Page 113 of Shattered Stars

“Your pussy tastes damn good, Rhianna,” he growls, making my stomach turn somersaults. “Want to meet me in the empty classroom at the end of the hallway and I’ll eat you out? Make you come all over again. Shit, I could make you come all day and all night. Shit, I will if you let me.”

My cheeks glow so hot, I’m pretty sure my skin must be melting.

I shake my head and lean over my pencil, pretending to be fascinated by it and not him.

He’s quiet, and if it weren’t for the press of his leg against mine, I’d have thought he’d gone.

Finally, he whispers, “I’ll find you a suitable dress.” And then he’s moving away, reappearing a moment later at his desk, everyone too engrossed by Summer or their pencil spells to have noticed.

I rub my thighs together. I’m wet and sticky. What the hell am I doing?

41

Rhi

After that Iavoid Tristan Kennedy like the plague, trying to convince myself what happened in that classroom was a figment of my imagination, a little daydream – an extremely hot, explicit daydream – gone very wrong.

I certainly don’t tell Winnie or Stone. I don’t know what either of them would think. Especially as I don’t know what to think myself.

Instead, I concentrate on my studies. I don’t even engage in all the gossip and chatter about the ball, much to Winnie’s frustration.

However, come Friday evening, Winnie is growing increasingly agitated by the fact our parcel from Nonny hasn’t arrived, jumping every time one of our phones beep or there’s the sound of heels crunching gravel outside on the path. Which means when there actually is a knock on the door, she practically dives across the room to answer it, jumping up and down with joy at the sight of yet another parcel.

“Our dresses!” she squeals, snatching them from a disgruntled groundsman’s arms – seems he’s been delivering lots of parcels in the runup to the big event, the biggest event of our lives Winnie keeps reminding me – and heaves it into the room.

“Jeez,” I say, “that looks heavy. What on Earth did she make our dresses from?”

Winnie pays me no attention, ripping open the parcel and then tugging down the zipper on the clothes bag inside.

“Oh,” she says, pulling the first dress from the bag.

“Oh?” I repeat. “What’s wrong? Is it not how you wanted?”

“No, this isn’t one of Nonny’s creations. This is,” she holds the dress up, staring at it with obvious admiration, “designer.”

“What?” I say, coming closer to look at it. It’s a jet-black dress with a bodice formed of silk petals and a pretty tulle skirt.

“Did you ask Azlan to buy you something after all?” Winnie asks, sounding a little put out. “You could have told me because Nonny worked–”

“No, I didn’t ask him,” I say, reaching inside the bag to pull out another designer dress, this one a midnight blue, strapless and silky.

“Maybe he decided to buy you some anyway,” Winnie suggests, finding yet another dress inside the bag. This one a forest green.

“I doubt it. We haven’t really talked about the ball.” We’ve had other more important things on our minds. “Maybe Ellie told him to get me one.” Ellie and I have been texting on and off and she definitely knows about the ball. “Although I already told her I was having one made.”

Winnie pulls out another dress, this one a pale cream that almost reminds me of the dress I wore on Founders’ Night. Then she rummages around in the bag, finding a small business card and examining it as I hang the dresses over the side of my bed,letting them drape down and admiring how pretty and elegant they are.

“I don’t think it was the man in black or his sister.”

“Well it wouldn’t be Stone,” I say, “he tells me on a regular basis how pitiful his teaching salary is.”

“No, not the professor.” Winnie twists the card my way. Over its surface is scribbled the name Tristan.

“You’re kidding me,” I say, reaching for the dresses to stuff them all back in the bag.

“What are you doing?” Winnie says.

“Sending them back to him.”