“Get the hell off my property,” he snarls, his towel sliding down his hips. It’s about to fall completely off. I scramble up and out of the water to fix it for him. He shivers when my fingers brush his hips, but his eyes never leave the Harpies and their new Company of popularity slaves. Jalen, the last remaining guy, has been joined by a good half-dozen fourth years that I vaguely remember seeing around campus.
“Oh, we will. Trust me.” Harper narrows her eyes on me, but I just stand up straight and put my hands on my hips, dripping wet and wearing lingerie. I don’t even care. Take a fucking picture. “I just wanted to stop in and let you all know that we do not accept the new status quo. If you think this year at the academy is going to be easy, you have another thing coming.”
“And if you think,” I start, stepping forward and cutting off several of the boys as they start to argue, “that I’m going to allow bullying at my school, you have got a rude awakening coming your way.”
“Your school, huh?” Harper asks, and the way she looks at me, I can tell she’s playing for keeps this time. She wants me out of the academy, out of her life, out of her way. And she wants to crush me in the process. “Well, we’ll see about that.”
She hair flips (yes, expertly so) and then saunters off, taking a good portion of the Burberry students behind her. Not as many as I’d feared, but enough that I can’t quite write her off as a threat just yet.
“I’m gonna fucking kill those security guards,” Zayd growls, but I curl my arms around his bicep and draw his attention down to me.
“Don’t let them bother you,” I tell him, mouth pursed tight. “They’ll hang themselves with their own rope. We just have to wait.”
The boys exchange cryptic glances that have me wondering what the hell went on at that Infinity Club meeting. Whatever it is, if their expressions are anything to go by, I should be terrified.
Only … I’m not.
I’m not afraid of Harper or any other bully for that matter.
Not anymore.
“Come on.” I drag Zayd back to the hot tub, and the others follow.
By the time the edible really hits me, the Harpies are long gone.
I end up in a bed with Creed on one side and Zayd on the other. The music downstairs is still throbbing away, but the sheets feel so good beneath me, and I can’t seem to stop laughing.
“You are so high,” Creed says, but then he grins because he’s high, too. Zayd is watching us from the other side, his head propped in his inked hand. His Never Again tattoo is visible on the side of his neck, and I feel compelled to reach out and touch it, just to see if the ink feels as nice as it looks.
“Mm,” Zayd purrs as my hand slides up the side of his neck. He leans in for a kiss, and I swear, I’ve never felt anything quite like his mouth on mine. He tastes just enough like danger to be enticing, but also like surety. I’m positive Zayd is here for me now, really and truly. I don’t think he ever wanted to be anywhere else.
“You taste good,” I tell him as Creed rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. This is the first time I’ve ever really been intimate with one boy while another was close by. It’s … exciting.
“Do I?” Zayd asks, getting this cocky look on his face that makes me squirm. I’m still dressed in my lingerie and nothing else. It’s dry now, but my hair still feels damp. The lead singer of Afterglow reaches out and curls his fingers in my hair, teasing the rose-gold strands and then leaning down for another kiss, one that goes much deeper, our tongues tangling.
Next to us, Creed slides his hand in his swim shorts and groans, sending a hot flush through me that I don’t quite know what to do with. I’m still pretty new at this whole sex thing. I mean, a few times with Creed and a few times with Zack does not an expert make.
Zayd runs his inked hand down my side, over the curve of my waist, resting his palm lightly on my hip. Every place he touches screams with pleasure, and I realize Creed was right: I feel ten times as sensitive now as I did when I was completely sober.
A small moan escapes me as Zayd slides his hand back up, stroking my body and making me quiver.
“It really is exquisite, isn’t it?” I ask, and Zayd laughs. The sound is as musical as his songs. I want to listen to them all on repeat, over and over and over again. I giggle, and he grins, leaning in to kiss me on the collarbone, trailing his lips down and along the lacy line of my bra. The pale rise and fall of my breasts belies my outward calm and shows how truly nervous I am underneath.
I lean back a little and my body bumps into Creed’s. He groans, and I glance back to see his hand working furiously at pleasuring himself. As I watch, he finishes with a shudder and his body goes limp in the pillows. Pretty sure he’s asleep in like, a minute.
“The golden rule is: smoke first, drink later. Creed always drinks then smokes then drinks again. That’s his problem.” I glance back at Zayd and find him smirking at me in the darkness. “See, I told him you wouldn’t be coming to him later.”
“He looked like he was having a good time,” I whisper back, realizing in the back of my mind that I’ll probably be mortified to remember this moment in the morning. Right now, it all seems surreal and beyond exciting. I crawl over so that I’m straddling Zayd, putting my palms on his bare, inked chest and then sliding them down. He moans, lifting his hands up to cup my ass. We kiss again, these deep, long, exploratory kisses that feel like they go on for hours.
But in a good way. In a I never want this to end sort of way.
“This edible is amazing,” I breathe, and Zayd laughs, watching me curiously through the moonlight as I move back, putting my lips against the rock-hard lines of his abs. We’re in his bed, in his room, with the window open and a warm So Cal breeze stirring the curtains. I can hear people in the pool, but they’re pretty quiet, far away. They may as well be in another world.
My tongue slides along the edge of Zayd’s jeans, and then my fingers are popping his fly. I look up at him as I take his shaft in my hand.
“Holy fuck,” he whispers, but then he only lets me get so far as a single lick before he grabs me by the wrist and pulls me up toward his face. “Not when you’re high, not for our first time.” Zayd kisses me again and then flips me over, his tongue swirling around mine, his inked fingers sliding between my thighs. He touches one to my heat, and I gasp, curling my fingers around his shoulders. He doesn’t even put them in, just uses my own wetness to tease and stroke me, bringing me to a warm, shuddering orgasm that reminds me very much of Creed.
Immediately, my eyes feel heavy, and I sigh as Zayd grins and kisses me again, his lip rings making my mouth tingle.
“Sleep well, Charity. We’ll see about finishing this up in the morning.”
Zayd relaxes next to me, and the last thing I remember is seeing his inked fingers curl around the base of his cock.
After that, it’s nothing but dreams until the sun comes up.
There’s a stage set up about a half mile from the house, and despite the heat, people start lining up before the party even really ends. There are students draped over couches and lying in piles on the floor, most of them hungover or still a little bit stoned. But if they want a good spot in the crowd, they better get up now because the entry line stretches as far as the eye can see.
“You really are famous, huh?” I ask Zayd, glancing over my shoulder as he slips into a white tank with his band logo on the front. It says Afterglow in scrawling cursive with a half-moon, half-sun behind it, gleaming around the edges with, well, a glow.
He flashes me that cocky smile of his.
“Yeah, well, maybe just a little.” He moves over to stand beside me, and I feel myself blushing when I remember my tongue meeting up with his, uh, well … if I’m not mature enough to say it, then I’m not mature enough to do it: his dick. I almost gave my first blow job last night. “I’m heading over with the band soon to greet some of the headliners, but there’ll be golf carts and some backstage passes waiting for you.” Zayd stands up and splays a palm out on his chest, his sea green hair gleaming in the early morning sunshine. The wicked heat of the day hasn’t quite crept in yet, so it’s still cool enough to be pleasant. “And I’m such a nice guy, I even included extras for your other boyfriends.”
“Nice guys don’t say that they’re nice guys,” I tell him, and he smiles, leaning in to pen me against the door with an arm on either side, the cluster of guitar pic necklaces he’s slipped around his neck swinging forward in the space between us.
“Nah, you’re right: I’m a total asshole. Here’s the thing though …” Zayd pauses and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I like you enough to try. So,” he stands back up and folds his muscular arms over his chest. “Here’s me, trying. Probably failing, but at least the effort’s there.”
“You’re doing great,” I tell him, feeling my cheeks flush. “I mean, as long as you’re being yourself. If you’re an asshole, you’re an asshole. Just don’t be a bully.”
“If I were doing great,” Zayd says, pausing as he notices Creed working his way over to us in low-slung sweats, a towel flung over his wet blond hair. “Your tongue wouldn’t have even touched the tip.”
“Touched the tip of what?” Creed snaps, but then Zayd is just laughing and climbing over the edge of the balcony railing before I can stop him. He quite literally dives into the pool and gives me a heart attack as I race over and curl my fingers around the banister, holding my breath until he pops up and swims over to the edge.
Zayd hauls himself up and then rises to his feet before he shoves another dude in the water and then turns around to wave at me.
“Still an asshole! Just not to you.” He presses kisses to his palms and then flings them my direction, green hair dripping into his face as he makes his way across the courtyard and out a side gate.
“Tip of what?” Creed repeats as I glance over at him, tall and imposing with eyes like chips of ice.