Page 211 of Swallow Your Sorries

More curses.

But despite the background noise, I swear it’s just Gant and I as he slides his hand from my hair to stroke my cheek so softly, so tenderly that I’m taken off guard. So much so that I don’t have the good sense to slap him away.

“Why would you think that everyone knowing how badly I want you is embarrassing?”

His voice is so fucking loud and yet, I swear he’s whispering just to me.

Prickly heat and embarrassment climb my cheeks but I can’t look away. I can’t do anything at all but stare into those black pits.

“I do want you. I wantit. Desperately. In fact, I’d do anything for it. I’d stalk you for two years and lure you to the academy with a fake scholarship. I’d give you a hundred private dance lessons and split you wide in stretches just to catch a glimpse of it. The scent of it. I’d kidnap you and drag you into the forest. I’d scale the dorms and climb into your shower, into your bed, just to kiss your pretty pussy. You know that, dove. I just did it ten minutes ago. You just opened up and let me.”

“Fucking hell,” Hale exclaims, and I can see his gleeful expression floating beside Stassi’s awed one. I can hear Aria choking on her cranberry juice and I can see Étienne patting her lips dry a second later.

I can see and hear it all, but I can’t speak.

I can’t move.

Surely, I’m about to die. Surely, I’ll combust and just melt into the floor.

But the minutes tick on and I don’t. Instead, I jump as Gant’s fingers trail down the side of my neck, then firmly but softly, his thumb strokes over my erratic pulse point.

“Next time, you don’t have to get someone to secretly film us from the bushes. I already know you like to have an audience. It’s why I’m giving you one now,” he says so loudly that I’m positive everyone, including the staff behind the buffet who are watching us like a telenovela, has heard it. “And I know you like to watch us again later. On repeat. That’s why you wanted it filmed.”

I can’t move my lips to deny it. I can’t do anything but feel my eyes and nose burn in sheer humiliation that Gant clearly notices. And he does something…entirely unexpected.

He pulls me into his arms and cradles my head against his neck, so I can’t see anything but his pale skin. I can’t smell anything but his signature scent that always wraps around my brain and strangles my thoughts. Not that I have any now. I’m just…frozen.

“My baby likes it when I make her squirt when people are around. It makes her even more excited. Doesn’t it, baby?” he says, stroking my head like I’m truly a little baby nestled in his arms. “But she doesn’t actually want anyone to see because she’s so shy. Not that I’d let them. No, she just likes the thought of it. Is that why you changed your mind halfway through Beaussip filming us through the window? Is that why you lured me into the woods because you’d already gotten off on the thrill of just knowing that someone was there?”

I don’t answer. How can I?

I just want to shove him away and cling to him all at once because, with my head buried in his neck, I feel safe and furious and too weak to stand on my own.

“Maybe we can find a better way to give you your kicks because I don’t like sharing, even if they can’t see anything around my back.”

He had kept his back to the window the entire time…

Because he knew.

He fucking knew what I was up to the entire time. But how? And why had he played along?

“Even if they can only hear the audio of you moaning and squirming on my fingers. But that’s the second time we’ve had an audience after Stretch class and I’m quickly finding out that I don’t like it. I don’t like anyone knowing what you sound like when I make you cum. It’s my private symphony. My secret song.”

His thumb rubs over my lower lip with bruising force and still, I’m transfixed, just staring up into his dark gaze.

“You’re so fucking cute, dove. Wanting everyone to know, to see, to hear that we’re together, but there are other ways for them to understand that you’re mine and mine alone.”

“I hate you,” I whisper, finally able to speak again.

“I know. You hate me almost as much as you love me,” he says, placing a chaste kiss on my lips. “Because instead of pushing me away, you’re nuzzling into my side not just to hide, but because you feel safer here than out there. Out of my arms. It’s okay, I won’t drop you. I won’t let go of my little doll.”

“I hate you,” I repeat, because he’s right. I’m not letting him go. Because the irate crowd’s suddenly audible again.

Suddenly we’re back in the hall, and I want nothing more than to recess into our little bubble again and I’m almost grateful to feel a thousand burning eyes scorching my back instead of having to look at them head-on.

“Like I said, there are other ways to tell the entire school that you own me.”

What?It’s always been. I’m his. Never that…he was mine.

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