Page 81 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

He’s learned to hide it. To sneer in my face and force me to bend, to strip, to kneel.

But he can’t hide it in his music.

Just like my body revealed my desire to Noah, his playing reveals to me what’s in his soul.

The playing is so intimate, I begin to feel guilty, standing on the other side of the door, eavesdropping.

So I take a deep breath and knock quietly on the door.

The playing doesn’t stop, so a few seconds later, I turn the knob and open it.

The hinge squeals, loudly enough anyone would have heard, but Noah plays a few more notes, unbothered. He stops and looks over his shoulders, his expression open and relaxed.

Until he sees me.

As soon as his eyes land on me, it’s like he’s been electrocuted.

Noah jumps up from his chair, eyes wild, and gapes at me, unable to find the words.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “Your mom—”

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” He rips the guitar off his head and throws it a bit too roughly on the sofa behind him. “Who let you in?”

“Your mom did. I knocked, and she said you were down here.”

“Why did you knock? What are you doing here? Why were you—” He frowns at me and then looks over at the guitar, realization hitting him. “Were you listening to me play?”

I swallow down nerves.

Maybe this was a bad idea. I should have texted him first. As a warning.

That would have been smart.

But then he probably would have told his mom not to let me in, or he would have left to avoid me.

I would have missed his playing and the peek it offered into his head.

So I can’t really bring myself to regret dropping in unannounced.

“Only in the sense that I have good hearing and the music was coming under the door. I wasn’t, like, eavesdropping… much.”

Noah grimaces and hurls a point at the door. “You need to leave. Now.”

He starts moving towards me, ready to grab me and shove me out, so I quickly duck under his arm and hurry around him, moving further into the room. “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, really? Me too. Here it is: fuck off.”

I roll my eyes. “Would you calm down? It’s just guitar playing, okay? I didn’t walk in on you having a wank.”

His perfectly straight nose wrinkles. “Having a wank?”

I lower my hand and make a suggestive gesture that, given what we did only a few hours earlier, feels a little too suggestive.

“I know what it means,” he spits, running a hand through his wavy hair. “It’s just…British.”

“It sounds more proper than ‘masturbating.’”

Noah scowls. “Would you stop saying shit like that? What did you come here to tell me?”

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