “And that would spell big trouble for Lea, because she was forbidden from seeing Brantley. Apparently, he’d been promised by his parents to someone else.” Lennox didn’t say that part with any strange looks in my direction. It definitely seemed like he didn’t know about what Mum and Oma had wanted. “So she was hoping she could pass the baby off as Phin’s and only get the teenage pregnancy lecture
from her parents instead of the teenage pregnancy by the off-limits boy lecture.”
“Fuck,” I said, my thoughts rushing back in a jumble. Brantley. Lea. Phin.
Oh God, Phin. I’d been so fucking wrong.
“Apparently Caroline Constantine is furious,” Lennox said. “She’d helped broker Brantley’s arranged engagement or whatever, and now all her plans have been undone by this.”
It was my turn to drop my head back against the bookshelves. “I fucked up,” I whispered. “When he told me that he hadn’t been with Lea—not now and not even then, aside from the kiss—I didn’t believe him. I said… Oh, Lennox, I said awful things.”
Lennox pressed his shoulder against mine. Twin-speak for it’s okay. “Everyone knows you’re a spitfire, Rory. That’s why we love you—because you’re strong as fuck and you give everyone hell. But it’s okay to be vulnerable too, sometimes. I’m the living proof of that.” I rolled my head to look at him and found him already looking back at me. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he continued softly, “but after this last month of seeing you together, I think Phin can be trusted with you.”
I blinked back tears. If Lennox was saying that, then that meant something.
Lennox squeezed my hand and then rolled easily to his feet. “You should check your email,” he said. “I think there’s something in there for you.”
* * *
A few minutes after he’d left, I did as he suggested and checked my email on my phone. My inbox was filled with the usual cluster of school emails and random PR requests that I’d shunt off to someone on Mum or Oma’s team, but there was one from an address I didn’t recognize.
The subject line read: Phineas Yates Invites You to Download an App for Beta-Testing.
Curious, I opened up the email to see… Well, to see not much more than that. Just a link with some instructions on how to download the beta version of the app, and a short note at the bottom:
Until we can put a blue phone on every corner.
– p
I clicked on the link and began downloading the app, which was called, fittingly enough, BluePhone. And then when it had finished downloading, I opened it up to see a sleekly designed interface which walked me through the steps of installing a widget on my Home Screen or programming the buttons on the side of my phone to automatically call 911 or to send an auto-text for help along with my location to a custom list of pre-approved contacts. There were also options for contacting local non-law enforcement safety resources instead, depending on the city you were in. There was a function built in so that one day Bluetooth-capable jewelry could be paired with the phone and then discreetly used to call for help. There were sections in the app to help you navigate what steps to take if you’d just been hurt, attacked, insulted, or robbed. There was a walking mode that would call for help if it detected a scream or a shout, and also a driving mode for when you were in a car with someone else behind the wheel.
Basically, it was everything you could find on Google or fumble your way through but centralized into one easy interface and bundled together with customizable SOS features. It would turn every phone that had it into a blue phone. And if I’d had it on my phone that night…
That mattered, but I found that this made it matter less—or maybe it made the mattering less heavy to carry—knowing that there would be a concrete way to help someone who might need it in the future.
Another thing that mattered? Phin had made this. He’d made this for me and all the people I wanted to help one day.
Suddenly, the circles under his eyes and the missed classes made sense. He’d been working on this. Working on this for me.
I was already on my feet and striding out of the library, wondering if I should call or text or simply show up at his dorm room when my mother called.
“Hello?” I asked, walking out into the courtyard that separated the library from the rest of the campus.
“Aurora,” Mum said. There was a weariness to her voice, but she sounded happy too. Maybe cautiously happy, but I could still hear the rare brightness in her words. “I have some news.”
“Is it about Brantley Nichols knocking up a girl?” I asked as I ducked into the boys’ dormitory. It wasn’t evening yet, so the doors weren’t locked, but I did see my eternal security shadow slip in behind me. They were discreet, but always there.
“Yes,” Mum answered, sounding surprised. “How did you know?”
“It’s Pembroke, Mum, everyone eventually learns everything. And you know I can’t marry Brantley now. Scandal aside, there’s obviously some kind of relationship between him and Lea—”
“I know, darling. It’s why I called. Caroline Constantine has been in touch with me, apologizing for the mess of it all. The Nichols are close friends of hers, and I think she was hoping a connection between you and Brantley would keep us close to the Constantines too. Which was shrewd of her.”
I knocked on Phin’s door as Mum spoke, my stomach twisting in on itself as I waited for him to answer.
He didn’t.
“But in all this, I think she’s found a new opportunity. She’s agreed to smooth things over with me about all this in exchange for them dropping their suit against us. So we are safe—and you are free from having to form a relationship with Brantley.”
“I wasn’t going to anyway,” I said honestly, turning back down the hallway to the stairs. I’d check the roof, which was the informal Hellfire haunt, and then if Phin wasn’t there, I had another idea of where he might be at this time of day.
Mum sighed. “I think I knew that. I think I knew you wouldn’t do it.”
“It was unfair of you to lay that at my feet,” I told her, my throat tight. “You know I love you and Lennox and Oma, but that’s just not a fair thing to ask anyone, no matter how much they love you.”
A pause. I was up on the rooftop now, and it was empty, save for a discarded Macallan bottle and—for some unknown Hellfire reason—a taxidermied squirrel.
I started back downstairs.
“You’re right,” my mother said softly. “I was scared. Scared of having nothing for you and Lennox to build futures on. Scared like I was that day when we learned what your father had done and I knew they would take everything that wasn’t nailed down. And then they took the house too. And yes, I’m a princess, and yes, we could go back home, and I’ll never forget how lucky we were. But the feeling of your entire life crumbling before your eyes—not knowing what was going to happen next…” She took a deep breath. “I guess it frightened me more than I thought. Because when the Nichols threatened us, that fear was all I could feel. All I could perceive.”
I found my security person at the foot of the stairs. “Can you drive me somewhere?” I mouthed to her, and she nodded. We started walking in the direction of the parking lot.
“I was wrong to ask you to do that. You’re right. And I’m sorry.”
I let out a long breath. I was glad she admitted that she was wrong and that she’d apologized. And honestly… “It’s okay, Mum. I really cannot stress enough how little I was planning on doing what you wanted me to.”
She laughed, the sound thick and emotional, but genuine too. “That’s my Aurora. You never did like going the way you were told.”
We got into the car, my security team member and me, and after I whispered where I wanted to go, I told Mum, “That’s right. And also… I think I’m in love with someone else anyway.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding surprised. “I’d been beginning to suspect that you’d invented that relationship to get out of marrying Brantley.”
I hesitated. “It’s a long story.”
“But you’re in love?”
“I’m in love.”
Our SUV pulled out of the lot as Mum said, “I fell in love once too, Aurora. Be careful.”
I watched as the trees passed us by, unfurling tender new leaves in the April sun. And I told her the truth as I drove to find Phin.
“I think I’ve been to
o careful for far too long.”
* * *
The hike wasn’t as long as I remembered, but it felt much steeper—probably because I was trying to run up the mountain in my eagerness to get to him. His car had been parked at the base, and as I got up to the ridge where the castle ruins sat, I could see his silhouette against the view. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, dark and tousled hair, all of it framed by the trees which were still mostly in their winter austerity, with only the faintest hint of green to soften it all.
I slowed down as I approached him, wondering what I could say. What I could possibly say.
Finally, as I sat down next to him against one of the walls, I said, “I got your app.”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah?”
“I love it.”
He let out that deep breath, little by little. “Good. I mean, I’m glad. I’d started building it after the first time we talked, but after the fight we had up here, I needed to finish it.”
“Because of what I said,” I sighed. “Phin, I’m sorry. I never meant to make you feel like you were only good for flirting and fucking. I should have believed you. Listened to you.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I know why you didn’t. Your dad sucks, Aurora. And even your mom and grandmother sucked a little. And I’ve done my best to make you think that I suck too, just because I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing how much it hurt that night when you wouldn’t let me explain what had happened. When you wouldn’t listen afterward when I tried to talk to you about it. You had every reason not to believe me, and every reason to think I was a fucktrumpet or whatever it was you called me. But the truth is that I care what you think, and I care what your dreams are. I care about what you need, whether it’s making sure other people feel safe during a night out or avoiding marriage to a guy named Brantley.”
He turned to look at me. “I know you’re scared to trust me,” he said softly. “And honestly? I’m scared to be trusted. But let’s try.”
