The Elites Of Weis-Jameson Prep Academy: The Complete Series (A High School Enemies To Lovers Bully Romance Box Set)

by Rebel Hart

  And still my heart aches for him. Even with all of my doubts. How could one part of my brain seriously be considering the possibility that he’d threaten my life while the other part of me wants nothing more than to call him and be in his arms again? But I guess that’s the way it’s always been with him from the beginning. He hurts me, and somehow, I only love him more.

  I give in to the side I always do and reach for my phone to call him. If I could just see his face and hear his voice, I can convince myself that none of these fears are true.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  BOOK 3

  “Hi,” I smile as Emmett opens his apartment door.

  “Hey.” He leans in and kisses me so deep and soft that I instantly get the relief I need. But a big part of me still wants to cry. I have to stop myself from bursting into tears as he brushes his hand to my cheek.

  “How was the funeral?” he asks, pulling me the rest of the way inside before shutting the door behind me.

  “Like any other funeral, I guess,” I shrug. “Coach Granger was there. And I gave Bridgett a ride to the Henderson Estate.”

  “How’s she doing?” He says the words, but he doesn’t really seem to care what the answer is.

  “They don’t think it was an accident,” I explain, wondering how much I should divulge. I’m terrified if I go into detail, I’ll see some subtle admission of guilt on his face.

  Emmett picks up on my hesitation and narrows his eyes at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I shoot back too quickly.

  “Ophelia, I can tell when something is bothering you,” he groans. “What is it?”

  I’ve been caught, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. I feel the tears rushing to the surface again as he stares me down. I look away and try to tame my trembling lip.

  “Look, I know funerals are tough, but let’s not forget what kind of guy Malcolm was. Do you remember what he did to you? To Lily? Coach Granger’s son? To me?” he rants.

  I bite my lip, thinking of all the people Emmett has hurt. “I haven’t forgotten,” I mutter, unable to look him in the face.

  I watch him storm around his apartment, flinging things around. There’s something different about him and it frightens me. I’ve seen this plenty of times before, back in the shitty motel he stayed at last semester when we were closer than ever. But even then, I knew how unhealthy this relationship could be at times. Should I have left then?

  “Did you do it?” I ask finally with a sharp, shaky breath.

  He freezes and looks to me with wide, raging eyes. “What?”

  “Did you kill Malcolm?” I say again, more sternly.

  His face shrinks into a soft laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he moans, raking his hands across his face in exasperation. “You really think I could kill someone?”

  I tilt my head, silently reminding him about his father.

  “Ophelia, if that’s the kind of person I was…I would’ve shot Thomas in the head myself,” he argues coldly. “He deserved to die even more than Malcolm did and I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. That’s why I needed your father.”

  “So then you admit Theo is the type of person who could commit murder,” I snap back. “But you still have no problems going into business with him?”

  “Oh Christ, not this again,” he fumes. “I can’t get into this right now. I’m tired, okay? Is that all you came over for?”

  I want to keep arguing, but then that soft part of my heart cries out, longing for him. That’s what I came here for. To feel his warm skin against mine and forget all of the bad that is flooding my mind. Without saying another word, I march up to him and throw myself against his chest. He’s tense and still at first, but slowly his arms wrap around me. His palms spread around my back, lowering to my upper thighs.

  I look up into his eyes, and he lowers his lips to mine. Our kiss quickly deepens into a passionate, hurried frenzy. We want to make each other feel good. We want to forget about the complicated mess around us. We haven’t had enough of this lately and our bodies miss each other. Not just the motions of having sex, but the primal connection that used to spark between us. For everything I don’t know, I am certain so much of me still belongs to him and probably always will, no matter what kinds of crimes or wrongdoings he could commit.

  He throws me onto the couch and begins to unbutton my jeans. I try to pull him back down to kiss me, but he pushes my hands away. I expect him to go down on me or slide his fingers inside, but the moment he takes off my pants, he starts to remove his own.

  “Wait,” I rasp, running my hands across his skin. I want him, but I’m not ready yet.

  He ignores me and quickly throws the rest of his clothes to the floor. He touches himself and there’s a mad look in his eye. His nostrils are flaring and he looks angry, but like he wants me just as badly as I want him at the same time. I do want him, but my body isn’t responding. Has it finally caught up to the logical, rational side of me that never thought I should trust Emmett in the first place?

  Emmett pushes inside of me, but there’s a sharp pain. I wince and dig my fingers into the couch cushions, trying to go somewhere in my brain that forces my body to do what I want it to. To be wet and excited over him. I think back on how sure I felt of everything after his family cut him off. They knew he wasn’t like them. That he wouldn’t choose money, power, or greed over human lives. When did I lose that certainty? Where is all of this doubt and mistrust coming from?

  My mind races as he moves, grunting with deep thrusts. I tense up, still not feeling any of the pleasure I am used to feeling at his hands.

  “Stop,” I whisper, pushing his hips back with my hands. “It hurts.”

  As if he’s in another world, he doesn’t seem to hear my words. He keeps moving, ignoring me completely.

  “Emmett!” I shout louder. “Did you hear me!? Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

  He freezes and looks down at me with a mortified expression, but it melts away into something else. Something I haven’t seen since long before I started to think I understood who he really was. Suddenly I am face to face with the Emmett I first knew at WJ Prep. The Emmett who bullied, humiliated, and threatened me.

  “Oh, what?” he smirks with a cruel spark. “First you think I’d murder someone…and now you think I’d…what? Rape you?”

  I shake my head, but I’m not sure if I’m telling him no or just asking for the world to go away. That’s not what was happening, was it? I look into his darkened eyes and search for what I came here for. Safety. Assurance. Why can’t he give me any of that? But once again, only the old Emmett stares back. I remember the times he used to grope me, force his lips on mine with the other Elites standing there to watch. The time in the car with Trey and Vincent when he blindfolded me and teased me. Only no matter how fucked-up it was, I wanted him. I wasn’t just freezing and going along with it. My entire body shook with desire for him.

  “Do you want this or not?” he demands, stroking himself again.

  I should be furious with how cold and bossy he’s being. That moments ago, he didn’t stop when I asked. That he had to say that terrible word in the middle of all this. But the traumas that used to make me cringe are melting me from the inside out. I feel the pulsing sensation between my legs that longs to feel him inside, but I can’t bring myself to tell him just how badly I do want it suddenly.

  Unable to speak, I run my fingers between my legs. I tease the tingling folds and coax him inside. His eyes spark again as he thrusts forward with an animalistic grunt. Our nerves are shot and everything is tense, causing us both to sweat. But somehow it just makes it feel better. My brain wants me to yell at him, to push him away. But everything else just wants to get off on him. I need to.

  I writhe underneath him as he pounds into me, and all the sharpness from before is gone. I dig my nails into his skin so hard, I’m certain I’m drawing blood. He deserves it, I think, for hurting me a moment ago. And again, the thought turns m
e on more. He hisses from the scratches but doesn’t stop or ask me to stop.

  The more I replay in my head, the more turned on but angrier I get. I grab his shoulders and pull myself up, forcing my lips against his. We bite at each other’s lips and tongues as the sweat pools around my clit. His thrusting body rubs against the slickness in all the most perfect ways, swelling with pleasure. I pull on him so hard, he finally flips over, rolling me on top of him as he sits back against the couch.

  With our mouths and teeth still nipping at each other’s skin, I start to ride him harder than I ever have before. It’s more than enough, but we’re both feeling insatiable and greedy, so he thrusts up into me in return, our rhythms so rushed and frantic that we barely sync up. Our rush makes it sloppy, but we slip into some trance where all that matters is how it feels. We stop caring about what we look like or what kinds of sounds we make and lose ourselves completely in the feeling. Immense pleasure with a tinge of exquisite pain.

  I don’t realize we’re on the floor until the orgasm is rippling through my body, with Emmett climaxing right behind me. I don’t even know how we got down there. I feel like I’ve been floating up out of my body for the past half hour.

  “What the fuck,” I grumble under my breath as I lift my head to confirm I am in fact laid out on the carpet.

  Emmett blows out a big gushing breath, then looks troubled. His eyes glint with worry as he rolls over and scoops me up into his arms. He carries me into the bedroom and lays me tenderly down onto the bed before kneeling at my side.

  “I’m sorry,” he says urgently. “I can’t believe I…I should have never…”

  “It’s okay,” I shake my head and run my fingers through his dampened curls. I don’t know how it’s okay. It should never be okay for him to keep doing anything when I ask him to stop. Not anymore, even if it did used to be a normal occurrence before he started trying to be his real self.

  My heart twists in my chest as I finally begin to think maybe I have been trying to draw too many lines in the sand. There was the Emmett from before and the one from now, the good, the bad, the one who would do this thing or would never do that thing. The one who lies, the one who owns my heart, the one who loves me more than anything. It all starts to shatter as I think…It’s all him.

  I don’t think people change. They’re multifaceted. Emmett has all of these different sides, but just because I can only see the good now doesn’t mean the bad couldn’t resurface at any time. The same goes for Theo, even if I have been purposefully blinding myself to any good he has shown lately.

  But as we accept all of the different sides to a person, can it all start to blend and bleed together? Maybe the good will somehow neutralize the bad. I don’t know, but somehow, I mean it as I tell Emmett over and over that it’s okay. Because it is. I don’t know how or why, but it is.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asks suddenly, desperate to redeem himself.

  I shake my head no, and he finally peels himself up to get a towel and a glass of water. I wrap myself up in his sheets and realize I don’t even remember what day it is. Wednesday, I think. We had the day off for Malcolm’s funeral service and prom will be this weekend. I’ve still lost my excitement for prom, but now for completely different reasons.

  Our sex trance seems to have woken up so many old feelings. I don’t feel indifferent at all. The opposite. I feel too much. Maybe I have just been suppressing my feelings this entire time to be able to get through the days. I had to learn to control the all-consuming, obsessive love I feel for him. But now it rushes back over me and something like prom seems silly. Like we’re above it. Our love is too big for stupid little high school dances.

  The thought makes me laugh as I watch Emmett through the doorway, slipping into his boxers. But then there’s a sudden, booming, violent banging on the door that scares us both. He looks to me with wide, questioning eyes, but I don’t have any clue who it could be either.

  “Emmett Jameson!” a man’s voice yells out. “Open up. It’s the police.”

  I shoot up in bed, clutching the covers around me. My clothes are still in the living room, but I don’t know if I have time to get to them. Emmett tries to ask them to wait a minute, but they only bang on the door harder, demanding for him to open up right away. Instead he bolts over and shuts the bedroom door to give me some privacy.

  My heart pounds as I hear him open the door followed by muffled voices. What are they doing here? Jameson police are corrupt and not to be trusted. But if they’re trying to pull something over on us right now, I don’t know who I could turn to for help. Detective Williams thinks we’re crazy and asked us not to contact him anymore.

  “Ophelia!” Emmett screams for me.

  Practically forgetting that I’m naked, I fling a sheet around my body and race out to him. As I run into the room, I see they have him pinned up against the wall and are about to handcuff him.

  “What’s going on here!?” I shriek. “Emmett!”

  “Miss, step back,” commands one of the officers.

  “Emmett Jameson, you’re under arrest as a suspect in the murder of Malcolm Henderson,” the officer handcuffing him announces before reading him the rest of his rights.

  “What!?” I cry. “You’re wrong! He didn’t kill Malcolm!”

  They ignore me and carry on. Emmett says nothing as they cart him away and leave me alone in the empty apartment. I don’t even know how I was able to defend him so vehemently when hours ago I was partly convinced that he did it. I just never expected the police to think the same thing enough to arrest him. What do they know that I don’t? Or is this the Elites’ doing?

  Feeling completely lost and heartbroken, I fall to the floor and pull the sheet to my face as I sob. I’m frozen like that for what seems like hours, just crying by myself. Every time I try to stop and stand up, I collapse in tears again, harder than before. By the time I finally manage to stop, it’s dark outside. I have no choice but to get dressed, gather my things, and go.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  BOOK 3

  Dear Diary,

  Prom is over, and everything went as planned. Well, almost everything. I am no longer a virgin. Thomas took me to the most exquisite hotel room after the dance. He sweet-talked my parents into lifting my curfew. I guess they figure we’ll be married soon enough after graduation, so there’s no point in trying to keep us apart.

  But sex was…rougher than I expected. I did not get the sweet, charming side of Thomas I thought I would be going to bed with. He was cold and direct. I am so attracted to him and care for him so much that I enjoyed it, but it didn’t match the romantic fantasies I had in my head.

  Today at school, Thomas and his friends were picking on this poor girl who made the mistake of talking badly about them to some of the other students. It’s the kind of thing I had always heard about Thomas doing. He and his friends are sort of like a little gang. They call themselves the Elites. The existence of this clique has been around as long as WJ Prep has. But it reaches far beyond the walls of our school. It’s ingrained into the town of Jameson.

  Thomas and any of the other kids whose families work with Jameson Automobiles basically run the school, while their families run the town. Only now that I am with Thomas, I am considered to be one of them even more so than before. I am one of the Elites.

  Because I am one of them, they expected me to join in on their torment of this girl. They pinned her to the wall and threatened her and asked me to take a turn in making her regret what she had said. I looked in her frightened eyes and wanted to run away. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I didn’t want to disappoint Thomas or embarrass him in front of his friends.

  So I spit in her face. I felt awful for doing it. When I tried to talk to Thomas about it, he said anyone who questions our position in that school, or this town deserves whatever happens to them. He told me I’ll have to get used to defending our respected titles.

  So it begins, I think as I slam the diary shut and turn ba
ck to the news streaming on my laptop. The reports of Emmett’s arrest have been blaring across every channel all day. When I got sick of hearing it all, I tried to turn it off only to find headline after headline repeating the same information. Then there’s the endless gossip flurrying across every social media platform, coming from people in Jameson and all over the country. Everyone’s eager to talk about the drama of the high society Elite millionaire world.

  The police have reason to believe someone tampered with Malcolm’s brakes, just as we suspected. Which is what caused him to crash to his death. They collected DNA evidence from Malcolm’s car along with a few misplaced personal items, and it all points to Emmett.

  Even though I had been questioning his innocence myself, the moment he was arrested I went into defense mode. I keep running through the reasons over and over again for how he could have never done this. He was right about one thing. I can’t bring myself to be too upset that Malcolm is gone. He was a horrible person and has done so much harm to so many people.

  But whoever killed Malcolm, likely tried to kill me too. That’s why I can’t bring myself to believe he did it. For all the time I have spent unable to erase awful memories of Emmett from my brain, now I can’t seem to remember any of it. Everything has reversed. I can only remember the good, the sweet, the loveable side.

  I keep reading Marissa’s diary, thinking I will feel the same as before. That I’ll see the glaring similarities between Emmett and his father and remember the potential for how messed up he might be. But it all feels distant and impossible. Like a dream. Like I never knew Marissa or Thomas at all. And what has happened between Emmett and me has been nothing short of a perfectly ordinary high school romance.

  Then comes the dreaded knock on my door. My mom checking on me for the twentieth time today. I’ve been turning her away, begging to be alone. But I’m tired of fighting her. Maybe if I let her say what she has to say, she’ll finally leave me alone. I march over and open the door before promptly returning to my bed without saying anything.