by Rina Kent
“I can come with if you want. Hold your hand and whatnot.”
“Go park.” I laughed and climbed out waving her off.
She pulled away from the curb, and with a quiet breath I turned to face the building’s entrance. Students milled about, but no one stopped to stare or gawk at the new girl.
At a school like this, I imagined none of them cared all that much. I looped my satchel over my shoulder and began the trek inside. The statue Audrey had been referring to was dead center in the middle of the auditorium.
It was a mix between an actual lion, and a seahorse. The lion portion was at the top with its claws raised. The banner behind it read, Home Of The Sea-Lions. In smaller print, Academic Excellence.
It was…interesting, I guess. In a hideous sort-of way. Circling around it, flats gliding over the dark marble floor, I glanced around as I walked. The second level of the building over-looked the first. Above that was a dome shaped glass ceiling.
I spotted the metal sign reflecting the word Attendance Office, but before I could approach it, the guy standing on the other side of the statue caught my attention.
He looked so different in a preppy ass uniform, but not in a bad way.
He looked sophisticated and sexy.
He looked like sin and heartbreak. A parental advisory label needed to be affixed to every inch of his body. Judas Barron would be a parent’s worst nightmare.
The way he was standing there, people might be fooled into thinking he was just another rich kid in a sea of many, but he didn’t fool me. This boy had the devil in him, and I kinda liked that I saw it when no one else could.
Yeah, I know. What the hell was wrong with me?
Therapy anyone?
“And the sweet little lamb was ravaged by the wolf.” His husky voice snaked across the short distance between us.
I stupidly glanced around to see if he was talking to someone other than me.
When I looked back at him, his pretty eyes met mine and a smirk had one side of his perfect mouth tilting up. His reference had me thinking about the night behind the brownstone. It’d been natural for the wolf to seek me out since I had gone as little red. Letting the wolf taste and claim me was another story.
My heartrate spiked, and the longer I stared at him, the surer I became. But how could I have slept with Judas Barron and not of known it? No one said anything either. Where had Audrey been that night? I couldn’t remember. It may not have even been him. This was another mountain to mole hill scenario.
“Are you the lamb then?” I retorted, stepping forward with the intention of heading into the office.
“We both know I’ve always been the wolf.” He took his time dragging his eyes up and down my body.
Was that confirmation?
Ugh. I needed to stop.
What did that matter anyway? People hooked up all the time. Maybe some other girl would’ve had a melt down and lost her shit. Made a total fool of herself over him.
Me? I knew who the hell I was. Self-sabotaging my dignity for a boy, even if he made the deepest, darkest part of my soul preen with interest, would never happen. Hell would freeze over before it was a possibility.
“That’s unfortunate then. I’m pretty sure he gets his in the end.” I flashed a smile and continued on my way, slipping into the office before he could reply, shutting the glass door behind me.
“Hi,” I greeted the older woman behind the administrative counter. She was adorable, with her seashell earrings and matching floral blouse.
“Good morning! What can I do for you?”
“I need to collect a senior student I.D and a schedule. I’m--.”
“Miss Clermont?” she cut me off.
“Yeah, that’s me. Not a lot of new kids, huh?”
“Not for senior year, but I’m sure you’ll fit right in. You look like a good girl.” She smiled kindly.
“Thanks.” I returned her smile with one of my own. If only she knew the half of it.
“Oh, well look at that.” She lifted a neon sticky note and showed it to me. “Judas Barron will be your chaperone for the day.”
Oh, god no.
Her eyes snapped to mine, and I realized I’d said that out loud. The door opened again from behind me, and I decided right then to make a clean get away.
“I mean, I don’t want to put him out. I know how busy he must be being an honors student and what not. My best-friend goes here too. She can show me around.”
“You could never put me out, principessa.”
He did not just call me that in front of this woman.
“Oh, well, there you go then.” She beamed from him to me.
“Let’s go, Rhiannon.”
I was partially surprised to hear him use my actual name for once. “What about my ID card?”
“I’ve already got it.”
That explained why he’d been standing out in the auditorium. Damn. I really did have to go with him. I blew out a breath and turned towards the guy who was quickly becoming the bane of my existence, following him out, reluctantly.
“I have to wait for Audrey.”
“She’s handled.” He replied in a bored tone, barely sparing me a second glance.
I glared at his back. “What does that mean?”
“It means start walking, or I’ll drag your ass up the hallway.”
The fuck if he would. From my peripheral I saw the kind older woman watching us from the office. If not for her, he would have gotten cussed out.
I also wasn’t trying to have my parents called on my first day. I was pretty sure I wasn’t a scholarship kid, which meant they’d done some miraculous type of hustling to get me in. Test scores aside. I’d have to grill them later.
I felt a little bad. Some kid deserved this spot, had worked hard for it. Not me. Hell, I didn’t even want to be here. I grit my teeth and followed my ‘chaperone’, catching up to him in a few easy strides.
“Why did you volunteer to show me around?”
“Because.” He kept going, not even looking back when he reached for my wrist and pulled me up alongside him.
When a few students needed to pass, practically gawking at us along the way, he moved me even closer.
I told myself to ignore the proximity between us and how good he smelled. This was easier said than done. His hair was still damp from being washed; the dark blue hues more prominent. The uniform jacket he had on was black, as were the pants and his tie.
He didn’t have the body of an average teen. Not tall, thin, and slightly muscular. Well, he was tall, maybe six foot two. And he wasn’t fat. He was all muscle. Not in an obnoxious way, though. If he was my wolf from the brownstone, I knew beneath his clothing was a body that could turn a devout church-girl into a sinner really quick.
“I see you eye-fucking the body I work my ass off to achieve. If you want a better view all you need to do is tell me. I’ve got a nice sized back-seat.”
I sucked my teeth and rolled my eyes. I wasn’t surprised by that response. At all.
“You’ve got such an unoriginal imagination Jude, and you sound a little too easy for my liking. If anyone can have it, I definitely don’t want it.”
Without warning he turned, nearly knocking into me. His hands gripped my shoulders and the hall spun as I was whirled into a glass display case. He let me go only to cage me in on one side and place a hand near my hip.
“See, that’s the thing, principessa. You already had it. You spread your legs and let a monster defile you.” His voice was low enough that not too many people going by would hear what he was saying, that didn’t stop me from going completely still. And he wasn’t done yet. “You laid there and told me things you’ve never told anyone, showed me all those filthy parts of yourself.”
I clutched my satchel so hard I cut off the circulation in my fingers.
His lips were hovering mere inches from mine, eyes daring me to move, pinning my already frozen body in place. It was one thing to assume Judas Barron was my big bad w
olf, another entirely to have it confirmed.
And here of all places.
One part of me was yelling, This can’t be happening! The other wanted to reach down and twist off his goddamn balls for being so close this entire time and never reaching out.
“You’re smudging the glass,” I stated so casually, I wanted to pat myself on the back. Internally, I was anything but calm. My heart was ready to flip out of my chest.
His eyes narrowed slightly, his bottom lip going between his teeth for a second before a grin dipped in devilry spread across his face. “She’s watching.”
Before I could ask who, his lips were on mine. Soft, full, and demanding.
His tongue swept across my lower lip, seeking entry I refused to give. I brought my bag up to shove him, and his hand slipped beneath my skirt to grip my thigh. Hard.
A small squeak escaped, and his tongue made its way in, skimming over the roof of my mouth. The grip on my thigh tightened, moving dangerously higher and closer to my apex. Someone might as well of thrown gasoline on me and then struck a flame, my body was on fire.
“What the--?” Audrey’s shocked voice was drowned out by the chime of a loud bell.
Judas leaned back in time for me to see her surprised face, just before one of his cronies swooped in from behind her and started to drag her away.
“Get your hands off me, Gavin!” Was the last thing I heard before she was gone. My eyes flew from Judas’ to all the staring faces.
I was positive some mousey haired brunette took a picture.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” I hissed at him and shoved. He moved this time, but only because he wanted to.
“Give me my schedule,” I demanded, fighting the urge to wipe my mouth. My lips tingled from the feel and taste of him.
“You can have it…later.” He flashed an arrogant grin and stepped away. “Your ID card too. You’ll need that if you want on the premises.” He turned and started walking.
I could have screamed in frustration, but I didn’t. I had no idea what his end game was or what he wanted. So, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was Rhiannon Clermont, and I didn’t give anyone the satisfaction of knowing they’d successfully gotten to me.
Chapter Ten
Rhiannon
His lips.
On my lips.
Was this the world coming to an end?
That’s the only scenario I could conjure where Judas and I would be touching. Except, he’d touched me before in many ways. Most disturbing was the way he touched my soul, stroked it with bloodied fingertips and made it ignite.
“So, that’s why you offered to show me around? To confuse my best-friend?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence anymore or the thoughts circulating in my head.
“No,” he replied bluntly, walking past another row of black lockers. “You remember that saying, keep your friends close?”
“And your enemies closer?” I finished.
“Yeah.”
“We’re enemies? Wow. Didn’t know I affected you that much,” I quipped. Judas clearly had more issues than I had counted on. Maybe he’d join me in therapy, lord knows we’d both come out as certified.
“We’re not enemies and we’re not friends. We’re something that holds more meaning and can’t be labeled with words.”
Um. What? “That doesn’t make sense. What does that even mean?”
“It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s meant to be twisted, dirty, and chaotic. Like us.”
Tension filled my pinched expression. He sounded like the Riddler. And I had never been good at solving puzzles.
“There is no us,” I rebuffed when I failed to come up with anything else.
He turned into a staircase and began ascending, leaving me to follow behind him.
“You remember that monster I was talking about?”
I nodded.
“Let’s just say, he’s ready to re-claim what’s his.”
“re-claim?” I frowned. “How do you re-claim something that was never yours to begin with?”
Judas slowed and turned around. “This is you.” He nodded to a black, medieval style door.
British Literature. Yay me.
“How did you know what my first class was without looking at my schedule?”
“I knew your schedule before you knew you were coming here.”
My composure slipped and I gaped at him. How would he know that unless he was in on my transfer? And he was so casual about invading what should have been personal.
“You’ve got a real problem with not violating people’s privacy, you know that?”
He looked right at me, his face a perfect mask of stoicism. “When it comes to you, there are no boundaries.”
Oh, this fucking guy.
“I think I’ll be the decider of that. Since I’m a big girl and all, capable of making her own decisions.”
“I disagree. You’ve made enough bad choices as it is, seems to me I stepped in and took that ability from you just in time.”
I chocked on a laugh. This could not be real life. “I don’t know what movies or books you’ve been reading, but its gonna take more than a few empty threats, caveman acts, and sexy smirks to get me to do whatever it is you think I’m about to do. I don’t like you, Judas. I think you’re a self-entitled asshole. And we aren’t, nor will we ever be friends. So, you know what? Fuck off.”
He looked at me for what felt like an extremely long minute, with no immediate change in facial expression.
A familiar sinister smile slowly spread across his face, causing chills to race down my spine in parallels.
“I think I like you as much as I hate you. I’m somewhere between wanting to tear you apart and consume you.”
“You--.”
“Be a good girl and go to class now, while you’re in there think about how good it’s going to feel when I fuck you with my hands wrapped around your throat.”
He turned to the door and rasped twice, walking off just as it opened.
British literature was exactly as I expected it to be.
Boring as hell.
And unlike at my old school, Pesadilla Prep didn’t believe in going easy on the students the first day. Miss Richards seemed like a real hard ass too.
Class wouldn’t have been so bad if people would’ve stopped staring at me. The Brenda Songs replica was in here too. She’d tried to get my attention when I first came in and I pretended not to see her.
I know, how petty.
This was Judas’ fault.
But whatever, the extra attention didn’t bother me. I could handle it.
What did bother me was the fact Judas just openly stated he hated me. I didn’t like him in any capacity beyond a sick type of infatuation and intense physical attraction.
After what went down between us that seemed natural. Or perhaps disturbingly unnatural.
I knew I just told him that in a lot of less words, but for him to hate me, that was a little extreme.
Plus, that kiss.
It wasn’t a big deal really. I was more pissed he’d taken liberties with me he wasn’t granted. Not that my body cared about that too much. It had come to attention disturbingly quick for him. But who the hell kissed someone they hated?
And that promise he left me with.
I could picture it, exactly how he’d do it. How he’d done it the first time.
With an internal groan, I mentally flopped my head onto my desk. It was too early in the day to be worried about this bullshit. I did my best to pay attention, but it was pointless. Judas had temporarily evicted all thoughts to do with anything other than him from my head and taken up sole residence.
I didn’t understand why he was doing this now and why he’d never reached out to me before. Our only real interaction was hooking up two years ago. We hadn’t spoken a word to one another since, up until that damn party. What had Dax called it? A lure?
When the bell chimed to signal, we could go, people scatter
ed like honorable roaches. Eager to leave, but too afraid of Miss Hardass to make it obvious. I slipped my half-assed notes into my satchel, slow to stand, realizing Judas had my freaking schedule. As the worst chaperone ever, he hadn’t even showed me around.
Screw it. I’d figure it out.
Exiting the class, I paused in the doorway when I spotted the devil himself waiting for me across the hall.
While some people milled about, rushing off to their next class, majority surrounded him like some kind of desperate fan-club.
A pretty redhead was speaking to him and seemed to be the only person around that could hold his attention. And he was looking at her…kindly?
Huh. Maybe hell had frozen over.
Brenda 2 said my name, but I ignored her. Never one to waste an opportunity, I darted past the small gathering and began walking back in the direction we’d come from. Thinking of Dax had me sub-consciously looking for him in the throes of students passing me by.
As big as this damn school was it wasn’t likely I’d find him, but I looked anyway. I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe it was the tiny part of me that felt like I owed him something combined with the guilt I felt for having been with his cousin.
Not that I knew then what I knew now, but I wasn’t a homie-hopper.
I would never knowingly go from one friend or family member to another. I was a slut that would’ve gone back to the first one.
There had to be an unwritten girl code against this stuff somewhere. Thou shall not have sexual relations with kin or friends.
“Hey, Riri! Wait up!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Brenda making a beeline for me. I cast my eyes to ceiling and prayed to fucking god he got me out of this. I wasn’t too sure he appreciated being sworn at, though. Guess that left me on my own. Impatiently, I waited for this adorably short chick to reach me.
“Girl, you do not have to ignore me. I just wanna say hi,” she huffed. “I’m Brianna, or Bri.”
“Rhiannon, always, Rhiannon,” I enunciated slowly.
She grinned, showing an impeccable grill that I was instantly envious of.
My dental work wasn’t bad, but I had the tiniest gap between my front two teeth.
