**Author's Note: I'm sorry my chapters have slowed down a bit and I thank all of you who are still reading-work has been really busy lately and I haven't made it out the door and home on time once this week. Anyway, a bit of a longer chapter than usual. Happy reading!**
CHAPTER TWELVE - Making Him Forget
She was sitting on his car when he came out of his last class, perched on the hood like some strange, exotic bird, her knees drawn up to a risky height, affording him just a little too much of a look at those legs of hers. He'd spent the whole day fuming-at her, at her idiot brother, at the headmaster, at circumstances. He had worked himself into a good rant and more than intended to give it to her-
But she didn't look the same as she had that morning. Sure, those legs were still there, and that fiery red hair, but her eyes were different. Drake Mallory, like any other proud predator, could sense weakness from a mile away, and the certainty, the surety she'd possessed that morning in spades had faltered somewhere along the line.
Never having used his overmuch, Drake would not have recognized an attack of the conscience.
She'd stewed over her actions all day, the uncharacteristic duplicity of the past few days, the slyness she'd never expected from herself. Her spine, her fire, those were constants. But to be sneaky about them was new to Genevieve Wesley. She was a novice at being underhanded, and now she was having second thoughts.
"I thought you weren't coming," she said, sliding off the car and smoothing her hands down over the skirt, which was feeling more and more inadequate with each passing minute. What had she been thinking, really? Or had she been thinking at all? If it was possible for men to think only with what was between there legs, wasn't it possible for women?
Remembering the rush that had gone through her Friday night, the feel of his hands touching, stroking, inflaming, she figured that was totally possible.
"It's my car, I had to come out here sooner or later," he sneered, wondering what on earth she was thinking now. She was the devil, that one, and he didn't intend to forget it anytime soon.
She started to cross to the passenger's side, and he grabbed her forearm, stopping her. "Thought you were too good to accept a ride from me, Wesley?"
"Just like you were too good to finish what you started," she said loftily, tears starting in her eyes at the sting in her arm and the wound in her pride. She hadn't really realized that part of it, that prideful, stubborn, strong-chinned part of her. Not until she'd glimpsed into the car, saw the backseat, thought about her own actions. Dammit, he'd rejected her, and it bloody well pissed her off.
"Yeah, and I had a bloody case of blue balls to show for it!" Drake burst out, unlocking the door and thoughtlessly jerking it open for her. "Are you getting in or not?"
Whether it was the smug satisfaction of knowing he'd been just as miserable as she or the fact that he'd opened the door for her, Gen slid in without another word, tucking her legs up neatly as he shut the door.
He'd managed to replace the seats sometime over the weekend, she noted with some regret. The inkstain was gone, and there wasn't a spot of evidence of Friday's night's storm. Gen ran her fingers over the smooth, now flawless leather, waiting for him to get in.
When he finally did, jaw clenched in the afternoon sunlight pouring in through tinted windows, he stayed silent, his eyes fixed on the road in front of them. He stayed so for several minutes, and they both realized it was the longest moment they'd spent in one another's presence without some sort of noise, some sort of argument or accompaniment to move the time along.
"Why are you doing this?" he finally asked, his posture uncharacteristically tense, both hands on the wheel. He didn't want to go to his home, didn't want to take her there again. All he wanted was to know what in the hell she thought she was doing, messing with a Mallory.
"You do understand honor, don't you?" she asked tightly, turning her head to look at him. His response was silent, a slight inclination of the head.
Of course he understood honor, even if he didn't necessarily possess any.
"Well, as distasteful a prat as I find you, I was assigned to help you." She took her fingers away from the seat, though reluctantly, and crossed her arms over her chest. It had all made sense this morning, to go on the offensive, to make the next moves, to steer the course of action.
But it seemed instead the action was steering her.
"And let me guess, Wesley," Drake said, "Because of you and your precious honor, you expect me to live up to my end of some imaginary bargain you've concocted, some silly little game?" He chuffed out a small, incredulous laugh, though he knew that was precisely what she meant to happen, and nothing he could say or do would dissuade her.
Distasteful though he surely found her.
"Surely you can make it to the Wesley home-what would you call it? A hole? A shack? Ruins?-for just one evening. We won't have gruel, I promise. Though you would have to wear something that actually buttons." The ghost of a smile flitted over her lips and she wondered, not for the first time, what on earth her family would have to say about such a creature brought into their midst.
And Gen wondered how long it would him to charm them completely, the sneaky, ferrety bastard.
He didn't open the door for her this time; that had been an anomaly, she was sure. As she got out of the car and stared up at the expanse of his home, she felt a chill sprint the length of her spine, and his father's face swam in her memory, the cold, somehow dulcet tones of his voice slinking through her ears.
A Wesley, isn't it? Absolutely disgusting.
Drake saw the small tremor pass through her, the slight knock in those skinny, freckled knees, and he tilted his head curiously. Was this fear, then, from the ever-outspoken twit? Fear of what, precisely? It was obvious she held no fear of him, and his home had bred no trepidation with her previous visit.
Well, Drake, what about this place makes you shake? he asked himself, and he closed his eyes behind the dark lenses.
His father, of course. His father scared the hell out of everyone, the creepy, superior, smug bastard.
It was momentary kinship that had him placing the tips of his fingers to her back, guiding her into the mammoth doors of his house, but it was self-interest that had him hoping his father was still at work.
The door had barely closed behind them, however, when Lucas floated into the foyer, slim cruel fingers petting the silver pocketwatch hanging at his waist.
"Oh, lovely," he drawled, giving his eyes an eloquent roll. He didn't even bother to spare Gen more than a cursory glance, instead turning his attention to his son. The similarities-and differences-made Gen draw in a sharp breath as pale gray eyes met insolent slate ones, now free of their usual dark lenses, two platinum heads tilted back, strong chins tilted up in challenge. One dressed so impeccably it seemed severe, and the other exuding the sartorial carelessness only the young can pull off.
"Get out of my sight," Lucas snarled, flicking his eyes back to Gen and making it unclear which of the two he was speaking to.
Unclear or no, it was his son who answered, Gen standing speechless at his side.
"Gladly," Drake responded, his tone matching his father's so precisely it made her cringe. He jerked his head, gesturing for her to follow, and she did so even as she realized the subservience of the action.
Drake slammed the door with enough force to make it shake on its enormous brass hinges, and when he locked the door and turned to her, his eyes were blazing in challenge, his mouth ready to spew defensive words at her.
The shouting started before he could draw forth the sneer, the smirk, the ready insults, the armor he so needed.
"What do you think you're doing?" Lucas's voice, only moments before a derisive purr, was now a disgusted roar directed at someone else altogether. "Abed again? Or is it still, sluggard?"
A low, weary feminine voice responded, the tones so quiet and slow they were lost through the massive wood of the hallway; though they were undeterminable, Gen found herself pitying this woman, this wife, this mother.
"Your son is home," Lucas stated coldly one floor below them. "And isn't it wonderful, he's brought a guest."
Unable to do otherwise, Gen looked imploringly at Drake, her eyes wide, and her pity shifted from the unseen mother to the son, his face pale with barely constrained rage, his eyes bright with hatred.
"Well?" he said, spreading his hands and affecting a cocky pose. "What have you to say now, Wesley? Would that you had half my problems, is that what you told me? Called me a wanton, ungrateful prat, did you? Well, I honestly suppose you could have half my problems, if you-"
"Get up so I can properly speak with you, you lazy, sickly, lump of a woman!"
With every word Lucas shouted, Gen could see tiny flinches cross Drake's face, one after the other.
I didn't know, she thought, but couldn't bring herself to speak in the growing cacophony of the room, instead closing the distance between them and raising her hands, covering his ears with her tiny hands, the tips of her fingers brushing the carefully arranged spikes of his hair as she tried to shut out the noise for him.
Drake grabbed her wrists, his face impassive, framed by her fingers, and for the briefest moment, he felt himself yield, almost felt himself give into the pity of the pitiful.
And then he bared his teeth, shoving her away from him and onto his bed, his hands raising to momentarily cover his own ears from the senseless shouting that continued below, his mother's voice now raised a little louder, a little more forcefully. He raised his eyes to her, his hands still over his ears, head downcast and eyes up, and Gen suppressed a shiver as he looked first at her and then into her, the cold smirk sliding over his features craftily as he dropped his hands.
"Wore that skirt just for me, did you?" he asked, stepping toward the bed, one foot placed accurately in front of the other. "Spent all morning trying to drive me mad." Think about that, he told himself. Think about how you thought of her all day, and managed to think only of her and not of this.
"I think I could really blame it on you, you know, making our son, your son soft. He dresses like a fool and you let him leave the house like that!"
Gen scrambled to shove the skirt over her knees, keeping her eyes on his, wondering what had happened in the last few moments to shake everything so, to turn everything so horribly wrong. It was supposed to be simple. Her hands now free, she started to put them over her own ears to still the shouting below and the words Drake spat at her.
He stood at the side of the bed and placed his hands over hers, his eyes sparking with anger, hurt, and… what else? She couldn't tell, didn't know if she wanted to, and he lowered his head to hers, his hands and hers covering her ears, bringing total silence to the room, and he captured her mouth in a kiss that tasted of fear and desperation and rage and confusion, her lips crushing back into her teeth, the blood of his abused lips mixing with hers. He shoved her prone on the bed and knelt above her, and her thoughts collided with the thoughts of the day-
This is what you wanted, wasn't it? You wanted him, and he had to want you back-
And he dropped his head, his chest heaving with the turmoil inside him as the voices continued downstairs, his hands hovering at his sides as though he was unsure whether to use them on her or cover his ears again.
"You make me sick. Both of you make me sick. Whose money do you think bought this house?"
And then he looked at her again, his eyes wide, his face open and somehow vulnerable, and Gen felt her heart twist inside her. She hadn't understood, hadn't bothered to understand before engaging in this childish game with him.
Wanting to help, needing to, and needing to solidify the tenuous connection they'd managed to assemble between them as sure as barriers, she raised trembling hands to catch his long fingers and pull him to her.
The kiss this time was hers, tasting of her tears and the tears he wasn't going to shed, tasting of scraped skin and hurt feelings. He settled himself above her with one hand and Gen shifted, guiding his other hand to the bare skin of her leg. Now they were both uncertain, on even ground as she traced timid fingers over the smooth skin of his chest, skin she'd looked at too many times to count, the heat of it now burning her fingertips in its intensity.
Drake drew in a sharp breath, closing his hand over the bare skin of her thigh, completing the action he'd completed in dreams for the previous days, testing the strength of muscle and the silk of skin, letting the voices below him fade as he focused everything in on this one point, on this one action, with this one moment.
It was wrong, she thought, to feel this way with such chaos surrounding them, but it was like picking up where they'd left off, only more important, more urgent. She'd seen the exact moment when his attention had shifted, going from the anger of the house to the lust of the room, and if she could keep it on the latter, keep that horrible, pained look off his face, she would do it.
"And while you were in here, asleep as you always are, do you know what kind of trash he's bringing in here?"
They kept their eyes open as they tasted one another, lip to lip and eye to eye as his father's insults reached both their ears, and when she broke away from him, she was breathless.
"Forget about him," she whispered, and found it could be done. He buried his face in the hot skin of her throat, testing and tasting and nipping with sharp teeth, his thumb pressing the inside of her thigh, hinting at something higher, at something riskier even as he guided his hand just a little farther up.
Two buttons, Gen thought incoherently, arching mindlessly as his fingers brushed the bottom edge of her knickers, sneaking slightly under before going to surface again, before skidding slipshod over the flat spot between the waistband of her skirt and the waistband of her knickers, the spot that felt as though butterflies had bred beneath it, fluttering their wings in a maddened, strange rhythm.
Two buttons was all he had fastened on his uniform shirt. Two flicks of her slender, pale fingers had his shirt open and covering the both of them, draping down along his sides and over hers, making a tent for them, the floor her body, the ceiling his.
Her fingertips, rough from chores and shaking with hesitation, traced over the lines and contours of his torso, all things she'd seen before, but always with that barrier of two buttons.
Drake choked out a breath, a sob, a labored exhalation as her fingers shook their way across his chest, danced their way down his stomach, and he closed his teeth gently over the spot where her neck met her shoulder, trying to stop himself, to pause what was happening. With the bite, however, her hips arched under him, bringing her center clashing against his hand, damp cotton and the spicy smell of sex, hips hitting hips gracelessly and desperately as a small whimper reached his ears.
There was no more shouting, he noted as he lapped the spot he'd bitten, tasting the salt of her sweat and the soap she'd used that morning.
There was no more reason, either, but that seemed a small price to pay for the trembling hands now poised at the sharp angles of his hips.
"Wait," he ground out, unzipping her skirt with a jerking motion, sending a burning line of heat down her thigh as the zipper scraped along it. He drew it down her legs, now smirking as he did so-such a little scrap of fabric, that skirt, and he'd wanted it gone all day.
Now it was gone, and she lay before him, her hair spread over his bed, her eyes clouded with want, and yes, fear. The chest of her own starched white shirt strained over hardened nipples, the stiff white fabric drawing to two defined points, the hem falling just short of knickers gone colorless from years of wash, thin in spots, affording him a ghost of a glimpse of the ginger curls beneath.
He drew back and knelt above her, his eyes roving at will, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides with the effort of self-control.
Gen watched him with hooded eyes, his intensity arousing her just as surely as his hands and mouth had, the searing expression on the aristocratic face making her short breaths transform into shorter pants.
Power. His body was powerful, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, but his eyes commanded, accustomed to getting everything within reach.
"I'm not stopping," he stated, but he did not move, did not continue his actions. Instead, he gave orders. "Unbutton your shirt."
He'd have done it himself, but he wanted her obedience, wanted her submission to show him what she really wanted.
He wanted her submission to prove she wasn't acting out of pity.
She couldn't have disobeyed him if she wanted to, any more than she'd been able to disobey the wordless instructions of their movements on the dance floor, any more than she'd been able to rein in her temper with him. Apprehensively, she unbuttoned her shirt with the same efficient motions that had loosened his.
He linked his hands behind his neck and watched her with his head bowed, as inch by inch of pale skin was exposed, her eyes locked on him as she found the buttons sightlessly, one after the other. Starched fabric parted to reveal a bra the same shade as the panties, once white and now nondescript, just a bit too small, her breasts plumping out above the material, the worn elastic cutting a tired line into the soft mounds.
And instead of covering herself with her hands when she'd unbuttoned the shirt, she looked directly at him and spread her arms to the edges of the bed, her mind a fuzzy mess of wonder and curiosity, reason be damned and innocence, as well, because the way he was looking at her…
He dove, his tongue tracing the boundary between fabric and flesh, raising goosebumps in the wake of his mouth, blowing cool air with gray eyes half-covered by pale lashes. He wouldn't last much longer, but if this could last just long enough, just long enough for the house to be brought to rights again, to peace, if he could just hear the door slam downstairs and signal the exit of his father, it would be just long enough.
It would be enough.
She was restless beneath his hands, tired of being teased but afraid of being completed, constantly moving and trying to relieve the pressure he built brick by brick. How could he do this? She wasn't ignorant; she knew enough to know what the beads of sweat on his brow and the hard length of him brushing her thigh through his pants meant, knew enough to wonder at the wait he'd imposed upon himself.
"I don't think this is what Dunmore had in mind," she said suddenly, the thought popping out of her mouth as he feathered a breath over her navel and she gripped five strong fingers into his hair. She was rewarded with a chuckle-a genuine one she'd never heard before.
He winced at the pain her tiny hands inflicted, relishing it all the same, and drove his fingers under cotton and into hot, wet, ready heat, the same heat he'd felt only nights before, under him this time, in his control.
Gen screamed, unable to stop herself, as one finger slid up and into her, curving just slightly in a come-hither gesture, the knuckle of another finger unerringly chafing the bud of her arousal, making her hips rise off the bed, wavering in a to-and-fro arc, brown eyes wide and shocked on him.
And still he stroked inside her, muscles clenching around his fingers as he unfastened his pants-beltless, of course, against school regulations-and kicked them off with his eyes pinned to hers. He positioned himself so she could not see the length of him, unconsciously considerate of what he was about to do.
He slid one arm under her neck, concentration written in the tense lines of his face, and he put his lips next to her ear, laughter sliding remarkably through his voice as he timed the fluttering of her muscles around his long middle finger. "Count with me, Wesley," he said, withdrawing his fingers and pushing her panties to one side.
Count? She couldn't remember to breathe, much less count, his proximity was blinding her, making her stupid, her body was making her mute and mindless. But he'd done this before, she could tell, knew precisely what he was about to do, and she clenched her hands in the covers of the bed and fought the urge to close her eyes.
She'd not go into this with eyes closed, dammit. She was a Wesley, and she had more honor than that.
"One," they said in unison, brown locked to gray. "Two."
Draco lowered his mouth to hers, only a whisper away, and as she steeled herself against the pain, it was only he who whispered "Three" and drove into her, quickly, piercingly, unhesitatingly.
He put his mouth over hers and felt the exhalation of her cry, her head bowing back against his arm, and when he was certain the moment had passed, he lifted his mouth from hers and said "Relax."
She clamped her lips shut, the muscles in her jaw contracting tightly against the pain, and she nodded stiffly for him to continue.
There's a girl, he thought, moving in small circles in her just to accommodate himself and her. Of course she won't cry-not this one. He slid out, just a few centimeters, and back, and could have wept himself for the tightness of her, the sheer, glorious feel of her.
She should be glad, he thought as he eased into tiny, fast thrusts, this wasn't going to last long at all.
The shouting downstairs had ceased, the door slammed, and a car departed, but neither of them heard and neither of them noticed.
The sharp pain dulled into an ache, uncomfortable but not unbearable, and Gen watched the power recede from his face as the vulnerability crept back in, and here was her power, the feminine power she'd been trying so hard to harness, and she raised her hands to clasp his back, his skin hot through the sweat-damp shirt, her body now moving with his in an effort not only to abate the ache but to reel him in.
His eyes brightened to silver and widened with that final roll of her hips, and he stiffened with a wordless hiss, his climax wringing him out inside of her even as she held him closer.
He didn't collapse on her when it was over, didn't turn into the sweltering mass of dead weight she'd heard the other girls whisper of at school. Instead, he rolled them both to their sides, staying inside of her as he shifted positions. "It's going to hurt," he said, his head thrown back, breath coming in gulps. "For me to pull out, it's going to hurt."
So don't, she wanted to say, and her hand flew to cover her lips. What a thing to say, especially to the likes of him. So instead of speaking, not trusting her voice, she canted her hips and sighed as he was released from her. It felt like she'd had a tooth pulled, she thought, finding no other comparison to put to it. Aching and empty and raw.
He rolled to his back then, leaving his arm behind her neck, feeling her hair sticking to his arm in several places. He hadn't the urge to move just yet; he needed to figure out what had happened. He'd started the day wanting to call things off, so how in blazes had they ended up here, in his bed, mostly naked, and freshly shagged?
She wanted to shift, wanted to move, but she couldn't decide whether she wanted to move toward him or away from him. It hadn't been what she'd imagined, surely, but it hadn't been what she'd feared, either.
And then the silence struck both of them, the absence of shouting, of doors slamming, of insults and swears. Other than the labored sounds of their combined breathing, there were no sounds.
He sat up then, pulling his arm from under her head and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He had no words, none at all, not even the tiniest sarcastic rejoinder to offer the young woman in the bed next to him. He'd done what he hadn't meant to do, and the most damnable part of it was he didn't regret it at all.
Drake looked back at her and saw with the tiniest twinge of disappointment that she was refastening her shirt, one hand dipped low to hide the sight of her ruined knickers. He knew why she'd done it, of course. Forget about him, she'd said, and she'd managed to make him do just that. He leaned down, hooked one finger into the tartan skirt, and handed it to her across the bed, his expression mild.
The look, the strange softness of it, nearly undid her, and Gen jerked her skirt away from him with a hand that was no longer shaking. She stood, wincing at the runners of pain the motion sent through her, and pulled the skirt on with a few abrupt motions. She was afraid of what he might say next, what he might do. "Don't you dare thank me," she snapped, truly scared he would, as a master to a servant, express some sort of smarmy gratitude.
She'd die. If he did that, she would absolutely die.
But instead he raised an eyebrow, hooking his pants off the floor in the same movement that had garnered her skirt, and snorted as he slid them on one leg at a time. "Was there ever a time, Wesley, when I seemed overly inclined to state some sort of gratitude to you?"
Oh, wonderful. Now she felt embarrassed. Was this how sex was, then? Awkward, without rules, fumbling and uncertain? The act itself hadn't been so clumsy, but this-this aftermath-she didn't know if she'd survive it. "Well, good," she said, trying not to press her thighs too closely together, trying to ignore the stickiness there, the strange feeling of something missing.
He chuckled a bit, couldn't help himself, really. Was this how they acted, then, after their first time? He'd never been with a virgin, but he wasn't about to tell her that. She'd likely make him feel guilty for it, the wench. She looked so small now, so tiny, so…
Approachable. It was downright appalling.
And before he could even think them through, the words slipped from his mouth. "I'll be sure never to thank you for sex."
Never, as though there would be other chances? His eyes widened even as hers did, and she pushed escaping tendrils of hair back from her face with both hands. "I hadn't realized what just happened was an experience worth repeating," she said.
If she'd intended to wound his ego, she couldn't have found a better way to do so. The hell of it was, she hadn't really meant to, speaking instead out of self-doubt. Had she done the right thing? Had she done it well?
Smirking turned to sulking as he turned his attention to his shirt, fastening two of the buttons once more. "If it wasn't worth repeating, then I bloody well did something wrong."
Not knowing-and not wanting to know-how she'd answer, he drew his keys off the ornate ebony dresser, finally turning to look her full in the eye. "I'd best take you home," he said at length. "Before he comes back."
And as he offered her a hand, helping her off the bed and onto legs with shaky knees, she found she didn't have the strength-or heart-to argue.