Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series Callie Rose (i read a book TXT) 📖

“Have you ever done this before, Harlow?”

I try to contain my snort-laugh because our faces are so close together, but I’m not entirely successful. He cocks his head, still waiting for an answer.

“No,” I tell him honestly. “I didn’t even know it was the kind of thing I’d be into. Until I met you guys.”

“Good.”

His voice is a growl, and when he kisses me again, it isn’t a soft kiss like our last one. This is more like the kiss he gave me before he sent me off to crawl into River’s lap downstairs.

Bruising.

Demanding.

Possessive.

I kiss him back just as hard, and a shiver of something hot and sweet works its way up my spine as it strikes me that this thing between the kings of Linwood Academy and me is a closed loop.

It’s not a “the more the merrier” type situation.

There is no open invitation for anyone else to join us. Linc is willing to share me with his three friends because he loves them and trusts them, and I guarantee that’s how they feel too.

It makes the connection growing between the five of us slightly less terrifying, even though there’s no denying I’m out of my depth here.

The night Lincoln caught me spying on Dax and Chase with that girl in the upstairs bedroom, back when I still sort of hated them all, he asked me what I wanted—who I wanted. I didn’t dare answer, because even back then, even through all the bullshit between us, a spark of the truth had already lit inside my soul.

All four of you.

Linc and I kiss until the bruising intensity of our lips softens to something deep and slow and languid. We kiss until exhaustion steals over us and our eyes fall shut, our limbs twined together and our bodies pressed close.

And even though I know better than ever now just how dangerous the world is, I feel… safe.

25

I wake up early the next morning.

My brain turns back on at a little after six o’clock, as if someone flipped a switch. I don’t regret anything that happened last night, and I don’t regret taking a few hours off from what has been an exhausting and frustrating search.

But the break accomplished its purpose. I’m chomping at the bit to get started again, eager to use the last bit of time we have left.

Besides, as I was drifting off to sleep last night, a thought occurred to me. The bedroom I saw Chase, Dax, and that girl in… that wasn’t the only time I stumbled upon illicit activity in that room. The first night I snuck out to play poker, I heard Mr. Black in that room, heard the sound of his voice from behind the closed door. And I’m pretty damn sure he was having sex with someone.

Was it Iris?

Would he have been so bold as to bring her to his fucking house?

I don’t know. Linc hasn’t found any security footage that she appears in, but River was right. It’d be easy enough for Mr. Black to erase any incriminating footage on his own home security system. He’d be an idiot not to.

But maybe there’s some hint inside that room as to what went on in there, and who he was with.

I lie in bed for about half an hour, listening to Lincoln breathing evenly beside me. He’s lying on his stomach, body nestled against mine and one arm draped over me, and as much as I want to get a move on with this search, it takes a little convincing to get myself to slip out of the warm bed.

After throwing a sweater on over my tank top and pajama bottoms, I pad downstairs and make some coffee, grabbing five mugs from the cabinet and setting them out. It’s weird. I’ve felt more at home in this house in the last four days than I ever did in the weeks I lived here before that.

I’m staring at the coffee pot, zoning out a little as I wait for it to finish brewing, when I hear two sets of footsteps behind me. I don’t even have to look up to guess who it is. Dax and Chase are both early risers, as if sleep is just an inconvenience they have to deal with to get to the next day. They’re usually up before the rest of us, and I’ve never seen them start the day with anything less than one hundred percent energy—unlike River, who wakes up in stages, from deliriously grumpy to semi-conscious to alert.

“Hey, Low. You’re up early,” Chase notes, shooting me a look with brows raised. With just a slight shift in the tilt of his lips, his grin turns wicked. “Did River not wear you out enough last night?”

I blush, pressing my lips together hard, not sure if I want to smile or smack him.

“Oh, give her a break, she just woke up.”

Dax nudges Chase out of the way and grabs an empty mug, joining us in our vigil over the coffee maker. His gaze cuts to me out of the corner of his eye, and on my other side, I can feel Chase staring at me too.

I squirm uncomfortably before finally crossing my arms over my chest and bouncing my gaze between the two of them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Chase says with a grin, shooting Dax a look over my head that I’m pretty sure contains an entire seventeen-page essay. How the fuck do they do that?

“Um, bullshit.” I cross my arms over my chest.

Dax chuckles. His green-blue eyes have heat in them, but something else too. Something I like even more. “It’s just—you’re not what we expected, Harlow. You’re so much more than that. I don’t think any of us saw you coming.”

A small swarm of butterflies escapes and flaps wildly around my stomach, but I just give him my cockiest smirk. “Yeah. Most people don’t.”

He tips his head back and laughs, and