After our disagreement in his office, I decided to eat dinner in my own room. I hadn't felt like any company. Instead, I spent most of the day to myself, simply just reloading my mental energy and going over what he had said in the study.
Was it really as simple as he said? That all I had to do was choose how much focus I was going to put into my emotions and that would be that? Maybe it could work to some extend, but I stood by my own words as well; Eventually it would all pile up, all the un-dealt-with emotions. I also couldn't help but feel if my emotions were the sacrifice I had to make for moving up in the world... I wasn't so sure I wanted to move that much up.
Harry was a brilliant man, there was no doubt about it. He had achieved a lot in his 32 years, but he had also vastly spent the majority of those years inside and in isolation. That was also indisputable. He might've been the smartest person on earth when it came to math, but when it came to emotions, I wasn't so sure he was the best to take advice from. Granted, I didn't know enough about his personal life to make that decision yet, but until I did, I wouldn't be sure about taking advice from someone who had had no public relationships according to the world. I knew he was a private guy... but did his privacy come because of natural causes, or as a highly selective participation in society?
The talk in his study had given me a lot to think about, but for the sake of being interested in my future, I tried his advice; I tried as much as I could to push it all aside for the day and focus on my studies, and right up until after dinner, it actually worked.
The only reason why it stopped working was because there suddenly came a knock on my door.
I was sitting in my bed, almost ready to call it a day since the clock showed 10:45pm, when I heard a knuckle tap against the door to my room. I frowned a little and lowered my book, but nonetheless called 'come in' when I recognized the knock. It still didn't dull the surprise when I saw him enter my room, closing the door softly behind him. I never would've thought he would be the one to crack first.
I slowly closed my book when I saw him turn in the light from my bedside lamp, which was the only light still on. I had been reading a little before bed like I always did, but suddenly I had a feeling I wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon.
"Hey," I said, seeing him pocket his hands and walk a little closer towards me. He looked ever his calm self, yet... thoughtful right now. I watched him carefully as he stopped a few feet from the foot of my bed.
"You didn't come down to dinner tonight," He then said. I raised a surprised brow. That's how he was starting?
"I didn't think you'd notice," I replied, laying my book away on my bedside table and then folded my hands. "what, with being busy with your work and all that."
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but other than that, he didn't move. He instead shifted his gaze towards my window where the drapes were closed for the night.
"I know I can be rude," He then started, causing me to raise both my brows this time. That was an understated confession. "And I make no apologies or excuses for it. When I said I was disappointed in you, I meant it."
I pursed my lips ever so slightly, but didn't show any other affections than that. "I think you made that perfectly clear."
"I don't believe I made it clear why that was, though," He finally said. He turned his eyes towards me, catching my gaze.
Pressing my lips together, I then gestured for him to continue with a tilt of my head. "Do elaborate, then." Although I wasn't so sure I wanted to know the specific ways I had disappointed him.
Lowering his head, he glanced at his shoes before straightening his back and staring towards my window again. "I don't tutor, Cassandra."
I frowned. That was another weird way of starting. "I know?"
"Do you know why I don't tutor?"
I thought for a second, but then shook my head lightly. "No."
"I don't tutor, because I can't stand the youth of today," He replied, which was probably the last answer I had expected. My guesses had been more along the line of a social phobia or something like that, but never to such a degree. "That sounds harsh, but it's the honest truth. I don't like today's youth and what it's becoming."
Okaaaay, I thought. So he didn't like the youth. What did that have to do with him being disappointed in me?
"I stay within the confines of my house because I believe the stupidity of the youth's ways pollutes the mind," He continued unaffectedly, starting to pace back in forth in front of my bed. "Social media, all of their new toys, trends and gadgets. Even their language leaves me questioning whether or not I should switch to astronomy, just so I might find another habitable planet with higher hopes to prosper."
I pressed my lips together not to smile. He sounded like an old, bitter man, but he was only 32. Furthermore, I think he just actually made a real joke for the first time in his life. Or at least the first joke I had ever heard whilst staying here.
"Alright, so you don't like us young people," I clarified before he went off into a full hate-spiral on all us youthful people. "I think I've got that."
"I don't want to waste my time on them," He explained, simply. He met my eyes again, deep and still thoughtful. "The main priority of the youth today is to party, drink, have kids while they're still kids themselves, and gossip about pointless things. They don't prioritize the development of their minds anymore. And while there might be exceptions, I simply won't bother spending my time searching through a sea to find a single individual."
I was waiting for his point. I knew it was coming up soon, so I stayed resilient. "Well, that's your decision."
He pursed his lips. Then, turning his eyes to the window again, he took a short moment before he continued.
"When my brother started this whole scam, I knew right from the start. The moment you showed up at my door, I was prepared to turn you down and prove my theory as to why kids in this world are a lost cause. I wasn't going to have any, and I wasn't going to bother tutoring any."
I crossed my arms and waited. I watched as Harry now unfurled his hands from his pockets and turned towards me. He leaned up against the pillar to my bed and surprised me by giving me a little smile.
"But strangely, you were the odd exception, Cassandra. Before you had even come to my door, I knew everything about you, and I believe that was the exact reason why my brother chose you as well. You weren't one of the others."
I felt my brows lift. I wasn't quite sure, but... I think he just complimented me? "Thank you...?"
His lips twitched again. "After a while of observing you and testing how you responded as a person to being lectured, I saw that you were a genuinely decent person with a bright future ahead, if nourished correctly. I still have no intentions of tutoring you, but as far as I can see, you won't need it if you get shown the right path. At least that's what I thought until last night."
So now we were getting to the point. I waited while he pushed himself off the pillar to say what I could already tell myself.
"I misjudged you," He said. "I believed you to be an exception of a person your age and environment, but last night you proved me wrong. I was disappointed, not because you handled your problems with alcohol, but by the way you let your problems bring you down to such a degree. You were demoting and insulting your own bright self by letting something as simple as motherly love bring you down."
My eyes widened. "How did you—"
"I understood your alcoholic metaphor and pieced the puzzle together," He dismissed with a hand-wave, like it was as simple as 1+1. Maybe it was. He was a twice-certified genius, after all. "I got angry because you have so much potential, but if you allow such simple things to disrupt you that much, then that jeopardizes your chances of expediting your potential to the fullest."
I closed my mouth when I realized I had opened it ever so slightly. Not out of shock or surprise, but simply out of speechlessness.
It was like he never reacted the way someone should react. It was never as simple getting mad for a superficial act. It was always deeper. For a person who proclaimed he didn't allow distractions, he certainly used a lot of time thinking about things that seemed like they didn't need that much thinking.
But in a way, I was glad he did.
"I can be rude, but I am not a cold person," He repeated. "I don't let emotions take control of me, and maybe that's considered a weakness in certain situations, but I do feel. Contrary to what I show," He said, looking at me with a little smile.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and sat up in my bed a bit more. I knew he felt. I had just considered his ability to show empathy to be slightly handicapped. And maybe it still was.
"Maybe you're right," I then said. Watching him lift his eyes and look at me, I continued. "Maybe I'm not unlike the other people of my generation. Maybe I'm just as disturbed, but at least I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm trying to be more, and yes, I'm still young, so I'm also still learning. I know drinking isn't the way to do it, but there are far worse ways to handle emotional trauma than having a drink or two. That's the way I have chosen, and you've chosen another way. Who's to say which is more effective?"
I knew his way was probably healthier physically in the long way, but not mentally. I still believed he was suppressing his emotions, even if he said he was acknowledging them. Sometimes acknowledging wasn't enough. And maybe he knew that. And maybe that's why his math had earned his full attention.
"I still believe there's hope for you yet," He replied. Yay me. "But it's going to take dedication from your side."
"I'm dedicated, but I'm also me," I said, firmly. I wasn't going to change my way of things for him because he didn't approve of my methods. That just wasn't happening. "That means I'm going to study what you give me, but I'm also going to keep doing what I feel is right for my needs. If that's going to disappoint you, that's a you problem, not a me problem. You were the one who told me to don't rely on other people's logic to solve my problems, so that's what I'm doing."
His lips twitched at that. I had noticed he never really fully smiled, but like everything else kept his feelings to himself. A simple smile was all I got when he had nothing left to say.
I watched him as he now slowly turned towards the door and made ready to take his leave, but right then, a question popped into my mind. It was a question I had wanted an answer to for a long time, and now seemed like the only time I was going to get the opportunity to ask.
"This whole feud with your brother," I voiced, seeing him slowly pause up by the door. "Is it really all because of what he did? Or is there actually something more to it?" Obliviously there was more to it, but whether or not he was going to admit to it was the real question. "There has to be something you're not telling me, and I want to know why."
It wasn't really my place to ask, but then again, it wasn't really his place to lecture me. Since we were breaking the rules tonight, though, I believed I deserved an answer as to why I was playing a willing puppet in this whole thing—or at least had been playing until this morning.
I watched Harry as he now slowly lifted his head, but didn't meet my gaze. He stared at the door with a slightly pursed mouth.
"You really do seem to have a great deal of interest in family feuds," He then replied, turning towards me at last and met my eyes.
I shrugged my shoulders and pulled my knees up to my chin. "Call me Richard Dawson."
He chuckled silently, but then looked at the floor. Then, looking back up at me, he gave me a probing look. "Do you really want to know?"
"Not if you don't want to tell me," I said. "I mean, I'm not looking for more pointless gossip to gap about with my fellow youngsters. I'm just genuinely curious as to why I'm making a fortune on this shit. Or was making a fortune." I was pretty sure I lost the money-part when he debunked the act to his brother earlier. I just hoped it didn't include the scholarship as well.
"You were making a fortune," He then slowly started, taking a few steps towards my bed again, "because that's all that's ever mattered to my family. Right from the moment my brother made his first fortune, they got a thirst for it that never truly stopped."
Money-vampires. Well, that was a new breed. "I still don't see how that comes around to a feud?"
"Because I never cared about money," He replied, simply. "And the fact that my brother despises how he had to silver-tongue his way to it and I earned it fair and square always made him bitter. The sad part is, if only he had bothered to try the real way, he might've succeeded."
He might've succeeded? I tried to find heads and tails in that statement. We were talking about one of the richest men in the country, after all. You didn't get that rich simply just by talking your way to the money... or did you? If that was the case, I think I needed an extra tongue.
"When I was a kid and my brother was a teenager," Harry then continued, unaffected by my grueling, thoughtful expression. He slowly took a seat at the end of my bed and looked at the wall while he spoke. "It became very clear that my brother had a knack for manipulating people. He was always very charismatic and seemed to know the price tag on every person's integrity. By the age of 17, he had already set a standard in our family as to how business was to be done. All he needed was a product, and he could sell to any man with ears.
"So when it turned out that I had a product that could be sold," He said, pursing his lips. He was undoubtedly talking about his gift for mathematics and not his talent for sarcasm and being a dick. "My family thought it obvious that I be put out to the world to flaunt my know-how in other people's faces. They would've made millions off of my knowledge if I had just bothered to actually share it."
"But you didn't," I said, now beginning to see a pattern. He didn't tutor; That one principle seemed to grow far, far back.
"I didn't," He affirmed with a slow nod. "As a matter of fact, I refused. I was the one person my brother couldn't manipulate, simply because of the fact that I was smarter than him. And it made him bitter throughout the years."
So that was it? This whole drama was based on petty ego and bruised self-esteem? His brother had thought he was the biggest man in the family, quite possibly maybe the world, only to be out-smarted by his own little brother who refused to share his gift?
"That's how I got my rep," Harry now spoke with a little, almost self-righteous smirk. "For being private. Everyone knows I don't share my work and my process with anyone, because they think I'm selfish and don't want to out of pure egotism. But you know the truth."
I did. "You're just a bitter old man, tired of mankind," I replied with a little grin, seeing him chuckle back.
"My brother still tries to this date to get me to share my knowledge," He continued, sighing with a little, almost disappointed shake of his head. "That's why he decided to help fund the scholarship. Hoping it might make me more lenient to spill my secrets."
"But you don't," I said, leaning my head on my knees. I honestly didn't know how to respond to all of this. The feud hadn't been anything like I thought it would be, but then again, nothing about Harry had been in any way something I had been able to compare to anything else. He really was one of a kind.
He smiled silently to my response, whereafter he merely looked down at his shoes. He had shared the family secret with me, and I couldn't even find anything proper to say. Maybe because I had a feeling there was still something more he had purposely left out...
"So you got tired of being the one constantly being manipulated and decided to switch the act up on your brother," I said, leaning back on the palms of my hands. I blew out a breath between my lips. "You really are the most obnoxiously privileged brothers I've ever known." But on some crazy level, I actually got it.
– I understood that Harry had done it out of petty, 'how-does-it-feel-to-taste-your-own-medicine?' reasons, but I got it. If Richard had been trying his whole life to get his brother to sell his amazing gift, despite the clear wish of him not wanting to, I could see how not taking no for answer could get you to do something petty, like setting up your own brother for a scam that was meant for yourself – once again proving he was smarter than his brother, and once again lowering his ego a peg.
The crazy part was, as I heard it, their parents had supported Richard's claim – that Harry should share his gift – so if he was doing it out of gaining his parents love, then it wouldn't add up. That meant his sole reason to wanting Harry to sell out had to simply be to prove that every man could be bought and to the sound of his tongue.
I shook my head, almost letting out a laugh. That really was crazy. I was seriously struggling with taking it all seriously, but then again... why take it seriously?
"So that's it?" I said, smirking his way. "You were doing this just to spite your brother even more?"
"As I already told you," He stated. It was true, I suppose he had told me. Just not the long and true version. Only the needing-an-heir part, which of course now seemed so much more hilarious. I think this is what they called Karma.
"You've been having a funnier summer than I have," I said, shaking my head when I saw his lips twitch. Now that I was in on the joke, it almost made up for the fact that he scolded me earlier. Almost. "Laughing behind your brother's back whilst having your fun with me, too."
"You were the one who started that," He reminded me as I sat up again.
"True." I had started it. But hadn't he played along?
Slowly lifting my hands to my night shirt, I pulled my top off and tossed it away on the floor, watching Harry's eyes drop to it. I saw his lips flatten.
"Cassandra, what are you doing?"
I was pretty sure he knew what I was doing when I folded my legs up and pulled my panties off beneath the covers. Fishing them out from under, I let those fall to the floor as well.
"I think it's time for me to have some fun, too," I stated and crawled towards him, placing myself besides him, close enough for my breasts to press against his shoulder. He turned his head and looked at me, his amber eyes slowly changing color to a darker tone when I leaned towards him. "It only seems fair."
"Is that so?" He questioned when I combed my fingers through his neat hair. I liked the fact that he didn't keep his hair in the unruly fashion that other men and boys did. I also liked that he let me distress it and ruin his perfectly put together façade.
"I think you owe me as much," I whispered and let my hand drop to his tie, tugging him my way with a firm pull until his lips could do nothing but reach mine.
I pressed my lips against his and he kissed me back without reservation. I couldn't explain how he did it, but the way he calmly let me have what I wanted... yet kissed me back with such a slow dominance, as if we both knew who the real one in control here was. He let me take...
Cupping my face with a large hand, he didn't resist when I pulled him backwards on the bed, crawling up on the bed with him hinged to my lips. Our bodies only separated once when I tugged his tie loose and unbuttoned the first half of his shirt. He pulled back and made every part of my body shiver and clench up at the look in his eyes as he sat back and finished the job. He tossed the shirt away to the pile accumulating on the floor, which was quickly becoming larger by the minute.
I reached for his belt to add more to the pile, but in that moment, his hands grasped my legs. I looked up and caught his eyes and instantly lost my breath. Holy shit.
Harry Devon was looking at me with such intensity, I felt naked and vulnerable in fifty new ways. Never before in my life had I ever felt the urge to shyly cover up, but right then, his eyes made me feel... God, they were just so intense.
The next moment, all thoughts of insecurity left my mind as he parted my folded legs. Baring me open, I laid spread wide for him, and that moment, I felt it. The heat. The promise from the future somehow making it to this moment, that right here, I was about to have an experience I wouldn't soon forget.
And right I was.
Harry slowly leaned into towards my slightly parted lips and brushed my cheek. I wasn't breathing, I knew that, but his thumb was a reminder that I needed to. I sucked in a breath, right in the same moment his lips sealed over mine.
The sounds that escaped my lips weren't mine. Or at least I never knew I could make such sounds. They were so soft, yet so... desperate. I couldn't believe I was this close to crumbling apart, and we hadn't even finished foreplay.
But then again, a true gentleman knew foreplay never ended.
– Harry Devon was a gentleman.
I gasped softly when he kissed his way down my naked body, taking his time without thinking of the havoc he was causing inside all of my reproductive organs and then some. I was clinging to the pillows as his tongue languidly played with my nipple before moving lower to my stomach. Kiss after sweet kiss, it was as if he was merely tasting me and not thinking too much about how much I needed him. His mouth was teasing me to the point of panting and being unable to lie still, but still he seemed to take his time. A man in no rush was a man committed to the act of seduction.
But I was burning up inside.
Whimpering—something I never did—I grasped the roots of his hair as he finally made it to the feminine dip of my hips. His lips rested right on top of my pelvis and kissed me warmly, his eyes closed as if he was deep in the sensation. His hands rested gently on my thighs and kept them parted as I squirmed in fervid anticipation, on the brink of combusting as it was.
I swear if he didn't do something soon... I was quite possibly going to strangle a genius millionaire asshole with my thighs.
A cry escaped my lips and my nails scraped across his scalp when his mouth then pressed against my already dripping wet folds. I almost sat up in pleasure, spasming up as I felt his tongue seek out my bundle of nerves and push exactly against where all of my needs seemed to have accumulated.
Falling into the bed with a strangled whimper, I shut my eyes and kept a firm grip of his hair as he used his tongue on me. My legs were trembling before he even touched me, and now they were downright shaking like a leaf. I couldn't stop the sounds leaving my mouth—submissive, pleading sounds as he ate me out with a slow, burning passion. I had never felt so much like jelly in my whole life, but I was falling to pieces here.
In all of the pleasure, I hardly noticed the lights flickering and finally cutting out as a storm riled up outside. I gasped, but not because the room went completely dark, but because I felt Harry's tongue dip inside me and taste me with a low, pleased hum.
That fucking did it.
Coming apart, I trembled everywhere as I panted and cried into the ceiling. The world seemed to disappear for just a second before my eyes, but one thing remained as I felt Harry's mouth kiss my sensitive folds.
The thought of how sore I was going to be in the morning.
"Shit," I whispered into the darkness and tried to catch my breath as Harry crawled up between my legs. He unfastened his belt with slow movements, as if to allow me a few seconds to prepare and catch my breath, but it was no use. The moment I saw him lean down in over me and press himself into the narrow crevice that was the gap of my legs, I gasped and lost all my air as I felt his hardness rest against my overly-sensitive folds.
He owed me, I had said. Owed me for trying to make me behave like someone I wasn't, owed me for judging me for not being perfect... for not being allowed to make mistakes.
Tonight it seemed like we were both making a mistake.
His mouth found mine, and I wrapped my arms around his body as I felt him press forward against my folds, guiding himself inside me. My hips automatically opened wider to accept him as he with a last thrust slowly slid inside me and fulfilled me.
I knew right then I wasn't going to remember a moment of what I had been studying before he entered the room. It all disappeared before my eyes as his lips sealed against mine and his hips started grinding into my own. I lost everything for just one night, and I couldn't find a single fuck to give in that moment.
Well... maybe just one, then.
• • •
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