Page 72 of Wicked Vile King
She didn't see it coming, though she should have. She has two days to pay for, after all.
"Don't ever make me wonder about you again, pet," I say before I kiss her, trapping her against the wall and flattening my lips to hers. She tastes like cherries today, and I want it all.
Every lick.
Every lave.
Every taste.
I claim all of her, each inhale, exhale, and damned breath.
I don't have time for her punishment, not now anyway. Plus, I'm a selfish bastard. I don't share, especially not her, not out in the open with the rest of the heathens left to watch.
My tongue twines with hers as I suck the air from her lungs, leaving her breathless. When we finally break apart, she gulps for air, and I grab her by the hand and lead her around the corner of the building to the pool. I open a pressured door, and we walk inside, greeted by sticky, wet warmth.
"Welcome everyone," a lady at the front says, dressed in a neoprene shirt and matching black skirt. "Some of you may remember me. I'm Coach Adler. As you all know, the pool is once again operational after an unfortunate incident weeks prior with a student. Because of that incident, however, I must once again reiterate that if you cannot swim, please take a seat on the bleachers for the duration of class. Otherwise, the rest of you may go change in the locker rooms. You'll find your swimsuits sorted by size inside the doors."
She blows the whistle around her neck, and it's jarring and loud in the echo-chamber of the room. I finally release my pet and watch her scurry away to the locker rooms.
20
WILLOW
Iwalk into the locker room behind the other girls. There's a row of cardboard boxes on top of a long wooden bench in front of the lockers, each box marked with a different size. I grab a one-piece swimsuit out of the appropriate box. It's dark green, almost black, in the same color pattern as the rest of the Chryseum Academy uniforms. Girls are dispersing, some chatting amongst themselves but most of them are simply quiet, looking for somewhere to change and get to class. If the meds they give us don't pluck your will to socialize right out of you and carve it up into tiny bits, I'm pretty sure just existing in this place does it instead.
I'm sure if questioned they would say that's probably for our safety too, right? No groups mean no collective outrage, and you don't hear about one-person riots.
I veer toward a row of changing stalls on the far wall, each separated by a concrete wall and with its own individual shower curtain. I choose the nearest one, pulling the curtain closed behind me. I change out of my uniform quickly, pulling off my shoes and tights, my shirt and bra, and my skirt and my underwear. I place it all carefully in a little cubby built into the wall and tug on the bathing suit. It's modest with thick fabric and wide shoulder straps. There are no cut-outs, no low V-necks, nothing like that, but still, I feel nearly naked and utterly exposed, especially when I tie my hair up in an elastic band, lifting it from around the collar and up my neck. The feeling is amplified as I leave the stall, find the nearest open locker, and deposit my clothes inside before I follow the rest of the girls out toward the pool.
The smooth, white tile is cold against my bare feet as I pad back into the pool area, following the other girls in a haphazard line. The pool is massive, probably Olympic-sized and stretching from end-to-end of the giant stone-and-concrete building. It's nice, far nicer than the rest of campus, but I think that may be intentional. This feels like something done to impress a pissed-off parent or an inquisitive licensing board. Still, I don't care. Shiny (relatively) new things are nice too.
Giant overhead lights dangle from the green steel framework above us, illuminating nearly every corner of the room, except for where the tops of the bleachers meet the shadows. Coach Adler stands on the concrete near where the green plastic floats attached to matching ropes divide the open water area from the diving lanes. Her attention snaps to the collar on my throat, and she frowns but doesn't call for me to come over. Either she knows who put it there or doesn't give a shit enough to care. Heck, maybe she's just another victim of resting bitch face, but with frowns instead, like she has a forever disappointed face.
Regardless, the truth is that even if Coach did disapprove, I wouldn't take off the collar. I'm more afraid of Saint than her, and he wouldn't approve, not without his permission at least, and God knows what I would have to do to garner that. Probably not much I could do to gain it, not today at least, when he's been torturing me all morning, intentionally not telling me the price I will pay for locking myself in my room all weekend.
Yet, I know something's coming. I swear I canfeelit. There's a thing following me around like my head's on the chopping block and the guillotine's blade is about to fall.
Lord, I wouldn't put it past him to use a guillotine either.
I lick my dry lips nervously as my hair swings in my ponytail, tickling my back between my shoulder blades. I am about halfway to Coach Adler when I look up and lock eyes with Saint coming out of the boys' locker room. It feels like a white-hot poker hits me straight in the chest, only when it lands, it doesn't cauterize. Instead, that heat suffuses through my veins, stretching to the ends of my fingers and the tips of my toes.
He looks, in a word,devastating.
They say unearthly beauty can start a war, and if that's the case, then the bomb's going to drop any second now. Saint is in a pair of swim trunks the same dark green color as my swimsuit and absolutely nothing else. The fabric gives a little at the crotch, but it clings to his thick muscular thighs, his legs covered in black hair.
If I felt naked before, then I am fileted open right now. Every piece of him is defined with lean sculpted muscles that make me feel soft and weak by comparison. He stands tall, his back straight, his shoulders rolled back, his broad chest on display, and his iron abs sure to haunt my dreams. Saint Laurier is gorgeous, and he knows it.
I knew he was built—it would be hard not to from the too-many (or not enough?) occasions he has pinned me between a hard object and him. Seeing it, though, is something entirely different.
Does an Academy lord spend his days doing crunches on the floor and pull-ups in his dorm room? Or does he just skip that entirely and circle the campus for hours at a time, long after the rest of us would be falling over or dead? Because good God, he looks like it.
My mouth dries in an instant at the sight of him, and I swallow hard, feeling it catch on the collar as he surveys the room, finds me, and cocks his head. The left side of his mouth lifts in a lopsided grin before he runs his tongue across his top teeth. I feel like I'm those teeth right now. I think I want to be those teeth right now.
The memory blasts through my brain.
I'm back in the morgue on the autopsy table again, breathing beneath the plastic body bag as I let him feast on me, his weight on my lower half grounding me to the present.
I never wanted him to steal my first kiss.
