Touched by the devil, p.26
Touched by the Devil, page 26
part #3 of Boys of Preston Prep Series
“I told you I could make you feel good.” He groans, breaths coming as choppy as my own when his lips rest against the shell of my ear, voice like gravel. “Bet you could take it. We can—just like this. I have a condom.” I don’t even have time to really think about it before he hastily adds, “Fuck, forget I said that. I just wanna make you come. Can you come for me, Sugar?”
With a sharp gasp, I slam my hand over his, pressing him hard against my clit, deep inside me. If I thought my cries were embarrassing, then the way I shake apart as I fall off the precipice is truly next level. He clutches me against his chest, the muscles in his forearm rippling as his hand works between my legs, yanking my orgasm from me like a willingly stolen thing.
“Perfect,” he rasps into my ear. “So fucking perfect. You take it so good. That feel good, baby?”
I never would have thought listening to a guy talk during this would make it all better, but it does. Listening to Sebastian’s want, his desire, is ridiculously hot and I whine as the vestiges of my orgasm ripple through me, surging and waning at the motion of his hand. I bat at it when it becomes too much, too sensitive, but alternately feel the loss acutely when he takes it away.
Sebastian didn’t come, I know he didn’t, but he deflates just like if he had, the two of us sprawled out in the back of his car, trying to catch our breath. The windows have all fogged over and the car smells thick with sex.
It takes approximately three minutes for that hand he has wrapped around my ribs to start feeling less like one of those good sex things, and more like something that’s trapping me.
He doesn’t fight when I spring upright, almost braining myself on the roof. “You okay?” he asks, reaching out to touch me, but thinking better of it at the last second. “Did I—was it too much?”
But I shake my head, turning to give him a tired smile. “No, it was… God. It was perfect.”
I can practically see his ego inflating right in front of me. He wedges an arm behind his head, eyes dragging down my open shirt. “Told you so.”
“So, things with you and Bass are working out?”
I glance at Georgia as we walk from our third period class. She’d been asleep when I got home the night before, and I left early to go check on the kittens and give them a little food before class started. It’s the first time we’ve seen one another since Sebastian finger-blasted me at the lake.
“Um, sort of.” By ‘sort of’ I mean ‘yes’. Like ‘shout it from the top of the mountain’ yes. What transpired between the two of us in the backseat of his car was nothing short of a miracle, but Georgia’s question does make me wonder… “Why? Did he say something?”
Do I look different? Can she tell? What made her ask?
“Well, when I dropped you off at the garage yesterday, I didn’t expect you to come home right away, but I didn’t realize you’d be gone that long.” She gives me a coy smile. “People can do a lot of things with that much time.”
“We just hung out,” I say, fully aware that my cheeks are blistering. “And you know, got to know one another better.”
“Mmmhmm,” she says, pulling open the front door of the building. “That’s definitely my favorite part of getting with a guy. The ‘getting to know one another’ phase can be very sexy.”
Georgia has no idea that sex wasn’t even the biggest part of what happened between me and Sebastian. The simple fact he and I had been able to work through my fears and aversions was bigger than she could possibly grasp. Sure, he fingerbanged me within an inch of my life, and the resulting orgasm was a thing of poetry, but that was just the cherry on top. A delicious, sweet, knee-quaking cherry.
I wonder, “Do you ever get past the 'getting to know one another’ phase? I ask that out of curiosity, no judgment intended.”
“Honestly, not if I can help it.” She grins. “Like I said, it’s the best part. Why would I want to mess that up by getting into all the icky stuff?”
She splits off toward her locker, adding that she’ll see me in the dining hall. I approach my locker on the opposite side of the hall, unlocking it and opening the door. I do a double take when I see the contents, thinking I’ve opened the wrong locker. I close and re-check the number, but this is definitely my locker. Someone must have put their shit inside by mistake, because on top of my math book is a shiny, brand-spanking-new laptop. It’s rose gold-colored with the charging cable tucked carefully next to it. I look around to see if anyone is watching, but they aren’t. I open the laptop, just hoping to find out who it belongs to, and it springs to life, an image appearing on the screen. It’s a photo of a kitten. Abbadon, to be exact. It’s my photo.
No fucking way.
I grab the laptop, shove my science book inside, then slam the door. I head straight out of the building and across the campus to the dining hall. The table where I normally sit is half full, Reyn and Vandy already there, along with Caroline and Ben. I march up.
“Has anyone seen Sebastian?” I ask.
“I saw him and Dean Dewey walking down the hall before second period,” Caroline says, looking up from her study guide. “Something about him lurking around the lockers on the junior hall between classes.”
“Motherfucker,” I mutter. “Well if you see him—”
“Hey, you got my gift,” he cuts in, reaching out to gently slide his hand down my arm, just like he had yesterday when we parted. I guess he’d been serious about getting me used to his touches in small, measured doses. This one doesn’t make me want to hurl, but I still flinch. He uses my distraction to swipe the laptop from beneath my arm. He holds it up, face lit up with a beaming grin. “I thought about going for black, because you know, you really work that whole edge-lady vibe, but rose gold is just so much shinier.” He looks around the table, seeking approval. “Right? Don’t you think?”
Reyn’s eyes dart between me and Sebastian, an amused grin twisting at his lips. Vandy kind of looks like a deer in headlights. Meanwhile, I’m about two seconds from completely losing my shit. I swallow back the rage.
“Can I talk to you for a minute,” I ask in a calm, collected tone. “Alone?”
He tilts his head, delayed awareness spreading across his face. “Now?”
“Yes, now.”
I spin on my heel, hightailing it through the students that are still coming in the door, not waiting for him to catch up. It doesn’t take him long though, and I hear several people telling him to watch out and to slow down as he chases after me. Once I’m in the hallway, I stop and hold out the laptop.
“I can’t take this.”
“What? Why not?” A deep line creases his forehead. “I mean, no offense, but your laptop is a piece of junk—you were saying last night that it can’t handle all the photos you need to store on it and that the battery dies in like twenty minutes flat. This one won’t have those issues.”
My whole body clenches up in frustration, remembering our discussion in the Preston parking lot. I’d just had a fucking epic orgasm ten minutes prior, which apparently turns me into a pile of goo, and there’d been a moment there where I’m pretty sure neither of us wanted the night to end. But mostly, I didn’t know what to do, how to act, or what to say.
Hence, some truly stupid word vomit about how I needed to write up an essay on my dinosaur of a laptop.
“It’s like a two-thousand-dollar laptop, Bass. That’s ridiculous.”
“What’s the big deal? I have the money to spare, and I want you to have it.” He watches me thoughtfully before adding, “I didn’t buy it with betting money or anything. Swear.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “That’s not the point. It’s too much, and you and I… I mean, come on. We hardly know one another.”
His expression turns incredulous. “Hardly know one another? How can you even say that after what we did yesterday?”
“Shhh!” His voice is loud, boisterous—too casual about it all. I hiss, “Don’t just go shouting about that in the fucking hallway!”
He looks around, eyebrow rising at the complete lack of students milling around. “You think any of these people don’t think we’re already boning? Because trust me, that ship sailed the first time people saw us talking in the hallway. Or is this about yesterday? Are you having regrets or something? Because last night was fucking aces, and I know you know it.”
My face already feels like the surface of the sun, and I don’t care that there are only two people in the hallway, far out of earshot. I still lean in close to say, “This isn’t about that. I told you not to give me money or gifts!”
“That was before.” He points it out like this has all been some huge misunderstanding. Like, obviously when you fingerbang the hell out of a girl, you’re suddenly allowed to start buying her expensive consumer electronics. “I wasn’t your friend then.”
“You’re not my friend now.”
He gives me one of those slow, smarmy smiles. “Nah, I guess I’m not. But I’m definitely something, and it’s a little friends-adjacent, don’t you think?” He reaches out to tug at my dog tags. “Why are you freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out,” I argue, even as his eyebrow raises skeptically. “I’m not. I just…” I shove the laptop at him again. “I can’t take this. It’s too expensive and just… way too much. It’s too much, Bass.”
He looks down at the laptop but doesn’t take it. Instead, he rocks back on his heels and says, “You know, I’ve worked really hard to understand you, Sugar, because there’s something about you that has me so fucking infatuated, it’s borderline embarrassing. You’re fun and sexy and snarky as fuck. I don’t care that you drive a shitty car, or that your boots are scuffed, or that your laptop is old. I actually like all those things about you, and you want to know why? Because they make you who you are. It’s the true you. You don’t apologize for it and you aren’t someone who tries to hide it. I accept it all, even when some of those things have historically been a massive pain in my dick.”
He touches my arm gently, making a point. “But you have to be willing to accept the true me too, and I’m sorry, but a part of that is being stupidly rich. I’m talking trust fund, stocks and bonds, off-shore accounts, type of rich. At least my father is, and his father was, and there’s just no end to the fucking money, and that’s something you have to accept if we’re going to be together.” I open my mouth to argue but he holds a finger to my lips. “Seriously. Money means fuck-all to me. It isn’t going to go away, and as long as I have it, I’m going to shower you with gifts, because that's what my mother taught me, not to be greedy, to share what I have and give freely. No-strings-attached gifts to the people I care about is just how I roll.”
He bends down and kisses my forehead before turning and walking back toward the cafeteria, with that same cocky swagger that’s impossible to hate. The embroidered devil on the back of his jacket is the last thing I see before he vanishes around the corner. I hold the laptop against my body, realizing that part of what bothers me the most is that Sebastian is always giving me something; the decal for the Mustang, rides when I need them, help with the kittens, and yeah, okay? I admit it.
The epic fucking orgasm, too.
It was this huge, monumental thing that I thought I might never get to experience with another person. I’d written off ever being able to feel like that. I’d already accepted that no one would ever touch me like Sebastian does, and not even just what happened in his car, but also what happened after, and again today. Someone willing to be patient, to not give up, to keep touching me like this, even when it’s hard—even when I can’t accept or return it in the way I’d like—is the biggest gift of all.
It’s just that I have nothing to offer in return.
Maybe, I think as I head toward the art hall, I need to stop refusing his gifts and figure out the best way to even out the scales.
19
Sebastian
Sitting at the end of the long table, I try once again focus on my turkey sandwich instead of thinking about sex. It’s like a fucking sickness, all of a sudden. People always talk about that statistic where guys think about sex every three-point-something seconds, and fucking hell. A three second reprieve is actually sounding really good.
The glaring eyes of the other Devils are a helpful distraction. I haven’t said a word to them since I’d spoken to Sugar in the hall, but they’re all a bunch of nosey bitches, so in between absurdly detailed daydreams of sinking my hard dick into a wet pussy, I brace myself for their commentary. For once, they may have gotten the hint, because no one says anything until Aubrey asks, “My dad said he’d see if he can get use of the box seats at the stadium for the Twenty-One Pilots show. Anyone want to come?”
“What night?” Carlton asks, as if he has anything else going on.
“Wednesday. We’d have to drive into town, but there’s free food and stuff.”
“Sounds fun,” Vandy says. “Reyn, you want to go?”
“Eh, they’re a little too emo for me, but free food sounds good.”
“They’re not emo,” Georgia argues, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m definitely in. Do you mind if I ask Sugar? I know she’s into them because she has a sticker on her lap—” My gaze flicks up to hers and she rolls her eyes. “Come on, Bass. Did you really think she wouldn’t get mad about you buying her a laptop? She got pissed about the little thingy you got for the car. Not everyone can be wooed with money.”
“I’m not trying to woo her. That laptop she lugs around is a piece of fucking trash. I was trying to—” I throw my sandwich on my tray and stand. “Forget it. You wouldn’t get what I was trying to do.”
I kick the chair back under the table and grab my tray.
“Where are you going?” Georgia asks, taken aback. “Wait, are you seriously mad?”
I give her a look and keep going. I’m not mad. I’m just… I don’t even know. Too full of energy. Irritable. Wound up. I need to work out, fight, race, do something with my hands. I thought waking up at the ass crack of dawn and driving twenty miles to the closest Apple store to buy something shiny for Sugar would settle this buzzing beneath my skin. Maybe help me think of something other than finding a nice, warm hole to get my dick into, too.
No fucking dice, on either count.
I storm out the door, feeling the tension coil in my chest. Being with Sugar is pretty much the only thing that’s helped me feel better these past few days. But then last night, feeling her tight little body writhe against mine as she let me touch her—let me inside her—was such a fucking thrill. I’ve been thinking all morning about one phrase to sum it up: Sexual adrenaline. That’s all I’ve got. It fits. I almost came in my pants just from watching her, head thrown back, mouth opened in a soft, tortured cry as she came apart on my fingers.
I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone as badly as I wanted to fuck her right then. I couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it’d be to work my pants down, roll a condom on, and just sink into that tight, wet heat of hers. God, and I would have made her feel so good, too. She has no idea.
But that was the point. Reyn had been right about that. I need to stop making everything about my dick. That whole thing was about showing Sugar just how good I could make her feel. Bad enough that I’d already caused her pain—had already been the catalyst to her being unable to handle touch at all—I had to count my dick out of the game.
Yeah, it was hard.
Literally.
Limping back to my dorm with balls bluer than a smurf was a new low for me. I jerked off though, and it was… fine. Even if the back of my teeth are set on edge, even if I’m still hard all the damn time, even if I can’t stop thinking about it—pussy, pussy, dick, dick, fucking, fucking…
It’s fine.
I took second period to deliver the laptop, skipping class to get it up and running for her, setting that cute as fuck picture of Abby as the screen-saver, and leaving it in her locker, just so. But because my luck is just swinging that way recently, Dean Dewey caught me ‘skulking around the lockers suspiciously’. It took me an hour to talk my way out of that one.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a thank you? A smile? A kiss? A hug, if I was really fucking lucky?
I wasn’t expecting her to get all pissed about it, that’s for sure. Okay, that’s not true. Sugar getting pissed is like her default factory setting. Maybe she’s right. It’s too fast. We barely know one another. I’m, predictably, misreading the situation. So what if we hooked up? No one knows how non-committal those things can be better than I do.
Since I’ve already skipped one class today, I see no real reason to go to any more. I decide to head to the garage instead. Jasmine needs a little TLC and I’ve been neglecting her for another woman. Typical.
I’m almost at my car when my phone buzzes with a text. My heart skips when I see it’s from Sugar. A photo. I recognize it instantly as one she took right before Heston came over at the car show. I’m staring straight at the camera, my eyes as bright as Jasmine’s paint. There’s no mistaking the slight tension pulling at the corner of my eyes or the tight set of my jaw. There’s the hint of fear in my eyes that she can’t know was worry that Heston might see her. I wouldn’t say I look weak, but in that brief moment, there’s a chink in my armor. If I can see it, then so can she.
I stare at the photo for a long moment and then reply back.
Bass: This guy is hot. Kind of a broody bastard but still sexy.
Sugar: He is pretty good-looking. I probably should get all over him. Too bad he’s not here and I’m down in the photo lab all alone.
I freeze, keys in hand, eyebrows climbing my forehead. I take a furtive look around the lot before responding.
Bass: A pretty girl like you, all alone? That doesn’t sound safe.
Sugar: Maybe there’s a broody bastard out there that wants to come keep me company.
Yeah, that’s an invitation, and one I don’t plan on squandering. I jog across campus, darting behind the tower to stay out of Dewey’s line of vision, and then over to the arts building. I open the door and head down to basement level where the studios are located. The photography lab is marked and I try the door, but it’s locked. I take a photo of the door and send it along with a text:
