He was sitting on the bench beneath the lime tree, one leg crossed languidly over the other in the way that only really tall people seemed able to manage. He was diddling with a Device but he looked up as Cole skidded to a halt and smiled at her. Not his usual polite, half-smile, but a real one, all heat and unhindered pleasure.She'd given him that. “So this is you?” His eyes did the full sweep, making her shiver. His unrestrained attention wasn’t quite comfortable—Cole was too worried about coming up short—but it was somehow exciting at the same time. She wanted to be worth looking at. For him. “Cole, reporting for duty, sir.” She threw a pretty camp-looking salute. “Did I make it?” For a moment, she thought it might have been nothing but an empty game, but he glanced down at his screen, checking the time, before he answered. “Yes. Four minutes, sixteen seconds.” “What if I hadn’t?” “That would be telling.” He tucked his tech
“On the contrary, that’s achieved through hard work. Passion is a hindrance to business.” “But you must be pretty driven? Otherwise we’d all be billionaires instead of people with Twitter accounts.” “Perhaps. Though I think I would call that resolve.” “What kind of headline is that? ‘Aiden Crux: Mildly Inclined to Succeed.’ How are they supposed to write you up in the Arrow now?” “They’re not. I don’t give interviews to school magazines.” Cole couldn’t quite suppress a giggle at that. The Book of Making You Feel Bad About Yourself was meant to be taken very seriously indeed. “And besides,” he went on, “attaining success is considerably more than a mild inclination for me.” Cole realized then how easily he wore his wealth. How naturally power became him. “I can’t imagine you growing up on the wrong side of the tracks.” “Everything I have, everything I’ve done, is mine and mine alone.” He didn’t sound proud of it, though. Just sad. “But
Yeah right. Cole idly picked up the little cardboard doohickey that was supposed to tell you about the champagne. Floral character apparently. Hints of manuka honey and demerara sugar and notes of cigar leaves. Cigar leaves? She took another gulp. No cigar leaves. Which was surely a good thing? She wished Aiden was still with her. She could have shown him, and he would have…well, he wouldn’t have laughed, but his mouth, his stern, beautiful mouth, would have promised mirth the way some promised kisses. This was getting silly—lingering by the drinks like a wallflower, pining after a man who’d taken her absence for granted. Cole tossed back her drink and defiantly helped herself to a second glass. He had been so sure of her, so sure of being obeyed, she half expected (hoped?) to feel the heat of his body behind her, the pressure of his fingers on hers. She said have one. Except no. She spotted some of the students she'd got to know during the
It was as though she had been waiting for him all along…except, well, he hadn’t. He stood by the crenellations, looking out at the city, which was all shadows and spires and streams of golden traffic in the distance. Cliché or not, he looked good by moonlight. Sculpted in silver and steel, a man so coldly perfect he was barely real at all.Maybe it was some essential contrariness but his very untouchability made her want to…touch. To spark his beauty to life with passion and surrender. He lifted a hand, bringing a cigarette to his mouth. He was briefly illuminated by a flare of amber and then he tilted his head back, eyes falling closed as he exhaled a sinuous plume of smoke into the darkness. And God, his face like that. Open in pleasure. The suddenly undeniable sensuality of his parted lips. Cole must have been staring at him like a cartoon American cop at a doughnut because, at that moment, his eyes snapped open and she had never seen anyone shut dow
He shook his head. “Cole, I prefer to avoid personal conversation.” “That’s not personal; it’s just conversation. Personal would be: Have you ever been in love? or What’s the thing you’ll always regret?” Oh shit. Cole shouldn’t have had that second glass of champagne. “I just mean…I’m a stranger. I’m not going to tell anybody and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter because you’ll never see me again. I’m nobody. I’m safe.” For what felt like forever, he didn’t answer. Then, very quickly, “I liked having something to do with my hands.” Cole couldn’t help looking at them: his pale, perfectly groomed, perfectly controlled hands. Hard to imagine them ever doing something inelegant or being restless. As if he read her thoughts, he went on. “I was…different when I was younger. And I’ve been smoking since I was fourteen.” “You iconoclast you.” He didn’t smile this time. Just crushed out his cigarette against the stone and then put his back to the battlements, the city, the deep, blue-black
But he didn’t react at all, the silence getting deeper and heavier all around them, while he just stood there, a creature of stone, starlight, and secrets. And then he said, “No, he wouldn’t.” It wasn’t the words, but the terrible certainty of them.Completely broke Cole's heart. It just seemed impossible to her that Aiden Crux could believe something like that. And she needed—with this terrible sense of helplessness, or perhaps what Hilary Rupert Baskerville would call hubris—to make it better. To remind him who he was: someone magnificent and rare and deserving of all the pride in the world. She reached out, wanting to comfort him, to bridge the spaces between them—the chasm of their lives—with touch. “Don’t.” He caught her by the wrist, fingers as cool and implacable as steel. Cole was sure, on his part, it was nothing more than the desire to stop her doing something he didn’t want. And while she had tastes, she wasn’t so co
The thought made her fluttery. Sensation and expectation and anticipation knotting into a quiver-inducing tangle. Making her moan in this needy, greedy, cock-muffled way. His fingers tightened in response. It hurt, but she’d never minded a little pain, if it was done right. And, just now, it was so right, melding with the aches in her knees and her jaw and—frankly—her clit until she was music. Everything she felt, pain and pleasure and lust and submission, conducted by him. Cole was starting to wish she’d been less wussy with her other partners. Because she wanted to make him feel right back. Come apart because of her and for her. Safe with her.Maybe if she did a lot of tongue and lip work it would be enough.She got to it. With gusto. Whatever her concerns about letting relative strangers block off her airway, she’d always enjoyed giving head. But with him, with Aiden Crux, it was…God. She felt like a Cosmo guide to oral sex: worshipping her (well
Cole didn't exactly fancy slinking back to the party covered in come. And her throat was in a bad way. She probably sounded like Johnny Cash. Besides, the best thing about the party - the only reason she was at the party - had just made extensive use of her mouth and gone home.As she hobbled back to her room, Cole catalogued her aches (mostly superficial) and sorted through her feelings (probably the same). It wasn't the first time and - assuming she lived the life she fully intended to live - it hopefully wouldn't be the last that she indulged in some no-strings, no-holds-barred entirely casual sex. It just happened to be the only time she'd been left so raw by it, physically and emotionally.On the other hand, it had also been... impossibly hot. Maybe the best sex she'd ever had. And, in some strange way, the truest. The closest to what she ached and dreamed of but didn't entirely know how to get. Which wasn't to say she hadn't messed around, online and off, let the occasional o
“Hey now,” Cole protested. “He offered me money and the apartment.” “Like you were going to take it. How long was he with you? Did he know you at all?” “We were kind of in the middle of an argument at the time.” “Right. But it’s been over a week.” It had. And Cole had told herself she wasn’t hoping for anything. Except she must have been. Because now she felt silly.Ellery kicked the tree moodily. “Stop feeling sorry for him. I expect he’s feeling sorry enough for himself. Or Lancaster’s found him a new whipping girl.” “Don’t.” “Sorry.” “Did you really come all the way to Kinlochbervie to say ‘I told you so’?” “No.” She pulled her hood up and disappeared into its shadows. “I came to ask if you want to live with me.”Cole nearly fell off the swing. “Live with you?”“Yeah. Thought I should move out. Do some shit with my life or something.” “What sort of shit did you have in mind?”She kicked the tree again. And then, apparently finding
Everything hurt. The hours seemed like wild horses. Dawn broke around Cole. She spent most of the day on the sofa, crying herself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold. She tried to be brave, to be strong, to be less pathetically embarrassing. But her inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed like scant consolation. And while she sometimes tormented herself with idle fantasies of Aiden coming back, of sweeping her into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t sure she could ever bear pain like this again. Later… later… later… Her phone bleeped. And, like a fool, she scrabbled for it, wrecked with hope and fear and hope. It was Harper: “I MOVED MY FOOT!!!!!” **** She slept and didn’t sleep, and the hours sped and sluggished by. And finally, she rang home. Hazel picked up. “What’s wrong?” she said before Cole even had a chance to speak.
Cole swayed exhaustedly where she knelt. “Well, I'm not. And I don't How many times is you going to ignore me telling you that I love you? Because I do. I really do. And you can think all these awful things about yourself if you must. But nothing—nothing, do you hear me—will make me believe them.” “You can’t love me. You don’t know me.” “You mean, because I didn’t know about this? That’s only because you lied to me about it.” He paced restlessly, up and down that pristine room. This lost creature in Aiden Crux's skin. “I didn’t lie.” “I asked you outright. In Kinlochbervie.” “No. You asked if someone had hurt me. And they haven’t.” “Oh fucking hell.” She rubbed her hands against her burning eyes. “I could have hurt you. Don’t you realize how completely fucked it feels looking back at all the times I’ve pushed you on sex stuff with no clue about what happened to you?” “Well,” he drawled, “I did warn you that I’m a cruel
Cole glanced up. “I'm not. I mean, it wasn’t fun. But I trusts you. With the worst of me, as well as the best, and all the squishy ambiguous bits in between.” “Thank you,” he said, unexpectedly grave. “I hope to always honor that trust.” “As I will for you.” He didn’t respond. “So, y’know”—Cole nudged him gently—“your turn.” It took a long time, but he did eventually speak. The words coming slowly and painfully, like razor blades from his lips. “If I tell you, you’ll know what Eleanor said about me is right. That I’m sick and twisted and I ruin everything that’s good.” “She only said that because she was angry.” He shook his head. “No, she said it because it’s true. You see, she learned who she was when she was fourteen years old.” “What happened when—wait. When your father died?” “After that. When she seduced his business partner. His best friend.” Cole genuinely had no idea what to say. To
Cole pulled off a truly Ellery-worthy eye roll. “One cigarette a month is hardly going to kill him,” she said. “Is that what he told you? And you believed him?” Natasha asked. Now that she thought about it… he did tend to reach for his cigarettes once they’d sexed. And he’d smoked after dinner. And during Star Wars. And just now in the gCole. Oh fuck. Fuuuuuck.Natasha shook her head at her. “You poor, sweet girl. You don’t know him at all, do you?” “I… I’m in love with him,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I can see why you’d believe that. Aiden can be quite dazzling when he chooses. But you don’t understand anything about who he is. Or the damage you’re doing to him.” She tried to reply, to protest, to defend herself. Defend him. Defend them. But she had nothing. Aiden had de-clawed her with his secrets. Left her powerless and alone. “You deserve better,” Natasha went on softly. “He’s using you like his cigarettes. You
“I love it when you hurt me. I love everything you do. And everything you are,” Cole said. And that was when Aiden turned and drew her into his mouth. It was the teeniest bit awkward—he even nicked her slightly with the edge of his teeth, suggesting maybe he didn’t do this all that often. He certainly hadn’t with her before. Not that she’d minded. He made her come just fine. But…wow. He could have been actively terrible and she wouldn’t have cared: Aiden Crux was sucking her pussy. No teasing. Only his tongue sliding tight round her, his mouth soft and hot and perfect.Ohfuckohfuckohfuck. She was…Aiden was… Cole turned her head into her shoulder in an effort to muffle her noises. Which were at least as loud as when he’d been torturing her nipples, and probably even less dignified. Pain was one thing. She could take pain. But she was pleasure’s bitch. Hone
His fingers closed around her through her dress and squeezed until she bucked and moaned. Some of the anguish faded from her face, the tight lines of her brow and mouth yielding to desire, and something tender she might have called hope. “Don’t move,” he whispered, as he stepped away. “Okay.” Her heart thumped as eagerly as a puppy’s tail. She loved the anticipation that came with his commands. And she loved pleasing him. Of course, her nose started itching almost immediately. But she was determined and ignored it and held still as he had told her to. Aiden circled the pillar, leaving her standing there like Andromeda. Well, Andromeda if she had a massive erection. Then he drew her hands behind her and she felt the cool brush of silk against her skin.It encircled her wrists. Pulled taut. Oh my God. His bowtie. He was bondaging her with his own bowtie. She made a noise of surprise and exciteme
He didn’t quite flinch but he got that look: the closed down, I am a million miles away from you look I knew all too well. “I’ll leave you to enjoy it.” And, with that, he…went away. Again. Cole bit down on a gasp of frustration. She wanted to kick him in the shins. He couldn’t just fix what was probably years of hurt and misunderstanding with a single, and very small, gesture. Also, the fucker had barely spent five minutes with her. But she pushed all that aside and turned her very best and sparkliest smile on Ellery. “So what happens next? Do we all die of the plague?” Ellery sneered at the room. “Mm, here’s hoping.” “Wow, that’s the last time I RSVP to an invitation from you.” “I don’t mean it.” She sighed and with the air of a small child being forced to eat Brussels sprouts added, “Thank you for coming.” “I didn’t know you played the violin.” Ellery shrugged. “I’m brilliant. When I’m not rusty.” “
“What do you look for?” Cole asked. “The thing nobody else sees,” He replied, propping his hip casually against a piece of furniture she didn’t have a name for—something ornate and impressive, probably a credenza or vitrine or whatever. “Society photography comes down to one very simple principle. Anyone can take pictures of Kate Middleton and Lady Gaga. The trick is getting a picture of Kate Middleton with Lady Gaga.” “And have you?” “Not yet. But she’s a long way from dead, and hopefully so are they.” Cole laughed. In a strange way, the woman reminded her a little bit of Aiden. The same conviction, the same merciless drive, although focused and expressed very differently. She guessed it was becoming pretty apparent she had a type.But mainly Cole was grateful. Now, when she looked across the room, she met smiles. Flashes of recognition in other people’s eyes. She knew faces and names. She could have joined some of the conversations. Instead of drifting around pathetically. Stil