Thrive (9 page)

I look between Rose and Connor. Even though they’re so
smart, they spend so much time in our realm of being.

They’re my favorite Ravenclaws that ever were.

“Connor doesn’t believe in magic,” Lo reminds me.

“I think Rose could convince him.”

“Maybe.” Lo raises his voice so they can hear him. “Shouldn’t
you both be at a hotel right now?” He doesn’t add
having sex
but the idea is silently stated. At least…to me it is.

Rose whips her head to us, just registering our presence.
“The party was horrible.”

“The party was boring. There’s a difference,” Connor says
easily. He takes note of his surroundings, scanning us on the chair and then
Ryke and Daisy on the couch.

Rose spots our little sister just as quickly and walks
around the couch to approach, Connor by her side. “What are you two doing
here?”

“Both of our parties fucking sucked,” Ryke answers. And I
realize how quickly he was able to move a spotlight off of Daisy. Exactly what
she would want.

Lo holds up his hands. “I’m confused. Was the party
in
your hotel room?” Lo asks like he’s
the only one thinking logically. “Otherwise, you could have left the party
without coming
here.
” He gives Connor
a look like
what the fuck happened?

“We’re no longer welcome at that particular hotel…for
eternity. Those were the manager’s exact words.” Connor loosens his bowtie. “I
don’t blame him for thinking we’re immortal. In some preclassic civilizations,
I’d be considered a god.”

Rose’s yellow-green eyes drill holes into him.
“Congratulations, you are officially the cockiest human being on planet Earth.”
That’d be Iron Man.
But I hold my
tongue.

“That’s Iron Man,” Lo says. I literally rise like I’m
floating. I kiss him on the lips, so suddenly that I think he’s caught off
guard too.

Rose holds her hand at him like
stay out of it.

Lo doesn’t care. His eyes fix on me with questioning and
longing. Like he wants to kiss me again. But I stop. I show him I can.

I don’t want sex.

Just a kiss.

Like back in Cancun. When I was on the road to truly
recovering. I’m going to be there again. I can feel it.

Today is a very good day.

His lips rise, saying everything that needs to be said.

He’s proud of me.

I glance back to my older sister. Connor still grins at her
and speaks French.
Damn.
I flip open
my cell and try to log into a translator, but he talks too quickly for me to type
the words. This is when I wish I had my nicer, newer phone with app
capabilities that translates by sound, no manual typing involved.

I consider snatching Lo’s phone, but one of my hands is
still in the popcorn bag.

Thankfully, Rose uses English. “The manger was
exaggerating.”

“Clearly,” Connor says, “but it doesn’t change the fact that
we were kicked out tonight.”

The gears in my brain start spinning. My eyes widen in
realization, and I cough on a popcorn kernel. Lo pats my back. He hands me what
used to be Ryke’s water. It’s grossly become communal. Survival instinct
triggers and I drink it anyway.

Rose.
She found a
way to dodge Connor’s suite without cheating on him or putting him in an
uncomfortable position. She got the hotel to
kick them out
.

She’s ballsy and slightly nuts. Wouldn’t it have been easier
to tell him that she didn’t want to have sex?

“I broke
one
bottle
of champagne in the lobby,” Rose states. “The punishment was hardly warranted.”

“You called the manager an oversized twat,” Connor says with
an arched brow. “And what you did was
hardly
an accident.”

“So?” she retorts defensively.

“If you wanted to go home, darling, all you had to do was
say so.”

Ha!
I suggested as
much to her, didn’t I? I hope I did. I can’t remember that phone conversation
that much. Lo’s hands and lips were traveling to dangerous places during it.

“Then you would’ve won,” she says.

He gives her a look. “I already did.”

“But—”

“Sex isn’t a prize to me. I don’t know how many times I have
to tell you for you to believe it.”

They start speaking in French again, and Lo scoots me closer
to his chest, resting his arm around my collar. I pick up the remote and unmute
the television, which hangs above the fireplace mantel.

“Thirty seconds,” the host counts down.

I think back to last New Year’s where Lo was in rehab, where
I spent most of the night with Daisy, where we sat in Ryke’s car—stuck in
traffic—as the clock struck midnight.

“Twenty seconds.”

Now I’m in Loren Hale’s arms.

He’s sober.

I’m in recovery.

I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be at this place. I glance at
Daisy who balances her spoon on her nose with a bright smile—the first genuine
looking one I’ve seen from her tonight. Ryke stares at her for a long moment
before messing her hair with his hand. The spoon falls to her lap.

Connor and Rose stand only inches apart by the coffee table,
his hands on her hips. Her chest rises and falls faster than his, but his gaze
is glued to Rose, entrapped, like she’s beyond gorgeous—like he could take her
right there without hesitation.

I turn back to Lo and rest my knees on either side of his
waist, straddling him.

“Ten seconds,” the host declares.

“I missed you last year,” Lo murmurs, his hand on my cheek,
his thumb stroking my skin.

I kiss his sharp jaw, and before I pull away, he kisses the
outside of my lips, nerves singing at the touch.
Yes.

“Remember how when we were little?” I whisper. “You’d chase
me around before midnight.”

“Eight!” the television blares. “Seven!”

Lo’s fingers comb into my hair as he holds my face. “You
always ran out of breath.”

I smile. “I wanted you to catch me.”

His amber eyes dance along my features, like he’s engraining
every detail. “I thought so.”

“Five!”

“Catch me,” I whisper.

“Four!”

“I already have,” he murmurs.

Our bodies press together, as though they’ve never drifted
apart, not for three months or years or any moment’s time.

His lips touch mine, his hand gripping my hair. I pull even
closer to his body, the kiss magnetizing me to him.

“One!”

In this moment, everything else is just background to our
story.

It takes a few minutes to actually hear the cheers from the
television, the people in Times Square celebrating with confetti and more
kisses.

Connor and Rose are full-on making out. Like passionate,
powerful kisses that would occur after pent-up emotions from a fight. He’s in
control, one hand on her ass, their lips never disconnecting as he walks her
backwards. Her shoulders hit the wall.

“Whoa,” I say. Before Lo covers my eyes, I shift my gaze. I
don’t want to be aroused by
that.
How
embarrassing—on my part.

“Do you guys realize what this means?” Daisy asks, drawing
my attention to the couch.

At first I think she’s talking about Connor and Rose. To me,
it means that their nerd love is in full orbit. Where it should be.

But her eyes aren’t on them. She’s staring at the TV screen,
and Ryke has his hand on the couch behind her head. They don’t look like they
shared a New Year’s kiss, but I wonder if they thought about it. Even for a
second.

“What?” I ask.

She stares off in thought, neither excited nor scared. “In a
few days, we’re going to be filmed.” She pauses. “For a reality show.”

Oh.

Shit.

PART TWO

“That's how I survived. Time and time again. That's my
secret. I survived because I willed it to be ... How did I survive apocalyptic
fire? I simply refused to feel the flames.”

– Emma Frost, Dark Reign: The Cabal Vol 1 #1

{ 12 }

0 years : 05 months

January

LOREN HALE

“So you have to film everything we do?” I ask the
short, pudgy camera guy. Brett can’t be any older than twenty-five. When Lily
explained the reality show, my first thought was
fuck no
. Why would we voluntarily participate in that kind of
torture? And then she started stammering about how this might relieve the guilt
and how people might see us as a real couple.
 

She only sold me when she said, “I’m doing this, Lo. With or
without you. So if it’s without you, then we’re not going to be seeing each
other all that much for six months.”

Six months without her.

It’s never happened before.

I try to wrack my brain for a memory that doesn’t consist of
Lily for that period of time, and I can’t come up with a single one. The only
future I want is the one that ends with her.

If it means participating in a reality show, I can do it. Easy.
All the drama will be supplied by us.

I stand outside of our bedroom door. In the Princeton house.
Staring down a Canon Rebel and the stubby cameraman behind it. Lily clings to
the door frame, shielded by my body.

Exactly where I want her in this moment.

Brett remains quiet, but my glare must motivate him because
he finally says, “I can’t talk to you. You know…” He clears his throat. “The
fourth wall.”

I raise my brows. Interesting. “So you’re just going to
stand there
silently
—no matter what?”

He nods.

Maybe I overestimated how terrible this was going to be. No
probing questions? No heckling from the cameramen? We can do whatever we want.

Huh.

I glance back at Lil, who wears a black romper and gold
necklace. An outfit chosen by Rose. Apparently the girls have to wear clothes
from the Calloway Couture line—for promotion.

Thankfully she doesn’t
look
like Rose.

She still has that delicate round face, the gangly arms and
legs. She’s adorable. In every sense of the word. And she’s all mine to take
care of.

I take a step closer to Lily and rest my hand above her
head. When I stare down at her, she parts her lips in questioning like
are you flirting with me?

I force back a smile.
Yes,
I’m flirting with you, Lil.
I shove any concerns towards the back of my
head. She can handle this without having sex. She has to. Because we can’t fuck
every time I touch her
this
way.

With one hand over her head, my other falls to the hem of
her romper. I slip my finger in the belt loop on her hip and pause.

Her breath hitches, her gaze flitting from my lips back to
my eyes. And then her neck flushes. She glances at the goddamn camera.

Thing is—we have more free reign where PDA is concerned now
that the cameras follow us. Instead of Rose thinking we’re having more sex, we
just blame it on hamming it up for the viewers at home. Rose rarely scolds me
now.

As long as Lily can handle it, we should be fine.

I clutch her waist, still hooked to her belt loop. My
fingers dip below her hipbone, the romper’s fabric a lot softer than the jeans
she normally wears.

Her back arches against the door frame, and her arms fly
around my neck. I lean in to kiss her, and she tries to meet me halfway. I pull
back a little and she catches air.

Her mouth falls, breathless. “No fair.”

“Didn’t you hear?” My lips curve upward. “I’m the biggest
tease in Princeton.” I pause, smiling wider. “And Philadelphia.”

She lightly punches my arm.

My brows rise. “Is that a love tap?”

She hits me harder.

I rub my arm and mock wince. “Are you working out, Lil?”

She raises her arm and flexes her “muscle” which is a very
tiny bulge. “Ryke gave me a five-pound weight for my birthday, remember? He
said I needed to bulk up.”

I remember
. “That
was a shitty birthday present.”

“Yours was better,” she declares with a warm smile. It was a
belated present, on purpose. During Comic-Con, I managed to get some of the
artists to sign Lily’s favorite
X-Men
issues.
It helped that we split up when she went to the director’s panel. I returned to
the convention floor just for their signatures.

The nearby camera fills the short silence, groaning as it
zooms in on us. Lily freezes again.

Brett asks, “What did you get for Lily?”

I glare.
So much for
not asking questions.
“You told us that we can’t talk to you, but you can
talk to us?” How the hell does this work?

“Yeah,” he says evasively.

I grimace and scowl at the same time.

Brett takes one step back. “You don’t have to answer,” he
mutters under his breath.

He’s probably scared that I’m going to slap the camera out
of his hands. Something Ryke has done to paparazzi before and been severely
fined for it.

I stare right at Brett and ask, “You want to know how I
satiate a sex addict?” When I shift my gaze to Lily, she already holds her
breath. I tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to mine.

And then I kiss her. Deeply. Passionately. Like we were born
to share oxygen. I part her lips with my tongue, tasting her, and then focus on
her bottom lip. I suck gently, and her leg instinctively rises up to my hip,
silently craving for me to fit between her thighs. I almost harden, especially
as she clings tighter to me, blanketed with strong, feverish need.

She wears her insatiability with every breached moan and
grind against me. I feed into it with every coarse, rough movement that slams
against her thin body. It’s a hunger that only compulsives and addicts know
well. It’s why people look away when we kiss. The raw desire grips my cock, my
lungs, my mind. My lips drift to her neck, and my hand perilously rides the
edge between her waist and her abdomen.

When we kiss full-force again, my head just explodes and I
lose sense of my surroundings. I don’t care about anyone else but Lily. I raise
her hand above her head, laced with mine like I’ve done so many times before.

She moans into a kiss, but we don’t stop.

I’m going to love Lily how I want to love her.

Overwhelmingly, uncompromisingly.

Look away if you have
to.

My one hand on her hip falls between her legs, and I squeeze.
She tries to stifle the cry, but it escapes her lips. I grin into our next kiss
while she moves her hands up to my chest and shoves me back.

Her eyes flit to the camera.

That may have been the first time she’s rejected me—since
we’ve been an official couple that is.

Jesus, maybe this reality show will actually do some good.

My lips sting. She breathes heavily.

I follow her gaze, and my grin stretches.

Brett’s cheeks are flushed red, and he makes a concerted
effort to avoid our eyes.

Lily said she missed the teasing. I didn’t realize how much
I did too, until now.

A thin sheen of sweat is gathered on my forehead. “You hot
and bothered, Brett?” I ask him.

He makes an uncomfortable noise that sounds like a grunt.
“You can’t…”

“Talk to you? Right.” I flash a half-smile.

Six months of a reality show—we can do this. Easy.

Lily’s cell chimes. She takes her flip phone out of her
pocket, and her mood clouds. “Rose is asking about cake tasting.”

I try to suppress a cringe, but I’m sure it passes through
my features. I’m not Connor Cobalt. I can’t hide what I’m feeling. “What do you
want at the wedding?”
Our
wedding.
Now I really grimace.
Shit.
I train
myself not to glance back at the cameras.

We’re being married for appearance’s sake, even though it’ll
be real. I love every single part of Lily, but I hate that this day is being
dictated by her mom and my dad.

I’d rather just elope.

But that’s not part of the “image rehabilitation” plan.

“I don’t really care,” she says in a small voice.

I shrug. “Me either. Just tell her to choose.”

Lily nods, her shoulders drooped.

When she finishes texting back, I pull her close and wrap
her in my arms. I don’t say anything. I just hold her.

Six months until our wedding—yeah, shit just got real.