Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
KINCAID
Francesca scrambles out of the cart, unaided, nearly falling to the ground before she rights herself. When she steps away from me, her shoe soles squeak against the anti-slip rubber-studded tiles on the floor.
Steam still circulates in the changing rooms, turning clammy when it lands on my skin. An overhead fan chugs, the motor sounding weary as it tries to keep up with the demand in the humidity-soaked room.
She stares at me with her mouth open, not saying a word. I step forward and she steps back, her body tensing like a spring.
“Naughty girl,” I growl, as if her surprise intrusion isn’t the best part of my day so far. “Doesn’t privacy mean anything to you?”
“Sorry. I didn’t look at anything.” Her hand flutters to her throat, eyes downcast. “Alice and her friends were chasing me, and I needed to hide.”
“Like that makes it better?”
She retreats another step, and I lunge, pulling her against me and spinning in a half circle like a dancer, ending with me positioned between her and the exit.
“I should call the coach and make you explain why you’re spying on naked and vulnerable sports people while they’re changing.” I shake my head, lips twisting as though disappointed. “It’s despicable. Once the principal hears, you’ll probably be expelled.”
“Please don’t do that.” The plea is so soft it barely counts as a whisper.
“If you want to buy my silence, I’m listening.”
“I don’t have any money.” She chews on her bottom lip, frowning at the floor. “But I could write essays for you or give you free tutoring or… or… clean your house?”
“Are you implying I’m thick, Francesca?” I tease. “Or dirty? Goodness me, but you’re a rude girl.”
“No. No I—” She swallows back whatever she was about to say, and a long pause follows. Then she blurts, “Please let me go. The cleaner steered the cart in here. I had no idea I was in the locker rooms.”
I release my hold and step back, hands resting on my hips.
The whites of her eyes show and there’s a tremor in her hands. Her gaze fixes on the door behind me as though the pack of ravenous girls who chased her in here is preferable.
I give a snort, hitching up my left eyebrow. “Should I call Alice and tell her where you’re hiding?”
There’s a rhythmic quiver along her carotid artery, the speed and force increasing as I wait. After a long pause, she shakes her head.
Loose strands of hair are pasted to her cheeks, smudged red from the steam. Mascara clumps on her corner lashes, smeared like eyeliner where she’s wiped her face without thinking.
So, so messy.
My fingers itch, wanting to put her into order. Smoothing, straightening, washing away the dregs of makeup, and using cool water to ease the frenetic colour.
“Sit.” My voice is hoarse, half an octave lower than usual. “I’ll ask you questions, and if you ever want to get out of here, you’ll answer.”
She obeys, perching on the edge of the slatted bench. Her fingers pick at the top button of her thin blouse, the cheap fabric inadequate for the cold weather, even with the school cardigan on top.
Drops of crimson stain the neckline, the pattern roughly an inch long. The collar is askew, the tail pulled out of her kilt on one side, tucked on the other.
When I move a step closer, looming over her, she wrings her hands, twitching as a door bangs shut on the opposite side of the gym. Nervous energy pulses from her and she looks ready to bolt.
“Take a deep breath and calm down. I’m not planning to hurt you.”
In a quivering voice she asks, “What will you do to me?”
“Depends on what you did to piss off Alice and her mob.”
“It’s just shitty girl stuff.”
She pouts and usually I’d hate it, but on her the petulant thrust of her lower lip looks good.
With slow building pleasure, I scan her again, not finding any part of her distasteful. The same gene responsible for her fiery hair paints her pale skin with freckles. Hundreds of them coat her thin arms and what I can see of her legs.
They have less coverage on her face, most crowding across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones, a few shades lighter than her eyebrows and long lashes. In striking contrast to the deep pink of her plump lips.
And it’s those lips and her wide mouth that draws my focus. They offer a tempting range of possibilities, even as her green eyes turn stormy with fear and resentment.
“You’re in my physics class, right?”
From what I’ve seen, she’s a typical brainiac, hand always thrust in the air, eager to share the right answer and gain the teacher’s approval.
Her shoulders relax as she processes the question. “Yes.”
“And you moved here this year?”
She nods more easily this time. “Westlake has a study pathway into the undergraduate astrophysics program at Rathbone. That’s where I want to do my degree.”
Another dose of curiosity tugs at my gut. It’s… pleasing. I can’t remember the last time anyone surprised me. “You want to be an astronaut?”
“No.” She frowns, then gives a small, secret smile. “But I want to build rockets and keep those who do volunteer for that role alive.”
“That sounds pretty cool.”
Her face lights up and she leans towards me. “It really is. There are so many things that can go wrong with the mechanics of launch and then, even if everything goes smoothly, they’re living in the most hostile environment you can imagine. Not only the obvious, like springing a pressure leak or becoming untethered but stuff like how your bones and organs change when you’re weightless and how to diminish those effects with intelligent design or figure out the best programs to restore the astronauts to full health when they return.”
As she talks, her hands are expressive, making wild gestures. One knocks against the edge of the locker, and she abruptly stops.
A blush spreads across her cheeks like she’s ashamed to gush over her passion and I wonder how often she’s been scolded into silence.
“It’s competitive,” she adds, angling her chin like I’d suggested otherwise. “Attending Westlake gives me my best shot.”
“Sure. And you’re eighteen, right? You’re not one of those masterminds who skipped years at school.”
Her frown returns, but she nods. “Yeah, I’m eighteen.”
I watch her scan me slowly but don’t need her to know why I’m checking.
“Me, too.”
After a stilted pause, she asks, “And why are you here?”
“My uncle’s hip deep in organised crime, and this is the logical place.” She doesn’t ask, but I offer the information, anyway. “Lance Tana. You’ve heard of him?”
“I haven’t heard of anybody.”
A believable enough lie, not that it matters. I don’t need my uncle’s name to fight my battles. I’ve long been big enough to win my own.
“And what did you do to make Alice so angry?”
Her mouth twists. “If I tell you, will you let me go?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe isn’t good enough.” She folds her arms. “You know damn well I wasn’t in here to spy on naked athletes. You have no right to hold me here. It’s kidnap.”
“Kidnap.”
Her chin juts even higher. “That’s right.”
“Sounds serious,” I say in a mocking voice. “Better call the police. Or you could just answer the question, Frances—”
“That’s not…” When she swallows her throat clicks. “I prefer to be called Chess.”
“Your name is whatever I want to call you, Freckles. Answer my question.”
Her face collapses until I’m almost sorry for her. But it’s becoming harder to feel anything over the rapacious need growing inside my body.
The silence elongates, the pressure to speak growing more uncomfortable with each passing second. Her expression remains stubborn, but when I rub myself with the heel of my palm, it fractures into panic.
“There’s a noticeboard, and I had an ad auctioning my virginity,” she blurts. “Ezra answered… and I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”
“An ad?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a prostitute?”
She bares her teeth at me. “A sex-worker and no. I couldn’t do any of it.” Her voice softens until she sounds broken, and a new rush of hatred for my cousin whips through me.
I saw her first. If anyone is going to break her, it should be me.
A muscle in my chest pinches and I rub at my sternum, then dig into it with my knuckle.
“I don’t…” She shakes her head, blinking furiously. “I think I’m asexual. It was a dumb idea.”
I snort with amusement. I’m still irritated my cousin put his grubby hands on her but to find she hated his touch enough to believe she has an aversion to sex?
That delights me.
“But you sucked him off.”
Her body tenses, voice wary as she asks, “He told you that?”
“Ezra doesn’t talk to me at all if he can help it. What’s your number?” She tells me, and I send her a link. “He didn’t have to. You’re quite the movie star.”
Her hand trembles as she takes out her phone and tilts the screen to click play. A few seconds later, the device slips from her fingers, clattering on the floor.
I pick it up, wincing at the crack on the screen as I hand it to her. She shoves it back into her pocket, her breathing heavier, more erratic.
The reaction is too visceral to be fake.
She really can’t stand him.
“How much did he pay you?”
“He didn’t because…” Her nostrils flare at whatever memory surfaces. “We agreed on five grand for my virginity, but it was only… he didn’t…” She bites into her bottom lip, fingernails clawing deep into her forearms. “Not a cent,” she suddenly snaps, cheeks warming from pink to bright red as her voice grows in volume. “And there was never meant to be a fucking recording.”
Inside, I’m rejoicing. Her faltering explanation is the best gift I could have hoped for. Even if my cousin forced his wilting penis into her mouth, she’s otherwise intact.
I’ve never been one of those guys who hankered after purity, not when experience is more expedient, but damn… the idea of me being the first to have her, of slowly pushing inside knowing it’s the first time she’s ever felt a man penetrate her?
That’s gonna make it to the highlight reel, guaranteed.
“Five grand,” I repeat.
“Yeah. What about it?” she demands. “Is this the bit where you say I’m not worth it and tell all your favourite ginger jokes because believe me, I’ve heard all of them.”
“No. This is the bit where I tell you it’d be a privilege to pay ten times that to see your virgin blood smeared along the length of my cock.”
Her expression freezes, then she lunges from the bench, catapulting towards the door.
I grab her from behind, one hand across her mouth, the other clamped around her arms and torso. “Don’t be like that,” I say, laughing as she struggles in my arms. The squirming of her compact body against mine is pure heaven.
Her contortions slow as she tires. There’ll be marks and bruises on me tomorrow from her flailing, but I welcome them. The little vixen can mark me as much as she wants.
“I won’t even ask why you need the five grand, Freckles.”
The tremor in her limbs sends another white-hot rush of blood into my cock, growing harder and harder against the curve of her hip. She still breathes heavily through her nose, but it’s slowing, her inhalations deeper.
She’s listening.
My cousin’s a supreme arsehole who only did this to annoy me. It would be a perfect revenge to show her willing and eager to perform on me when she bailed on him. I can easily picture his forehead creased in irritation while he watches her go to town on my cock.
A cock that will always dwarf his substandard erection.
The thickness in my throat turns my voice ragged as I press my lips to her ear. “We’ll start slowly. If sex really scares you, we’ll stick with oral. Can’t say fairer than that.”
It’s easy to make the offer when I already know she’s desperate.
Five thousand means nothing to me but whatever the purpose, it must mean a lot to her. There were far easier ways to answer my questions than telling me the truth.
If she didn’t need the money, I wouldn’t know her price.
“Sit on the massage table.” It’s against the far wall and I move aside to let her pass, then close in again once she’s complied. “Hands gripping the edge.”
As she obeys, the muscles in her shoulders relax, and another hit of joy lights my brain at her obedience.
Once I wipe Ezra’s tainted fingerprints off her, she’ll be sweet perfection. Her mouth saying no while her body screams yes.
I put my hands on her knees and slowly press them apart, edging my thumbs under her kilt and sliding them up her inner thighs. She’s so tiny, I turn the crank on the table to raise it inches higher, until she’s at the perfect height to cup her hips and pull her spread legs flush against me.
Her knuckles strain, turning white as she grips harder like she’s fighting the instinct to push me away.
There’s a cute ladybug clip pinning back her fringe and I pocket it for a keepsake, then remove the elastic from her bun, dropping it on the table.
Long waves of bright orange cascade over her shoulders and I comb through them with my fingers, untangling the strands and fluffing out her hair until it sits exactly as I pictured a dozen times while falling asleep.
She snags her lower lip with her teeth.
“You’re not in any danger,” I assure her, the lust sneaking into my voice and dropping it half an octave. “We’ll go step by step and at the first sign of distress, I’ll stop and check in with you, okay?”
The cloud of worry doesn’t leave her eyes.
“It’s either this or I call the principal and tell him where I found you, then you won’t get the lovely school name on your transcript.” My hand cups her neck, thumb stroking the soft skin behind her ear until she shivers. “You know this is your best option. I’ll even get Alice off your back for free.”
“Promise you won’t record me,” she whispers, voice barely audible.
And even though that was my plan, I readily agree. “I promise. What’s your bank account?”
She tells me and I arrange a transfer. There are stacks of cash in my room and stored in the spare tyre well in my car boot but I’m well short of the figure in my everyday account.
I pull the funds from the household kitty instead, making a mental note to deposit the money to cover it later.
When it’s done, I show her the transaction, and she nods, looking relieved when I place my phone on the locker shelf and shut the door.
“Someone told me redheads have the palest nipples of anyone.” I rub my finger along her jawline, enjoying the sheen in her emerald eyes. “Why don’t we start with you showing me if they’re right?”