Home > Riot Act (Crooked Sinners #3)

Riot Act (Crooked Sinners #3)
Author: Callie Hart


Prologue

 

 

ONE MONTH AGO

 

 

* * *

 

PRES

 

 

* * *

 

Dreams are peculiar things.

Sometimes, it’s hard to differentiate between what’s real and what takes place when you fall asleep at night. Take right now, for example. How many times have I dreamed of hooking up with Pax Davis? How many times have I dreamed of his mouth on mine? His tongue probing and exploring, tasting every inch of me? His hands fisting my hair and groping my breasts through my dress? How many times have I pictured what it would feel like to have his erection butting up against the inside of my thigh, as he grinds his hips against mine?

“Goddamnit, Chase. You’re fucking killing me.”

An embarrassingly high number of times, that’s how many. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. Over the past three and a half years, ever since I came to Wolf Hall Academy as a timid, friendless freshman, I’ve imagined this scene in infinite detail in my head. Every facet of this moment has been created and recreated, played out and then replayed, curated to suit my mood.

Sometimes, Pax is sweet. Broken and contrite. An inked god with a shaved head, begging for my forgiveness on his knees, sorry for all of the trauma and discomfort he and his friends have caused me.

Other times, he’s perfectly himself: angry, arrogant, withdrawn and smug. He brings no apology to me like this. He storms into my bedroom, eyes flaring with annoyance, an aura of anger buzzing around him, contaminating the room, causing my nerves to cinch into a tight ball. He goes to work. No pleasantries. No small talk. Just seven words that turn my bones to liquid beneath my skin:

On your knees, Chase. Right fucking now.

This experience right here—one I’m beginning to suspect might actually be real—is unlike anything I’ve ever conjured in my head. For starters, I’m drunk as hell. Instead of my warm, private, safe bedroom, we’re in the middle of the forest, cloaked in darkness, while the party he and his roommates are throwing rages into the night.

The anarchist of Riot House leans into me, pinning me against the tree he slammed me up against ten minutes ago, sinking his teeth into my neck like the savage that he is.

“Fuck. You smell amazing,” he groans.

My brain is so addled from the cosmopolitans Damiana plied me with earlier that I can’t think straight. Not that I can ever think straight around Pax. I try to unpick the complex scent coming off of him, so heady and addicting, but I can’t even remember the names of the smells that present themselves to me. A picture of a fire flits through my head, black smoke rolling off it up into a starry, cold night overhead. Mown grass, and a carpet of mint swaying on a gentle breeze. Fresh cut limes, and wood shavings settling onto a workshop floor.

He makes short work of the little black dress I wore to the party. It hits the forest floor, and my bra follows after it. I’m so stunned, paralyzed in my shock, that I don’t do or say anything as he strips me out of my panties, too, leaving me naked under the moonlight.

For a brief second, Pax leans back and takes in my body. “Fuck. You are just…” He shakes his head, his eyes feasting on my bare breasts, and my stomach, roving over my hips, and down my legs. He doesn’t quit his inspection of me until his eyes, irises the color of pooled, molten steel, settle on my hair, though.

“Incredible,” he breathes, looping a long, wavy length of it around his fingers. “So beautiful. So…red.”

I’ve never hated my hair color, per se, but I have wanted to dye it on numerous occasions. Having red hair guarantees persistent low-grade bullying from a wide variety of people, no matter your age. In this very moment, I’m in love with my warm, rich auburn waves, though. Pax looks awed by the color and the length of it, struck a little dumb, and his raw appreciation of what so many other men might consider a flaw makes my heart beat even faster.

Lord, I fucking want him.

I want him so bad I can taste it. I think he wants me, too. Unsteady on his feet, Pax leans into me again, inhaling the scent of my hair. “Jesus Christ, Chase.” His face turns into the crook of my neck. His mouth is hot on my overheated skin, and feels… it feels…

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe, for pity’s sake!

Fuck, I think I’m going to pass out.

“You’re killing me,” he groans. Pax Davis—one of only three privileged students who reside at Riot House—kisses me like his life depends on it.

Without exception, all of the Riot House boys enjoy a certain notoriety and reputation that precedes them wherever they go. There isn’t a person alive in the small town of Mountain Lakes, New Hampshire, who doesn’t know the names Wren Jacobi, Pax Davis, and Lord Dashiell Lovett IV.

So wealthy. So Entitled. Arrogant and cruel.

Pax’s name has been branded into my soul for the past three years. I’ve been obsessed with him since the moment I laid eyes on him, and now his naked body is pressed up against mine, and none of this seems real.

I’m so wasted, the world pitches crazily like a seesaw. Pax braces against the tree, keeping his weight from crushing me, and I cling to him, wanting him, needing him more than I’ve ever needed anything in my entire fucking life. At the same time I can’t calm the panic.

This isn’t happening.

This can’t be happening.

This is Pax.

How are his hands cupping and kneading my naked breasts?

It can’t be his tongue burning a hot trail up the curve of my neck.

It can’t be his extremely hard cock, sliding over the slickness between my thighs, rubbing dizzyingly against my clit, applying a perfect amount of pressure, that feels so, so good…

I moan when he rocks against me, letting my head fall back against the rough trunk of the tree.

It is him. Any second now, he’ll be inside me, and I’ll be getting fucked by the only guy I’ve ever loved. He lets out a tight, pained growl, rolling his hips against me again, again, again, the head of his erection coming dangerously close to the entrance of my pussy, and I let out a whimper—part fear, part anticipation.

He pulls back, though. Pulls back and rocks forward again and again, repeating the motion, rubbing himself against me, his teeth gouging into the skin of my collar bone, and I can’t breathe. I gasp and pant, only managing to pull down sips of the night air. How do people do this? How do they process all of these emotions? The sensations? The—

Pax slides a hand between our bodies and finds my clit, rolling the slippery, swollen bundle of nerves in a small, perfect circle. “Damn it. You’re so wet,” he groans. “You’re gonna feel fucking phenomenal on my dick.”

No.

No.

No, no, no.

Oh my god.

Nope.

I cannot fucking do this.

And just like that…

I’ve always been tall for a girl. I’ve never been particularly strong, though. How I shove all one hundred and ninety-five pounds of Pax’s six-foot-three, muscle-packed frame off of me, I’ll never know.

Pax grunts, staggering back, and I discover just how drunk I am when I can’t even focus on his features. I can make out the shaved head, and the elaborate, twisting ink that marks his skin. His pale grey eyes flash silver in the faint light given off by the moon. Everything else about him is hazy, though. Just a blur of beautiful, tanned muscle.

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