10. Helen
CHAPTER TEN
Brimming with frustration, I barreled through the doors to the fencing club changing rooms. I shoved my things into my locker and gritted my teeth through the process of pulling on my whites.
Several French curses spilled from my lips, and I stewed on all my recent interactions with the Great Bastard.
I’d always known Drake Graham was a massive asshole, and regardless of my temporary lapse of sanity at St. Henry’s, the fact remained he was a giant ass.
He wore varying shades of blue and popped up at my office randomly throughout the past week.
Each time, he sat in silence for hours until I snapped and gave him some small tidbit of information to get him to leave.
He never shared what he was doing at his end of the arrangement, a trait he continued from our past. No matter what I’d seen or done myself, he’d always been reluctant to share the worst of his actions.
It didn’t matter, I reminded myself. Even if my mother walked me down the aisle and handed me off to him, that didn’t mean I had to love him—or even like him. And I didn’t.
It wasn’t my fault that he looked frustratingly attractive in those suits.
Simple fact, honestly. I had eyes and a working brain, both things that told me he was a fine specimen to look at.
The way my core tingled with heat and my underwear grew damp was merely a physical reaction.
It couldn’t be helped that I noticed his toned ass as he perused my bookshelves or ogled the tensing muscles in his tree-trunk thighs when he sat down.
An agitated wanton creature in my chest gnawed at my ribs like a feral thing trying to escape its enclosure.
Half the time Drake spent in my office watching me work, I wanted to leap across my desk and strangle him and the other half wanted him to bury his head between my thighs and make me sing in French.
I was going to kill him. That would fix the problem. It had to.
The door swung open, and I caught a flash of short cropped burgundy hair, bronze skin, and a trendy black pants suit. An unfair flash of irritation coursed through me.
“You’re late,” I grumbled.
“Oh, someone sounds rattled.” Brooke braced her arm on her locker, eying the way I dressed as if the fabric pissed me off.
“I’m fine,” I spat.
“Could this have anything to do with a certain dark-haired bully that’s reappeared in your life?” She waggled her manicured brows.
“Get dressed, whore.”
Brooke leaned in, smirking like a devil. “You need to get laid, bitch.”
I slammed the locker shut, glaring daggers at her. Her eyes sparkled with triumph.
“I am not sexually frustrated. I’m just frustrated frustrated!”
Brooke rolled her eyes and clicked open her locker. “Yeah, whatever you say. Go out to the salle and get your warmup in.”
A decent sweat already coated my temple by the time Brooke joined me. The physical activity and strain of movement helped to work out the tension knotted inside me. Brooke saluted, and we bowed to one another. A second passed, and I leapt into our first bout.
“Moving a bit aggressively there, aren’t we?” she teased, parrying my rapid blows. She shuffled back down the piste as my lunges drove her into a retreat.
“Just working off a rough week,” I panted. A handful of quick attacks later and I had Brooke pushed off the strip. She resolutely regathered for another round, willing to help me work off my stress as I’d done for her over the years.
“I think a rough fuck would do better for you than punishing me with such a brutal fleche.” Brooke heaved in a gasp as my foil shot at her again. Her parry riposte caught the strength of my weapon and redirected me, but I won the game at the last second.
“Shut it, you cow. Take off the kid gloves and come at me!”
She sighed with friendly resignation. My oldest and first friend and I engaged in quick-fire combat. The sharp trill of blades echoed off the walls as we danced rapidly back and forth along the strip. Her skill matched my intensity as we volleyed points at one another.
“Allez!” I shouted the command, and we twirled into another bout. Brooke attacked and a moment later I retaliated with a tactical remise. She parried, and I heard the smirk in her bubbling laugh.
Gasping for air and vibrating with a week’s worth of aggravation under my skin, I won the last point. Brooke’s full lips split into a playful grin before we formally saluted the end of the match. “You haven’t played that furiously since that slut from Brookelyn tried to blackmail your brother.”
“Ugh, don’t get me started on that shit-show again,” I huffed.
Brooke teasingly nudged me as we dressed down and headed for the showers. The hot, loud spray of water and billowing steam didn’t prevent my friend from trying to tackle the center of my emotional state.
“Where did you come from before this?” she pried.
“Work,” I said over the noise of the showers. Her muffled hum made me suspicious, but the pleasant water sluicing over my skin provided ample distraction. The soreness in my muscles and the soothing heat detracted from the buzzing in my head.
“And how is it going working with?—”
“—the literal, actual devil?” I retorted. She snickered, and I cut the water off. Brooke joined me, wrapping up in our towels and sauntering toward the mirrors.
“Is it really so bad seeing him again?”
“It’s worse. You remember how he was at St. Henry’s? God, and he was even worse before you transferred over.” I ran a comb through my more unruly curls, beating them into submission.
She watched my reflection.
“So, he’s bullying you? I can’t imagine you letting him get away with that, Helen. We’re not children anymore.” Brooke towel dried her pixie cut, letting the strands stick out in artful disarray.
“He’s an arrogant, annoying ass. He always has been. The bastard shows up and just sits across from me and watches me work!”
“Well yeah, he always watched you at school, too.”
“Glared at me.”
“Trust me, he wasn’t glaring,” she countered.
I froze, narrowing my eyes at her. She sensed my mood shift and looked at me.
“What do you know?”
Brooke balked. “You don’t remember?” Then her brows pinched, and her lips thinned. “Well, we were quite drunk that night.”
“What are you talking about?” I went cold.
“That night after graduation, when we got shit-faced in London before going home?” she said. I vaguely remembered the night as I had needed a distraction from heartbreak and misery despite the victory of graduation. “You told me enough that I figured out what happened between you two.”
“And you never brought it up after all these years?”
Brooke shrugged. “It was your secret, and I knew it would have been dangerous information in the hands of your families. If you’d wanted to talk about it, you would have.”
“I appreciate and love you. It would be nice not to have seen him again at all. To top it all off, we’re expected to get married!” Back at our lockers, I dug into my bag for my clothes.
Brooke tugged on a flowy dress for the afternoon. “Eh, you’ll be alright. Plus, if he’s still hot, you can just use him for his cock.” She side-eyed me. “You obviously want it.”
“I do not!” And I hadn’t been reminiscing about all the things he could do with his tongue, either. I had standards, and better taste than forbidden bad boys these days.
“You’re bright red, Hel. And you have that pinched expression you get whenever you’re horny.
” Her grin was wicked. “You don’t have to like your husband, darling, not in our world.
But I remember how he looked at you and enough of what you told me that night.
That man will worship your cunt if you ask him to.
I just know it. And I think that’s exactly what you need. ”
I balked at her even as a frisson rippled through me. She must have seen it written all over my face, because her smirk split wider.
“Oh, non, non,” I spluttered. “Fuck Drake Graham!”
“That’s the spirit!” Brooke patted my cheek. “Now, let’s go get drinks. I’m positively parched after that brutal match.”
A night of drinks with Brooke topped off a much-needed night to decompress.
She provided ample entertainment, fueling me with drinks and sweeping me out to dance until my leg muscles screamed.
Banjo and Gizmo waited down the block in the car, and I let loose without their ever-watchful eyes.
Though I had to convince them not to hover, unsettled after the attack and recent increase in activity.
We danced and danced and danced, and I silenced the bees in my head with fruity cocktails.
I didn’t think of Drake or his tongue or his cock.
Not once. Well, except for a few relapses, but liquor went straight to my core.
Dancing helped a fraction, but every time a man tried to grind on me, I couldn’t help thinking about Drake’s hands instead.
When he sat in the chair across from me, I couldn’t help noticing him.
He wore the same thick gold signet ring on his finger as his father did.
Only Drake had the long, toned fingers to pull it off.
And the veins on the back of his hands—God—I wanted to run my tongue along them and suck a finger into my mouth.
Then I wanted him to trace patterns on my inner thighs with those dastardly handsome fingers and sink two, maybe three, of them inside of me.
Curling them. Stroking me. Teasing me until I clenched around his powerful fingers and came hard.
And fuck, there were hours when he’d take his suit jacket off and roll up his sleeves.
I’d watch his fingers twirl a pen in the air, rubbing my knees together under my desk.
My traitorous gaze had been drawn to his sculpted forearms time and time again.
By the time he left my office at the end of the day, and I certainly hadn’t watched his toned ass in those midnight blue slacks while he exited, I wanted to wriggle out of my skin.
Okay, maybe Brooke was right. But I couldn’t admit that to her now.