Page 129 of Cruel Prep (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 1)

So, I haven’t asked.

We all talk and joke for a while until we hear music coming from nearby.

Caleb frowns and turns around. “What is that?”

Finn hitches a thumb over his shoulder towards the neighbor’s house. “New neighbors. The daughter likes to play her music loud.”

“This neighborhood is going straight to the dogs,” Viktor jokes.

“Anyone we know?” Caleb asks.

Finn shakes his head. “The mom is a real June Cleaver type. She brought me cookies to introduce herself and said they just moved from the other side of town. Her husband got a job with Barber Engineering.”

Since Finn’s dad died, Finn has maintained his board member position at Barber and has had a front-row seat to all of the shakeups that have happened. People in cahoots with Mr. Foster have been fired or demoted and new people have been brought in. They are trying to reorganize the power dynamics, which can’t hurt.

And apparently, it’s benefitting some people on the other side of town for a chance.

I make a mental note to get next door and introduce myself to the neighbor’s daughter soon. I know what it’s like to be new in Ravenlake.

“What’s the girl’s name?” I ask.

Finn says, “Haley Cochran.”

At the mention of her name, Caleb drops his beer. The bottle hits the concrete and shatters and everyone scatters, shouting at him.

“What the fuck, dude?” Viktor says, brushing shards of glass off his foot.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, sliding the shards under his chair with his shoe. Suddenly he stops and looks up at Finn. “Haley Cochran, you said? You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” Finn frowns. “Why, do you know her?”

Caleb shakes his head for a long time, saying nothing. “No. No. Not really. I mean … no. I don’t.”

Viktor laughs humorlessly. “You need to cut back, my friend. You’re drunk.”

Caleb, very unlike himself, doesn’t argue and sits back down in his chair. He is quiet most of the night, but I can’t help but notice he keeps glancing over towards the neighbor’s house.

As if he knows something we don’t.

* * *

Later, in bed, I ask Finn if he thought Caleb was being weird.

“Caleb is always being weird,” he says, pulling me back against him like a little spoon. He nuzzles into my neck and smells my hair. “That’s nothing new.”

“It seemed like he knew Haley.”

Finn groans and squeezes me. “Can we not talk about Caleb?”

“What do you want to talk about, then?”

He rolls his hips against me, and I feel the length of him on my lower back. “Nothing,” he breathes. “I don’t want to talk about a damn thing.”

He crawls over me and pushes me down into the mattress, and I let him pin my arms above my head. Slowly, he kisses his way down my neck and between my breasts, lower until he swipes his tongue over the front of my panties. I shiver.

I always think there is no possible way Finn and I can continue to pleasure one another like this. Surely, we’ll get bored.

But then he pushes my panties aside and plunges my tongue inside of me, and I realize I’ll never get tired of the way he touches me. The way he worships me.

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