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Chapter 87
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Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 88
Cole suddenly couldn’t breathe. She scrambled over her bed and threw open the window. It was right on the turn: that moment between evening and night, suspended in a golden haze. The air moved sluggishly. Tasted sticky. She rested her head against the edge of the casement. Too hot. Too cold. Too fucked. People were moving to and fro across the quad like incidentals in a T. S. Eliot poem. Friends and lovers scattered under the trees in the fading light. And she’d never felt so fucking alone. Rationally she could just about locate a non-panic-saturated part of her brain that believed she would definitely maybe sort of be okay. Yes, the next few weeks weren’t going to be very pleasant, and she wasn’t likely to do brilliantly, but it probably wasn’t going to be a complete disaster either. She was relatively clever, though not half as clever as she’d thought she was before she’d come to Oxford. She’d read quite a lot of books. And she’d been dashing off
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 89
It was the last thing she ever could have imagined. Far more shocking than depravity. Far more powerful. She made an embarrassing sound into the phone. A shocked, wanton, needy little moan. God, to be wanted in that way by Aiden Crux. To be claimed, protected, cherished. So that, for a little while at least, she didn’t have to be scared or small or lonely or failing. She could be his. Until she could be her own again. She briefly thought about telling him he’d got it wrong. That she wasn’t extraordinary at all. But, honestly, she’d rather he kept his flattering delusions. Even if they made her feel like a con man. Like she was leprechaun gold and he was going to see her clearly at any moment: just a handful of pebbles. “Can we”—she asked—“c-can we pretend I’m yours?” He let out a long, not-quite-steady breath and she thought he was going to refuse. She wouldn’t have blamed him. She didn’t think she could have come across as more stupid or pathetic if
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 90
“You are, oh you are.” Cole clenched her hands in her sheets to stop them acting without his direction. She could feel traces of drying moisture as sharply as if they were grains of sand. A deep, helpless shiver rolled through her. “Please touch me again.” “Yes. Softly though. Tease.” Maybe Cole should have been more aware of just how fucking weird it was, tormenting herself for a voice on the phone, but self-consciousness was dissolving, leaving only this dazed and desperate arousal. The same desire to please she’d felt kneeling at his feet. She had never really paid much attention to her own nipples. Well, who did? Her overs had sometimes. Sort of in the fashion you swing into a motorway service station: very much a waypoint on a journey. But, right then, they were tight and aching, magically transformed beneath the lightest caresses of her own fingers and wired directly to her pussy, all the places she wanted to feel him and be possessed by him.
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 91
Cole probably hadn’t failed her exams. She had written the required number of essays, and while they weren’t likely to be of the first quality, they weren’t terrible either. It had been an epically unfun experience—a grim ritual of formal wear and frantic scribbling enacted beneath vaulted ceilings—but she had survived. And it was a relief to realize she'd never have to do anything like it ever again as long as she lived. Her final final was the worst final. It crawled by. Such a vast room and it was still stifling. Full of identi-kit people in black and white, heads bowed over papers, hands moving in jerky lines. Silence broken only by the occasional rustle. The scratchscratch of nearby pens. She let out a long, deep sigh, realizing it was her own. As she scrawled out a few more desultory sentences, her concentration wasn’t so much flagging as flagged. Post-flagged. Beyond the reach of even the most determined flags. She shifted in her chair, sweatin
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 92
Cole steeled herself—now was not the time to get all sick and shaky—and slid down the wall. Which was when…well, she didn’t know exactly what happened. One moment the guy was standing right over her. Then he wasn’t. Something—someone—pulled him away. Hauled him round. The dull smack of flesh against flesh. And two cries. Both pained and slightly shocked.Her date was staggering, clutching his face, blood squeezing from between his fingers. And behind him was Caspian Hart, looking stern and shadowy and unbelievably there. Cradling his own hand.She should have been beyond humiliated. She was beyond humiliated. But it didn’t seem like anything that mattered when she was just so happy to see him.“She was telling you no,” he said in his quietest, iciest, most implacable voice. “She was offering, you deranged bender.”Her ex-date dabbed at his mouth. “Shitting Christ, my tooth. You don’t just hit people.” Cole was almost glad she couldn’t see much of Aiden's face because
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 93
Cole waited for him to get it. To understand. To admit the connection between them. Instead, he was silent for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he spoke up. “So You intimated last night.” It wasn’t what she was hoping for. As she sorted through the memories of the previous night, it was like peering into a stranger’s sock drawer. She remembered being in bed with him, the canopy overhead and the pristine sheets. He was trying to get her to drink water, frustrated with her drunkenness and lack of self-control. She had eagerly offered herself up for punishment, but he hadn’t taken advantage of her. She felt ashamed and he dismissed her with a suggestion to take a shower. He disappeared into the living area, leaving her alone in the room. She wrapped herself in a fluffy hotel dressing gown and shuffled miserably to the bathroom. The bathroom was dazzlingly shiny, hurting her eyes and making her head ache. She curled up in the bottom
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 94
It was a reasonable question. And Cole was buggered if she knew the answer. As far as she could tell, there was nothing about her that would attract—let alone hold—the attention of someone like Aiden Crux. Capacity for happiness notwithstanding. And, yes, she did remember every nice thing he’d ever said to her. Squirreling them away like string and marbles in a kid’s keepsake box. “I don’t know,” she told him. “But I like it.” He frowned, the pained line she so wished to soothe away appearing between his brows. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to want this. But I can’t stop.” Way to bring her back to earth with a bump. “Pro tip. When you’re attempting to negotiate a short-term, preapproved sexual encounter with somebody, maybe don’t tell them how much you’re resenting it?” He released her and sprang to his feet, leaving her sprawled and disheveled on the carpet like a virgin sacrifice. Well, except for the virgin bi
Miss Goody Two Shoes Chapter 95
Cole was kind of waiting for him to disclose the shocker that he was more than a little bit kinky. It was something she had already noticed with two eyes and a clue, along with the memory of sore nipples. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that I must insist upon a certain logistical inequality.” Cole had been indulging in an exciting little fantasy involving handcuffs, a peacock feather, and one of those jeweled butt plugs she had seen on the Internet. She stopped. “You what?” “I’m a very busy man. And my schedule is both restrictive and inflexible. It’s not something I can change, and I’m afraid—selfish as it may be—I don’t want to be troubled by any disappointment or frustration that may cause you.” “You mean, when you want me, you expect me to be available and you don’t want to have to worry about my feelings?” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I…yes.” Cole thought about it. On the surface, it sounded pretty unappealing,
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