The Order of the Cronus Series, page 52
“Okay-”
“But no more bullshit like that night at Drummond’s,” I added quickly.
Fox made his way back towards my front door. With his hand on the knob, he said, “Trust me when I tell you that I’m not one to repeat mistakes, Black. That night had been nothing but a lapse in judgement.” He opened the door, and with one final look my way, added, “Again.”
Fox left, and as soon as the door shut behind him, my legs gave out and I slid to the floor. He’d essentially just told me to go fuck myself, but I clearly heard him lock the door behind him, making sure that I was safe, even if he didn’t want to.
I let out a deep breath, then did what I always did when I felt edgy. I called Saxton, hoping that I wasn’t interrupting him and Hastings. She was still healing, and that should be his priority right now.
“Babe?”
“He just left.” I didn’t have to explain who I was referring to. Saxton knew everything about me.
“I’ll be right over-”
“No,” I quickly replied. “Just…stay on the phone with me a while?”
“Of course,” he whispered like I knew he would.
Two hours later, I finally let him get off the phone.
Chapter 5
Fox~
One of the good things about living in a college town was that there were always bars opened until two in the morning. Even on a random Wednesday night, I’d found a bar, it’s neon lights calling my name.
The problem was that I wasn’t even sure if the animosity between me and Kincaid was my fault or hers. Did I react to her, or did she react to me? Was I wrong for resenting her for moving on, or was she wrong for resenting me because I haven’t?
I’ve always known who Kincaid Black was because it was hard not to. Growing up with the limelight on our parents’ reputations, it was hard not to have heard about each other. It was the same way with the guys. Just like the Harringtons, Vosses, Carmichaels, Lexingtons, and Remingtons, the Blacks were all over the society pages, too.
However, it hadn’t been until the summer before our freshman year that I had actually met Kincaid in person. We’d been one of the few students who had moved to Serenity Springs way before the beginning of the start of classes. Because Hales University was the college that The Order picked their pawns from, there wasn’t housing requirements for students. You couldn’t allow a Harrington to live off-campus in his own condo and not allow another student who could afford the same to live on his own, also. It would raise too many questions and it would reek of obvious favoritism. So, because of that, students could live wherever they could afford if they didn’t want to live in the dorms.
With Serenity Springs pretty much still asleep for the summer, the few of us that had been around hadn’t been hard to spot. However, even if the city had been crawling with a million people, Kincaid would still have stood out.
The girl was only standing at five-foot-three, but it was a powerful five-foot-three. Kincaid had long black hair that matched these otherworldly black eyes. She was the first person that I had ever met who had black eyes, and it was an incredible combination. One of my favorite things about her was how her hair was naturally curly, but people didn’t know that. She straightened it most of the time, and only a few people knew what it looked like when she was fresh out of the shower.
I was one of those people.
Then there was her face. It was sheer perfection. Her black brows were arched with just the right amount of attitude and her black lashes just added to the magnificence of her eyes. Porcelain skin with a flawless complexion, she had a pert nose, rosy cheeks, and a pair of lips that were made for sucking a man’s dick. Straight white teeth finished off the excellence of her face.
Of course, there was also her body. If it weren’t enough that her face could drop a man to his knees, she had a body that could induce full-blown heart attacks if you were ever fortunate enough to see it fully naked. Hell, she didn’t even have to be naked. Even with her clothes on, it was easy to make out those traffic-stopping curves. Kincaid had an hourglass figure, and if her mind was as sharp as an arrow, then her body was the bow.
Everything about Kincaid Black was dangerous.
We’d met at a convenient store of all places. She’d been arguing with the cashier as I’d been walking up to get in line behind her. The cashier had been trying to tell her that there was nothing wrong with the gas pumps, and that perhaps her gender had something to do with her having difficulty working the nozzle.
I thought Kincaid was going to murder the man.
However, before she could catch a court case, I had intervened, offering to pump her gas for her. Those black eyes had shot fire my way, and I had fallen in love.
Hard.
Kincaid had seen it as a challenge, and I’d gone out there, determined not to fail in front of this girl. However, I had.
Epically.
It had taken another ten minutes arguing with the cashier before he’d gone out to try it himself, finally conceding that the pump was out of order. I thought Kincaid was going to murder him on the spot. So, after a very lengthy apology, a refund on everything that she had purchased, and one complimentary tank of gas, Kincaid had been ready to tell both of us to fuck off and be on her way.
Only that’s not what had happened.
After failing to be her hero, I had finally introduced myself, asked her if she wanted to have dinner, and she had surprisingly said yes.
Dinner had lasted three hours in one of the best nights of my life. I’d never had a three-hour dinner with a girl before, and everything about it had felt different. Every word out of her mouth had felt like the gospel. I had wanted to learn everything about her. I had wanted to hear her voice talk about anything for as long as possible. Her voice, her laugh, her smirks, her every mannerism had captivated me, and by the time I had paid the tab, I’d been in deep in love. Talk about being in way over your head, that had been me. I’d been drowning in everything that was Kincaid Black, and I’d never wanted anything more in my life.
My life’s plan no longer mattered. The Order no longer matter. Family, friends, school, life…none of it mattered anymore. All that had matter was the girl bewitching me with simple conversation.
After dinner, I had driven her home, and I’d had every intention of leaving her on her doorstep, a simple kiss goodnight if luck had been on my side.
Oh, I’d gotten the kiss alright.
What had started out as a chaste kiss had turned into the hottest connection ever.
Kincaid had made the first move, taking my face in her hands, leaning upward, then placing the softest kiss ever on my lips. My hands had immediately found her hips, and when I had leaned in to deepen the kiss, it’d been all over after that.
The sweet kiss had turned into a feverish need to consume her, and consume her, I had. Even with everything that came afterwards during the three months that we’d been together, that first night with Kincaid was still the best night of my life. Probably because she’d given me her virginity that night. Still, if you’ve never had someone set your body on fire with passion so explosive that you’d die for it, then you haven’t lived.
We couldn’t get enough of each other that night, and it’d been like that during our entire time together. The need for each other had never waned, and we’d done things that I’d never imagined doing before. Never mind the madness that happened in the bedroom, but we’d done things in public, too.
Common sense hadn’t existed between us. A day hadn’t gone by where I hadn’t been inside her at some point. The more we fucked, the more desperate we’d been for each other. Sure, there’d been a lot of getting to know each other during the downtime, and we had even made time for the movies, dinner, bowling, and fun things like that, but it had all revolved around the insatiable thirst to sexually destroy each other. It’d gotten so bad that I’d had serious concerns for when school started. I’d had no idea how I was supposed to attend classes, study, eat, and sleep, possibly having to go a day without her.
Then two days before classes were to begin, she dumped me. Out of the blue, she’d met me at the city park where she had told me it was over, and it’d been fun while it lasted.
A raging volcano had nothing on the anger that I’d been feeling that day and the many days that had followed. It had taken me months to move past what we’d had. However, for the immediate week following our breakup, I’d done everything I could to get answers from her.
Oh, I’d gotten an answer alright.
After our millionth argument about the breakup, Kincaid had coldly informed me that there was someone else and that she’d never been in love with me, despite having said the words to me.
Now, I’d known that she was lying. Kincaid was an awful liar because she wasn’t practiced at it. She didn’t need to lie. She didn’t care for the opinions of sheep, so there was no need to put up pretenses to impress the masses. Plus, she was Kincaid Black. Enough said.
Still, knowing that she had lied through her teeth, I had finally given up and had walked away. For her to lie about the one thing that would hurt me most, there’d had to be a reason. Kincaid had wanted to end our relationship enough to lie about something so hurtful that I’d never recover.
So, I let her go.
I let her go because whatever had been going on with her had been bigger than what we’d had together. That fucked-up saying about wanting the person you loved to be happy, even if it’s not with you was true to a certain extent. However, I’d been fool by the deep belief that she’d come back once she figured her shit out.
Kincaid never came back, though.
No.
She’d gone on to live her life like those three months hadn’t even happened. Three years later, I was still grappling with the loss of her and what we’d had together.
As for the first time that I’d heard that she had gone out with someone else?
Yeah, the study room in my condo was still a fucked-up mess.
Chapter 6
Kincaid~
If things kept going this way, I feared coffee wasn’t going to be enough anymore. I had no desire to jump on the cocaine train, but these late nights were beginning to catch up with me.
Even though Saxton had stayed with me for two hours on the phone last night, I still hadn’t been able to sleep. Thoughts of Fox had tortured me all night, and I couldn’t understand why. I’d been doing a great job of pretending like I didn’t have feelings for him for three years, so I had no idea why it was becoming such a struggle now.
I’d had a choice to make three years ago, and I’d made it. I’d been okay with it. I had kept my eyes on the prize and had kept moving forward.
So, what was the problem now?
When I’d first met Fox, it hadn’t been my finest moment. I’d been wrestling with a gas pump for eons, and the misogynistic cashier had implied that it hadn’t been the pump, but my feminine inability to work the gas nozzle.
The prick.
The attitude in me had been unleashed, and Fox had stepped in to try to salvage the situation. When the gas nozzle hadn’t worked for him either, we’d taken on the cashier together. In our mutual quest to take down the convenient store cashier, we had hit it off, and we’d gone to dinner.
For three hours, we’d spoken about everything under the sun. While I’d kept a lot of my personal skeletons locked safely in the closet, we had spoken about everything else. My brother and Saxton had been the only two topics that we hadn’t touched on. It had felt…different.
He had felt different.
So different, in fact, that I had given him my virginity that night. Only four months shy of my nineteenth birthday, Fox had been the first guy who had ever inspired that kind of passion from me, and it’d been a no-brainer. I had given myself up to everything that Fox had made me feel that night, and it was still the best night of my life.
After that night, it’d been as if Fox had hit a slut switch inside of me. I couldn’t get enough of him, and I let the guy do things that no respectable girl would ever allow. A day hadn’t gone by where we hadn’t been together. No sex act had been off-limits, and we’d even done things in public. My sexual appetite for him could never be satisfied. Just one touch had the power to set my entire soul afire, and my need for him had been a weakness that hadn’t frightened me.
There was also the fact that the boy had broken me in with a cock that was close to nine inches. It had been brutally painful, but beautiful. Every time with him had been passionately beautiful. Even when things had gotten rough, there’d been beauty in the intensity in which he’d take me.
Fox Harrington had been my first serious boyfriend. While I’d kiss other guy, and had even let them get some boob action, Fox had been gifted everything else. There hadn’t been a thing that he hadn’t done. In fact, even my period hadn’t been enough to curb the need for each other. That’s how insane we’d been for each other.
And now?
We could barely stand to be around each other.
Of course, it was all my fault, and I could own that. Again, I’d had a choice to make, and I’d made it. As difficult and as heartbreaking as it’d been, I’d done it. While my brother’s death had been the hardest thing I’d ever gone through, breaking up with Fox had been the hardest things that I’d ever done.
It had all come down to one phone call from Saxton.
Just one call.
Saxton had called me earlier that day to tell me that he was going to officially choose me for his supporter the next day. They’d been given their instructions, and there’d been no reason to wait on announcing his pick. However, that hadn’t been the only thing he’d informed me of. Saxton had also given me the list of names that had been picked along with his.
Fox Harrington had been on that list.
When my naivety had hit me, it had hit me hard. Of course, Fox Harrington would be on that list. Why wouldn’t he be? He was goddamn Fox Harrington. The other names hadn’t surprised me, either. The cast of characters had been everything you’d think of when you thought of The Order, and Fox had been no exception.
Fox fucking Harrington.
Tossing the empty coffee cup in the trashcan, I immediately popped the lid off my second cup. Not wanting to wait in line for the second cup of coffee that I knew I was going to need, I had purchased two at the same time, no shame in my game.
Glancing at my watch, I had fifteen more minutes to let the coffee kick in and get me through the first half of my day. As far as I knew, nothing was going on tonight that I needed to be a part of, so if I could just get through the day, I could sleep the rest of this depressing Thursday away.
Just then, my phone chimed with an incoming text. Glancing at it, I couldn’t help but smile.
SaxyV: Just checking on u
Me: I’m fine
SaxyV: Ur lying
Me: Say that 2 my face. I dare u
SaxyV: If ever u want 2 switch the script, I got u
Me: I know u do
I let out a deep sigh. Even though Saxton was clearly on my side, and would always be, when I’d made the decision to avenge my brother, he hadn’t tried to talk me out of it. Even though it had affected his future, too, he hadn’t tried to steer me in another, more healthy direction. In fact, he’d done everything that he could to get me to where I was today.
See, my brother had been an initiate when he had died eight years ago. He’d been chosen alongside Alexander George, Donovan Cooper, and Jacob Townsend. Alexander had chosen Arlene Winslet as his supporter, Donovan had chosen Crystal Swanson has his supporter, Jacob had chosen Brandy Holt as his supporter, and Apollo had chosen Marni Walters as his supporter.
The official investigation had it reported that Apollo had accidentally fallen off a cliff while they’d been cliff diving during spring break together. However, that’s not what happened at all. One of those sonsofbitches had pushed him or something more sinister, and I’ve bided my time, waiting to prove it and bring down the entire organization and anyone who had anything to do with Apollo’s death or helping in covering it up.
It’d been simple math the more I’d learn, and two plus two was definitely not equaling four. For eight years, Saxton and I have been researching The Order and everyone associated with it. It had become an obsession on the night that Saxton had called me to tell me that he’d overheard something strange.
I’d been fifteen when my brother had died, and the second that the possibility of foul play had entered my mind, I’ve been focused on nothing else. Though my parents have never fully recovered from the loss of their son, they had moved on like life always forced you to do. Not wanting to drag them down with me, Saxton was my only ally in all this.
So, when Saxton had given me the list of his initiating class, I’d had no choice but to break up with Fox. I couldn’t keep dating him while I’d been planning on ruining his future. As much as I loved Fox, there was no way I was going to give up on avenging my brother. There was no way I was going to let Alexander, Jacob, and/or Donovan get away with murdering Apollo.
No. Fucking. Way.
I also didn’t have any guilt where Saxton was concerned because Saxton had a plan-B for his future. When we had started out on this quest, Saxton had made sure to carve out another path for his future, so that the fallout wouldn’t hurt his chances for a successful life.
Three years later, my goal hasn’t changed. I was still going to do everything in my power to bring my brother’s killer or killers to a tragic end. I was beyond looking for justice. I wanted revenge.
Unfortunately, the price for that revenge was my love for Fox.
Downing the rest of my coffee, not carrying about the burn, I tossed the empty cup in the trashcan, then gathered my stuff to make my way to class. I didn’t have time to stew in regrets or wonder about all the what ifs regarding Fox.
