by Elena Monroe
The library closed every night at 9 p.m., but our keycards worked no matter what time it was. Clearly a weak spot in their security. I slipped inside, even closing the door behind me slowly and carefully, just in case security was doing rounds.
He was only ever here on the weekends when the student body was sure to get themselves into more trouble. He was middle-aged, overweight, and wore headphones on patrol—so not smart. He was easy to trick and avoid.
I climbed the stairs to the second level like I was on autopilot for more privacy in a dark, closed library. I sat on the edge of the thick cherry wood table waiting to hear the door marking her arrival.
Me: Upstairs.
Arianna: Not creepy at all…
I smirked, pressing my tongue to the inside of my lip distorting it from growing bigger. She was a smart ass 24/7, in-person and in-text. Every time her attitude transferred to her tongue, I swear my dick jumped into action, reminding me my taste pool became smaller and smaller, down to one person, named Arianna.
She walked along the railing, letting her fingers slide behind her against the chunky wood banister, making me notice his journal in her hand. We were both armed with evidence, ready to throw it at each other, and eventually call a truce.
“So I’m here. You ready to spill some secrets, King of Arcadia Prep?”
Her fierce tone didn’t make me want to do anything but fuck her against the banister while she called me king.
I waved the folder in front of me, out from being rolled up in my back pocket of my jeans. “Why did you really leave your last school?”
Her composure shattered as soon as she saw the ugly blue folder that hid everything for her, sealed up and states away. She didn’t even have to carry it around unless her subconscious was weaker than she wanted to seem.
“Where did you get that?”
“That’s not an answer. Who’s the kid with the restraining order?”
She looked like she wanted to run away, but she forced herself still, shaking slightly, as her face tried to regain her normal composure again. “What are you? How does Henry Jon know about you?”
“I’m not answering anything until you do. Eye for an eye.”
Her eyes looked down, contemplating if I was tricking her. I wanted to, but Arianna was in even more danger now. The circle was ready to sacrifice her, and she was still in the dark.
I was being forced to show my hand before I was ready. I stepped closer to her, leaving the folder on the table and letting my hand take hers. She felt warm compared to my constant cold, and she tingled against my palm, trying to melt my heart in the process.
Her eyes snapped up to mine.
“I’m not tricking you. I can’t protect you if you aren’t honest with me,” I did my best to keep my tone even.
She scoffed, like everything I said was a lie that she couldn’t believe. “That’s rich, coming from the guy who's done nothing but lie to me.”
I searched my memories trying to find a lie in our timeline and came up empty. If anything, I was brutally honest.
She saw my confusion bubbling to the surface. She pushed past me to lean against one of the bookshelves, taking the warmth away from our interlaced fingers.
“I don’t need more lying, Bolton. My mom died when I was younger, and all I heard was nothing but lying: how it would get better, it’d hurt less, how I’d feel her with me no matter what... All lies. Then my dad said he’d be around more and take different positions for work. More lies. I don’t even know where he is in the world. Top secret, even from his daughter. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. So, don’t be another person lying to me.”
I watched her sit on the table and leave me by the banister like she took my upper hand from me. Crossing her legs, she looked comfortable, waiting for everything to unravel, and confident she’d get what she wanted.
I was about to storm her castle and claim her comfort and confidence as my rewards.
“I’m not just lying to you. I'm lying to myself, Arianna. Do you think I want to be this guy? Bound to a human form, soaked in hormones and angst, and chasing after you? I’m a fucking god. I don’t belong here.”
“Makes two of us, yet, here we are stuck together at Arcadia Prep.”
I let my hand manipulate her knee off the other and my palms held them apart long enough for me to push myself between them. I wasn’t just storming her castle; I was winning now. I pulled her knees towards me, forcing us closer. I could see her pulse quicken on her neck. Her lips collapsed, and her chest expanded and deflated quicker.
“What happened in Texas, Arianna?”
Her response sounded like a moan, breathy and low: “I can’t explain it. It’s not that easy…”
“Something happened to that boy because of you?” I made sure my hands smoothed up the outside of her thighs and stuck to her ass. She wasn’t fighting me; she had no reason to. She didn’t even see me winning the battle.
Everything about her hesitated, even her lungs expanding into my own chest. I was so close that I could smell her minty gum from her puffs of breath escaping. . She was pouring out the warmth of her heart against my cold.
“It happened so fast. I didn’t… he just started having a seizure. I didn’t give him anything. We weren’t drinking. He just grabbed my arm.”
She didn’t look at me while she spoke, like it’d change how I looked at her when I was sure the blood on my hands were going to trump whatever happened in Texas.
I pushed her obnoxious purple hair behind her ear, like I was pulling back the curtain to her glassy eyes, which welled up instantly as her sentence finished.
With my thumb catching her chin, I pulled her face up to mine, and she whispered between us, “I don’t want to hurt you. That’s all I do, hurt people, make them love me just to leave them.”
She wasn’t going to hurt me; she was going to be hurt by me.
“You aren’t going to hurt me. Impossible.”
“I hurt him without even trying.”
“I’m not him. I’m your king and—”
Arianna cut me off before I could finish when I realized she finished my thoughts for me. “…and I’m your queen.”
Without any answers, I pushed my lips onto her minty mouth, as my hand snaked up to her throat with a loose grip, waiting for her to react. Her tension melted into my hand as my grip got tighter, and I forced my tongue into her mouth. I wasn’t weak, and neither was she. We could endure the pain, the suffering, the chasing, even the hating, and still be bound to each other for lifetimes beyond this one.
Her legs wrapped around the back of my thighs pulling me closer and pushing my now obvious hard on into her accessible crotch. She was testing my self-control that was non-existent right now.
While my mouth opened for her tongue, my hands slipped between us and unzipped her hoodie to expose just a black bra under the fabric. She was prepared to storm my castle and hit me right in the hormones.
She arched her back, pushing herself further into me, when my fingers danced along her bra clasp. She was oozing a kind of experience I didn’t want to think about right now, even though it danced in the back of my mind, reminding me that our time apart was only getting more and more sinful with each lifetime.
“Bolton, I’m not… you don’t need to be so gentle.”
I pushed the hoodie down her arms and left her exposed in nothing but the small amount of fabric that covered her breasts. I produced a small switchblade between us. She begged me for anything but gentle, so that was exactly what I was going to give her.
“Oh, I won’t be.”
The sound of the blade springing into action made her jump, and that reaction alone had me grinning, while the ache below my zipper demanded more than this teasing.
I dragged the knife along her warm skin up to the center of her bra, where it looked most fragile and stressed. With one quick motion, I had pulled the blade towards me cutting between the cups and leaving her even more exposed.
Her bre
asts weren't anything but perfect: dusted in bronze, her nipples a shade of dark pink that complimented her tan. I couldn't help myself when my hand grasped her tits from underneath forcing them into an even more perky state, while my mouth closed around one.
Arianna shifted under my tight grip, but I was listening for her to change her mind. Her voice stayed silent, only producing small whimpers and moans, because of my lips tugging her nipple between my teeth.
She was an old wound, the lifetimes of losing her, that I was healing in this moment.
Her hand dipped between us pushing her chest further into my mouth when I switched nipples. Her hand put pressure on my hard ridge outlined in my sweats, running her palm against my length, testing any more resolve left in me.
My hands followed her lead, dropping down to her crotch and pushing the inseam of her jeans right into her clit.
I knew everything about my Sagittarius—what made her moan, what made her squirm under my gaze, where her sensitive spots hid from the world. I knew exactly how to make her submit to me.
I could feel the tension between us becoming unbearable. It was stiffening the air, making it hard to see or focus on anything but the tension.
My teeth gritted against her unblemished skin, further and further, not helping to alleviate any of the hormones.
Her exacerbated voice hummed, “I thought you hated me.”
“Who says I stopped?”
Now wasn't the time to exploit my inner monologues and let her know just how much I considered love to be a razor sharp, fine line separating love and hate.
Her thinking I hate her only spurred her on when her hand became absent from my hard on and she rustled with the button on her jeans instead. She was impatient.
Her ex-boyfriend in Texas must have been inexperienced and the opposite of a lasting impression. She was damn near desperate to get her pants off to grant me access to where I really wanted to be.
Our determined mouths clashed, consuming each other, and our hands tried to keep up the same pace.
Nothing could keep our pace after her fingers scraped down my sides, pushing at the waistband of my sweats. Instinctively, I wrapped my hand around her throat putting all the attention back on her.
“You first.”
She stood up from off the table, still completely calm, like my hand was a goddamn accessory she didn't mind. I tightened my grip, and she struggled to stay upright and shake her pants down at the same time, leaving her exposed, naked, but beautifully strong.
Not one vulnerable spot I could exploit.
In a quick motion, I stepped forward, leaving her no room to escape, forcing her back to her original position, legs open for me to get comfortable between. I couldn't drag my eyes up from her body, memorizing every curve and dip on her frame. She was the right amount of comfortable, not too much or lacking, and she moved her body like she knew exactly what I wanted to see when she laid back, taunting me.
Suddenly, her legs collapsed together with force, making it hard to see her glistening for me anymore. “I completed my round of show and tell. Your turn.”
“What do you want to know?”
She sat up, and the mood didn't change. The tension still hung as heavy as I was. My hand clasped around my length just to ease the ache, while she got off on my truths instead.
“Explain. What are you then?”
“Zeus is my king. I'm not supposed to be here, none of us are. We were released and got stuck here.”
I was hoping it was good enough, but I could see her wheels turning, spinning right into how crazy what I was saying sounded. I wasn't an idiot. I knew what I was saying was incomprehensible, but it was the truth, one I hadn’t planned on ever sharing with anyone, until her.
Keeping crazy to yourself is a lot easier.
Her eyes were at half-mast, and her hands ran up under my shirt, her nails scraping down me after. “Henry Jon? Rosalia?”
“That was the first time we were released, the Victorian Era. We were meant to influence the people, propel evolution forward, inspire change—”
She cut me off too impatiently. “Influence? How?”
“As I was saying... our signs, all the traits based on us, influence people around us. Each of us is different. When you're around Luna, you feel more patient and aware of others, when you're around Nyx, you feel more intense and competitive.”
“What am I when I'm around you?”
“What you should be: motivated and relentless.”
I shrugged my hoodie off, letting it fall down my arms, and the zipper made a small sound when it hit the floor below me. She didn't waste any time ripping my shirt from me aggressively, motivated, relentlessly.
I was happy to oblige.
I watched her eyes scan my body hungrily, moving from one defined muscle to the next, thanks to football. All of them started to ache from the hits I took not even a couple hours ago.
The heat still poured off my body in waves; my heart still pumped with leftover adrenaline; and now I felt shaky under the pressure of the hormones mixed with everything else.
She slowly opened her legs for me, like it was meant to be cherished. I didn't break eye contact when I jerked her legs forward, making sure I was between them this time, changing the tone she set easily.
She arched her back, pushing her growing need onto me, while my hands were busy tugging my sweats down, only enough to expose what I needed.
Pressing my balled up fists onto the table and leaning into her, meeting halfway, like any king would do for his queen. I searched the ocean in her eyes rimmed with violet hues to see if any hesitation was there, but I found not even one sliver of doubt.
She was all in.
She was comfortably wrapped around me.
“Bolton… Just fuck me already… enough games.”
My queen reborn, she wasn't sweet and naive anymore; she was demanding and impatient. This version of her, modernized from the 1600’s, complimented who I was more than ever.
We were unstoppable, and no one would think to dethrone us.
I pushed my hips forward shifting my alignment easily when I felt my thick crown slip inside her warmth. She took my breath away, forcing my knuckles to push into the solid table even more, creating the opposite of white knuckles. Instead mine were red and bruised, exactly how I was going to leave Arianna, after letting me cross this line.
My hand snaked up between us, and my fingers wrapped around her throat, picking up the pace of my thrusts. She wanted to be fucked, not loved or treated like some virgin she wasn't.
That was something I already took; she just didn’t remember all of our past. I knew she loved the roughness. I knew every inch of her desires, because I had known her for lifetimes.
Her small hands clasped around my forearm, letting me know it was too tight. I knew she needed to focus on how good she felt inside of the oxygen I was cutting in half now.
She just needed to remember, and this seemed like a promising way. She tried to choke out my name, but my fingers on her vocal cords wouldn’t allow it.
She was going to drown in either the pleasure or the pain.
“Do you remember me yet?”
I saw the panic wash over her face, pairing well with the lack of oxygen. Nothing about my confessions or me were sinking in. I kept my focus on the human instincts, like satisfying my hormones, when I realized I couldn’t fuck her into remembering our past.
Maybe she isn’t the one. Maybe I wanted her to be so badly I fabricated every piece of evidence claiming she was.
I felt every part of our truce, all the progress, fall away with every motion of sinking between her legs. I was hate fucking her. Every thrust was more powerful, and the scowl on my face refused to let her see that I liked any of this.
She wasn’t Rosalia reborn; she wasn’t the one who was going to help us get home. Now I hated her even more for it.
Her lips nipped at my neck trying to reach me. “Bolton, slow down.” She was out of breath, and h
er legs were shaking against my waist. Her whole body shook its way into coming, and I had to force my face to stay angry. She was coming undone, and this provoked a grin I was pushing away.
“Just come already, Arianna,” my voice growled, sounding desperate for her to finish. I didn’t care about coming; I wanted her to remember and that ship sailed. My hand even let go of her throat and resumed its position on the table, knuckles buried into the lacquer and chips of the table.
“What?” she hissed out, like I directly offended her. I stopped my hips from burying my length inside her, defeated, and let my head hang low between us.
“I can’t do this. Not with you.”
I felt her legs fall from being pinned up against my hips, and she scrambled to cover herself up.
Her eyes looked betrayed and polished in wetness that I knew I didn’t want to stick around for.
Girls crying was always uncomfortable, and I never seemed to know what to say to make it stop. I always made sure I was out of sight before the flood gates opened.
Arianna
“Was this some kind of prank? Get the new girl alone, get her talking, and fuck me until you couldn’t even follow through on your own bullshit? You didn’t hate me enough for hallways anymore?”
Bolton didn’t even pull away from me after telling me how much of a mistake cutting my bra off was.
I pushed my palms into his chest to gain back control of my space, and the same feeling I got in Texas crawled up my spine—a charge of energy and rush that I didn’t know what to do with.
As soon as I felt my palms land against his bare chest, I felt the same sparks I did when I touched anyone in his dumb circle of friends.
When I touched my ex before, he had a seizure in trespassing territory that got us caught by security.
These were the only times I felt this kind of power.
Without any warning, Bolton pulled away too quickly, but not before making a face of complete anguish and pain gripping his chest where my palms were. My eyes wanted to roll, and I wanted to let the word “pussy” slip off my tongue.
