Sophie
weeks, I fall into my routine. While the other students are stressed out about catching up and applying to the best universities, I’m prepared. All my hard work over the years, all the colour-coded notes and timetables I meticulously mapped out at my desk while I ignored the elusive British summer, are finally paying off. I’m organised and ready to take on the work the teachers are already piling on us. I don’t dread the challenge—I embrace it. Besides, keeping myself busy also has another advantage: it stops me from thinking about Evan.
Because if I do start thinking about him, the wave of anxiety will inevitably flood in.
The thing is that I could have dealt with Evan if he was like any other boy at Spearcrest: disgustingly wealthy, vapid and arrogant. But Evan is more than just another Young King, more than just another rich arsehole who would never matter to my life.
Evan was my first friend at Spearcrest, there for me when things were the most difficult. He was my closest friend in Year 9, someone I grew to trust and love.
How things ended up the way they are now, I still don’t know.
I’ll never understand how things could go so wrong between two people that got on so well.
In any case, I have far more important things I need to think about. This year, I’m lucky enough to not share any classes with any of the Young Kings. If I play my cards right, I can stay out of their way for the majority of the year.
My luck runs out on a Friday night.
I’m sitting in a corner of the study hall, annotating my copy of Othello when the doors slam open. The study room is suddenly flooded with the sound of voices and laughter. I stay low and peek around my table lamp.
The Young Kings, their female counterparts, their friends and sycophants are all pouring into the study hall, holding bottles of Dom Perignon and boxes of pizza.
Their parties are notorious throughout campus, but their smaller gatherings are what people really care about. They are intimate little affairs held in some unlikely part of the school where they won’t be caught. Rumour has it all sorts of debauchery go down at these events. Everyone in the school secretly longs to be invited, to be chosen to spend time with the elite amongst the elite.
Even I used to be curious about those scandalous get-togethers.
But certainly not curious enough to stay now. Unlike the Spearcrest elite, if I get caught, there will be consequences. Both from the school and my furious parents.
And I’m not about to get in trouble in my final year at Spearcrest. Not when I’m applying to the kind of university I don’t have the wealth or influence I need to get into.
I cringe behind the little ledge of my desk, hoping to go unnoticed. With quick, quiet movements, I close my books and shove them into my backpack. I can hear them talking and laughing as they settle themselves around the room, filling the air with the pounding of music and the clinking of bottles and glasses.
Hopefully, their heads are too far up each other’s arses for them to notice me. I finish packing my stuff and shoulder my backpack.
Then a lazy voice crawls like ice up my spine.
“Leaving so soon, Sutton?”
I look up.
Evan Knight out of his uniform is a perfect cliche of the all-American boy. In his plain white t-shirt and jeans, he looks like a Calvin Klein model. Tall and athletic, he has broad shoulders and big, sun-kissed arms.
He always returns from summers in the US like he’s been dipped in sunlight: his sandy curls bleached almost silver in places, his skin polished gold. His clear blue eyes, set in that handsome tan face, are bright as gemstones.
As beautiful as he is, it means nothing to me.
Because behind his lazy drawl, his easy laughter, his golden skin and cerulean eyes, I know how ugly Evan Knight really is.
“I wasn’t invited,” I say, dropping my eyes to avoid his amused gaze.
“No, something tells me you don’t get invited to many parties,” he says lightly. “That’s what happens when you’re a total buzzkill. But it looks like the party’s found you. Don’t you wanna see what the fuss is all about?”
I glance over his shoulder. The other ‘kings’ are busy pouring glasses of champagne for beautiful girls. I spot Seraphina Rosenthal—the Rose of Spearcrest—and suppress a shudder. She hates my guts and will never miss an opportunity to make me feel like shit if she can.
So far, none of them seem to have noticed me, which is probably the only reason Evan is alone.
Normally, he’s always surrounded by his little gang, their sneers and snickers. I can’t remember the last time we spoke alone. I don’t want to remember the last time we spoke alone.
“I’m alright,” I say as politely as I can manage given how much my skin is crawling with alternating ice and fire right now. “I’m pretty sure the last thing this party needs is a prefect in attendance.”
“What are you going to do, Sutton?” His voice depends as he lowers it, the curl of his lip is mocking. “Tattle on us? Write our names down on your little clipboard?”
“No clipboard.”
I tuck my chair in and try to make a beeline for the door, but Evan is fast. He’s hopped off the desk in the time it takes me to go around it. Now he’s standing right in my way, close enough to touch.
Close enough that I can smell his expensive cologne—cedarwood and frost—and feel the heat exuding from his skin.
“No clipboard,” I repeat, showing him my palms. “No pen. Nobody’s going to find out about your little illicit shindig, so you can relax. I’m just heading back to my dorm.”
But he stays in my way, looking down at me.
In Year 9, we used to be identical heights, chin to chin. Now, he’s annoyingly taller than me. Meeting his gaze from this close requires tilting my head back. Something I have no intention of doing.
So I keep my eyes firmly fixed on his trainers, which are much too scruffy for the amount of money he’s doubtlessly spent on them.
Then he raises his hand, placing a finger under my chin. He tilts my face up towards his, forcing me to look up.
“Stay,” he says, his voice more like a caress than a sound.
A dangerous caress.
His blue gaze pierces me, unflinchingly direct and yet indecipherable. Tiny waves of shivers skitter across my arms and back. His finger drops from my chin, scrapes down the length of my neck.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you ordering me, or asking me?”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, they immediately sound like a challenge. The corner of Evan’s mouth rises in a slight, crooked grin, full of charm and danger.
“Whichever you prefer, Sutton. Or maybe you’d rather I beg?”
There is a dark suggestion in his tone, but before I can think of something non-committal and safe to reply with, a girl calls out, “Evan, are you coming? You’ve got the cards!”
His eyes stay fixed on mine as he turns his head slightly to respond, “I’m coming!”
Then, lowering his voice again, he says, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We’re going to play Strip Kings. You might get to see me naked.”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” I say quickly, pushing past him and hoping my cheeks don’t look as red as they feel.
“You’re going to regret it,” he calls after me. “Might be the only action you get this year.”
“Then I’d rather get no action.”
Then I practically run out of the study hall, my heart beating so hard I can taste my pulse in my mouth.
Evan
what?” Giselle calls.
I take the pack of cards from my pocket and saunter over to the others. Luca is reclining on a desk, his arm wrapped lazily around Giselle, who sits on the bench next to him.
He raises a pale eyebrow at me in question, but I toss him the cards instead of giving him an answer. Then I take two glasses of champagne and down them, trying to swallow back the sudden anger welling up in my chest.
I dated Giselle last year, so of course, Luca has to make a point of flashing her on his arm like he flashes his watches. I don’t hate him for it—the privilege of being one of the Young Kings of Spearcrest comes at the cost of never having anything truly for yourself. That’s fine.
But he doesn’t need to know my every thought and emotion.
Especially not when it comes to Sophie.
A perfumed arm wraps around my waist, and a pretty voice reaches my ear. “Why so gloomy, Evan?”
Seraphina “Rose” Rosenthal appears at my side. If I had to pick someone to be the polar opposite of Sophie, it would really be her. Where Sophie is tall, Rose is petite, where Sophie is dark-haired and olive-skinned, Rose is fair, with long blond hair that makes her look like a Disney princess.
Where Sophie is serious and austere, Rose is as light-hearted and frivolous as a cupcake.
Of course, I’m not an idiot. I know Rose wants me—she’s wanted us to be a couple for a long time. She knows what I deep-down also know: that we would make the picture-perfect Spearcrest couple. We are both good-looking, both American, both fun-loving and rich as the day is long.
But Rose, for all her beauty and outrageous outfits and airy laughter, doesn’t excite me like Sophie does.
She doesn’t captivate me, she doesn’t draw me in. She doesn’t fill me with adrenaline, with the urge to dominate and defeat.
If I had to choose, I would pick fighting Sophie over fucking Rose.
Every time.
“I’m not gloomy,” I say, plastering a grin on my face and handing her one of my glasses of champagne. “Why would I be gloomy?”
“I saw you talking to Sophie Sutton.” Her tone is light, but Sophie’s name in her mouth makes my skin crawl. “She’s always so fucking stuck-up and miserable. Just looking at her face sends me into a depressive episode.”
Her arm is still around my waist and for a second I have the urge to throw her away from me. But Luca’s eyes are on me, and at his side, Giselle is watching me closely. Giselle, who spent much of our time together asking me why I’m so obsessed with Sophie. Even Iakov and Sev, who are in a corner talking, have looked up.
They all look at me, waiting for my reaction.
I shrug and squeeze Rose’s waist, drawing her closer even though I would have rather pushed her away.
“No matter what she thinks,” I say lightly, “a prefect badge isn’t going to make her one of us. She’s just desperate for us to forget she’s just a Spearcrest charity case. She’s not worth the depressive episode—come on—let’s dance.”
She smiles in quiet triumph. I swallow back a lump of fury. Luca’s cocky smirk, Iakov and Sev’s shrugs, Giselle’s little satisfied smile—I do my best to ignore them all.
In reality, they love this. They love that I can’t approach Sophie any more than she can approach us.
The Young Kings can have anybody or anything they like in Spearcrest—but no matter what, Sophie is out of bounds.
And even though I spend the rest of the night dancing with girls and laughing with my friends because that’s my role, in the privacy of my mind, I can do what I want. I can think about nothing but Sophie, for as much and as long as I like—however I like.
I picture her, with her long dark hair and her serious mouth and her brown eyes. She’s probably gone back to her dorm.
What is her dorm room like? What pictures and posters does she have on her wall? Probably revision timetables and terminology lists. She probably has a tidy desk and impeccably organised stationery. Paperbacks lining her windowsill.
She’s probably going to take a shower, brush her hair until it’s so straight and smooth it falls like silk around her head. What does she look like, stripped of the armour of her school uniform? Stripped off her badges and glasses? What does Sophie Sutton look like, naked with her wet hair gleaming on her shoulders?
What does she wear to bed? She’s so serious all the time, I bet she wears matching pyjama sets, trousers and long-sleeved tops with contrast piping along the collar and sleeves.
Or maybe she wears nothing at all when she gets in bed.
And when I picture her getting in bed, it’s my bed I imagine her crawling into. I don’t know why, and I can’t explain it. But I picture Sophie, with her long hair falling forward, climbing into my bed, her long limbs sliding against my sheets.
If Sophie Sutton were in my bed, there would be no cuddling, no tenderness.
I’d have her by her throat, on my cock, taking me. Her arrogant face twisted in pleasure and pain. Her hands clutching my chest, fingernails digging into my muscles.
Sophie’s a prideful, stubborn little thing. How hard would I need to fuck her to get her to beg, to break, to scream?
The thought of it brings a smile to my mouth. Breaking Sophie Sutton is a game I never get tired of playing. Imagining all the ways in which I could break her brings me so much satisfaction, it’s almost better than sex.
But breaking Sophie hasn’t been easy—and this is my last year to do it.
Guess I’m going to have to get real creative with it.
