“What do you want from me, Cullen?”
He grabs the wine off the table and finishes another glass. “Don’t you think it’s a little too late for you to offer me anything?”
“Then why are you here? What am I supposed to do now to make it right?”
He scoffs. “You can’t make it right, Everly. None of you can. Not you, not my dad, not my uncle. No one can bring my mom back or go back in time and give a shit about the little kid who got royally fucked by every adult in his life.”
It stabs like a knife, but I fight back. “Is risking your scholarship and your education really worth getting back at me for doing my job.”
As he steps toward me, I back away until I hit the wall. Then he reaches out and touches my face, letting his finger drift down my cheek, along my jawline until he’s pinching my chin between his thumb and fingers.
The blue and white flecks like glass of his eyes shine in the bright lights of my kitchen. I keep waiting for someone to snap me out of this dream because I can’t seem to move away or stop him as he leans toward me. My lips part and I squeeze my eyes closed, letting out a yelp as his other hand scoops my waist and pulls me against his body, hard against my stomach.
“Cullen, stop,” I whisper—a little too weakly if I’m being honest.
As he lets go of my chin, his mouth falls soft against my lips. My hands press against his chest, but not with enough force to actually push him off of me. In the recesses of my mind, I know if I really wanted him off, I could get away, but I don’t. I let him kiss me.
I let his tongue slide between my lips, diving into my mouth like he owns me, and I guess at this point, he does. He lets out a low growl when the hand around my waist squeezes me closer, practically fusing my body against his.
Still, I push against him but only until his head tilts the opposite way and his lips soften against mine. Then for a moment we completely melt into one. My brain ceases to think or fight this because I know this is the best kiss I’ve had in a long, long time—maybe ever.
As he finally starts to separate our mouths, leaving us both breathless, I see something out of the corner of my eye, and I glance that way just in time to see his phone extended in his hand, the selfie camera open and his thumb over the white circle, already snapping pictures I can spot in the camera roll along the bottom.
“Say cheese,” he mumbles.
He hits it one more time, getting a shot of me with red lips and a look of horror on my face. Suddenly, waking from my daze, I lunge for the phone but he’s too quick, holding it out of my reach. A cruel laugh slips through his lips as he scrolls through the pics he just took.
“You asshole,” I bark at him.
His eyebrows shoot up as he glances back at me. “Now is that any way for a teacher to talk to her student?”
“Delete them, Cullen. You kissed me by force. I should have you arrested.” I’m rambling, still trying to think clearly after that kiss that has my brain feeling foggy.
“Oh, I’m not deleting these. And you and I both know that was not exactly by force, Miss West.” He winks at me and I let out a grunt, looking for something to throw at his head.
“Where is your phone?” he asks, scanning my living room.
“What? Why?” I scramble for my desk on the other side of the room, but he’s faster than me, getting it before I can. My laptop screen is black, but I feel a sudden jolt of fear that he will wake it up and see his photos plastered all over my screen—photos of him as a small child.
And I just kissed him! Fuck, what is wrong with me?
He snatches up my phone without touching my laptop, so I breathe a small sigh of relief until I see him swiping my phone and holding it toward himself before I can even react. It opens immediately with the face scan, and he starts going through it. No matter how much I claw at him or try to get my phone back, he doesn’t relent or even react.
“What are you doing, Cullen?” I yell.
“Just making sure I can keep track of you while I’m not around.” He says it so calmly it makes my skin crawl.
“What does that mean? Why?”
Looking down at me, he gives me such a blank, nonchalant expression. “Because Everly, you belong to me now.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat suddenly making it hard to breathe. How did I end up in this mess? And more importantly, how am I going to get myself out?
A moment later, he tosses my phone on the couch and I jump for it, opening it with a quick swipe to see what he did. Of course, I can’t see any of the changes. It all looks perfectly normal.
“Cullen, this isn’t a joke. You can’t just walk in here and start acting like you own me.”
Holding his phone up, the image of our kiss on the screen, he says, “Don’t I? The question is, is risking your job and life worth fighting me?”
I press my lips together, still staring at the photo and I hate myself for how cozy I look in it, leaning against him and holding his chest like I want him there. I don’t look like I’m fighting him at all.
He got me. I can’t possibly fight him now. At this point, it’s more than my career as a teacher on the line. If those pictures get out, me making out with the teenager from my biggest case, my career as a journalist is over too. My entire life is on the line. He’s right—he does own me.
And I don’t know if I’m more upset that he’s blackmailing me or that the kiss wasn’t real. Something I should not be upset about.
“Fine. What do you want me to do?” I glare at him with hatred in my eyes. This is no longer a student/teacher relationship between us. He’s treating me like the enemy so I guess that’s what I am.
A smile creeps across his face, and it’s the kind of smile from someone who has just won. “Nothing right now. But remember, you will not do anything without my permission. You don’t go anywhere, talk to anyone, or even so much as touch that pretty little cunt of yours without my permission. Because I’ll know. Understand?”
Every part of me wants to fight back. I want to scream, fight, argue, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because of the photo and the blackmail he’s holding against me or maybe it is because of the guilt I still feel for what happened to him as a child. Do I deserve to live in this hell for it? No, but there’s something in Cullen that still pulls at my heart, even if he is now the villain in my story.
6
Cullen
Thank fuck for Saturday night shifts. I managed to make almost $500 in the six hours I worked tonight. And people were tipping well. Which put me in a good mood—good enough to swing by Everly’s before catching the bus over to Gina’s where I could afford to get high. I was not planning that stop, but once I found myself there, I couldn’t help but have a little fun with her. The idea for the kiss photo was brewing in my mind all night, but I didn’t think about it too much until I was there and the opportunity arose. Then it was suddenly too easy.
And now I’m high off my ass at Gina’s with the new server, Allie’s lips wrapped my cock in Gina’s guest bedroom. She’s on her knees, moaning loudly as she bobs up and down. My hand wraps around her ponytail, and it’s nice. I mean having your dick sucked is always nice, but I was hoping for more than nice. I’m having a hard time getting in the mood for this tonight. Even as I thrust my hips forward, fucking her mouth until she gags, I don’t feel any closer to coming.