Abandoning my responsibilities is not an option. I would never forgive myself for it. And furthermore, Haley wouldn’t hear of it. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, she has accepted me as wholly as a person can. She will attend parties with me even if it scares her. She will sit at dinner with my brother even while he puts her under the glare of his curiosity. She goes to bed every night with me. Everything I am, she wants. I am a person who shows up to my parents’ events. To keep things under control. To keep things as safe as they can be.

“I wish you would let me,” she begs.

“No.”

I’ve been playing this game with her for most of the drive. She is not allowed to get out of breath and lose control of herself. She is not allowed to cry and ruin her makeup. She is not, for the love of Thomas and all that is holy, allowed to scream while we’re still in the backseat.

If she does that, I’ll turn this car around.

Haley settles herself against me. “You’re mean,” she whispers. She’s tight and hot and trembling. Every muscle is working to keep herself from coming. Her delicate hips roll in my hands.

“And you’re disobedient. I told you I wouldn’t fuck you until after the gala. Now look at you.”

She opens her eyes and looks down to the red of her dress against the black of my clothes, and then her heart-stopping blue eyes meet mine. Pleading. Huge. “Leo, please.”

This is a lovely agony. I pulse inside of her, and she feels it, tightening down on me in answer. “I keep my promises, darling.”

“You said you wouldn’t fuck me. You didn’t say I couldn’t fuck you.”

“Do it, then.” Her pussy clenches at my bored, irritated tone. She takes her hands from my shoulders and fists them in the lapels of my jacket. Fuck, it feels good. Haley’s trying to keep herself upright as much as she can, keep her hair and her makeup intact, so all of the work is in her hips, in her sweet thighs. I let her get three rolls into her rhythm before I interrupt her. “Stop.”

She does, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. “Mean.”

“Put your fingers underneath your dress and make yourself come. No more bouncing.”

I’ve never seen anyone scramble for the hem of a dress so fast in my life. Haley yanks it up, keeping one of her hands braced on my jacket, and works her fingers down into the sheer fabric of her panties.

Fuck.

It hurts not to fuck her. The pressure is intense. Her muscles work me over, and it takes extraordinary patience not to fuck her, not to thrust into her, to make her use me for her pleasure.