Bully Anthology: Boys of Westview Academy, books 1-4

by Mina Thorne

  “Not my parents, no,” he laughed. “So don’t get any ideas. What I mean is that the way these people live here is not good. They get bored and end up sleeping with everybody out of boredom, anger, and jealousy. I thought I found something different out in California.”

  “Why didn’t you stay out there?” I asked. “If you had such a great love with Mom, why did you come back here?”

  “We moved back because my parents were going to cut me off,” he said. “That’s the stupid part of it. It was about money.”

  “Is Elaine the only woman you cheated with?” I asked.

  And when he put his head in the palm of his hand and looked down, I knew I already had the answer to the question.

  It wasn’t that my dad was a bad man, but he was a damaged one.

  And I hoped I didn’t take after that part of him, especially now that I’d gotten together with three guys I liked so very much.

  Chapter 73

  He didn’t stay much longer after that, and I fell back asleep.

  I didn’t wake up until dinner.

  And when I did wake up, I was starving. I couldn’t believe the raw hallow gnawing I had at the center of myself.

  I felt like I hadn’t eaten in months, not just the few days I’d been in the hospital.

  I walked downstairs and found a party going on, Sienna and Chase were there along with Roland and his boyfriend, Barrett and Rome.

  I missed Whitt immediately, but the pizzas stacked up on the dining room table helped alleviate my emotional emptiness somewhat.

  I couldn’t help it; food was more important than love just then.

  I paused for a moment and smiled to myself at the group of people I loved sitting around the table talking and laughing about nothing and everything.

  It was uplifting to know that I had so many people in my corner.

  “There she is!” Barrett exclaimed when he saw me. He jumped up from the table and rushed to my side where he took my arm and helped me the rest of the way.

  I sat down in between him and Rome, looked around at everyone and said, “Holy shit, I could eat a horse!”

  “How about a horse on a pizza?” Sienna laughed and slid a box across the table to me. “Help yourself, compliments of your father by the way. He sure knows how to spoil you and your friends.”

  “I’m glad I’m one of your friends,” Chase said and shoved a large slice of pepperoni in his mouth with a big grin on his face.

  “I missed you, babe,” Rome said and leaned over to touch me. He handed me a slice of veggie on a plate and poured me a glass of sparkling water.

  “I missed you too,” I replied with a broad smile, but then attacked the pizza with enough ferocity that both Barrett and Rome looked at me with amused confusion.

  After dinner, I felt better than I had in days. We went to the media room to watch the guys play video games while Sienna and I caught up.

  “I can’t believe they haven’t found Becca,” she said when we sat on the leather sofa near the guys. “She’s not that smart, how has she managed to hide out for this long?”

  “Do you believe her parents, though? Maybe they’re lying to the police and Becca’s at their place. Or their lake house, has anyone checked their lake house?” I asked, struck with the irony of that particular image. If Becca was forced to hide at the very same lake she’d tried to leave me, that would be poetic justice.

  Especially if she starved to death.

  Okay, maybe not to death, but I was allowed to be petty sometimes. I just felt guilty the moment I wished physical harm on somebody.

  We stayed up pretty late, just talking and hanging out, and I felt like a regular teen again.

  I still missed Whitt constantly and couldn’t wait to see him when he got out of the hospital, but until then we would have to settle for video chats and dirty talk that didn’t get him horny enough that the nurses ran into his room thinking he was dying.

  In a way, he was dying, dying to get back to me that was.

  After Sienna and Chase left, I crept through the darkened, quiet house with Barrett and Rome. “No sex, not yet,” I told them. “But I need you both by my side. I need to feel you in my bed while I sleep.”

  What I hadn’t told anyone was that nightmares dominated my sleep now. Every time I closed my eyes, especially now that I could remember the events of that day with Becca in the locker room, images of flames danced in my head.

  And worst of all, I felt the heat of the fire melting my flesh away until I was nothing. Until I was just a voice that nobody heard, calling for my boys.

  And I was left alone in my nightmares, alone to wander without ever feeling them again.

  “Are you sure about no sex?” Rome asked with a grin.

  Roland and his boyfriend slipped past us in the hallway just then, and Roland said, “She didn’t say no sex with each other, boys.”

  They laughed, but I won’t lie, that was an intriguing thought.

  With the way my world was opening up since moving to Harrisburg, was that really off the table?

  I never thought I would have ended up loving three boys, and I never thought they’d love me back.

  I never thought we’d be so open with it either.

  So who knew, perhaps at some point I could persuade them to do something with each other, but tonight I was serious. It was all about sleeping safely in the arms of my guys. To let them drive the nightmares away and bring me dreams of love and sex in their place.

  I opened the door to my room and was immediately covered in kisses and held in their strong arms though.

  I said no sex, but I hadn’t said anything about not being able to touch me. And the way they were touching me, I didn’t want it to stop.

  * * *

  Sunday was supposed to be a lazy day, but it turned out to be one of the worst days of my life.

  Mom cornered me at breakfast. We were alone, everybody else seemed to have something to do, and I had slept late.

  “I spoke to your father, and you’ll be coming home with me on Wednesday,” she said entirely out of the blue.

  I sputtered and orange juice sprayed from my mouth onto the linen table cloth.

  “I’m what?” I asked. “Nobody bothered to ask me about this, so no.”

  “You’re only seventeen, Stephanie. You aren’t old enough to make these kinds of decisions on your own.”

  “I’m eighteen in January. That’s less than two months away, so what’s the point?”

  I was sitting stiffly by then, my back arched in indignation that she dared think she could drag me away from Westview Academy after shipping me out here. And after I’d found the kind of love I’d been craving all along.

  “The point is that the girl who tried to kill you is still on the loose,” she said, and I saw her grit her teeth and knew this was going to be a fierce battle to win. She was stubborn, and once she made up her mind about something, it was almost impossible to get her to change it.

  Reg had always teased her because of it. It had already been the source of so much anger and stress for me that it almost shocked me being back here again.

  Her stubbornness was the reason I came to Harrisburg in the first place, for god’s sake. How could she change her mind just like that and ruin my life again?

  “I don’t care. I’m not going,” I replied and gritted my own teeth to flex my jaw and mirror her stubborn ways.

  “I’m afraid you have no say in the matter,” she said in a tight tone. There was an edge of anger that I’d never heard before, but I didn’t know if it was actual anger or the edge was from fear.

  “I’m talking to Dad,” I said. “He won’t agree to this. He likes having me here, and he isn’t going to let me go so easily. He wants to get to know me.”

  She hesitated, and her face softened. I thought she was going to give in, but I realized it was to ease the harsh truth she was about to drop.

  “He already agreed it’s the best thing for you,” she said quietly. “He offer
ed to let us use his corporate jet so we can leave any time and fly private.”

  She smiled at that, like a kid excited by a new ride at the fair or something.

  I should have been excited too because I was getting to ride on my first private jet owned by Dad’s company, but my misery and anger clouded my enjoyment.

  “He wants me to go?” I asked with a whisper. “He doesn’t want me here?”

  “It’s not like that,” she said, and her brows tucked together in worry. She realized she’d upset me, and as much as she wanted to get her way, I knew mom didn’t want to upset me. “He just agrees with me, that’s all.”

  “He agrees that I can’t live here. That’s so much better,” I said. It hurt, being rejected by him all over again.

  “It’s not that, not at all. He agrees that the safest place for you is in California. You’ll have time to say goodbye to your friends, and perhaps you’ll be back again in the spring during the school break.”

  “I’m not going,” I said and stood up. I slammed my plate back down on the table and didn’t wait to see Mom’s reaction. I was too upset.

  It wasn’t just my anger at her, making such a massive decision without asking me, but it was my hurt and betrayal that my father had turned his back on me so quickly. And just when I felt like we were making inroads and repairing the pain of the past.

  It cut me deep that he was so eager to let me go.

  I stormed up the stairs to my room, and in spite of knowing I was throwing a bratty tantrum, I threw myself across my bed and began to cry into my pillow.

  My wounds still ached, and my lungs still burned as I gasped for air, but I couldn’t stop. I felt so helpless because of her decision. I felt like nobody cared.

  Even though a logical part of my mind was aware that Mom was doing it out of love, it still hurt. Physically and emotionally, it hurt.

  I let the tears run though, and they ran harder when I realized I might not have a chance to feel Whitt’s arms around me before I left.

  My world felt like it was falling apart all over again.

  Chapter 74

  “She can’t make you go,” Barrett said when he found out. Rome had gone home, and Barrett had gotten back from football practice. He’d come right into my room but hadn’t expected the horrible news I had for him. “I won’t let her, goddammit!”

  “She can do what she wants, I’m only seventeen,” I wailed in horror as it all sunk in. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”

  “What about David? Can’t your father step in and say something?”

  “He agrees with her. He’s letting us use his jet,” I said, and my voice quivered as I felt tears gather behind my eyes, threatening to spill out yet again.

  “That son of a bitch,” he said and sat on the bed next to me. I was still stretched out in misery and had been the entire day. He rubbed my back and soothed me. “That selfish son of a bitch.” “I don’t know why he’s okay with it,” I said. “But I leave on Wednesday. That’s all I know at this point.”

  He slipped under the covers with me and kissed me until my tears completely dried, and I lost myself in his kisses.

  I was still aching from the fires, but the aches slowly turned to throbbing need as Barrett moved his hands across my body and under my clothes.

  “Do you want to…?”

  His eyes held a wild desire that inflamed me too.

  “I do…” I whispered and arched underneath him. “I so want to. I need to…”

  “Tell me if I hurt you,” he said and pushed my shirt above my shoulders and over my head. “Tell me if this hurts.”

  He bent and kissed my breasts, and it didn’t hurt at all. It felt so good that I moaned and writhed under him as I pulled at his own tee shirt. I watched as he sat up and drew it over his head. I admired his bulging pecs, broad chest, and the incredible six-pack abs that made me almost drool in anticipation.

  “You like what you see?” he asked with a smirk as he tossed the shirt to the side. “How about what you feel?”

  “I love what I see,” I said and exhaled slowly as he dropped back down onto me. His mouth crushed mine, and I tasted coffee on his lips.

  I didn’t drink coffee, but I loved the way it tasted on Barrett’s lips.

  He pulled away and began to kiss my neck, lower until he hit my breast again and took my nipple into his mouth.

  He teased it with his teeth, and I gasped and ran my fingers through his hair as I gripped his head. “I love what I feel, too,” I groaned and bucked up towards him.

  We were frantic after that. My pain was forgotten, and the horror of my move to California fled my head as soon as our skin touched, and our bodies pressed together.

  I loved Barrett. I realized it then.

  I loved him with all my heart, but I didn’t know how to tell him just yet.

  So I showed him by kissing him again and digging my fingers into his hips as I dragged him into me.

  “Fuck, Steph,” he grunted as he slid his thick, length deep inside. “Fuck, I love the way you feel. I love how tight your pussy is. I love it.”

  “You feel so good,” I sighed and opened my legs wider before I wrapped them around his hips. “Go faster. Please, faster…”

  He listened and began to pound into me with a ferocity that excited me beyond anything I thought possible. I wanted him again and again until I was clawing his back in desperation and sobbing his name.

  We came together, hard and fast, like a sudden rainstorm. There wasn’t any way to contain it. I cried out and didn’t care who heard me.

  Barrett groaned my name, long and drawn out like he was in pain.

  And I realized in a way he was. He was hurting over my leaving as much as I was.

  Tears welled up in my eyes again, and he collapsed on me, kissing me and loving me until we were still and in each other’s arms.

  “I’ll miss you,” Barrett said, his dick softening inside of me.

  “You’ll miss this,” I laughed and clenched my pussy around it.

  He grinned and kissed me, then said, “Yes, I’ll miss that too. But not more than the girl it belongs to.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, and I pressed my head against his chest, listening to his heart as it slowed down and joined its rhythm with mine.

  I would never forget how it felt to be in Barrett’s arms, and I would never stop trying to get back to him.

  * * *

  Barrett got up and got dressed before dinner. “They’ll want us down there tonight. You know that,” he said and kissed my nose before he left.

  “I’m not going,” I grumbled, but I knew I would.

  He was gone before he heard it though, so my defiance was for nothing.

  Sure enough, about half an hour before dinner was usually served, I heard a knock at my door.

  Dad popped his head in when I said it was okay to enter, and I frowned.

  “Since when did you bother knocking?” I asked and crossed to stand in front of him.

  “Since I have to worry about my safety apparently,” he chuckled and looked down at me.

  I really did have the perfect blend of his looks and my mother’s. It was almost uncanny at times, like seeing myself reflected in a funhouse mirror.

  “Why would you worry about that?” I asked and glared at him.

  “I know you heard about your mother’s plans,” he said. “And I know you heard about my approval of this plan.”

  “Then why are you here? You must know how angry I am too,” I spat.

  “I know it looks bad, but I want you to understand my side of it. I am concerned that your safety is at risk,” he said. “Becca is still on the run, and the police, as well as the private security I’ve hired, haven’t been able to find her. What if she finds you first?”

  “Hire security for me at school then. Don’t send me away.”

  “Becca has mental problems,” he said and sighed as if pained. “I’ve known her family for years, and there has always been a ru
mor around the club that she’s unbalanced, but this incident has proven how deep her issues go.”

  “Then why should I be punished for it?” I demanded.

  “Going home with your mother isn’t a punishment. She has a point, you know. You’re only seventeen, and I have no legal recourse to keep you here,” he told me, and then I saw his real pain. Mom had been the one behind this whole thing, and there really was nothing he could do about it.

  “Can I come back in January?” I asked hesitantly.

  “What’s in January?” he asked, surprised.

  “You don’t even know when my—”

  “I was joking,” he laughed. “Of course I know when your birthday is. Yes, you can come back on your birthday but only if Becca is caught by then. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I replied and smiled. I felt slightly soothed by his words like he wasn’t just rejecting me outright and turning me away.

  “And one more thing,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “You really have to learn how to drive and pass your driver’s test.”

  “Okay, I promise,” I replied with a smile.

  “There’s no way I would ever want to send you away willingly,” he said and pulled me in for a hug. “Now that I know you, I don’t want to lose you again. You’re my daughter and only heir. You have to stay around long enough to kick me out to my retirement and take over my company, remember?”

  I laughed and said, “I remember. But before we do that, how about dinner?”

  We walked down to the dining room, and all felt okay again.

  I might have to go back to California with Mom, but I wouldn’t have to stay there for long.

  Besides, it might be nice to see my friends again and maybe laugh at the guys I once looked up to so badly. It would be interesting to see the perspective I had now that I’d been treated like David Montgomery’s daughter for so long now.

  Since I’d discovered that I was somebody, I was something.

  * * *

  “I don’t want you to go, babe,” Whitt said from the hospital via video chat that night. “I don’t want it at all, but I understand it. Your parents must be terrified that Becca will come back to finish the job.”