Page 11 of Kings & Corruption

“What the fuck to do you think you’re doing?”

Matt froze, then spun toward the voice that had interrupted him. I had to step aside to see past his body, but I already knew who’d spoken.

It was a voice I’d know anywhere.

My stepbrother. Neo.

Chapter5

Willa

“Iwas looking for my room,” I said.

Neo’s eyes drilled into mine, but his expression was totally unreadable. “Not you.” He bit out the words like shattered glass, like he hated even speaking to me, then turned to look at Matt. “You.”

“Uh… Willa wanted to get settled. I thought—”

“What’s rule number three?” Neo asked him.

“Don’t think unless we’re told to,” Matt said.

“Exactly. Now fuck off,” Neo said.

Poor Matt scrambled from the room without a backward glance, and as much as I hated to admit it, I understood why. Neo, now inside the doorway and walking slowly toward me, was a menacing presence.

And jesus, he really was huge. I’d had to look up at Matt, but if I’d been outside with Neo, I would have been tempted to shield my eyes from the sun.

The sleeves were rolled up on his black button-down to reveal a tattoo of a crown with a snake on his forearm. His shoulders and biceps were so huge it looked like the shirt was going to split open, Hulk-style, and my gaze was drawn to the tendrils of his angel tattoo, snaking over the base of his throat where his shirt was unbuttoned. Gray pants hugged his muscled thighs, accentuating the significant bulge between his legs — a bulge I was trying desperately not to look at even though my body had gone all kinds of rogue and wanted nothing more than to take it in.

Figuratively, not literally.

Fuck. Who was I kidding? Probably literally too.

I realized too late that I’d crossed my arms over my chest on reflex. It was a defensive habit, and the last thing I wanted was for Neo to think I was afraid of him, although even fear was better than lust.

I could not, under any circumstance, let Neo Alinari know that he made my panties wet.

“You couldn’t wait downstairs?” he asked.

I lifted my chin. “Why should I? I live here now, remember?”

His eyes flashed, shifting from brown to amber in the afternoon sunlight. “Maybe, but this is my house, and that means I make the rules.”

“It’s the Kings’ house. That means it belongs to the fraternity,” I said.

He pinned me with his eyes. “And the fraternity belongs to me.”

I didn’t have the energy to debate the truth of it. In any other school, I’d call bullshit, but this was Aventine. It was a world unto itself, a world with rules patterned after the ones in the world our parents occupied, the one they expected us to join when we graduated.

Was it possible Neo had incorporated the fraternity as a nonprofit under a shell company that couldn’t be traced to him or his father?

Hell yes. Literally anything was possible here.

“Whatever,” I said. “If you didn’t want me to wander around, maybe you should have been here to show me yourself. Matt was just trying to be nice. No need to be a dick.”

Neo leaned in, and I caught the scent of something musky and male that went straight to my now-soaking pussy.

“Let’s get something straight,Jezebel. I do what I want, here and everywhere. You can find that out the easy way, or the hard way.” He dropped his eyes to my cleavage, inconveniently displayed by my tank top and the fact that my boobs were shoved up over my crossed arms, then continued down to my bare legs, which suddenly felt way too exposed in the short-shorts that had seemed like comfortable moving day attire when I’d put them on. When he returned his gaze to my face, he lingered on my lips, a knowing smirk lifting the corners of his mouth. “Then again, maybe you like it hard.”

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