by Jordan Grant
“You always know how to ruin a moment, Becky,” he says, scooping up the dropped book and handing it to me. As he moves to leave, he turns back to me and says, “Think about it?”
It is all I can do to nod.
I delay it as long as I can, though I feel Ian’s gaze boring into me like he’s trying to develop Superman-level x-ray vision. Yet, I continue to stare between the stacks at the wall of stone-and-mortar preventing me from running away. I put on what I hope is a resting bitch face and turn toward my only chance of an exit. Well, it’s either face Ian or climb the stacks, and I don’t like my odds of not falling to my death.
Holding my breath, I spin on my heel. The sight of him immediately steals my breath away, and I feel as it evaporates in an instant from my lungs.
If Archie looked like a J. Crew model, Ian looks like he stepped out of the pages of a Saint Laurent catalog with long legs made even longer by the tailored slacks he wears with a bomber jacket and a ribbed tee. From head-to-toe, he is dressed in black. The only color on him is a line of silver stitching on the wrists of his jacket and the sheen of metal on his belt buckle.
Ian glares at me like I have offended every moral he holds dear, held a good-riddance party on the graves of his ancestors, and castrated him in one day. The vein at his temple bulges, throbbing as his nostrils flare.
A fire burns beneath the furnaces of silver in his gaze. He could murder me if he wanted, and he looks like he is contemplating it. I should say something, try to smooth the churning waters, but pride is a cruel bitch, and she won’t let me bow as long as I can stand.
Ian raises a lone eyebrow at me. He is a dark angel sent to earth for the sole purpose of making me sin.
“What’s your answer then, Stormy?” He steps forward, erasing the distance between us, and runs his thumb over my bottom lip. Heat explodes in my belly as a throbbing beats to life between my legs. “Are you going to kiss Archie like you did me?”
“That’s none of your business!” I snap.
He smiles because I never snap. I always have a smart-ass comeback. Only this time he has hit a nerve, and he knows it.
His fingers leave my lip to play with the black lock of hair near my temple again.
“You’re going to get us in trouble with the librarian.”
His steely gaze locks with mine. “You afraid of a demerit, sweetness?”
“You’re not?”
He scoffs. “They aren’t kicking anyone out of this place. They make a fortune off us.” He winks at me. “Plus, I’ll take all the demerits I can get if it means tasting you.”
Where’s a good comeback when I need one? Because the only thing I can think right now is Me Too.
“Remember that favor you owe me?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say reluctantly, although I never really agreed to it, but he did help Molly with Finn when she needed it most, and I am grateful.
“Time to pay up.” He takes a step closer, and it’s like he sucks all the air out of the room. Why. Can’t. I. Breathe. “You are devouring me, Stormy. I can’t go five fucking minutes without thinking about you. I’m going to fail all my classes and lose all my friends. My parents will probably disown me, but I don’t care. All I can think about is burying myself inside you and fucking you until you beg me to stop.”
Holy. Crackers.
“And would you stop?” I breathe. I already know the answer from the smile that plays upon his lips.
“No, sweetness.” He nuzzles my hair, his naughty words kissing the shell of my ear. “I’d make you come again and again and again until you’re just as obsessed with me as I am you, until you’re in class and you can’t even hear the professor’s words because all you can think about is riding my cock.”
His tongue darts out to lave over my neck. I moan as a jolt of electricity shoots straight down between my thighs.
I should run—I want to want to run—but I can’t. And what’s the old librarian—I think her name is Ms. Ephrem—going to do? Swat at him with her cane? Throw chunks of black licorice from the front desk? God knows, they are hard enough to take an eye out—I’ve never seen anyone eat them, and I’m pretty sure I saw her dust them once—but her thick, tortoise-shell glasses tell me her aim is certainly shit.
“Freak.” There’s no bite to my word. I’m getting used to his depravity.
Fuck me.
Ian continues playing with my hair. “I want to bury my cock so deep inside you, all you taste is my cum.”
I swallow, my mind reeling for something, anything, to say.
“Sounds...illogical.”
His hand trails down my throat to caress my breast, pinching my nipple through the fabric. It hardens instantly, and I want to shear it from my body as penance for its betrayal.
“I am going to taste your lips until the day I die, Harlow Weathersby. I am going to fuck you until I am ripped from this earth. I am going to own you, body and soul, for life. You are mine, and I am yours.”
He could be a poet if he wasn’t my poison.
Hold up…It’s always been I want or I need. Now he’s talking like we are a foregone conclusion.
My head swims with the promises carried by his words. He dips his head so that our foreheads touch. My eyes drift shut. I am unmoored, awash in the solid feel of his body, the warmth of his breath, and the aroma of wet earth and the hint of cardamom he carries with him.
“You are going to be my downfall,” he whispers, “but I never much cared for being at the top anyway.”
I don’t reply. I am too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
“We don’t have to be enemies, Stormy.”
“You made us enemies.” Tears threaten to drown my words.
“I protected you.” His words are gruff, choked.
“You made me a target!” I rush past him out of the stacks and stumble to the exit. As I slam the door open, I scream, letting it all out—frustration, rage, grief—but the sound is ripped from my throat and carried away by the wind.
I bite back a series of curses as I run, the rubber soles of my shoes slapping the pavement. I want to turn around and sprint back to Ian and punch him in the jaw. I want to claw at his eyes with my fingernails and pull out his hair. I want a curse to befall him so that the skin melts from his bones. But even worse, I want to save him from all of those things.
My arms pump at my sides. My corduroy skirt is all over the place as I propel myself forward, the cold air of an upcoming winter burning my lungs. The track team no doubt gets quite the view—even with the black tights I wear—because a few of their faces latch onto me as I run, and I get a few whistles and a cat-call I can’t quite make out.
One guy I recognize from Calculus begins, “Hey, Har—” before he shuts his mouth.
Uh, oh.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Fear washes through my veins. His abrupt silence can only mean one thing. The beautiful bane of my existence is behind me.
My legs piston wildly as my arms pump harder. My throat burns as though I’ve just pounded back a glass of crushed ice. My lungs constrict, fighting what I need them to do.
I really should do more cardio. I should have listened to William and started going to the gym years ago.
“If I catch you, Harlow,” Ian’s voice is close and intimate as if we haven’t just run a half mile, “I’m going to do more than trade that favor for a date.”
“Freak!” I hiss, but it comes out nothing more than a wheeze.
He didn’t cash in that favor for a date…He…He…
Oh, no.
I dart inside the girl’s dormitory and shut the glass door behind me, trapping him outside. Ian stands there for a moment, and I swear I see amusement flicker across his face before it’s replaced by the expressionless mask he wears so well.
I flip him the bird, parading my finger around like I’m carrying the Olympic torch. It will probably get me in trouble come Monday morning, but Monday morning seems so far away and I will spend the re
st of my weekend locked in my room with the book I accidentally stole from the library.
Ian raises a hand and presses it flat against the glass pane. I can see the lines that run along his palm as he breathes clouds of heat onto the glass. His cheeks are tinged rosy from the cold, and he stares unblinking at me. His eyes are calculating but not cold.
I freeze mid-bird. The glass pane seems oh-so-thin right now. I command my battering heart to calm as I return his stare and step forward, so we are one long jump and a pane of glass apart.
He just stands there, hand pressed flat against the glass like he’s a prisoner and I’m a visitor—or maybe I’ve got that backward—with his steely gaze locked on me. His perfect, bee-stung lips threaten to turn down into a moue, but he wears his mask too well for that.
My reflection looks back at me over the image of him as we stare at each other. My hair is a wild tangle of white, a wind-burned blush reddens my cheeks and creeps down my pale neck, and my eyes are crystal clear, wide saucers.
I am lost in the stark overlay of our images in the glass, his skin bronzed from his time on the field and me a ghostly, fragile vapor in comparison, a head shorter and many pounds of muscle lighter.
When he finally breaks the spell, his words are airy and alluring like they should come with their own candlelit dinner. With each word, his breath fogs the glass.
“I’m giving you one last chance, sweetness, and I don’t do second chances ever, except for you apparently.” Do I detect a side dish of annoyance? “So what will it be? Live up to your end of the deal and go out with me tonight or take your chances?”
I bare my teeth at his arrogance. “How about you use your favor for something normal like help with homework or—I don’t know—a magnifying glass so you can find your di…soul.”
Nice save, Harlow. The girl inside my head rolls her eyes for me.
Ian laughs, nearly guffawing as his shoulders shake. It is deceptively innocuous. He is just a boy in that moment, a carefree, beautiful boy, but the stone man he has grown into returns quickly. “I’m not magnanimous, and you’re testing my patience, Stormy. It’s your call.” Then, like the arrogant prick he is, he winks at me. “Either way, it’s going to be fun.”
He says the words with such conviction, like he is Moses delivering a commandment from God. Irritation sparks inside my chest.
Ian Beckett may be Calvin-Klein-model gorgeous, but ugly things sometimes hide behind pretty packages.
He may be built like he spends hours in the gym, but who needs all those hard, sculpted muscles, anyway?
He may be charming—when he wants to at least—but so are slimy politicians and con-artists.
Ian raises an eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth twitching with the dare. My spark of irritation erupts into an inferno.
“No way, Beckett!” I spit at the glass, screwing my face up with the shout.
“That’s your answer then?” he asks, tilting his head, a whisper of a grin on his lips.
“That’s my answer,” I snap with a huff of air through my nose.
He smirks as he unearths a black keycard from his jacket. It looks remarkably like the cards the Academy staff carry, but I can’t believe it’s real. Boys aren’t allowed in the girls’ dormitory or vice versa. It is strictly forbidden, if I trust the student handbook.
Plus, he has to be bluffing, doesn’t he? The door access machine will beep and blink red when he swipes it, right?
RIGHT???
He keeps his arrogant gaze locked on mine as he lifts the card and swipes.
The card reader doesn’t turn red, and it sure as fuck doesn’t beep. Instead, I hear an audible click as the door unlocks. My reflection in the glass looks like she is going to hurl as her eyes go wide.
Ian is still smiling as I turn and run.
21
Harlow
I skip the elevator and take the stairs, my book bag knocking against my back with each step.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Stormy,” Ian calls in a sing-song voice that sends a shiver shooting up my spine. He sounds much too happy and way too confident, like he’s Jack and I’m Wendy locked away at The Stanley Hotel.
What is it with murderous maniacs always enjoying the chase? More importantly, why am I thinking about Ian Beckett like he’s the star of my own personal horror film? Most importantly, why do I suspect my current state of breathlessness can’t just be blamed on my lack of cardio?
My mind races, my thoughts jumbled and chaotic, barely forming before they are run over and replaced.
Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump goes my book bag. Click-clack, click-clack go my shoes on the steps.
I stumble, nearly losing a shoe, and lurch, catching myself on the handrail. The wrought iron etched with filaments of gold cools my fingers.
I want to hit the pause button and catch my breath, but I’m sure Ian Beckett doesn’t do time-outs. I jerk forward, returning to my erratic rhythm.
I’m nearing the third flight, and I regret never taking William up on his workout offers. Each breath bursts past my lips with a wheezy whew sound like it’s relieved to be rid of me.
I want to be rid of me.
I am suffocating on dry land. My heart is in a race to see how quickly it can go from typical-teenage-diet to heart attack. The burn in my thighs hates everything and wants to go find a couch.
I should be in a ball, curled on the floor as the darkness takes hold, but I think it’s even too afraid to make an appearance at the moment. That, or maybe it knows there’s nothing to be afraid of, not from Ian anyway. Neither option is appealing to my already fraying sanity.
I hear Ian bound up the stairs. Even though I know I shouldn’t—even though I know it will slow me down—I peek over the edge of the rail as my feet hit the fourth floor and look down at the space between the winding staircase.
I am a mouse, and I have to know how close the cat is. More like I’m a mouse, and he’s a freakin’ lion…
I spot him quickly.
My mouth dries.
My hands tremble.
My belly...clenches.
Ian takes the stairs two at a time with an ease I wish I possessed, hardened determination on his face. He looks just like he does on the field, his back a strong, straight line, his brow slightly furrowed, his lips pursed in concentration. He exudes an easy, calm confidence.
It takes everything I have—every last drop of self-preservation instinct remaining—to cleave my gaze from him and hurl myself onward to the top and final floor.
I’m going to throw up. Or pass out. Or both.
Specks of white light dot my vision like snowflakes lingering in the air. My ears ring in a steady, high pitch.
I stagger forward, clutching my chest as though my fingers can somehow claw more air into my lungs.
My dormitory is at the far end of the hall, the very last room on the right. Normally, I like the seclusion it affords Molly and me. It’s situated in front of the shared bathroom, and we don’t have to go very far in our towels to get back to our dorm. Today, though, I despise the forsaken place.
I swear to God I hear the asshole whistling as the white spots spread until I see the world through static. My lungs squeeze like I wear the world’s tightest corset.
Yet, he is whistling, not even remotely winded. It’s pretty, melodic even. I am presently and forevermore offended.
He is close, probably on the last flight. He has without a doubt correctly assumed I am exhausted. Either that or he can hear my labored breathing, which falls somewhere between the barks of a walrus and the snores of a bulldog.
With the door to my dorm in sight, I lurch forward.
Sweat dots my brow.
Mucous clogs my already tight throat.
A jolt races up my spine, and I know it’s not just from the adrenaline coursing through my blood. It’s also from the thrill. The realization hits me in the gut, and I nearly freeze at the impact.
My fingers search for my key in my book bag. I f
ind it easily in the front pocket, but Ian has reached the top of the stairs. He stares at me with a gleam in his gaze that causes my pulse to skyrocket into near tachycardia-level.
I fumble the key and drop it. Ian chuckles, soft in the quiet dormitory. I want anyone to open a door, to put an end to this madness, but there’s a fall festival two hours to the north. Nearly everyone is there, and I stupidly declined Molly’s invite to join her and her family.
I snatch the key from the floor and shove it into the lock. Ian is less than ten feet away now. He stalks forward, lazy confidence in his strides.
Everything about him is dark. His clothes, black and tailored, like he is the lead singer of a rock band. His obsidian hair, a little wild and tussled from his mild jog. His pupils bleeding into his irises so all I see is black.
A strangled yelp escapes me as the key sticks. I jiggle it in the lock.
Nothing.
I rattle it harder, and the lock gives.
We both freeze, and my gaze locks with his. He stares at me like I am his favorite ice-cream flavor and he just said fuck-it to his diet.
I make the first move, throwing the door open and launching myself inside. But he is fast—too fast!—and he catches the door with his foot as I try to shut it.
I push, my shoes digging into the carpet as I grunt with the effort.
“Let me in, Harlow,” Ian says. He still doesn’t sound winded.
“What are you?” I squeak. “Do you even require oxygen?”
He is laughing as I am sent backward. I groan as a footboard bites into the back of my calf. A little dizzy and my blood oxygen level dipping low, I eye Molly’s bed, praying for her to appear with a blowtorch or maybe a bayonet. I could definitely—well, maybe—kick Ian Beckett’s ass with a bayonet.
He doesn’t smile as he shuts the door behind him. There’s no triumph in his gaze, only inevitability like he knew we would end up here all along. He locks the door.
Then, to my surprise, he’s at my desk, touching my things. He fingers my desk calendar, a gift from my mom that features puppies dressed as humans. A husky wearing a firefighter’s hat is this week’s star.
