Elle
Gasps.
Curses.
A hundred little light bulbs ignite as more and more people turn on their phone cameras.
“Bold bitch!”
“She’s double dead now.”
“Under whose orders?”
“Fuck Gant.”
But I don’t look to see who’s saying what. I only have eyes for Gant. I won’t flinch. I won’t apologise.
Gant sinks down so that he’s sitting on the tabletop now, his knees caging me in, and his black eyes almost level with mine.
I swallow as he releases the fist he had on my hair, and begins to stroke my scalp instead, causing tingles to run over every inch of my body.
“Did you think that would embarrass me? That it’d turn my minions, so I’d be all alone and you could get even?”
‘Minions?’
‘Who the fuck is he calling a minion?’
“Sheep,” Gant corrects, never breaking eye contact with me.
More hisses.
More curses.
But despite the background noise, I swear it’s just Gant and I as he slides his hand from my hair to stroke my cheek so softly, so tenderly that I’m taken off guard. So much so that I don’t have the good sense to slap him away.
“Why would you think that everyone knowing how badly I want you is embarrassing?”
His voice is so fucking loud and yet, I swear he’s whispering just to me.
Prickly heat and embarrassment climb my cheeks but I can’t look away. I can’t do anything at all but stare into those black pits.
“I do want you. I want it. Desperately. In fact, I’d do anything for it. I’d stalk you for two years and lure you to the academy with a fake scholarship. I’d give you a hundred private dance lessons and split you wide in stretches just to catch a glimpse of it. The scent of it. I’d kidnap you and drag you into the forest. I’d scale the dorms and climb into your shower, into your bed, just to kiss your pretty pussy. You know that, dove. I just did it ten minutes ago. You just opened up and let me.”
“Fucking hell,” Hale exclaims, and I can see his gleeful expression floating beside Stassi’s awed one. I can hear Aria choking on her cranberry juice and I can see étienne patting her lips dry a second later.
I can see and hear it all, but I can’t speak.
I can’t move.
Surely, I’m about to die. Surely, I’ll combust and just melt into the floor.
But the minutes tick on and I don’t. Instead, I jump as Gant’s fingers trail down the side of my neck, then firmly but softly, his thumb strokes over my erratic pulse point.
“Next time, you don’t have to get someone to secretly film us from the bushes. I already know you like to have an audience. It’s why I’m giving you one now,” he says so loudly that I’m positive everyone, including the staff behind the buffet who are watching us like a telenovela, has heard it. “And I know you like to watch us again later. On repeat. That’s why you wanted it filmed.”
I can’t move my lips to deny it. I can’t do anything but feel my eyes and nose burn in sheer humiliation that Gant clearly notices. And he does something…entirely unexpected.
He pulls me into his arms and cradles my head against his neck, so I can’t see anything but his pale skin. I can’t smell anything but his signature scent that always wraps around my brain and strangles my thoughts. Not that I have any now. I’m just…frozen.
“My baby likes it when I make her squirt when people are around. It makes her even more excited. Doesn’t it, baby?” he says, stroking my head like I’m truly a little baby nestled in his arms. “But she doesn’t actually want anyone to see because she’s so shy. Not that I’d let them. No, she just likes the thought of it. Is that why you changed your mind halfway through Beaussip filming us through the window? Is that why you lured me into the woods because you’d already gotten off on the thrill of just knowing that someone was there?”
I don’t answer. How can I?
I just want to shove him away and cling to him all at once because, with my head buried in his neck, I feel safe and furious and too weak to stand on my own.
“Maybe we can find a better way to give you your kicks because I don’t like sharing, even if they can’t see anything around my back.”
He had kept his back to the window the entire time…
Because he knew.
He fucking knew what I was up to the entire time. But how? And why had he played along?
“Even if they can only hear the audio of you moaning and squirming on my fingers. But that’s the second time we’ve had an audience after Stretch class and I’m quickly finding out that I don’t like it. I don’t like anyone knowing what you sound like when I make you cum. It’s my private symphony. My secret song.”
His thumb rubs over my lower lip with bruising force and still, I’m transfixed, just staring up into his dark gaze.
“You’re so fucking cute, dove. Wanting everyone to know, to see, to hear that we’re together, but there are other ways for them to understand that you’re mine and mine alone.”
“I hate you,” I whisper, finally able to speak again.
“I know. You hate me almost as much as you love me,” he says, placing a chaste kiss on my lips. “Because instead of pushing me away, you’re nuzzling into my side not just to hide, but because you feel safer here than out there. Out of my arms. It’s okay, I won’t drop you. I won’t let go of my little doll.”
“I hate you,” I repeat, because he’s right. I’m not letting him go. Because the irate crowd’s suddenly audible again.
Suddenly we’re back in the hall, and I want nothing more than to recess into our little bubble again and I’m almost grateful to feel a thousand burning eyes scorching my back instead of having to look at them head-on.
“Like I said, there are other ways to tell the entire school that you own me.”
What? It’s always been. I’m his. Never that…he was mine.
“That I own you. That we belong to each other.”
Each other…
“In the auditorium, you called me a wild animal. And I showed you just how wild animals mark their territory.”
I swallow, finally coming back to reality, back to an animated state again as I remember just whose arms I’m really in.
“Gant—” I struggle to pull away from him, but he twirls my ponytail around his wrist before I can blink and forces me to tip my head back.
“I need to mark you again, this time not as my target but as my everything, and it only seems fitting that I do it publicly. Again. So that there’s no mistake.”
“Gant!” I strike at his ribs, but he only squeezes me tighter.
“Open your mouth.”
I gaze down at his zipper, at his hard cock stabbing my stomach.
“I’ll never forgive you.”
“You still don’t get it after all this time…Everything I did, everything I’ll do, is to keep you with me. Right by my side where you belong. Now be a good baby and open for me.”
Why do I love the word ‘good’ so much? Why does it do something to my insides every time he utters it, like a hypnotising force that wants me to be just that? Good. For him. Only him.
He’s asking, but he grips my chin, forces my lips to part and spits directly onto my tongue and as the wetness of his spit coats it, a rush of wet heat does the same between my thighs.
“Fucking hell!” Hale hisses again.
“Swallow it,” Gant orders, squeezing my throat, and I don’t think. I don’t resist.
I do it and the second I do, he’s leaning down to kiss me possessively and yet so softly that after a few seconds, I forget about his crassness. I forget about the crowd. I forget about everything but his massaging tongue, and his rock-hard cock that I suddenly want to stab me somewhere else.
When he finally pulls away and I peer up into his glazed eyes, I can see nothing but lust and pure satisfaction at my backfired plan.
“See,” he whispers. “You like it. You like people watching. People knowing.” He pulls me into him again, cradling my head against his neck, against his pulse that’s just as erratic as mine.
“Listen up,” He says, addressing the crowd I’d forgotten about all over again. “From now on, only I can touch Elle. Only I fuck with her. For everyone else, she doesn’t exist. Don’t look at her. Don’t talk to her. She’s mine and only mine.Understood?”
The silence that follows seems to stretch on for fucking eternity until Gant grows impatient.
“Got it? It’s done. The war is over.”
The declaration brings everyone out of their stupor.
‘What?’
‘You can’t be fucking serious.’‘He’s seriously claiming that raggedy bitch as his?’
‘His what exactly?’
“What about what she did?” Rin asks, breaking the trance Gant’s casting over me. She’s at the next table over, beside Kesia. “You blamed her for your mother’s death this whole time. Have you suddenly forgotten all about that?”
Damn, she was playing her role of an innocent sheep a little too well.
“Have you suddenly forgotten who the fuck you’re speaking to?” Gant lifts a brow, his voice icy and clear. Rin actually shrinks back, looking stunned before her eyes flit to étienne as if expecting him to speak up on her behalf. But étienne only feeds Aria another mouthful of pasta.
Were they back on good terms again?
“I haven’t forgotten shit,” Gant goes on. “I’m placing the blame on a new target. The driver who ran my mother and me off the road. The same driver that nearly killed Elle.”
More gasps. More disbelief.
I knew he was shifting his blame. He just hadn’t said it out loud yet.
Does that mean he’s forgiven me?
“When I find that fucker, I’ll do a lot more damage than anything she’s endured here.” His eyes snap back to Rin. “Any other questions?”
Rin’s eyes are full of fire as she glares back at him. “Yeah, a lot. What the hell does this mean, exactly? She’s yours? Does this mean Gant Auclair has an actual girlfriend?”
I stiffen. Girlfriend?!
I can’t be Gant’s girlfriend.
But we can just pretend.
We can just pretend to be his temporary girlfriend for the term.
Is that what he wants though? A title for me other than Doll or Dove? Did I want another title? And what does it mean to be Gant’s exactly?
Not that Rin cares. I know her phone’s recording it all, just like everyone else in the hall. The difference is, that Rin’s making sure to ask all the questions to get the best cut from Beaussip later.
“Girlfriend doesn’t seem sufficient,” Gant says, still gazing at me and my stomach freefalls.
It’s just pretend Clowney.
Just temporary.
“But if we’re labelling it, yes. She’s my girlfriend.”
Stassi and Aria clap giddily and my heartbeat joins them.
“Are you going to ask me?” I croak, suddenly hoarse. “If I even want to be your bubble girlfriend?”
“No, because you already are.”
Before I can roll my eyes, Kesia interrupts as she gets to her feet.
“She can be your whatever, but she’s damn sure not going to become our queen. She’s nothing, and she’s nothing to us. Not that you give a fuck. We’re just mindless sheep, right? Or is everyone already forgetting what the fuck he said?”
“I fucking didn’t,” the wavy-haired girl says, throwing down her fork, and all the girls at their table agree.
Rin stands and so do her minions. “If we’re just stupid little sheep, then it’s time we find a new shepherd. I think Beaussip’s right about that revolution. What does everyone think?”
A few more tables stand to show their support.
“I know this moment is the highlight of your life, Rin. Overthrowing a teenage boy from the social hierarchy of a fucking lunch table. But I can’t let you have it,” Gant says, boredly.
“That’s not up to you,” Kesia barks.
“Oh, it is, because before you have your little bullshit revolution, I have an announcement.” Gant squeezes me tighter, before landing a kiss on my temple. “I abdicate.”
‘What?’ the room screeches and I join in.
‘For that raggedy Ann?’
‘She isn’t even pretty.’
‘She shouldn’t even go here!”
‘Her scholarship’s fucking bogus!’
“What?” I mouth again to Gant.
“I told you I don’t care about any of this king shit. I did it to get control over you and I quickly realised how much better it is when it’s just you and I because I fucking hate sharing. I’m selfish, remember?”
Before I can say anything, he’s sliding off the tabletop and guiding me onto the thick bench before settling in behind me so that his thighs are on either side of mine. The position shouldn’t embarrass me any more than anything he’s just said to the entire school, but it does. It feels wildly intimate, not that Gant seems to care as he reaches for a plate of Belgian waffles that’s seemingly appeared from nowhere. My mouth waters just at the sight of them.
“Your favourite, right? Breakfast for dinner?” he asks as if the entire hall isn’t still gawking at us. As if people aren’t still recording us like zoo animals as he pours maple syrup onto only one section. I don’t like the other sections to get soggy.
“How did you—”
But then I catch Zedd’s eye.
He’s been making my lunch.
He’s been making me Belgian waffles at least three times a week at Stassi’s request.
“I know everything about you, Elle. Everything.”
“Ummm excuse fucking us,” Rin says, “but we’re still standing right here, you know, and we need a new ruler. One that isn’t a shameless traitor. One that won’t ask for our help and then throw us away at the first whiff of pussy.”
“I agree,” Gant says, cutting the waffle and holding up a piece to my lips. I want to ignore him, but if I do, I’m afraid he’ll just chew it up himself and spit it into my mouth like a baby bird. “I know…Hale.”
“Hale?”
Contemplative murmurs break out around the room, and Hale positively beams as he stands slowly.
“Hale?” the voices sound more sure now.
“Hale.”
“Hale!”
“NO!” Kesia stomps her foot. “It doesn’t work like that! The old king can’t just appoint a new one. You have to work for it. You have to earn it.”
“I’m not appointing him. I’m suggesting him.”
“And who’s earned it more than Hale?” Zedd adds, much to Hale’s apparent surprise, as his eyebrows shoot up. “Think of all he’s done for the student body at large. Getting staff fired.”
“One,” étienne says, holding up a finger.
“Being the best communal boyfriend known to man,” Zedd goes on.
“Two,” étienne says and Hale spreads his arms wide.
“It’s my biggest policy. Making sure every single, senior female student has the chance to experience genuine affection and connections,” he says, lacing his fingers together pointedly and the hall explodes in sniggers.
Stassi isn’t sniggering, though. She’s suddenly interested in Zedd’s rice.
“And by default, he’s exposed and promoted the hundreds of hidden talents each lovely lady has to offer,” Bae adds, and étienne lifts another finger.
“Causing an explosion of new couples every Valentine’s Day via his recommendations,” Zedd says and Hale smiles modestly. “He’s everything a king should be. Humble—”
“Honest,” Bae nods.
“Handsome.” Gant winks.
“Hypnotic,” étienne adds, and Hale tucks a lock behind his ear.
“Who gives a fuck?” Kesia shrieks. “His whorishness hasn’t helped anyone, except to send them running to the clinic far more often.”
“Who do you suggest?” Gant asks between bites. “Or do you want to run too? What are your credentials? Besides constantly lying on your pussy?”
Juice shoots through some kid’s nose a table over and the entire room erupts into giggles. That is, until a dish, a ramekin, sails past my head. One second I’m sitting up, the next my head’s pressed flat on the table beside the waffles, and the sound of breaking ceramic echoes a half second later.
What the-
But I don’t have time to even think before blonde hair is tossed into my face from across the table as Stassi lays flat beside me at both Zedd and Hale’s prompting.
My eyes fly to Kesia in time to see her throw another dish, a teacup, in my and Gant’s direction. But it doesn’t make it to us. Instead, it side-swipes Rin’s cheek and nearly clips Aria before shattering near her feet.
“Watch where you’re throwing that bitch,” Rin hisses indignantly.
Something tells me she and Kesia aren’t actually friends. Then again, Rin clearly knows the girl lies, and she still tolerates her. She’s Beaussip’s right hand after all.
She knows everything.
“Then get the fuck out of the way,” Kesia retorts, holding up another ramekin.
“Don’t get pissy with me. It’s not my fault you lied.”
Rin ducks as Kesia launches a drink over her head but as she does, she grabs her own ramekin, still filled with the molten lava cake she’d been nibbling on earlier. Faster than a blink, she chucks it back in Kesia’s direction… who twirls out of the way. But it does reach another target.
Bae.
He doesn’t flinch as it clips his shoulder, but I know it must hurt. He looks down at his sleeve, watching the chocolate lava that’s now soiling his white turtleneck and his cheek.
Everything stops then, with both girls staring in seeming horror. But Rin snaps her mouth shut quickly, her expression hardening.
“Didn’t you hear the newest decree?” Gant says, peeling me off the table where he’d been holding me down and back against his chest. “No more food fights. It’s a waste.”
I pause at that. Since when-
“Since when do you give a damn about food waste?” Kesia asks, reading my mind.
“Since he helped me with the dining hall’s budget for home economics,” Zedd says. “We’re aiming for low to no waste and you’re fucking up the per cent already.”
He did? I look up at Gant, but he’s glaring at Rin.
“No wonder the buffet has half the choices now,” Rin snarks.
“Clean it up,” Gant says lowly. “Now.”
“I’m not cleaning up shit,” Rin snaps. “I don’t take orders from you anymore. You’re no one. Just like your little rag doll, remember?”
“You’re right,” he says, surprisingly calmly. “Hale?”
“He hasn’t been elected!” Kesia shrieks. “We’re not taking orders from—”
“All in favour of Hale being the new king,” Zedd asks, cutting her off, and more than half of the hall raises their hands.
“Great,” Gant claps Hale’s shoulder. “The coronation will take place at Hale’s grand opening for Libuelle in two weeks.”
Libuelle.
How would I avoid Gant all opening? I’d had all that mouth about the club not being a part of his territory, but I doubt he’d see it that way.
Maybe Hale would consider letting the waitresses wear masks.
Hale steals a glance at me before standing.
“This is entirely unexpected,” he says. “First, I’d like to thank Eloisa, who has made the former king lose his mind and open up the position. Pussy power is the strongest power known to mankind.”
My face overheats and Gant plants a kiss on my neck. “You’re ridiculously cute. Why are you so shy now? Didn’t you want everyone to know?”
This is all too surreal.
Girlfriend…
“I’d also like to thank my hairstylist, Rie Rie, whose sponge curls have really helped the tousling process. And lastly, I want to say that concubine positions for the harem will be held at my club over the midterm break.”
The hall’s overcome with cheers, but only I seem to notice someone who isn’t happy. Someone who’s slipping away from the chaos and disappearing into the crowd.
Well, that’s a lie. I’m not the only one to notice.
Zedd has too, and he seems…happy about it. Pleased even as we both watch Stassi leave.
“And my first order of business is to sentence this witch.”
Rin swallows.
“The verdict?” étienne asks, much to Rin’s horror.
“Get on all fours and clean it up,” Hale barks. “With your mouth like the little bitch that you are.”
Rin gasps. “Fuck off. I’m not doing that.”
“She doesn’t leave until Bae’s satisfied that she’s done a good job,” Zedd says, eyeing two tables near the doors and immediately a group of boys stand up and bar the entrance.
So Gant and his clowns really did hold a lot of power. Despite everything, the sheep are still following them blindly and I’m happy for one second that the attention is off of me.
“I’d consider it a blessing,” Gant says to Rin. “If you weren’t spoken for, I’d make you clean the entire hall with your tongue.”
Spoken for?
Who’s spoken for her?
Hale shoves her toward Bae and she lets out a gasp as she fails to brace herself against the table. Instead, she stumbles, practically falling into Bae’s lap.
He doesn’t help her as she tries to steady herself, as she tries to put what little distance she can between them, given that she’s perched on the tail end of the bench.
It feels like an eternity ticks by as we watch them, watching each other.
Some sort of silent communication is happening between them, and Rin breaks it first. What ensues next is something I don’t think we should see. Something that feels even more intimate than Gant’s crass words to me just minutes prior. Still, we all watch transfixed as Rin reaches for Bae’s curtain of long hair that rivals her own, before tossing it over his left shoulder. Then, she begins licking him like a damn cat everywhere the chocolate splattered.
Her pink tongue’s on his sleeve, on his shoulder, over his nipple, his heart, his neck, his cheek.
On the corners of his lips…
Gant’s lips brush the shell of my ear as he whispers, “So you like watching too? Not just being watched?”
I can’t retort because he isn’t wrong. I can’t look away. No one can, including Bae, who’s following her every movement seemingly mesmerised.
The second Rin’s tongue disappears back into her own mouth, her icy expression locks back into place. “Satisfied?” she asks, but there’s far too much emotion in her voice for me to believe her stony demeanour.
“No,” Bae says quietly. “Go lower.”
“Fucking hell,” Hale mutters again as Bae guides her head, with more gentleness than I’d expect, straight to his belt buckle that she licks clean. The big finale apparently because the hall erupts into cheers, much to Rin’s annoyance and humiliation as she straightens and storms toward the exit where at Bae’s nod, the boys let her go and I watch as she disappears into the dark.
But it’s not Rin’s retreating form that I’m staring at. It’s the teacup between Aria and I’s feet that my eyes lock onto. For a second, I swear I see Mum’s teacup, the destroyed one with the little red-haired girl on the front.
Mum.
Mum was porcelain.
Following my gaze, Gant swipes the mess out of view with his foot.
“See. I told you you don’t want to be porcelain,” he says.
It’s all so surreal.
Everything is.
“You…you’re not mad about Beaussip’s post?”
“Mad that you wanted everyone to know how obsessed with you I am? Never. I just followed your rule about keeping quiet because you asked. Because you planned everything so well. I’m proud of you, dove.”
“Are you Beaussip?” I ask, my voice wavering.
“No. I’m her favourite untouchable. She runs all articles related to me through me first.”
“When you were king.”
“I still am.”
I look at Hale. “So what? He’s your puppet?”
“It’s good for everyone to know their roles. Hale knows his deep down, and you know yours.”
“What am I?” I want to hear him say it. Again.
“My girlfriend. My dove. My doll. My princess. Because you don’t have to be Cinderella to become my princess, Elle. You already are.”