Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,56

Headmaster. This was the next best thing.” She points at the kitchenette. “Can’t live without my coffee first thing in the morning.”

“What…?”

Josie and I both glance over. Georgia stands in the bedroom doorway, still clad in her school uniform. Her shirt is wrinkled, and she’s barefoot. My first thought is of the way she trembled in my arms as her orgasm rocketed through her yesterday. The second thought comes when I look behind her at the rumpled mess of her bed. Another flash of the two girls jumps to the forefront of my mind. But this time, I’m with them.

Jesus.

All this shit with Little Red is seriously trying my dick’s patience.

Georgia’s mouth gapes as her gaze pings between me and her roommate. “What are you doing here?”

“Coach Wilcox brought your phone back,” Josie says, pointing to where it’s clutched loosely in my hand. “Wasn’t that nice?”

“My phone,” she says, narrowing her eyes. Raising an eyebrow, I give her a look that says she’s to play along with the charade. Shouldn’t be hard. Georgia’s pretty good at bullshitting. Just ask my blue balls.

“Sure, right. You shouldn’t have.” Voice flat, she doesn’t sound convincingly appreciative. She holds out her hand for the phone. Guess I have no choice but to play along.

“A ‘thank you’ is acceptable.”

She looks away before giving a terse, “Thank you.”

She seems pissed, but not smug. There’s no way she told on me for the incident in Dewey’s office. “Care to explain why you missed class today?”

Crossing her arms, she says, “I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Did you go to the nurse?”

“No.”

“Do you have a note?”

“I do not.”

Josie watches us like a tennis match.

I hold her stare, not backing down. “Then you’ll need to come to my office tomorrow so we can discuss the consequences of you skipping my class.”

Her cheeks redden, jaw ticking in a way that suggests her teeth are grinding. “You’re kidding.”

“You know the standard procedure for ditching class, Miss Haynes. Come to my office and we’ll discuss it then.” I turn toward the door and then pause, glancing back. “Until then, you may want to keep a better watch on your belongings. I don’t know about you, but personally, I hate it when other people touch my things.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Josie calls out. I give her a smile and a nod before stepping into the hallway. I haven’t gone far when I hear Josie ask, “Is he always like that?”

“Like what?” Georgia asks. “Insufferable?”

“Commanding, powerful…” In a lower voice, “…hot.”

“He’s not any of those things,” she says, scoffing. “He’s just a loser with a whistle.”

My nostrils flare angrily as I march out of the dorm, but I know better. Little Red has to tear me down because inside, she’s already built me up.

And that’s exactly what I need to be if I’m going to win my freedom from Gene.

The sun’s just setting when I get back to my apartment. I spend as little time as possible out here. It’s cramped and isolated. Too quiet. It has a weird smell. The water pressure is shit. The ambient temperature hovers around ‘uninhabitable cinder’. There are at least a dozen other places I’d rather be. As I stand there, staring at it from the patch of grass masquerading as a yard, I get the sense that it possibly used to be a garden shed.

I don’t see the envelope until I almost step on it.

It’s sitting on the stoop, my name printed on the front. I look around first, half expecting to see its messenger milling about. All I find are trees and nothingness.

I take it inside, flicking on the overhead light that does nothing to brighten the space. Opening the envelope, I find an old, antique key and a note.

“We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law.”

I frown at the inked script. “The fuck does that mean?” Tossing the cryptic note aside, I hold up the key, inspecting it.

There’s a pitchfork etched into the top.

I wait until dark to leave my apartment and approach the Tower. I’m not unfamiliar with sneaking around campus. Buster the security guard comes and goes like clockwork, taking the same worn loop as he did when I was a student. When he passes the Tower and heads toward the athletic fields, I duck into the arched entrance, then turn quickly toward the locked door. The iron key is warm from being in my