by Mariano, Sam
Turning my head just enough to look back at him, I say calmly, “Stopping you.”
Fire leaps in his eyes, and the sight of his anger unleashes warring feelings inside me. On one hand, it’s terrifying. I don’t like to see Carter angry, even if I don’t believe he would actually hurt me anymore.
It also warms my blood, the silent promise of his violence. His lip curls up in a sneer and my heart leaps in response. He grabs the front of my shirt, balling it in his hand and shoves me back against the wall.
“You think that was fucking cute?” he demands.
“Nope,” I answer, holding his gaze. “I think I don’t want you inside me when you’ve been God knows where since last time we were together. I just got a full panel of STD tests done; I’d prefer not to have to go back so soon.”
He cocks an eyebrow in surprise, but he’s too annoyed to ask me about it. “I haven’t been with anyone else yet,” he tells me.
Yet. That word does more to bottom out my stomach than him bending me over the desk and making me take his cock. I hate that specific part of his statement, but I love the rest. Warmth washes over me at the knowledge that he hasn’t had sex with anyone else since me. I know it hasn’t been long, but in Carter time, it has been a while.
“But you said you had a new plaything,” I point out.
“I didn’t say I’ve already tested out the equipment,” he states, glancing at the door. Enough seconds have passed that there must not have been anyone in the immediate vicinity, but someone down the hall could still be walking this way to investigate the noise.
I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction, wouldn’t if I could control myself, but my shoulders sag with relief, my head drops back against the wall, and my eyes drift closed with a sort of nonverbal “Oh, thank God.”
I don’t want to get back together, but I don’t want him to sleep with that stupid girl in class, either. I don’t know what to do with that, but I don’t have time to figure it out and there are more pressing matters to attend to.
I’m about to pull away, walk back to the desk, and reposition myself the way he had me. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have sex with him, but he has already been inside me. I don’t think I’ll be in much hotter water just for letting him finish.
Before I can do that, Carter takes control again. Satisfied that no one is coming and now with even more motivation to punish me, Carter hikes up one of my legs, plants himself flush against me, and shoves his cock inside me more forcefully. This time, before I can so much as moan, he seals a hand over my mouth.
My eyes jump to his, a silent protest, but his eyes are hard now. I get the feeling I pissed him off more than I meant to, and the realization knocks some of the wind out of my sails. Instincts I don’t entirely understand prompt me to seek forgiveness, to repent and make up for my bad behavior. Mental images flash to mind of him lying on his bed, me kneeling naked beside him. Bending and kissing him, running my lips over every chiseled inch of his body, letting my tongue flit out to run along the underside of his dick. When he’s hard and wanting, he can take me any way he wants. He can hold me down or make love to me. He can wear a condom, or come inside me.
Between my own lewd thoughts and Carter brutally pounding inside me, tension starts to build in my core. As if he can see me starting to feel too good and he wants to stop it, Carter pulls out of me.
Grasping my arm, he tugs me back over to the desk and gives me a push toward it. I require no manhandling this time. I bend myself over the desk and spread my legs as far as he had them before. I’m dripping wet now and I feel so exposed spread out here like this without him inside me.
Carter steps forward, grabbing the globes of my ass in his hands and squeezing. “Your ass is beautiful. I should take that, too.”
Fear takes over and I look back at him over my shoulder, alarm clear in my expression. I want to tell him no, but I’m too worried that will seal the deal and the next thing I know he’ll be forcing his too-large cock into that too-small hole.
Running a hand over my ass and smiling faintly, he says, “Maybe another time.”
There won’t be another time, but I can’t tell him that. I don’t know how I’ll make sure of that, but I have to. Clearly neither one of us can be trusted once he gets me alone.
Right now, he guides himself inside me, and this time, I don’t fight him. I hold onto the desk for dear life, losing my grip and sliding several times while he fucks me. My insides twist and tauten as he moves inside me, hitting at just the right angle. I’m ready to climb the walls, grabbing desperately at the desk, then he shoves inside me hard and fast, hard and fast, hard and fast. I cry out again when I come. Carter is prepared this time and covers my mouth with his hand, muffling my cry of pleasure, and the helpless whimpers that follow as he continues to use my overly stimulated body to get himself off.
Finally, he groans with his own pleasure, pushing deep then pumping a few more slow times until he has emptied himself inside me.
I let my arms fall to each side of the desk. My face is smashed uncomfortably against the hard surface now, my body completely boneless as I lie here letting the desk entirely support my weight. I know this is something I’ll have to deal with later, but for right now, I just want to feel good.
Since Carter is standing and doesn’t have anywhere to recover, he has to pull it together before I do. He starts moving and I don’t question it until he lifts my foot and takes my panties off instead of pulling them back up.
I crane my head to look back at him and see my panties in his hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m keeping these,” he tells me, dangling them briefly, then shoving them in the pocket of his jeans.
“What?” Reluctantly pushing myself up, I tell him, “You can’t keep those. I’m wearing a skirt. You want me flashing everyone my business?”
Carter merely smirks at me. “Nope, don’t want anyone seeing your business. Guess you better keep your legs closed.”
I roll my eyes. “You keep your legs closed,” I mutter straightening my skirt around my waist. I feel naked in this skirt with no panties on, and dirty on top of it because I can feel the evidence of Carter fucking me between my legs. “I can’t… Just give me my panties back.”
“Nah. Gonna keep ‘em. Might need visual aids when I talk to your buddy, Luke.”
Panties forgotten, my eyes widen. “You better not really talk to him, Carter. I will be so pissed at you if you embarrass me like that.”
Carter shrugs, then crosses his arms. “Then you better handle it yourself. If you really went out with him, end it. Feed him the same bullshit you gave me about needing to focus on your schoolwork, I don’t care. Just end it. I’m not going to have some other asshole putting his hands on you. If he does, I shit you not, Zoey, I’ll fucking decimate him.”
I don’t even have any interest in a relationship with Luke, but Carter’s insistence that I remain on the shelf while he does whatever he wants really pisses me off. “You’re bein’ ridiculous,” I tell him. “I don’t need your permission to live my life.”
“Of course you don’t. Just to fuck someone else. You need my permission for that, and you’re not going to get it.”
“You are not my boyfriend anymore. What part of that is hard for you to grasp?”
Moving away from the wall and to the desk where he put my books down, Carter retrieves them and brings them over to me. “Here you go.”
“Just gonna ignore that perfectly reasonable question?”
“You’re probably hungry, huh?” He pulls out his wallet and extracts a twenty. “Better get yourself some lunch. I’ve gotta make an appearance in the cafeteria or I’d come with.”
I do not touch the money. Instead, I take my books and look up at him. “You can’t trick me back into a relationship with you. I’m not that dumb.”
“I’m not trying to trick you back into a relationship,” he tells me, putting the twenty on the desk since I’m no
t taking it. “In fact, I’ve gotta get to the cafeteria to give my new toy some attention. Thanks for the fuck, though,” he adds, winking at me, then turning and leaving me alone to fume in the empty classroom.
Chapter 42
The weekend passes uneventfully. I work, go to church, and go out for coffee with Grace. When I get to my locker Monday morning, I find a surprise waiting for me—though, not a mean one this time. A small shopping bag with two-toned pink stripes from Victoria’s Secret is in my locker. I look around to make sure no one is glancing my way, then open the bag to find six pairs of panties, all in my size. On top of the pink tissue paper inside is a note in Carter’s handwriting that reads, “To make up for the pair I stole. Wear the blue ones next time you wear that skirt.”
Narrowing my eyes, I toss the note back in the bag. Does that mean he sees my skirt as some kind of sign indicating he can fuck me that day? He can fuck off if he thinks that. Days have passed since our last encounter, weekend days, so I’m sure he brought Blondie over to Cartwright’s for a weekend group hang. I’m sure Brianna was just as welcoming to her as she was to me, and Cartwright didn’t have to keep up, he could just be nice to the straightforward hot blonde on Carter’s arm. The one who is supposed to be there, because she fits in like I never did.
Taking my cell phone out of my purse, I text Carter while I’m mad so I can yell at him. “If you think I dropped the girlfriend title so I could be your occasional booty call, boy, do you have another thing coming. Thanks for the panties, but you’re never going to see them on me.”
Since I can’t very well bring a Victoria’s Secret bag with me, I slam my locker door shut and leave them inside. I’ll just have to try to sneak them out to my car while everyone is at lunch… which will mean lingering in the bathroom until everyone else is already in the cafeteria, which means if Carter wants to accost me, the path will be clear.
I don’t know if the panties were an actual gift or just a way to get me alone again. I suppose I could throw a wrench in his plans—if they are his plans—and wait until I leave for the day to take them, but spending even more time in the school building and waiting for it to clear out sounds terrible and also less reliable. The last thing I need is giving anyone the visual of me hauling a bag from Victoria’s Secret through the halls though.
I won’t be wearing them anytime soon, anyway. Thank the Lord, I finally started my period over the weekend, so there is no Carter clone hiding out in my womb, waiting to do Daddy’s bidding and ruin my whole life. The birth control I started was supposed to start working immediately, so it seems now I’m out of the woods.
I didn’t want to be pregnant so I am relieved, but there is the tiniest corner of my heart that felt a bit sad. Logically and in every sensible way, I know Carter would use a baby to manipulate me right back into his arms, to control me and ruin any relationship I tried to start with anyone else. I know he would be a nightmare to deal with, and I would probably end up waving the white flag and going back to him to try and work things out—especially with a little baby in the picture and the tempting vision of a perfect little family in my mushy heart. For all of the reasons in the world, it is good that I am not pregnant.
On an irrational, sentimental level buried deep, I’m just a pinch sad about it.
But that can easily be ignored. I’m rational most of the time, and the overwhelming majority of me is immensely relieved Carter didn’t ruin my life.
Not yet, anyway. When I saw Luke at church on Sunday, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him like I wanted to. At school, Carter would be able to see me talk to Luke, but if I pull him aside at church… well, Carter isn’t going to church, that’s for sure.
I don’t think Carter did talk to Luke though, because while I didn’t get to pull him aside and talk to him, Luke didn’t act weird around me. He flashed me friendly smiles from across the room, both of us gesturing that we would catch up later, we just never did.
I’m relieved Carter respected my wishes. I don’t know what possessed me to lie to him in the first place, I just didn’t think he would get so crazy about it. I thought he might experience the same wounded sensation of a bruised ego and a punched heart as I felt when I saw him flirting with Blondie right in front of me. I didn’t think he would threaten to target my mystery boyfriend, but on reflection, I should have been prepared for the possibility. Carter is crazy and spoiled, so of course he thinks he should get his way while doing whatever the hell he wants. Of course he wants his unused toy on a shelf instead of letting it move on and find someone else to play with.
I can’t even fault him for that sentiment, though. It would be severely hypocritical. I’m finding I feel the same way. I don’t want to be with Carter, but I don’t want him to be with anyone else either. It’s not like I want him to be lonely or unloved, I just… don’t want him to be sexually or emotionally invested in any other girls.
I think what I actually want is a time machine so that I could travel back to the moment Erika shoved her cell phone at me. Instead of wanting to know and looking at the phone, I would have just surprised her by punching her in the face. Would have been well worth the detention or suspension, or whatever it is they do to bad kids who punch other students. I’ve never actually had a detention, but it seems like I could just use it as an additional study hall and get a jumpstart on my homework. At any rate, after the detention, Carter would still be my boyfriend, and I wouldn’t have to feel conflicted about anything.
Or maybe I need to set the time machine back a little more. Return to that night I left him unsatisfied and remedy the damn issue myself, then he never would have gone over to Erika’s house in the first place.
When it’s time for history class, I walk a little slower. Ideally I want to arrive right before the bell rings, that way I don’t have to witness the pre-class flirting of Carter and Jenna. I get there just before the bell, but Carter isn’t in his seat. I frown at his absence, but figure he’s just running late. I set up my study area, the bell rings, but Carter never comes.
About ten minutes into class, he finally shows up. Mr. Hassenfeld stops talking to stare Carter down disapprovingly. “So nice of you to grace us with your presence, Mr. Mahoney.”
“I do what I can to please the fans,” Carter assures him with an easy smile.
I roll my eyes, but a few kids chuckle. Ugh.
After class, I don’t feel as terrible as I expect to. Maybe it was his late arrival or maybe he just didn’t feel like torturing me today, but he doesn’t spend the whole class flirting with Jenna. There is still some interaction between them, but she’s clearly driving it. I wonder if she has already lost his interest, but that might be wishful thinking.
Lecture runs late and I’m a little slower about getting my stuff put away so I can leave. Carter and Jenna walk out together. I keep my head down, refusing to look at them, but I hear her talking about her cat. I bet Carter doesn’t have a single fuck to give about her cat. I bet he would rather stab himself in the eyeball than listen to another word about Fluffy.
Trying to shake off the ickiness of just having overheard her speaking to him, I gather my things and make my way out of the classroom.
“There you are!”
I turn, startled, at Kasey, the photographer from the football game. She is plodding toward me with a wide smile on her face. Pointing at myself, I question, “Me?”
Nodding enthusiastically, she says, “I needed to catch you after class. Can you come sit with me at lunch? I need to talk to you about an opportunity I think you’ll be interested in.”
“Lunch? In the cafeteria?”
Kasey blinks. “Last I checked, that was the popular lunch location.”
“Oh. Yeah. I don’t eat in the cafeteria. I could catch you after school lets out instead?”
“No,” she says, firmly determined. “I have stuff after school. It has to be at lunch. Come on, the lunch room isn’t so bad. It’s one day. It won’t kill you, I promise.”
Dread c
onsumes me at the thought of going back to that cafeteria. Sure, the “Zoey the ho” period has passed, but it’s still a room populated with people I don’t want to be around. I’ve grown accustomed to my peaceful, isolated lunch breaks.
Kasey doesn’t give me much of a choice. She’s a dog with a bone, and the bone is my presence at lunch. Grace might also be offended if she sees me back in the lunchroom, but sitting at a different table instead of with her. Can’t sit with her anyway, though. Luke sits at that table, and if I show up in the cafeteria again all of a sudden sitting at a table with Luke… yeah, no.
With many reservations and heavy, reluctant steps, I follow Kasey to the cafeteria. I think up excuses the whole way there, but since I don’t spit any of them out, I walk through the open doors and into the mouth of hell.
The cafeteria buzzes with energy and conversation. All the people I spend all day not interacting with gathered together in one place. Fantastic. I also don’t have my lunch, which means I’ll have to buy. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even have enough cash on me to buy lunch, but I still have the twenty that Carter left me Thursday, so I guess I can use that.
Kasey chatters as we walk over and take our places in line. Even though she is literally invisible to most social sectors, Kasey is unafraid of the lunch room. I admire that about her. I get the feeling if she had been my best friend instead of Grace during the “Zoey the ho” situation, Kasey would have ignored the stares, slut coughs, and open hostility from the football players. I bet she would have sat there with me, completely unmoved by the nonsense all around, and I bet she never would have let me flee the lunch room in the first place.
This is a lot of betting I’m doing on someone I barely know, but she just has a very strong presence, and I really dig it. I love Grace, but I feel like Kasey might be more on my level in regards to certain things. While I do love Grace, we really don’t have that much in common.
