Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller
32
The New England Art Academyis a small private university, tucked among the farmland, about an hour outside of Boston. At first glance, it looks more like a miniature castle than a school with its gray stone towers, stained-glass windows, and sharp, cone-shaped roofs. Not to mention the moat and surrounding security wall.
The main building sits before a massive courtyard, and there are buildings surrounding it on either side, which Grayson tells me are dormitories for a select number of students—usually the best of the best in their programs—and faculty accommodations for those who choose to remain on campus.
There’s a decided lack of pretty foliage around though, and I can’t imagine staying here for longer than the length of a meeting. Which is exactly how long Grayson said we’d be, and then we’d go meet Cora and Alistair for lunch.
I’m still not convinced on bringing him along, but he isn’t going to take no for an answer. So, I’m indulging him because he indulges me, and life is about balance.
We’re dropped off in a roundabout at the front entrance of the main building. Janus holds the door for us, stone-faced as Grayson gets out, though he offers a hand when I do. I take it curiously, as this is the first time he’s interacted with me in the time I’ve been at the James estate.
His long black hair is pulled back in a small bun at the base of his neck. When I release his hand, he starts after Grayson, reaching up to the back of his head and rubbing at a spot there.
I cock my head, my brows etching together when he winces, then break into a jog to catch up to them. Inside, the building is almost silent with a giant crystal piano sculpture taking up the center of the lobby.
“Are you okay?” I ask Janus, sliding a bottle of pain reliever from my handbag. “Do you need something for a headache?”
He turns to look at me, his sharp features turning down at the edges. “What I need is for you to go away.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “What?”
He looks over his shoulder at Grayson, who’s several feet ahead of us, being greeted by the freakishly tall man with the blue-black hair I remember from the night of my attack. I didn’t realize he worked here, but I suppose it makes sense.
Janus takes a step in my direction, lowering his voice. “Get out of here while you can, little girl.”
“Get out?” I echo, kicking myself internally for resorting to parroting. “What do you mean?”
He doesn’t answer. Just shakes his head and sneers in disgust, like I just threatened him. I stand there, staring blankly, as he turns on his heel and stalks out of the building. Off to continue his job as security for the man I’m pretty certain is in love with me.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Grayson looks my way, waving his hand in a come-hither gesture. Soon, I’m seated across from a polished mahogany desk, half-listening to the conversation around me as I try to reconcile what the hell just happened.
Maybe it wasn’t a threat at all, but a genuine warning. If he saw what happened to Micah’s sister, maybe… maybe he’s concerned with it happening to me as well. Nate definitely thinks there’s a pattern here, so it would serve to reason that others might too.
Still, I can’t shake the slimy sensation off my shoulders. I’m aware I should tell Grayson, but I’m not sure I should do it in the presence of this stranger, so I keep quiet.
“…if you want to return, Dean Hudson has a few conditions,” the tall man says from where he’s perched at the end of his desk. His long, veiny arms are crossed tight over his chest, clad in a black vest with a purple tie. “Namely the parties. She wants them to stop. Says it makes the university look bad.”
Grayson scoffs, crossing his legs. I feel his arm sling over the back of my chair, inching me closer. “Not surprising. She’s never appreciated a good time.”
“If that’s what you want to call your gatherings,” the other man says, amusement dancing in his reddish eyes. “She’s also demanding full alibis for you and your staff on certain nights. To corroborate your professed lack of involvement in any of the missing persons cases that have come up since you’ve been on sabbatical.”
His fingers tighten on the leather beside my shoulder. I glance at him from the corner of my eye, my chest suddenly tight.
“I can do that.”
The man nods, and I glance around his office. Raven-themed knickknacks and headless sculptures decorate the room between thick, dusty books and dozens of papers stacked in piles of varying height around the room.
On the corner of his desk sits a nameplate: Dr. Ian Crane, Professor of Religious Studies and Comparative Mythology.
Yeah. I sit back in my chair, goose bumps rising on my skin when Grayson’s fingers toy with my hair. He looks like he’d teach mythology and religion. Really, with the eyes, the unnatural hair, and the almost-painful good looks, he looks more like the Devil himself than anything else.
“All right,” he says, his pale skin becoming almost luminescent as he moves back beneath the fluorescent lights. “Then, I suppose I’ll see you in the spring with a full arsenal of brand-new course material and ways to teach it.”
Grayson nods. “Yes. Sabbatical has been very enlightening.”
By the time we get back to the SUV, I’ve all but forgotten about my little conversation with Janus. It’s hard to remember anything at all when Grayson’s got me stretched out in the backseat with his mouth between my tits, sucking and pinching them with a fervency that steals my breath away.
I swallow, my lips unable to close as he latches on to one hardened nipple, rolling it between his teeth.
“These have driven me absolutely insane since the moment I laid eyes on you,” he pants, curling his tongue around the peak, kneading their weight in both hands. “I’ve wondered what you’d look like with my cock between them, if you’d blush, waiting for my cum.”
My hips lift, seeking friction in the little miniskirt I have on. I’m throbbing, aching to be filled, and he knows it. That’s why he’s ignoring it.
“Why don’t you try it and see?”
He pauses, pulling off my nipple with a wet pop. I feel the suction in my toes.
“What, here?”
The vehicle begins moving, and I look up to see trees beyond the stone walls, blurring as we drive past. My gaze is hooded, falling to him, and I run a hand through his messy brown locks, gripping tight at the base.
“Do you want to see me blush or not?”
Grinning, he sits back, guiding my other hand to his belt. “Get me out then. I’m gonna make you beg me to soak you.”
Releasing his hair, my fingers tremble as I undo his pants, and then he’s shifting, shoving them down his hips and fisting himself. One tug, then two, and he’s already long and hard, an angry reddish-pink color I want to taste on my tongue.
My chest heaves with each excited breath.
“Hold them together for me,” he commands in that tone that leaves no room for argument. Not that I would anyway. “Open your mouth, dirty girl. Let’s see if you can fit me there first.”
I grip my tits in my palms, my fingernails biting into my skin. Anticipation courses through my bloodstream, and my neck cramps from being shoved awkwardly against the SUV’s door, but all I can focus on is his cock. He moves above me, pressing the thick crown to my lips, seeking permission to enter.
With a silent gulp, I open. Accepting what he feeds me.
The slightly salty tang of his essence explodes on my tongue as soon as he’s in, and I let out a little noise of pleasure at the taste. He slides in, filling me until my jaw aches, and then retreats. I exhale sharply, some of the saliva in my mouth spilling out and running down my chin.
He blinks down at me with those heated emerald eyes and uses a thumb to smear my drool over the head of his dick. “Open.”
I obey, wider this time, and he slides in slowly, filling and filling until he meets resistance. “Breathe and open. Take me deep. I know you can fucking do it.”
The rough encouragement sets my body aflame, and I angle my head slightly, widening my jaw even more. My lips feel raw as his tip hits the back of my throat, and I gag, unaccustomed to having anything there.
“Fuck,” he groans, his hand coming up to thread through my hair, keeping me in place. Not that I can move either way. “Your throat is magnificent, Violet. Almost as tight and wet as that pretty pussy.”
He pulls out suddenly, giving me a couple of seconds to breathe. Strands of spit connect us while the rest slides from my lips, dripping onto my chest. His cock is slick, shiny with me, and I stick my tongue out to clean him up.
“Don’t you dare.” He tightens his grip on my hair, yanking my head back as much as it’ll go.
My skull digs into the door, but I ignore it, too enraptured by the heady glint in his sinister gaze. I’m practically vibrating with the need to have him in me again.
“If I’m gonna fuck these perfect, perky tits,” he grinds out, “then I need all the spit I can get. Do it right, baby. Make a mess of me.”
Jesus. If I’d known before that sex would be this hot and feel this good, I wouldn’t have waited for so long.
Attempting to relax my throat, I inhale through my nose and watch him disappear between my lips again. I swivel my eyes up to find him staring down at me, holding his shirt beneath his chin as he saws in and out slowly. First the tip, then more, until all I can taste and feel is him.
Another gag, and this time, he pulls out, sliding down my body. A pearly bead of his arousal leaks from his wet tip, and he spits on my chest. I flinch, and his gaze turns absolutely feral.
Distantly, a buzzing sound encroaches on the lust-induced haze floating around me. I don’t notice at first when Grayson fishes his phone from his pants pocket, discarded on the floor. He holds a hand against the partition separating us from the front of the vehicle, steadying as we brake and then take off again.
Annoyance flashes across his face for the briefest moment, but he tamps it down as he positions himself on top of me. Straddling my ribs, he strokes his cock and keeps his gaze on mine. A god in the flesh, hell-bent on ravishing the human he designed.
I’m panting, my thighs damp and my pulse frenzied.
He directs my hands, making me press my breasts even tighter together. When he starts to glide his dick between them, he answers the call and puts it on speaker.
My eyes bulge out of my head, and his answering smirk makes me dizzy.
“What?” he barks into the phone, hips moving in a tantalizingly slow rhythm.
“Cut the goddamn attitude.” A man’s harsh voice comes over the line, irritation dripping from every word. “What the hell’s this I hear about you wanting to go back to the university next spring?”
I squirm, arousal spinning a tight tapestry in my stomach. Grayson continues fucking my tits, the solid feel of him between them unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s debasing and thrilling, having him looming over me, succumbing to such a primal need like this.
I crave his cum, opening my mouth as if I might be able to catch it.
His nostrils flare as he watches me. “Well, Dad,” he says, and for some reason, that makes the situation worse and better, all at once, “you told me to reenter civil society. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Next year isn’t fucking good enough, boy, and certainly not if you’re staying in Massachusetts. You need to be in New York tomorrow. There are film deals waiting on you, production companies that want you writing scores for them. Your little teaching job can wait.”
“I don’t think it can.”
“And I don’t give a rat’s tiny little ass what you think. Stop fucking around and get your shit together, or I’ll out you to the press about what really goes on at your parties, and you won’t be able to have a career anywhere. You’ll rot in the state pen, and the only music you’ll hear is whatever your cellmate hums in your ear when he fucks you.”
Grayson works his jaw, only seeming to be half-listening to his father. His gaze is intense, pouring liquid heat down the length of my body.
When he slaps my tit, I’m not expecting it at all. I cry out with the impact, that heat morphing into delicious ecstasy. It oozes over me like warm honey, coating me in its toxicity at the same time my nerve endings soar.
“What the fuck was that?” his father demands. “Are you fucking someone right now?”
“Not my cellmate,” Grayson replies, placing the phone on my chest, above my breasts. He picks up his speed, the sloppy sounds of our skin rubbing together now loud in the vehicle, and then reaches around to slide his hand between my thighs.
“Oh,” I moan, biting my lip when he pushes two fingers in, no preamble. I want to care that he’s making me an exhibitionist in front of his father, but it all feels too good, and I can’t move, so I just spread my legs as wide as I can get and watch him unravel.
“You remember Violet, don’t you, Dad?” He covers both of my hands with his free one, bucking faster and faster against me. “Nate’s old girl? The one you told me to stay away from? Well, I’ve got her in a very compromising position in my car right now, and I’m about to—”
He cuts off, making a choking sound as his head tips back. My eyes widen, and I stick out my tongue when the first rope of hot, sticky semen spurts against my chest, my chin. His low, gravelly groan fills the car, drowning out the string of curses from his father.
But even as I come, my pussy clamping down hard around Grayson’s fingers and biting my tongue to keep quiet, I notice his father hasn’t hung up. And through the euphoria, that causes a sick feeling to knot in my stomach, replacing the excitement from everything else.
Grayson’s labored breathing takes the place of our collective groaning, and he sighs, staring at the phone. I glance down and see the screen is covered in him; he lifts it and holds it up to my face.
Keeping my eyes on him, I strain my neck and lick it clean.
“Sorry,” Grayson says after a prolonged silence, frowning at the phone. Like he, too, expected it to be disconnected. “Didn’t want to give you too much of a visual to use later. I know how you like perving on your sons’ women.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.” A cold, chilling laugh echoes through the line. “If I don’t kill you for failing in your obligations as my son, Nate surely will for this. I hope the cheap lay was worth it.”
“She wasn’t cheap.”
With that, he ends the call and tosses his phone to the floor. Then, he slides off of me, pulling his pants up and tucking himself back inside.
I stare down my body at him, still half-naked and covered in various fluids. He grins, as if what just happened was a totally normal situation and not completely humiliating.
Hot, sure. But now, the exhilaration is subsiding, giving way to embarrassment. Not only does his father know about us in the most carnal sense, but he’s also heard it firsthand.
“What happens at your parties?”
He hesitates. “Nothing good.”
Okay then. Provided it’s not him having wild sex with anyone and overlapping what we’re doing, I guess that’s as good of an answer as I can expect. And maybe I should question it more, but his father’s threats seemed to come more from a place of taunt and hatred than real concern.
After everything else I’ve seen and heard and done, I don’t really care. He can’t be worse than Nate was to me at this point.
Sitting up, I rub the sore spot on the back of my head. “I don’t think I can visit Cora like this.”
“I’ve got a shirt you can wear in the back.” Leaning forward, he snags a plastic pack of tissues from the seat pocket, opens them, and runs one over my chest. When he’s finished, he sits back on the seat and folds the used tissues up, tucking them into a different part of the seat.
I dig around on the floor for my lacy yellow tank top, pulling it over my head. He watches my every movement, soaking it all in with an unreadable expression.
Pushing the hair from my face, I pull it into a side braid and give him a look. “Stop staring.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
My arms fall to my sides. “Why not?”
“Because I think I’m in love with you.”
My jaw drops, shock filtering into my system, and I try to move my tongue to reply. But everything is suddenly bone-dry, like the Sahara Desert moved into my mouth and refuses to let me speak.
The car rolls to a stop, jolting me from my idiotic stupor. When the back door opens up a moment later, we’re still just staring at each other, lost for words.
Without another one, he climbs over the seat past me, slithering out of the vehicle and into the sunlight, like a serpent coming out from under a rock. I slump back when he’s exited, dropping my face into my hands with a sigh.
Inhaling, I roll my shoulders and follow the direction he just went, staggering out with a hand over my eyes. I glance around the immediate vicinity, looking for Cora’s royal-blue hair among the outside patio diners.
When I spot her, she’s standing by the iron railing bordering the restaurant’s eating area, and there’s a look of pure, unadulterated horror on her face. Alistair’s directly behind her, stoic as ever, and then to his right is Kal.
Swallowing, I walk over to them, my gut twisting in on itself. Grayson’s on my heels, appearing as if out of thin air. I stop right in front of them, offering a tentative smile to try and shake off some of the unease I’m feeling.
But Cora speaks before I have the chance.
“Vi, it’s your dad. He’s been arrested.”
