In the Arms of the Elite (Rich Boys of Burberry Prep #4) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,73
damage all along behind the scenes, but … he seems pretty pissed at Tristan right now.
I move away from the post and walk in a half-circle around him, the short lace dress I donned for the event whispering against my thighs. A breeze whistles down the corridor, and I reach up to keep the straw hat on my head from blowing off.
“Windsor,” I start, but he's already yanking his polo shirt aside and turning to face me, shirtless and sweaty and beautiful. He watches me with those gorgeous hazel eyes of his, a veritable mosaic of gray, green, gold, and brown flecks. It pairs perfectly with his red hair and the high, sharp lines of his cheekbones. “What are you doing?”
“I don't know,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them back up. “When it comes to you, Marnye Elizabeth Reed, I haven't the slightest idea. I thought you'd be a fast burn, fun way to pass the time …” He steps forward, that daffodil and leather polish smell of his tickling my nostrils. It's mixed with that fresh sweat scent that brings to mind all sorts of naughty things we could be doing in the dark. “Instead, you've become a slow burn obsession.”
“An obsession, huh?” I whisper, finding it very hard to breathe in the dusky warmth of the barn. Windsor steps up close to me and uses one of his gloves to push the hair off of my forehead. “Are you sure it isn't just because you don't want to lose?” I look up into his face, searching for the truth there. Windsor's a mix of emotions right now, the anger still riding high in his face.
“At first, I think you're right,” he says, his English accent softening a bit at the edges. “You're bloody right. I didn't want to lose, not to the other boys, and not to the Infinity Club bastards. But … it's not like that anymore.”
“Why not?” I'm studying him at the same time as he's studying me, drawing his fingers down the side of my face.
“I've applied to Bornstead, you know. I'm as hopeless as the rest of those arseholes.” Windsor reaches up and pulls the hat from my head, tossing it aside. “My mother wants me to go to school in England, but I've never been interested.”
“Bornstead, huh?” I ask, feeling this happy flush shoot through me. “What will you study there?”
Windsor's mouth twists into a smile.
“Do you want to kiss me right now, Marnye Reed?” he asks, completely side-stepping the question. “Because I'm dying to kiss you.” Windsor steps forward and curves his fingers gently against the back of my neck, breathing lightly against my lips before he finally closes the distance and kisses me properly.
His kiss is just as possessive as Zack’s, but in a completely different way. Zack kisses like an alpha in need of a mate, while Wind … he kisses like a royal giving a decree. He commands me with his mouth, tasting me and offering up an exquisite burn of pleasure that has me gasping and backing away.
A gloved hand curls around my wrist, and he yanks me against his bare and sweaty chest, the hardness beneath his riding pants pressing into my stomach. The way he looks down at me, I can see it. He doesn’t believe he can lose, not in this. His feelings for me might be genuine, but I don’t like the cocky attitude.
“You better wipe that smirk off your face,” I tell him, but his smile simply stretches into a carnal grin. I’d say it were feral if it weren’t so polished, but there is that edge there, reminding me that no matter how good he’s been to me, no matter how loyal a friend, he’s dangerous as hell, too.
“Make me.” Windsor backs me up toward the open door of a stall and pushes me in, sending me to my ass in a pile of warm, dry hay. He kneels down between my legs as my heart thunders a mile a minute, my pulse heating my blood and sending it to all the places my body wishes he would touch. “Make me, Marnye Reed. Tame the bad boy. That’s what you like, isn’t it? The chase, the challenge.”
“It’s not like that,” I tell him, but maybe he’s right. Maybe I do have a thing for the broken ones? I like to fix things, make them right again, study the world and learn how it works. What makes this