XXXVI
Tori
T he orgasm hits me, pleasure exploding and rippling through my body. I manage not to cry out, but I can’t stop the moan, nor the little twitches my body makes as the device continues to operate.
With a smirk, Syn tilts his head. “Are you okay there? You look a little… fucked.” He saunters out of the classroom, Gemini right behind him.
Royal looks like he’s about to say something but changes his mind and hurries out instead.
Payne follows, stopping at the door to close it behind them. He turns to me as the device stops—I think the battery finally died. “Tori,” he says slowly. “What…? Did you just…?”
I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t look anywhere other than the ground in front of me—which isn’t opening up to swallow me whole, like I want it to. A few minutes ago, it was hot. I shouldn’t have fought it and orgasmed in front of everyone as I handed out the cards. At least then, I could have dropped the cards and used the cover of picking them up to mask what was happening.
Right now, I’m too mortified to lie.
The door handle rattles, but as the door starts to open, Payne turns and puts his foot out. “Please wait outside for a few more minutes.”
Students for Payne’s next class have already started to arrive, and their muffled conversation is enough to bring me to life. I suck in a deep breath, straighten my back, and then move behind the table like nothing has happened. Only after I’ve put my coat on do I look at Payne.
He’s not taken his eyes off me once. There’s something about the way he’s looking at me, but today, I don’t want to take the time to find out if it’s disgust or disappointment.
“Thank you for finding a way to give me some time alone in the house tonight,” I tell him, looking at his lips, rather than his eyes.
He doesn’t stop me as I leave the classroom, passing through the small crowd of students waiting to enter. I keep my head high as I walk straight to the nearest bathroom and straight into a stall. Behind the locked door, I carefully ease the device out of me.
Whether Syn or Gemini want me to keep it in all day, I don’t care. I shove the thing straight into the sanitary towel bin and then clean myself up as best as I can. At this point, I’m late for my next class, but I have no intention of going anyway.
When I’ve cleaned myself the best I can, I fasten my coat up, wash my hands, and then head straight back to the house. It’s Royal who’s waiting for me in the kitchen when I walk in.
“I didn’t think you’d be going to class,” he tells me. “Figured I’d come back and give you a hand.”
A hand?
I stare at him, and after a moment, he just wiggles and eyebrow at me. “Are you serious?”
His flirty smile is replaced with a frown. “You seemed ready to jump me after breakfast. I figured after that, you’d want a real cock inside of you.”
Royal may have softened over the last couple of weeks, but the reason I’ve never fully allowed myself to accept it is because of this. I’m not the only one who believes you attract more bees with honey. It’s all about sex for him. He’s nice to me because he’s using me.
Not that I fault him for that. I’m nice to him because I’m using him, too. But if it’s all about sex with him, then, just as I suspected all along, he can’t be trusted.
So why did the little bubble of warmth that appeared when I saw him just burst with disappointment?
One way or another, the end is nearly here, and I only have to do this for a little while longer. I take my coat off and toss it on the kitchen island, my blazer quickly joining it. But as I start to unbutton my shirt, Royal steps in front of me and grabs my hands.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“You want to fuck.”
Royal doesn’t let go of my hand. “Didn’t you enjoy that?”
I shrug. “So long as you got off on it.”
“It’s only hot if you’re turned on and enjoying it too.” He pries his fingers between mine, pulling my hands away from my shirt. “Which includes this.”
Rolling my eyes, I jerk my hands free and step away from him. “Since when has that ever been a concern?”
“I have never forced you to do anything.”
“And yet, I moved into this house after signing a contract, which clearly stated I had to do everything I was ordered to.”
Crossing his arms, Royal narrows his eyes. “You’re telling me that everything that’s happened between us has only been because you’re following orders?”
“Maybe? Maybe not?” I shrug. “I don’t know anymore.”
“You do. You know I wouldn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want to.”
A dry laugh escapes me. “And the other week, when Syn had every member of the Elite hunting me down, if I’d have been brought back, would you have stopped what happened next?”
“That’s irrelevant,” Royal says, shaking his head. “You weren’t caught.”
I dip my hand into my shirt, wrapping my hand around the warm chain and pull it out, holding it up. “This says otherwise.”
“That was put on by Syn, not me. And he only put that on because you walked in here and blackmailed him to.” Royal shakes his head in disgust. “My whole life, I’ve never known Syn to succumb to blackmail. Whatever you showed him, he won’t even tell me and Gem about it. So, if you want to start talking about being forced to do something, you can start there.”
The video was of JP performing a sexual act with another guy. Yes, I’d threatened to release it if Syn didn’t let me become an initiate, but if he’d called my bluff, I would never would have carried out my threat anyway. I wasn’t about to out someone, even if they were dead. But I can’t tell Royal that. I have very few cards left to play, and I might still need the ability to bluff before I leave.
“Do you want to fuck me or not?” I ask.
Staring at me, Royal slowly shakes his head. “I don’t fuck anyone if they don’t want it, and seeing as though neither of us seem to be sure if everything until now has been because you want to, or because of some piece of paper, I’m not fucking you until you beg me.”
“Is that an order?” I ask him, arching an eyebrow.
Royal’s body tenses, but somehow, he seems to grow in front of me. His gray eyes darken, and for the first time, I really see anger in them. I’d always thought Syn was terrifying, but he’s never hidden his darkness. With Royal, this seems like the tip of the iceberg. And that suddenly makes him a whole lot scarier than Syn.
Before my bravado can crumble, he turns on his heel and marches out of the kitchen. His heavy footsteps echo around the house as he heads upstairs, slamming what I assume is his bedroom door behind him.
Ally might have been a generous term, but whatever there was between us, I think I’ve just managed to completely ruin it. I’ll be leaving soon anyway, and when I do, I never want to see Royal again.
So why am I so upset?
“Because you’ve gone back to having no one on your side in this house,” I mutter to myself. “Not that he was ever really on my side…”
Ignoring the doubt I feel at my own words, I head up to my own bedroom. I’d hoped to have a bubble bath, but I settle for a hot shower instead. As it’s nearly lunch and I doubt Syn’s going to allow me to sit at their table with them again, instead of changing into my uniform, I dress in the maid’s outfit and head straight to the dining hall.
After dinner, back in Denali House, I linger in the entrance hall until I get a message from Payne telling me Syn and Gemini have arrived. Then, I grab a duster and polish from the cleaning closet and take them upstairs with me.
Although I’ve not made the most effort with keeping the house clean, I’ve somehow managed to avoid complaints from Syn, because I have been making the effort to go into his room once a week to at least do the bare minimum. Like his appearance, Syn keeps his room spotless, with everything having its own home.
I change the bedding, give each surface a wipe down to keep a noticeable layer of dust at bay, and I always make sure to move a few items just a bit, so he can tell I’ve been in and cleaned. The only thing I refuse to clean is the giant enclosure his pet lizard lives in.
Not that I have a thing about reptiles. The green lizard is rather cute, and while I know there are only a small number of venomous lizards in the world—and I doubt his is one of them—if it’s anything like its owner, it’s probably a bad-tempered asshole that bites.
Although I’m not sure Syn even has a soul, and I have a feeling that if I did something to let the lizard escape—or worse—nothing would save me from Syn’s wrath.
Thankfully, there’s no need for me to hide the camera in the lizard’s tank. I sit in the chair at Syn’s desk and spin around, looking for a closer, less obvious location.
The bed.
Like all the other beds in the house, Syn’s is a large four-poster. There are dark green drapes that match those on the windows, hanging from it. These remain tied back to the posts, and the pleats are so perfectly spaced, I can tell they’ve never been drawn since they were hung. That, and there doesn’t seem to be nearly enough fabric to fully enclose the bed.
I unravel the short, thin cable and plug it into the back of the small camera, then the battery pack, before I turn it on.
Carefully, I climb up onto his bed, stepping up on the wooden footboard for a better vantage point, and then I stick the camera on the thin wooden rail, poking the lens through the curtain hoop so it’s pointing at the desk. Unfortunately, the camera isn’t one that I can connect to remotely, but hopefully, from this angle, even if I can’t see exactly what keys he’s typing, I might be able to guess the password anyway.
Once the camera is secure, I make sure that it’s hidden among the drapes, using a couple of hair elastics to keep it in place.
The whole thing has taken about fifteen minutes, and while I’m sure Payne will probably make the detention last for at least an hour, I don’t want to be in here longer than I need to be. I strip the bedding, hurry around the room with the duster, then head back to the basement with the dirty laundry. Once they’re in the washing machine and the cycle is going, I get a fresh set of bedding and hurriedly remake the bed.
Of course, I don’t care if Syn’s bedding is clean. I made sure to change it over the Thanksgiving break, and he’s only slept in it one night, but if he somehow notices that the drapes look out of place, he’ll hopefully attribute that to me making his bed.
Now I just need to work out how to get the camera out.