Page 3 of Riot Act

He’s still there when I close my eyes.

Kissing me.

Touching me.

Stripping me down.

His rigid cock between my legs.

Almost inside me.

Rubbing against my clit.

Almost.

Almost.

Almost.

Fuck.

I slide my hand between my legs and find my clit, mirroring the small circles Pax rubbed against it earlier. Damn, I am still so wet. I slow down the motion, drawing it out, shivering against the rising, hot, tight sensation that builds low in my stomach and between my thighs. I’ve made myself come thinking about Pax Davis countless times, but tonight it’s different. It’s not a dream. Not a fantasy. The images and the sensations that play out in my head aren’t make believe. They’re memories, and that makes them far more potent.

The climax hits me so hard that I cry out.

There’s no one at the academy to hear my release. The other girls from my floor are all still at the party. My friends, Carrie and Elodie, will be wondering where I am.

I should text one of them and let them know that I’m safe.

Should…

I fall asleep with the electric buzz of my orgasm prickling over my skin, and once again, Pax Davis invades my unconscious mind—the boy a dream and a nightmare rolled into one. It isn’t until the morning that I find out that Mara Bancroft is dead.

1

PAX

Tall.

Legs up to her armpits.

Sun-kissed, golden skin.

Perfect in every way.

That’s how she was this morning. Now, sobbing on the dock with rivers of black mascara running down her cheeks, she’s not quite the radiant summer goddess she was before I got my hands on her. Her name is Margarite, like the flower. And much like the flower, she has a fancy name, but at the end of the day she’s nothing but a daisy. “You are fuckinginsane!” Her thick French accent colors the accusation. “What kind of person are you, anyway? Dive in and get it!”

I huff out a laugh, distracted by the rock and pitch of the wooden planks beneath my feet as the dock bobs on the water.

During the day, the Adriatic Sea is a dazzling aquamarine, so crystal-clear and beautiful that you can’t help but stare at it. At night, the vast expanse of water is black as jet and looks like an oil slick. The lights from the tiny fishing village where I chose to moor the yacht spill together as the surface of the water shifts. Crowds of locals cheers each other, laughing and talking boisterously over their platters of calamari and bruschetta, ignoring the arrogant American arguing with the French girl fifty feet away.

I stare at Margarite, regretting how hard I flirted with her back in Calvi. She’d made me work for her attention; usually, I would have walked away from a girl who expected me to earn her time, but she’d seemed sweet and coquettish back at that café. Oh, how things have changed in the last twelve hours.

“I’m not jumping into the fucking harbor, in the dark, to retrieve a phone thatyouthrew in there. It’s fucked now, anyway. I think our evening’s over, Maggie.”

She turns a violent shade of purple.“I want my phone, asshole!”

There are a thousand ways to handle this situation. If Dashiell were here, he’d be able to reel off at least five different approaches that would diffuse this mess quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately for Margarite, I only know of one way to tackle this, and I’ve learned from past experience that it’s not a very popular strategy.