“This is the first and only time.” His voice was an aphrodisiac as he bent over me, pressing me into the floor as his hips worked hard and fast. “Once.” His forehead crashed on my spine as if convincing himself that we could walk away after this. “Just once. That’s all this can ever be.”
His nails imprinted marks into my flesh as he clawed to get closer. His own words terrifying him into harsher aggression.
I didn’t bother replying. I focused on clutching at the floor and giving everything I had.
“Jesus Christ.” Gil wrapped a hand around my loose hair, forming a messy ponytail. He rutted into me, staying true to his word to use me.
With a jerk, he yanked my head back, arching my spine, plunging inside me with a roar.
Deep.
Hard.
Bestial ownership.
I opened my mouth to scream, but he clamped a hand over me, riding me, containing my cries. “Quiet. He can’t know you’re here again.”
He thrust quick and dominant.
I didn’t know this Gil. No remnants of the teenage boy existed. This man was lethal and I came apart for him. I transcended human form and felt him on a feral level. There was no beginning or end. No choice or conclusion. My orgasm could no longer be denied, working its way up my belly into my spine and teeth. The swirling, twisting warning was my only hint before I shattered outward.
I combusted with pleasure.
I plummeted into pulses.
My entire body contracted and melted.
Gil followed me.
His thrusts grew shallow and fast, dipping into me with a single-minded purpose.
He came with an unbearable noise of heartache and suffering, making tears prick my eyes. His release lasted a while, drenching me with heat.
His body twitched and jerked, his breath short and sharp.
Slowly, our haze receded, depositing us back into the living. My knees screamed and wrists bellowed, and Gil’s cock still rippled inside me from his orgasm.
Piece by piece, cell by cell, we returned to our bodies and a chill cloaked me as Gil pulled out and stood.
He stumbled as if the vodka in his system returned full force, making him drunker than before. He didn’t bother scooping his clothes from the floor. He just walked naked into the kitchen.
There, he yanked open a cupboard and ripped a glass from the shelf. He poured himself a drink from another bottle of vodka stolen from his pantry. Only once he’d shot the liquor down his throat did he look at me sitting dishevelled and used on his floor.
Our eyes met.
Our souls said goodbye.
I forced back tears as he said, “Get dressed. I’ll walk you out.”
Chapter Sixteen
______________________________
Gil
-The Past-
“MR. CLARK, PLEASE stay after class.”
I stiffened at my desk as Ms Tallup pinned her grey eyes on me. Olin twisted a little in her seat to look at me, but I shook my head slightly, hiding any sign of the trepidation inching down my spine.
Olin would wait for me to walk her home. I had no doubt about that.
It’d become a tradition. Just as it’d become tradition for her to slip me painkillers if my father had been particularly ruthless with his fists. Just as it’d become the norm for her to bring baked goods and hide money in my backpack so I could eat regularly.
She looked after me as much as I looked after her, and it made my heart suffocate with pain. We were in a relationship. A family-ship.
Yet, I still hadn’t kissed her.
I’d been sure only to touch her platonically.
I bit my tongue on what I truly wanted to tell her.
How much I truly cared.
Since the pancake revelation a month ago, we’d been careful to keep some distance. We didn’t discuss it; it’d just happened. Happened in a way that said we both felt the intensity of whatever existed between us and weren’t quite ready to unleash it.
“Mr. Clark, did you hear me?” Ms Tallup crossed her arms, her nose in the sky.
My hands curled into fists. “Yes, Ms Tallup.”
The bell rang.
Students shot to their feet.
Olin cast me a look as she shuffled out with the rest of the class, leaving me alone with the teacher from hell.
What the fuck does she want?
My father had avoided painting my face with bruises lately. My body was a different story, but at least nothing was visible to those who didn’t need to know.
Standing slowly, I made a show of stuffing my workbook into my bag and sauntering toward the front where Ms Tallup waited. A marker in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
My test from the other day.
With a giant F written in red.
Great.
Just fucking great.
“You’re flunking me again?” I couldn’t hide the contempt in my voice.
She tutted under her breath. “If you don’t do the work, I can’t reward you with the grades.”
“I’m doing the work.” I knew my grades were good because Olin helped me. We helped each other. I’d gotten over my aversion to being in her empty house, and we regularly had study sessions together. Her text pages were always so much cleaner than mine. Her bedroom so much warmer than mine. But I kept up with her in the intelligence department, and I trusted myself a little more. Trusted I was just as good as the other students and didn’t deserve to be held back.
“That’s not what I see.” She crossed her arms again, crushing the paper against her body. “I see two students fraternising when they should be focused on school.”
“What did you say?” Everything inside me went cold.
“You heard me.” She looked at the door as if a pupil might walk by and overhear. Fat chance of that. They were all halfway home by now.
Apart from Olin.
She would wait for me.
She’d wait for me because I’d wait for her.
Always.
“It’s none of your business which students hang out together.”
She smiled thinly. “It is my business if it’s affecting their academic progress.”
“You’ve affected my academic progress by holding me back two years.”
“I merely suggested to the headmaster that you weren’t at the same level as the others. That’s all. If he didn’t agree with me, you would’ve graduated by now.”
“I’m just as good as the rest of them.” My temper boiled, and I understood partially why my father beat me when he was angry. The urge to punch Ms Tallup sent pins and needles racing into my fists. It would feel so nice to hurt her like she was hurting my future.
“Why are you doing this?” I did my best to speak normally, but it came out like a snarl.
Her eyebrows shot into her mousy hairline. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m merely a concerned—”
“You’re not. You want something. Something from me.”
How the fuck didn’t I see it before?
The thought was a lightning bolt. Hot and scary and lethal as hell. My head cocked, staying arrogant but quickly sliding into terror. “Tell me. What do you want?”
For the first time, a flicker of truth showed in her steely gaze. She wasn’t old—pushing mid-thirties—but a vindictive streak in her said she hated teenagers.