Lust (The Elite Seven #1)(38)

There’s an exit door that we push through to come out behind the stalls and rides.

“You ready to go?” I ask her, wrapping my arm around her waist.

She falls into me, melting into my side. “Yes. I’m spent.”

Yeah she is.





I couldn’t bear to shower last night, to wash away Chastity’s scent. She was everything and more—delicious, forbidden, sweet as sin.

Her body is so responsive, so needy, so perfect.

There were a lot of guys in high school who bitched about going down on a woman, but to me, there’s nothing better—nothing more masculine than making a woman quiver and come on your tongue. I’d bathe in her juices if I could.

My thoughts wander to God. I have missed calls from him, but if I take the call, he’ll ask me how I’m doing with my task, then he’ll demand to know what’s taking me so long and why I’m avoiding him.

I promised him, and made him promise me, we would do our tasks no matter what the consequences. But I wasn’t prepared to feel this way.

Slipping my phone into my pocket, I search the parking lot for one of his fancy ass cars, but like usual, he’s absent from school, making avoiding him that much easier.

He isn’t the only person I’m avoiding. Mrs. Griffin is also on my dodge list. Looking her in the eye and talking about things I don’t want to share with her because I’ve found talking to Chastity oddly therapeutic isn’t something I want to confess to her.

And knowing there’s tension there between her and Chastity makes me not like her. Petty, but I chose a side the minute I sampled the lips of her stepdaughter.

My phone buzzes with a text from the woman in my every thought lately.

Chastity: Educated men are so impressive.

A smile chases up my cheek, and then I smell her before I have time to reply. Warm arms come around my midriff from behind. “Guess who?” she mumbles against my backpack.

“How many guesses do I get?” I tease, and she pinches my ass a little too roughly, making me jerk forward.

She rounds my body with a dreamy sparkle to her eyes.

“PDA in the corridor?”

Shrugging her petite shoulder, she closes in and whispers with a sultry drawl, “Corridors, carnival grounds.”

My hand grasps out, capturing her behind her neck and tugging her to me, my lips taking hers in a deep kiss. Her small hand wraps around my wrist to hold herself steady as I steal the air from her lungs and flavor from her tongue.

She had strawberries for breakfast.

Forcing myself to release her, I relish the red bruising around her lips from my ministrations.

“Wow,” she says in a wonderment filled breath. She’s so adorable, it’s painful.

“You not worried about people seeing you make out with the bad boy anymore?” I torment, but she doesn’t bite. Instead, she stares at me like I made the sun rise.

“As long as he’s only my bad boy, bring on the gossipers.” Her tone is meek, searching for reassurance.

“If you’re willing to be my good girl—only mine—then I promise to be a one-woman man.” I grin to lighten the tension thickening around us. I’ve never had this kind of conversation before. I’ve always bailed before it ever got to this point. This is new ground for me, and there’s these nervous, excited flutterings happening in my gut that make me happy and annoyed all at the same time. She’s grinning so beautifully and big, her hope, her heart mine for the taking.

How could I let this happen? I’m fucking falling for this girl. This wasn’t the plan. I have destructive secrets she can never find out about.

“Do you want to do something tonight?” she asks, checking her watch.

“I have dinner with my mother tonight, but I could see you after?”

Reaching onto her tiptoes, she drops a chaste kiss to my lips and backs away from me. “Call me.”

Her body collides with another student, and she turns to splutter apologies, then sniggers back at me when the guy waves her off and doesn’t stop.

She fades into the crowd, and I remember a line from her audio.

Me: Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

Send. It’s perfect.




I hate that I’m sat making small talk with my dad and it’s so fucking awkward and forced. Is it supposed to be this hard?

Dad’s phone begins belting out some eighties song, causing the entire restaurant to turn their heads in our direction.

Answering the call, he gets to his feet, dropping his napkin on the empty plate. I’m starving and should be on the second course by now, but Mom is late.

I swirl the soda in the bottom of my glass. After sitting for forty minutes with my dad, I wish I’d added Jack Daniels to it.

A hand lands on my shoulder, jarring me and making me nearly knock the glass over.

My dad frowns, looking down at me. “Something happened with your mother’s car. She’s not going to make it.”

My gut plummets. She’s making excuses to bail on dinner. She’s not ready to forgive me.

“We can still eat,” my dad cuts in.

“No thanks. I said I’d meet some friends, so her not showing is better for me,” I lie, brushing past him.

I need a drink.




Stumbling into the house, I almost fall through the threshold but catch myself.