by Mae Doyle
“I’m not coming with you anywhere.” I lock my eyes on his, practically daring him to do something about it. If he thinks that I’m coming to his house tonight, then he’s dumber than I thought.
“Fuck yes, you are, little kitten. You’re coming to hang out with your dear best friend Bethany. Since I’m her older brother, I have to make sure to keep an eye on the two of you. I wouldn’t want someone hurting your or taking advantage of you, right?” He stands up and adjusts his shoulder pads.
Clay’s big enough without his uniform on, but with his shoulder pads and protective gear, he looks positively huge. I have no doubt in my mind that I could make a run for it, but he’d catch me and punish me.
“Let’s go. I need to change and then I’ll take you and Bethany home.” His voice is commanding and dark and I’m pretty sure that there’s no way out of this for me.
“Please take me home.” My mom always told me to stand up to bullies, but she’s never met Clay. He’s not just a bully. He’s self-assured, confident, and completely in control. I hate that he thinks he’s a god, but there’s no reason for him not to.
He’s right. He is a god.
I don’t know what he’ll do when I try this tactic, but the worst that can happen is that he’ll say no. It’s not like I have much of a choice right now, anyway. Sometimes people respond to the damsel in distress, but I’m not sure what Clay will do.
He’s completely unpredictable.
The change in him is immediate. He was angry, sure, but now he’s pissed. His nostrils flare and he runs one hand through his hair before grabbing me by the wrist. “Don’t you fucking beg me, you stupid bitch,” he spits out. I’m afraid to look into his eyes to see what’s there. I swear, the devil himself lives in Clay Bryson.
Then, before I can stop him, he’s knelt and pressed his shoulder into my stomach, throwing me up and over him like a sack of grain. I kick and pound his back with my fists.
“Let me go, you asshole!” Fear courses through me as I realize just how easily he can manhandle me. He can do anything he wants to me and there’s really nothing that I can do to stop him.
It would be sexy if I weren’t so terrified of him. Scratch that. It still is sexy, and I hate myself for being turned on by him.
“Poor little cheerleader got so tired out on the field that I’m going to carry her home.” He ducks and starts walking under the bleachers, carrying me out. “If you keep fighting me, Elle, I’m going to make you regret it when I get you home. It’s better to just relax.”
I can feel his muscles twisting under me, but he’s carrying me like I don’t weigh a thing. I’m nothing compared to Clay and there’s no way for me to stop him from doing what he wants with me.
“Please, please let me go,” I beg, hitting his back with my palms to get his attention. “Clay, put me down! I promise I’ll stay out of your way. Please!”
He stops walking and I think that I’ve actually gotten through to him, but then he speaks. “Little Elle, there’s nothing you can do to stay out of my way now. You’re fucked.”
Dread runs through me as he starts walking again. A few of the couples under the bleachers have stopped making out to turn and watch us go, but nobody moves to help me.
“Cowards!” I yell at them, twisting to try to see their faces. “Help me!” Tears stream down my face, but there’s no way that I can wipe them. I grab at Clay’s shoulder pads, hanging tight onto them so that I don’t fall off of his shoulder.
Nobody moves. Not that I really thought they would. Nobody at this fucking school will lift a hand against their prince, no matter what he’s doing.
Holding onto his shoulder pad with one hand, I push myself up a little so I can grab the front of my uniform again and pull it closed over my chest. I don’t want anyone to see me. The thought of the school seeing me half naked makes me want to crawl inside of myself and die.
Once we get out from under the bleachers we’re hit with the bright lights of the field. Even from upside down I can tell how much brighter it is out here and I blink while Clay pauses, looks around, and then changes direction.
“Teague!” The vibrations from his voice travel through his back and into me. I shiver as I feel them. It’s like we’re connected in some way, and I don’t like that.
Clay picks up his pace, jogging easily with me towards the locker rooms. All I can see is the bouncing ground and his feet as he runs, but if I twist my head I can see the parking lot and I know that I don’t have any way to escape.
If only my mom had let me keep my car.
“Hey, Teague, I need you to watch Elle here while I get changed. She’s a bit of a runner tonight but she’s coming home with Bethany, and I need to make sure that she gets there safe.” He dumps me onto the ground and I land on my ass, scurrying to get my feet under me as quickly as possible.
I saw how fast these guys are on the field. There’s no way that I could outrun them, but I don’t want to be at any less of an advantage than I already am.
Teague rakes his eyes over me, but he looks bored. “Something happen to her shirt?”
I’m right here, and they’re talking about me like I’m a piece of meat. Anger shoots through me but I don’t say anything. I can’t do anything either, without risking my top flying open.
“Yeah, she’s learning that she fucked up by coming to my school.” Clay claps his hand on my shoulder and squeezes so hard that my knees almost buckle. “You stay here with Teague, kitten, or I swear to God I will find you and kill you.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond, and I don’t think that I could, anyway. I’m frozen to the spot and absolutely terrified.
Never in my life have I been this scared. Not when my dad died when I was 6, and not when I fell out of the tree in our backyard and broke both of my arms.
The way that he looks at me? It’s like he wants to eat me, to destroy me. There is nothing kind about Clay Bryson. I’m convinced already that there is nothing good in him.
But then why the hell do I feel a low tugging in my stomach when I’m near him? Sometimes he looks at me and his face relaxes, like he likes what he sees. But then it hardens again, as quickly as possible, and the hatred is back. That hatred scares me, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want him.
I nod and he turns away to go to the locker room, but then he turns back, a sly smile on her face. “You know, kitten, it’s unfair to show off those great tits to just me.” Before I can stop him, he grabs the open edge of my top and pulls it.
Dammit, I try to keep my shirt held shut, but he’s too strong and too fast, and it flies open, exposing me to Teague. Cold air blasts against my skin when my ripped top flaps open and I gasp as the feeling on my skin.
Teague, for his part, looks pleased. He whistles, a low sound that makes my skin crawl. “She’s a good looking one, Clay,” he says, taking a step towards me.
I want to run. Every nerve in my body is screaming for me to run, but Clay grabs me by the shoulder. “Sweet little tits. Don’t touch them, though.” He looks at me. “Run and I’ll kill you.”
Nodding, I yank my shirt back around myself and try to ignore Teague as Clay runs off to the locker room.
Teague watches me, his arms crossed, but he doesn’t say anything. Finally, after a few moments of Clay being gone, he speaks.
“You know why he hates you, right?” His voice is mocking, and I get the feeling that he likes talking to me like this. I don’t want to answer him, but I shake my head.
The cool air has me shivering and I wish more than anything that I could change out of this stupid uniform. Teague can tell that I’m shivering, I know it, and he’s wrapped up in a warm hoodie, but he doesn’t make any move to help me.
I wonder if he’s allowed to help me. How fucked up is that?
“You look just like her. She was a cheerleader, you know.”
I freeze. The air is so cold that it hurts to breathe in, and each exhale sends a puff into the sky. She was a cheerleader? No wonde
r he hates me.
“How did she die?” My voice is small in the cold air and I can’t believe that I have the balls to ask the question. Any hope I have of Teague answering me is quickly dashed, however.
He laughs but rolls his eyes at the same time. “You think I’m stupid? That’s a question for you to ask Clay.”
Yeah, right. Like I want to ask that monster anything. But maybe I need to. Maybe if I can find out what really happened to Tiffany and why it bothers him so much, I can escape his wrath. It’s one thing for him to notice that I look like her, but it’s another for him to torture me for it.
Now I just have to be brave enough to find out why the vindictive prince is so torn up over her death. After than then maybe, just maybe, I can get free from him.
Clay
Bethany’s curled up in the backseat, asleep, but Elle seems wide awake. She didn’t fight me when I told her to get in the car, although she did balk a bit when I leaned over her and buckled her in. Seatbelts are a non-negotiable with me now, but she doesn’t have to know why.
I made sure to brush against her tits after I buckled her in. She caught her breath at my touch but she didn’t try to move away.
“You’re cold.” I offered to go with her into the girl’s locker room to let her change, but the dumb bitch refused. She also doesn’t have a heavy coat. Leaning over, I crank up the heat in the car and point the vents at her.
“I’m fine.” She slides away from me, but she doesn’t adjust the vents. With one finger she lazily traces a design on the window while I drive, giving her an excellent reason not to look at me.
The light turns yellow and I slow even as the car next to me shoots through it. Two years ago, I fucked up bad, but I leaned from it…a few things, actually.
I learned to slow the fuck down. I learned to get harder and meaner. I learned to hate anyone who reminded me of Tiffany.
That last one is a new one for me, since Elle is the first person to walk in my life who really looks like her.
“I’ve seen you get off the bus in the morning. No car for you?” She glances over at me, surprised that I’m talking to her. Why the hell not? It’s late, we’re all tired, and I might as well get to know her. The more I know her, the more control I’ll have over her.
That’s what I tell myself, but I can’t ignore the small voice in the back of my head that tells me that it would be nice to know her a little better.
It takes her a moment to answer, and at first, I don’t think that she will. “No,” she says finally, with a sigh, “my mom sold it to help pay for our move up here so she could get married.”
“Sucks. She’s not going to buy you a new one right away?” I keep both hands on the steering wheel, but I do glance over at her from time to time.
Elle shakes her head. Her tight ponytail has fallen and flops sadly as she does. Before the game all of the cheerleaders twisted ribbons in the school colors through their hair, but those are long gone. She probably lost them under the bleachers.
“Not a chance. She doesn’t have the money and Ted hates me, so I know he’s not going to do anything like that to help me out. It’s the bus for me, at least until I graduate, and then I’m getting the fuck out of here.” She glances over at me, her face softened, but then frowns and looks back out the window.
“Where will you go?” We’re close to my house now. If she’s worried about money, then she’s in for a surprise when we pull up to my place.
“Anywhere? I don’t know. It depends on how much money I can skim from him without him noticing.” She shrugs and I remember something that Bethany told me the other day about Elle never eating during lunch.
“You’re stealing your lunch money. Doesn’t that make you feel like a middle school bully?” She’s skinny enough and really should be eating, but that’s not my problem. If nothing else, it will probably just get her out of my hair sooner.
She scoffs. “I’m stealing it from myself, not someone else, so no. And besides, it’s not like I can get a real job when I don’t have a car.”
Bethany stirs in the back and I roll down the window to punch in a code for the neighborhood. Elle looks over to watch, and I can tell that she’s interested, but she doesn’t say anything.
Most of the kids at Kennedy Academy have money, but not all of them have as much as me. Of course, the difference is that my parents don’t give a shit what I do with the money as long as I leave them alone. After the accident two years ago I stopped being a golden child to them. Now I’m just a murderer who’s got a magic arm on the field.
I’d give anything to go back in time, but you can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster. Wishes don’t do a damn thing.
“You have a gate?” Elle can’t help herself. She actually looks interested now as we drive past long driveways and huge mansions.
“Mmhmm. You don’t?”
“I have paper thin walls and a shit mom who loves her new husband more than me. I would have thought that Bethany told you that after she came by earlier this week.” She rolls her eyes and leans against the window, looking out of it.
Actually, Bethany did, and I immediately drove past Elle’s house to get a look at it. It’s a dump and it took me forever to even find it. I couldn’t believe that a shithole like that hadn’t been condemned already, but for some reason it was still standing.
There wasn’t a yard out front to speak up, just a large expanse of dry dirt that led up to a sagging porch. The front door looked crooked on the hinges, and the exterior of the house was in dire need of being painted.
Or torn down. To be honest, the house would be a lot better off if it were just torn down.
“Well, you can make yourself at home here.” I pull up into the driveway and hit the garage door opener. Elle’s jaw drops as she takes in the house while the door raises for us.
“This is your house? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I can’t help but feel a little pride as I pull in and park. My BMW fits in nicely with the ones that my mom, dad, and Tiffany drive. Four little matching cars, all in a row. It looks like a perfect house, but it’s not.
Without answering her, I lean into the back seat and shake Tiffany awake. She sits up, her hair sticking straight up from her head. “We home?” Her voice is thick, and her eyes look heavy. When I nod, she yawns, stretching, and hops out of the car before quietly shutting the door and heading for the house.
“Come on, Elle.” It doesn’t look like she has any interest in leaving the car, but I’m not going to leave her out her all night long. She might run away, or worse, steal my car.
There’s a moment when I think that she’s going to argue, but then she clamps her jaw shut and opens the door to climb out. Good girl is leaning her place. Her eyes are wide as we walk through the garage, but she doesn’t say anything.
The three of us tiptoe through the house. My parents used to stay up for my games – hell, they used to come to all of my games – but that we before the accident. Now they do their best to distance themselves from me, even going so far as to be in bed by the time we get home.
“You’re sleeping with me,” Bethany says, latching onto Elle’s arm. A look of relief washes over her Elle’s, but I don’t let that last for long.
“Not a chance in hell.” I grab Elle’s other arm and yank her away from my sister. The three of us are at the bottom of the stairs. Bethany sleeps upstairs, I’m downstairs. We need to get this settled before she just blindly follows my sister.
“Whatever, Clay. I brought her here. She’s mine.” It’s not like my sister to be so insistent on something. Elle’s standing between the two of us, her face gray, trying her best to look brave. Her eyes keep flicking between the two of us and I can’t help but wonder who she’d prefer to go with.
“Fuck. Off. Bethany.” My fingers dig into Elle’s arm as I pull her towards me, but she doesn’t flinch or pull away. “I’m not letting her out of my sight tonight.”
I don
’t want Elle near me, but I also don’t think that I’ll be able to get any sleep if I know that she’s somewhere in the house. And I really don’t want my parents to see her. It’s best if she goes with me and I can keep her all to myself without any uncomfortable questions.
Although, it would be the first time that my parents had spoken to me in a while, so it may be worth it. I’d love to see their fucking faces if they saw Elle coming from my room in the morning.
“Fine, asshole. I’m too tired to fight with you anyway.” Bethany doesn’t even look at Elle as she drops her arm and runs up the stairs. At the top she turns around and flips us the bird. As soon as she disappears down the hall, I pull Elle’s arm.
“My room is this way, kitten. There’s no way that my parents want me to sleep anywhere near them.” She stumbles along next to me as I pull her down the hall, away from the stairs, and through a door at the end.
I have my own suite set up here. There’s a mini kitchen, attached bathroom, and even a room for studying, like I have time for that bullshit. But, most importantly, there’s my bed, and I’m so tired I almost can’t stand.
Normally after a game I’m riled up and ready to sink my cock into the first available pussy. Tonight’s different, though, and I can’t help but blame my exhaustion on the stone cold bitch next to me. She’s sucking all of my energy out of me.
“Bathroom’s there,” I tell her, pointing. “Bed’s in there. It’s big enough for the two of us. I’m going to lock us in, so don’t fucking wake me up trying to get out, okay?” She watches, silent, as I turn and lock the door and slip the key into my pocket.
“Elle. Do you understand?” When she doesn’t answer, I sigh and kick off my shoes, leaving them on the floor where they land. “Fine, bitch. Get some sleep or don’t, I don’t care.” I lean past her to hang up my hoodie and she flinches.
“Shit, girl, you think I’m going to hurt you? You’re safe here, just don’t fucking piss me off, okay?” My body isn’t sure what I’m doing. I’m aching to touch her and pull her to me, but I know that if I do then I won’t be able to stop touching her.
