Page 517 of Filthy Elites

“She doesn’t have a security detail on campus,” I lie again. There isn’t a moment when she’s out of my sight that she doesn’t have eyes on her.

“Get dressed, we’re going to that fucking party, the two of them are like a walking target. I don’t believe any of this nonchalant shit you’re trying to sell, she’s yours, your little bird, there’s no way you’d let another guy near her,” Evan snarls, stomping into my closet, pulling a shirt from the rod and throwing it at me.

Snickering to myself, I don’t move until all of my brothers have left my room to go and get changed. I don’t really need to go tonight, I have seven guys watching her every move with strict instructions to remove any man but me who tries to touch her, but after seeing her face, I know she needs me. She needs to be reminded of why I’m the only man who will ever own her, the only person she’ll ever choose to belong to.

Throwing the white shirt over my head, I roll the sleeves up to my elbows and change my sweats for fitted shorts. I look like the rich, preppy asshole that I am, but I don’t care. Sliding my feet into white sneakers, I grab my cell and my key card and then leave my room, unlocking Starling’s room with the app on my cell and climbing the stairs. Her scent hits me the moment I enter her space and I groan as my dick instantly hardens. I’ve missed the way she smells. Not being able to be close enough to touch her has been torture, but it needed to happen.

The next time I touch her, there’ll be no way she’ll be able to deny how much she wants me. Her attempts to gain my attention this week have been cute. Those tiny fucking shorts, prancing about in nothing but a towel. She thinks I wasn’t interested enough to pay attention, but I’ve watched the security footage of her ass playing peekaboo out the bottom of that towel as she reached for a glass she didn’t need more than a hundred times already.

When I reclaim her, it’ll be because she begs to be mine again, but there’s no reason why I can’t give her a taste of what it’s like to belong to me. If she asks nicely, of course.

Both calmed and aroused by being in her space, I run my fingers over her comforter, moving around her room and touching her ancient laptop that’s sitting on her desk. Several of the dresses I bought her lie discarded on the bed and her pajamas are balled up on the chair. Stepping into the bathroom, my dick hardens even further when I think about her naked and wet and suddenly the urge to mark her is too strong to fight. Before I can question what I’m doing, her body wash is in one hand, my hard cock free of my pants in the other. Gripping myself tightly I stroke up and down the length of my cock, imagining her tight nipples pebbled from the cold, her pussy wet and smooth, ready to be licked. It doesn’t take long until my balls are pulling tight and I’m spilling my release into the bottle, my cum mixing with the soap. Releasing my spent cock, I tuck it back into my shorts and replace the lid on the bottle, shaking it to make sure its thoroughly mixed. I promised her all of my cum was for her, and this load might not be inside her, but she’ll be rubbing it into her skin every time she has a shower from now on.

Exhaling happily, I exit her room, engaging the lock again and sauntering downstairs to find the guys all impatiently waiting for me in the foyer.

“Finally, get your fucking ass moving, this is your woman who’s at risk here,” Evan snaps aggravatedly as he throws open the door and stomps over to the golf cart.

“Are you really prepared to let her hook up with some asshole at a party, just to make a point,” Clay asks.

“What point am I making?” I ask, annoyed that two weeks ago they were all telling me I needed to let her go and now they’re telling me to get her back again. “She doesn’t want me, you all agreed that I needed to leave her alone. What the fuck do you expect me to do?” I think a part of me thinks I should feel bad for lying to them, but I need them on board once she does come back to me. I can’t have them telling me I have to give her up every time she gets pissed at me or them. It feels like I’m almost playing with them as much as I am her, but they forced me to set her free. If they hadn’t, she wouldn’t be at this party right now, she’d be bouncing on my cock, locked in her gilded cage.

“She wants you,” Hunter tells me quietly. “She was worried and unsure the first couple of weeks, but this week she’s been angry. Starling wants your attention, that’s why she’s been provoking you, although I’m not sure you’ve even noticed, you’ve been so determined not to pay any attention to her.”

“You guys just need to fuck it out or something, I’m getting sick of seeing my sister’s ass,” Evan laughs.

Inside I’m smirking, but on the outside I keep my expression neutral and shrug. “I’m not sure, I think maybe we missed our chance. Mom and Dad have mentioned how advantageous an alliance with the Eadberht Corporation would be. They have a daughter, she’s just turned eighteen, if I’d never met Starling I’d probably already be engaged by now, so…” I trail off deliberately. Of course it’s all utter bullshit, the Eadberht’s do have a daughter, but even though they only knew Starling for a short time, my mom and dad are still fully intending to have her for a daughter-in-law; they’d never suggest I sacrificed love for a political marriage.

“No,” Hunter growls in his quiet, purposeful way. “You’d make that poor girl miserable because it will only ever be Starling for you. You fucked up with her, I think if maybe you’d have acted like a normal seventeen-year-old when you first met and not some megalomaniac millionaire, she would have liked you for you. You pushed too hard and she ran, then you fucked up again bringing her here the way you did. But she wants you, maybe not the way you want her yet, but if she was completely lost to you, she would have left and she didn’t, she stayed. This is your chance, don’t give her a reason to run again.”

Hunter is usually quiet, so when he has something to say, we listen. Of course I already know everything he just spelled out so eloquently, but it’s nice to know he’s exactly where I want him to be, which is firmly on team make Starling fall in love with me.

“He’s right,” Clay agrees, as Evan nods. “You need to figure out how to win her back, you love her, you can’t just walk away from that.”

I take a moment, forcing a pensive look to my face as if I’m carefully thinking about what they’re saying, then I nod. “I love her.” It’s the first honest, true thing I’ve said since we started this conversation. I love Starling and it’s more than just my obsession with her, she’s everything. I want to be her north, but she’s the needle on the compass, without her, all directions are meaningless.

A hint of guilt permeates into me, I shouldn’t be manipulating my friends, the men I consider my brothers, but I need them on board with helping me do whatever I need to do to tether my little bird to me again.

“Any idea how I can get the ball rolling?” I ask.

TWENTY-FOUR

Starling

The feelingof the tequila humming through my veins makes the music seem louder and more all-consuming, and I love it. My hands are in the air, while my ass is pressed up against the front of a very aroused guy, his arm curled around my waist.

With my eyes closed, I try really hard not to notice how wrong it is to have some random guy’s hard-on pushing into me. I want to be able to embrace this moment, my first real college party—the first party the guys dragged me to doesn’t count. But even though I’m doing all the right things, it just feels so wrong.

The guy, whose name I don’t even know is slightly behind the rhythm, his arm around my waist is floppy and neither claiming or supportive it’s just sort of hanging there. I can feel his hardness pressing into me, but I’m not feeling even an ounce of arousal and I think I’m supposed to be. Isn’t that the purpose of dancing like this, to simulate sex, to see how well you’d fit together? If it is, then the answer with this guy is not that well.

I want to push him off, but I don’t know the etiquette. Is it really insulting if I ask him to remove his limp arm and his underwhelming-sized cock away from me? It feels rude, so instead I just go with it, throwing back what’s left of my drink and trying not to cringe when the guy nuzzles into my neck.

Sammy is immediately across from me, apparently she has the etiquette down, because her tongue is down the throat of a pretty blond boy with messy surfer-style hair, her hands groping his toned chest beneath his unbuttoned shirt.

Pulling free of the guy—whose name I really wish I knew, if only so I didn’t keep having to refer to him asthe guyin my head—I smile and wave my empty cup at him, signaling in the general direction of the bar. Nodding, he smiles, but thankfully doesn’t offer to come with. Pushing my way through the throng of people, I join the back of the line, exhaling slowly and watching the people around me who all seem so much more comfortable than me. I’m used to being alone, but even when I was in Maine I felt Sebastian’s phantom eyes on me, even though I knew he was hours away in a different state. Knowing he doesn’t care enough to watch anymore makes me feel bereft.

Stepping up to the bar I order myself another Long Island iced tea. Whoever organized this party made it a free bar, but I push a tip into the jar and then move off to the side, standing on the edge of the dance floor with the shadowy trees behind me.

A prickle of awareness washes over me and I tense, suddenly feeling like I’m being watched, but there’s no way Sebastian is here. If he cared enough to come, he’d already be laying claim to me, making sure everyone around knew who I belonged to.

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