Lust (The Elite Seven #1)(20)

“I’m not stalking you.” Chastity frowns. She’s on the toilet, lid down and a towel wrapped around her body. Her black dress is hanging over the shower door.

“If I’d known you were waiting for me, I’d have come sooner.” I smirk, but don’t feel it. There’s a stirring in my gut.

“Maggie didn’t want to leave, so I snuck up here to wait for my dress to dry and for her to be ready. She drove us,” she defends.

My stomach contracts, and a groan leaves my lips.

“Are you going to be sick?” she gasps, jumping to her feet. Her hair is still damp, hanging in ringlets around her face.

All makeup has been removed by the water, or maybe some of God’s products. She’s bare, and her voice is oddly soothing.

“No.” I shake my head. “I need to lay down. Will you talk to me for a couple minutes?”

“What? Why?” she scoffs.

My brow furrows, and the liquor in my veins offers her truth in my words. “I’m just so tired, but scared to sleep.”

Dropping my eyes to my feet, I scratch at a non-existent itch on the back of my neck.

Her feet shuffle, then she speaks. “Can I borrow some clothes first?”

Treading back to the bed, I drop my weight onto it and point to God’s walk-in closet. “Knock yourself out. He won’t notice.”

A few minutes later, the bed dips, and she sits next to me, Buddha-style.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asks meekly.

“Tell me a story.”

Snorting, she pushes the sleeves of a sweater much too large for her frame up her arms.

“I’m going to tell you the story of Romeo and Juliet, because I’m not sure you or the hussy who pushed me in the pool realize Romeo wasn’t a womanizer.”

A chuckle tightens my abs. I place a hand there and one over my eyes to cover the light from stinging my retinas.

“Is that what you think I am, a womanizer?”

Her thigh shifts, touching the side of my arm, and my heart jumps. That’s pathetic. It’s her clothed fucking thigh for fuck’s sake, and knowing her, done one hundred percent by accident.

“I think they should call you Casanova, not Romeo.”

“Okay, tell me the story of Romeo and Juliet.”

A blanket covers my lower half, and I smile when she forces my head to lift and stuffs a pillow beneath it.

“It all began with two feuding families…” she begins.




“This a party of two or can anyone join?” I start awake to the sound of God’s voice.

A rustling of covers and panic happening around me alerts me to Chastity jumping to her feet, hair fused like a bird’s nest and creases from the blankets indented in her soft cheek.

Her voice lulled me to sleep, her presence a kind of tranquillity, her body and pulse next to mine wading me into the shadows of my mind, a safety net from the darkness of my dreams.

“Crap. It’s four a.m.,” she croaks, her eyes darting between God and me.

“Good night?” God smirks.

“She called me Casanova.”

A pillow hits me across the head, and I chuckle. It may have only been four or five hours of sleep, but it’s the most rested I’ve felt in forever.

“I hate you,” she snaps, grabbing up her things.

“Not the usual response you receive.” God snorts, kicking off his shoes.

“I hate you too, ice queen.” I receive a one-finger salute before she flees the room.

My stomach protests when I go to sit up, my body hating my drinking habit and refusing to cooperate.

“God,” I groan into the pillow.

“Hmmm?”

“Can you make sure she gets a cab or something? Her friend was her ride here and I doubt she’s still here.”

I shouldn’t care how she gets home, but I do. I owe her for the dreamless sleep.





Twenty seconds is how long it’s been since I sat down opposite the school guidance counselor. Neither of us have spoken.

I blew a tire halfway here and had to jog the rest of the way, leaving my car on the side of the road.

“Chastity,” she finally says. “How has she been as a mentor for you?”

I shift in my seat to unstick my nutsack from my thigh and shake my head.

The week passed uneventfully. I managed getting to all my classes early and made some new acquaintances, but all things Elite were obsolete. Not even a murmur about the secret society—and that left me on edge. I assumed there would be an atmosphere surrounding the college, everyone waiting to see if they were going to be picked, but in reality, it really was secret and under most people’s radar.

That was the whole point, but it made finding out information about them really fucking difficult.

“Rhett,” Lillian coaxes, reminding me she asked me a question.

“What made you think we would be a good match?” I almost laugh, the memory of Chastity giving me the finger before she fled the room at God’s party playing in my mind.

I’d seen very little of Chastity since God’s party, and didn’t count on changing that even if she did cause the competitor inside me to pursue her just to change her mind about me. Or too get her to talk while I slept.

Fuck it. I have more important things to worry about.