Shiver, Little Toy (Whispering Ivy #1)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

I hadn’t even been admitted to Whispering Ivy College yet, and already I was being punished in the dean’s office.

Yell at me, slap me around, bend me over the desk, and spank me. Just don’t make me wait.

For the zillionth time, I checked my phone. Only two minutes had gone by since the last time I looked. An eternity because of the sense of urgency scraping like rusted nails over my skin. It was already past 9:00 p.m.

Tears burned up my throat, so hot that they tasted ashy and bitter. I swallowed those bitches back down. I could cry later. First, I’d fight.

With no warning, the thick, ornate wooden door burst open behind me.

The stiff chair underneath my thighs creaked as I whirled to look.

“Miss Dare.” Xander—Dean Bennett—stood in the doorway, his fingers clenching the knob tightly.

He hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw him. The same crisp suit and tie, chiseled nose, electric-blue eyes, neatly trimmed beard, and flawlessly tousled jet-black hair.

“My office hours ended at five. Ordinarily, I would tell you that you’d have to come back tomorrow, but…I don’t want to waste your time with another trip.” Closing the door behind him, he casually asked, “Are you and your mom still in Oakwood?”

Determined not to let that punch to the gut show on my face, I riveted my gaze to him as he rounded behind his massive mahogany desk.

“No. She’s in Brindle Creek now,” I corrected, though that was the last town we’d lived in, not the most recent one. “I, however, am here.”

After he sat, he skewered me with a long look. “I see that. So what brings you all this way? Certainly you didn’t drop by for a social call.”

Since we’re not on fucking Bridgerton , no, I did not.

I pulled the fat, worn envelope from my pocket and slid it across his desk. “This.”

He lifted the flap with one finger and peered at its contents. A frown touched his full lips, but that was all. We sat in silence for a moment, just long enough for my knee to begin to twitch.

“Do you think it wise to carry this much money around?” His electric gaze flitted back up at me, scanning my face. “You could get robbed or lose it or—”

“It’s enough to cover one semester. Tuition. Books. Room and board. And no,”—I ground my back teeth together—“I didn’t rob a bank.”

He sat back in his chair, his perfect brow wrinkling. “I see. How’s your mother these days?”

“She’s fine,” I lied.

“She knows about you being here?”

“Of course.”

“It was her idea for you to come here?”

“It was mine.” Another lie. “And we have the money, so why not?”

His frown deepened.

Yeah, I wouldn’t believe me either if I hadn’t lived through the past couple days. Mom and I barely had enough to scrape by each month, unless she used her good looks to snare a rich sugar daddy like Xander himself. When I was sixteen, we’d lived with him for two months before they broke up. Two long months, the details of which sent an unexpected tingle up my thighs, even now, two years later.

“Geulia, we don’t just accept anyone here.”

Geulia, pronounced Julia, but spelled by a raccoon in the middle of a donut bender while at the bottom of a dumpster fire. And by raccoon, I meant my mom. And by donut, I meant drugs. And by dumpster, I meant a literal dumpster. As far as I know, it wasn’t actually on fire, though.

“I have three letters of recommendation from my teachers, as well as my official transcript. I’ve had straight A’s throughout high school and—”

Xander rapped his desk twice with his fist, interrupting me. “Even so, we’re already a week into the semester. The dorms are all full. Beyond that, you didn’t go through the application process. This isn’t a fast-food restaurant. You can’t just show up with a wad of cash and expect to get what you want.”

“One week is nothing. I’ll catch up. I’ll live anywhere, even here in your office.”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it, because once upon a time, I pretended it was just him and me living together. Acting on those lingering looks we always pretended not to share and playing out the dreams I had about him. I’d always felt so ashamed when I was all alone, three knuckles deep inside of me, and crying out his name at night.

He’d belonged to my mom. End of story. But the day he caught me streaking from the bathroom to the bedroom, while wearing only a towel, changed everything. The way he’d looked at me, like a hungry flame…

It was exactly like how he was looking at me now.

A familiar spark kindled deep between my legs. Now was not the time for my body to betray me, but I couldn’t help it. Not with him. Not with the way he looked, the hint of the silver fox he’d be one day already salting the shadowy beard along his jaw and chin.

He stood slowly, a tower of dominance and man. He strode over to the heavy blinds at the window and raised them. I expected to see a glimpse of the carefully manicured lawn, but no. Instead of revealing meager winter daylight, Whispering Ivy’s fluorescents slanted through from a hallway.

“Students living in the dean’s office is frowned upon,” he said.

“Then put me in a broom closet. It doesn’t matter where I stay.”

A brief smile tilted his mouth as he returned to his seat behind his desk. “I’m sure your mom would disagree.”

“All she wants is for me to get a good education.”

“Yes, she is always after you about your grades, isn’t she? Why Whispering Ivy, Geulia? Why now?” He sat back and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Tell me the truth.”

Even I didn’t know the truth, which was exactly why I was here. “One semester here might help me get into an Ivy League. Harvard or Yale, maybe.”

“What else?” he demanded, his voice harsher now.

“I want to go here. I want to be here with you.”

Oops. Hadn’t meant to let that last part slip out, but being here, in this small room with him… It wasn’t not true.

“Don’t be a child, Geulia,” he said with a disapproving shake of his head.

“I’m not. Back when Mom and I lived with you, I was, but I’m not anymore.” Slowly, deliberately, I inched my skirt up my thighs. “I know you thought about me then, Xan… Dean Bennett. I know you still think about me.”

Did he though? He could have anyone he wanted. He could point to a random stranger on the street and demand a fuck, and I’d bet nine times out of ten, that stranger would give him any pleasure he wanted. Right then, right there.

Hell, if he asked, I’d go down on him while crouched underneath his desk.

His chiseled jaw pulsed in time with the ticking clock on the wall. “I was with your mother. It’s not unusual for a girl as young as yourself to have feelings for an older man.”

“You’re not just any man, though. I thought about you every night. I thought about you”—my breath hitched while I ground my thighs together—“doing things to me.”

His fist on the desk flexed tighter, the caps of his knuckles turning white. “Dreams. Fantasies. It’s not going to happen in real life.”

“But it could. I will let you do anything you want to me if you admit me into Whispering Ivy College. I won’t tell anyone…” I dug my fingernails into the skin of my upper thighs, hoping the pain would eclipse my sorrow. “Not even my mom.”

His eyes flashed a brighter, brilliant blue and flared wider. With interest, desire, or exasperation, I couldn’t tell. Probably the latter.

Shit. This wasn’t working.

“That’s not how admissions work here. That’s not how I conduct myself.” There was a gruff, brutal bite to his tone, one that hadn’t been there before.

I sank my hand between my legs, toward the slick heat that had craved his touch for two long years. “Really?”

His gaze flicked to my moving arm. He had to know what I was doing, what I was about to do. What he didn’t know was how far I would go to be admitted to this stupid fucking college.

I stared him straight in the eye as my thumb met my clit. A soft gasp escaped when I realized just how wet I was for him. And for this. Straight-up exhibitionism and bribery working in tandem with my desire for him.

It was fucking hot.

Xander squirmed in his seat. “Geulia, stop. Not here.”

“You’re the one who opened the blinds.” I slipped one finger inside myself, my hips thrusting forward to meet it. “I dare you to get up and close them. Make that student who’s watching us really wonder what we’re up to.”

Said student—a devastatingly striking one—had stopped and leaned against the wall, one eyebrow quirked as he peered in at us. The black pen in his mouth bobbed up and down with his gnashing teeth.

“Don’t do this,” Xander growled.

“If you happen to drop something and then glance under your desk, you’ll find I’m not wearing any underwear. You can watch me all you want.” I added a second finger, my inner walls already shuddering. “Watch me come just for you.”

“You are a fucking whore. Just like your goddamn mother,” he added in a rasp.

“Then admit me to Whispering Ivy. Or kick me out smelling like sex and show Ms. Tissdale outside your door and everyone watching what a huge boner you have. I can just imagine it swelling, growing too tight for your pants.” I whimpered as I sped my pace, circling my thumb in tighter, harder circles around my clit. “What do you think it would look like inside me?”

“ Geulia …” he bit out.

“Take it out. Stroke it. They won’t see you,” I taunted him, writhing against the palm of my hand. “Come with me.”

He sucked in a breath while he watched me, his hands digging into his armrests. “I. Can’t…”

“You can.” Gasping, I gripped the arm of the chair with my free hand tightly. My back bowed off the back of the seat as I climbed higher and higher. I squirmed, almost too lost in my pleasure to care about anything else except for my body unraveling. “I’m close, Xander.”

At the sound of his first name moaning from my lips, he growled low in his throat, a warning. Maybe a promise.

“So, so close.” I began to come apart, tearing loose one snapped thread at a time.

The male student lingering outside the window slid his tongue over his bottom lip as he ogled my long legs. From his angle, could he see what I was doing between them? Could he see the orgasm barreling through me in the wild rock of my hips while I rode this high to the fucking moon?

Xander leaped out of his chair toward the window and slammed the shades closed with his palm. Then, his hands fighting with his belt and zipper, he stormed toward me and revealed his massive cock. A rock-hard thing of pure beauty and manliness.

I was still coming, my body still shuddering, when he wrenched down my top and bra with his fist. In one swift stroke, a loud, primal groan erupted from deep inside his throat. A thick, hot stream shot out of him, and he came all over my heaving chest.

My inner muscles clenched again at the sight. He wrapped one hand around my neck and squeezed hard, his touch like a thrill on my quivering skin. His other milked the rest of his orgasm with quick, brutal strokes. His gaze stayed locked on mine, bright and fevered.

Our uneven breaths mingled. The air between our lips coalesced into an intoxicating kiss that didn’t even require touching.

I could only sit there, completely stunned and gasping for air. That had been the single most raw, erotic thing I’d ever experienced. Because it was with him. The star of my sexual fantasies.

And it had worked. The money shot, in every way possible. Cha-fucking-ching.

“Tell me you’ve never dreamed about cumming on my tits before.” I licked my lips, my eyelids shuttered as I gazed up at him—all a distraction while I fumbled for my cell in my front shirt pocket.

“So what if I have?” He roughly pulled my shirt and bra back into place and stood up straight, tucking himself back into his pants. “You’re the one who insisted on walking around my house wearing only a towel. You knew exactly what you were doing. I doubt I’m the first of your mom’s boyfriends who has used you as a cum dumpster.”

“Not even close,” I muttered, swiping a few times across my phone.

Xander went still, likely because I couldn’t help the note of bitterness in my voice.

I’d fucked plenty of Mom’s boyfriends in the hopes that it would help keep them from leaving us both without a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. Xander was the first one I’d actually wanted, but never had.

Because he’d never sneaked into my bedroom at night. Because he’d treated Mom like a queen for the two months she’d let him. Because the way he looked at me, even now, made me think I could become so much more than I was.

Gutter trash, through and through.

“So I can go to Whispering Ivy now,” I told him.

He snorted, a very un-Dean Bennett sound to make. “Sorry, but mutual masturbation with the dean doesn’t admit anyone. That’s not how this works. Not even for you, Geulia.” With hardly a glance, he sat with finality behind his desk again and shooed me away. “Go to a public college.”

“You must have misheard me. I wasn’t asking. I can go to Whispering Ivy now.” I couldn’t keep the note of victory from my voice.

“Please.” With a chuckle that didn’t reach his eyes, he waved his hand in the air. “Enlighten me on why you think so.”

I tapped the play button on my phone and held it up so we could both see the screen. “Prepare to be enlightened, Dean.”

Sighs and groans vibrated from my phone, an echo of the ones that had just played out here in the dean’s office in real time. My cheeks flushed at the sounds I made. My whole body had practically caught fire when Xander strode toward me with his big cock in his fist and spilled himself all over my chest. Heat curled between my thighs once again, both at the memory and the reminder of what I’d just done.

When the video ended, the dean sat completely immobile, his gaze stuck to my phone.

“Give it to me,” he finally said, his voice a low warning.

A slow grin curled my lips as I swiped to my email app and hovered my finger over send. “You didn’t say please.”

“Give it to me, you little bitch ,” he snarled.

“One button will end you. The email is already addressed to the Whispering Ivy College board members who hired you. The video is already attached.”

I steadied myself, ready for him to bolt out of his seat, to try to take my phone by force. But he didn’t make a move or a sound, except for his knuckles cracking as he balled his hands into fists.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” I told him. “Or admit me into Whispering Ivy.”

“This is extortion,” he hissed, finally standing and coming around his desk. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Oh, I’m aware,” I said. “If you come one step closer, you can say goodbye to your career.”

He paused with his hand outstretched for my phone. Then he dropped it to his side. His shoulders slumped with defeat, which I didn’t buy for a second. There was an undercurrent of something unpredictable, something dangerous about him I’d never witnessed before, like if I allowed him any nearer, not only would he destroy my phone, but he’d destroy me too.

His eyes narrowed into cruel slits.

“So what’s it going to be, Xander?”

His jaw pulsing in anger, he thrust his finger toward the door. “See Ms. Tissdale for the paperwork.”

My lungs loosened. Could it really be this easy?

“Cool. Her muffins are so good. I ate at least four while you kept me waiting. Speaking of, I better make sure I don’t have any cum—I mean, crumbs—on me, huh? I’m such a messy girl.” I turned to leave.

“Tuesday,” he bit out.

At the sound of my middle name, I stopped with my hand on the doorknob.

“If you want to be a student here, you’ll go by Tuesday. That isn’t a request,” he added.

It was a strange demand, but I wouldn’t press my luck by asking why.

I smiled sweetly over my shoulder at him. “Your wish is my command, Xander.”

So maybe I’d push my luck a little.

“That’s Dean Bennett to you,” he snarled.

As I pushed through the door, my shirt clung to my soaked skin. The smell of him surrounded me, teased me, and summoned me back into his office so we could do everything we’d just done again, and more.

While Ms. Tissdale carefully paper-clipped all the forms I’d have to fill out, reality set in. It shook through me so hard I dug my fingernails into my leather chair’s arms to keep myself inside the seat.

I was really doing this. I was really about to leap down the rabbit hole Mom had dug for me before she died.

My heart seized.

No. Correction—before I killed her.