Lust (The Elite Seven #1)(8)

“Are you listening to me?” he barks, and I’ve honestly never felt this disconnected, lost. I need him to fuck off so I can get out of here and escape in liquor and women.

“Sorry I missed that last part.” I rub a hand over my face before crossing my arms over my chest.

Rolling his eyes, he pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales an exasperated breath.

“Terms of your enrollment is you’ll see a guidance counselor once a week.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been acting out since your brother’s death, breaking bones and burning down buildings!” he shouts.

Slouching back on the couch, I shrug a shoulder.

“There was no proof I started that fire. No charges were brought against me.”

“Yet,” he corrects. “You’re lucky you’re best friends with a Goddard.”

Getting to my feet, I pull on my jacket and swipe my keys from the table.

“Until then, I’m innocent.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” he snaps. I hate the look in his eyes: disdain and regret. It wouldn’t be so bad if his eyes weren’t a reflection of my own.

“Out. Going to celebrate getting into college.” I smile tightly.

Snatching my keys from my hand, he chucks them back on the table and walks around me, stating, “By the skin of your teeth and the graces of your family ties—that’s what got you into college. There’s nothing worth celebrating about that.”

The ribbon keeping my temper together fragments and tugs away, until it completely unravels. “Fuck you,” I growl.

He turns sharp, his dark eyes penetrating mine. Marching toward me, he stops a foot away. His chest is puffed out and shoulders are back, but there’s wariness in his approach that wasn’t there before this moment.

Our height is equal these days. I’m topping just over six-foot, and my frame is slightly slimmer than his due to all the running for football, but I’m packing all muscle. If it came down to it and he threw a punch, I know I could take it and deliver one back just as powerful.

“Tread carefully, Rhett. I could take all this away just as quick as it was given.”

His threat is menacing and hits me harder than a punch ever could.

Fuck him.

I’ll walk to God’s and we can party there.

It wasn’t the plan for me and God to end up at the same college, but it’s a fucking bonus worth celebrating nonetheless.





Loud drumming pounds all around me. The room is filled with bodies jumping up and down to the beat. Everyone is shouting, throwing themselves into each other like idiots. I have no fucking clue how I ended up here.

Walls plastered with posters close in on me, and red cups litter the holey couch I’m sitting on.

Some female is gyrating on my lap, making my cock jump in my pants while she chants along to some lyrics being yelled into a mic.

I can barely make out God across the room joining in with the weird jumping around shit. We’re not used to or interested in this type of music, yet he’s acting like he is.

This is typical of God. He has more money than sense and a cocksure attitude that makes most normal people quake. That’s his dad in him—the “I rule the world” attitude.

Coming to a party like this is entertaining to him. His family is no doubt richer than all these peoples’ families combined, and slumming it with the basic folk amuses him. He has a sick sense of humor.

A voice growls into a mic, and the atmosphere spikes. Beer rains down on us as drinks are sloshed around.

The music cuts off, and someone’s voice echoes through the room.

“Thanks for coming out to support us tonight. Make sure you buy a CD before you leave. Only five dollars.”

Where the fuck are we?

“You want to come back to my house?” the girl on my lap asks in a sexy, deep southern drawl.

Scanning my eyes over her, I take note of a pixie haircut with a rainbow of color through it.

Nose and lip piercings draw my attention, and I grin down at her.

“What else you got pierced?”

Her giggle is carefree and light.

“You’ll have to come find out.”

Slipping off my lap, she takes my hand, helping me to my feet and dragging me though the crowd.

I look over to see God disappearing through a side door with two women. Never simple with him. Everything he does is in excess.

“Where do you live?” I wrap an arm around the chick’s shoulder and lean down to nibble her earlobe.

We exit the room into a fresh breeze and more bodies partying in the streets.

“Just there,” she breathes, leaning into my lips. It’s then I realize we were in someone’s garage a few houses down from where this chick lives.

I don’t recognize this part of town, or how the fuck we got here, but that’s not unusual when you’re friends with God. It’s like he finds the seediest shitholes just to spite his father.

We topple through her front door, and she tosses a set of keys down before turning around to face me. She walks backwards, pulling me with her.

“You want a drink?”

Fuck yes.

“What you got?”

She bites her lips, pondering my question, then pushes me into a living room.