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But Danny isn’t done.
Framing my face with his hands, he leans forward and plants his mouth against mine. His lips are soft but searching, and my toes curl with a sudden rush of lust as I realize it’s not just me he’s tasting. It’s Rory. All of Rory is spread across my tongue, my teeth, my cheeks, my throat. Danny plunders my mouth, feasting on it as though acutely aware of this, as though fascinated that my mouth is where Rory had chosen to store the pearls of his very essence. Danny’s lips slide over to the corner of my mouth, his soft wet heat attentive as he captures whatever release my straining tongue failed to devour. Danny licks me clean, tracing my lips with deep fondness, and we share the taste of Rory between us.
Danny pulls back, wetting his shiny pink lips. “I,” he begins, and stops. He looks awkward, and I note that the heel of his hand is in a very delicate position. “I need to be in you.” When my eyes widen in surprise, he shakes his head. “Not now,” he clarifies. “I mean,yes, that would be the ideal, obviously, but — in general. I can’t— ThedreamsI’ve had. About you. Every night. I-I just… need you?”
Above me, Rory snorts.
“No one’s around,” he advises quietly, inspecting the vicinity and hauling his bag over his shoulder. “You should come out, little saint. Give D-boy a moment to cool off before he comes in his pants.”
I do as Rory suggests, my muscles tight and my bones protesting. Turns out sucking off one of your guys beneath a table doesn’t give your body much leeway to loosen, and it’ll be complaining for a good while afterward. I don’t care. When I meet Rory’s gray eyes, he looks soft and happy. As I stretch my limbs, everything hurts, but I’d do it all again a hundred times over to make Rory always look that way, all calm and worry-free.
“You beautiful creature,” Rory whispers roughly, cupping my cheek, and presses his lips to mine in a firm, stolen kiss. I melt beneath his mouth, my body scarcely able to stand as it is, hands clutching the edge of the table to keep me upright. When we part, he breathes me in, forehead leaning against mine, noses caressing, inhaling each other’s breath and smiling like fond idiots.
“Do you hear something?” Rory murmurs, his lips brushing mine. My hands rest against his blazer lapels, his heart leaping beneath my palm. I’d been so wrapped up in the soothing rise and fall of Rory’s breath and chest that the remainder of the library had faded away, but now, as I concentrate, there’s the unmistakable sound of Arabella kicking off.
“No,” I answer, adamant and wanting nothing to do with her, and Rory’s smile opens into a rare grin.
“I love you.”
My heart heats at the sincerity in Rory’s voice. “Love you, too,” I whisper, and plant a warming kiss to his cheek.
It had been said once before, that if everyone had what we share then the world would be a much better place. It makes me think that whatever goes on between Arabella and Moncrieff, it can’t be anywhere close to the joyous power the chiefs radiate whenever we’re together, otherwise she wouldn’t spend the rest of her time searching for things to yell at.
Arabella lets out an ear-piercing wail. We decide, after closing our eyes in deep exasperation, to see what the commotion is about. I do have to wonder, however, if she’s not on the verge of a nervous breakdown since receiving a B-.
And then I don’t have to wonder at all, because rounding the bookshelves to where the librarian had been scanning books, we find Arabella mid-tirade. Her face is bright red and blotchy, her eyes angry slits, and her already frazzled plait looks like it’s on the brink of bursting out of its elastic from the force of all her rage. It seems as though Arabella’s high on something awful, and as her rant descends into a chaos of gesticulation, I realize that it must be her own self-importance.
23
“You havebooks! On the ex-Royal family!” This single fact seems to have sent Arabella spiraling. They also seem to be words she’s repeated often if the gremlin mouthing them alongside her is any indication.
Compared to Arabella, the librarian is very quiet. I can’t make out his response. But he manages to withstand the full raging force of her, fixing his small spectacles to the bridge of his nose as Arabella’s shouts attempt to blast him away. The rest of the students watch their screaming Head Girl through very round eyes.
This behavior is not normal.
There’s no sign of Li, who must have left the library before this, but as I glance at the entrance I notice Finlay striding in, hands balled in his studded jacket, his expression troubled and a hundred miles away from this. At one more blast of “You havebooks!” he jumps slightly, startled, and directs his green gaze to the commotion at the front desk, his shoulders sagging when he realizes Arabella is the one behind it.
“Here, cut that oot,” Finlay chides automatically, marching up to Arabella. It’s a testament to his character that he’s willing to go where no one else has gone, as the rest of us observe Arabella’s self-orchestrated downfall in half-horrified, half-entertained silence. “Whit’s a’ the yellin’ for? Poor bloke’s only just started the job, dinnae scare him aff.”
“Did you know,” she snarls at Finlay, her upper lip curling, “that there is a wholesectionon the— onthose people!”
Finlay looks bewildered. “On who?”
She grabs a book from a pile at the nearest table, and I realize, incredulous, that she must have scooped up every book from the section on British royal history and dumped them on the table. “These!”
Glancing down at the array of books on royalty, Finlay’s face is blank. “Aye? So whit?”
“There aren’t even any alerts for their existence!” she snaps, directing her anger at the librarian once again. “No signs on the shelves warning for offensive material. I justhappenedto stumble across them—”
“No, she went hunting for them,” Danny notes quietly beside me, “then got all offended when she found something she didn’t like.”
He’s hiding his face behind a newspaper as he talks to me, probably in case Arabella starts singling us out. None of us can be bothered with that — thanks to her current argument, we already have flourishing headaches. But I’m struck by the image of Luke gracing the front page: dark hooded eyes gazing with determination at the camera, a thick black microphone lined below his plush lips. It’s a picture I haven’t seen before, and it must be a still from his latest speech. Sure enough, the headline above reads: ‘Lucas Milton Decided to Speak on Behalf of the Phony ex-Royals and OMG It Didn’t Go Well.’
My brows furrow in distaste. I swear headlines have been getting stupider since Benji announced himself king.
“—and it’s a good thing I did, so that I can notify the proper channels before anyone else could come across them—” She points at the librarian, who seems to be regretting his life choices “—because students shouldn’t have to see vulgar, uninformed bile like this when studying in a safe space like a library! We’re already stressed enough from the prospect of exams, we don’t need to be confronted by propaganda!”
Her voice rings around the library, bouncing off books that somehow seem to straighten, to smarten up on their shelves, in the hope of not being similarly scorched by Arabella’s ire. Her voice is so emotional that, for a moment, I think she’s about to burst into tears.
