Page 139 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
“I thought of you,” Aaron agrees, and then he pauses, like he’s been thinking about something for awhile and has just now made a decision about it. “That night …” He trails off. We both know which night, the one where I fucked all five Havoc Boys, one after the other. “When I told you not tonight after you put your lips near my ear … What were you going to say?”
Shit.
“You know what I was trying to say,” I tell him with a dramatic roll of my eyes. But he just lifts an eyebrow and stays where he is, waiting for me to answer the question. Aaron might seem like the nicest of the group, but he’s definitely one of the most stubborn, too. Sometimes, he’s a little too stubborn, a slave to his own morality. But it’s an endearing trait, too, and very likely the one that saved both our lives. Too damn stubborn to die.
“Maybe I’ll go out and find one of Trinity’s pretty friends to flirt with—just to gather intel, of course.” He smiles to soften the blow of the joke, but I know he could, if he wanted to. With his tattoos, that hair, that smile … It wouldn’t be very hard.
I glare at him, but my body is aching; I just want him to touch me.
“I was going to say …” I pause to gather a breath for courage. Like I said, intimacy issues. Lots of them. “That you’re a part of me, and I can’t live without you. That’s it. Seriously not a big deal.”
“Telling someone they’re a fucking part of you isn’t a big deal?” he chokes out with a laugh. “Oh, Bernadette.” Aaron presses his mouth to mine, even as I consider kneeing him in the junk as hard as I can. And then that’s it for me, there’s no more resistance after that. It’s not even worth pretending that I’m not wet and hungry for him. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispers as he balances on his forearms and reaches between us to undo his pants. “You’ve always been a fucking part of me.”
Two hours later, we find ourselves sweaty and disheveled and grinning like fools at a table in the dining room. It’s swanky as fuck in here, but it doesn’t feel any safer than a dive in south Prescott. People are still duplicitous; they still covet and crave and desire.
My afterglow only lasts so long as it takes me to spot Victor and Trinity, sitting at a table of their own in the corner of the room. Victor stares at Trinity with that endless dark gaze of his, and she stares back at him like he’s something to be obtained, something to be conquered and consumed. What she doesn't understand is that a man like Victor Channing can never be tamed.
What she doesn't understand … is that he isn't looking at her like he wants to consume her in a carnal sense, he's looking at her like he's planning on how he might kill her one day.
Oscar joins me and Aaron at the table, sliding into the seat beside mine and throwing that sharp silver gaze of his across the room until he spots James Barrasso. It seems that I'm not the only person in the restaurant who’s staring at Vic and Trinity. James can't seem to take his eyes off of them.
“What do you think that's all about?” Oscar asks absently, fingers teasing the edge of an empty wineglass that's upside down on the table. I wonder if the Oak Valley students have their own secret code, something they might say to one of the waiters to get them to actually pour some wine.
If there is, I certainly don’t know it. Instead, I managed to steal a bottle on my way past the bar earlier; this place is obviously not used to the sticky fingers of Prescott students.
“Trinity and James are fucking,” I say, grabbing a piece of bread from the basket on the table and wondering how long it's been since I actually sat down at a restaurant without the Thing present. He liked to take us all out to dinner and then rape my sister afterward. I feel suddenly sad and set the bread aside for a moment.
“You think so?” Aaron asks, looking between the two of them like he isn't quite convinced. “I mean, I guess it would explain why he's here.”
“What does a mobster’s son have to do with an Oak Valley aristocrat?” I query, shrugging my shoulders as Oscar swings his attention my way. “Only one thing: dick.” I finally pick up the piece of bread up and tear into it, earning a raised brow from Oscar and a smile from Aaron.
Hael and Cal are nowhere to be seen, doing their usual sweeps and collecting gossip.
