Chapter 33

33

W ater sluices down over my skin as Kendall presses me to him for a long moment, his center grinding against mine in animal instinct. My hips cradle his erection in response, and I realize I’m breathing in gasps.

His next kiss brings a wave of water with him, and for a moment I’m drowning. His tongue tangles with mine so feverishly I’m bent backward. Water spills over us, running over our bodies. I’m up on my toes, looking for leverage for…I don’t even know. The heat pooling in my core is relentless.

I whimper.

“I want you too,” he whispers, pulling back slightly. “We can’t, not yet. Too much hinges on…on tonight. On tomorrow.” He’s whispering in my ear, his hands stroking over my trembling thighs, brushing against my molten center. I rub against his hand, my body rejecting his logic.

He turns me so that my back is to his front. He takes some deep breaths. “Picture if we could do this any time we wanted. After every long study session.”

It surprises me when his hands come back to my neck and I realize that he’s grabbed the soap. He’s soaping my body, pushing my hair to the side of my neck. I shiver violently as he lathers his hands and run them down over my shoulders, over the taper and flare of my hip. His hands go back up, he lathers more. Then his slides his hands down over my breasts, pulling me back against him. He teases me, hands grazing just above my pubic bone, thumbs toying with my hip bones. I squirm. He hisses again as he steps back, running his hands down over my ass. He kneels down, running his hands down my calves and heels.

He is being so methodical and sweet. Tender. I thread my hands through his damp blonde hair and pull. Something inside of me doesn’t want to be tended to. It wants to rip and growl and tug and pull until he’s closer. Back in the position I crave.

“Helena,” he says, “I’m trying to make up for my actions.”

“You said you wanted to show me what it would be like to be with me.” I realize I’m panting. “And I don’t feel like being gentle right now.”

His eyes are fathomless as he looks up at me, lit only by the candles on the vanity. I have literally never wanted anything more than I want him to touch me.

“No one can know about this,” he says, his voice ragged, eyes boring into mine in the candlelight. “If they do…you are my ruin, and I just can’t say no.”

I shake my head. “I won’t tell.” I don’t even know what I’m agreeing to. I just know I want it. Want him. Want whatever is coming. I want it all.

“Spread your legs a little,” he says. His voice is soft, but commanding.

Immediately, I do. I widen my stance, unsteady on my feet. His hands are shaking.

“Good girl,” He praises, running his hands up my thighs, one on each thigh until they are right beneath my apex. “You are such a good girl for me.”

The praise does something to me. I groan as he comes up on his knees in front of me. I’m mortified and try to pull him to his feet, but he shakes his head, pressing kisses on my belly. Loosening me up before nosing first and then finally using the rough pad of his tongue to lick up my center. My modesty evaporates as the most intense pleasure I’ve ever felt zings like lightning through my body.

“Helena? Are you in there? Are you okay?”

My groan must have been too loud. It’s Clara.

I pull at Kendall’s hair, but he’s a man on a mission. His nose and tongue are… oh my God, oh my god. My knees are shaking. I realize then that I’m chanting oh my God , out loud and that instead of tugging on his hair, I’m pushing him into me, grinding his face into me?—

“Helena? Are you sick? Do you need me to come around? My door is locked.”

I cough, realizing that if I stay silent, she’s going to think something is wrong. And so, trying to control the wobbling in my knees, and the wave of pleasure threatening to overtake me, I manage. “I’m fine. I’m in the shower. It feels really good to shower,” I manage, and I feel Kendall chuckling.

“In the dark?”

Kendall scoops me up, and sets me on the bench in the shower, the cold seat causing me to catch my breath. Half of my body is burning in the steamy shower, half my body deliciously freezing against the cold tile wall behind me as I press my hands for leverage. “Yes,” I manage. I sound strangled. “It’s a really great shower.”

Kendall pulls me forward until I’m just barely sitting on the bench, my legs spread wide as he kneels in front of me, his movements frenzied.

There’s silence.

“I thought I heard you crying. Do you need to talk?”

He’s back between my thighs, and I literally cannot manage rational thought. “No, my hair was too tight, I’m okay. I’m going to just… finish, and I’ll unlock your door. Sorry about that. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Beneath me, Kendall’s shoulders shake with laugher, but I don’t have a moment to think because now instead of just his tongue, he’s up on his knees, and he’s slipping a finger just inside me.

I gasp, and instead of letting me get further into trouble with Clara, he swallows my gasp with his mouth. His fingers are only a millimeter inside of me and it’s like the entire universe has snapped all of its energy to that spot. It stretches in a strange way, and I have a moment of panic before he slowly presses forward and a wave of pleasure so big sweeps over me, I gasp. The novelty of this sensation…there is no way for me to even articulate how I feel like the world, the word love, is re-arranging the fabric of everything I knew all around me.

Kendall’s lips move over mine. “This waiting has been—will be—torture. But this,” he presses me into him, his fingers circling, his body providing delicious counterweight, “this is what we could have.”

I’m shattering. I want him deeper, I want all of him, but he resists.

“This is mine, you are mine ,” he says against my mouth as he swallows my moans. He reaches down between us, pulling my hand with his. He guides my hand up and down his length. “And it means that I’m yours if you want me. Feel what you do to me, feel what you do to me every goddamned day. Now, come for me, Helena. Show me that I took care of you.”

I feel the extra hot spill of him as he comes, and it triggers a massive shudder in my own body. I grip his shoulders like a woman drowning, like he’s my life buoy until the trembling inside of me subsides. His mouth is searing on mine, our combined breathing heavy and panting.

He pulls me to my feet, rinses off the soap suds, turns the water off and in a daze I let him pull me out and swaddle me in a towel. He wraps one around himself and then motions to the other door and slips into my room.

As if on autopilot, I walk over to Clara’s door and unlock it. She pulls it open almost immediately and peers at me in the darkness. “Are you okay?”

I clear my throat. I feel made of molten sunshine. “Yeah, it’s been a really…a really intense night. I feel much better now.”

She snorts. “You say that like it was a life changing shower.”

It takes everything in me to keep my face neutral. “You have no idea.”

She contemplates the steamy room behind me. “Maybe I need one of those.”

I cackle, then cover it with a cough. “Sorry. I mean, yes. You should. Everyone should have a shower like that at some point in their life.”

She looks at me.

“In a luxury white marble bathroom, complete with steam shower and candlelight,” I say to try and divert her. “G’night.”

“Goodnight,” she offers and watches me as I pull open my bathroom door and close it behind me.

Kendall lounges on my bed, halfway clothed again. My head is clearing and I bustle a bit in the room, pulling on pajamas while he watches in sleepy silence. Without a word, I climb up next to him, and allow him to pull me to him. This is bizarre. Foreign, yet… it’s that same familiar pull I have with Kendall. Like he knows me. I’m known .

“Did I convince you?” He asks finally, words hushed as his hand draws lazy circles on my shoulder.

“Mmm,” I say, my eyelids drooping. “Of some things, yes. As far as the moving in? I don’t know, Kendall. I still think it’s insanity. Doesn’t it seem fast?”

“We’ve known each other for years.”

“Yeah, and hated each other…or I thought we did.”

He leans in and captures my lips again. “Quite the opposite.” The word love hangs improbably in the air. “I just…I get crazy when I think of what would have happened if you’d received even one bid. About what the next year would be if…”

I sit up a little. “Wait, I didn’t get a single bid?” I’m indignant. “How do you know that?”

He blinks slowly. “I…told you, I did my best to keep you from being inducted. I’m offering an alternative. You don’t have to get a bid. I don’t want you to. I worked hard to convince everyone who would listen that you had such a high bid that no one could touch it.”

It rankles. His handling of my affairs. “But no bid exists?”

He grabs my hands. “You don’t need one .”

I contemplate that. Tonight has changed my mind about a lot of things. If this is the true Kendall? And I truly could stay in Oxford and have… that …any time I want? I can almost picture that future apartment, walking in the door and sinking right into him. Telling him about my day, about how my dreams are unfolding. And yet, I’d be putting myself at the mercy of someone—while hot and charming—I still didn’t fully trust.

“You could just back out with me,” I wheedle.

“I need the money. We need the money. And I need to be in the inner circle to gain the information I need to dismantle the organization. My Dad has told me—and only me—that he plans to retire next year once I’m established. It takes people with certain…backgrounds…to be elected as leader. He hopes the transition is seamless. Although, frankly, I think Beatrice is playing some sort of angle there .”

I blink at him. “That girl that barged in tonight.” My face flushes a little. “So wait. Because she’s a Legacy…”

“That she’ll mosey in and try to get herself elected leader? Maybe.” He stares off for a long beat. “I don’t know. It was highly unusual, and I’ve heard…things…about her. I don’t trust her.”

I sit up on my elbows. “She said the leader has to be a Legacy. And you are. And she is,” I amend. And then blink again, because I also fit that description. And something slides into place about Augustine’s power games with me. He’s scared of my ability to run against Kendall for leader. Because that is apparently something I could do.

My head spins a bit. In twenty four hours I’ve gone from being one hundred percent sure I’m walking away from this to trying to determine if I’d run against Kendall to lead All Saints. “If we were both in the organization, wouldn’t we get twice the money? Or at least a second contract?” I’m stalling for time, trying to piece together how much I feel like Kendall is steering me. How much is sweet and how much I worry is just for personal gain.

“You don’t understand how they’d watch you. How they’d control your life. We couldn’t live together. We couldn’t touch. You’d literally belong to someone else. And that…” he puts his free hand over his face and presses the heel of his hand into his eyeball.

I sit up further and turn toward him. “Belong to the organization, you mean.”

He’s quite a long time. “No. I meant what I said. That’s what the sponsor is, that’s how you get the favor.” I get the impression that he’s thrown all in. To hell with secrets, I guess. “They sponsor you. Sponsor your entry. But more than that, they purchase your…favor. For a year, at minimum. Most of the relationships last much longer. And it’s required to be exclusive.”

“Favor.”

He meets my eyes, his gaze deadly serious. “There’s a reason they only recruit virgins. Why there is such a rigorous process to make sure you’re unattached, and remain unsullied.”

“Unsullied.” I’m not able to do anything other than repeat this archaic shit he’s spewing.

“Pure. Virginal . The auction tonight wasn’t about the jewels. Or not just about the jewels.”

I yank my hand out of his. “I’m auctioning off my virginity ?”

He nods. “You will be—would have been—notified of what it entailed if you were to receive a bid. You go in with your eyes wide open, but yes. That’s what you would give up. And more. You’d be trained to…enhance…your sponsor’s life for the agreed-upon amount of time.”

“A…sex slave?” My eyes are wide, my jaw open, my soul horrified.

“Not always. Sometimes it’s just company. More like a mentorship with benefits? But for eons, wealthy people have had specific tastes for paramours. All Saints caters to those who want to be the ones to shape a young, gorgeous person’s sexual experience. To have exclusive access to a powerful, upwardly mobile, highly attractive plaything.”

“That is…that is…that is a lot.” I might throw up. In another world, I might be flattered. But all I can think of is how my grandfather tried to keep me from this.

He grasps my hand. “I’m trying to save you from it. I’d protect you.”

“But wait, wouldn’t you have a…mentor?” I nearly spit out the word. “How would your father allow us to live together?”

He frowns. “We’d have to keep it secret for a short time but my heart would belong to you alone. I promise.”

I’m not quite sure that that sounds better, living as a secret. It’s a potential existence in a cage. I’d be putting my trust in Kendall. And I’d have no leverage if he failed me. Or fell in love with the person he was bound to.

“Be with me,” Kendall says, as if reading my mind. He pulls my hand up and kisses it. “Your grandfather once dealt a blow to this organization by stealing my grandfather’s fiancee, and running away with her. We are supposed to be rivals. Enemies. But we aren’t. I won’t call us Romeo and Juliet because that ended badly. But it seems like we’re fated to be together, to do this together. Give me something good and pure to fight for.”

I lay back down, suddenly exhausted. “I…I need to think.”

He rolls up on his side so he’s above me. “Do you need more convincing?”

I can’t help but laugh. He feels like a completely different person. “I don’t have the energy for more convincing.”

He leans down and kisses my nose. “Sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. You can tell me what you’ve decided, and we’ll plan for when you get back to Oxford.”

He slips out of my bed, and I hear the door click.

Tomorrow. When I have to leave all this. When I could accept Kendall’s impossible and shocking invitation to live with him. To stay in Oxford.

Despite my racing brain, I fall asleep. Tomorrow will have to take care of itself.