Page 177 of The Villain We Tempt

I ended up bribing Abby Caruso, a fellow romance book nerd who works at the registrar’s office, to walk away from her desk for ten minutes. All it took was my limited hardcover edition ofThe Billionaire’s One Obsession, complete with sprayed edges, gold leaf cover,andNSFW character art.

…But I used that ten-minute window to look up and print out Lochlan’s academic transcript during his time here at Knightsblood.

Holy.Fuck.

I knew he did well in school. I just assumed it was the Kildare name or his notoriety on the football field greasing the wheels. But I wasnotexpecting second in his class.

It gets better.

He’s only second in his class, Achilles Drakos being first, because offourquizzes: one at the very start of each academic year.

The rest of the time, Lochlan gets straight, unblemished As. But every year, hecompletely bombsthat first quiz.

I don’t think it’s by accident. I think he does it on purpose to make sure his cousin is first in their class, ahead of him.

At first, Ihatedhow much learning that made me want him to be Ghost.

But that shifted when he spent the night in my bed last weekend. That sounds pathetic on the surface, but it’s not the fact that he stayed. It’s that he did it just because wasted me asked him to.

When I woke up in his arms that morning, I knew he hadn’t tried anything while I was asleep, even though I was naked and super fucked up on drugs.

I also knew when I woke up that morning that I really,reallywanted Ghost to be Lochlan. When I envisioned slipping that mask off when I thought he was still sleeping, that's the face I imagined underneath it.

Lochlan’s.

I didn’t have tomakemyself go there in my head. It was literally his face that I pictured in the fantasy.

And it hasn’t gone away since then.

So now, I’ve gotten sneakier.

I bought one of those Smart-Tag trackers, thinking that I’d hide it in his clothes or stick it to the bottom of his shoe the next time we played, to sleuth out who he really was once and for all.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

That’s all he said the other night, when I was walking away unsteadily from a rendezvous in the shadows outside Pembroke Hall.

Ghost had had me bent over at the waist, my palms against the old, weathered stone, my skirt flipped up and my panties stretched around my knees, his tongue buried in my ass and one of my mid-sized toys plunging in and out of my pussy.

When he’d turned around to confirm the rustling sound we’d just heard was indeed a bird andnotanyone spying on us, I’d slipped the tracker into his hoodie pocket.

We said our goodnights, and I made it all of five feet before his smug “aren’t you forgetting something” comment, followed by him tossing me the tracker.

So thenextnight, at our meet-up behind the stables, after I’d taken his cock into the back of my throat and swallowed his cum, I gave him a hickey while I was riding his hand to orgasm.

Not just any hickey. I gave him the fuck-you final boss of hickeys, using my lips, tongue, and teeth on the side of his neck,marking him.

And guess what. The next day in our Social Psychology of Deception class, Lochlan walked in wearingconcealeron his goddamn neck.

Busted.

I mean,come on.

My phone dings with an incoming text, ripping me out of my thoughts. When I glance down, my face heats when I see his name on my screen.

Lochlan

We ran out of time in class earlier. I’ll need to meet with you this weekend for the continuation of our Q&A session.