Chapter 8
Chapter 8
BEAU
S haring a bed with Kens has never meant much sleep for me, I got maybe two hours, not that I’m complaining in the slightest. Post-sex exhaustion does make for the best naps, though.
Freshly out of the shower, I hear commotion in the hallway and to be honest, I want to get this conversation with King behind me. I’m not sure what he needs to tell me… but it’s usually some serious shit when he says he needs to talk. He’ll be happy to hear Iris is back, so I’m not worried about my news. Just his. I open the door to see some guy talking to King with a wad of cash being exchanged. And King is naked. What the fuck?
When the guy leaves, I push my way into his room so we can get this conversation behind us.
“Good morning to you, too.” He stands there with his cocky bare ass displayed for anyone who walks by. “Couldn’t wait to get a peek of this yourself, huh?”
“Put some clothes on, fucker.” As if I haven’t seen his shit my entire life.
He tugs on a pair of underwear super fucking slow, testing my patience even further. “Better?”
“At least your cock’s not hanging out anymore.”
He flops down on his bed before he starts talking. “What’s up? How was your night?”
“Oh no, I want to know what that early morning exchange was all about.” I haven’t been in contact with King for a few days, so I can only imagine the kind of trouble he’s gotten himself into.
“The least you could do is bring breakfast before you interrogate me.” He ignores my question and tries to change the subject, but I just stare at him until he starts talking. “Fine, I guess I’ll starve in the meantime. The text I sent you last night?” I nod and wait for his response.
“You’ll never guess who I ran into last night.”
He’ll never guess who I’ve been running into for the past two fucking days. But I’ll let him go first. “I don’t know where to start as far as guesses go. Who was it?”
“She.” He says it and I start dreading where this conversation is headed.
“She?”
He has a shit eating grin his face and I already know what he’s about to say before it comes out of his mouth. “Of all the women in the world, I found the best one. Even had her in my shirt and kissed her sexy ass.”
Maybe it’s not her .
Maybe he met someone else at the party last night.
“No shit? Who are we dealing with here, King?”
“Iris Kensington.”
“No… fucking… way.” I say it because I can’t fucking believe he’s hung up on my girl but he takes it as if I don’t believe she’s back. Yes, I know she’s back. I’ve just had my dick in her at least six times in the past twenty-four hours. Fuck.
“Yep, she had me on cloud nine all night just thinking about our time together.” When the hell did he have time with her? It had to have been before I went over there last night… which means Kens held back some valuable fucking information that would’ve changed some shit. I definitely wouldn’t have fucked her all night long.
“And your early morning visitor?” I try to change the subject because my head feels like it’s about to explode.
“I had him use his connections to get me her phone.” Jesus Christ, King is already stalking her, yet he missed the info about me being over there for hours. Just wait till he finds out how my history with Iris goes way back.
“One night and you’ve already stolen her phone? You sure you want to head down this road so soon? What if you hate her?” I try my best to deflect his attention from her… but I already know it’s too late. Once he sets his mind on something… it’s his. I know this because I’m the same. We’ve just never wanted the same thing before.
“Hate her?” He laughs at me like I’m an idiot. “I need an in into her life. I want to know everything we’ve missed, what she likes, who she talks to… everything. Trust me, there’s no way either one of us could ever hate her. She’s even better than before. She’s changed in all the right ways.”
I know she has.
I fucking know .
“How did she look? Was she at least happy?” I can’t tell him about us. He will implode and literally tear the frat house up if he finds out I beat him to her. He will never forgive me, and I know this because he’s a competitive fucker that I’ve known my entire life.
“Man, there isn’t a word to describe her. She’s always been hot, but now, she’s a complete knockout.” Knocked my ass out a few times last night.
“Plastic Barbie type? Ugh, thought she wasn’t interested in perfection.” At this point… I have to play dumb. I thought I would be able to stand up to the world in order to keep Kens, but I never dreamed I’d have to stab my best friend just to get her. If he finds out I kept my past relationship with her a secret for all of these years and then beat him to her this time, he will never forgive me.
“Nah, more like natural beauty with wide hips that look like she could ride a cock for hours.” Oh… she can.
“ Fuck .” I huff, releasing some of my frustrations. Thank god he’s so tied up in his own thoughts about her he’s missing all the clues that I’m losing my shit.
“My thoughts exactly. I’m determined to find out everything I can about her. There’s no way we’re losing her again. This time I’m letting her know how I feel. The kiss last night was… well, she got my cock hard and my mind spinning without even trying. I’m going to lock her ass down and keep her.” Shit. He kissed her. He will go fucking ballistic when he finds out the truth. Just when I decide to tell him everything… my phone vibrates.
Private
You will use your first key now. You have one hour to pack a bag for a week and drive straight north on Bentley Drive. You’ll receive an address soon. Come solo.
Fuck. There’s no way I can get into this with him now. I know when I tell him everything it’ll take days to calm him down. I have less than an hour. I have to keep it peaceful until this initiation is over. “When are we seeing her?”
“She wants to surprise you.” I bet she fuckin’ does. I’m going to spank her ass for this.
“I’ll play along… pretend you haven’t told me she’s here already. Keep me updated between now and then.” Little Iris Kensington is playing games. It looks like I have no choice but to join in now that she’s royally fucked me by putting me in this position against my best friend. She knows better than this.
“Good, and I will. I’ll swing by her room later and see if she wants to grab some food. Tell her you’re meeting me so she can surprise you,” I reply, as I can’t wait to see her face.
“She say anything about why she’s at this school and not still in Paris? I wonder what she had to do to get her family to let her come to Bentley.” Since he did more talking than me, might as well find out if he discovered anything relevant about her dad. If she’s here, then he’s not far away.t
“She didn’t really say much about it. We’ll have to dig it all out from her. Maybe hack into her laptop if I don’t find anything worthwhile on her cell. I was too shell-shocked at running into her and how amazing she looked. I wonder, since she’s stateside if she’ll be heading to Texas for the holidays again?” Good question. I have no clue. We didn’t talk much.
“Her father won’t be pleased to see her with us, that’s for sure.” We’re in for a fight with him, between ourselves… and if we’re not careful, with the society as well when they start using her to get us to do their bullshit.
“Like we give a fuck. If he wasn’t the governor, we could make his ass disappear for good. Maybe someday. It’d be wise to get him off her back.” He’s always looking for ways to get rid of people… and in this case, I agree with him.
“We’ve discussed it before… maybe now’s the time to put it in motion.”
“I’m down with those plans. We could hire it out, so it doesn’t point toward us.” And now we’re talking about offing the governor. Jesus… this day started off so good and now I’m plotting murder.
“Hmm. I want to take care of it ourselves… no room for fucking up that way.” We don’t need anyone with the power to blackmail us on anything this big.
“You know I’m always willing to play with my food, not just grill it and toss it in barbecue sauce.” Yeah… King is fucked up. But I love him all the same. He’s been there for me my entire life and I’m the piece of shit who hasn’t been upfront with him about Iris and her family connections.
“Gross. All right, I have shit to do, so text me when you want me to meet up with you.”
“Brotherhood stuff?” he whispers and I roll my eyes and look around the room for any obvious cameras. My paranoia is growing rampant as the clock keeps ticking my hour away.
“I gotta go.”
“I’ll text you,” he rushes in the last word just before the door closes.
Fuck, I need to talk to Iris. I didn’t even bother to get her phone number the past few days, so I guess that’ll have to wait until I get back.
I hurry to my room and start throwing my clothes into a duffle bag. One week. I can’t imagine where they’ll have me go for an entire week and I don’t have time to think about it. I’ve already wasted too much of my hour talking to King.
Guilt weighs heavy as I walk out of the frat house without another word to King. It feels off because we’re used to doing everything together. We know everything about each other… with the exception of how far I took it with Iris all those years ago. She didn’t want what we had to ruin the bond the three of us had. If I could go back in time, I’d do it all another way, and this whole fucked up day would be going a little differently.
Doing this society stuff alone goes against all we’ve ever been, and I hope against everything we ever will be. I like it when he has my back and he’s never known life without me having his.
I take a deep breath and steer my truck north on Bentley Drive in hopes that this is all short-lived and once we’re members in the society, we can go back to being a team. I’ll just have to come clean about Iris and hopefully he’ll forgive me.