At my whimper of pleasure at the shock of pressure, he groans, and then he’sconsumingme. I let myself fall into his embrace, the strength of his body beneath me and his arms around me, until he’s all there is. Our hips move faster, frantic and desperate, and then he’s guiding my ass with both hands and I’m tugging his hair to deepen our kiss. Our breath mingles as we pant from the tidal wave of arousal and heat from crossing the line we’ve been tip-toeing around for months. His groan deepens, fading into something inhuman as we rut against one another. I barely recognize the countdown to midnight coming from the TV in the background until he breaks our kiss.
“Cum for me,” he whispers, his voice deepening. “Cum for me.” As if anything in this universe or the next could stop me. His hot palms grip my ass like his life depends on it, and I moan from the added pressure, hypnotized by the promise of oblivion as our bodies move together. His throbbing cock slots perfectly between my pussy lips, like it’s the missing puzzle piece I’ve been searching for.
His pleasure spurs my own until I’m moaning with every breath, every jolt of our hips colliding, until heat and rapture radiate from my clit through my body and I’m shuddering in his lap. My aching pussy clenches around his pulsing length through our clothes. As the ball drops on the first stroke of midnight, we orgasm together to raucous cheers and applause that’s slowly drowned out by the high-pitched ringing in my ears.
When I open my heavy-lidded eyes, Ramsey’s looking at me with an equally stunned expression. Fear lances through me that he’s about to leave me like Killian did, that this was just a dream to be forgotten in the quiet dark. But then he gives me a lazy grin and kisses me. He doesn’t stop, not when he picks me up and carries me to my room, not when he lays us on my bed facingeach other, and not when he caresses my cheek gently until I fall asleep in his arms.
28
THANE
I don’t want to be at school.
I don’t want to be at my family’s estate.
But our apartment is the closest thing to a safe home we have here.
It’s the only home we have.
But here, we’re not friends, brothers. We’re the untouchable, indomitableHeirs.
The last two weeks away felt like a dream, but reality cam crashing down when my father announced his return with his new wife in tow yesterday. We left as soon as I got the text, and it’s only thanks to the new batch Killian made that I’m not already losing it. It makes my fucking skin crawl when our adoring fans swarm us as soon as we step out of the elevator. Killian is the distraction, Luther is the buffer, and Roth is my calm in the storm, but fucking Hell I’m so tired of this.
I fully intend on smoking and sleeping in Politics 202 with McCall this morning, but stop short when I see Nyx sitting in my seat.
Here.
In my class.
What?
She barely spares me a glance, noting down whatever’s on the board at the front of the class as I stand there like a moron. I take my seat next to her when other students file in, every nerve in my body on fire as her scent saturates the air. My foot starts bouncing as McCall begins class, but she continues to ignore me.
“Good morning, Thane,” she eventually mutters under her breath, nonplussed. My mouth opens and closes as my brain tries to catch up with what my eyes are seeing.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper. I can’t stop looking at her. We haven’t talked since Samhain—since she walked away from me with that blank stare after Luther accidentally burned her dress at the bonfire. But I’ve been watching her. Looking for her. And fuck, even asking Killian about her since he’s the only one of us she’ll talk to, even if it’s just telling him to fuck off.
“Brandt petitioned the Board of Trustees to reassess me after I did so well on my finals last term. So I tested for advanced placement.” She shrugs.
“But you’re a freshman. And you’ve only been here for like 4 months.”
“So?”
“How did you manage to test into this class?
She scoffs. “When I’m not being starved, attacked, harassed, or beaten up, I’m actually a pretty quick study.” Guilt and shame make my stomach churn with the knowledge of how I—well,we—contributed to her misery last term.
“Did you test into any other classes?”
She raises her eyebrow. “Why do you care?”
“I—”desperately want to know if I’ll see you again. “—can help you get caught up. If you need to.” Lies. If it wasn’t for the private tutor Roth threatened with fiery death if he told anyone he was tutoring me, this isn’t the only class I’d be failing.
She scoffs, incredulous even as she keeps writing in her notebook. “You’re offering to help me, the social-climbing whore?” I wince at the reminder of what I said to her the first time we actually talked. By the lake, where I accused her of stalking me and trying to fuck her way to the top.
“I’m—shit. I’m sorry. For calling you that.”
She stares at me with those sparkling red-brown eyes, searching for the truth in my words before nodding and murmuring her own apology. “I’m sorry for calling you an arrogant, drugged up trust fund baby.”
