Page 20 of Wicked Elites

Sensations exploded across my core. This was too fast. Too intense. Too soon. “Wait!”

He drew back. “Are you alright? Was that too much?”

“Just some fresh air.” I unbuckled the seatbelt, opened the door, and scrambled out of the jeep.

He leaned across the driver’s seat. “Can I see you again?”

I sprinted down the garden path, ignoring his pleas to stop and didn’t look back until I’d unlocked the door and stumbled inside. The warm scents of home greeted me, and I leaned against the cool oak, breathing hard.

Men like him were dangerous. They knew exactly what to do to make a girl forget herself. I would cherish this first kiss forever, but this would be the last I would see of this seductive stranger.

Chapter 5

That night, I lay awake in my bedroom with excitement coursing through my veins. The sensation of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Seductive’s lips lingered on mine like a caress.

My body replayed his kiss and his touch over and over the feel of those large, thick fingers sliding up my thighs etched a groove in my memory that would serve my fevered dreams for months.

By the time the first wisps of morning sun streamed through the chinks in my curtains, I was in such an aroused state that I wished I had at least taken his number. Or gotten his name.

After caressing myself to a shuddering climax, I reached for my phone and checked my online banking. Mrs. Benazir hadn’t yet sent the monthly bursary, and my funds were dwindling close to a two-figure amount.

Another taxi would wipe out half my account, so I packed a few keepsakes into a small case and drove Mom’s car back to the academy and parked out front.

I arrived at seven, having taken twice the time as the taxi driver from earlier in the week, but I wasn’t about to take my chances on such a deadly stretch of road.

As soon as I stepped into the room, Ashley leaped out of bed. “Where were you?” she said, her tone sharp with accusation. “I got back at six, and you weren’t here.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I’m the one asking the questions.” She prodded me in the shoulder. “Did you chase after Leopold?”

I grimaced. “Ugh… No. He was busy with that blonde girl from the door.”

“Then where did you go?”

“If you must know, I got a taxi home.” The lie slipped from my lips like air.

A year ago, I had asked Ashley for advice on how to ask out Jerome, a boy from my Computer Science class at Cummersdale Comprehensive. The next day, before I had even plucked up the courage to approach him, Ashley sashayed up to him and stole him out from right under my nose. That would have been bad enough, but she dumped him the Monday after, and I endured months of Jerome begging me to fix him up with my twin.

My skin tightened at the memory of her betrayal, and I clamped my lips shut. From that moment on, I had made a pact with myself. I’d never talk with her about crushes or anything men-related in case she interpreted that as a challenge.

Even though Mr. Seductive was now just a sweet memory, I still didn’t want to share it with her.

“Oh.” She backed off. “You should have waited.”

“Why? That guy’s friends told me you’d gone upstairs.”

“That guy?” Her nostrils flared. “That guy, as you so rudely put it, is called Bruce!”

“Don’t change the subject.” I opened my case and pulled out a watercolor portrait Mom had painted of the four of us. “You disappeared with Bruce without telling me where you were going—”

“Because you were off dancing with some blond twerp!”

I clenched my teeth and arranged the painting on the boarded-up mantlepiece. “Now, I’m in the wrong for dancing with a boy when you left me in the corner to make new friends?”

“You could have come, too!”

After Bruce had called me a dumpy mule? I shook my head. One insult was enough, thank you. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the party without telling her, but I couldn’t trust her not to make a massive stink about Leopold’s exhibitionist sex game.