Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Lainey
Fifteen Years Ago
I couldn’t handle how hot Rhett looked in his graduation suit.
He’d gone with a dark gray one and a white button-down with an icy-blue tie that was the same color as his eyes. Most of his outfit was hidden under his long navy gown. I was positive if I put my face in his neck, I would smell a mix of his soap and the woody scent of his cologne—a combination that practically made me pant. It was certainly making me jittery, my legs pressing together in my dress, the tingling below almost too much to handle.
He’d shaved this morning, and from here—where I stood in line alphabetically with the T’s while he was up front with the C’s—I could see the smoothness of his cheeks with just the tiniest hint of dark whiskers trying to break through his skin.
Up until today, the tuxedo he’d worn for prom had been my favorite outfit on him. The black suit and matching bow tie and cummerbund, along with the red rose boutonniere and polished black shoes, had looked explosive on him.
But it didn’t compare to this.
This was business Rhett. A man who, in four years, would graduate from USC and then help run his dad’s hotel business.
A life that was waiting for us on the other side of college.
I couldn’t wait to spend those four years with him, and I couldn’t wait to come back here and start a whole different kind of life together.
As if he could sense me staring, he glanced over his shoulder at me, and the buzzing between my legs was now taking over my whole stomach.
God, he was so delicious.
His sexy grin. The way his eyes, even bluer than normal, felt like they saw right through me.
“This is ridiculous,” Penelope groaned from behind me.
Her complaining forced me to break contact with Rhett and look at her. “What’s ridiculous?”
“I don’t understand why we have to be lined up thirty minutes before graduation starts. We know we have to be here. We know we have to walk. We don’t have to be treated like children. So, there’s no reason why we can’t be here five minutes before it starts.”
“Because then half our class would be late to graduation.” I nodded toward a girl who had just arrived and was rushing to get in line. “See what I mean?”
“She’s one of the smart ones.” Pen rolled her eyes. “A lucky one who doesn’t have a sister like you, dragging my ass here even earlier than everyone else.” She grabbed my wrist and looked at my watch. “I feel like we’ve been here for hours.”
“Try ten minutes.”
“Same thing.” She sighed.
“You’ll miss this about me when you go to NYU.” I joined her against the wall, leaning my body on the sturdiness instead of balancing my weight on my heels. “You won’t have anyone to wake you up in the morning, or make sure you get to class on time, or pick you up from parties when you feel like death.”
Which was the perfect way to describe how ill she had been after she got home from Elijah’s party. She’d spent the entire next day in bed, unable to keep anything down.
Prom hadn’t been much better.
Rhett had gotten us a bunch of rooms at his father’s Beverly Hills hotel, and after the dance, that was where we went, and it turned into an all-night party. I’d never seen Penelope that drunk before.
Or that sick.
And when I tried to warn her and get her to slow down, she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t care about anything I had to say. She just kept going, and she wouldn’t stop.
Until her body couldn’t take any more. That had been when the puking started, and it had gone on all evening and into the morning.
“I have an alarm clock,” she replied, her arms crossing over her chest. “My classes won’t be far from my dorm, so it’ll only take me minutes to walk there, and I don’t need a chaperone at parties.” An arm dropped so her finger could tap my shoulder. “I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.”
I gave a quick peek at Rhett, his head turning at the same time as mine, our eyes locking.
I want you , he mouthed.
I felt my face turn every shade of red.
That boy couldn’t ever get enough of me.
I loved it.
Get over here , he then mouthed.
I can’t , I silently replied.
Lainey … now.
Not now. I shook my head. Later.
I returned my attention to Pen, wiping off some of the black liner that had bled from her bottom eyelid. I didn’t know how it had run already; we’d just got done doing our makeup minutes before I drove us here. But she was somehow looking a little disheveled, and when I finished touching up her liner, I adjusted her white cap so it sat straight on her head.
“You’re still going to miss me.”
“During the moments when you’re not a pain in my ass.” She nudged me. “Yes, I probably will.”
I could sense Rhett’s eyes on me, and I once again glanced toward the front of the line.
Ugh, that smirk is so handsome; I can barely breathe.
The minute his lips parted to mouth something else to me, I looked at Pen.
“I really want to ditch all this waiting and go smoke a joint,” she whispered. “Can you cover for me if anyone asks where I am?”
“That’s a horrible idea. Like, the worst ever. And, no, I can’t cover for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is our graduation, Pen. Something you’ve worked incredibly hard for. You need to be sober. And you need to be here even if it’s not starting for”—I checked my watch—“twenty-four minutes.”
“Rule follower.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She eyed me down. “It is.”
“How so?”
“You need to live a little, Lainey.”
“I am. I’m doing everything I want, when I want. But that also means following orders and staying in this line until we’re called up onto the stage to receive our diploma.”
Her mouth opened, her head shaking. “What exactly are you doing besides graduating, like the rest of us?”
“Well, in two days, we’re going to the beach house to spend a couple of days there with friends, and the following week, we’re headed to Europe. I don’t know, Pen. That sure as heck sounds like living to me.”
I absolutely couldn’t wait for the next couple of weeks and all that was planned.
A group of us was going to Timothy’s beach house, where we’d spend a few nights. An invite I’d scored for Penelope even though Timothy wasn’t happy about having her there. And then the same group was going to Ibiza and Mykonos for two weeks—the trip a graduation gift from our parents.
Since most of us were dividing up and going to different colleges, it was probably going to be the last time we’d all be together for a while.
“That’s not living. That’s following what’s planned.” She pushed off the wall. “This is living.” She moved out of line and began walking toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” I called out.
She looked back and held her fingers to her lips, like there was a joint between them, and continued walking.
What the hell?
Is she serious?
“Where’s she off to?” Rhett asked, suddenly beside me.
I shook my head, still in shock, as I stared at the back of my sister. “To go smoke a joint,” I whispered. “I can’t believe her right now.”
“That’s perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“Yes, because you’re coming with me.”
He found my hand and pulled me out of line, taking me past the hallway and into the main lobby of the auditorium.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Instead of answering or going through the main entrance, he turned and went through a back door. This was just another hallway, but as we got to the end, he opened the last door on the right, and we were inside a stairwell.
Rather than take me up the stairs, he brought me underneath the first flight, where there was an opening, almost cubbyhole-like and private so anyone who came into the stairwell wouldn’t see us.
Which immediately told me what his plan was.
That little shit. He really did want me, and he didn’t want to wait.
“Rhett—”
“You’re mine.” He moved me to the wall that was blocked off by the stairs and placed my back against it, his hands going to my face and down my neck to my chest. “You’re wearing way too many clothes right now.”
My back arched as his fingers hit my sides. “We’re about to graduate. I should be wearing way too much.” I gasped in a breath of air as he clutched my butt. “Don’t you think?—”
“No. I don’t think we should wait, and I know that’s what you were about to tell me. I think the timing of this couldn’t be better.” He lifted the bottom of my long white gown and went under my dress, where he touched the outside of my panties.
I could no longer find any air.
It was gone—from my lungs, from around me.
He felt that good.
“You do realize we’re about to walk across the stage in approximately twenty minutes?” I didn’t want to push the back of my head against the wall; I didn’t want to mess up my hair. But once his fingers dipped below the silk of my panties, I couldn’t help myself.
I was pushing.
And squirming.
“That gives me plenty of time.”
My hands reached up, flattening above my head. “And our families are going to be in the crowd, so we can’t walk out there looking all sweaty and sexed up.”
He laughed as his lips skimmed my neck. “Sexed up?”
“Yeah, you know, red and sweaty and?—”
“Oh, you’re going to be red.” He kissed across my jaw and my neck, his knees bending so he no longer towered over me, even in my heels, and he got himself in a kneeling position. “And you’re going to be fucking sweaty.”
My eyes widened as he put the gown over his head, disappearing beneath it. From there, he moved quickly, lifting the bottom of my dress and going underneath that too.
I was instantly consumed with the feel of his hair, the presence of his face, the pressure of his fingers.
“Rhett …” I was looking down, but it was pointless. I couldn’t see anything, aside from the movement of his head.
But I could feel his lips against my inner thighs.
The heat from his breath.
The swish of his tongue.
The—
Oh God .
“Rhett!”
“I want my face to smell like you when I walk across that stage.”
This was bad.
He was … bad.
Yet it was all so good.
“I want …” My voice died off when his tongue hit that spot, the one at the very top that he was now stroking. But that wasn’t the only thing he was doing. He was using his fingers as well, circling them around me before he dipped inside. “You.”
He stilled. “I know. I can taste how wet you are.”
The redness was already there, but I felt it seeping through my pores.
“Baby, you taste so good.”
I tried to swallow.
I tried to lower my arms and hold the top of his head.
I couldn’t.
I was frozen.
Stuck on this wall, swelling with pleasure.
He’d done this a couple of times before. He’d go slow, licking all around me, like he wanted to get me extra wet. And once I was, he would surface and immediately slide his dick into me.
But this was different. That didn’t seem to be what he was doing here.
Because there was nothing slow about the way his tongue was moving, which was focused on that one area while his fingers took care of the other area.
“Rhett!”
And his licking—it was more like a flick, the same way he rubbed me sometimes when we were having sex and he wanted me to come. But instead of massaging me with the pads of his fingers, he was beating across my clit with the point of his long, wet tongue.
How could something feel so good?
How could it cause this kind of reaction from me?
One where I wanted to pull at his hair, and I wanted to scream, and I wanted to collapse because I wasn’t sure my legs would continue to hold me.
“Fuck,” I said as quietly as I could. “What are you doing to me?”
“I’m making you come.”
His lips surrounded me, and he sucked, the friction so hard, like he was pulling something out of me. I’d never felt anything like it, and I found myself banging my head against the wall.
As though he knew how close I was, his lips pulled back, and he released my clit. The licking returned, his fingers moving even faster than they had been, his breaths hitting me, adding to whatever was stirring.
It was a combination I hadn’t been ready for. “Oh! Yes!”
A mixture that was creating something I couldn’t fight.
He wanted me to get off.
And he was about to get it.
With each pat of his tongue, I was getting closer. A build that was swishing across me, like he was plugging me into a socket, sending electricity through my whole body.
Every end was sparking.
But together, those sparking ends created something.
A rush.
A scream of, “Rhett,” came shouting through my lips. “Fuck! Yes! Ah!”
If there was a peak, I was there, dangling over the edge, unsure if I would ever come back.
But each lick brought me down further, and it brought me back to reality, sending the shivers, which had been roaring, to a dull simmer.
“Oh my,” I breathed, attempting to fill my lungs again, “God.”
“You gave me just what I wanted.”
There was a calmness in his tongue, a lapping he hadn’t yet given me today, and then a stillness as he gently kissed me. His fingers slid out, and his head surfaced from my dress and gown. Then, he was standing in front of me, his hands on my face.
“Kiss me, Lainey.”
I sighed as I looked at the wetness on his mouth that I knew was all me. “What did you just do to me?”
“I fucking ate you.” He ran his teeth over his bottom lip.
“Yes. You did a lot of that.”
He smiled. “And there’s a lot more where that came from. But right now, we have to go graduate. Later, you’re going to get the rest.”
“Fair.”
“Kiss me.” His tone turned to a growl.
I checked out his lips again, unsure I even wanted to go there. “On the mouth? Really?”
“I want you to know what your cum tastes like.”
Before I had a chance to respond, his lips were pressed against mine.
And in that moment, I tasted myself.
There was a sweetness I hadn’t expected.
A kind of satisfaction I hadn’t been prepared for.
And when he pulled away, our faces still close together, he said in a deep, gritty voice, “What’s it like to know I’ll do anything to taste you?” He put his hand on the wall above my head. “To know that my need for you runs so deep that I took us out of line to graduate.” His lips were almost touching mine. “That I brought you here, a place I’d sought out when I arrived because I knew I’d have to have you.” He kissed me again. “That you have the power to get me on my knees.”