I shudder as waves of pleasure roll through me. “Good girl, you’re so fucking beautiful. Lift your butt,” he directs me.

Doing as he asks, I lift up and he slides my underwear over my hips, pulling them down my legs and off my ankles. “What…?” I question as he balls them in his hand and then lifts them to his nose, inhaling deeply.

“You smell delicious.”

Before I have a chance to protest, his lips are against mine and he kisses me, sliding his tongue between my lips and exploring my mouth. His kiss is elegantly forceful with single-minded intent. “My pretty little bird,” he whispers against my lips as he pulls back.

“Sebastian.”

“Bastian, my friends call me Bastian.”

“We’re not friends,” I pant shakily.

“No, we’re so much more. Go take a shower, before I spread your legs and shove my cock inside you. I’ll come back and take you down for breakfast once you’re dressed.”

When he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, I jump up from the bed and slide the lock into place, resting my back against the wood and exhaling shakily. Bastian is intense. His presence sucks all of the air from the room, until all I can see and focus on is him. The orgasm he gave me is nothing like the ones I’ve given myself. If that’s the way it feels when one of The Elite touches you, it suddenly makes sense why the girls at school will literally do anything to get a moment of their attention.

When he calls me little bird, goose bumps pebble over my skin, but I’m not sure if that’s because I like it, or because he scares the hell out of me. Maybe both. He wants to fuck me. It’s not like I’ve never thought about sex, of course I have. I’m sixteen, I have fantasies and I’ve explored my own body to see what feels good, but I have zero real-world experience.

I don’t even know if I find Bastian attractive. Who am I kidding? He’s gorgeous, but he’s also high handed, obnoxious, terrifying and an Elite. That’s not me. I’m not motivated by power or popularity. I would rather be invisible than be one of them, but I doubt that’s something he could ever understand. When you look like he does, with a name like Lockwood, invisibility isn’t an option.

The door to the bathroom is ajar and I pad over to it on bare feet, realizing that at some point someone changed me out of my diner uniform and into the soft nightshirt I’m wearing. I’m really hoping it was my mom, the shirt looks vaguely familiar so I think it’s one of hers.

White tile and black marble fittings assault my eyes when I step into the palatial room. It’s huge, bigger than my bedroom at home, and so fancy if I didn’t know I was in his house I’d assume I was at an expensive hotel. A claw-foot tub calls to me, but I don’t have time for a soak, no matter how much I wish I did. If my mom really is downstairs, like he said she was, then I need to get to her and get away from this house and the crazy boy who lives here as quickly as possible.