The Heir - Part 1 (The Kings & Queens of St Augustus Book 3)

by Gemma Weir

  Shuffling up the comforter, my skirt ruffles up, my bare ass rubbing along the soft cotton. It takes me a second to remember that I’m not wearing any panties, because they’re in Carson’s pocket. I should have insisted he give them back, told him he couldn’t keep them, but I was too drunk on orgasms to care.

  I only have a couple of pairs of underwear anyway and now I have one less, because he decided to punish me for being a bitch. The though heats my cheeks and my sex clenches, reminding me that he took me unapologetically, fucking me hard and making me come over and over.

  Ignoring the thrill that rushes through me, I try to focus on something else. I need to get some clothes, only the thought of going shopping is horrifying, because for the last four years my mom has chosen all my outfits. I trusted her to do it, just like I trusted her to shape my actions and my behavior.

  Stripping out of my uniform I slide the hotel robe on, then shove my uniform in the bag for cleaning and place it outside the door. Turning on the shower I hang the robe on the hook on the back of the door and step under the stream of water, using the complimentary shampoo and wishing I had my stuff from home.

  Melancholy and anger war with each other as I wash quickly then turn off the shower and dry myself with the white hotel towels. My parents are assholes, but I’m still their daughter and they turned their back on me the moment I stopped doing exactly what they wanted me to do, even though what they wanted me to do was awful and a felony.

  Clean and dry I shove my arms into the robe, wrap it around my naked body, and sit back down on the bed. Grabbing the remote I turn on the TV just for some noise to fill the empty room that somehow feels quieter, even though it’s a quarter of the size of the suite I’ve been staying in until now.

  My cell beeps and I grab for it, hopeful that maybe it’s my mom, that the new housekeeper told her I’d called and that she was reaching out to me, but of course it’s not her.

  My disappointment dissolves when I see it’s a message from Carson.

  Carson – Why aren’t you in class?

  For a minute I think about not replying, then I realize that he’s literally the only person I want to talk to, even though I know I shouldn’t. I don’t understand his agenda anymore, the will is broken, my sister is free, but he’s still playing with me. He doesn’t seem to want anything from me except my compliance and my body, he doesn’t care that I gave away a fortune, he doesn’t expect me to be nice.

  Me – I had a headache so I left.

  Crawling beneath the covers of the bed I roll to my side, place my palm beneath my cheek and close my eyes. My cell beeps again and I sigh. I want to talk to him, but I don’t at the same time. He belongs to my sister, he’s her friend so I should stay away, but even despite my own warning I click in to see what he text.

  Carson – What hotel are you at?

  Me – The Haywood.

  Carson – Room number?

  Me – I’m not up for visitors.

  Carson – Room number?

  I don’t know why I’m stalling, I’m going to tell him, I always was, even though I know I shouldn’t.

  Me – 459.

  I wait for his reply, but it doesn’t come. Refusing to admit how disappointed I am, I close my eyes and fall asleep, ready for today to be over.

  15

  Carson

  I fully plan to go back to the boat to do my homework, then meet the guys at some charity event we RSVP’d for, back when we were still trying to make sure everyone important knew Tally wasn’t her sister. Only instead of going to the marina, I find myself handing my keys to the valet outside the Haywood Hotel.

  Riding the elevator to the fourth floor I try not to think too hard about why I’m here. I already fucked her once today and her text said she was sick and not up for visitors, so why am I here instead of with my friends?

  Honestly I don’t know. Maybe it’s because even though she’s a bitch, I sort of get it. I mean her parents are fucking awful and yeah Carrigan isn’t blameless, but when it counted, she did the right thing. Sometimes, I can almost believe there’s something good beneath the awful person she is, something more.

  The elevator dings, heralding my arrival on her floor and I stride purposefully toward room 459, rapping my fist against the wooden door when I reach it. I knock again when she doesn’t answer. “Priss, open up.”

  After a minute the door cracks and a rumpled looking Priss appears, peering around the gap. “Carson?”

  “Yeah,” I say gruffly, pushing the door open and letting myself inside. The room is small, just a normal hotel room and nothing at all like I would have expected her to pick. Weirdly, Tally stayed in a similar room when she fled from her parent’s house too. “No suite?”

  “Someone rented all the suites and the penthouses,” she says derisively with an annoyed shake of her head.

  Closing the door behind me a smile spreads across my lips. Just when I’m assuming her and Tally are more similar than either of them realize, she shows me how different they are. She’s only wearing a white robe, her hair’s messy and her face is fresh and makeup free. She looks perfectly fuckable and my dick rises enthusiastically.

  “What are you doing here Carson?” she asks, climbing back into the bed and pulling the covers up over her legs.

  “I have no fucking clue,” I admit, lowering myself down onto the bed next to her, kicking my shoes off as I stretch out on top of the comforter.

  For a second we just sit in strained silence, the rustling of the sheets as Priss fidgets is the only noise.

  When she sighs, I turn and look at her, smiling at her consternated expression.

  “Do you even like me?” she asks.

  “Not particularly. Do you like me?”

  “Not really,” she says, a faint smile ghosting across her lips.

  “You okay?” I ask, shocking myself that I actually care.

  “No. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

  I don’t know why I do it, but I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her while she rests her head on my chest. She doesn’t fight me, and although I’m sure she’d deny it if I asked, I swear I can feel the wetness of her tears on my shirt.

  “I’ll order us room service,” I say after a while, carefully moving from beneath her and reaching for the phone. “Hi, can I get a bacon cheese burger, a chicken alfredo and two chocolate brownies with whipped cream please.” I say, then glance at Priss, “What do you want to drink?”

  “A sparkling water please,” she says, her eyes a little wide.

  “And a sparkling water and a beer please, whatever you have on draft. Thanks.” Placing the phone back onto the receiver I turn to look at her and smile.

  “I can’t eat any of that,” she says, her voice laced with annoyance.

  “Sure you can.”

  “I’ll get fat.”

  “Priss, you’re skin and bone, who the fuck told you that you’d get fat.”

  “Everyone in modern society,” she says sardonically, flopping back against the pillows.

  “And your fuckwit parents I’d guess. Seriously did you listen to everything they told you and just accept it as truth? You’re eighteen, it’s time to start thinking for yourself,” I snarl, frustrated that she’s so blinkered by their opinions.

  “Fine, yes okay, they told me I’d get fat. My parents told me that I had to do things a certain way, so that’s what I did. That doesn’t make me an idiot, or maybe it does, but my life was a bit more complicated than most eighteen-year-olds,” she says, jumping up and putting the bed between us, her chest heaving up and down. “All I’ve thought about since the day I got that stupid letter from my great-grandfather is how I was going to make sure I got that money. All I’ve talked about is who I was going to marry. All I’ve lived and breathed is those godforsaken rules, so I’m sorry that you think I’m naive or stupid or whatever, maybe I am. But the only thing I’ve ever done that made me interesting and worthy and loved was having my name written into that will
.”

  As she shouts at me, the front of her robe slips open a little, revealing the swell of her small, pert breasts as her chest lurches up and down. Her hair’s wild, her eyes red and wide, and her lips are parted and full. She’s a fucking mess, but she’s never looked more perfect to me than she does in this moment.

  Carrigan is a beautiful woman all the time, she’s stunning in a school uniform, in her usual tight dresses and adorned in evening wear. But right now, raw, unkempt and angry, she is fucking glorious.

  Moving, I close the distance between us, until I’m pressed up against her, my chest touching hers. She tips her head back to look at me and her eyes tell me that she’s just as confused about this as I am.

  “This, you in this exact moment, is why I’m here Priss. I don’t understand it, but even while I hate you, I need to save you.” Closing the distance between us I kiss her, taking her lips and owning her as I slide my tongue into her mouth. I feel her silent moan as she parts her lips, her movements slow and uncertain, as her fingers clutch at the back of my neck, holding me to her, letting me know that she wants this as much as I do.

  After a second we find our rhythm. The kiss becomes a game of give and take, as I nip at her full lower lip, turning my head to the side to deepen the kiss. She melts against me, her nipples pressing against my shirt as I hold her to me, pressing her as close as two people can get while fully dressed.

  This kiss doesn’t feel like a prelude to sex, it’s not the tease that will lead to more. I don’t really know what it is, but in this moment with Priss in my arms, hate doesn’t matter, who she is doesn’t matter, my prejudice and her behavior doesn’t matter.

  Tally once told me that who you are in the quiet moments is the real you, and right now in the silence of this hotel room, Carrigan Archibald, my Priss, is mine and that’s all that matters.

  16

  Carrigan

  This is my first kiss.

  That’s the thought that’s playing on a loop in my head. This is my first kiss, the first time a boy, or anyone, has pressed his lips to mine and it’s with Carson Windsor.

  The inner teenage girl who dreamed of boys and kisses and love is bouncing around inside of me like a cheerleader on game day. But the cynical, disillusioned eighteen-year-old is warning me that those things aren’t in the cards for me, even without the will’s obligations hanging over my head.

  At first, it’s weird. I don’t know what to do, how to move, but then my natural instincts kick in and suddenly our lips are in sync. His teeth find my lower lip and bite down. I shouldn’t like it but I do, moaning against his mouth as my entire body melts into him, like he’s the only reason I’m upright.

  Other girls would probably act nonchalant, this is only a kiss, and Carson and I have been in much more explicit situations. But for me, this kiss is the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.

  Carson and I are enemies, or we were. I’m not sure whose side I’m on anymore or even where the lines are drawn, but regardless we aren’t allies. I’m clinging to his neck and for right now I don’t care who’s side he’s on, or what war we’re engaged in, I just want more.

  He’s kissing me in spite of who he is, in spite of who I am, or what our circumstances are. He’s kissing me because he wants to and I’m kissing him because I just don’t seem to be able to help myself.

  My eyes are tightly closed, and with his arm banded around my back, half holding me to him, half holding me up, it feels like nothing else in the world exists. All I can smell is his clean, fresh cotton scent, all I can hear are the sounds of my own gasps and moans.

  Heat is pooling in my stomach but I don’t want this to become sex. Sex with him is impersonal, distant. A wonderful but disassociated act that I’ve enjoyed on both occasions, but that I never associated with any feeling deeper than lust. This kiss is more, or at least it feels like more. Maybe I just want it to be more.

  As quickly as it started the kiss is over and Carson releases me, looking at me strangely for a second before turning and leaving.

  Slumping down onto the bed I exhale, confused and frustrated and needy. For him. I’m needy for him. For his touch, for his kisses, for the way when he’s around I don’t feel like the worst person in the world.

  A sharp rap at the door has me jumping up from the bed and darting across the room, my heart leaping excitedly in my chest, hopeful that it’s him. That he came back. To me. Fumbling with the handle I open the door, my lips parted, ready to smile, only it’s not Carson, it’s room service, the wheeled cart piled with silver lidded plates. The food that he ordered, that I can’t eat.

  A weight settles on my chest, right over the spot where my heart is, but I refuse to allow it to be my heart that’s hurting. On autopilot I allow the server to come into the room and arrange the food onto the dressing table, the only available surface in this box of a room. Signing the bill, I add a tip and then close the door behind him as he leaves.

  Staring at the plates of food that Carson ordered, I have the sudden urge to fling them across the room. He left, he just left. I shouldn’t care, but I do. This boy was my first kiss, my first touch, my first everything. I don’t know if he took or I gave, it doesn’t really matter either way. But standing here alone, staring at the food he ordered us, I realize that I do care and I have no idea what to do with that.

  The beep of my cell phone frees me from my unwanted moment of realization. I’ve been frozen to the spot, and now my body is freed and I slowly reach for my phone.

  Carson – Eat.

  A hysterical gurgle of laughter bursts from my throat and I’m typing with one hand as I clap the other across my mouth to stifle the sound.

  Me – I DON’T EAT ANY OF THESE FOODS.

  Carson – You do now. EAT!!!

  I know I should ignore him. He left, and even if he’d stayed he has no right to tell me what to do. Except when we’re having sex, and really I shouldn’t even let him do it then. Although I am clueless and it’s incredibly hot when he uses his growly authoritarian voice.

  The smell of food fills the room and I tiptoe cautiously over to the trays. Despite my parents not even being in the country and the fact that they’ve abandoned me—now I’m no longer of any use to them—I still don’t seem to be able to rebel against their rules.

  My cell beeps again and I grab for it, using it as an excuse to step away from the delicious smelling food.

  Carson – Priss EAT THE GODDAMN FOOD. Send me a picture of you eating and for every plate you empty I’ll give you an orgasm.

  Dropping my cell to the bed, my lips part and I fight the need to do what he tells me. My resolve lasts only seconds and I edge closer to the food, lifting the lid on one of the plates and inhaling deeply when the scent of rich garlic fills my nose.

  Pasta. It’s been years since I’ve been allowed near anything that smelt this good and the creamy pasta looks delicious. Grabbing a fork, I carefully spear a piece of pasta, glancing over my shoulder like I’m expecting my mom to jump out of the closet and yell at me.

  The cream hits my tongue and I groan with pleasure. Before I can stop myself, I’m smiling and eating and internally waving my middle finger at my parents and their rules, and it feels good. It feels more than good to defy them, it feels amazing. That’s the reason that I eat half the pasta, and it’s defiance that drives me to take a bite of the huge burger, licking the oil from my lips as the cheese and beef melt against my tongue.

  Lifting the lid on one of the dessert plates, I groan as I stare at the decadent chocolaty brownie and thick fluffy whipped cream. My mom would lose her mind if she thought I was even breathing the same air as this many calories, and I think that might be what pushes me to dig my spoon into it and lift it to my lips. After the first mouthful, all thoughts of rules and parents disappear and its pure want that has me finishing the cake and licking the spoon.

  As much as I want to, I don’t send a picture of my empty dessert plate to Carson, because he’s just like the brownie
I gorged on. He’s bad for me and even though when he’s touching me I love it, ultimately I have to learn to say no.

  When the car service pulls to a stop at the curb outside the hotel the next morning I sigh, wishing that I’d just stayed in bed, but knowing that I can’t keep missing school if I want to actually graduate this year. Because of Tallulah pretty much taking all my classes until a month ago, my GPA is perfect, but I still have to maintain reasonable attendance to be able to graduate.

  I don’t bother trying to time my arrival to avoid people today, yesterday made it pretty clear that the news of my newly disinherited state has spread like wildfire, so there’s no point trying to hide from it.

  Climbing out when the driver opens the door I inhale a long slow breath, fortifying myself for the day ahead. I don’t want to be here, but I have nowhere else to go either.

  Sick of my own self-indulgent thoughts I lift my head up and stride purposefully into the school, smiling sweetly at anyone who stares at me as I walk past. It’s time to remember that I’m not some pathetic little girl who needs to be protected. I owned these halls until I gave it up to save me and my sister from a future ruled by money and greed. I need to stop cowering and remember who I am.

  Bolstered by my internal pep talk, my stride becomes more purposeful, and I make it to my locker without anyone else looking at me.

  “Carrigan,” my sister calls, rushing toward me.

  Sighing, I open my locker and pull my purse free before turning to face her. As usual now, she’s not alone. Arlo is at her heel with Olly, Watson, and Carson all circling around her like her security detail.

  Not bothering to speak, I rest my back against my locker and wait for her to say whatever it is she wants to say. My sister is nothing if not tenacious in her pursuit of a relationship with me.

  “Have you heard from Mom and Dad?” she asks after a second.