Page 47 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

“He invited me,” I whisper, and Rory’s eyes slide shut. “I thought I couldn’t say no.”

“No.” Rory lifts himself off the floor, Captain Porthos weaving between his feet. “You say no.” His brows furrow. “I’m going to be having words with my father. This is unacceptable.”

I watch him pace the hall with maniacal fury, and even Captain Porthos doesn’t follow him, tilting his head to the side instead. “How dare he,” Rory mutters to himself. “How fuckingdarehe.”

“It’s only a dance. He said he watched me at the talent show, and he seems to have quite an appreciation for danc—”

“He wants you in his bed,” Rory informs me bluntly, and my mouth snaps shut with a clack. He comes to a stop in front of me, his face a fierce, blazing scowl. “I’m not sure if it’s escaped your notice, but Westminster is a haven for that sort of behavior.”

“Behavior?”

Rory shakes his head and purses his lips. The anger in his eyes is scorching, a pure liquid silver that threatens to boil and burn whatever it lays its weight on. “In a land of forbidden fruit, which fruit is the most appealing? Hisson’s. No. No, that will not be happening, Father.” He meets my shocked gaze, winding a hand around the back of my neck. The pads of his fingers stroke the fine hair at my nape, and he pulls my forehead toward his. “You’re mine,” he breathes. “Not his. Never his.Mine. Remember that.”

Passion surrounds Rory — in every tense, barely restrained grasp of his fingers, in his short, smacking words. His eyes flare with heat as he looks at me.

“My father is a talented politician but he’s also an enormous cunt.” A small, humorless smile beats at the corner of his mouth. “Only I get to say that about him. He has no scruples. He would think nothing of taking you to bed.”

I swallow, saying nothing as he winds his fingers deeper into my hair, spinning it into tight coils.

“Perhaps I’ve been too standoffish,” Rory murmurs against my lips, the warmth of his breath tickling me. “Perhaps I should have rewarded you more before you sought comfort in my father’s arms.”

“That wasn’t—”

But what it wasn’t, I can’t say, because Rory tugs my hair, tilting my head back, and his mouth slants across the exposed column of my neck. I make soft gurgling sounds, hyper-aware of the pressure of Rory’s lips against my tender skin. He sucks tightly, hotly, blooming something sharp and electric inside my core, sucking on the delicate skin at my struggling pulse point. My pulse is erratic, as though home to a trapped fluttering butterfly. There’s the sting and pain of a bite mark, as Rory punctures and indents with his teeth. I wonder, distantly, if he’s trying to consume me whole, mark me as his. Blood dances down my veins, and I become a vessel of pleasure, my body bursting and shivering beneath his touch.

I moan weakly up to the ceiling, clinging onto Rory, the one thing holding me steady. I curl my fingers against Rory’s back, pressing into the soft fabric of his oversized jersey. As his mouth plants a violet, violent bruise to the flesh of my throat, I find myself sliding his head down, down, down, until he’s propped on his knees in front of me.

Rory stares up at me from below, his gray eyes as hard and impenetrable as bolted iron. He says nothing and I have no idea what he’s thinking, though I have more of an idea when he nudges me to sit back onto the piste and spreads my legs open.

“W-what are you doing?” I whisper from my position on the piste, watching as Captain Porthos fades from my periphery, curling himself asleep next to the door.

Again, Rory says nothing. It’s strange, how just mentioning his dad seems to have bolstered him into a single-minded determination that’s all about, what, proving he’s the better Munro? Is he doing this to impress me, to force me into preferring him instead of his dad?

Because if so… it’s weirdly hot.

And asifthe greatest Munro was ever in any doubt.

Oscar Munro is a devil in a room full of death. A man who’s chosen his path and sold his soul for the top job. A man so isolated and alone he comes onto teenage girls for amusement.

Rory still has time. Rory always had it in him to reform.

It’s why I’m with him. It’s why Finlay’s with him.

Rory may have been my bully but even I know he’s no monster.

I note grooves on the ceiling as my fencing kit is wrenched from my body. Piece by piece, Rory yanks it from me until I lie in my slacks, considerably lighter and more limber. And yet I cannot move. I seem pinned into place from the heat of Rory’s eyes alone, the promises embedded within as he parts my legs and lowers his head toward me.

He tugs down my soft cotton slacks without breathing, as though unwrapping a gift he’s been desperately anticipating for years. In the cold air of the fencing hall, my legs become flushed with gooseflesh. Rory runs his large, elegant hands up my thighs, brushing away the small bumps and adding an intense flare of heat across my skin.

When his thumbs caress my inner thighs, I release a shocked intake of breath. Rory is so gentle, touching me as though I may shatter. I’ve never known him to treat me with such fragility, and I almost yearn for the heat and the storm and the passionate rage as he thrust his fingers into me on the moors. I could take that. Iwantedthat, desperately, the frantic, rushing, roaring orgasm and the peace that descended even as the rain pelted and the wind howled, like being caught, safe, in the eye of a hurricane.

But this? This teasing? It’s unbearable. Fingers stroking toward the heat of my core, not inch by inch but almost imperceptibly. Rory follows his crawling fingers with the burn of his mouth, kissing wherever he touches my body, making my skin aflame. The hardened nub of his tongue laps quickly behind at the skin of my thighs, making me alight with need.

The world shifts and blurs until I realize I’m chanting at the bright lights overhead. I’ve never done this before, I’ve never done this atall, and my body no longer feels like my own anymore. It’s not under my control, and every punishing kiss Rory bruises onto my skin is indicative of that. I’m property of Rory Munro and all the playful little tricks that belong to his mouth.

He sucks my inner thighs, gorging on the soft curves of my flesh as though to devour me. There are teeth marks on my legs and bite marks above my bones. All I can do is splay my body uselessly, one hand on Rory’s head, the other spread and scrabbling to grab hold of something on the smooth surface of the piste.

“You look incredible like this,” Rory murmurs, his breath tickling my thighs. If only he’d reach up, up… If only he’d put his lips somewhere that could truly undo me. “The little saint, her wings clipped, her body fallen beneath me.” He gives me a proud, self-satisfied smile that reminds me of a cat. “Does this mean I win?”

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