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Chapter 88

Author: IWriter IWriter
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56

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
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    “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.

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    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

  • Miss Goody Two Shoes    Chapter 184

    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

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    “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

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    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

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    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.” “

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    “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

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