Beautiful Legend: An Angsty College Romance

by Waverly Alexander

  I moaned his name when his fingers entered me from behind.

  “Fuck,” was all he said before he nipped the side of my neck, causing me to jerk back against his fingers.

  “I want more,” I groaned, arching my back.

  “Tell me what you want,” he rasped, and I heard the sound of him undoing his belt with his free hand.

  “I want you inside me, Josh.” My voice sounded raspy and foreign to my own ears.

  I leaned over the railing when I felt his hands on my hips and his hardness at my opening. He teased my heated core, and I heard the now-familiar sound of a condom being unwrapped. His fingertips bit into the flesh of my ass as he pushed the tip of his hardness inside me.

  “Okay?” His hand slid up my back under my coat, soothing my skin, making sure I could take him in this position.

  “Please,” was all I had to say to make him break his resolve. He buried himself to the hilt inside me, his hand finding its way up to fist in my hair.

  He pumped inside me, long, hard, slow strokes making me moan his name over and over.

  “I love you, Josh.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of Taylor screaming.

  “Josh.” I tried to shove him off of me, but he was dead weight, arms wrapped around me, face burrowed against my chest. “Josh!” I shook him, waking him up. “Taylor’s hurt.”

  When he moved off of me, I shot off of the bed but was yanked back when he grabbed my arm.

  He held up a hand to his lips, signaling me to be quiet. He stood, pulling his discarded sweatpants on, and walked over to the door.

  When Taylor began banging on my bedroom door, he unlocked it to let her in, then quickly shut it behind her.

  “Look at this! What the fuck!” Taylor yelled, and it was only then that I realized she was holding her severed hair in her hand. It had been chopped unevenly at her shoulders.

  “Oh my God, what happened?” I moved toward her.

  Laney began screaming, and we ran out of the room, down the hall to her bedroom. I nearly tripped over a trash bag filled with what sounded like beer cans left over from the party. Jeff was sleeping on the couch, leg propped up on the coffee table like he was dead to the world. If someone, most likely the same person who attacked Laney, had come in and cut Taylor’s hair while we were sleeping, I was terrified to see what they’d done to Laney.

  “Laney!” I yelled, swinging her door open and feeling Josh press up behind me, his arm wrapping around me to try to stop me from going into her room. Laney was sitting on her bed, laptop in hand, crying, shaking, mascara running down her pale face.

  “Laney, are you hurt?” I asked her urgently. “Someone cut off Taylor’s hair. It could have been the person who attacked you.” My eyes bounced around the room, trying to put any pieces of the puzzle together.

  “Josh has been lying to you this whole time,” she said shakily, pointing at Josh, and I felt his arms tighten around me. “Just like you’ve been lying to Taylor and me. Ask him who his father is.”

  I felt heat flush my face when she flipped the laptop around, showing us a news article. I tried to take a step toward Laney to get a better look at her screen, but Josh pulled me back, twisting me to face him. He tilted my chin up to look at him, but I tried to jerk out of his hold.

  “I can tell her, Josh.” Laney’s voice rose. “I know everything. I started researching you the minute Addison started trusting you. I knew you were up to something when you showed an interest in her.”

  “Shut up, Laney. Let me tell her,” he growled and I twisted in his hold, tipping my head up to look at him. I felt numb, staring up at him like I was seeing him for the first time.

  “What is she talking about?” I wiggled, trying to get out of his grasp, but he held me like he knew he’d never hold me against his chest again. “Laney! Tell me,” I said, turning my head to look at her.

  “What is going on?” Taylor said, still holding her hair as she backed up, almost knocking into Jeff, who must have finally woken up from all the yelling.

  “My father has been in prison since I was a kid,” he finally said, never breaking eye contact with me.

  “But… I knew that. You said you went to visit him.”

  “I did.” The words were rushed. “He violated the prison’s rules and was being moved to another facility. I had to sign paperwork saying I didn’t want to be listed as his emergency contact anymore.” I could hear his words, but none of them were making any sense.

  “Tell her why he’s in prison, Josh,” Laney sneered.

  Josh shook his head, his eyes pooling with moisture and defeat was evident in his voice. “A double homicide, and attempted murder. He’s in for life without any possibility of ever getting out.” Realization grew in the pit of my stomach, clawing up my throat and choking me. It felt like my whole body was numb and trembling all at the same time. I stood there dumbly listening to the boy I’d given my heart and my body to tell me the only thing that could possibly tear us apart. “I knew the minute I saw you who you were. I remembered you from the trial when my mother pulled me away from you... I was trying to button your coat because you couldn't, do you remember? It was so cold that day… I could never forget your eyes, Addie. After the trial, I read every article I could find on your family… but you were gone. They said you were in witness protection… But I never stopped wondering where you were and if you had a good life.”

  I closed my eyes as the memories of the trial flooded my mind more clearly this time. The young boy sitting opposite me in the courtroom with the hollow eyes and dark hair that was always a touch too messy. The moment he noticed me struggling with the buttons on my coat, and offered his help with a sad smile. Josh’s name had been Josh Rogers back then, and he’d seemed as lost and as confused as I was during the whole circus of a trial. His mother had testified on behalf of the State of Maryland instead of in her husband’s defense; becoming a key witness in the prosecution’s case to put him behind bars for life without the possibility of parole.

  Josh reached out for my hand, but I pulled away from him. “I had no idea you went to school here. People at my last college found out my father is in prison for murder, so I went to stay with Jeff over the summer to escape the drama. Then I transferred here,” he added quickly as I backed away from him. “When I saw you, I knew I didn’t have the right to even approach you, not after my father ruined your life.” He lowered his head. “At first, I just wanted to be near you, see you. You were like this beautiful legend I’d always wondered about but didn’t seem real. The untouchable fairytale princess locked away in her tower, hidden from the world. And then you were right in front of me, looking at me like you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I breathed out the words, my lips tingled like they were going numb. “Before I fell in love with you? I slept with you.”

  He sucked in a ragged breath as his long lashes blinked, and he reached up to wipe the tears that fell immediately. “I wanted to tell you, Addie. I tried to tell you the night Remi died, but then Laney was attacked. After that, I couldn’t risk it. I was afraid that if I told you, that you’d shut me out, and you’d have every right. But I couldn’t let that happen, because I needed to make sure you were safe.”

  “I watched him stab my sister. I watched her take her last breath,” I whispered, and I could feel myself shaking on the inside. I hated that vulnerability. I looked over at Laney, her face not yet fully healed, and then to Taylor who was eyeing Josh suspiciously, her hair absolutely demolished.

  Anxiety rose in my chest, and it was as if it wrapped around my neck strangling me. I needed to get away from everyone. I couldn’t listen to one more word, I couldn’t handle one more pitying look. Not from any of them. I darted between Josh and Taylor and ducked under Jeff’s long arm where he leaned in the doorway, then sprinted down the hallway. I grabbed my coat and ran out of the house in only my socks.

  Chapter
Twenty-Nine

  I ran without any direction, without any thought of being followed. I just had to get away. The only thing I could see was the anguished look in Josh’s eyes when he told me the truth. His father brutally killed the only family I’d had and almost ended my life too. He kept that secret the whole time, and fucked with my emotions, knowing I wouldn’t have spent any time with him if I’d realized who he was. He was right. If I knew his father was the one who had ripped my family apart, I would have stayed far away from him. I wouldn’t have given him a chance, and I surely wouldn’t have given him my heart.

  My legs burned almost as badly as my lungs from running for so long without stopping. I looked up, trying to see through the angry, hot tears flooding my eyes, and I realized I was at the boathouse. It felt like a punch in the gut, remembering how we spent last night here. How he promised me the world, told me he would never let anyone hurt me. Told me he loved me.

  I ripped at the buttons of my coat, the ones that had triggered my memory of Josh. I wanted them off, I didn’t want any reminders of Josh and what he made me feel. I’d finally opened myself up to someone, let myself feel, and now it was like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

  “Addison! Wait up.” I didn’t have to turn to know it was Matt, and I went stiff. I just wanted to be alone.

  “Matt, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now,” I said, still not turning, but instead heading up the ramp of the boathouse. He rushed up next to me, slipping his lanky arm around my shoulder and halting my steps.

  “Laney called me and told me what happened. You can’t just be out here wandering around when someone is clearly targeting you guys.” Matt seemed unusually calm, and it had the opposite effect on me. I wiggled out of his hold and headed further up to the deck.

  “Matt, I really appreciate you driving over to look for me and…”

  He walked closer, shoving a hand over his forehead and into his blonde hair.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” he said, his tone colder and harder than I’d ever heard it.

  “You don’t really have much of a choice,” I spat the words, not really meaning to take my anger out on him. But I wanted to be left alone, and asking nicely wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  I heard squealing tires and looked up to see Laney’s car peeling into the parking lot at the same time that Matt’s fingers bit into my forearm painfully. Before I could yank out of his grasp, a loud crack resounded with force at the back of my head, and my vision went black.

  Nine-year-old Josh was the last thing that flashed in my memory before I forgot everything all together.