Ten

EVERETT

“I resent the way you’re reacting. If you were in my shoes, you would have done the same thing.”

Even as I say the words, I don’t believe them. My stomach is tight, borderline painful. I lied to Cora. I lied, and apparently, she hates lying like I hate foie gras, which—for the record—I hate with my full chest.

I want to fuck you.

Semantically, it’s not a complete lie. It’s a…limited description. A teaser for the truth, really.

“You didn’t see the look on her face,” I continue, shifting onto my side and sliding my hand under the pillow. “She would hate me if she found out I’ve pretended to dislike her for seven months.”

I thought saying it aloud would help, but I know I’m politicking the words. Pretended to dislike her is a fancy way of saying, I lied .

Sighing, I roll onto my back again and drag my hand through my hair while staring at the ceiling. “I can’t take it back. I already told her I want to fuck her, so that’s how I have to play it now.”

Strategy . Again, it’s all about strategy, which doesn’t faze me. Four generations of Logan men before me were successful civil servants and not a single one of those shitbags deserved their jobs. We’re wily. Being a strategist is in my blood.

I glance to the side. “Don’t give me that face. I’ll win her. I’ve never lost anything. The last thing I lost was my goddamn virginity.” I bite down on the end of my thumbnail, pensive. “And yes, I know the fundamental issue of me running for office and her being a camgirl isn’t going away, but you know what else isn’t going away? How badly I want her . So, spare me the sanctimonious bullshit. I want Cora and I’ll get Cora. If you’re not on board, you can leave.”

Pierre cocks his head to the side, sending one of his floppy ears swinging. He’s eight months old and in this gangly phase I didn’t know golden retrievers went through. His legs are too long for his body and his paws look colossal compared to his tiny, furry head. But the judgment in his eyes? Definitely not eight months old. He’s eyeing me with the wisdom of five generations of dogs—and if we’re being honest, I don’t need this shit.

“This is where you’re supposed to tell me to stop at nothing.”

The puppy just cocks his head in the other direction.

“Dalton and Lander are better hype men than you,” I inform Pierre, who lets out a pointed exhale before pawing at my pectoral. “Stop it,” I order, brushing his oversized paw away from my bare chest. “I can meet her demands.”

He sits back on his hind legs, expectant like a working dog.

“I can meet most of them,” I clarify. “Is that skepticism? Please. I can absolutely win over a woman who once threw a drink in my face and then told me to fuck it.”

Pierre’s tail doesn’t wag like it usually does when he’s excited, which tells me he’s not convinced.

“My face,” I explain. “She told me to fuck my own face, not the drink… You know what? Forget it. You’ll understand in a few years.”

His sigh speaks volumes, but I take the high road and ignore him.

I roll off the opposite side of the bed and stand before stretching. I didn’t sleep much. I’ve been considering Cora’s demands, and to say I was intimidated by her list would be a gross understatement, and I, frankly, do not understate things.

The first: You have to beg for forgiveness.

The second: You have to become a customer.

The third: You can never, ever tell a lie in my presence.

The first two are simple.

Beg . Classic Cora. She wants a sincere and humble apology, and I can certainly give it to her. I can give her the best apology she’s ever heard. Beg? Easy. My father once made me apologize to a campaign donor after I walked out while he was showing pictures of a big game hunt in Kenya. I was so convincing that my father doubled his fund that night.

Become a customer . Fine. There are worse penances than watching a gorgeous woman take off her clothes. If I have to do it in the presence of a bunch of lonely creeps in a chatroom, I’m sure I can muddle through.

It’s the third one that gets me.

Never, ever tell a lie. …Well, if she means it, if she seriously believes I can win an election without telling a lie, I’m absolutely fucked. Or…I’m not fucked. I mean, I won’t be getting fucked.

Focus .

It’s the morning after the shooting, and she’s home from the hospital. I want to see her, but she hasn’t texted me. Since there’s nothing less appealing than desperation—except for fossil fuels—I’ve resolved to play it cool.

Really regretting it now.

Pierre hops off the bed and trots around until he’s next to me. Tail wagging, he does this little hopping thing, urging me to the door.

“Are you drunk? You want me to race over there and beg for her attention like some sort of…puppy?”

Pierre’s response is another little hop, which makes his golden tail shake loose hairs onto my friends’ hardwood floors.

“Fine,” I relent. “If you insist, I’ll check on her. But remember: I’m doing this for you, not me.”

It’s overkill to style my hair for a trip down the hallway. It’s also overkill to put on this button-down that made the Governor of Maryland’s wife eye fuck me at a holiday party last year.

It’s worth it though.

Cora’s eyebrows rise when she opens her door, and it takes her a grand total of three seconds to eye fuck the shit out of me in a way that would scandalize even the Governor of Maryland’s wife.

“Hey, how are…” I trail off.

I’ve seen salvage yards more orderly than Cora’s condo.

There’s discarded clothing draped over the couch, a spilled canister of coffee on the counter, and the smell of burnt food is bitter in the air. Even her sling is askew, leaving her arm hanging below her waist.

I reach out and adjust the sling. When I step back, her eyes have narrowed.

“Can you tone it down?” I request, meeting her glare. “At least wait until your stitches have dissolved before you curse me and my family line. Don’t want to expend the dark magic you should be reserving to heal yourself.”

“Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I’m on a sabbatical while I’m campaigning.”

“But you’re all dressed up,” she notes, pretending to appraise me, but she’s definitely eye fucking me again. “Going to the underworld to plead to get your job back? Don’t be discouraged, Everett. The economy is rough, but I’m sure there are plenty of hellscapes chock full of souls to torture and they would love your expertise.”

I cock my head at her kitchen. “Is this going to be a thing? You’re too prideful to ask me to help you?”

“Is this going to be a thing? You’re going to infantilize me?”

“It’s impossible to infantilize someone who was never a baby and was instead spawned straight from the fires of Mordor.” I step into the havoc before I glance at my watch. “It’s not even noon. How did you cause this much destruction?”

“I’ve always been an overachiever,” is her response. She shuts the door.

Her decor is moody, like whoever was in charge of scheduling the coven’s weekly meetings accidentally sent a pin to Cora’s condo and she just rolled with it. The entire living room is mostly books—enough for me to wonder if the floor can support them all. They line every spare stretch of the dark gray walls, and amid the moodiness, colorful spines dot the shelves. There are romance novels and classics and reference books and matching sets of young adult trilogies. Some books are in French, others in Spanish, a few are in German, and colored tabs stick out of the tops of all of them—she has read all of them .

“So, you’re here to criticize me?” she asks before respiring heavily. “Lucky me.”

“I know you wouldn’t listen, and I don’t waste my time.” I hold out my hands. “Tell me how I can help.”

“I’m fine on my own.”

I glance at her injured arm. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars to brew a cup of coffee.”

Cora doesn’t waste a millisecond before rolling her eyes. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars to suck your own dick.”

I snicker. “If I could suck my own dick, do you think I would be here right now?”

Her jaw drops, and I let her believe I’m serious before I offer a small, smug smile.

“Did you just make a sex joke?”

“Depends.” I head to the kitchen. “Are you going to blow me?”

“I’d rather get shot in the other arm.”

“As long as your sweet little mouth stays intact and airtight, I wouldn’t stop it.”

Cora appraises me for a second time, running her gaze over the length of my body before settling back on my face. “Not bad,” she mutters under her breath, barely audible.

For the next few minutes, we clean in silence. Cora handles the mess on the stove, which was clearly an attempt at eggs, and I deal with the coffee. Once the machine is brewing, I open the fridge to get more eggs and pause. It’s empty .

“Not a word,” Cora warns. She’s leaning against the counter, holding her bottle of prescription codeine while sporting the most gorgeous don’t-fuck-with-me expression.

“Here’s a novel idea: Let me help you.”

“I pride myself on being independent.”

“Well, it can be our secret.” I hold my index finger in front of my lips. “Makes sense. If anyone found out you were actually human, your flying monkeys would revolt.”

“I’m not interested in secrets,” Cora answers, keeping her expression flat, but the tightness in her clenched jaw tells me this conversation isn’t about breakfast anymore.

“Because you hate lying?”

“ Shit .” Small white pills scatter at Cora’s feet like medicinal snowflakes rolling around her kitchen floor.

“I got it,” I assure her before I grab the empty orange pill bottle she dropped. I hand it to her before I kneel and begin picking up the pills surrounding her feet.

“Why the hell are you laughing?” she questions.

When I look up, the glare she’s shooting me is powerful enough to potentially be an alternative fuel source. I didn’t realize I was laughing until she mentioned it, but sure enough, I’m chuckling. I fight the grin off my face, but it’s difficult. Seventy-two hours ago, Cora and I were barely acquaintances—had sent each other a grand total of four messages combined over the seven months we’d known each other—and now I’m on one knee, collecting painkillers at her feet.

“I think it’s funny,” I admit, resting my arm on my bent knee.

“We have different definitions of funny, which shouldn’t surprise me. We also have different definitions of polite conversation, evil personified, and princesses.” She holds out her palm.

One by one, I place the painkillers in her outstretched hand. She watches me, long hair haloing her face in a messy wreath illuminated by the afternoon light. Her expression couldn’t be more indifferent.

She’s fucking beautiful.

I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out why I find Cora so staggeringly gorgeous. Objectively speaking, she’s stunning, obviously—intimidatingly so. She has the type of gravitas some people are born with. Some—not many. And of those few, Cora could be their queen.

But sheer beauty has never been enough to captivate me until now. I’ve known a lot of beautiful people, some so beautiful that the mere sight of them made my pulse quicken. But when I look at Cora, my pulse skyrockets .

I finally figured it out three months ago. It was one of those snowy nights in January when the sun sets before five and the District takes on this vacant, somber quality. I’d walked from U Street to Dupont to borrow a book from Lander, taking the long way to clear my head after a horrendous call with my father.

When I got to Lander’s, Cora was sitting on the couch with Valeria. Her sweatpants and t-shirt were both huge on her and her hair was wet. Even without makeup, piercings, her minuscule little outfits, or even the total lethality of her incredible body, the confidence still radiated off her like an aura. “ You look like shit ,” she had commented.

She was right; I did look like shit. I still gave her the finger, and she still pretended to bat it out of the air before it could reach her.

And as I was leaving with Lander’s copy of The Art of War tucked under my arm, I wondered if I had ever met another person who was consistently herself no matter where she was, what she was wearing, or what she was doing. I came up short.

Maybe I find honesty beautiful because it’s so damn rare.

Now, Cora sighs like she hates me. I mean it. She’s really looking at me like she detests me, and my brain is enjoying this shit—and always has. A sense of thrill ascends in me as I take in her narrowed eyes and the tightness of her plump lips. The satisfaction spreads from the hot skin on the back of my neck to my tingling fingertips—but nowhere on my body is more profoundly affected than my cock.

My brain is enjoying this shit, but my cock is loving it.

I spot an errant pill and I grab it before I stand. Pinching the pill between my index finger and thumb, I raise my hand, showing her. “Open,” I instruct.

She sets the world record for the fastest brow furrow. “Open what?”

“Your mouth, princess.”

Her dark eyes study me, assessing and unrelenting. She makes me wait, but I know she’ll do it eventually. Cora’s remarkable curiosity always wins out— always . Hell, I know half the reason she came to Georgetown last night was curiosity.

Sure enough, her lips part.

Her pink tongue is nestled in the cradle of her jaw, and there’s a silver piercing in the center, small and unassuming. Before now, I’ve only seen it in flashes when she speaks.

I’ve painstakingly memorized every one of Cora’s piercings over the last seven months. The vertical in her eyebrow, seven across her ears, the stud in her nose, and the ring in her septum are the easy ones to track. Depending on what she’s wearing, I usually catch a glimpse of her navel piercing. With the midline in her tongue, that’s twelve.

The night I photographed her naked—easily the best night of my entire life—I logged five more: both of her nipples, the hood of her clitoris, and one on each labia.

Seventeen.

I’m not sure if all seventeen are still around seven months later, but I assume—hope—they are. I know she’s gotten at least one more since then: a fourchette she mentioned in passing once. I looked it up immediately, not knowing what it was. Now, I know. I know very, very well what a fourchette is. I would give quite literally anything to see it in real life.

Keeping my hand as steady as possible, I place the last pill right next to the piercing in her tongue.

“Close,” I murmur.

She actually does it.

Cora’s eyes remain locked on mine as she presses her lips together, so I stare back. It’s a counterpoint to the inherent tension of desire coursing through me, and I refuse to look away. I won’t be the one to back down. One of us will; one of us has to—and it won’t be me.

“ Swallow .” My order comes out barely above a whisper.

I hear it more than see it—the gulp.

“Good girl,” I murmur, taking a step back. “Give it a few minutes and you’ll find plenty of merit in my definition of funny.”

Cora takes a small step back to mirror mine, now putting an entire foot of space between us. “God, you’re hot,” she mutters.

My eyebrow ticks. “Surely the codeine doesn’t work that fast.”

“It doesn’t. You’re so fucking hot,” she repeats, eyes raking over me.

Compliments have never done much for me, but Cora Flores almost gets me there. “Sounds like you’re considering my offer from last night,” I muse, failing to suppress a grin.

“Am I? Because last I checked, you hadn’t even apologized.”

“I’m sorry,” I reply immediately, moving closer to her. Even the minor increase in her proximity is like a shot of pure serotonin in my veins. “So very sorry.”

Her head shake is measured. “Oh no. Saying sorry isn’t enough, Everett. My expectation is that you’ll beg for it. Beg . Last night, you agreed to beg so quickly that I almost assumed you misheard me and thought I was offering a larger mason jar for you to store all the souls you’ve stolen.”

I snicker. “What, like, you want me on my knees? I will if you join me. There’s plenty of fun we could both have on our knees.”

Cora parts her lips to speak, but I move closer, putting our faces mere inches apart.

“I’m sorry and I want you to forgive me.” Keeping my eyes on hers, I brace one hand on the counter and put the other on her waist.

Her stare darkens. “That’s your idea of begging?”

I nod too many times. “Please,” I murmur before my hand embarks on a slow journey from her waist to the back of her thigh. I trace the curve of her ass and continue downwards, following the slope of her body. Eventually, my fingertips pass the hem of her sleep shorts and touch her bare skin. She doesn’t flinch when my fingers make contact with her thigh, but her muscles tighten. “Please,” I repeat, sliding my hand higher, dipping under her shorts on my ascent. “Tell me you’re not mad at me.”

Cora’s expression remains stoic. “Apologize.”

“I did.”

“Better,” she instructs before canting her head. “I know they taught you to be more persuasive at Harvard Law.”

It’s impossible to ascertain if she’s being for real—if she genuinely wants me to prostrate more than I already have. “Should I rent a skywriter?”

“If you have to buy your way out of all your problems, sure.”

“Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the things I said the night we met, for not kissing you back in the elevator, and for letting someone hurt you.”

I pause for a response, but Cora keeps staring at me, eyes narrowed. She’s unimpressed.

“More?”

“Beg.”

I let out a mix between a scoff and a chuckle. “You don’t—”

“ Beg .”

Well, shit. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, bowing my head. “I’m so sorry. Please . Tell me you forgive me.” I shift my hand, letting the edge of my index finger graze the crest of her ass. “Please.”

“Keep going.” Her voice is firm.

More . “I’m so sorry,” I continue, grasping her bare thigh with my entire hand now, marveling at the softness of her skin. She’s royal velvet. She’s priceless. I need her to be mine. “Please. Please forgive me. I’ll be so good for you.”

Cora inhales. “Everett, look at me.”

I pull back and find her cheeks flushed pink and her chest heaving—and I’d be so much smugger if I weren’t just as worked up.

She dips her chin once. “Good. Thank you.”

“I did good?”

“Thank you,” she repeats before she dumps the pile of pills on the kitchen counter. When she faces me again, Cora reaches up and pushes her fingers through my hair. “I accept your apology.”

Her nails scrape over my scalp, running deep and making my hair messy. The glide of her hand is even and firm, and her touch spreads throughout my entire body in the goosebumps rising on my skin.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur again, and the words practically spill out beyond my control.

Cora doesn’t respond and instead pushes my hair to the side, gently tugging it between her fingertips before releasing my hair entirely.

I want her to pull it.

I’ve never remotely considered what it would be like to have my hair pulled. I’ve pulled hair before—love it, actually—but the thought of Cora grabbing a fistful of mine and yanking my face toward hers…

Instead, her hand slides down my temple, grazing it until she reaches my cheek. She rests her palm there, cupping my face before her thumb nudges the corner of my mouth. By instinct, I part my lips.

I’m standing in Cora’s kitchen, her hand is on my cheek—and yep, she’s sliding her thumb into my mouth. It’s just the tip, but my lips close around it automatically.

This is…well, it’s weird, objectively—but I have no desire to stop.

I look at her mouth where her top teeth press into her plump lower lip. Her eyes are hooded and focused, fixated on sliding her thumb deeper into my mouth. Unprecedented want courses through me, spreading from this singular contact—from my tongue against the tip of her thumb.

…This is something else.

I’m about to take more of her thumb between my lips when she pulls it out. Gone. An unusual feeling passes through me—the electricity of lust and adrenaline.

If Cora is as affected as I am, she doesn’t show it. Cool as ever, she lays two quick taps against my cheek, pat pat . “Good boy.” Good boy . “Next time, you’ll do better.”

The statement is like a bucket of ice water. “Better? What should I do next time?”

“You’re smart,” she replies before putting her lips by my ear and whispering, “You can’t figure it out yourself?”

My brow knots. “I said I would do anything you told me to.”

Cora sighs and glances at her fingernails like she’s bored. “And yet you haven’t attempted my list.”

“I just begged.”

“Baby boy, you know that wasn’t begging.” She forces a chuckle. “You’ll never finish.”

“Then change your list.”

“I’d rather die.”

My eyes trail down her arm. “You’re remarkably bad at dying. Based on your success as a camgirl, I have to assume you’re much better at fucking. Maybe stick with what you know.”

She jams the tip of one of her black fingernails into my chest. “Sounds like you’re out.”

“Never.”

The challenge in her expression is equal parts audacity and heat—and my god, it’s sexy. “Then block off Thursday night on your calendar to watch me,” she instructs before shoving my chest, forcing me to take a small step back from her. “Then you can see how good I am at fucking.”