I’ve never shown anyone my spot. I don’t bring girls back to my house, but I can picture her there on the roof with me.
The scene shifts and I imagine waking up in a warm bed with her lips wrapped around me and that pretty rosy tinge to her cheeks. The images in my head coalesce together, idea after idea racing faster than the quick beat of my heart.
My hard cock strains against my fly.
I could make her mine and only mine.
The siren song of her lips is as hypnotic as the drug of controlling her like this. They’re plump and pink. When her tongue darts out to lick them, I touch my nose to hers, intent on kissing her this time. Blair freezes.
The air goes still and the courtyard blurs.
Blair finally meets my hungry gaze with a shocked look. She tips her head up. I think she’s going to let me kiss her. I inch closer.
“When are you going to pay me for this?”
Her hushed question snuffs the heat flaring in my stomach. I narrow my eyes to slits.
“What?” I rasp.
For a minute, Blair made me forget my own rules. Made me set aside years of hatred and the thirst for revenge. Made me want her, and nothing else.
We’re not some sweet love story. We’d be a hate fuck at best. Raw, angry, and dead set on hurting each other as much as possible. Blair and I are oil and fucking water doused in kerosine and lit in hellfire.
Blair blinks slowly, pretending she is unaffected by my proximity and unaware of my internal war.
This must be how she does it. If she makes the sorry fucks who pay for her body feel something more than an itch to scratch, she must make more money. How else could trailer trash like her survive in a place like this? How many guys in this school has she kneeled for? That rumor about her rings true as a goddamn bell.
How could I not see it before? She’s as fake as the rest of them.
I repeat my mantra, my sacred rule in my head. Love nothing, let no one in close enough to hurt. With those thoughts on replay, I squash the inkling we could be anything more than a means to an end.
It’s the cool trickle of ice I need to get my head on straight. To stop thinking with my cock. Those fucking lips still entice me. Goddamn it, I will have them. I’m going to take that kiss, and I don’t give a fuck if she doesn’t like it.
Once I have a taste, things will go back to how they were before.
“You said $750. Give it to me.”
I’m nowhere near finished with her yet. She still has a lesson to learn.
My grip on the collar flexes and I can feel the way my knuckle digs into Blair’s throat. She clenches her teeth.
Rubbing my nose against hers in a mockery of a romantic nuzzle, I grin humorlessly. Blair shivers.
Money. That’s the only reason she’s here. I had the chance to send her away, but I was selfish. I wanted to make her pay by my hand.
When I speak, my voice is wrapped in shadows and shards of glass. “You really need this money, don’t you?”
She jerks against me. “What part of that wasn’t obvious?” Her hands come up to claw at my wrist until my choices are let go or get my arm shredded. I release her with a grunt. She hisses, “I didn’t steal your car for the fucking thrill of it. You’re such an ass.”
I step back, running a hand through my hair, feigning indifference while she rants.
As soon as I give her room, Blair stomps a few feet away, breathing hard. She whirls on me, cheeks still pink.
“You think I’d put this on if I didn’t have to?” She gestures to the collar. “This is all to take care of the person I love. I can’t do that if I go to jail.”
A muscle in my jaw jumps. I don’t like the sound of that. It makes my chest tight and uncomfortable. I don’t know why. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I ball them into fists out of sight.
I take a breath and master the raging emotions battling inside, crushing the broken, hopeful boy, and remind myself I’m only a monster now.
Thumbing my wallet, I take it out with practiced disinterest. I count out the bills and fling them at her feet. They fly everywhere like the splash of a wave. Blair yelps.
Before she can bend down to collect the money, I get back in her face, wrapping a hand around her throat over the leather collar. The nameplate presses into my palm when I squeeze.
“If I’m your salvation…” I pause to smirk, flicking a vicious glare over her. With my other hand, I capture a lock of her hair between my fingers, twirling it around. “Welcome to hell.”
I memorize the look on Blair’s face. Hatred. That’s all. Not desire, not love.
Because that’s not something we’ll ever share. No one feels that way about me. I won’t make that mistake again, lured in by those kissable lips and the thrill I get telling her what to do. Maybe in another life, one where our circumstances were different, we could’ve been something that worked.
Blair and I aren’t a maybe or an almost, we’re just two people that fucking hate each other, trading hits back and forth to destroy the enemy in an effort to distract ourselves from our pain, trying to survive the bitter ass lemons life dealt us.
This is an arrangement designed to torture her. I can’t forget that goal by allowing her to yank on the parts I keep tucked away, buried under brambles and chains to protect myself from hoping. Those parts are weak and useless.
She’s doing this because I’m paying her, not because she wants to be. I can’t forget it, or allow myself to lose sight of crushing her beneath my heel.
Tonight I need to sit under the stars to settle the anger searing in my blood.
“I’ll give you everything you deserve. Punishment, humiliation, repentance.” My grip on her throat flexes with each word. “I’m in control of your sins now, my demonic angel.” Releasing her, I walk away, tossing over my shoulder, “Better button up if you don’t want anyone to know who you belong to.”
Sixteen
Devlin
The blare of the fire alarm grates on my ears. I skirted out of sight from the secretaries as soon as it went off while they shuffled out of the office. They think I’ve bled into the mass of people flowing through the halls to follow protocol, but really I’m waiting for the hive of offices to empty from my hiding spot in the coat closet.
“Third one this month, isn’t it?” Denise’s muffled comment makes me grind my teeth.
Hurry up, I think, wedged between a musty peacoat that’s been in the closet for two years and a forgotten raincoat. She’s taking the longest to leave.
I only have so long once the room clears out to find what I need, and it’s costing me.
Blair’s payment sits in my pocket, rolled up and wrapped in rubber bands. If I find what I need, I’ll pay her for pulling the alarm to provide the distraction for my snooping. It’s twice what I offered for this task, but the greedy little demon negotiated a better deal for herself because of the potential trouble she’ll get in if she’s caught. The idea that she cares about consequences is laughable.
I bite down on a smirk. What Blair doesn’t know is the alarm I told her to pull is in the same hall Principal Bishop always walks to take his secret morning smoke break.
She still did what I ordered, and I get an electric thrill from having so much power over her. I underestimated how addictive it is. Having her bend to my whims touches a long-hidden part of me I’ve smothered and suffocated for years.