I had the room set up for her. All it was missing was her.
The sun was bright overhead, and I waited patiently for Ash to emerge from the library. I threw my cigarette to the ground, stepping on it as I debated on pulling another one out. But the moment I decided to, Ash herself walked out, lugging her backpack over her shoulder. She didn’t have her skateboard, which was fine. I didn’t want to touch that damned thing after Sawyer had it. Ash herself needed some cleansing from Sawyer, too.
Her grey eyes squinted, and she immediately saw me. She looked around me, and I knew what she was thinking: avoid me by going a different way, or tackle me head on and see what I wanted. If she was the girl I thought she was, the girl I hoped she was, she’d choose the latter.
And that’s exactly what she did, marching up to me with a stern expression on her face, her full lips drawn into a pout. “What are you doing here?” Ash asked, tilting her head, her pink hair falling slightly over her shoulder. “Are you following me, Travis?” The way she asked, as if she already knew the answer, made me grin.
“I should ask you if you’re following me,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets to look less threatening. Looking less like a threat was always the key to luring someone into your trap. This time my trap wasn’t a deadly one, but the same principle applied. “You always seem to show up anywhere I go.”
Ash let out a laugh. “You’re the one always appearing where I am, like a ghost.” Her gaze dropped to my arms, studying my tattoos. “A very attractive ghost, I’ll give you that.” Back up to me, she asked, “Seriously though. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you,” I told her, making her laugh yet again, even though I was a deadly kind of serious. One did not joke about these things, not when you were taught practically from birth how important the catch was.
She wrinkled her nose, fighting herself to stave off how intrigued she was. “Why?” Ash did her best to sound bored.
“Because I feel like it’s been too long since I last saw you,” I said, speaking the truth. I’d missed her face, her storm gray eyes, the way she glared slightly when you said something she didn’t trust. I missed her body, her hair, her semi-holey shoes. I missed everything about her, which was why she had to realize what a mistake she’d made with Sawyer.
She wasn’t Sawyer’s. She was mine.
I’d been told that obsession ran deep in my family, but I never knew until Ash walked into my life just how true it was. Everyone in my family was obsessed with one thing or another. Money, blood, power…the feeling of cutting into soft flesh. We all had our vices. Ash just happened to be mine, and I wasn’t about to share her with anyone.
Ash shrugged. “We don’t have any classes together. Would you like me to transfer into some of yours to make you feel better?”
I moved closer to her, watching as she turned up her nose, inhaling me and my smoky scent. “No,” I spoke in a hushed voice. “But I do want to spend some time with you. Are you free now?”
“Is this some stupid competition between you and Sawyer?” Ash asked, frowning. “I told you guys I’m not falling for it. I don’t want to be in the middle—”
Oh, at first it was a competition. Use her to get back at Declan and then see who could fuck her first…but now things had changed. Things had changed so quickly, before I realized it. She couldn’t ever be with Sawyer, because she was mine.
Why couldn’t Ash realize that she already belonged to me?
My expression must’ve told her the truth, or at least some variant of it, for her hardened face turned empathetic. “Do you really want to hang out with me? I warn you, I’m a lot lamer than I look. I might look cool, but I’m not. I’m as lame as they come, and in case you forgot, I’m dirt poor, too. You might get your hands dirty being around me.” She sought to make herself less appealing, something people did when faced with a true predator.
What horrors had she seen before? What monster had she looked in the face before meeting me? It didn’t matter. I had to make her mine before I delved into any of that.
“Come on,” I said, offering her my tattooed hand. “I have something set up for you.”
“For me?” she asked. When I nodded, she added, “Well, when you put it that way, how can I say no?” She slipped her frail hand in mine, and I led her away from the library, knowing she wouldn’t have said no for long. I would’ve made her come with me whether she wanted to or not.
I took her through campus. It was a quiet Saturday; most of the campus was actually gone because of the three-day weekend. We had no classes Monday…hmm. Maybe I’d keep her in my room longer than I planned. She deserved a bit more of a punishment than I had prepared with what she did with Sawyer.
“Where are we going?” Ash asked, her eyes taking in her surroundings.
“It’s a surprise,” I told her, and it was. She’d never been in my room before. It would all be new to her, just as I suspected my punishment would be, too.
My dorm building was for upperclassmen. It was nicer than the freshmen dorms, and a lot taller too. There were ten floors, each of them decked out with their own lounge with a huge, flat screen TV.
Ash let out a laugh when we walked into the lobby. Its floors were marble, white with gray streaks, everything about it new and expensive. “This looks like a dorm,” she said. “Tell me the surprise isn’t in your room. I don’t know if we’re at that level yet, Travis.”
Oh, we were. She simply didn’t know it yet.
I gave her a quick look as I brought her to the elevator and hit the button to my floor. “Trust me, you’ll like this.” I had no idea if she would, but that was okay. I’d make her like my punishments sooner or later. Sometimes these things took time. It was a good thing I was a patient man.
As we rode up the stainless-steel elevator, Ash chuckled softly to herself. “You guys are all so strange.” There was a pause before she muttered, “And somehow I’m still here.”
It was good she was still here. I had no idea what I’d be doing if she hadn’t come to Hillcrest. Going along with whatever Sawyer said, probably, doing whatever he wanted to do. Getting back at Declan, making him wish he was the one who hung himself and not Sabrina. And I was fine with it, but that was before meeting Ash. Before seeing her. Before knowing what it was like to truly have an obsession that took you over heart, body, and soul.
The hallway leading to my room was painted a light grey, the carpet darker grey squares. Not a single door we passed was open; most everyone was at home. I’d seen a few other students who’d stuck around, but they were the shut-ins who hardly ever left their rooms in the first place.
“I’ll admit, given how Sawyer had to steal your skateboard to get you to go on a date with him, I didn’t think you’d come with me so easily,” I said, glancing at her. My hand tightened around hers; she was locked in. Ash wasn’t going anywhere.
“There’s a part of that equation you’re not realizing,” she chimed in. When I lifted my brows, she added, “I like you a hell of a lot better than I like him.”
Hearing that nearly made me rethink what I was about to do, but…no. I wouldn’t let her pretty words sway me. Ash would be punished until she realized she was mine and Sawyer didn’t matter.
Sawyer didn’t matter, Declan didn’t matter. Nothing else should matter to her but me.
I released her hand as we stopped in front of my door. I unlocked it and gestured for her to go inside first. Ash stepped around me, her fingers fiddling with the straps on her backpack as she walked in, freezing almost immediately.
The chains, probably. They were on the floor, in between my bed and the couch, which was where my roomie’s bed would’ve been, if I had a roommate. It was a damn good thing I didn’t; I wouldn’t be able to do this if I’d been forced to live with someone else. The door swung shut behind me, and I was quick to lock it.
Ash let out a strange sound, something that sounded similar to a nervous chuckle. “What—” She couldn’t get out anything else,
because I grabbed her backpack off her and dragged her to the chains before she even blinked.
She couldn’t fight me. I was stronger than I looked, and this? This was nowhere near as serial killer-ish as it appeared. I wasn’t going to hurt her, just force her to sit and think about her actions. Talk to her. Try to get her to understand that Sawyer wasn’t right for her.
I had her on her knees as I slammed the metal cuffs around her wrists. Not obscenely tight, but tight enough she couldn’t slip out of them. I locked them with a key, quite old-fashioned, too. My family would be proud.
Maybe. Or maybe they’d disown me for doing something so stupid. Oh, well. My family wasn’t here.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked, jerking back as I tightened the chains to the base of my bed. Now she couldn’t stand, couldn’t get up. The only thing she could do was crawl on her knees a few feet.
I set her backpack down on my desk, still holding onto the key. I ran my thumb over its metal face before putting it on top of her bag. I then moved to kneel before her, giving her a smile, which she didn’t return. Of course she didn’t. Why would she? Look at where she was, helpless, at my mercy. Ash wouldn’t smile.
She also wasn’t screaming, either.
“You’ve been bad,” I said simply, reaching around her, my hand running down her back. I heard her breath hitch and saw her cheeks flush in spite of the circumstances, but unfortunately right now I wasn’t touching her to bring her close to me. I wasn’t touching her in a way that would make her enjoy being chained up—that would come later. I was only getting her phone out of her back pocket.
“Bad?” Ash echoed, her grey eyes a whirlwind of questioning. Those same stormy eyes followed me as I sat on the couch opposite her, my knees apart. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the sight of her chained up in my room. If only I could keep her here…
No, she was her own person. Not a pet. I couldn’t keep her locked in a cage like a bird. I’d let her go, but first she had to learn her lesson. She had to promise me she wouldn’t talk to Sawyer again, at least not privately. Not while I wasn’t around. I couldn’t take the idea of losing her to fucking Sawyer.
Sawyer got everything he ever wanted. The women, the money, the booze and the drugs. What did I ever get that I wanted? Sure, I got a girl every now and then, but no one who understood me. After this…Ash would understand everything.
“You know what you did,” I told her, tracing the edges of her phone. I was hesitant to meet her eyes, mostly because they held waves of emotions I could not decipher. Not knowing what she was thinking, it killed me.
Ash’s blonde and pink hair fell over her shoulders as she glared at me. A bit upset at this whole thing, but not freaking out like any other person would. I was right to choose her. She wasn’t normal. She played the same game I did, the game of life, of acting just like everybody else when in fact she couldn’t have been more different.
“Sawyer,” she eventually said. “This is all about Sawyer, isn’t it? Our date last night?” Ash hit the nail directly on its head, and all I could do was nod. Her lips broke out into a smile. A full-blown, gleeful smile, and she laughed. She laughed so hard, as if she thought this was the funniest thing she’d ever witnessed or been a part of.
This was not a time for amusement. This was serious. I took my punishments seriously.
Maybe she did need a bit of pain to go along with it.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Ash
I couldn’t fucking believe it. None of it. Travis had me in chains in his room, on the floor near his bed. He’d taken my phone, my bag, practically my dignity, but what was I doing? Something I shouldn’t be doing, of course: I was laughing, and I just couldn’t stop. Most people would be freaked out if they were caught in chains, if they had someone staring at them the way Travis watched me, but I found it so fucking ironic.
It was funny because I knew it. I’d known it from the very beginning. My crazy radar had flown off the handle when I was around Travis…so why the hell didn’t I steer clear of him? Why did I go with him willingly to a second location, one which I didn’t tell Declan about? If he kept me here for a long time, no one would know.
Travis didn’t appreciate my laughter. His jaw clenched, a vein in his forehead popping. “Why are you laughing?” His fingers stopped fiddling with my phone, and I knew I had him pegged right away.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I said, sitting back, leaning the back of my head on the side of his mattress. From what little I could see, the chains were attached to his bed, which was too heavy for me to lift anyway. My backpack and the key to the two locks holding my hands down sat on his desk, too far out of reach. “I’m laughing at myself.”
His black-haired head tilted. “Why?” Travis sounded sincere; and that’s what alarmed me the most about this whole thing. He wasn’t freaking out, wasn’t acting out of character. He was utterly calm even though he had me chained up in his room.
This was normal to him, which meant he either didn’t care, or he had no empathy. Travis, the beautiful, tattooed man, was a bit of a sociopath…and I’d suspected it all along.
Yet here I was, in another situation like this.
“Because I knew it,” I finally spoke, breaking my silence. His blue eyes were dark sapphires, their focus on me and only me. I bet if a parade of naked women strolled into the room, he’d still only have eyes for me. I guess there was just something about me that drew people like him in. “I knew you were different than Sawyer from the beginning.”
Travis frowned, itching the arm with the dragon tattoo on it. His other arm held an intricate tribal design. He set my phone aside, leaning his elbows on his knees as he studied me. “Yet you still went on a date with Sawyer. You still…” Whatever he was about to say next, he couldn’t, and I wondered if Sawyer told him everything that had happened on the date.
The kisses. The hand job under the table. Was that the reason for all of this? Travis was jealous and wanted me for himself? Travis wanted to make me see the error of my ways? It was a little sweet, in a sociopathic way.
“Travis,” I said, choosing my words extra carefully. With people like him, you never knew what could set them off. “I know you don’t think I should be with Sawyer, and I don’t want to, either. But I’m my own person, and I’m going to choose what I do and with whom I do it. If you have a problem with that…” I trailed off, my heart constricting in my chest in anticipation for what I was about to say. “You better end this now.”
Kill me. In other words, I was asking him to kill me. Not something I said in everyday conversation, but here, it had to be said. I wasn’t going to live the rest of my life under someone else’s thumb. If that was what Travis wanted, he’d have a hell of a time with me.
I would not break.
A slow grin spread across his face, and I could tell he was itching to fall to his knees and crawl to me, maybe kiss me, but he held back. This was some twisted form of a punishment for what I did, and he would not reward me with a kiss.
It was sad that I was so young and I knew how minds like his worked. I had more experience with them than I wanted to admit.
“I’m so glad I met you, Ash,” Travis spoke, his teeth perfectly straight and a flawless, sparkling white. He had a killer smile, and a killer body, with those tattoos. “I’m so glad you’re here. You were such a wonderful surprise.” He shook his head once, reminiscing, “You were only supposed to be a tool for Sawyer. He was going to use you against Declan, turn you against your own roommate—”
Not news to me. I cut in, “How?”
“Make Declan fall in love with you and have you break his heart. It’s no secret that Declan hasn’t been doing too well after what happened with Sabrina. Do you think he could take another broken heart? Do you think he wouldn’t blame himself?” Travis ran a tattooed hand through his black hair. “Sawyer wanted him to kill himself.”
Well, I was very glad that particular plan did not come to fruition. “And you?”
/> “And me,” Travis went on. “I was just along for the ride, until I met you. When I met you, everything changed.” The words would’ve been sweet if I wasn’t chained up in his room, cold metal hard on my wrists.
“And here we are,” I said. “But I did mean what I said before. You can keep me here for as long as you want, you can do whatever the hell you want to me, but you won’t mold me to be what you want me to be. I am my own person. I don’t belong to you, to Sawyer, to Declan, to anyone.”
A small crease formed between Travis’s brows. “I suppose you’re right. You’re stronger than I thought you were.”
Not sure if I should take it as a compliment or not, considering who it was from. “Are you going to let me go?” I asked, hedging, trying to get out of here nicely, with everything intact. It was a foolish hope; though Travis and I had a bit of a heart-to-heart just now, he wasn’t going to release me.
No, he’d do what he had to do, and I had to suck it up and take it.
Travis only gave me a smile. It was a warm smile, a smile I’d fallen for. This sick, twisted man, I’d fallen for him just like I had his rich friend. My heart was tugging at itself, pulling in three different directions, because who could forget about Declan? Poor Declan, caught in a web of deceit. Poor me, actually, because I was in the center of the web. Right now the spider was Travis, and he wasn’t going to let me go.
“I will, but not yet.” Travis got off the couch, kneeling before me. He touched my face, his fingers lightly running along my cheek. My neck tilted up toward him, and I found my eyelids closing. My body was a traitor. My body liked his touch, all things aside, sociopath or not.
I felt his nose graze mine, his lips so close his breath warmed my face, but he did not kiss me, and I dared not close the little distance between us. I was on his turf, not my own. This little game was his, and I would play by his rules, as long as he was here.
“When I let you go,” Travis murmured, a rough edge to his voice I’d never heard before, “you won’t want to look at anyone else but me.” Though my eyes were closed, though I couldn’t see him, he radiated danger. Pure, slick danger, and I let out a gasp when he pressed his lips against my forehead, giving me the gentlest kiss a sociopath could.
Loser: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 1) Page 18
