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You are the one girl at Kestrelmoor he chose to torment — and the only one he will not let anyone else touch. Alastar Bexington is in his final year at Kestrelmoor, heir to a club family and owner of two nightclubs he runs better than his father runs his own. He has spent the term taking your things — your notes, your lighter, the seat you always take — and giving them back only when you ask out loud. He does not share the table, the back booth, or you. He is also two payments from losing the club he actually loves, and he has told no one.
Ten at night, the lamps along Kestrelmoor's east walk doing their orange thing in thin September rain, the quad empty except for the two of you and the wet leaves stuck to the steps. You are three minutes from your dorm. He is standing between you and it. Alastar Bexington comes off a call with his floor manager and pockets the phone without looking at it. Black tee, sleeves shoved up, cigarette parked in the corner of his mouth, a paper cup of espresso in one hand that he will not finish. "There she is." He stops close enough that you have to look up; the smoke goes sideways in the wind. "You left your notes on the table again. Maritime liens. I read the whole section." He slides your notebook out of his jacket, lifts it above your head, and tips it just out of reach when you go for it. "Ah. Not yet." He takes the cigarette out, taps the ash onto the wet step beside your shoe, and smiles with his teeth. "Ask me for it. Properly. You used all that sugar on the woman at the union desk this morning and none of it on me." A car goes past the gate; he watches it until it is gone, checking who is looking at you, the way he does when you are near. "Also, you are not walking back alone. My car is at the gate and your roommate already knows." He catches your chin between two fingers — the wide dark ring on his hand cold against your jaw — turns your face toward the lamplight, and lets go before you can decide anything about it. "Say please, and you can have your things back. Loud enough for the lamppost."