Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,10

goes sharper, and he lurches back, snatching his hand away like my throat is fire. “You weren’t worth it then, and you’re not worth it now.” He tilts his head, smirking cruelly. “You can run back to your bitches and tell them I don’t take public access pussy. If they want to trap me, they’re going to have to find someone who isn’t the community cum dumpster.”

The glass of club soda is right by my hand and it’s more reflex than anything, the way I fling the contents in his face. Distantly, I can hear jeers and laughter coming from the loft above, but mostly I just hear the rush of my charged pulse as I watch him blink the moisture from his eyes. I slam the glass on the counter and don’t give that ember of fury in his eyes long enough to fully combust.

I don’t run, but it’s a close thing.

Even outside, gulping in hard lungfuls of the cool night air, my heart still feels jumpy and off kilter. I press my fingers to my pulse as I dart to my car, willing it to calm. It’s like at some point my heart had arranged itself to the throb of the music inside, and now it doesn’t know its own rhythm.

It’s quieter inside the car, and I can hear my hands shaking when I jam my key into the ignition, rattling the pepper spray canister against the metal. I rest there for a moment, dragging in a series of deep breaths, and I want to scream, because I just keep remembering.

Remembering the way those arms felt, bracketing me in.

Snap!

Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!

2

Heston

* * *

I lick the liquid from the top of my lip, tasting it. It’s club soda, so at least I won’t have to worry about another goddamn ‘contribution to the delinquency of a minor’ charge. I’m going to have to talk to Kevin about carding everyone at the door—even my random Sunday night internet pussy.

Shit.

Especially my random Sunday night internet pussy.

I hear the obnoxious, wheezing laughter coming from the balcony above, but I ignore it, reaching behind the bar to snatch a towel from the shelf. We’d drawn some looks with that little show, but I can’t focus on anything but the paranoid whirr of my thoughts and the way it’s making my stomach burn.

Too tacky and unseemly for my father, and my brother’s off at Yale living large on what was supposed to be my life. Sebastian isn’t smart enough to come up with that, anyway. Had to be the Preston bitches. Most of them might have graduated, but they still have their little circle of scheming bullshit.

Am I just paranoid because I have—in the past, once or twice—recorded a few girls without their knowledge? Probably not. Georgia Haynes showing up at my club can’t be a coincidence. Not in that sexy little dress. Not after what she fucking did.

The bartender pulls a face when I throw the towel at him, stalking away to the stairs, but he won’t say anything. Not if he wants to keep his job. And the thing is, he does. Underworld has been booming since the start of winter.

Since I bought it.

I knew pretty much the second I walked onto campus that college wasn’t really my bag. But as the heir to the Wilcox fortune, there were expectations, standards. I played the role for a while, but my patience wore thin quick. I wanted to make money—my own money.

My father’s money always came with short strings attached. He wanted to oversee every investment, dipping his hands into my goddamn business. Every suggestion I made was wrong. Too risky. Too short-term. “Investment is a long game,” he’d say, shooing me aside like an annoying fly. My father’s all about tradition, too steeped in the old ways to see the big picture, like me.

My brother, Sebastian, was my first cash cow. He’s a fighter, through and through. All about talking with his fists and throwing tantrums. We might hate each other’s guts, but even I have to admit the kid excels at what he does. Naturally. He is a Wilcox. It was easy to set shit up, to get him into a makeshift ring and bet on him to win a fight. When he moved on to street racing, it was just as easy to exploit that. The kid doesn’t have an abundance of brains, but when it comes to speed and hitting things, he’s on.

It leaves a sour