by Kent, Rina
There’s a weight on my chest.
It’s suffocating.
It’s robbing me from any clean air.
Every breath I take feels dirty and impure.
I feel dirty and impure.
The only thing able to cleanse me is running and the rain.
Only… it doesn’t.
Images of Silver loosening up Aiden keep playing at the back of my mind like some porn.
That must be why he’s too busy to text me.
I close my eyes and try to purge the images out of my head.
Silver and Aiden are made for each other.
I don’t care about them and their after school activities.
But why ask me to be his if he already has someone to tend to his whims?
Dickhead.
Once I arrive at the grocery store, I buy some tampons and an umbrella. I would rather run back in the rain, but Aunt will give me grief about it.
Not to mention that my heart feels kind of funny. I won’t push it for no reason.
I’m around the corner to our house, carrying the grocery bag in one hand and the umbrella in the other when I notice a black Mercedes with tinted windows. I think it’s been there since the grocery store.
Panic grips my chest and I run the rest of the way home. I opt for the back entrance since it’s the closest.
The moment I round the corner, a strong hand clamps around my mouth. I shriek, the umbrella and the bag fall from my hands.
My scream is drowned by the hand on my mouth.
I’m hauled forward. I trip and my cheek smashes against the hood of a car. I recognise his smell before his hot breath whispers in my ear.
“Time to pay, sweetheart.”
Chapter Eighteen
“A-Aiden?”
My heart lunges in my chest, beating sporadically against the hood of the car.
His car.
The dim light coming from around the corner doesn’t allow me much vision, but I feel him.
It’s impossible not to when I smell his clean, unmistakable scent mingling with the rain.
The bottom of my stomach hurts with that strange awareness I always had for him.
That damn awareness is like an incurable disease refusing to leave my body.
I try to lift my head and look at him, but he smashes my cheek back down against the wet hood.
“What are you doing —”
He grabs a fistful of my hair harshly. “Shut the fuck up, Elsa.”
I whimper around the pain ripping at my skull and the uncomfortable position he’s forcing me into. The car’s cold, wet metal digs into my stomach the more I try to move.
When I open my mouth to say something, he pulls me up by my hair so I’m staring at his dark eyes.
His plain black T-shirt is soaked, sticking to his muscles like a second skin. The rain forms rivulets down his hard face, his strong jawline and the bump on his lips due to his fight with Xander.
He appears angry.
No. Lethal.
It could be because of the dark or the rain or the desolate streets, but a chill of terror spreads over my skin.
This is Aiden’s true form. The soulless, unfeeling psycho.
“Shh, not a fucking word.” His left eye twitches. “You don’t want to test me right now.”
My lips tremble and it’s not because of the cold or the rain.
“Aunt is just upstairs.” I try to threaten. “She’ll come down for me.”
His lips brush my ear as he whispers in a cruel voice, “Then why aren’t you screaming?”
Before I can think about that, he bites the shell of my ear. Hard. So hard that I think he’s after my flesh.
I shriek, but his hand clamps around my mouth, turning it into a muffled, haunted sound.
The type victims make when they’re kidnapped in the middle of the night.
“Do you like blood on your hands?” he asks with a dark, chilling tone.
My back snaps at the image.
Blood on my hands.
In my hair.
In my —
“If I killed Xan today, it would’ve been all because of you.”
I mumble against his hand, but he only pulls me harder by my hair. “Do you know that I feel murderous when someone touches you? Is that why you pulled that fucking stunt?”
I shake my head, tears rimming my eyes and mixing with the pouring rain.
God. He’s a psycho. A sick sonofabitch.
Then why am I not fighting?
Fucking fight, Elsa. You’re a fighter.
My limbs remain locked in place no matter how much I beg them to move.
“Answer me.”
I mumble an unintelligible sound. He’s blocking my mouth, how the hell am I supposed to answer?
“Scream or fight and I’ll fuck you raw against the car until the entire neighbourhood learns my name. Understood?”
I swallow, nodding once.
He removes his hand from my mouth, but he pins me to the hood of the car with a strong hand around my nape.
“You’re using Kim against me,” I pant, my voice hoarse and raw. “Is it such a surprise that I’d decide to use your friend against you?”
“Hmm. Maybe I should get rid of all said friends.”
My ears ring at his dispassionate tone. He’s… serious. They’re not his friends in the way Kim is to me. If they pose any threats to his plans, they become disposable.
Absolutely nothing.
His complete disregard for human emotions is scary.
No. It’s terrifying.
What’s more horrifying is the fact that someone of his calibre has this sick fixation on me.
“You started those rumours about me.” Shut up. Shut up, don’t provoke him. No matter how much I reprimand myself, the words won’t stop spilling like venom from my throat. “It’s because of you I’m labelled a slut. It’s because of you no one approaches me.”
“And no one will.” He’s at my face, so close that we breathe each other’s air. “Do you know why, sweetheart?”
“Why?” I murmur.
“Because you were always mine. You just didn’t know it yet.”
He yanks my dress up and air slaps my bare thighs, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my skin. I clamp my eyes shut as he pulls my boy shorts down, leaving me naked and exposed to the rain and his merciless gaze.
“If you were going to take what you wanted anyway, why did you ask me to be yours? Was it a mindfuck? A play? Did it turn you on to see me hanging onto false hope, thinking I had a say in anything you do to me?” I choke on the words. My voice is so emotional, so angry, that I feel it crackling down like thunder with the raindrops.
“I told you. That was your chance to make the first move, but I was right. You don’t want nice. You want me to take your will, don’t you?”
“Get off me, you sick bastard.”
“You’re sick with me, sweetheart. You’re so wet, I can smell you in the fucking air.”
He thrusts a finger inside me and my ears heat with shame when he finds no resistance.
No pressure.
No nothing.
His finger finds refuge inside my tight walls as if that’s where it always belonged.
Like he had a claim on me since the very first time we met.
“Being dominated by me turns you on.” He thrusts another finger inside, causing me to whimper. “Being at my mercy makes you fucking soaked.”
I shake my head against the metal, but with his death grip on my neck, I barely move.
“You don’t have to admit it now, but you will…” He thrusts savagely into my pussy. “Eventually.”
My eyes roll to the back of my head and I clamp a hand on my mouth to stop a loud moan from coming out.
Aiden doesn’t stop. He pounds his fingers inside me hard and fast as if he’s fucking me with his cock. I arch off the hood with each merciless thrust.
I’m gasping, panting and mewling. The worst part is that I have
no control over it.
Even with the rain, the public place, and the fact that Aunt can peek from the kitchen balcony any second, I can’t stop.
Hell, it’s making me hotter. So hot that the rain nearly evaporates on my skin.
He’s possessing me and transforming me into this foreign, scary version.
“You won’t let any other man touch you. Is that clear?”
I’m too consumed by his devilish fingers to pay attention to his words.
Something brutal and destructive builds at the bottom of my stomach, clashing and smashing with his rhythm.
I can feel that wave. It’s just within reach. I’ve brought myself to orgasm before, but I always held back last minute, afraid of the intensity it brings.
Now, I can’t stop it even if I want to.
You like your will taken, don’t you?
His words draw a fierce sensation in my inner walls.
God. What’s wrong with me?
“Say yes,” he orders, flicking my clit.
The moan escapes from between my lips no matter how much I try to confine it.
He tightens his grip on my neck. “Say yes or I’ll stop.”
His rhythm drops in intensity as if proving a point.
I whimper, eyes bulging.
No. He can’t stop. Not this time, too. I’m there. Almost there.
“I… I…”
“Fucking say it.” He pumps harder into me, causing stars to form behind my lids.
“Yes!” I scream as the sharp power hits me.
I open my mouth to say something, but it remains in an ‘O’ and no words come out.
He stole my ability to speak
To breathe.
To think.
The fierce wave doesn’t let me go. Not really. Not even when he removes his fingers from inside me.
He stuffs his fingers — that still glisten of me — at my mouth.
“Open.”
I shake my head, parting my lips to protest, but he uses the chance to stuff both his fingers in my mouth.
“Do you taste yourself on me, sweetheart, hmm?” He gets past my lips and strokes his fingers on my tongue.
My mouth waters, but I want to shake my head in mortification. The clenching of my core answers before I can utter a word.
“Suck.”
I do, tentatively, just so I don’t drool like a dog.
Tasting myself on him is a strange, out of body experience. But I don’t stop.
I can’t.
It’s like my tongue wants to express something after the sensation he just brought me.
Aiden pops his fingers out as suddenly as he thrust them in, leaving me dazed and still slumped against the car, breathing harshly and unevenly.
Then he does something that shocks the living bejesus out of me.
He drops a gentle kiss on my nose.
His eyes are still dark, but they’re a lot clearer when he says, “Good girl.”
For the rest of the week, neither Aiden nor Xander shows up at school.
They were both suspended.
According to the gossip, Coach has them in a private camp until the end of their suspension as his form of discipline.
No coach would want his two star players at each others’ throat. Especially not in the senior year.
Me? I’m just happy I get space from Aiden.
After unravelling all over his fingers during that rainy night, I need more than space.
I need a continent between us.
How could I give in to him? Climax even?
He’s a sick monster. He’ll only hurt me.
Destroy me, even.
So why the hell can’t I stop thinking about that night?
Aiden still sends the usual dirty texts about what he’s thinking about doing to me once he returns. They get cruder and more taboo by the day. I never read them in front of Aunt and Uncle.
The bastard is ruining me and I have no way to stop it.
Since Aunt and Uncle work over the weekend, I decide to sleepover at Kim’s on Sunday. We have a math test in a few days, so we spend some time studying.
Kim’s house is on the upper-class side. Their neighbourhood screams of wealth and it’s filled with aristocrats and new money. I stand in Kim’s bedroom and stare out the balcony. Xander’s house is across from hers. I can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to be neighbours with your bully.
Aiden’s house is down the street. It’s huge and imposing and… lifeless. No one comes in or out.
Aiden must still be at his camp.
Not that I care.
Yellow by Coldplay blasts from my phone and Kim hums along with it as she fishes into her closet.
We just put Kirian to bed after we goofed around with mac and cheese. Kim’s mother is in her studio and is not to be disturbed when she’s chasing after her next masterpiece.
Kir seemed pretty happy with just Kim and me for his Sunday dates.
“What are you doing?” I finally focus on her and all the outfits she’s tossing on the bed.
“Ronan is throwing a party this weekend. He just texted me.”
Since when does Ronan text her?
“You’re really going to Ronan’s party?”
“It’s senior year, Ellie. We won’t live it twice.” She grins, posing with a faux plume scarf around her neck. “Come on, pick something.”
“Pass. I’m not interested in those parties.”
“Stop being Frozen and let’s go.”
“No.”
“One of these days, I’m going to convince you.”
“Never, Satan.”
I’m about to change into my PJ’s when my phone vibrates.
My pulse nearly erupts when I see Aiden’s name.
Aiden: Let’s meet.
I can almost imagine his bossy tone if I heard him say those words. I guess this confirms that he’s back from the camp.
Aiden: I miss you.
Something squeezes so hard in my chest, it’s painful.
How can he say words like that so easily? How can he rattle me just as easily?
Aiden: I know you miss me, too. You don’t have to say it.
Arrogant bastard.
And no, I don’t freaking miss him.
Who misses their tormentor?
Their bully?
Their nightmare?
Aiden: So? Are you coming to meet me or should I improvise?
No idea what that means, but it can’t be good for me.
Elsa: Don’t you dare.
He doesn’t reply.
Goddamn the psycho and damn me for showing that I care.
My gaze strays to Kim. If he’s out of camp, then he must be going to Ronan’s party, right?
“Kim.” I throw my phone on the bed and walk to her. “Don’t go and I’ll watch a Korean soap opera with you.”
She laughs, pulling out two dresses. “We can do that when I return.”
Damn it.
“Xander is back from camp,” I blurt. “You don’t want to run into him at the party, right?”
“Xander can go fuck himself.” Her lips twist in defiance. “I won’t let him ruin my life anymore.”
Well, shit.
It looks like I have to party tonight.
Chapter Nineteen
As Kim and I walk out from her car to Ronan Astor’s huge house, I try telling myself that I’m only here because of Kim.
There’s no way in shit I’m leaving her alone at a party where Xander Knight is present.
Deep down?
I’m at the edge of myself with that damned awareness slicing and clawing at the bottom of my stomach.
This is the first time I’m seeing Aiden after he pushed me against the hood of his car in the rain.
After he wrenched an explosive orgasm out of me where anyone could’ve seen us.
Could’ve seen me.
What would’ve happened if Aunt looked out? If Uncle returned home? If one of the neighbours passed by?
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Getting all tangled with Aiden is provoking parts I never wanted provoked.
Because at that moment? All I thought about was chasing the sensation he was pulling out of me.
God. I hate him.
Kim’s eyes sparkle with excitement as we walk through the front door of Ronan’s mansion. Loud music thumps from the walls even before we get in. A butler who looks straight out of Downton Abbey, all complete with the uniform and the tight smile welcomes us in.
Ronan is a lord’s son, but the butlers and servers at a teenager’s party are too much.
I smile, imagining him forcing his parents’ staff to serve at his endless parties.
Almost everyone from RES is here. It’s weird to see them out of their uniforms, laughing, drinking, and grinding against each other to a hit pop song.
This is a normal Sunday night to them. Kim and I are about the only ones who avoid them. For two years, I never felt like I was missing out on the whole teenage scene.
However, Kim always talked about such parties with a certain sadness that knotted my heart. Unlike me, she longed for the normal teenage life. She wants to go to college with one last hurrah.
I won’t kill her wishes just because these scenes aren’t for me. That’s what best friends do, right? They abandon their comfort zones for their friends.
Kim lent me skinny jeans and a black tank top that keeps falling off my right shoulder. Since Kim lost weight, her new size is a bit too tight on me and I feel like combusting in the trousers. I kept my face make-up-less and pulled my hair into a loose ponytail at the top of my head.
Kim opted for a hot pink dress that hugs her petite frame and hints at her cleavage. She’s even wearing heels and has her hair loose.
We’re going all out.
Her words, not mine.
Dangerous Night by Thirty Seconds to Mars fills the space as Kim snatches a drink from a butler’s tray.
I face her. “Are you nervous? We can go home if you like.”
“Nope!” She laughs. “We agreed to not run away anymore, remember?”
“It’s fine to run away sometimes. You know, for self-preservation.”
She chugs half of the drink. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Act so strong, Ellie! I wish I had your cool head.”
I lift my shoulder. “I’m not really that cool, Kim. I don’t show it.”
