“Yes?”
“I think the passage means that it’s important to be true to yourself,” Thea says in a soft voice, her arm still partially raised.
“Yes, Thea,” Mr. Coleman praises in a warm tone, pointing at her energetically. “Excellent.”
His teeth are too white, the gleam blinding and disconcerting. Fake. It’s easy to spot his false mask because I’m so good at hiding that mine isn’t real, either.
Going off what I’ve read in my psychology books on disorders, I cycle through possibilities for what lurks beneath Mr. Coleman’s shiny disguise.
Thea laughs, flustered by the encouragement. I can picture the shy smile she always gives him and the stars in her big doe eyes.
In front of me, Bishop clenches his pencil in a tight grip. The tip breaks against his notes when he presses it to the page on purpose. An angry red flush sneaks up the back of his neck. Bishop’s knee bounces for a few seconds, then he explodes from his seat.
“Mr. Bishop, you’re disrupting—”
“Fuck off,” Bishop barks. “I’m out of here.”
“If you leave class, you’ll earn detention.”
Bishop tosses his hands in the air and slams the door behind him. The window pane in the door rattles.
Thea squeaks and darts her hand up. “Mr. Coleman, may I be excused to use the restroom?”
Mr. Coleman stares at Thea, the defeated slump of his shoulders completely manufactured. He waves in permission and she’s off like a shot.
My curious gaze flicks from the door to Mr. Coleman. Something is going on.
Unbidden, that saucy photo from Bishop’s phone the other night pops into my head. Thea wore the same type of sweater today. There’s no way she’s the girl in the photo, is there?
I put it from my mind.
Mr. Coleman asks another question to get the class back on track, but I tune it out. Instead, I write a time and a place at the bottom of my blank page. Beginning of lunch, in the courtyard. I tear it off and fold it a few times into a small square.
When the teacher has his back turned, I discreetly slip the note onto Blair’s desk.
Blair covers the note with her hand and for a second I think she’s going to swipe it off the desk without reading it. Her cool gaze snaps to me. Unfolding it with deft fingers, she skims the note. Blair’s lip curls.
Tucking the note under her notebook, Blair returns her attention to the board.
It’s hard to focus on the class. For the first time, I can’t even follow the general gist, when normally school comes easily to me.
I keep studying Blair in my periphery.
It’s not until near the end of the period she acknowledges me again. A sharp point pokes my arm while Mr. Coleman rifles through a stack of handouts. I grunt in surprise, rubbing the tender spot where my bicep was jabbed. Blair holds a folded note between her fingers. It’s folded so many times the corners of the paper have become prickly weapons.
I snatch it before she pokes my arm again. Opening it up, I find it’s the same note I gave her twenty minutes ago. Her only response is a checkmark beneath my writing. Simple, succinct.
The corners of my mouth twitch up. The bell rings, interrupting Mr. Coleman mid-sentence.
“See you later, sticky fingers.”
Blair stiffens, plastering her hand against her buttoned up shirt as I lift my bag to my shoulder and stroll from the room.
* * *
Stepping out into the courtyard, my grin flashes before I can tame it. She’s there, waiting for me by the stone bench. The leaves on the aspen tree stretching above the bench haven't turned gold yet, though a few on the spindly branches have faded to a yellow-green.
It makes Blair stand out starkly, next to the thin white bark of the trunk with her inky black hair.
Blair turns around. “What do you want?”
I tuck my hands in my pockets. “Eager to get to your steamed broccoli and mystery meat? I hear it’s very nutritional.”
“Please, you don’t even get the regular menu.” Blair rolls her eyes. “Why did you call me out here?”
She’s not as careful now, though her sharp gaze flicks to the exits every few seconds. I cock my head and enter her personal space. Blair matches me step for step until the back of her knees hit the bench. My mouth curves.
“Now you’re trapped.”
Blair huffs indignantly. “Hardly.”
She goes to sidestep me, but I catch her around the waist.
“We’re not finished yet.”
Blair’s eyes narrow. “So get on with it. You’re wasting my time.”
“Is that any way to talk to the person who pays you?”
“Pays me to humiliate myself,” she mutters.
The collar peeks between the buttons done all the way up to the stiff top of her shirt. In a nimble move, I undo the top two buttons before Blair’s eyes go wide. She smacks at my hands and covers her neck, scrambling to move out of reach with stone pressed into the back of her bare legs.
“What are you doing, you psycho? We’re in the middle of the school!”
Her gaze flies around, checking the windows. With a lazy glance, I check with her.
“No, you’re alone with me in the courtyard. Only I get to see this.” I cover her hand with mine and tug. “Now show me.”
Blair’s throat bobs. She resists my pull, pressing her hand harder to cover the collar.
I hood my eyes. “Show me. I want to see the proof you’re my little pet.”
Blair struggles for another beat, flustered. With a rough scoff, her hand drops to her side. She cuts her gaze away, dark lashes outlining her brown eyes.
Smirking, my attention falls to the leather collar on her neck. The silver nameplate looks perfect. I hook my finger in the collar and pull her closer, near enough that my lips could brush hers if I leaned in. Blair avoids looking at me, color bleeding into her cheeks. This close, I can inhale imitation vanilla and count the galaxy of freckles speckling her cheeks.
Those pouty, full lips slide together. My heart thuds and an excited tingle spreads over my skin.
“Good girl,” I rumble. “Look at you. No one would know you’re a mangy stray.”
Blair squirms against me, making a strangled sound. I chuckle and graze the back of my knuckle over her cheek. It’s warm and soft beneath my touch. Blair blinks quickly.
A giddiness bubbles up inside me, fizzing like top shelf champagne along my nerve endings. This feels fucking good. I want more of the expression on Blair’s face, this crack in her insolent confidence and years of silent indifference. I’m finally getting under her skin as much as she digs under mine. The thrill of it sings in my veins.
Whenever I’m around her, I feel alive. For a short while, I can forget about my demons.
My finger curls tighter, tugging her a fraction closer. Her breath fans across my neck with her tense exhale. I’m fascinated by the micro-expressions twitching in her features, filled with wonder as I watch her struggle to control herself to keep me from knowing exactly what this is doing to her. But I can see it all.
A chant repeats in my mind: all mine, all mine, all mine, mine, mine.
If she’ll obey me in this, what else can I tell her to do? I picture laying back in my special spot beneath the stars, staring up at the vastness as she rides my cock.
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.
For now, she’s not going anywhere. That thought keeps running through my head at night when I sit on the roof watching for shooting stars.
My obsession with her willing compliance is growing, feeding the beast. It’s voracious, starved for more of her obedience now that I’ve had a taste. I want to know exactly how far I can push her.
When no sound comes from the office other than the shrill ring of the fire alarm, I slip from the closet.
Vice Principal Sanford’s door swings open and I duck behind the circular desk before I’m busted. I hold my breath as he lopes across the room. I give it a few more seconds, then poke my head over the edge of the desk where my half-eaten donut sits.
The coast is clear.
I wonder if this is how Blair feels when she’s knocking over convenience stores or whatever delinquent trouble she gets up to as I go to the room at the back of the administrative hub. The doors are unlocked during the day, saving me the trouble of breaking in after hours with the set of keys Bishop and I copied sophomore year.
Thankfully, the room muffles the angry trill of the alarm once I’m inside. The permanent records of every student are kept here. It looks like something out of a stuffy old gentleman’s club rather than a high school, with a muted style stu
ck in time. There’s a leather chair in the corner, like someone enjoys leisure time with the student files, and polished wooden file cabinets line the walls. The only staples missing are a fireplace and cigar smoke.
Finding the drawers for the D-E names, I get to work. There are only minutes to swipe her file.
This mission is necessary. I need to find out more about Blair. Knowledge is ammunition to my arsenal against her.
I rifle through the first drawer and come up empty. Dragging out the next, I flick through the thick and thin files. Dabrowski…Dacosta…Daniels…Davis!
Smirking, I pull out the manila folder and lean against the file cabinet. The more recent stuff is obvious—dismissal from the track team, student lunch program paperwork from the state, suspension and detention slips.
There are a few late excuses from the first week of school, dated before she broke into my garage to steal my Porsche. One explains Blair took her mom to the hospital as her reason for arriving during third period.
My eyes narrow. Is this why she needed money? To take care of her mom’s hospital bills?
It tugs at my core. Jealousy runs down my spine in an icy-hot slide. Blair has to have a strong connection with her mom to be the only person around by her side each time she has to go to the doctor.
I trace over Blair’s handwriting. It must be nice.
When I picture myself doing the same, it’s difficult to imagine what it should feel like to take a parent to the doctor. Would I be anxious? Would they reassure me everything would be fine?
In my pocket, my phone’s silence screams at me. It’s been days since I’ve heard anything from my parents.
They could’ve died and I wouldn’t know about it.
I could’ve died and they wouldn’t care.
Agitated, I drag my fingers through my hair, wincing when I pull too hard and rip a few strands from my scalp. A rough sigh makes my shoulders sag. This is about Blair, not me.
Digging through the file, I discover more late slips from last year that mention additional hospital related incidents. It’s far more hospitalizations than normal. My gut tightens as I consider the first thing that comes to mind in situations like this—an abusive father or maybe the mom has a fucked up boyfriend putting her in the hospital repeatedly.
Tempting Devil: Sinners and Saints Book 2 Page 10
