Like I could even stop.
The muscles in his neck and shoulders stand proud as he thrusts himself into me again and again. He fucks me like a demon. Like some dark, heavily inked, angry god. A fallen angel with an axe to grind. I’m floating on a blissful cloud when he comes, and all I can do is watch.
I saw a tornado touch ground once. It was the most raw, powerful, impressive and intimidating thing I’d ever seen. Until now. With his teeth clenched, his body stiff as a drawn bow, he comes inside of me, and my head spins at the sight of him coming undone.
He’s fucking magnificent.
When he’s done, he makes eye contact with me and I feel his energy shift. Whatever trance he was in as he climaxed ends, and that fierce trademark Pax Davis intensity comes rushing back with a vengeance. He smiles, rubbing his fingers over my lips, as if he’s satisfied with a job well done. “Wait here.”
He pulls out and heads straight for the bedroom door, completely naked. I have just enough time to cover myself before he opens the door and heads out into the hall…
What the hell? He hasn’t even wiped himself down. And he didn’t even hesitate before strolling into the communal areas of the house. Wren or Dash could be out there. Fuck. Elodie is up in Wren’s room, and I told her we were studying in here. That lie isn’t going to hold water if she catches Pax wandering around, looking like…fuck, looking like…
He reappears in the doorway, holding a face cloth in his hands. “Spread your legs,” he orders.
“I’ll make a mess—”
He arches an eyebrow at me, chastening. “You think I’m worried about a little come on my bedsheets, Chase? Do as you’re told.”
I fight back a cringe as I lower the blanket I used to cover myself and let my legs fall open. I can feel the slick wetness of him running out of me, and a sharp heat sends blood rushing to my cheeks. Pax really doesn’t seem to give a shit, though. If anything, he seems mesmerized. Dropping to his knees at the end of the bed, he takes the wet washcloth in his hands and carefully cleans me while sucking on his bottom lip.
“You’re so fucking pretty,” he rumbles. “I wanna eat this pussy all over again.”
I attempt to close my legs, thinking he’s about to try it, but he quickly shoves my legs apart again, tutting at me. “Why do you insist on testing my patience?”
“I’m not clean.”
He holds up the washcloth. “Yeah, you fucking are. Come on.” He holds out his hand.
“Where?”
“What, you think I’m gonna drag you down into the basement and murder you or something?”
“I didn’t know Riot House even had a basement.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty you don’t know about this place. Come on. Are you coming or what?”
I regard his outstretched hand with suspicion. “Okaaay.”
He sighs when I yank the sheet off the bed and wrap myself up in it before I’ll let him guide me out of the bedroom. It’s still risky as hell, being in the hallway in nothing but a sheet. It’d still be really obvious what we were just doing in his bedroom if Elodie or Wren appeared, given that Pax is still fucking naked, and he hasn’t cleaned himself up yet. I need not worry, though. In five short steps, he’s pulling me into a huge bathroom and closing the door behind us.
I’m amazed when I realize that there’s water thundering out of the faucets, filling the giant claw foot tub on the other side of room. The bathroom smells like lavender and thyme. Pax scrubs his hands over his shaved head, shrugging when he sees the look I’m giving him. “What?”
“Nothing. I just…wasn’t exactly expecting…this.”
He scowls. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. I’m not gonna make you walk back up to the academy in the dark with my semen running down your legs, asshole. And I wasn’t exactly easy on you. You need to soak so you don’t seize up.”
I really don’t know what to say.
“There are towels there. Fuck it. When you’re done, come get me and I’ll drive you back up.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I’m not gonna be responsible if you end up like Mara fucking Bancroft,” he grumbles.
With that, he stalks out of the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
I bathe, and I soak, and the whole time my head is spinning.
He drives me home like he said he would. Admittedly, he’s deadly silent on the journey back up to Wolf Hall, but there are no sharp edges to the silence. He doesn’t say goodnight, and neither do I. The tires of the Charger spit up gravel as he peels out of the turning loop and burns away, down the driveway.
It isn’t until I’m climbing into my own bed, deliciously sore, my muscles melting off my bones, that I realize something:
At no point did he wash me off of him.
And he was still wearing the friendship bracelet.
27
PRES
* * *
“We both know you’re not going to use that.” Laughter ripples across my skin in the dark. “Put down the knife. Let’s stop fucking around and be honest about what we want here.”
* * *
Rain hammers against the windowpanes of the library, casting the world on the other side of the glass into a streaky green and blue blur. The sky is an ominous gunmetal grey, suggesting a full-blown storm might be rolling in soon. On the beaten leather couches in front of the wall of windows, I watch my friends leaf through the heavy textbooks in their hands. We’ve been studying for hours, but I haven’t been able to concentrate. My mind has been split in two, pulling itself in opposite directions. One second, I’m thinking about Pax. About his hands on my naked body. How it felt to have him kiss me last night, and to slowly come undone with his breath hot on my skin. The next, I’m back in my bedroom down in Mountain Lakes, and I’m scared, and I can’t fucking breathe…
I’m trapped on such a rollercoaster, in heaven one second, cast down into hell the next, and I can’t regulate my emotions. This is how it’s been for weeks now. I’m used to the internal whiplash. I’m not okay with it. I am not okay. But I’m so accustomed to these memory reels playing on a constant loop, the channel jumping without warning from one event to the other, that I’ve gotten very good at hiding the maelstrom of emotion churning within me.
So good, in fact, that neither of my friends have noticed that there’s anything wrong with me at all. They’re not completely blind, though. “I like this new obsession with Doc Martin’s.” Elodie chews on the end of a pen, her gaze lasered in on my footwear. “They suit you,” she says. “Though, don’t you think it’s a little warm for all of those long-sleeved shirts you’ve been wearing recently?”
“Hmm?” I pretend to be engrossed in my physics textbook, but I’ve broken out in a prickling, cold sweat, waiting to see what other observations my friend has made. Did she notice the dressings on my wrists? They’ve been off for a while now. Remy and Dr. Raine have been really pleased with my progress, and the jagged wounds on the insides of my wrists are healing nicely. They’re still fresh as hell, though. Red and purple and angry. It’s taken a lot to keep them hidden away from the other students at Wolf Hall.