Chapter Five Mallory

Wow.

So this is a kiss.

I have to admit, this entire experience is so definitely worth waiting for.

I’m wobbling on tiptoe with my boobs and torso crushed against Draco Mars’ broad chest, my chunky platform heels barely grazing the floor, my fists desperately clutching his broad shoulders and suede-soft shirt for balance, and an entire arsenal of Fourth of July fireworks exploding in my head.

I don’t even understand why he’s kissing me right now. I mean, I’m… me. And he’s… him.

But whatever his rationale, I’ll take it.

Forget about my third cousin Cletus in the broom closet when we were clumsy kids. This is a first kiss. A kiss to blow all my virginal schoolgirl first kiss dreams to smithereens.

Despite the tether of Draco’s arm wrapped around my waist and the bulwark of his strong body holding me up, I’m drowning in this kiss. He’s really sure of himself (which is good, since I have no idea what I’m doing at this end). He tastes… bracing, like high-octane gin and crisp Iceland air. And his tongue, oh my gosh, his tongue is literally right there . A slick lick of heat, stroking mine in a way that makes my tummy flutter and my heart hammer. Liquid fire spreads across my shoulders and spills across my back, like my useless wings are trying to break free from my skin.

But tonight I’m not thinking about my inadequacies or my failures or my freakishly useless wings.

My nipples are tight and tingly (which I hope isn’t blatantly obvious since I ditched my Academy bra for this dress). A hot ache pulses, slow and heavy, between my thighs. My entire body feels slick and sticky with warmth.

Every slow thrust of Draco’s tongue in my mouth is like a Roman candle, lobbing gouts of fire into the vast sky of my sexual ignorance. My eyes are closed and I’ve forgotten how to even breathe. But a soft moan rises from my throat like a whine.

A sudden hit of juniper and bergamot fills my nose and almost takes the top of my head off.

Whoa.

That’s Draco too, his Mogadon mating scent, laced with feel-good pheromones and come-get-me biochemicals that stoke the fire tingling down my spine. Heat glows and pulses between my legs like a live coal.

Clueless but curious, I graze his tongue gently with mine. Our tongues twine in a tentative lick.

Draco unleashes a rumbly growl against my lips that sounds hungry but encouraging. Jae snarls in my ear like a predator.

So I do it again. I rise up on tiptoe and lick into the slick liquored welcome of Draco Mars’ kiss.

“Ah, oui…” A feral whisper breathes in my ear, even as Jae’s vicious hands steady me and push me into the kiss from behind. “Take what you need from us, bébé.”

I can’t even believe I have Jae Labête’s lean feral heat pressed against my back. He’s half shifted, judging by the clawed hands curving around my hips and the heavy rasp of his breath in my ear. His narrow hips press into my butt. The tensile heat of his erection, jutting hot and thick against the seam of my thighs from behind…

Just… wow.

Jae’s obvious boner—and the totally confident way he owns it—makes my girly parts clench around that hot ache in my empty core.

I guess I should be scared of the big bad wolf lurking behind me. Everyone else in the whole Academy is terrified of him. They say he can’t control his werewolf, his loup-garou, especially when the moon’s full (like it almost is tonight).

Me? I’m powerless.

I’m Little Red Riding Hood, lost in the woods.

The unique magic of my species—the trait we’re known for in the lore—has never manifested in my mixed-blood DNA. In the witching world hierarchy, my magical mediocrity makes me a nobody.

Still, somehow, I know Jae won’t hurt me.

Am I crazy for trusting him—trusting both of them—trusting the two scariest guys in my whole residential college?

Am I crazy for trusting the wolves?

Even if I am crazy, I want these two and what they seem to be offering. I want every shiver and pulse and gasp of pleasure they can wring out of me. I whimper and squirm against them, between them, wanting both of them so much closer.

Geez, my heart is beating so hard. The drumbeat of my own pulse feels like wings beating under my skin.

“Tell us you want this, you,” Jae growls, thick and guttural, into the nape of my neck—right over the tips of my tattoo. “Before it’s too late. Before we go too far. We aren’t quite the beasts rumor makes us to be, chere. ”

Even Draco stops kissing me to wait for my answer. His warm breath fans my lips. I open my eyes for a peek and find his arctic blue gaze burning into me.

“You want us to stop?” Draco rumbles ominously. “Better tell us now, First Girl.”

Here’s my first chance—maybe my last chance—to regain control. If I wanted that.

But I don’t

Trapped between the two of them, my whole body is melting. I don’t want time to think. I don’t want less of these unprecedented sensations I’ve never felt before. I’m twenty years old, I’m finally starting to live outside the covers of my Academy textbooks and my secret stash of spicy romantasy novels.

I don’t want less.

I want more .

Faced with my silence, Draco’s pale brows furrow and his eyes narrow. “Well?”

“No,” I blurt.

Jae hisses and Draco growls.

Geez. Way to go with that silver tongue, McSnicker.

My bottled-up words spill out in a rush. “I mean, no, don’t stop. I want this. With you. I want both of you.”

Jae’s breath gusts against my neck and his clawed hands recoil. For a second, I’m really afraid I’ve said the absolute wrong thing. Then, with a wolfish snarl, Jae’s lithe frame twists toward the gift table. With a careless sweep of his arm, he pushes my birthday presents roughly to one side.

Without warning, Draco tightens his grip on my waist and boosts me effortlessly into the air. I squeak and clutch his shoulders. He deposits me on the table, my long legs and platform heels dangling off the edge, sparkly skirt riding up around my thighs.

I bite my lip and peek up at this monumental guy looming over me. He’s such a beautiful man, pale as a vampire, with his silver hair and his Nordic face and his ruthless lips all ruddy and warm from our kiss. He’s like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No, actually, he’s more Alexander Skarsg?rd—the Eric Northman of the Icarus Academy.

And me?

I’m definitely no stake-wielding Buffy. I’m as wide-eyed and hapless as Sookie in True Blood.

Draco’s ice-blue eyes sweep down my body, spread before him on the table among the colorful scatter of my birthday gifts like a midnight buffet. His lids drop and his gaze hoods.

“Fokk.” He nudges his big frame between my skinny knees and circles my ankles in his hard hands like manacles. “These shoes are a menace.”

“Ah, leave them on her, amou ,” Jae purrs like a swamp panther. He crawls onto the table behind me, braids slithering loose around his bare shoulders. “With legs like that, she’s a vision, oui ?”

When we were growing up, Cousin Cletus used to call me a giraffe. (Until my overprotective big brother made him stop.) My height has always made me stick out, which isn’t a good thing when you’re an endangered species whose literal survival depends on hiding.

Suffice it to say, I’m not used to anyone calling me a vision .

I release Draco’s shoulders to give my skirt a covert tug, just to make sure my prim Academy panties stay discreetly covered. Draco lets loose a snarl that sounds like a protest. But it’s hard to hear (even with my enhanced senses) over the low throbbing beat that’s pulsing from the battery-powered ’80s-era boombox grinding out something sexy and vulgar from Nine Inch Nails in the corner.

A hasty glance around the basement tells me I don’t need to worry about drawing attention I don’t want.

Because literally no one is watching.

Zara and Ronin are half-naked and sex-drunk from screwing, and that Russian dragon Maxim is dragging them both into the privacy of the psychedelic den with the lava lamps where my dorm mates like to sneak off to smoke weed and make out. (I never do, partly because I’ve never had anyone to make out with. Plus any kind of drug use is against the Academy Codex and a conduct infraction.)

As First Girl on the Dean’s List, I’ve always been a model of deportment.

Until tonight.

Zara’s roomies, Dez and Racetrack, are wrapped in each other’s arms, making out like crazy up against the bar. Normally the sapphic spice between those two girls (plus my own situation) would be garnering some attention.

But not tonight.

Right now, my House Hadrian dorm mates are all hooking up in various pairings on the scruffy couches and bean bags scattered around the fringes of the dance floor. I catch flashes of discarded clothes, some random boobs and butts, someone’s hot pink lace lingerie draped over a low-hanging rafter. The pockets of darkness in this shadowy dungeon offer the illusion of privacy. But the flaming oil drums and clusters of candles shed a ruddy light over the whole scene like the fires of Hell.

And—holy cow—most of that Tiberius crowd are having a literal orgy on the dance floor. Those witches and warlocks from our rival house are a writhing tangle of limbs and torsos, sweaty skin and sexed-up faces and thrusting hips.

Oh my gosh. My eyes must be sticking out of my head on stalks trying to drink in all that action.

Crap.

It must be Zara, our sexed-up queen, who’s setting the vibe in here. I wonder if maybe she’s going into heat. A witching queen’s superheats, especially if she’s a shifter and powerful like Zara, can be enough to trigger her whole court.

I wonder if maybe we’re all on the edge of a mating rut.

Anyway, it’s safe to conclude no one notices me spread out over this table—Mallory McSnicker, the birthday girl, the last remaining virgin in the Icarus Academy—having her first-ever three-way.

Not to mention her first-ever hookup.

Of any kind.

When Jae’s clawed hands slide up my back, the last awkward flicker of my self-consciousness dissolves. My clenched shoulders loosen and my chest lifts as I breathe in deep. His primal scent of patchouli and bayou fills my head. His talons trace the span of tattooed wings across my shoulders, then sweep my long hair to one side. Goosebumps cascade down my arms and I shiver under his touch. All my skittish awareness anchors in my body.

On the way my skin tingles when he drags his wicked fangs down my neck.

On the way he licks along my jugular and kisses my racing pulse.

On the sharp slice of his talons through the fragile spaghetti straps of my borrowed dress.

“Hey.” Barely in time to prevent a major wardrobe malfunction, I clasp an arm over my practically nonexistent boobs to hold the bodice in place. “Easy on the dress, okay? It isn’t mine.”

“I’ll buy you another.” Draco smirks down at me, like the rich Scandinavian mob boss enforcer the Mars clan males have always been. “Shit, I’ll buy you a dozen. Better than those plaid skirts and baggy cardigans you try to hide behind.”

I don’t try to hide.

I’m better at hiding than anyone I know. I have to be.

Hiding is how I stay safe.

But I’m distracted (in the best possible way) when Draco reaches a brawny arm overhead and peels off his shirt in a single rough pull.

Whoa.

My eyes skim over the broad flex of his shoulders, down the smooth plane of his chest and the hard ripple of his abs, to the obscene way his leather pants hug his hips. The thick bulge of his erection shoves against his zipper in a way that sends heat flooding up my neck to my hairline.

Great. Now I’m blushing.

Of course I’m blushing. It’s the curse of having a redhead’s fair complexion.

“Now I really wanna know what you’re thinkin’,” Draco says gruffly.

I bite my lip and shake my head so hard my curls bounce. My stare skitters around for a safe place to land and settles on the nautical North Star compass tattoo inked into the pale skin over his left pec, right over his heart.

That’s his mafia tat.

Draco Mars is a made man.

The whole school knows it. But that infamous piece of stylized ink confirms every dangerous rumor.

He follows my gaze to the tat. Then the open heat blazing in his face kind of shutters.

“ Helvítis, ” he mutters. “It’s just ink. I won’t hurt you, Mallory.”

It isn’t just ink. The Mars clan has Viking blood. If the rumors are true, a Mars man kills to earn the clan ink.

But I do believe he won’t hurt me.

Knowing he’s so deadly?

For some screwed-up reason, that makes me feel safe.

“Ah, let him see you, chere ,” Jae coaxes in my ear. The hot brand of his lips against my neck makes me shiver. His savage claws tickle my waist through my falling-down dress. “Let both of us see you, oui? ”

We shouldn’t be doing this. For sure.

I mean—not here.

But we’re not supposed to invite guys into the girls’ wing upstairs (or vice versa) either. That’s why literally the whole school (minus the faculty, all thankfully absent) is screwing down here. The air is thick with Mogadon pheromones and shifter mating scent and a musky tang I’m pretty sure is semen.

Both Jae and Draco are pumping out plenty of their own scent. And the wallop of their mingled essence against my hyped-up senses is making my head spin.

I feel like I’m watching someone else, pinned and spread on this table between them, with my skirt riding up my thighs and my dress slipping off my shoulders.

At the same time, I’ve never felt more aware of my own body.

I stare up at Draco’s hungry face, breathe into the eager flex of Jae’s claws around my waist. Then I suck in a huge breath and just…

…let my bodice drop.

I mean, if these two guys are going to reject me for my flaws, better just get it over with. Before my heart gets any more involved.

With both of them.

The sparkly fabric slithers down my tummy and pools over my hips. So I’m protecting that much of myself, at least.

Draco’s scorching gaze shoots straight to my small boobs.

Under his scrutiny, my face flames and my whole body braces for more of the criticism I’ve gotten my whole life (over my skinny frame and white skin and ridiculous profusion of freckles) from the elite East Coast prep schools my dirt-poor parents always relied on scholarships for me to attend.

Under his breath, Draco mutters something incomprehensible.

Probably something about my freckles.

Which truly do spread everywhere .

“I, uh, don’t speak Icelandic.” Already mortified, I dive for my fallen dress.

“Hjartfólgin.” He repeats the phrase and circles my wrists in his big hands to stop me. “It means… my… hidden heart.”

In response, my own heart gives a hard thump.

When the bad boy of the whole school drops to his knees between my spread thighs and gazes up at me, his chiseled face blazing with need, I pretty much stop breathing.

“Give him a chance, you,” Jae breathes in my ear. The ear is an erogenous zone for my kind, even if I didn’t inherit the pointy tips, and my body ripples in a delicious shiver.

Slowly, almost… reverently, Draco’s rough palms span my ribs, then slide up my torso to cup my boobs.

Okay. Maybe the golden sprinkle of nutmeg freckles over my pale skin doesn’t bother him there .

I’m really sensitive there, and my tiny pink nipples are already so stiff they’re aching. Now they peak against his callused hands. He rumbles in pleasure and thumbs my nipples. Sensation spreads outward from his touch like ripples in a pond.

I guess he doesn’t mind then? I mean, the fact that I’m flat-chested… and freckled… miraculously doesn’t seem like a turnoff for this one guy.

My teeth sink hard into my lower lip. I arch into the caress and my head falls back against Jae’s sinewy shoulder. My face turns toward this wolf at my back and our mouths meet in a slow sucking kiss.

If Draco Mars is ice, then Jae Labête is fire.

He tastes like wolf, all dark and smoky, with a tongue like sin. Knowing this mouth of his was just wrapped around Draco’s dick only makes me hotter. I wonder whether Jae finished him off—the way he’s clearly done before—after I interrupted them on the stairs.

Ah, chere , you naughty girl, you. The velvety purr of Jae’s voice fills my head.

I forgot he’s a telepath, he has the gene that encodes for that, because he’s never spoken that way to me.

“If you want to know the truth,” he whispers against my breathless lips, “we didn’t finish on the stairs. We were waiting for you.”

My heavy eyelids lift to meet the liquid honey of Jae’s Cajun stare. His eyes are wolf eyes, almond-shaped and slanted, definitely wilder and more yellow than they were before.

But I’m not afraid of him.

Slowly I twine an arm around his neck, his sleek beaded braids swinging around his face. My other hand threads gently through Draco’s spiky hair, where he kneels between my thighs, to draw him closer.

Draco’s warm hands are still stroking the small slopes of my boobs, and I’m tingly and shivery all over. My nipples are so tight they’re tingling. When the warm suction of Draco’s mouth closes over one sensitive peak, an aching cry spills out of me.

With everything else going down in this basement, like the boom box and the orgy, I’m barely audible.

But these two are so tuned into me right now that they hear every sound.

Jae pounces on my open mouth and devours me in a kiss that’s deep enough to let me feel his fangs, the wolfish incisors that sprout from his palate, pressing into my lip. Draco’s hands slide up my inner thighs and splay my legs wide for him. Cool basement air hits the damp gusset of my panties.

Draco’s thumbs slide along the edge of the soaked silk. Holy cow, I feel so exposed. That flimsy scrap is clinging to my girly parts, and the musky note of my own intimate scent joins the miasma of mating scents we’re all pumping out.

When I squirm under his touch and moan into Jae’s kiss, Draco’s touch skates over the silk that clings to my plump folds, then grazes the swollen nub of my clit.

A tiny grenade of pleasure explodes in my core. I yelp and arch into that hot ache, my heeled shoes scrabbling to find purchase on the table. Without meaning to, my teeth sink into Jae’s lip.

My bite triggers his wolf.

Or maybe it’s everything else the three of us are doing on this table that triggers him.

Jae breaks our kiss to throw his head back in a long lupine howl that soars about the music’s low bass throb. That howl sends chills cascading down my spine. Roughly he drags my back against his chest, clawed hands wrapping around my boobs from behind. The scrape of his talons against my nipples shoots straight to my already stimulated clit.

At the same time, Draco strokes my hard little bud through my soaked panties without mercy. Waves of pleasure ripple through me. My head falls back against Jae’s sweat-slick shoulder and my mouth falls open. The basement’s fire-streaked darkness swirls around me, candles blazing like comets against my blurred vision.

My entire back burns against Jae’s sinewy frame. My tattooed wings flutter against my skin like they yearn to rise and spread.

When Draco’s hands hook around my panties and drag them down my legs, it’s simultaneously a shock and the natural next act in this play we’re enacting. My pussy is slick and pulsing with a hunger that demands to be sated.

Still, from habit, I wiggle around so my dress falls over the carroty patch of pubic hair between my legs (because I’ve heard enough about that , too, in my prep school girls’ locker room after gym class). When my undies snag around my clunky shoe, my face flames with embarrassment. Here I am, wearing my regulation uniform silk-and-cotton schoolgirl panties to this unsanctioned orgy I seem to have stumbled into.

But Draco seems inflamed by the entire setup. He frees my panties with a deft twist, presses them to his face, and breathes in deep. His eyes close and his forehead knots.

Holy wow.

The Eric Northman of the Icarus Academy is sniffing my soaked panties.

Then his electric blue eyes flash open.

Over my splayed body, our gazes lock. I’m all flushed and undone, my mouth is open, and I can barely breathe. His stare narrows on Jae’s hands cradling my breasts. In his arctic eyes, cobalt flames ignite like northern lights.

Then his gaze narrows on the scrap of sparkly dress still wrapped around my hips.

“Fair warning, Mallory,” Draco says thickly. The sound of my name—and the warning—on his lips makes my pulse skip. “Lose the dress. Or we’ll tear it off you.”

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