“This is where the magic happens?” she asks, eyes dubiously taking in the space. I know what she’s thinking. It’s not so special. For all its reputation, it’s still just an old, musty, cold tower.
“This is it.” I wrap my arms around her and nod up to the beam. “If we go through with this, I’m supposed to add another mark under my name.”
“Another?” her eyebrow raises. “How many marks are there?”
“None that matter,” I tell her, nosing into the warmth of her neck. “There are different ways to mark someone. It can be the kind you can’t see, like sex, or it can be the kind you can see.”
“Like what?”
I lick and kiss down her neck. “Hamilton Bates always marked Gwen with a hickey under the ear. Sparked a shit-ton of rumors.”
Her voice is reedy, shaking. “That seems antiquated.”
“You’re at Preston. It’s never been a bastion of progressiveness.” I lift up her hair and kiss the top of her shoulder. “I heard that Reyn wanted Vandy to get that tattoo on her inner thigh. Just for him.”
“What about you?” she asks, pressing her chest against mine. “How would you show the rest of the school that I’m yours?”
“Well,” I drop my mouth to the smooth skin in the dip in her collarbone, lathing the spot with my tongue. “I’d probably buy her shit, like a new laptop, or stuff for her car, or… you know, something super sexy like cat treats.”
She gives a silent laugh. “That does sound like you.”
I open my mouth against her, sucking gently at first, getting her used to the coming pressure. She gasps when I really clamp down, pulling the skin in my mouth. Her hands fist in my shirt and I can’t even handle the sound she makes as I suck in slow, hard bursts—something airy and hungry. I pull back, blowing over the wet skin, and she shivers. Her hips push against mine and my dick twitches in response.
“There,” I say, running my finger over the hollow. “All done.”
She looks overhead at the beam, eyelids heavy. “That’ll get you another slash?”
“Yeah,” I grin, unable to tear my eyes away from the bruise. “I’d go for another one if it wasn’t so damn cold out here.” I kiss the mark, then her jaw, all the way up to her mouth. Unable to help myself, I guide my hand up her side, running my thumb over the swell of her breast. Her nipple is peaked, hard from either my touch or the cold. I’ve been thinking about them ever since the bonfire, the way she let me hold them in my hands, play with them, get to really know the weight and softness.
I groan into the kiss, cock aching, and I know I’m kissing her too hard—too much, too fast—but I can’t help it, tangling a hand in her hair, breathing sharp, quick clouds into the air around us with every pant. “You taste so fucking good.”
“Yeah,” she replies, sucking on my tongue with just as much fervor, “you taste good, too.”
It may be cold, but I’m burning with the way I feel right now, buzzed and barely restrained, electric with the way her body feels against me. I could do what I want to Sugar up on this staircase and earn another mark, but that’s not what it’s about or what I want. I want her splayed underneath me. I want to take my time. I want to taste every part of her body. I want to be inside her, around her, against her.
I pull back, cupping her warm cheeks in my hand. “You really want to know what it’s like to be with a Devil?” I ask, rules and oaths and obligation lost in a haze of lust.
Her eyes ping back and forth between mine, lips red when a soft, “Yes,” passes between them.
“Do you trust me?”
She blinks and my heart pounds, more scared of her answer than anything else.
“I do.”
24
Sugar
“Turn around,” he says, the cold making his breath fog.
I shiver but turn, facing down the curved staircase. He asked me if I trust him, and I do.
I’d tucked the T-shirt I won at the game into my jacket pocket and he pulls it out. A moment later, he’s lowering it over the top of my head, covering my eyes. I reach up and stop his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Blindfolding you.”
I pause at this, but ultimately take a deep breath and nod. Trust.
I wasn’t even entirely serious about him being a Devil. Mostly, I figured he’d sweet-talked the pep club into letting him hand out the prize. It’s a big stage, lots of attention and opportunity for bragging rights. But when he brought me up to the staircase, and I saw the initials and the gouged markings on the beam, I’m realizing just how right I’d been. I have questions, too many to put into words at the exact moment, but then he started kissing me, sucking on my neck, and whatever I wanted to know slipped away in a haze of want.
It’s this new thing, this hunger. I’ve been impatient with it all night, even when I was pissed at him for trying to, once again, give me money. Even when he brought me up to this nasty tower to mark me, like I’m something to be owned, I still burned with it, because it’s true.
Sebastian does own a part of me.
He folds the cloth over itself three times, making visibility impossible. It’s all hilariously dramatic, but when his warm hand closes over mine and he slowly leads me down the staircase, I realize that whatever is going on right now is more than just theatrics. I could see it in his eyes earlier, when he asked me up here. This means something to him—something significant. Sebastian has been working hard to prove to me that I can trust him. Perhaps this is just another step, a bigger one than all the ones before it.
We reach the landing at the bottom of the stairs and I hear the creak of the tower door just before feeling the cold bite of wind on my cheeks.
Grand gestures aside, I still roll my eyes behind the blindfold. “Is this really necessary?”
His thumb brushes over my hand. “It’s a secret society, Sugar. I took an oath. There were candles and chanting and scary motherfuckers in masks, the whole nine yards.”
I stop abruptly, voice a rushed whisper. “Wait! I don’t want you to do something that might get you in trouble. Whatever this is that you’re involved in, it’s important. I don’t want to screw that up.”
His breath warms my ear. “Do you know how they pick the Devils?”
My forehead scrunches in confusion. “No?”
“There’s something special about us,” he admits. “I’d like to say it’s because we’re the smartest, strongest, and brightest at Preston Prep, but that’d be bullshit, honestly.” He continues walking, leading me carefully over the soft ground. I wonder if anyone is out here to see us. If they are, he doesn’t seem concerned. “It’s because we’re brave. Ruthless. Devious. We have our own secrets and sins. All of us have baggage and a hunger for something bigger and better. Joining the Devils was the best thing that happened to me, because I found my people.” He spins me around. I now feel the heat of his breath on my lips. “That is, until I met you.”
He guides me across the grass until he stops, and I hear a door creak again, similar to the last one. The temperature doesn’t change once we’re inside, but I hear the scrape of metal against metal, then the spring of a lock. Once again, we head down a narrow staircase.