I wanted to fight him, just for the sake of fighting him, but I also really wanted to open my damn locker. I went to press the buttons, but paused midway. “Don’t look.”
“Don’t look at your… locker number?” He quirked an eyebrow. “What do you plan on keeping in there, Square?”
“None of your stupid business, Castleton.”
He shrugged and looked away. I plugged in the last four digits of my mom’s cell number. The keypad dinged again. I waited for something to happen. “Is that it?”
“For now,” Drake said. His voice was odd though, as he stood off to the side watching me once again. “I think our first day together went well, don’t you?”
“Went well?” I scoffed, repeating the question, and opened the locker door. I felt really stupid as soon as the empty cubby was revealed, seeing as I had nothing to store inside yet. I wouldn’t have books until my official classes were set, apparently. I reclosed the locker, which just made me feel even dumber. “You’re insane. This,” I turned toward him and waved a hand between us, “is never going to happen. I’m not going to be your new conquest.”
“That’s not what this is about at all,” he crooned stepping forward.
I laughed, and it came out unsettled and jarring. “Oh, it isn’t? Don’t you think I’ve heard about you, Castleton? Literally the first thing someone told me after we moved was to steer clear of you. That all you care about is taking what you want and moving on.”
His face darkened. “You do realize playing hard-to-get just makes the challenge more entertaining.”
“I’m not a challenge. And even if I was, you’d be the last person in this school I’d let win the fucking prize.” I pushed past him and he didn’t give an inch. He just stood there like a statue, his face cast in shadows.
I was grateful to walk out of the school and smell fresh air. There were some amazing things about Castleton High—the teachers, the food, the challenging coursework—but I didn’t think any of the good was going to be enough to outweigh the bad.
And the bad was Drake fucking Castleton.
I heard a honk and saw my dad sitting in the station wagon. Mom wasn’t with him. I nearly sprinted toward the vehicle.
3.
D R A K E
She made my skin crawl.
Not with disgust. No.
Lust. Intense fucking lust. I hadn’t wanted someone this badly in a long time. Maybe ever.
Most girls fawned over me. It was boring, but familiar. I never had to look far to find someone ready to fall into bed. And I need that release, that distraction. Raw, emotionless sex made me forget about my family. Just for a moment. My father with his constant agenda. I needed to graduate, go to Yale, come back and help run the companies. My mother who was a ghost for all intents and purposes. If she wasn’t recovering from surgery, she was escaping to yet another vacation.
And then my grandmother. I didn’t mind her so much. At least she was completely honest over how damn miserable she found life, and how she didn’t plan to die anytime soon. I think she thought it was funny—to refuse to relinquish power over the Castleton Empire. It drove my father nuts. Hell, maybe she’d find a way to keep my dad from inheriting everything when she died.
To see my father’s face if that happened…
I smiled as I walked slowly away from her locker. She was just disappearing out of the front entrance. I could see her hair, the curls falling loose now after the school day. The tattered, comfortable clothes. Backpack slung over one shoulder. As I walked, I compared her to the other girls I passed. They looked at me, smiled to get my attention. They were all pretty enough, dressed well with their makeup-made-beautiful masks.
Yet, none of them held any curiosity for me.
Tarryn Norma-Jeane Monroe was the total opposite of exotic. Everything about her was plain jane. I shouldn’t be attracted to her at fucking all. She was just another piece of meat, like every other damn new girl I’d scored.
Outside, the sun felt too hot and it was too damn bright after being inside all day. I scowled up at the sky. Like a magnet pulled them, my eyes found Tarryn getting into a vehicle. I stopped at the bottom of the short flight of stairs into the school and watched the car pull away.
Her words resonated in my head. This is never going to happen. I’m not going to be your new conquest.
Fine. If she didn’t want the Castleton charm, then she’d get the other side of the coin.
If there was one thing I did better than seduction, it was being a world class asshole. I could thank my father for that.
***
“Your mother left this morning. She’ll be gone a few weeks.” My father doesn’t look up from his tablet.
“Surprise, surprise,” I mumbled around a bite of steak as I thumbed through my contact list, deciding which number to text. I didn’t really care who it was, as long as they were available and wouldn’t ask me to buy them dinner before or cuddle after. “What is it? Her nose again? She’s going to look like a freak show if she doesn’t slow it down.”
“Don’t talk about your mother that way,” my father spoke sternly, lowering his device to the table and threading his fingers together atop the glossy screen. “You will respect her, Drake.”
“I’d love to, Dad. As soon as she’s home for more than a few days at a time, I will do all I can to respect the hell out of her.” Dropping my fork onto the plate, I got up and pressed one of the numbers showing on my phone screen. I didn’t even bother checking the name first. It really didn’t matter. Most girls around here would drop everything for a Castleton screw.
Dad didn’t even try to stop me as I left, even though my food was still half-finished and my snide comment hung in the air between us. He didn’t even try to rebuke me or offer up a rebuttal. Because we both knew the truth—mom had never been motherly. Not even when I was a baby being raised by a string of well-paid nannies. She’d gone on her first holiday when I was four months old. She’d missed most of my birthdays recovering at one resort spa or another. She was the breeding machine, and that was fucking it.
Grabbing my keys off the foyer table, I headed out the door. I did hear my dad yell at me as the entrance swung closed behind me. Something about ‘where the hell was I going’ and ‘get back in here, young man’. And that was my dad in a nutshell.
Whereas my mom had the decency to be honest about not caring, Dad felt the need to feign interest at the last second to make it look like he was making some kind of effort. That was worse to me, infinitely fucking worse.
I drove fast and recklessly until I slammed to a stop in front of a small—small by Castleton standards—house with a reddish-brown fence and a minivan in the driveway. It didn’t take long after my double horn honk for my chosen phone number to bounce out of the front door.
Tabitha Lordes was five foot nothing with a slim figure and hair shorn off into an edgy blonde pixie. She’d changed her clothes for me, that was easy to tell. The Lordes were blue-collar folks and she didn’t have a lot of the latest styles. But what she lacked in fashionable pieces, she made up for in boldly-combined colors and rock star-wannabe makeup. I knew enough about what’s in vogue clothing-wise, thanks to the eight or nine magazines my mother has auto-delivered… that she was never home to read.
Tabs wouldn’t have been my first choice. She couldn’t take me at my angriest, not at her size. Thankfully, I just needed to trim off the bitter edge tonight, not work out deeply-seated emotional issues. We wouldn’t need a safe word. Of course, Tabitha had a slight dark side too. She liked it rough, rough to the point of blurred vision and a few pale bruises. I wouldn’t say no if she wanted to next level the night. As long as I didn’t get too carried away. Her idea of rough was not my idea of rough.
“Hi, Drake,” she breathed out my name in a sort of sigh as she slid onto the passenger seat and closed her door. Her navy skirt was short enough to ride up her thighs when she sat, exposing more pale leg than she might have intended. I glanced at the expanse o
f skin, debated, and then reached out and squeezed her closest thigh hard. She let loose a little gasp of pain and then smiled. “Where are we going?”
“Route 20,” I said, shifting into gear and pulling sharply away from the curb, not caring if she buckled or not. When I glanced over at her, she was frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s not the greatest motel.” She bit her lower lip. “Can’t we go somewhere nicer?”
“I can take you back home,” I said sharply.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” she spoke quickly, a flurry of words. “It’s just that… I know you took Mara there last month. And Dianne. It’s the same place you’ve taken me more than once. Can’t we go somewhere else? I don’t want to be just another girl you fuck in that shitty motel.”
I could feel my face darken as I slowed to a stop on the side of the road. “But that’s exactly what you fucking are, Tabitha. If you don’t like it, don’t answer my texts. Don’t be so damn eager to bounce out of your house wearing barely any clothes.”
There were tears in her eyes now. It wasn’t the first time I’d made a girl cry. She didn’t say anything, so I spoke again. Because if I didn’t, I might end up alone with my hand tonight and that wasn’t what I was in the mood for. I rarely had to… relieve the pressure flying solo.
“Shit, Tabitha. I’m sorry. It’s been a bad day.” I reached over and this time rubbed her leg gently. She wiped her eyes and shrugged.
“It’s okay. We all have bad days.”
“Look, I’ll take you to Forest Hills. There’s a new place there that’s supposed to be really nice.”
“Do you want to drive that far? To the next town?” She seemed hopeful, like me going out of my way to take her somewhere slightly nicer meant something. That’s not how this worked though—I took meaningless girls to Route 20 precisely because it was out of the way and no one I knew would be caught dead there. And I always paid in cash, on the off chance my dad actually checked my credit card use rather than just paying off the balance. I needed to have sex, rough emotionally-empty sex. If that meant I needed to go thirty minutes away to Forest Hills, I fucking would.
“I don’t mind,” I said casually, keeping my hand on her thigh. She moved her own hand over mine, gripped it gently, and slowly began sliding it higher up her leg until my fingers were tucked under her skirt. I smiled, and I knew it was a wolfish, predatory expression. Tabitha angled her chair back and reached across the armrest. She rubbed her hands up and down my cock, which grew hard against my pants within seconds.
“Be careful,” she whispered throatily as my fingers moved deeper beneath her skirt to discover she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “Don’t make me cum yet. I want you inside me when I do.”
“Tabs, if you think you’ll only cum once with me tonight, then you’ve learned nothing from our previous sessions.” I pushed two fingers inside her, finding her already wet and ready. She squirmed, pulling her hand back from my body and covering her face as she moaned.
“Oh, God. Drake.” My name was a mangled prayer as she whimpered and trembled.
It was good that I had the top and windows up; without the fading sun and the glass tint it would have been obvious to onlookers that I was giving Tabitha the best finger fuck of her life.
Tabitha waited in the car while I paid for the room.
The place was nicer than the one on Route 20 for sure, but still had exterior doors—we could park right in front of our first floor room and go inside, minimizing the number of eyes that might see us. Even a town away, people knew who the Castletons were. Of course, all anyone would have to do was take one look at my car and the idiot-obvious license plate. I tried to get rooms that faced wooded areas or, at the very least, faced away from the main roads. I’d heard talk and rumors, my dad had too.
That Castleton boy gets around.
Drake Castleton… he’s got to have some sort of sexual disease. One of those, like, mental obsessions. What’s it called? Nymphomania?
But people didn’t speak too loudly… or for too long. Castleton wrath wasn’t a small fucking thing.
“It means a lot that you were okay coming here,” Tabitha stepped out of her wedges, sinking lower to the floor and reminding me how very small she was. It almost made me feel bad that she was nothing more to me than an easy mark. She stepped closer to me as I shut the door and set the locks. When I turned back to her, she only needed to move a few inches closer to press her body against mine. I leaned back against the door, staring down at her. I’d softened in the moments it took to check us in, but her nipples were hard through the thin blouse she wore; they rubbed against my lower chest, firm reminders of what was coming. It didn’t take much to reignite my desire.
“How much do you like this shirt,” I murmured, tilting my head down to look at her and tracing my fingers up and down the front buttons of the sheer material.
“I don’t like it at all.” She pressed harder against me, pulling my shirt out of the front of my pants and sliding her hands beneath the material to touch my skin. “Why?” Her fingers explored the ridges of my abs.
I pushed her away gently, gripped her shirt on either side of the buttons, and ripped outward. She gasped and stumbled from the force, but in the end kept her footing and her eyes shined with excitement and anticipation. In a flurry of movement, she undressed me and I undressed her, until we were stripped naked and exposed. Her breasts were small and round, tight to her body with nipples that pointed straight out. Perky headlights, whereas some girls had large breasts that hung heavy to the floor. Tab’s were the kind you liked to knead and suck into your mouth as far as possible. Her best friend Mara, on the other hand, was a solid D, maybe double-D—more than a handful, more than a mouthful, but fun in other ways.
“How rough?” I mumbled as she kissed every inch of my chest. We were still stood near the front door.
“Rough,” she breathed out, biting my skin gently.
Her idea of rough. I clarified in my head, because if I didn’t, this could go badly. Things had gone badly before. They could have been worse… My dad was good for one thing—making problems disappear with cash. I was more careful now; I’d not gotten to the edge of pain with a girl since her. And as far as I knew, she was long fucking gone and living well off her gag-order settlement. I’d been young enough that the records were sealed. Otherwise, I’d have zero shot at the Ivy League my dad saw in my future.
“Drake,” Tab’s voice was soft and curious. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head a little and focused on the small framed-girl.
“Rough? Good,” I said, picking her up and carrying her to the bed. My cock throbbed as her legs wrapped around me. She was so wet, so fucking ready. I threw her down on the bed and her gasp only made me harder. I dropped to the floor and gripped her behind the knees to yank her to the end of the bed. She was already writhing and whimpering before I buried my face between her legs.
It took effort, but I kept myself from digging too hard into her hips as I held her against my mouth.
***
“You’ll call me?” Tabitha sat on the end of the bed, looking over the mess I’d made of her blouse. Every now and then, she touched her neck gingerly. She’d wanted me to choke her as she’d orgasmed. But for a fraction of a second, I’d forgotten myself—forgotten that I had to keep the darkness under control. And there’d been another second… only a second… where I’d almost said the name Tarryn instead of Tabitha.
“Sure.” I buttoned my shirt and tucked the front into my jeans.
“No, I mean it, Drake.” Tabitha pulled on her shirt with half the buttons busted off. She frowned, staring at me. “I don’t want to be sitting by my phone for weeks waiting for it to ring. I’m not that kind of girl.” She stood up, gesturing around the room. “I’m not this kind of—” She stopped talking abruptly, maybe realizing that she was exactly that type of girl. “Just call me, okay?”
I hesitated, but then nodded. “Yeah, I’ll call
, Tabs.” I walked over to her and brushed her hair out of her face. “You’re special.”
“I’m sure you say that to all your hotel whores,” she sighed out. “And yet, I still hope you call me. What the hell is wrong with my brain?”
We didn’t talk on the drive back to her house. We’d been gone three hours. Tabitha’s parents had left the front porch light on for her and I could see two shadowy figures standing behind the translucent curtains. Her parents cared about her, at least she had that. She had more than I fucking had, even though the Castletons could buy whatever they wanted, when they wanted. Seeing the door to her house open as she walked up the stone path made a bolt of pain rocket through my chest.
No amount of sex—not with familiar faces or strange—would give me a family that left the lights on and waited to make sure I was safe.
So fuck it. Fuck that ideal American home with its two point five kids, stay-at-home mom, and a dad who played catch in the back yard.
I was Drake Castleton. I didn’t need anyone. Not a single damn person.
I didn’t want to go home, so I decided to drive. River Valley was pretty at night. Quiet. Less people pawing all over me just because I was a Castleton.
4.
T A R R Y N
“My first day?” I pushed the peas around on my plate and contemplated how to answer.
“Yes, honey. How was your first day?” Mom asked her question again, exasperation seeping into her voice. “I hate I had to stay late at the office, but there’s just so much to organize and catch up on. The last people in charge of marketing for the Castletons were complete slobs.”
“It was fine. I liked Dad picking me up for a change.” I speared a few peas and popped them into my mouth. If I kept eating and chewing, maybe mom wouldn’t push for an answer.
“It’s just yet another difference we have to deal with, living here and taking this bigger job.” Mom messed about with the biscuits in the bread basket, arranging them and rearranging them.
Bully: A High School Bully Romance (The King of Castleton High Book 1) Page 3
