Elle
We can go to his penthouse and pretend…
Forget about the deli.
Forget about the money.
Focus on your dancing.
Let me be your net.
I’ve never had a net.
It seems too good to be true because it is. It’s all temporary.
But why is that a bad thing? Heartbreak or not? Even if I could be with Gant forever, there’s a chance of him shattering my heart.
But this shattering is inevitable.
But what if I guarded my heart the entire time? What if I can manage to keep an emotional distance between us even if I give in to a physical one? What if I can just view this as transactional?
I could avoid the bullying.
I could have orgasms without crossing any boundary I decide to put down…or lift up. It’d be up to me.
I could get scouted with Gant’s help.
I could have Gant…for now.
But you’re forgetting one thing, my nasty little inner voice coos. You played your final card already with Beaussip. Once that all blows up in Gant’s face, it’ll blow up in yours too.
Fuck.
Something tells me Beaussip doesn’t do ‘takebacks’.
But Rin said Beaussip did things at her own convenience. She could drop the article today, next week, or the night of the play simply because it’s one of the biggest nights of the semester, and she wants attention.
Had I played my hand too quickly?
“It’s okay to be scared,” Gant says, swiping a lock of my hair away from my face.
Is that how I look? Scared?
“I’m not scared,” I lie.
“Okay, baby.” He says it so quietly. So gently to not poke the beast.
Baby?
It’s just pretend.
Don’t get too comfortable.
Don’t reach for the white foundation. The red lipstick. The blue eyeshadow.
My stomach lets out an audible gurgle that sounds like a toilet desperately trying to flush.
Gant grins wickedly before kissing my stomach and reaching under my bed for the black box of panties he’d bought.
How did he know…
How long had he been in the room before slipping into the shower?
“Let’s go to the hall. You need to eat,” he says, and before I can blink, he’s pushing me back onto the mattress and pulling my feet through a pair of silky, plum-coloured boyshorts.
Let’s? As in let us?
No. New alliance or not, I couldn’t be seen with him in the dining hall. That would dismantle my plan with Beaussip to out him.
But the new contract…
Maybe she won’t run the article if I beat her to the punch? It could be a good thing. The new treaty…the lessons…the closure with the car.
But that video is the only backup plan I have. If I spoil it…
My phone pings and my stomach sinks into my ass until I see it’s a missed call from a private number and not Beaussip, the only other person that contacts me these days since Mum’s gone ghost. Could it be Mum? Had she lost her phone and decided to borrow someone else’s? I tried calling her twice this morning, but it went straight to voicemail.
But why is their number private?
“I’m not hungry,” I say as he slides the panties up my waist, hooking them along my hip ridges, before flipping me onto my side like a rag doll to inspect my ass that’s falling out the bottoms.
I jump at the feeling of his tongue tracing the swells, then the creases, and damn near moan in frustration the second he stops.
“I want you to eat,” he says, rolling me onto my back again. “It’s my fault you haven’t been eating properly. My fault your new leotards barely fit.” He nods at the box Mum had sent me, still tucked away in the corner. I’d worn a new set to the auditions, but I’ve been too nervous to put them on for any of the other classes yet. Nervous about soiling them, even though they’re made for that precise reason. For sweat and fallen hairs.
Maybe Gant had a point about me. About me not feeling like I deserved things.
“I’ll eat, just not right now. I…need to call my Mum,” I say, pointing at the phone. Or not Mum and if it’s not Mum, who could it be?
“You can call her after you’ve eaten. She’ll understand that you need to eat, won’t she?” he asks, his voice suddenly chilly.
Am I just imagining it, or does the sheer mention of the word ‘mum’ trigger downright hatred within him? Is it because he’s lost his, that he seems to despise mine? But he doesn’t know Mum. She’s a complete stranger.
“It’s important.”
My stomach rumbles again.
“Not more important than taking care of yourself.”
“Gant—” One second I’m peering into his coal-black eyes and the next, he’s disappeared, hidden behind black fabric he’s shoved over my head.
A hoodie. His hoodie.
“What are you—”
“Getting you dressed.”
“In your clothes?” I ask incredulously, fingering them. I should throw it off, but…it smells like him. And his scent is slowly becoming my favourite scent ever.
“Don’t worry, dove,” he says, bending down to kiss me before slipping a long-sleeved T-shirt over his head. “I have this. No one will get to see what’s yours.”
You’re not mine… but it doesn’t play in my mind snappily. It sounds more like a lament.
“I have clothes—”
“I want you in mine.”
Why? But the word doesn’t escape my lips as he slips on a pair of black sweatpants. Then his discarded socks and trainers. Then, he’s slipping a pair of ballet flats onto my feet.
“Wait. I’m not wearing pants,” I begin to protest and kick them off, but Gant merely slips them onto my feet again.
“My hoodie’s like a dress on you. You don’t need pants.”
“Are you crazy?” I hiss as he pulls me to my feet and unlocks the bedroom door. I slam it back shut. “Miss—”
“Trix? She’s in the library helping Ms. El-Agha with her resume.”
“Wait,” I say, desperately trying to dig my heels into the black-and-white tiles of Maple House’s grand staircase while checking that my ass isn’t hanging out, but it’s Gant’s hand that finds my covered bum first.
“You really think I’d let anyone look at your ass devouring those panties? At my pretty pussy? Never.”
I can feel my cheeks flame red as he continues to drag me down the surprisingly empty staircase. Most of the girls must still be in the dining hall or at some sort of practice.
“Wait.” I manage to squeeze my fingers from his as we reach the last landing. Through the glass over Maple House’s front door, I can see outside where hundreds, if not thousands, of students are streaming into the hall.
“Why do we have to go together? I can walk in five minutes after you.”
“Why would I want you to do that? We’re sitting together.”
He tries to lace his fingers through mine again, but I practically jump down the remaining stairs to get out of his reach.
“No, we’re not,” I say, holding out my hands to stop his onslaught. Damn, he looks sexy with each step that he takes. With each lock of wet hair. With each flutter of his long, sooty lashes. “I’ll go get something to eat. Alone.”
His eyes darken. Flatten. “Are you worried about someone fucking with you? Everyone knows you’re mine.”
“Not by choice and from the outside looking in, we’re still enemies, remember? Just go eat with your friends. You can watch me join the line if it makes you feel better.”
Gant pauses, then he stalks forward, and I stalk backwards until my ass bumps into the wall beside the front door.
“You don’t want to be seen with me.”
It’s not a question.
I hate the…hurt? I see swirling in his eyes because it tugs at my heart and it shouldn’t.
He has no right to feel hurt, not when he’s the cause of my humiliation.
“After all you’ve put me through of course I don’t want to be seen eating with you. No one needs to know that we have any sort of alliance going on. I like things just the way they are with everyone ignoring me. Sitting with you will just stir the pot again.”
“Why is stirring the pot a bad thing?”
He can’t be serious right now.
“Because I’ll look even stupider than I already do.”
“Being with me makes you look stupid?”
“Yes! Just being seen with you is embarrassing.”
The coldness that settles in his dark eyes makes me shiver. He stops advancing towards me, but I don’t think for one second that I can step away from him. My feet may be unable to move, but my lips are still fully activated.
“You embarrassed me, no, humiliated me in front of the entire school. That doesn’t change just because we’ve come to somewhat of an understanding.”
“You think that stuff I did before was embarrassing?”
For one second, I see the old Gant again.
I don’t respond.
“Just you wait.”
“Gant—”
One second I’m at eye level with his chest, the next I’m over his shoulder staring at the chequered floor, then the stone patio, then the cobblestones that lead to the dining hall.
“Put me down!”
I try to dig my knee into his gut, but I can’t. Not at the angle I’m at. I feel like a damn seesaw over his shoulder with my legs sticking out at an angle, as is my head, as I struggle to hold it up and away from his back, desperate to upright myself.
Balling my fist, I sock him, hard, and immediately regret it. Like jelly, I fall flaccidly against him in pain, my forehead smacking into the impossibly hard wall of muscle that’s his back as stars fly before my eyes.
“Fuck, I love the way you moan,” Gant comments, unperturbed as I try to steady my breathing as if I’m the one that got the wind knocked clear out of me.
But once the stars disappear and more feet drift by, panic settles in again.
“Gant! Seriously. Put me down.”
He ignores me, and the fluid in my ears sloshes as we whip around a curve.
Whispers, I can hear whispers and see double the amount of legs. They stop. They turn back to watch us. They follow us.
“Put me down, or I’ll throw myself,” I hiss. “You don’t want anyone to see your pretty pussy, do you?”
My threat falls on deaf ears because he merely smooths the hoodie over my ass, and squeezes my legs so tight that I can’t open them at all now.
More feet.
More voices.
You think that’s embarrassing? Just you wait.
What the fuck does he have in store for me now?
I can’t find out.
My last card…
“Please,” I whisper, trying a gentler approach. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
I think he’s going to ignore me again, but his steps slow, and he slides me down his torso and into a bear hug so that we’re eye level with my legs dangling between his. Blood burns my nose and tingles my cheeks as it rushes around my head before continuing on its rightful route.
“You’ll be good?”
I nod, gripping his flexing biceps that are holding me up like I weigh nothing at all.
“You’ll walk into that hall and get your food?”
I nod again.
“And you’ll sit on my lap like a good baby doll until you’re done eating?”
What?!
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask as he lets me slide to my feet, before lacing his fingers through mine again. I hate how comforting it feels to have his thicker fingers stretching mine. “Why do you suddenly not care what your minions think?” I ask almost pleadingly. His grip is like a vice and I’m forced to walk, or get dragged on my ass.
“I never have.”
What?
“You’re their king.”
He turns to me, eyes narrowed. “Why do you suddenly care so much about my relationship or a lack thereof with them?”
“I d-don’t. It’s just weird. If you’re their king. You must’ve done a fuck ton to earn it. To earn their blind following.”
“I did. But only because I needed backup in torturing you. But I told you, it’s better just you and I.”
“But don’t you care about them getting angry with you?”
Of course he cares…he has to!
Aria said he cared.
Rin said he cared.
He has to care for my last card to hold any weight.
But as we near the dining hall”s steps, and I’m bathed in the yellow light of the dim chandeliers suspended over every other table, I’m starting to think that I was wrong.
Really wrong.
The hall goes deathly silent as we cross the threshold with our fingers still interlaced.
“Gant please,”
“You know,” he says and I swear his voice echoes in the silence. “It’s funny that you don’t want to be seen eating with me. But you’re not worried about us eating together, when I’m feasting on your pussy and you’re choking on my cock.”
I’m sure my cheeks are burning scarlet. There’s no way someone didn’t hear that and I refuse to answer him, to egg him on so that he can say more wild shit.
Instead, I focus on the table he’s dragging me towards and swallow as I catch Zedd’s eye first. One word comes to mind the moment our eyes meet, brutal. Zedd either cares for you far too much like he shows with Stassi, or not fucking at all like with everyone else. Ever since I heard the way he spoke to that mystery girl in the greenhouse, just making eye contact with him sends shivers running down my spine. He’s trying to shove a spoonful of fried rice down Stassi’s throat, and Hale’s watching the spoon and Stassi’s lips like it’s a drama. Until he finds a better one in Gant and I marching towards him.
Since my meeting with Hale almost a week ago, I’ve started to notice a lot more about him. Like how quickly his usually jovial or mischievous expression can drop and turn deadly in the blink of an eye if he thinks no one is watching. If he thought, he could finally let his mask slip.
Beside him, étienne’s eyes, identical to Aria’s, follow me. He seems cold enough to stop the blood running in your veins with his silent demeanour and one-word answers, and yet; I know he keeps Aria’s blood well heated.
I look at Bae next, who always seems so observant. Calculated even. His sharp, honey-coloured eyes that watch us over the rim of his water glass drift from our intertwined fingers to Gant’s hoodie I’m wearing to Gant, seemingly unsurprised. Unlike everyone else in the hall who’s gawking at us.
“Well, look who’s come to join us,” Hale says with his broad white smile. This time, it seems entirely genuine.
“Have you finally given in?” Zedd asks before eating the spoonful of rice Stassi refuses. “Or have you brought us a sacrifice?”
My stomach falls into my ass and I try to wrench my hand from Gant’s again, but he only crushes my fingers so hard, my knees damn near buckle. Somehow Stassi mistakes this for a cute gesture because she clasps her own hands over her heart as if it were the most romantic thing she’s ever seen.
I try to slide onto the bench beside Aria just so I can sit and duck my head, but Gant won’t allow it. He swings me in front of him so that I’m forced to face the entire hall, and everyone in it. I want to lift my chin. I want to just take whatever’s coming my way. Haven’t I experienced far worse in the auditorium? And Gant wouldn’t pull another stunt like that just yet, right? Not when he still needs me to find the driver. But I can’t look up. I can’t face the faces that I know are filled with curious cruelness, just waiting for another show.
But then, I do manage to look someone in the eye. Rin of all people. She’s watching me calmly over her fork, and like Bae, she’s entirely unsurprised. Of course, she is, because she was right.
She stills at the sight of us and I focus on her, and I don’t know why. She’s the last person on the planet who’d help me, and yet, I’m locked in on her. She licks the molten lava cake off her fork, before putting it down and reaching for her phone instead, probably to record what’s coming.
A second later, just as Gant climbs onto the bench to start the circus, pings vibrate all around the room and all the tension flees from my body for one singular second.
Because Beaussip, or maybe Rin herself, has come to my rescue. Or not to my rescue, but to my aid because I’m still in hell, just a fresh one.
Maybe it’s for the best.
I got what I needed, after all. Gant’s private lessons gave me a major push and Mistress already informed me that I wouldn’t be demoted to the intermediate class. So what if I couldn’t rely on him for lessons anymore? I’m already in the pool. He got me into it. It’s time I doggy paddled on my own now.
Forget the bubble.
Forget the pretend play.
Forget Gant being your net.
It was a nice thought, but it would only stave off the inevitable.
Yes, this was the right thing to do. The right move to make.
Hold your chin high and prepare.
But that’s easier said than done because I’m not as much of a ragdoll as Gant thinks I am. Maybe I’m a hybrid because I’m starting to feel the cracks from my most recent fall. Falling in like with Gant Auclair. Now, I’m about to fall back into hate with him.
I watch as Stassi presses play like a hundred other students before squeezing my eyes shut.
“They’re little lambs and I’m merely their shepherd,” Gant’s voice filters from the speaker.
“Shepherds care about their sheep.”
“Until it’s time to sacrifice them.”
“You’d sacrifice your army for some pussy?”
“You think you’re just some pussy to me?”
I didn’t even need to listen to hear it. I watched the video a hundred times as I contemplated the perfect moment to release it.
Whispers, hisses, and even laughter drown out the audio for a few seconds before it’s back at max volume.
“Kesia—”
“Is a liar who uses dick riding to climb the social ladder. She wants to be like her master and head bitch, Rin. She wants to infiltrate our little circle. She wants to become untouchable before graduation. Last summer she bragged about fucking Bae, which is bullshit because he’s a virgin.”
I shouldn’t give a fuck about Gant’s lackeys who helped to destroy me but I can’t help but spare a glance at Bae. I’d just put his private business on blast too.
He doesn’t look remotely embarrassed though as he sips a black coffee. In fact, he’s staring at Rin’s table where Kesia is beet red.
My stomach and intestines twist and clench as I hear the start of my moans for less than a second and then there’s dead silence. I blink back down at Stassi’s screen, too cowardly to look up at Gant who’s still standing on the bench hovering above me, his fingers creeping into my hair.
Something’s wrong… Something’s missing…
But there is no more video. Just text.
Well, well, well. Looks like Gant doesn’t give a singular fuck about us? So why should we care about him?
I think I smell a revolution coming on.
Who’s going to head it?
Wait…that’s not right…Where’s the rest of the recording? The part where I ask about Zedd and Hale’s dicks? The part where I get under Gant’s skin? Why had Beaussip cut it? Jumping straight to my moans before the video cuts out.
I didn’t edit it that way. Had Rin? Had she gone behind my back and sent a second email to Beaussip? I’d been constantly monitoring her sent folder, but there was nothing. Of course, she could’ve just deleted the evidence.
I turn to her, but she seems just as confused as I am before she quickly rearranges her features back into her usual resting bitch face. There are a hundred other resting bitch faces surrounding her and glaring back at me too.
No, not back at me. At Gant.
That’s when I get the courage to tilt my head back and stare up at him. He still has a hold on me, on my hair.
Silence, dead silence, permeates the air for what feels like a hundred minutes as we stare unblinking at each other before Gant’s deep voice cracks it.
“You submitted that video to Beaussip, Dove?”
There’s none of his usual fondness in the nickname. It’s icy and frigid and suddenly I’m caught off guard by how much I miss when it was tender.
That little fairytale needed to implode at some point. Better now than later.
“You know how much I like submitting videos,” I say with far more bravado than I feel and note the slight widening of his eyes before they glaze over. I follow the tick in his jaw and the slight movement of his lips as he bites the inside of them before releasing them slowly. “Especially to Beaussip.”