Page 108 of Kingmakers, Year One

Leo isn’t next to Miles, however. I spot him sitting at a side table, surrounded by Ares, Matteo, Hedeon, and a few other friends, but not talking to any of them.

Trying to cheer myself up, I join Miles and start doing this silly routine we created when we were about ten years old. It’s old-school hip hop—a whole lot of bust-downs and body rolls and figure-eight sways. Miles jumps right in on it, and for a second I’m happy again and almost laughing, because Miles is smooth as fuck, he’s got swagger and style, and there’s nobody more fun to dance with.

Ozzy is whooping and laughing, trying to copy us, and soon we have a dozen kids trying to learn the routine.

I’m getting pleasantly sweaty, finally feeling that sense of buoyancy again, like everything might work out someway or somehow.

I look up, thinking maybe Leo will join us. He knows the dance as well as I do. But he isn’t sitting at the table anymore. I look around, trying to peer through the press of bodies. I can’t see him anywhere—he’s completely disappeared.

I’m disappointed, and almost angry. I don’t know why I’m angry. Maybe because that bubble of happiness popped as quickly as it came.

I stop dancing after that, but I don’t stop drinking. I lose count of the flutes of champagne I down in a gulp. Dean practically has to carry me back to my dorm an hour later.

He pins me against my door, attacking me with his lips, thrusting his tongue in my mouth, biting and sucking on my neck.

My head is spinning, and I can barely stand up. I don’t know why I feel so miserable and so confused. Nothing went wrong at the dance. It should have been a festive night.

I’m trying to tell Dean to stop, to let me go to bed. I drank too much, and I’m afraid I might throw up from the aggressive kissing.

Before I can get the words out, he shoves my legs apart with his thigh and shoves his hand up under my skirt. He pushes his fingers under the elastic of my underwear and starts rubbing my pussy.

I’m leaning hard on his shoulder, unable to hold myself up. If he wasn’t pinning me to the wall with his weight, I’d fall over. I feel limp and out of control, unable to close my legs with his knee pressing my thigh against the wall and my arms trapped between us.

“Dean, don’t—” I try to say, but he silences me with his mouth on mine. Meanwhile his fingers are stroking up and down my pussy lips, his middle finger grazing over my clit with each pass.

His fingers are getting wetter and wetter, and I know he can feel that as easily as I can. With each stroke of his hand, my clit becomes more sensitive and the warm throbbing spreads down my thighs and up into my belly.

Now his fingers are parting my pussy lips and I knew he’s feeling for my entrance, wanting to slip his fingers all the way inside.

I try to turn my head to the side, but he keeps his lips locked on mine, his tongue shoved into my mouth so I can’t speak.

He pushes one finger inside of me, then two. Meanwhile, his thumb rubs back and forth across my clit, and my pussy clenches helplessly around his fingers.

I can feel his erection through his pants, grinding hard against my hip. I can feel his hunger too—his hot breath and his rabid desire for me. I’m aroused whether I want to be or not. It’s an uneasy mixture of guilt, fear, and desire.

Dean releases my mouth at last and starts sucking hard on the side of my neck while he fingers me roughly.

I can’t stop it, I can’t hold back. I start to come around his fingers. As I shiver and clench, Dean whispers in my ear, “You’re going to give me what I want, Anna. Sooner or later . . .”

January arrives cold and gray.For the first time, I’m truly feeling how lonely and isolated Kingmakers is out in the middle of the ocean. The wind howls at night like it’s trying to tear the castle right off the cliff, and the sea spray freezes into thick, black ice along the balustrades.

Now we’re all making use of the blazers and pullovers that came with our uniforms. The girls are complaining about their skirts, and it’s become a trend to borrow an oversized sweater from the boy you like, because their pullovers are thicker, and if the boy in question is big enough, the sweater will cover your hands and come almost down to your knees.

Dean freely offers his sweater to me, but I don’t take it. I’m annoyed with him. He asked me to eat lunch with him, only to have Bram Van Der Berg and several others of their gang sit down all around us five minutes later.

I don’t like Bram, and I don’t particularly like how Dean behaves when Bram’s around. It brings out the side of Dean that’s callous and even a little cruel.

Bram apparently isn’t enjoying his ham and peas. He’s flicking the unwanted peas in the direction of Matteo Ragusa and Paulie White. Paulie is pretending not to notice the peas hitting his arm, but I can see his thin freckled cheeks turning pink.

I know Dean can see what’s happening just as clearly as I can, but he’s ignoring it entirely, talking to me about our Contracts and Negotiations class that morning. He doesn’t give a fuck about Matteo, who’s a known friend of Leo’s, or Paulie, who’s nerdy and awkward and only an Accountant from a minor mafia family.

Bram launches his next pea particularly hard, hitting Paulie in the ear.

“Could you stop it?” I snap at Bram, interrupting Dean mid-sentence.

“Why should I?” Bram says lazily, setting another pea in his spoon and preparing to launch it over to the next table.

“Because you’re acting like a fucking child.”

---