I ignore her. Fueled by rage and alcohol, I let my eyes close and I just move the way I want to. I arch my back and lift my hands to my hair, pulling the strands away from my skin. When my eyes reopen, I notice that Corina's gaze is zeroed above my head. I don't need to turn around to know who she's looking at. She grins when she looks back at me, her smile making a few guys to the left of us take notice. They move closer, making my spine stiffen. I'm fine as long as they keep their distance. A scowl overtakes my face as she leans forward, her lips grazing my earlobe when she says something in a voice barely a level above the music pounding in my ears. "He's watching."
Good, I think. Let him. Right now, the thing I want most in the word is Dean Carter's eyes on me. He might've put a claim on my ass to the rest of the school, but he and I both know the truth. He doesn't own me and he's going to regret pissing me off. No matter what I have to do to make that happen.
Feeling wicked and naughty, I lose myself in the dancing. I've been to backwoods parties with bonfire dances run by rednecks with jacked up monster trucks and radios blaring music meant to get people fucked up. A club is different. The beat of the music mimics the same pace of a good, hardcore fuck and the people seem to realize that.
Girls grind on girls. Guys watch. Guys with girls move slow—regardless of the pace that the music takes. Hard hands find my hips and I freeze. Corina's paying no mind; her own attention has been diverted to one of the lingering guys from earlier as he pulls her into a dance.
I stop dancing immediately. The desire to rip the guy's arms out of his sockets and beat him with them swells. "Get your fucking hands off me," I snap.
Mr. Idiot doesn't do that, though. No, he's not that smart. Instead, he leans closer, pressing an obvious erection against my ass as he dips his head and presses his mouth to my neck. "Come on, sweetheart. Don't be like that. I was watching you dance. You're pretty agile," he says. "Tell me something, you dance like that for a guy if you're all alone too?"
Cold rage spirals through me, but I don't even have the opportunity to react. All of a sudden, his hands are gone and I'm thrust forward. My palms hit the floor as I go down, my knees skidding against the rock hard surface of the dance floor where the sound of fists hitting flesh reaches my ears. I slowly get to my feet, turning back to see what the fuck just happened.
Dean stands there, his chest rising and falling rapidly—eyes wild and furious. What the fuck does he have to be furious about? That emotion should be solely reserved for me. Asshole. My thoughts are disrupted when he bends over, grabbing a guy on the ground up by the front of his ripped shirt, and drags him back to his feet as he throws yet another punch.
Mesmerizing.
I'm rooted to the spot as I watch him fight. Except, it's not really a fight because it's far too one-sided. Does it make me a pervert to admit, though, that watching Dean release his anger kind of...turns me on?
"You don't fucking touch her, do you understand me?" His words bring me back to the present.
"I'm sorry!"
My eyes fall to the guy in his grasp. His face is a bloody mess, and honestly, the only thing I don't like about it is the fact that I wasn't the one to make it like that.
"I didn't know she was yours."
"Well, now you fucking do, fucker," Dean snarls, slamming his closed fist into the guy's face one last time so hard that his eyes roll back into his head and the guy slumps onto the floor. He turns to me and looks over my shoulder as he speaks. "Get security to clean this fucking mess up. We're leaving," he snaps.
I scowl and back up as he reaches for me. "Don't fucking touch me."
Dean's eyes flash and instead of reaching for me again, he simply steps forward and bends down—shoving his shoulder into my stomach as he lifts and throws me right over it. "Hey!" I shriek. "Put me the fuck down!"
Instead of doing as I fucking said, though, Dean keeps walking, his movements making me bounce on his shoulder as I try to fight my way off. "Is this what you fucking wanted?" he growls.
"What are you talking about?" I reply, pushing against his spine even as his arm clamps around the backs of my legs.
I only know we've left the club by the way the air is suddenly not nearly as stifling and how the volume of people and music dissipates almost immediately. "Go get the car," he snaps to someone I can't see.
"I mean it," I say again, "put me the fuck down, Dean. Right now."
My whole world is upended once again as he finally releases me and swings me back to my feet. My legs buckle as my feet hit the ground, but it's obvious that we're not done because no sooner am I back on my feet and he's shoving my back against the brick exterior of the building, his angry brown eyes glaring down at me.
"Do you have any clue what that stunt of yours just did?" he asks.
I glare straight back at him. "I didn't fucking pull a stunt," I reply coldly. "But if you want, I can go back in right now and do something far worse—you've got it coming. If you think that—which was not my fault, by the way—was bad, you have no idea what I'm planning to do to you for those little rumors of yours."
"You listen to me, little girl." His face hovers in front of me. A lock of hair falls over his forehead as a shadow dances across his cheek from the nearby streetlight. "Your ass is mine—though in name only. You are a Sick Boy possession. Nothing more. But that means that no one is allowed to fucking touch you, do you understand. So, whatever fun you had planned, you can forget it. For the duration of your stay here at Eastpoint, expect a very cold bed. There will be no sex, no fucking, or boyfriends," he spits the word like it leaves a vile taste in his mouth. "Am I understood?"
"That right there," I say, nodding at him as I gaze up into his face. He's fucking delusional if he thinks I'm going to bow to any of his demands. "Making those little decrees of yours is what got you into this problem." I push up on my tiptoes until we're eye to eye. "I'm not one of your peasants and I'm certainly not one of your possessions."
The sound of a car pulling up makes both of us freeze, but when he lifts his head and looks back there's no concern on his face. In fact, there's no emotion at all as far as I can see. Dean's arm wraps around my middle and much like in the club, he picks me up without a single issue. I could be a sack of laundry for all the effort he puts into lifting me.
My back hits leather and as I scramble up onto my elbows, he gets into the backseat of whatever car we're in with me and pushes me back down. "What is your fucking deal!" I scream as I buck under him.
He curses and his hands fly to my wrists. Fingers wrap around my arms and pin them above my head and the world comes to a screeching halt when I feel it. My eyes widen and I glance down.
"You've got to be fucking joking," I snap, snarling at him. "Are you serious right now?"
He doesn't react, but I can still feel him there against my inner thigh. The most shocking thing, however, isn't that he's hard—it's that it's not pissing me off that he is. I shake my head. It's probably because I'm already pissed off.
I throw my hips up, trying to unseat him, and squirm against his grip. "If you don't stop fucking moving," he grits out. "I'm going to turn your ass over and spank it."