I glance up at the house again, but I can tell that Victor’s gaze is still on me, tracing the sweetheart neckline of the blouse I’ve got on. When I close my eyes, I can feel the rough press of his cock at my opening, the sensation of his hot, hard flesh filling me up.
“Do you want to stop and get a morning-after pill when we’re done here?” he asks me, and my brows go up.
“I get a choice in the matter?” I ask with mock surprise, turning my attention back to him. “Aren’t you supposed to just order me around and tell me you’ll shove one down my throat?”
Vic’s jaw clenches, and he looks at me like I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him, like he’s seriously regretting the deal we made.
“Is that what you want, Bernadette?” he snaps, turning to look at me. “You want me to order you around and treat you like a whore? Because I can, if you’re so goddamn excited about the prospect.” Victor steps toward me and pushes me into the tree, setting his forearm against the trunk as he leans over me. “Why are you so determined to make this suck?” He snaps this last word out like a whip. “I’ll remind you: you came to us. You called Havoc; you made a deal. I gave you more than enough chances to change your mind, to run, which is more than I’ve ever given another client.”
“Why?” I ask and he goes almost completely still above me. I’m shaking now, but for whatever reason, I can’t figure out why. Why I want him to hate me. Why I keep provoking him.
I’m scared to belong because I’m scared of being rejected.
The thought pops into my head before I can banish it, and Victor exhales, his breath ruffling my hair.
“We’re gonna be late.” The words come quiet and soft, not at all like I was expecting. He pulls away from me and turns toward the house, leaving me with my back against the tree, my knees weak. After a moment, I follow after him. As I step up on the front porch, the front door opens to reveal a butler.
Huh.
I didn’t know people actually had butlers anymore.
The man ushers us inside and leads us to a solarium on the far side of the house where Ophelia’s waiting, her hands folded carefully over one knee, her dark eyes watching the pair of us as we step into the sunlit room. There are well-tended plants along all the walls, green tendrils draped over ceramic pots, flowers blooming and filling the air with sweet perfume.
The table itself is set with a silver tea set, a coffee pot, and various platters with cut fruit, pastries, and breakfast meats.
“Have a seat,” she says, and her smile is downright poisonous. There’s a special sort of gleam in her eye that infuriates me from moment one. Or maybe it’s just her son, crawling under my skin, making me bleed emotionally?
“Mother,” Vic says, leaning down to press a cold, clinical sort of kiss to his mom’s cheek. What did he call her? The egg donor? I feel like that better encapsulates the scope of their relationship. She’s jealous of us. When Vic first said that, it didn’t quite make sense to me. Seeing Ophelia sitting there in her floral skirt, hair perfectly coiffed, her face painted on … I start to get it. Maybe she feels as numb as I do most days, but there’s no pain in her life to temper it, just ruthless greed. “How long has it been since we had breakfast together? When I was in the womb? Or just before that?”
“Funny,” Ophelia says, but I’m damn near positive her son is telling the truth.
Victor pulls out a chair and indicates for me to sit in it. I’m loath to get that close to him right now, but I sit, if only because I know that losing out to Victor will kill Ophelia. And I really don’t like her. We spent one lunch together, and I know that for a fact.
I reach out for a croissant as Vic sits beside me, pulling his chair so close that our knees touch. Heat travels through me, this violent surge that takes over my entire body and makes it hard to breathe. I shouldn’t be having such strong reactions to him over so little. Clearly, I’ve gone mental.
Ophelia notes our closeness, and her carefully crafted smile slips a fraction of an inch.
“What’s this I hear about you getting expelled?” she asks, lifting her coffee to red-painted lips. Her dark hair is smoothed back into an intricate up-do, one that most girls and women only wear to proms or homecomings or even weddings, not to a casual breakfast with their kid.
That’s the first sign that she’s afraid of Victor.
She wouldn’t bother to put on her armor if she weren’t.
“Not expelled, Mother,” Vic says, resting a big hand on my naked thigh. His fingers slide back and forth, stroking me and making it extremely difficult for me to focus on the conversation at hand. His flint-like eyes are locked on hers in challenge, his purple-black hair slicked back, one tattooed hand resting on the table. “Suspended. And only for two days. Don’t worry: I’m right on track to graduate.”
“That’s not exactly how your principal described things to me on the phone,” she insists as Victor’s fingers trail just a bit higher up on my thigh than appropriate. Shit. I’m trembling again, and my hands shake as I polish off my croissant and reach for some coffee instead. If I were a smart girl, I’d push Vic off with a giggle. You know, play the part but show him I’m not a slave to the tension between us either.
Instead, I sit there with my back ramrod straight, my heart thumping so loud I can barely hear the stiff back and forth of their conversation, and I do my best not to actively groan when those hot fingers brush against the front of my panties.
I sip the coffee, hot bitter liquid splashing against my tongue as I try to tell my body to ignore the sweeping surge of pleasure from my core. Already, I can feel liquid pooling between my thighs, and find myself shifting in my seat.
“Principal Vaughn?” Vic asks with a hoarse laugh, his full lips twisting into a smirk. “You’ll have to forgive him. Sometimes he gets a bit busy running that child sex-ring of his, and gets confused. You know, like how he thought I had drugs in my locker last week.”
Ophelia’s nostrils flare, but whatever retort she was about to spit out is cut short by the appearance of an older man, his salt and pepper stubble well-groomed, his eyes wandering a bit too much for my taste. He stares at the low-cut shape of my top, eyes tracing the tattoos there with interest before he actually remembers that his girlfriend is in the room with us.
“Ophelia,” he purrs, sinking down to give her a kiss on the mouth. She pulls away from him slightly, a frown working its way onto her face. I can hardly believe Vic just dropped that bomb about Principal Vaughn.
My mouth gets dry, and I suck down another gulp of coffee to keep my throat from closing up. Victor’s fingers play a dangerous game, stroking the silken flesh of my inner thigh, working closer and closer to that desperate heat. The first deliberate stroke is almost too much. I set the coffee cup down on the saucer so loudly that it clinks and both Ophelia and her beau turn to look at me.
Vic, however, keeps his attention straight forward, his mouth a cruel twist of lips.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me, Mother?” he asks, the dutiful son act slipping slightly. There’s an edge of danger in his voice that says he’s ready for whatever it is she wants to throw at him. “I’m your only son, after all.”
“Tom Muller,” the man says, introducing himself. He’s polished and well put-together, but with a total sleazebag vibe, like he has a punch card for young girls’ cherries. He holds out a hand which Victor doesn’t take, and then turns his attention to me. “And you are—”
“Don’t talk to my fiancée,” Victor growls out, clenching his teeth, his fingers stiff against the wet silk of my panties. I bite my lip so hard it bleeds, mixing copper into the bitter taste of coffee on my tongue. “She doesn’t like you.”
“The girl can speak for herself, can’t she?” Tom asks, smiling at me like a used-car salesman.
“I don’t like you,” I repeat, and his face falls, the illusion of niceties shattering into a million pieces. Does his sleazy act really work on anyone at all? When I flick my attention back to Vic and find a dark shimmer of satisfaction in his gaze, I almost wonder if he’s had bad experiences with his mother’s boyfriends around his own girlfriends before. “How long do we have to sit here and pretend like your egg donor isn’t purposely trying to sabotage you to steal your inheritance to fund her slutty boyfriend’s pretentious lifestyle?”
“Just long enough to figure out how far she’s planning on taking this. I’m nearly eighteen and she has yet to find something that’ll derail me. What’s next? You sell all your fancy clothes and hire an assassin?”
I’m staring right at Victor when he slips his fingers under the edge of my panties and pushes them into the molten heat of my core. I’m shaking so bad now that Ophelia and Tom are bound to notice.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ophelia snorts, sliding her hands along her thighs to smooth out her skirt. “I don’t need your money, Victor. I'm just trying to make sure that when and if you receive my mother's money that you won't blow it all on drugs and nonsense.”
My entire world seems to shrink down to a fine point, my senses hyper focused on Vic and his fingers as he pushes them inside of me and then pulls out, teasing wetness over my clit. Ophelia's looking right at me now, chastising me for calling her an egg donor, and for purposely trying to create tension between her and her son.
I barely register any of it.
The whole world falls away around me until I feel this burning ache inside of me that starts in my spine and unfurls through me like a whip, striking all the cold, dead parts of me and bringing them to brilliant, painful life.
“Excuse me,” I choke out, shoving back from the table and stumbling to my feet. I smooth my skirt out as I go, taking off into the labyrinthine halls with no clue as to where I'm going.
As soon as I find a bathroom, I slip into it and start to shut the door.