Riot Act Read online

  RIOT ACT

  CALLIE HART

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  50. ALSO BY CALLIE HART

  FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM!

  CALLIE’S READER GROUP

  Copyright © 2021 RIOT ACT by Callie Hart

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Prologue

  ONE MONTH AGO

  * * *

  PRES

  * * *

  Dreams are peculiar things.

  Sometimes, it’s hard to differentiate between what’s real and what takes place when you fall asleep at night. Take right now, for example. How many times have I dreamed of hooking up with Pax Davis? How many times have I dreamed of his mouth on mine? His tongue probing and exploring, tasting every inch of me? His hands fisting my hair and groping my breasts through my dress? How many times have I pictured what it would feel like to have his erection butting up against the inside of my thigh, as he grinds his hips against mine?

  “Goddamnit, Chase. You’re fucking killing me.”

  An embarrassingly high number of times, that’s how many. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. Over the past three and a half years, ever since I came to Wolf Hall Academy as a timid, friendless freshman, I’ve imagined this scene in infinite detail in my head. Every facet of this moment has been created and recreated, played out and then replayed, curated to suit my mood.

  Sometimes, Pax is sweet. Broken and contrite. An inked god with a shaved head, begging for my forgiveness on his knees, sorry for all of the trauma and discomfort he and his friends have caused me.

  Other times, he’s perfectly himself: angry, arrogant, withdrawn and smug. He brings no apology to me like this. He storms into my bedroom, eyes flaring with annoyance, an aura of anger buzzing around him, contaminating the room, causing my nerves to cinch into a tight ball. He goes to work. No pleasantries. No small talk. Just seven words that turn my bones to liquid beneath my skin:

  On your knees, Chase. Right fucking now.

  This experience right here—one I’m beginning to suspect might actually be real—is unlike anything I’ve ever conjured in my head. For starters, I’m drunk as hell. Instead of my warm, private, safe bedroom, we’re in the middle of the forest, cloaked in darkness, while the party he and his roommates are throwing rages into the night.

  The anarchist of Riot House leans into me, pinning me against the tree he slammed me up against ten minutes ago, sinking his teeth into my neck like the savage that he is.

  “Fuck. You smell amazing,” he groans.

  My brain is so addled from the cosmopolitans Damiana plied me with earlier that I can’t think straight. Not that I can ever think straight around Pax. I try to unpick the complex scent coming off of him, so heady and addicting, but I can’t even remember the names of the smells that present themselves to me. A picture of a fire flits through my head, black smoke rolling off it up into a starry, cold night overhead. Mown grass, and a carpet of mint swaying on a gentle breeze. Fresh cut limes, and wood shavings settling onto a workshop floor.

  He makes short work of the little black dress I wore to the party. It hits the forest floor, and my bra follows after it. I’m so stunned, paralyzed in my shock, that I don’t do or say anything as he strips me out of my panties, too, leaving me naked under the moonlight.

  For a brief second, Pax leans back and takes in my body. “Fuck. You are just…” He shakes his head, his eyes feasting on my bare breasts, and my stomach, roving over my hips, and down my legs. He doesn’t quit his inspection of me until his eyes, irises the color of pooled, molten steel, settle on my hair, though.

  “Incredible,” he breathes, looping a long, wavy length of it around his fingers. “So beautiful. So…red.”

  I’ve never hated my hair color, per se, but I have wanted to dye it on numerous occasions. Having red hair guarantees persistent low-grade bullying from a wide variety of people, no matter your age. In this very moment, I’m in love with my warm, rich auburn waves, though. Pax looks awed by the color and the length of it, struck a little dumb, and his raw appreciation of what so many other men might consider a flaw makes my heart beat even faster.

  Lord, I fucking want him.

  I want him so bad I can taste it. I think he wants me, too. Unsteady on his feet, Pax leans into me again, inhaling the scent of my hair. “Jesus Christ, Chase.” His face turns into the crook of my neck. His mouth is hot on my overheated skin, and feels… it feels…

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe, for pity’s sake!

  Fuck, I think I’m going to pass out.

  “You’re killing me,” he groans. Pax Davis—one of only three privileged students who reside at Riot House—kisses me like his life depends on it.

  Without exception, all of the Riot House boys enjoy a certain notoriety and reputation that precedes them wherever they go. There isn’t a person alive in the small town of Mountain Lakes, New Hampshire, who doesn’t know the names Wren Jacobi, Pax Davis, and Lord Dashiell Lovett IV.

  So wealthy. So Entitled. Arrogant and cruel.

  Pax’s name has been branded into my soul for the past three years. I’ve been obsessed with him since the moment I laid eyes on him, and now his naked body is pressed up against mine, and none of this seems real.

  I’m so wasted, the world pitches crazily like a seesaw. Pax braces against the tree, keeping his weight from crushing me, and I cling to him, wanting him, needing him more than I’ve ever needed anything in my entire fucking life. At the same time I can’t calm the panic.

  This isn’t happening.

  This can’t be happening.

  This is Pax.

  How are his hands cupping and kneading my naked breasts?

  It can’t be his tongue burning a hot trail up the curve of my neck.

  It can’t be his extremely hard cock, sliding over the slickness between my thighs, rubbing dizzyingly against my clit, applying a perfect amount of pressure, that feels so, so good…

  I moan when he rocks against me, letting my head fall back against the rough trunk of the tree.

  It is him. Any second now, he’ll be inside me, and I’ll be getting fucked by the only guy I’ve ever loved. He lets out a tight, pained growl, rolling his hips against me again, a
gain, again, the head of his erection coming dangerously close to the entrance of my pussy, and I let out a whimper—part fear, part anticipation.

  He pulls back, though. Pulls back and rocks forward again and again, repeating the motion, rubbing himself against me, his teeth gouging into the skin of my collar bone, and I can’t breathe. I gasp and pant, only managing to pull down sips of the night air. How do people do this? How do they process all of these emotions? The sensations? The—

  Pax slides a hand between our bodies and finds my clit, rolling the slippery, swollen bundle of nerves in a small, perfect circle. “Damn it. You’re so wet,” he groans. “You’re gonna feel fucking phenomenal on my dick.”

  No.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  Oh my god.

  Nope.

  I cannot fucking do this.

  And just like that…

  I’ve always been tall for a girl. I’ve never been particularly strong, though. How I shove all one hundred and ninety-five pounds of Pax’s six-foot-three, muscle-packed frame off of me, I’ll never know.

  Pax grunts, staggering back, and I discover just how drunk I am when I can’t even focus on his features. I can make out the shaved head, and the elaborate, twisting ink that marks his skin. His pale grey eyes flash silver in the faint light given off by the moon. Everything else about him is hazy, though. Just a blur of beautiful, tanned muscle.

  He's silent as the grave.

  “I—I don’t—I can’t—” The stammering isn’t new. I’ve never been able to get a sentence out around this guy, but tonight I’m desperate to communicate. Pax is a lot of things and kind is not one of them. If I don’t find a way to play this off, I’ll be paying for this moment of weakness for the rest of our senior class. He’ll never let me live it down, and neither will his friends. I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire academy by tomorrow morning.

  I didn’t even want to come to this stupid party in the first place, but the prospect of seeing Pax, being inside Riot House, walking around and witnessing where he lives… I was weak. I couldn’t resist, and now look at the mess I’ve gotten myself into.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  Suddenly the very short black dress Pax peeled off me is back in his hands; he holds it out to me. “No stress. No biggg deal.” His voice is rough, his words slurred. He comes closer, and the casual tilt to his mouth is roguish—half a smile that looks very real and very unbothered by what’s just happened. He blinks; his pupils are so dilated that the silver of his irises is barely visible anymore. It’s as if he’s looking right through me. Like he’s hardly seeing me at all.

  A jarring, awful understanding takes root. Unlike the last party that was held at Riot House, there were no giant bowls of ambiguous narcotics being passed around like candy tonight. There was plenty of hard liquor, though. I watched Pax shoot a whole bunch of it. I did the same, for fuck’s sake. He gave me two shots of whiskey himself. I’m definitely far drunker than I should be, but Pax is absolutely annihilated. Bending down, he tries to pick up his shirt and loses his balance. He nearly topples over into the leaf litter at our feet, and I see my opportunity.

  I take it.

  I run.

  Tree branches whip at my bare skin. My heels are long gone. The rough ground bites into the soles of my feet. I can barely see six feet in front of my face, but I don’t stop. I charge blindly into the night, panting hard, fists pumping, whimpering every time I roll my ankle, knowing that I’m bleeding. Eventually, I stumble, sliding down an eight-foot-long slope, landing on my ass in a deep ditch, and I’m so tired and sore that I lie still for a second, blowing hard, staring up at a small panel of the night sky that’s visible through a window in the forest’s canopy overhead.

  “Presley Maria Witton Chase,” I whisper out loud. “You are so fucking fucked.”

  It takes time to get my breath back. More time still to wriggle into the dress I somehow had the sense to keep hold of when I bolted, the fabric fisted tightly in my hand. Longer still to climb out of the ditch, which turns out to be a culvert beside the road that leads up to the academy. It’s four in the morning when I finally stagger up Wolf Hall’s front steps and into the main building.

  My room is exactly how I left it—a bombsite, clothes everywhere, makeup everywhere. Evidence of just how nervous I was, getting ready for the party earlier, trying to make myself look good—but the mess is going to have to wait. I’m too exhausted to deal with any of it, so I kick a pathway to my bed and sweep the mounds of dresses and short skirts to the floor, not caring that my feet are caked with dirt and blood as I climb beneath my sheets.

  He’s still there when I close my eyes.

  Kissing me.

  Touching me.

  Stripping me down.

  His rigid cock between my legs.

  Almost inside me.

  Rubbing against my clit.

  Almost.

  Almost.

  Almost.

  Fuck.

  I slide my hand between my legs and find my clit, mirroring the small circles Pax rubbed against it earlier. Damn, I am still so wet. I slow down the motion, drawing it out, shivering against the rising, hot, tight sensation that builds low in my stomach and between my thighs. I’ve made myself come thinking about Pax Davis countless times, but tonight it’s different. It’s not a dream. Not a fantasy. The images and the sensations that play out in my head aren’t make believe. They’re memories, and that makes them far more potent.

  The climax hits me so hard that I cry out.

  There’s no one at the academy to hear my release. The other girls from my floor are all still at the party. My friends, Carrie and Elodie, will be wondering where I am.

  I should text one of them and let them know that I’m safe.

  Should…

  I fall asleep with the electric buzz of my orgasm prickling over my skin, and once again, Pax Davis invades my unconscious mind—the boy a dream and a nightmare rolled into one. It isn’t until the morning that I find out that Mara Bancroft is dead.

  1

  PAX

  * * *

  Tall.

  Legs up to her armpits.

  Sun-kissed, golden skin.

  Perfect in every way.

  That’s how she was this morning. Now, sobbing on the dock with rivers of black mascara running down her cheeks, she’s not quite the radiant summer goddess she was before I got my hands on her. Her name is Margarite, like the flower. And much like the flower, she has a fancy name, but at the end of the day she’s nothing but a daisy. “You are fucking insane!” Her thick French accent colors the accusation. “What kind of person are you, anyway? Dive in and get it!”

  I huff out a laugh, distracted by the rock and pitch of the wooden planks beneath my feet as the dock bobs on the water.

  During the day, the Adriatic Sea is a dazzling aquamarine, so crystal-clear and beautiful that you can’t help but stare at it. At night, the vast expanse of water is black as jet and looks like an oil slick. The lights from the tiny fishing village where I chose to moor the yacht spill together as the surface of the water shifts. Crowds of locals cheers each other, laughing and talking boisterously over their platters of calamari and bruschetta, ignoring the arrogant American arguing with the French girl fifty feet away.

  I stare at Margarite, regretting how hard I flirted with her back in Calvi. She’d made me work for her attention; usually, I would have walked away from a girl who expected me to earn her time, but she’d seemed sweet and coquettish back at that café. Oh, how things have changed in the last twelve hours.

  “I’m not jumping into the fucking harbor, in the dark, to retrieve a phone that you threw in there. It’s fucked now, anyway. I think our evening’s over, Maggie.”

  She turns a violent shade of purple. “I want my phone, asshole!”

  There are a thousand ways to handle this situation. If Dashiell were here, he’d be able to reel off at least five different approaches that would diffuse this
mess quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately for Margarite, I only know of one way to tackle this, and I’ve learned from past experience that it’s not a very popular strategy.

  I drive my hands into my pockets, setting my jaw. “Back on the boat, Maggie. Be a good girl and I’ll have you back with your friends inside an hour.”

  “I swear to god.” Fuck, her accent’s even sexier when she’s angry. “If you don’t get my phone back for me, I will call the police.”

  Yeahhhh, that’s an empty threat. She’s not calling the police. That ridiculous little red purse hanging off her gorgeously tanned shoulder is full of blow. Earlier this afternoon, when we were three miles off the coast in open water and I’d just got done fucking her brains out, Margarite popped its little golden clasp open and racked up a line on my stomach, for fuck’s sake. She hasn’t stopped funneling that shit up her nose ever since. I’m no innocent little choir boy; I’ve had a few bumps myself, but Margarite is so high, she’s probably still floating around the outer stratosphere. If she calls the cops, it’ll take them five seconds to realize that she’s taken something, and the gendarmes do not tolerate tourists abusing drugs on their beautiful island. Even French tourists. Her ass will be thrown into jail so quick she won’t even have time to whip out that bedazzled phone of hers to call her da—Well. She won’t be able to whip her phone out at all. It’s currently seven feet below water, but you get the idea.