I title the poem Heather and turn it in, heading for my next class when the bell rings and pausing in the restroom just long enough to wash the blood from my knuckles.
“I would've paid to see her face when you hauled off and punched her,” Callum says with a chuckle, smoking a cigarette and alternating drags with sips of his Pepsi. His blue eyes scan the cafeteria, looking for trouble. “I bet it was goddamn gold.”
“She's not afraid enough,” I reply, staring out across the room. The first few weeks I hung out with Havoc, it was like they were gods. But now, with this bullshit between the boys and the Ensbrook-Charter brothers, I can feel a shift. People are waiting, watching. This school is a den of lions, and if we don't deliver a little fresh meat, that reputation is all but done for.
Victor doesn't seem to care, scribbling diligently on some homework he missed during our suspension. I grit my teeth, and ignore him, focusing on Oscar as he continues to make notes on his iPad.
“You asked me who I wanted to hit next? I want Kali.” Oscar pauses briefly to look up at me, adjusts his glasses, and then refocuses his attention on the screen.
“Excellent. Let's clear up this little mess at Prescott, shall we? I imagine we can creatively incorporate Kali into the whole thing, and wrap this up into a neat, little bow.”
“Halloween night,” Vic says absently, still scribbling answers down on a worksheet. “We'll deal with them all then. Horrible things happen on Halloween.” He stands up suddenly and tucks his pencil into the pocket of his dark blue jeans. “Oscar, figure out where all the best parties are gonna be. Aaron, take Bernadette home after detention. Callum, Hael, you'll stick with me and we'll track their habits.”
“Take me home?” I echo, turning to look at him. “I'm supposed to be a part of this group, aren't I? I want in on this.”
Vic looks back at me with a raised brow.
“According to you, you're just a fuck-buddy for us to use as we please. Why don't you stick with that role since it seems to interest you more?”
My mouth drops open as he takes off through the cafeteria, and I have to resist the urge to run after him. Not only would that give him the false impression that I give a crap about what he has to say, but it would only damage Havoc's reputation even further for us to reveal conflict in public.
“Are we really Havoc anymore with Bernadette here?” Callum muses, reaching up to ruffle at his blond hair under his hood. “More like Havoc B. Bhavoc. Covahb. There really isn't a great configuration to add a B in, is there?”
“Shut up, Cal,” Aaron growls on the end of a sigh. “Leave it alone.” I glance his way and meet those pretty green-gold eyes of his. We haven’t spoken since our little squabble yesterday, but I need to know more about the whole Kali thing. Understanding why he betrayed me, why they all betrayed me, that's important. “I'll pick you up out front before I get the girls, but don't take too long. I don't like the idea of them waiting for me.”
“Don't worry about it,” Hael interjects, and I glance over to find him watching me. “I'll take her home.”
“But Vic—” Aaron starts, and Oscar finally lifts his attention up from his screen.
“Forget about Victor. I'll tell him it was my idea.” Hael flashes a grin and rises to his feet.
Oscar goes back to dicking around with his iPad, and I push up from the table just as the bell rings. Clearly, Hael has an idea in his head, one that I'm hoping matches up the idea in mine.
Trouble.
We're both thinking of starting trouble.
After class gets out, I find Hael behind the school, sitting half in his car and smoking a joint. Cigarette smoke seems to permeate everything, gets stuck in fabric and hair and furniture, but marijuana smoke dissipates better, stinking the place up for a brief while and then disappearing like it was never there.
He watches me as I move across the parking lot to stand beside him, the look in his eyes confirming that we have the same idea in mind.
“You can go back and perform your duties for Hael.”
Victor invited me to do this. It's all on him.
“Thanks for offering me a ride,” I say, leaning on the roof of his pretty car, fully aware that the move puts my inked midsection right in his face. On the outside, I'm all bravado and sex and cunning. Nobody has to know that I'm a little bit afraid, that sex has always been this double-edged sword for me, wielded as a weapon, a threat, a promise. I can tell myself all I want that it doesn't mean anything.
And yet it does.
If I fuck Hael today, it'll mean a whole lot of somethings.
I'm taking control of my sexuality, I tell myself, but even then, when Hael lifts up a hand and places it on the curve of my waist, my nerves rankle a bit. But then he slides his palm down my skin, and I shiver. His hands are soft as fucking silk.
“Tell me how a mechanic has such soft goddamn hands,” I murmur as he curls his fingers through one of the belt loops on my jeans and tugs me forward, knocking me into his lap. Hael's coconut smell drifts around me, mixing with the skunk-y hint of weed, and his lips curve into a sharp smile.
“Motor oil,” he says, and I cock a brow. “Gotta get it off somehow. If you start with coconut oil, that'll take off the majority. But there's always some stubborn stickiness. Little bit of dish soap, and a sugar scrub with a pumice stone knocks off the rest.” Ah, so that explains the coconut smell then … Hael reaches up a hand to brush some pink-tinged hair back, sliding a single fingertip along my collarbone. “Can't be touching pretty girls like you with oil-covered hands.”
“Right.” A snort escapes me, but I don't move, letting him curl an inked arm around my waist and tug me just a bit closer. “So, I know why I'm out here. Why are you?”
“What do you mean?” Hael asks, tossing the butt of his joint to the ground and crushing it out with his boot. His words are innocent enough, but there's a devilish curve to his mouth that says he knows otherwise. “Giving you a ride home is hardly a hardship. Are you sure you don't want to sit in my lap on the way?”
“Vic is your best friend,” I say, and Hael gives me a weird look.
“So?” he says, acting all innocent as fuck when we both know there's an underlying reason for us both being out here. “What does any of this have to do with Vic? I mean, other than you trying to piss him off by screwing me. Won't work, you know. There's a reason we wanted a Havoc Girl, after all.”
My mouth purses into a thin line.
“Yeah?” I quip, my voice turning hard. “And what, exactly, was that reason?”
Hael snorts a laugh and scoots back in the seat, dragging me along with him. He's already got the damn thing pushed back as far as it'll go, leaving me with barely enough room to breathe between his body and the steering wheel when he closes the door on us.
“Ask Victor, you two are so damn close,” Hael says, eyes sparkling as he puts one hand on either of my hips. “I'll admit something. I just had a real bad break-up, and I'm horny as fuck. My motivation is to let Brittany know that I'm banging a girl twice as hot as she is.” He shrugs his shoulders and gives me a look. There's something that doesn't quite ring true about his statement, but what does it matter?
“Brittany, huh?” I say, putting my hands on his shoulders. He's wearing a black wifebeater, so his tattooed skin is bare, scorching beneath my palms. “She the cheerleader from Fuller High?”
“Yep.” Hael slides his hands up my waist and under my crop-top sweater, pushing it up and out of his way. I'm aware we're sitting just behind the school, in a place that anyone could stumble on us, but I don't really care. I mean, that's sort of the point of all this, isn't it? I'm a Havoc Girl. Havoc rules this school. God help anyone that peeps in on us. Anyone that isn't Vic …
Because I want him to see.
He challenged me, so here I am. Here I fucking am.
Hael tosses my sweater aside and then runs his hands over the lacey cups of my bra. It's the one that Vic gave me in the bag of clothes the other day, and as much a
s I hate to admit it, it fits a million times better than the ones I was wearing before.
“Damn, girl,” Hael growls, running his thumbs over the pert points of my nipples. Hard to believe this is the same kid who held my hand through a whole night in the homeless shelter all those years ago.
I let my head fall back and try to remember how to breathe. My heart is racing so fast I feel dizzy, and my pulse is thundering so loud in my head I can hardly hear the radio when Hael leans forward to turn it on. I recognize the song Fire Up The Night by New Medicine.
Hael's hands are pure fire as he skims them over my aching skin, working my nipples through the lace with his thumbs. Unlike Vic, Hael Harbin is in complete control of himself. I can feel his confidence when he slips the lace over my breasts and then palms the full mounds with a groan.
“Damn, Blackbird, you've got some nice tits,” he grinds out, leaning forward and giving me this wicked look before flicking his hot tongue out to taste my nipple. My back arches automatically, offering my breast to his hungry mouth as he sucks greedily and then gently bites the hardened peak. A gasp slips out of me, and I find myself curling my fingers in his hair to gain some semblance of control.
My head is bowed over because of the low roof, so I end up wrapped around Hael as he teases both nipples until they're painful and aching. When he pulls back, the wetness on those pert pink points makes them feel icy cold, and I put his hands right back where they were.
“Let's get some of these clothes off,” he purrs, reaching down to undo the button on my jeans. As soon as he does, he slips his hand in to see what we're working with here. Lucky for him, I'm soaked through already. “Fuck,” he groans as I grab his wrist and push his inked hand under the silken fabric of my undies, the same ones Vic gave me that I washed last night.
Hael's fingers tease my folds as he looks up at me with eyes the color of honey, and runs his tongue over his full, lower lip. I won't lie: I've wondered before what it might be like to fuck Hael Harbin. And I have to say, so far I'm not disappointed.
Using my own wetness for lube, Hael works my clit with his thumb, this strong, steady pressure that has me quivering and sweating before the song's even over.
Scrambling for the door handle, I press down on it and push Hael's hand away at the same time.
He must know what I'm up to because he just grins as he strips off his shirt and chucks it into the back seat. There I am, bare-breasted and stripping my jeans off in a deserted parking lot, my heart thundering like crazy as I wonder who might be watching.
When I climb back in, shoving my jeans into the passenger seat, I find that Hael's already one step ahead of me. He's not only undone his own pants, but he's in the process of fanning out a sea of condoms for me to look at.
“Your choice, baby,” he says as I straddle his thighs and yank the door closed behind me, trapping us together with the smell of leather and sex. “I've got different colors, ribbed options, different flavors …”
“Don't get too excited,” I say, snatching a red condom that matches his hair. There's a hitch in my voice, a breathless sort of quality that belies my insistence that this is all a chore, that I'm doing this out of duty. I'm here because I want to be here. “There's not nearly enough room in here for a blow job.”
“Tomorrow morning then?” he asks, as I reach down and wrap my hand around his shaft, giving it a squeeze. “I'll pick you up before school?”
I meet his eyes and then lean forward, letting a bit of saliva well up on the edge of my lips and drip to the head of his cock before working him with my fist. He's got a piercing on the tip that I tease with my thumb, mimicking the way he touched me first.
“Maybe.” I look down at Hael, lounging back on his red and black leather seat, ink tracing his muscular arms. He doesn't have nearly as much work as, say, Oscar, but it's impressive, for someone who's not-quite-eighteen to be sporting so much skin art. Technically, it's illegal to get tattooed under the age of eighteen in Oregon, but illegal doesn't mean impossible. I'm sure he has his contacts the same way I have mine. “Put this on,” I say, handing over the condom and giving him a few last pumps with my fist while he opens it.
It occurs to me that we haven't kissed yet.
It occurs to me … that maybe I don't want to.
There's a certain distance here that I can handle. I can stay numb on the inside while my body burns on the outside.
Hael finishes slipping the condom on, and then reaches out for my hips, dragging me just a bit closer. The space is so confined that my knee is digging into the door on one side, the gear shift on the other, but it doesn't matter. When Hael pulls my panties aside with two fingers and encourages me to slide over him, I don't have to think. I don't have to feel my emotions breaking into pieces and cutting me up from the inside.
The music continues to blare from the speaker, one sexy song after another. I realize Hael must have some sort of playlist set up. None of this is random.
I position him at my opening and start to settle back. He stops me by squeezing his inked hands against my hips.
“You don't have to kiss me, but I want you to look at me,” he growls out, drawing my eyes up to his face. Hael smirks and then releases some of the pressure on my hips. “That's better. Now, ride me, baby.”
I slide down, taking every last inch of Hael into me. He's not as big as Vic, so it's a slightly more comfortable fit. A small gasp slips past my lips as he adjusts my hips and makes it so that we're completely joined together, encouraging me to move by leaning forward and biting my neck just enough that it rides that line of pleasure and pain.
“Say something, Bernadette,” Hael whispers, his voice husky with pleasure. “I want to hear your voice.” His request hits me like a brick to the chest, and for a moment, it's all I can do to sit there, feeling his hard length inside of me. My voice? Why?
“Shut the fuck up,” is all I can think to respond with, and Hael laughs, letting me push him back with a hand to the chest. I curl my nails against his skin, satisfied when my fingernails leave welts. His brown eyes darken with lust as I work my hips, making the poor Camaro rock beneath us.
Hael moves his hand back to that sweet spot he found earlier, teasing my clit and obliterating the rest of me. There's nothing but my body, wrapped around his, two hearts beating while two bodies flame.
With his free hand, Hael holds my hip, kneading his fingers against my inked flesh. There's a pink dragon wrapped around a lotus blossom tree, the petals of the flowers bleeding into her scales. The piece cost over a thousand bucks, but I stole the money from my mother's wallet the day before her big Vegas trip with her girlfriends and let her blame it on the Thing.
It was money well-spent.
A sigh escapes as my body begins to tighten around Hael, my climax coming too quick and too hot to stop. The bright hot ache of perfect agony explodes in my core, and I lean forward as the pulses overtake my body. With a growl, Hael rocks his hips up, pushing himself into me again and again. My bare breasts are against his hard chest, and the urge to kiss him is overwhelming.
But I don't.
Instead, I dig my nails into his shoulders as another orgasm washes over me, consuming what little decorum I've got left.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I groan, panting as Hael lets me fall over the edge, his own climax not far behind. He grunts against my shoulder, his body slicked with sweat, shuddering as he spills himself into the condom.
For almost two whole songs, we just lay there panting.
“Shit,” he grumbles, and then pushes me over into the passenger seat—not unkindly—before exhaling and swiping his hands down his sweaty face. “Well, that was fun.” Hael looks me over appreciatively.
At least I can see that his hands are shaking, that I've had some effect on him. He sits up and turns the ignition, letting the Camaro rumble to life beneath us before bothering to remove the condom and fix his pants. He ties it off, and then climbs out to chuck it in the dumpster before coming back.
> I don't say a thing, just slip my clothes on in the tight space, my body throbbing and humming, my breath still coming in pants.
“Off we go,” Hael says, revving the engine and peeling out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires. He takes me straight home, and, seeing as it's a ten-minute walk, it's all of a two-minute drive. Neither of us speaks, both lost in thought. My mind is obsessively turning over Victor's words. No clue what Hael is fixated on.
He pulls up in the driveway, parking next to my mother's car.
Fuck.
She's always home when I most need her to be away.
“Need any backup going in there?” Hael asks, his inked hands on the steering wheel. He glances my way and gives me this cocksure little smile. “I'm happy to throw your stepdad against the wall again if needed.”
“No, I'll be fine,” I say, because really, I just sort of need to get away from him. There's this strange churning in my stomach that I can't explain, that almost feels like guilt.
“Alright then,” he says, watching as I gather up my backpack and open the door. I notice he doesn't try to be a 'gentleman' this time. “Bring your stuff for a sleepover tomorrow. If you need to make arrangements for your sister, Aaron's hiring a babysitter.”
Without responding, I slip out and head inside, slinking up the stairs before Mom can assault me on them, and then settle myself in to wait for Heather's bus. Luckily, the after-school program has one that brings her straight home.
Meanwhile, I have a moment to nibble on my lower lip and think about what just happened.
I just had sex with Hael Harbin.
I'm also certain I've just pissed Victor off.
It's going to be interesting, seeing what tomorrow brings …
The next morning, Hael picks me up just after Heather gets on the bus, smoking a cigarette out the window of the car. He eyes my leather pants and jacket as I climb in, and makes a sound of appreciation under his breath.
“Lookin' good this morning, Blackbird,” he tells me, starting the car and taking me just a few blocks away before he pulls into the driveway of a vacant house with a For Sale sign in the yard. After climbing out, Hael walks across the street and sticks something under the rear bumper of a white Kia Sportage.
Havoc at Prescott High Page 19
