seventeen
Rumor Has It… The school outcast was seen trying to lure another girl’s boyfriend into her car. How desperate can one skank get? One thing’s for sure: no one is safe, so girls, hold onto your man!
Colt Darling
Willow Heights keeps seniors coming to school second semester by giving us solo projects, and they keep us coming until graduation by making us present our projects the last month of school. Not only is it our final grade, but several school, local, and alumni-owned organizations and businesses offer scholarships and grants for students who impress them. That means the student lot is filled with bleary-eyed, burned-out seniors Monday morning when I pull up and park in Gloria’s spot in the back row.
Apparently finding it hilarious, Duke told me the whole story through laughter at lunch one day—that the school informed her, the week after her fall from grace, that her parking spot in the front row had been mistakenly double paid, and due to this ‘administrative error,’ she had to choose a new spot from those available. The Dolces apparently think everyone is as shallow as they are, and they thought she’d care about a parking spot when she was being threatened with assault, called vile names, and ‘accidentally’ touched in the halls every day, all while mourning the loss of her brother and the betrayal of her sisters. I know how it is because they did the same thing to me after Devlin died. Losing my parking spot didn’t even register on the list of shitty things in my life that month, and that was something we’d fought over before Devlin disappeared. Gloria probably didn’t give a single fuck.
If anything, she probably appreciated being out of the spotlight for those few minutes each morning before the daily battle of survival began. I should have done more to help her back then, been there for her the way Harper was. Of course the admin didn’t double book her old spot in the front row, and it sat empty for the rest of first semester. Ironically, it was assigned to me second semester, though I think it bothers Dixie that the Dolces didn’t give it to her, since she’s the queen now and cares about that stuff a hell of a lot more than I do.
I toss down my cigarette, pick up Lo’s bubble tea, and hop off the tailgate when June Bug pulls up behind me, since she can’t pull into her spot.
The window slides down and Gloria frowns at me. “What are you doing?”
“Just waiting for you, butterfly,” I say, circling the hood. I give it a tap with my knuckles, then open the passenger door and slide in. “To your spot, my queen.”
“You’re in my spot,” she says, her hand resting on the gear shift as she gives me a flat look.
“The queen’s spot is in the front row,” I say. “Take it.”
“I’m not the queen anymore.”
“If you need a reminder, I’ll be happy to oblige,” I say, cracking a grin and squeezing her thigh, clad in a pair of tight, faded blue jeans. My mouth waters at the thought of tasting her again, and I shift in my seat, tugging at the knees of my own jeans. “Want me to go down on you in the back seat? Or should I lay you over the hood and eat you out in front of the whole school?”
“Colt,” she hisses, glancing around like someone might hear.
“Go on,” I say, gesturing toward the front of the lot.
She swallows and glances in the rearview, where someone has come up the row and is idling behind her. Then she lets out the clutch and creeps slowly forward. “What if they bust up my car for disobeying?”
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
It’s not just because I’m a king and I’m staking my claim to her, giving her the shield I should have offered a long time ago. If the other elites start to question me, Duke has my back. Not out of loyalty, but because I’ve done things to him that he’ll take to his grave. Even though I feel pretty shitty about that night, I’m glad I did it. It gives me a power that all the money and heritage in the world can’t.
Gloria finally inches into the parking spot at the front with a little more coaxing. I see people turning our way, looking, their glances curious and excited as they wait for drama. But no one approaches, so I climb out of the car and circle around to open Lo’s door.
There’s a certain wariness in the rest of the students when it comes to me. I’m a king, and some of them pretend well enough that I was never anything else. But there’s a shadow over my name, my presence. Guys are guarded when I’m around, their jokes cautious, and popular girls don’t flirt and fawn over me the way they do the athletes. Instead of a pretty boy beefcake like the guys the Dolces handpicked for their elite circle, I look more like the kind of guy their daddies warned them about.
Besides the fucked up hand, my hair is long enough that I have to tie it back, and my tats show even when I wear a button-up shirt, since my hands and neck are both fully inked. Instead of playing a sport, I book illegal fights and street races, smoke, and am known to associate with gangsters. If girls propositioned me, they’d keep it a dirty little secret instead of broadcasting it as a badge of honor like they do when they hook up with Duke Dolce or DeShaun Rose or Cotton Montgomery. But they don’t, because I have Dixie, and they’re more terrified of her than they are attracted to my bad boy image.
“I’m waiting for you, butterfly,” I drawl, holding out a hand, since Lo’s still sitting in the driver’s seat, gnawing on her fat lower lip in a way that drives me wild.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because you deserve this,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her from the seat. I hand her the bubble tea before scooping her into my arms, and she gasps and throws her free arm around my neck instinctively.
“What the hell?” she grits out, her eyes wide.
“I told you I was going to carry you around until you could walk normally.”
“I’m fine,” she whispers, glancing around at the other students in the lot. They definitely notice when I stride toward the entrance to the school, carrying her in my arms like a bride. Too bad I don’t get to carry her over the threshold to a honeymoon bed where I could get lost in her soft skin and strong thighs, her scent, her taste, her sighs.
By the time we reach the doors to the school, we’re trailed by an entire crowd. I turn to them, and their excited whispers die as they wait for an explanation for why the king-turned-leper-turned-king-again is carrying the disgraced outcast whore.
“This is my queen,” I say, my voice carrying over the upturned faces of the onlookers. “No one fucks with her—no one.”
I wait a moment, watching their gazes skirt away from mine when I try to meet them. There’s that current of unease that’s so different from the adoration I got when I was a king before. That’s the way the Dolce reign works, the way the new royalty has instilled fear in them. But it’s also their discomfort with having to worship someone they once called a golem, their paranoia that I’ll seek revenge on them for the way they treated me before.
Not one person asks what happens if they disobey my direct order.
They wouldn’t dare.
I turn back and throw open the door and march inside with Gloria Walton cradled in my arms. I may not get to lay her down and worship every inch of her magnificent body, but I feel like a conquering hero as I enter Willow Heights with her displayed as my prize. For the first time since I reclaimed my place at the top, I feel the surge of pride and power that used to come with the title. For once, it doesn’t feel hollow or like a sham. With the right queen on my arm, I feel like a king again.
I carry her all the way to her locker, parading her through the halls, my head held high. Then I stop, but I can’t set her down. I want her in my arms forever.
“Gloria?”
She smiles up at me, her hand small and warm on the back of my neck. “Yes, my king?”
“Can I take you to the basement?”
She swallows hard, but she doesn’t drop her gaze. “Just you?” she whispers, her sapphire eyes searching mine.
I open my mouth to say what the fuck, and how could she ask me that. But she has every right to ask, not just because of the Dolces, but because of what I did on Friday. My mouth snaps closed, and I nod, my lips tight, holding her gaze steady even though I want to drop my head in shame. “Just me and you.”
I carry her back down the hall, taking my time, letting everyone see us.
“Everyone’s staring,” she whispers.
I tighten my arms around her. “Let them look.”
“They’re giving me dirty looks,” she says. “It’s different for you.”
“Trust me, I’ve been there,” I say. “I understand exactly what you mean, butterfly. But that’s not what they’re thinking now. People envy what they can never have.”
“Which one of us are you saying they can never have?”
“Both,” I say, opening the door to the library.
I make my way back through the stacks, past one of the sitting areas with cozy leather couches, lamps, tables, and potted plants, past the circulation desk. There’s no sign of the librarian, but the shelf that hides the door to the basement protrudes a few inches instead of blending seamlessly with the next one.
I hesitate, unsure I want to go down there now that I’m here. I could have rejoined the Midnight Swans when I rejoined the elite circle, but the basement holds dark memories I’d rather not revisit.
“What’s wrong?” Gloria asks, her fingers tracing the ink on the side of my neck.
“Nothing,” I say, not moving. “I… I haven’t been back since that day.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, shit. Do you want to go somewhere else? We could go to the locker room again. Or that storage closet where Rylan was hiding. That would be a kind of poetic justice.”
“No,” I say, swallowing past the sick feeling in my throat. I stare at the shelf as if I can make it move, as if it can open and close a thousand times in reverse to bring me back to that day, when I wouldn’t have opened it at all. But then maybe none of this would have happened, and I might not be standing here with forever in my arms.
“If someone’s down there, you know I won’t let them hurt you, right?” I ask, searching her eyes. “I won’t let them touch you.”
She stares up at me for a moment before she nods, her face full of sympathy instead of the fear and trepidation I expected. I’m asking her to trust me, and she’s only afraid for me. It does something fucked up to my head, and I want to reach for another pill, but my hands are full of her. I shift her weight into one arm so I can use the other.
Slowly, I reach out and pull the shelf forward. It swings open, and we step inside. Gloria pulls it closed behind us, and I start down the steps, placing my feet carefully so I won’t trip and drop her. By the time we reach the bottom of the stairs, I’m on edge, my muscles tight and my heartbeat erratic.
I check both rooms, finding them both empty.
“Who were you afraid would be here?” she asks. “Duke?”
I shake my head, since I can’t tell her that Duke is the least of my worries. Like they say about all animals, he’s more scared of me than I am of him.
“I don’t know,” I admit, glancing around the shadowy basement, avoiding the place near the stairs where the Dolces grabbed me and the stone table in the center where Royal had Gloria pinned. “I’m not scared of anyone being here. I just don’t like it down here. It’s creepy.”
“Then why’d you want to come down here?”
I turn my attention to the girl in my arms, smiling down at her. “Because you’re here,” I say, setting her on her feet and tucking her hair behind her ear. I draw her chin up and give her a soft, lingering kiss, letting my fingers slide down to rest gently around her throat. “And you make me so damn horny I couldn’t make it to first period without seeing your pretty lips dripping with my cum.”
“Oh,” she says, letting out a breathy little laugh, her eyes going hazy with lust as her body sways into mine. “I thought you didn’t like that.”
Keeping my fingers around her throat, I reach down and unbuckle my belt with my other hand, chuckling when I see her pupils dilate. “Who doesn’t like blowjobs?”
“You always stop me when I try.”
“Because you hadn’t earned it,” I say. “Now you have. Get on your knees and worship me, my queen.”
“Yes, my king,” she says with a flirty little grin. She sinks to her knees and tugs her hair over her shoulders before leaning forward and tugging down the front of my boxer briefs. She lets out a little hum of pleasure as she wraps her long, delicate fingers around my shaft. After stroking me a few times, she tugs my cock down, placing a chaste kiss on the tip. A drop of precum beads, and she darts her tongue out, collecting it on the tip of her tongue. Then she withdraws her tongue, moving it around her mouth and tasting me with a soft sound of satisfaction.
“You trying to kill me?” I growl.
“Payback’s a bitch,” she says, then slides my pierced tip between her lips, tentatively closing around my girth, her tongue caressing my skin. I watch a shudder wrack her body, and then she casts her lashes upwards, her mouth around my cock, her big eyes trusting and vulnerable, dewy and willing.
“God damn,” I groan, burying my hands in her hair and pulling her forward, impaling her mouth. My cock hits the back of her throat and she gags, blinking hard, tears shining in her eyes. I pull back, stroking her cheek, letting my thumb play in the corner of her lips. She sucks a few times, her tongue undulating along the underside of my cock, making my balls ache to empty into her wet little mouth.
“Can you take me deep?”
Her head bobs in a nod, and I slide my hand down her silky hair, gathering it at the nape of her neck. I drag her forward, pushing slow and deep into her throat this time. It constricts around the intrusion, and an involuntary hiccup of pleasure escapes me. Precum oozes down her throat, and she swallows it, moaning around my shaft. The vibration combined with her pleasure and the squeeze makes my knees weak.
Then she relaxes, and I feel the head of my cock squeeze down her straining throat, stretching it tight. I curse under my breath, nudging in further before pulling back, letting her breathe.
“Pinch my leg if you need me to stop,” I say.
She nods again, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye. I collect it with my thumb and slide it between my lips, my eyes falling closed as I taste her sweet submission. She slides her mouth back along my length, easing me down her throat.
“I’m going to fuck your throat raw if you keep doing that,” I growl.
She hesitates only a moment, then nods again.
I grip her hair, bringing her mouth all the way along my cock. She leans forward, extending her neck, and I give a shove, breaching her throat again. I start to move faster, in and out past the tight strain, barely giving her time to gasp in little breaths. She whimpers, tears spurting from her eyes, tracking mascara down her cheeks. I fuck her harder, gripping her hair with one hand to hold her head up while my other hand slides under her neck, feeling her throat work as I fuck it.
She chokes a few times, stopping to spit and gasp for air before I jerk her head up and slam back into her throat. She cries out around my cock, the sound echoing through the room with the gluck-gluck of her throat taking me, gagging, taking me deeper.
“Pinch me,” I order, but she just makes a helpless, whimpering sound and keeps her hands on the floor, bracing herself. God, it feels so fucking good I never want to stop even as I’m dying to cum this very moment. I go harder, knowing she can take it. Her throat’s had this kind of experience before, because there’s no way she could take me so deep and so long and so rough if she hadn’t.
The Dolces are here in the basement with us every bit as much as they were that day. I can feel Duke’s hot, claustrophobic breath on the back of my neck, the always-accidental way he brushes up against me from behind, a little too close. I can feel Baron’s watchful eyes on us, studying, waiting, picking his moment. And Royal, the cold, dark, silent shadow that surrounds everything, sucking the light and warmth from the room like a black hole.
I wonder if Gloria feels them too, if she has something to prove, not just to me but to herself, to them, even when they can’t see us.
Suddenly, I hate the Dolces for teaching her to do this, and I hate her for how fucking good she is, and I hate myself for how good it feels to fuck her tight throat while she gags and chokes and hot mascara tears streak her cheeks.
Like Duke said at the New Year’s party, I’m no better than him, than any of them. I’m just a man with a dick that feels good being sucked.
I fist a handful of hair at the crown of Gloria’s head and draw her back, sliding my other hand under her chin. It’s soaked with saliva that trickled from her mouth while I was fucking her throat, so I pull her off and let her spit a few times and catch her breath.
“You can spit now,” I say. “But when I cum, you swallow.”
She casts her blue eyes up to mine, still shiny with tears. “Yes, my king.”
Heat stabs into the base of my spine, and I swear I could cum just hearing her say those words. Then she smirks up at me, wraps her cold fingers around my wet shaft, and draws my tip back into her mouth. She sucks rhythmically, teasing the bundle of nerves at the base of the head with her tongue, putting pressure on the barbels through it, first in one direction and then the other. But it’s the sight of her kneeling there in beautiful ruin, her teary eyes blinking up at me, the corners of those maddening pink lips slanting upwards, that undoes me.
I grip her chin and her hair, holding her head still, and release into her mouth with a loud groan that echoes around the small cavern. Gloria purrs with pleasure, sucking harder, and I feel her throat working as she drinks it down. Pleasure ripples up my body, my cock expands again, and more cum floods into her mouth. She closes her eyes and lets out a soft moan as she swallows me again.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling out of her mouth. A string of cum and saliva trails from my tip to her lips before it breaks, dribbling to the floor.
Gloria wipes her chin on the back of her hand and smiles up at me, her face still a mess of mascara and tears. She licks her lips, leaving a shiny glaze of cum over them. I groan and thumb her lips, smearing it around and then pushing into her mouth. “Suck it off.”
She obeys, then leans in, running her tongue up my softening length. “Can I clean you up?”
“Goddamn, you really are a demon queen.”
She just smirks and kneels up, lapping along my shaft and then sucking the last drops from my tip before she sits back on her knees on the concrete floor.
“Your throat okay?” I ask, zipping my dick back into my jeans.
“Nothing that a few days’ time won’t fix,” she says, her tongue poking into the corner of her lips, gathering up the last traces of my cum.
I groan and grab her under the arms, lifting her to her feet. “Fuck, you’re so goddamn sexy. You make me lose my mind.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she says with a sly little grin.
“Depends on the day.”
“I’d better go clean up,” she says, wiping her grimy hand on her jeans. “We should get to class.”
“You’re not going anywhere until I return the favor,” I growl.
“We’ll be late,” she protests, stepping backwards.
“Are you saying you don’t want me to lick your pretty little pussy until you beg like a dog for more?”
She draws a sharp breath, taking another step towards the stairs. “We don’t have time.”
“We have time,” I say. “Now get on your back on the stairs, open your legs, and let me remind you how a king treats his queen.”
We miss first period, but we make it to the next hour, sneaking into the back of the auditorium to watch the presentations. Finally I have to deliver her to third so she can prep for her own presentation later in the week, since she actually cares about college and wants to send a video of the project to Yale in hopes they’ll toss her a few thousand dollars more off her tuition.
I head to a classroom to put the finishing touches on the project I half-assed this semester, since it’s a solo project and no one else’s grade depends on me. I’ve been working in the room with Dixie, and I know I can’t avoid seeing her forever. Still, guilt churns in my stomach, and my feet grow heavier with each step as I approach. I’ve been ignoring her texts all weekend, lost in the little corner of heaven I carved out with Gloria. Now I slip a hand into my pocket and thumb open the little tin where I keep my pills. Before stepping into the room, I slip one onto my tongue and swallow it dry.
The relief of giving in to a craving hits before the pill is even in my bloodstream. Knowing its soothing balm is on the way, I set my laptop down on the table and slide in across from Dixie.
“We should talk.”
“Yes, we should,” she says, closing her laptop and staring at me across the table. “I heard you were carrying Gloria Walton around all morning. What are you doing, Colt? In case you forgot, we’re engaged.”
“The only thing I’ve forgotten is how we got that way.”
“What?” she asks, drawing back.
“I don’t remember asking you,” I admit. “I was blacked out.”
“But… You said you’d love me forever,” she says, her lip trembling. “You promised.”
“I say a lot of stupid shit when I’m fucked up. That doesn’t make it true.”
“That’s when you say what you really want,” she says. “When your inhibitions are lowered enough for you to admit it. Everyone knows that.”
“I’m sorry, Dixie. I don’t remember asking you to marry me.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t ask,” she says, holding out her hand to present the proof. “You don’t believe me? I’ve never lied to you, Colt. She’s the liar!”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” I say. “I’m saying I can’t marry you, Dixie.”
“Why not?” she asks, her eyes wide as she waits for the tears to come. I can see her doing it now. I don’t know how it took me so long to figure out she was making herself cry to manipulate me because I always give in when the waterworks start.
“I just can’t,” I say, shifting in my chair. I stuff my hand in my pocket, curling my fingers around the tin. I should have taken two or three before this conversation.
“It’s because of her, isn’t it?” she asks, blinking tears into her eyes.
I face her squarely, refusing to be swayed by pathos. “Yes.”
She stares at me across the table, her eyes brimming. “I knew it,” she whispers. “I knew you’d go back to her if you remembered.”
Now it’s my turn to stare at her. “You knew?”
“Knew what?” she asks, and I see the alarm in her eyes for only a flash, and then she’s backtracking. “I knew you’d leave me for some skinny blonde cheerleader. That’s why I was always jealous of her. You never thought I was good enough.”
“You knew about us hooking up last year,” I say, refusing to let her distract me. “Didn’t you?”
Gloria told me, and I overheard on prom night when I was fucked up, but some part of me thought she was just trying to discredit her enemy.
Dixie swallows, then blinks a tear from her lashes. “I didn’t want to lose you,” she whispers as a tear rolls down her cheek. “I thought you’d finally see that I’m as good as her.”
“You thought if you told me the truth, I might leave,” I correct. “So you lied to me.”
“I didn’t know it was her,” she protests, reaching for my hand. “Not at first. I knew there was someone else, but I thought it was Harper. I only found out at Bye Week this year.”
I pull my hand back. “So… Six months ago.”
“You remembered too,” she argues. “I know you did.”
“Months later,” I say, my voice hard. “You knew the truth, and you kept it from me. And for what? So I’d give you a fucking ring, and you could marry a dumbass who didn’t know better? What if I’d never remembered, Dixie? Would you ever have told me?”
“Why would I?” she demands. “It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago, and things were good between us when you woke up. You love me, and I forgave you for what you did.”
“Forgave me?” I ask with a snort of disbelief.
“Yes,” she says. “And I forgive you now. We can still be together, Colt.”
“I can’t be with you,” I say incredulously.
“Why not?” she cries. “You’ve slept with lots of girls in the past. Why does this one matter? She’s no different. She’s just one more girl from your past. I’m as good as any of them.”
“I never said you weren’t,” I say slowly. “I never thought you weren’t. You thought that.”
“What was I supposed to think?” she sniffles.
“You were supposed to believe me when I said I wouldn’t have fucked you if I didn’t find you attractive,” I say. “You believed your own insecurities instead. I can’t fix that for you.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asks. “You want me to starve myself until I’m as skinny as Gloria Walton—as skinny as she used to be? You want me to have an eating disorder so you can be proud of your girlfriend? Would that make you happy?”
“I don’t give a fuck how much you weigh or what you look like,” I say, rubbing my temple, where I can feel the edge of the steel plate they put in my skull. “I don’t care if you’re the hottest supermodel in the world. I care that you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” she protests, swiping at a fresh tear. “I just didn’t tell you because it was over, and we were happy, and I knew she’d try to mess up everything we built together. She hates that I took her place. That’s why she’s doing this. Not because she loves you. Because she hates me.”
“I trusted you,” I say. “When I didn’t know who I could trust, I thought it was you. I thought that no matter what anyone else did, what they said, that the one person I could always count on was you. That you’d tell me the truth. But you didn’t.”
“I never lied,” she insists. “I didn’t tell you one little thing! No one in the world would have told you about the girl you cheated with, a girl you got tattoos for. You think I like seeing that on your arms and being reminded every time we hook up? No, but we were in love by the time I found out, so it didn’t matter. Even though you never apologized, we’d moved on. She’s in the past. We have a future together.”
“I’m done,” I say, pushing back from the table.
She wraps her arm around herself, protectively cradling her hand to her chest, covering it with her other, as if she thinks I’ll wrestle the ring from her finger. “You can’t be,” she says. “You can’t be stupid enough to throw all this away over some basic bitch. Pretty soon she’ll be fat as me, and you won’t even want her anymore. Then what? What you have is an infatuation. What we have is forever.”
“We don’t have anything,” I say. “And I wouldn’t get a tattoo for an infatuation. It always meant something.”
“You can’t know that,” she cries. “You don’t remember!”
“I’m done arguing with you. It’s over, Dixie.”
“I don’t accept that,” she says. “You can’t break up with me. I have a ring.”
“Keep it,” I say. “When you accept we’re over, you can sell it.”
“No one wants a used engagement ring,” she points out. “I won’t get anything for it!”
“Fine, I’ll cut you a check,” I say, standing and pulling out my wallet. “How much do you want?”
“I don’t want a check,” she protests. “I want you, Colt. What can I do to prove it? I’ve done everything you ever wanted. What have you done for me?”
“You’re right,” I say. “I haven’t done shit. Which should be proof enough that this doesn’t work.”
“It does,” she insists. “You want me to put that collar and leash on me? I’ll crawl around on the ground for you if that’s what you want. I’m not giving up on us, Colt. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you. Look at all I’ve done already. I took down the queen of the entire school so you could have your throne back.”
“I don’t think that’s what happened,” I point out. “If anyone did that, it was Harper, or maybe Devlin for coming back.”
“It was me,” she insists. “I took the throne from her so you’d be proud to be by my side. So you’d have a queen. Now you do. Why can’t you be happy with that?”
“Because she was your friend,” I point out. “I didn’t want to see you destroy someone you spent the last two years claiming to like. Stabbing your own friends in the back for me? I didn’t ask you for that.”
“But I did it,” she says. “For us.”
“For you ,” I say. “You did it for you, because you wanted to be queen. You wanted me to be king more than I ever did.”
“And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my throne,” she says. “To keep you there with me, where you belong. We’re together now, and we always will be.”
I drop my head back and squeeze my eyes closed. “Dixie. I just broke up with you.”
“I’m not letting you throw this away over a piece of ass,” she says. “We’ll get past this, and you can make it up to me like you always do. It’s just the pills talking anyway.”
“I thought the pills made me honest,” I remind her. “Or does that only apply when it means you get what you want?”
“I will get what I want,” she vows, her eyes hardening. “I always do. You just watch.”
“I hope you do,” I say, swiping my laptop off the table and turning to go. “But it won’t be me.”