Brutal Blueblood

but I had no patience for these kinds of things, even when she was the hostess. What usually started as an invite-only event turned into an “I know someone with an invite”-only event, which meant a party this big was crowded with a mix of socialites, social climbers, and random drunk people who’d somehow piggybacked in with a group of friends. And all of them seemed in a race to drink the most, screw around the most, and post the most on social media about doing those things, no matter how ridiculous they looked doing it. No matter how in bad taste it all seemed.
I liked drinking and sex as much as the next trust fund kid, but I preferred my pleasures less tawdry, I supposed. More rarefied. Perhaps because I was the responsible brother, the invisible but dependable son, and responsibility had been drilled into me from birth—or perhaps because I’d inherited my mother’s distaste for anything common or gauche.
Either way, I had no interest in dancing in a sweaty crush of people or drinking badly mixed drinks while looking for someone to grind against. I still planned to stare at the sea and fume inwardly about the lost fellowship.
It would’ve helped me become even more of an asset to my mother’s company, given me a change of pace and scenery—something to shake up a life that had become nothing but an endless parade of too-easy schoolwork, my mother’s impossible expectations, and friends too preoccupied with money or girls to see the bigger picture. The bigger world we were all going to inherit one day.
Instead, I’d been wait-listed.
Wait-listed!
I’d never been wait-listed for anything in my life. It irritated me, but it made me curious too. Who was smart enough, creative enough, ambitious enough to muscle me out of a spot that I should have gotten just by virtue of who my mother was? Who?
And then I saw her standing by the railing, and everything else fled my mind. The fellowship, my bad mood, everything.
The only thing left was her.
She was standing alone as the breeze toyed with tendrils of hair that had escaped from a simple french braid, wearing cutoffs that showed off her long legs and a worn T-shirt that hugged the lithe curves of her breasts and waist. Unlike the people running up to the slide or dancing on the deck below, she was quiet, pensive. The gaze behind those big glasses was keen but curiously, not haughty. Sharp but not biting. As if she saw everything for what it really was and had no interest in it because she was preoccupied with deeper, more interesting thoughts.
I found, with some surprise, that I wanted to know those thoughts for myself.
And that mouth. Plump and pretty and sometimes catching gossamer strands of her hair as they fluttered in the gentle wind, it was settled into a soft line that was neither pouting nor self-pitying, only thoughtful.
She was simply apart. Apart from the immature games the other guests were playing, apart from the shallow, transparent hungers of the people around her. Apart from the teeming, glow-stick-y fray of the party. She looked innocent and wise all at the same time, and for the first time since I’d dragged myself to Ibiza, my blood ran hot. There was something about her that was almost familiar, but I suspected the almost-familiarity was because she was temptation incarnate. Not only gorgeous but interesting too. A riddle for me to solve.
I wanted to kiss that plump, pretty mouth. I wanted to twist my hands into the thin fabric of her T-shirt and yank her close to me. I wanted to see if I could make that thoughtful expression turn into one of interest. Desire.
Fellowship forgotten since the first time I’d heard I’d been wait-listed, I’d uncrossed my arms and strode over to make her acquaintance.
*     *     *
Twenty minutes later, I was slowly pushing Tanith against the railing, my arms on either side of her hips, lowering my mouth so it hovered over hers.
But I didn’t kiss her. Not yet.
She smelled like the sun and fresh paper, and she looked too good to be real, all full, bitable lips and inquisitive eyes behind her big glasses. I could hardly believe my luck in finding such an angel here tonight—or perhaps she wasn’t an angel at all, but a goddess set apart from the rest of us.
Tanith. Of course I’d learn her name at the same time I’d learned about a goddess.
“I could kiss you,” I murmured down to her. “And then what would happen?”
Even this close, even in the flickering, half-light coming from the rest of the yacht, I could see her fair but sunburnt cheeks go even pinker.
She swallowed. “I could kiss you back.”
A zip of triumph joined the lust simmering in my veins. I gave her a small smile. “And then what after that?”
She pulled her lip between her teeth. I felt that small gesture like I would feel a hand down my trousers.
“I don’t know,” she said after a minute of thinking. “I’ve only had one kiss. A boy back in eighth grade. The rest of my experience comes from reading Stucky.”
“What’s a Stucky?” I asked.
A smile curved those perfect lips, and I felt warm all over, like I was lying out on a beach under the Spanish sun. “Fan fiction. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes—but I read lots of different ships—there’s one with Steve and Sam Wilson called—” I leaned down even closer, enough that I could feel the warmth of her exhales as she began breathing faster. “Freebird.”
“Is that so?” I murmured, feeling an answering smile on my own lips. Never, and I mean never, had anyone responded with fan fiction explanations when I’d been trying to seduce them into a kiss. I loved it.
“And when Steve and Sam and Bucky are all together—” She was blinking fast, her face lifted to mine. “All Caps,” she finished in a pant as I brushed my nose against hers. As I moved my