Part I
Boys
If you’ve already read the novella, Dirty Filthy Rich Boys, skip to Part Two of this book.
Chapter 1
No one on earth could kiss like Weston King.
When his face lowered toward mine, my breath caught in the back of my throat. When his mouth met mine, electricity sparked. When his tongue slipped between my lips, I found heaven. My toes literally curled, just like the trite expression suggested. My heart pounded against my ribcage. Goose bumps stood up along my skin. Butterflies flitted in circles in my belly. Every cell, every fiber of my being felt his invasion. His kiss turned a body of flesh and blood and bone into something bigger. Something combustible. Something charged. Something aflame.
At least that’s what I imagined his kisses were like.
My only evidence was based on observation, and, of that, I had plenty.
The girl he’d chosen to hook up with tonight definitely looked about to burst into flames with the way she was wriggling and writhing against him. Nichette? Was that her name? Or Nikita? It had been hard to hear her over the din of the party when she’d introduced herself to him an hour ago, and he’d only said it once or twice since then. It was something unusual and a bit pretentious and it blurred together with all the other unusual pretentious names of his previous hook-ups.
A guy I recognized from my economics class stumbled past, laughing with his buddies, and I pressed tighter to the wall, clutching my red Solo cup so it wouldn’t spill. Though I didn’t really care for whatever craft beer was on keg this week, it was one of my favorite things about the parties at The Keep. The main attraction was always craft beers and liquor. Most of the other rich Harvard students liked to draw crowds to their soirees with prescription drugs and recipes so experimental the FDA hadn’t even had time to disapprove them yet.
The boys at The Keep kept things simple, and—except for a fair amount of underage drinking—legal. “For those who might not want a blot on their past,” I’d heard Brett Larrabee, the self-designated house manager, state on more than one occasion, usually when he was trying to convince a guy to suck his dick with his “one day I’m going to be a senator” pick-up routine. I had to give him credit—it usually worked.
My other favorite thing about the parties at The Keep was Weston King. It was actually the only reason I ever went to any of the shindigs. I was absolutely intrigued with him for no good reason other than that he was hot, charming and wealthy. He was my addiction. My obsession. My crush.
Gotta love hormones.
I’d noticed Weston on the first day of Intro to Business Ethics. I’d taken a seat in the front of the classroom (because I was that kind of girl), and he’d walked in late (because he was that kind of guy), smirking at something on his cell phone. The grin was still on his face as he tucked his phone in his back pocket, the glimmer still in his blue eyes. Ice blue eyes. The class was in a lecture hall, so it took him several seconds to cross the room, and I couldn’t stop staring. I watched him the entire way. Watched him brush his hand through the dark blond hair that swooped over his forehead. Watched him give a wink to the teacher’s assistant who was glaring at him for being tardy. This guy was confident. Cocky. Exactly like all the preppy rich kids who made it into Harvard because of significant monetary donations and a family name. He was the kid I wanted to hate, and I’d arrived in Cambridge with my scholarship and my father’s lifetime savings wiped out planning to do exactly that.
But then his gaze crossed mine, and I don’t even think he actually saw me, but I saw him and what I saw was fascinating. It was ease and charm and privilege and it made me buzz. Made me breathe. Made me blush with thoughts too dirty for an ethics class. It definitely made me forget every intention I had of hating his kind.
Instead, I wanted to know more.
It wasn’t hard to find out about him. His father was Nash King, co-owner of King-Kincaid Financial, one of the world’s largest investment firms, and without even having to ask, people talked about him. I soon discovered he was a freshman, like me, and that he lived with a bunch of guys in a four-story brownstone ten minutes off campus that had been passed among a few wealthy families for so long, no one remembered why they called it The Keep. The house was famous for the parties they threw every weekend. And though it was now late October and Weston had never once spoken to me or looked at me directly or even indicated that he knew I was alive, I’d come to every one.
Every time, I spent the evening in a corner watching him pressed up against some girl. Always a different corner. Always a different girl. I’d tried to identify if he had a type, but I hadn’t found a pattern. This one was a redhead. Last week was a blonde. The week before, the girl had almost exactly the same shade of brown hair as I did, but she was curvy. This redhead was as rail thin as I was, but she’d obviously purchased a set of breasts. Another time he’d been with a girl even flatter than I was. No pattern. No type. It led me to believe that all I’d have to do was get the courage to talk to him and then maybe…
But then what?
I wasn’t delusional. I knew I had nothing special to offer. There was no trap that would set off the minute Weston’s cock was inside me. He’d fuck me and be done. And then my obsession with him would be even more pathetic because I wouldn’t just be a girl with a crush—I’d be a psycho who couldn’t move on.
Still, I dreamt that I’d be different. That one day, he’d notice me and there’d be that spark and it would be the forever kind of spark and when he found out I’d been saving myself for someone just like him he’d want to work to earn me and he would. And it would be sweet and romantic and we’d live happily ever after.
For a business major, I’d always had a wild imagination. I was well aware.
“Hey, sexy!” One of the guys who lived in the house—I truly had no idea how many did—pulled a girl in a thigh-length sweater and printed leggings in for a hug, blocking my view. “Long time since I’ve seen you. Want to join in the next round?”
I circled around the pool table that the boys kept in place of a dining room table, squinting around people until I caught sight of Weston and his catch of the night. When I spotted them again, it was just in time. They were near the staircase and he was leaning in to whisper something into the redhead’s ear. She responded with a giggle and then a nod.
This was it. The Exit. The moment the two of them would slip away to take things to The Next Level. The part that I spent the rest of the week imagining in fine detail—only, in my imagination, I was the girl, and very often, I accompanied the daydreaming with my hand beneath my panties.
Seriously, maybe I just needed to get laid.
I took another swallow of my not-so-delightful craft beer and cringed. Usually when Weston took off with his hook-up for the night, I finished up my drink and headed home. He would take her upstairs to his room now. At least, I guessed that’s where his room was. The upper level was off-limits, the door to the stairway kept locked, and even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have ever intruded on their private space.
But this time when Weston and his catch went upstairs, he didn’t shut the door tightly behind him. From across the room, my eyes focused in on the latch bolt sticking out from the doorframe, and something came over me. Something unexplainable. Because one minute I was standing against the wall like always and the next I was creeping in the shadows up the dark staircase to the top floor of The Keep.