by L.J. Shen
“I couldn’t find him,” I admitted to Pope. “I looked in all the studios, in his room, and asked Harry and Alma. No one knows where he works.” I shrugged, trying to downplay how badly that stung—especially after last night, when he’d refused to touch me where I craved him.
“What a wanker.” Pope shook his head.
Not quite, I was tempted to correct him. He wouldn’t wank me.
“Well, if you can’t find him tomorrow, I could certainly use a hand.”
“And someone with a brain,” I volunteered. We both laughed.
Pope said Arabella had wandered out of his studio minutes after establishing she couldn’t tell the difference between a brush and a canvas, looking for my father. He said she’d seemed frantic. Maybe she’d finally realized Vaughn wasn’t going to be with her, even if she moved across the ocean for him.
“Pope,” I said, my voice turning serious. “About my birthday present…I know what I want.”
“Do tell.”
So I did. I told him. It was one of the most embarrassing conversations I’d ever had. Fortunately it was dark, so he couldn’t see my nuclear blush, and to my relief, he agreed. Part of me had thought he might laugh in my face and tell me to bugger off. But he was completely cool about it, said it wasn’t going to be a problem. Then, to extinguish the awkwardness, he turned around and tickled my waist.
I laughed, pushing him to the corner of the mattress, against the wall, trying to tickle him back. We wrestled on top of my bed, and I was grateful that interns and assistants weren’t under the tight supervision of the staff the way the students were, and I could sneak him in. We giggled breathlessly, and I managed to sneak my hand into his armpit, which caused him to jolt. (Pope was notoriously ticklish.) He climbed on top of me and straddled me to the futon, just the way Vaughn had the night before, my wrists locked beside my shoulders.
I twisted underneath him, panting with joy. “Sod off.”
“Hmm, what you really mean is carry on, right?” Pope licked his lips, his eyes lighting up with mischief. “Because every sane man knows no means yes.”
My stomach hurt from laughing. He was ridiculous. I pretended to fight him when, out of nowhere, Pope flew off the top of me, his back slamming against the opposite wall of my room. At first, he seemed to have been sucked by the air or an invisible monster, like in a movie.
I yelped, darting up in bed, but then a shadow loomed over Pope’s figure like a dark demon, and I knew exactly who the monster was.
“Touch her again, and you won’t have hands to protect your ugly face with, legs to run from me, or a tongue to rat me out. We fucking clear on that, Rafferty Pope?” Vaughn’s voice pierced the air like a snake’s hiss.
Raff didn’t even get the chance to answer before Vaughn’s fist raised in the air, aimed at his face. I jumped on Vaughn, wrapping my legs around his waist from behind and jerking his curled fist back.
“You idiot!” I screamed, falling to the floor and hitting Vaughn everywhere. Back. Shoulders. Head. “We were just taking a piss. He didn’t try to hurt me!”
What was Vaughn doing here, anyway? And since when did he care what happened to me?
He turned, and his eyes scared me. They were so much darker than their natural color, and full. Full of hatred and anger and…fear? I swear I saw something genuine behind them.
“You fucking him?” he spat.
“My sex life is none of your business,” I said flatly, regaining my composure. He’d ghosted me the entire day, and came back at night to do…what, exactly? But the answer was obvious. Me. Or at least he wanted from me what he’d gotten from Arabella, Alice, and his harem of teenyboppers: complete submission and head.
He’d come to the wrong place.
“Answer me!” He raised his voice.
“Of course I’m having sex with Pope.” I smiled sweetly as Pope stood up, eyeing Vaughn with fresh, new hatred. “Look at him, Vaughn. Pope is ten times more talented than you are, sane, and gorgeous. You taunted me about being a virgin our entire senior year, but you know what, Spencer?” I rose on my tiptoes, bringing my mouth to Vaughn’s ear and dropping my voice so Raff couldn’t hear us. “I think you’re the one in need of a lesson or two. Standing there getting your dick sucked doesn’t exactly require much skill, and I don’t believe for one moment that you don’t want to touch me. You just don’t know how.”
Shockingly, he took a step back. Then I saw his wild eyes, slightly out of focus, and knew I’d pushed him too far.
“Whatever you have going with him stops now,” he announced. “You were my property at All Saints, and you’re sure as fuck my possession here.”
“Whoa…” Pope laughed behind Vaughn’s back, causing both of us to turn toward him. He brushed the dust from his trousers. “Someone needs a Xanax, a drink, and a reality check. She’s no one’s property, mate. The 1800s came and went. Women get to decide these days. Radical, I know.”
“Shut up,” Vaughn snapped, turning back to me. “I’m staying here tonight.”
I tried to swallow my hysterical laughter. And succeeded, for the most part.
“Out.” I pointed at the door.
“Had a really shitty day, Good Girl, and I’m not in the mood for a fight. But if you pick one, you better know you’re going to be on the losing end.”
It was silly to consider his feelings, but even in the dark, Vaughn looked so tired and worn out, I didn’t want to be the one to break him completely. For some reason, even though I enjoyed drawing his blood, I realized I no longer craved his pain. And that worried me. A lot.
I exhaled, giving Pope a slight nod. “It’s fine.”
“You sure?” He frowned.
I stepped around Vaughn to hug Pope, realizing it was probably the first time he and Vaughn had met.
“Vaughn, Pope. Pope, Vaughn. Pope is my best friend. Vaughn is…” I trailed off, looking between the two guys standing in front of each other. “Vaughn is a cunt,” I deadpanned.
“Arabella said you helped her fill out the application form I daftly accepted. Cheers for burdening me with a rubbish assistant who is barely literate.” Pope extended his hand, and Vaughn examined it a moment before shaking it reluctantly.
“Touch Len again, and Arabella will be the least of your worries.” Vaughn smiled politely, giving Pope’s hand an unfriendly squeeze.
Pope whistled, arching an eyebrow. “Len.”
I swear Vaughn blushed, but it was too dark to tell.
“Run along now, friend,” Vaughn admonished.
Once we were alone, he turned to me. I slipped back into bed, ignoring his presence. I was tired from roaming the castle all day trying to find him, and I didn’t want to fight. I cracked open my fantasy book and perched it against the wall I was facing, as if I weren’t in the pitch dark. Behind me, Vaughn made a move to get into bed.
I held up a hand without even turning around. “Don’t even think about it. I still have the knife. This time, I’ll cut you where the sun don’t shine.”
“That would be the third mark you’ve left on me. At this point, you should know better than to think I’d care.”
I’d noticed the purple hickey on his neck, but had no idea what other scar he was referring to. I twisted my head to look over my shoulder, my curiosity getting the better of me. Vaughn lifted his shirt and showed me the scar from when I’d stitched him up in my bathtub. Apparently, I did a terrible job. I could still see the skin zigzagging shut like a wonky zipper. His flesh had healed around it. The mark was going to stay like that forever.
I turned my face back to the book, giving him my back. “I did you a favor.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” he said lightly.
“Where’ve you been today?”
“Working.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I don’t need help.”
“Why’d you offer me the role if you don’t want me to help you?” I was still staring at the same page, unable to decip
her a word without lighting my lamp.
Was I asking him about the internship or about everything else between us? One second he was interested—possessive, unbalanced, rabid—and the next he disregarded me completely.
“Because…” His voice grew nearer, and I knew he was above me, that he could touch me at any moment. The thought sent a shiver down my skin. “I wanted to keep an eye on your ass, and you wanted to be here. Look, I had a crappy day. I’m giving you free rein to work on your piece for six months. Don’t worry about mine. It’ll be ready in time, and it will be sick. Job offers will be coming out of our asses.”
“You won’t let anyone see it,” I said.
“No.”
“Not even my father?”
No answer. Jesus. I turned toward him, shutting the book with a thud. “He knew you weren’t going to let me see it, and he still let me come here and waste six months of my life on you?”
Vaughn sat on the edge of my bed, regarding me with quiet curiosity.
“You wanted to be here.”
“As an intern.”
“Should’ve specified.”
“Oh, bugger off. I’m not a charity case.”
“No one said you were,” Vaughn ground out, losing his patience. “Look, you are getting the prestige without doing any of the work. I’m handling shit on my own, and I’ll hook you up with an internship when we’re done. I’m good for it, Good Girl.”
I didn’t know how or why, but something told me he wanted to touch me, but wasn’t sure how I’d react. His hands lay awkwardly in his lap. Vaughn was never awkward.
I threw my head on the pillow, exhaling as I studied my ceiling. “I should leave.”
“Come off it, Rub-in Wood.”
It was obviously a joke to him.
“You don’t need me,” I pointed out.
It was the truth, and it hurt. I didn’t want the stupid assistant’s job to begin with, and now that I’d come to terms with it, it wasn’t even available. My entire existence seemed pointless. Vaughn said nothing.
“I do.” His voice came out of nowhere, surprising me. “I do need you, just not for my fucking piece.” He bared his teeth, finally looking at me. “Happy?”
“How do you mean?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes.
He looked down to his lap, and after a brief silence, I followed his gaze. He was hard. We hadn’t even touched. We didn’t even flirt. But I guessed those things happened, right? He was nineteen. Boys that age were notorious for getting hard from anything, including shaved raccoons.
“This.” He removed his hands from his lap, offering me a better view of his thick, throbbing erection behind his black sweatpants. “It doesn’t happen to me. Well, it does, but only when I want it to, and it doesn’t feel the same…as it does when I’m with you.”
He grunted the entire sentence, like he was admitting a terrible crime. I licked my lips, swallowing a ball of something in my throat. Excitement? No. It was more than that. I felt…triumph.
“What are you saying?”
His gaze sliced straight to mine. He glowered. “What the fuck do you think I’m saying? You’re hot, and I guess I want to fool around with you. I didn’t use any fancy words, Good Girl. No need to crack open a dictionary.”
There’s the asshole again. But I knew he was frightened of the truth. For some reason, sex was a touchy subject for him. And maybe I was right. Maybe we were both virgins. I’d said it as a joke, but it made a lot of sense when I thought about it. I’d never seen him actually making out with a girl. I never saw him flirt or talk to anyone.
I’d never seen him kiss a girl.
Christ, I don’t think I’d ever heard of him kissing one, either.
I flung my legs out of the bed, moving to sit next to Vaughn, hip-to-hip. I asked my next question without meeting his eyes.
“Was I your first kiss?”
That would mean Vaughn’s first kiss was at age eighteen, more or less. A prospect too ridiculous to be taken seriously. No guy gets blow jobs before kissing, surely.
He snorted, shaking his head. “Fuck off.”
“Tell me.”
“No, you weren’t my first kiss,” he snapped cruelly.
I said nothing. Maybe I got it wrong after all. There was a beat of silence before he opened his mouth again.
“You were the second one. I kissed Luna Rexroth at the pre-Christmas party at the Coles’ last year to spite Knight, so he’d finally make a move.”
My pulse kicked up again. He’d only kissed one girl in his entire life. Two, including me. And the first one didn’t even count. It seemed not only unlikely, but completely bonkers. Even I had kissed four guys. And I had no experience to speak of. Vaughn truly didn’t want anything to do with girls if he was that reluctant to be with them. But why?
“Maybe I’m asexual,” he said dispassionately.
I didn’t think he was. The way we kissed…there was magic there. The wild, untamed lust of two hot, mortal bodies connecting, exploding, desperate to claw each other out of our skin and blend together into something intimate and the same.
The same.
That’s why I couldn’t resist Vaughn’s kisses or when he laced his fingers in my hair or when he looked at me from across the room. When we touched, it felt like we were one entity, and that scared and thrilled me.
“I don’t want to fuck you. I don’t want to eat you out,” Vaughn said gravely, his throat bobbing.
He seemed like he was on the brink of an epiphany tonight. What had happened to make him like this?
“But I want to kiss you. A lot. And everywhere. And…” He frowned, rolling his eyes with a sigh. “I guess I don’t mind if you end up liking it when I do.”
I burst out laughing.
He wasn’t expecting that. His frown deepened, and he widened his eyes in annoyance. It seemed he couldn’t understand why I was flattered and thoroughly entertained by the idea that he was attracted to me so much, he was willing to break many of his rules. He had to come to terms with making someone else feel good. Christ, with this lad, I needed to be careful. Moments like this made me like Vaughn as a person, see past the persona. Luckily, they were few and far between, and I truly was incapable of falling in love.
“It’s not funny.”
“It is. You’re right, I shouldn’t leave here. You’re going to do the work for both of us, and I could use the time to work on my project. But as for kissing, I have a few inquiries before I make a decision regarding your offer.”
“It wasn’t an offer,” he snapped, as if horrified that I might take this as a compliment.
I shrugged, pointing at the door, in case he’d forgotten his way out.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Lay it on me.”
“Will you be kissing other girls?” I grabbed my pillow and hugged it to my midriff. Namely, Arabella.
“No.” He nearly shuddered, staring at me like I was mad. “’Course not.”
“Will you let them give you head?” I asked.
“Will you give me head?”
“No, not if you won’t go down on me.”
“Well, then, I guess, yeah. I’ll get head elsewhere.”
“Then we don’t have a deal.”
“Are you serious?” He pulled back to examine my face.
I shrugged. “I’m not asking for a ring, Vaughn. We both know this is going to be nothing more than fooling around, and I like making out with your sour arse. Now that I have nothing to do but work on my piece, I guess you could be a nice distraction until we get out of here. But I don’t want anything to do with you if you continue sticking your willy in other girls’ mouths.”
“Fine,” he spat, his lips thin with rage.
“Fine,” I said breezily, and somehow—somehow—I realized I had managed to convince myself during this conversation that this was a brilliant idea.
That it was grand that Vaughn had given me all this spare time.
That it was lovely we were going to kiss and fondle and
maybe even shag each other.
There was no chance on Earth I was going to catch feels for Lucifer Junior. I didn’t want to fall in love. To get married. To have children. That’s why I’d tattooed Carlisle Prep’s motto on my inner thigh.
I even managed to tell myself that Vaughn flexing his muscles in front of Pope wouldn’t cause future problems, that I had both men under control.
In fact, the only bitter taste I couldn’t shake off was Papa’s betrayal. The way he’d hidden the truth about my internship from me. It felt like my father had compromised me to help my enemy, and I was furious with him.
Vaughn owed me nothing.
But my father? Oh, he did.
“And I mean, you could hurt me,” Vaughn continued, clearing his throat. “I mean, blood and shit, if that’s your jam.”
I don’t know why it saddened me so much that he offered me his pain as a token for our deal. I liked hurting him when he was hurting me. I wasn’t a connoisseur of pain, like him.
“I don’t want that.” The timbre of my voice reminded me of padding on tiptoes.
“Okay.”
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way.” I slapped my thighs, desperate to push the rage and disappointment with my father out of my consciousness. “Remember your first kiss with Luna?”
“Vaguely…” The ruby in his cheeks flared again. He wouldn’t look at me.
Oh, Vaughn.
“I want you to erase it from your memory.” I stood up, stepping between his legs and draping my arms around his neck. Slowly, I sank down, my knees straddling his waist. His breath hitched. Mine stopped completely. The air seemed thick and moist again. I settled on his hard-on, feeling the thick bulge pressed against my center.
“And all the ones with me that followed. This is your first kiss.” My lips fluttered over his as I spoke.
“Len.” My nickname dropped from his mouth into mine, hot and desperate.
His eyelids slid shut, despite his best efforts to stay in control.
But not mine. I stared at him as I kissed him, with eyes wide open.
