by Jenni Sloane
I sucked in a breath. “All of you’d better get away from me. Right. Now.”
Cole laughed, sounding delighted. “Or you’ll what?”
“You heard her,” Ian growled. “Get lost. She and I were just getting to know each other better.”
Cole and Bennett ignored him.
Bennett gave me a smirk to match Cole’s. “What are you reading?” His voice was as smooth as Ian’s was gravelly.
“None of your business.”
“Let me see.” He held out his hand.
“No.” Aside from the fact that this book had been hard-won, I wasn’t going to obey him like some cowering dog.
`He snapped his fingers. “Give me the book.”
“No,” I repeated.
“Why do you want it?” Cole snarled suddenly at Bennett. “You want to read it?” He shook his head in disgust. “Fucking nerd.”
Bennett’s face reddened, but he remained focused on me. “I need to see if it’s approved reading material.”
“’I need to see if it’s approved reading material,’” Cole mocked in a high-pitched voice.
Bennett stepped toward me, hand still outstretched for the book.
Cole shoved him.
Shoved him so hard that Bennett, who was considerably larger than Cole, went sprawling. He landed on his hands and knees in the dirt.
I was shocked.
I shouldn’t have been. I knew what Cole was like. But watching him turn on Bennett like that…seeing the flash of fear in Bennett’s eyes, followed by rage. I knew that combination of emotions too well.
Cole turned to me, and my chest clenched. His eyes glittered like daggers. “Go on TT. Dangle that book in front of him. Make him crawl to you.”
My mouth fell open.
Bennett started to scramble to his feet, but Cole kicked him in the stomach. Bennett groaned and fell again. I stifled a gasp.
“He wants to read it so bad.” Cole shrugged at me. “Make him work for it.”
What if I did it? Asked Bennett to crawl to me? Cole’s ire was turned on somebody else now. And if I kept it there, maybe Cole would spare me.
Bennett coughed, spitting into the dirt.
He made a feeble attempt to rise again, but instead of striking him, Cole simply put a hand on his gold curls and held him down. I could see that simple gesture was a greater humiliation to Bennett than any blow. “Go on, puppy.” Cole patted his hair. “Crawl to her. Ask Trailer Trash nicely if you can read her book.”
With a roar, Bennett burst upward, tackling Cole with his full weight. They both collapsed, Cole’s head striking the fence railing with a disconcerting clang. Ian and Archer looked on with distaste, and I was dumbfounded, unable to believe that what had seemed like an inevitable torture session had transformed into my enemies fighting each other.
Suddenly Mr. Rominsky was there, shouting at them to break it up. When they didn’t, he pulled them off each other with a surprising strength. “Both of you, my office. Now.” Rominsky had Cole by the upper arm and jerked him toward the school. Bennett remained on the ground, panting, the back of his wrist pressed to his bleeding mouth.
“Are you okay?” I hadn’t meant for the words to come out, exactly. But I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Cole’s attentions. What Cole had done to Bennett had been truly humiliating. He winced, and I stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Here.”
He slapped my hand away viciously, getting to his feet on his own. “Don’t fucking touch me.” His eyes flashed at me. “You’ll pay for this. I’ll make sure of it.”
He stalked toward the building.
Pay for what? Couldn’t he see that Cole was his enemy, not me? But just like Halloween night, he turned from a chance for the two of us to help each other.
I looked around, realizing Ian and Archer had made themselves scarce.
It was just me here, alone with my book. The way I’d wanted it.
But I didn’t feel like reading. I was still shaking with adrenaline. Still wondering what the hell I’d just witnessed.
How Bennett would make me pay.
Chapter Six
A week later, the school was buzzing about the previous evening’s baseball game against nearby Harrington Prep. Apparently we’d lost, badly. And it was all Cole Heller’s fault.
“He just whiffed it!” Kayle said as we prowled around the rec yard together. “It was painful to watch. Maybe he broke his fist on Bennett’s face or something.” Bennett had been sporting an impressive shiner since his fight with Cole, but Cole had no visible injuries. Which seemed unfair.
“Too bad,” I said sarcastically. “I want nothing but the best for him.”
Kayle snorted. “Of course.” She paused. “He’d better make up for it at the game tonight, is all I’m saying.”
“Maybe someone’ll hit a line drive into his skull.” I felt inordinately pleased by the thought.
“I can’t believe how bad he’s got it in for you.”
And Bennett. And maybe even Ian. I thought about the pissing contest I’d witnessed between those two. Cole Heller’s got it in for the whole world. “Whatever. Let’s talk about anything but him.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about the talent show.”
I groaned. The talent show was coming up far faster than I was comfortable with. What was weird was how into it everyone seemed to be. I’d thought this was a school for hardened criminals. Yet they were all freaking out about what Rihanna song they were going lip synch to and how five minutes per person wasn’t enough time.
For me, it was five minutes too long.
“Oh, stop,” Kayle said. “You could get up there in that Halloween dress and just stand there, and I’ll bet people would be impressed.”
“You’re telling me that a bunch of students at a reform school would be all ‘You go girl’ if I stood there in a nerdy-ass dress?”
“The talent show is…nice. It’s like the one time everyone puts their differences aside and supports each other. We are all in the same boat, after all. Trapped here.”
“What are you gonna do?” I demanded.
“Eh. I’m an okay dancer. Might dance to some Robyn or something.”
I might have been pop culture-deficient, but I did actually know who Robyn was. I sang a few bars of “I Keep Dancing on My Own.”
“Holy shit.” Kayle stopped and stared at me.
I stopped too, flushing. “What?”
“I didn’t know you could sing. Amma! You’re full of surprises.” She steepled her fingers under her chin. “Well. Now we know what you’re doing for the talent show.”
“I can’t…I’m not, like, a singer.” I didn’t tell her that a singer was what I wanted to be more than anything.
“C’mon, sing a little louder. Your voice is gorgeous.”
“No! Kayle…” I started walking again.
“You need to stop being afraid of yourself!” she practically shouted.
I turned back to her. “And you need to mind your own business!” I snapped back, more harshly than I’d meant to.
Her eyebrows went up, and her jaw tensed. “Fine. I was trying to help, for your information.” She turned and stalked away.
Annnnnd there goes my only ally. I felt terrible. I’d finally begun to accept that I really did seem to have a friend in Kayle. The ointment she’d given me for my hands last week had been an actual miracle—taking away the pain and protecting me from further damage. And now… She’d told me I was talented. Offered to help me showcase that talent. And I’d pushed her away.
I was so distracted I didn’t even see the kid with the blond crew cut running at me until he shoulder-checked me. I staggered sideways, gasping, and he made a big show of catching a frisbee his friend had thrown—as though there weren’t a million paths he could have taken to the frisbee that didn’t involve dislocating my shoulder. Rubbing the ache, I glanced around the rec yard at my sea of potential enemies, wishing I had the guts to run after Kayle and apologiz
e.
I was one of the last ones into the building after rec. Everyone else had rushed the doors as soon as the whistle blew, eager to get ready for the baseball game, which was at home tonight. I could go, I supposed. Hope that Cole blew it again. Take satisfaction in watching him suck.
Or just watching him.
What was wrong with me? How could I still find him even remotely attractive? Whatever. There were people who thought Ted Bundy was hot. I was allowed to acknowledge that Cole looked good, even if there was a black glob of the devil’s snot where his soul should be.
I was so fixated on how awful Cole was, I was startled when I almost ran into him in the empty hall on the way to my dorm. I tensed, scrambling backward. Surely he didn’t have time to torture me right now—he was supposed to be getting ready for the game.
He stared at me blankly, as though he didn’t even recognize me. He was cradling his right hand to his chest, and I realized his hands—especially the right one—were red and raw. There were open cuts along his knuckle lines.
I recognized the look too well.
“Rominsky detention?” I asked. Then immediately wanted to strangle myself. Why would I talk to him?
His eyes seemed to focus at last. I expected a biting insult at the very least—or, more likely, to be slammed up against the wall, or waterboarded in the drinking fountain. But all he did was nod.
“I can’t play tonight,” he said quietly. As though I was a confidante, rather than his favorite punching bag. “I’ll make a fool out of myself.”
“Was that the problem last night?” I nodded at his hands.
“Yeah.” He glanced down at his injured hands as though he couldn’t believe they belonged to him.
“Rominsky’s an asshole,” I muttered. Obviously, Cole deserved to be in pain. All the pain. But there was something about the idea of deliberately hurting someone in a way that would prevent them from doing the thing they loved…
Cole looked up at me again. “You had him?”
I nodded, reaching into my pocket. “I might be able to help.” I withdrew what was left of the tube of salve Kayle had given me. I’d been carrying it around in my wallet in case I found myself in trouble with Rominsky again.
“What the hell is that?” Cole sounded more like his old self now. Sneering and arrogant, even in the face of proffered help.
I motioned impatiently. “Give me your hands before a hallway monitor comes.”
“What?”
“I said, give me your hands!”
“Tell me what it is!”
“Something that will help you,” I snapped.
He stared at me, his face strangely pale.
“What the fuck do I want your help for? When did I ever ask for it?” He sounded oddly—panicked? I couldn’t imagine what that was about. But then I thought about it. He was nervous about the game. The possibility of humiliating himself on the diamond. He was in physical pain and feeling vulnerable. He knew I hated him, and here I was holding a vial of some unknown potion. I had some measure of power here.
“If you don’t want to lose another game for us, I suggest you come here.”
“Fuck you!”
If he’d attacked me—if he’d gotten in my face, pushed me backward, grabbed me—I would have been furious. I would have loathed him. I would have wanted nothing more than to kill him.
But he was keeping several feet between us and skulking back and forth, like a predator longing to attack but held at bay by a human wielding a torch. That angular jaw was set—but in a way that was more defensive than challenging. I could smell the heady scent of his expensive aftershave, could feel that familiar coiled energy in him.
A dangerous heat licked the very pit of my stomach as I realized that I didn’t want to run him off.
I wanted to tame him.
And for a pathetic, mousy virgin who’d been raised in a trailer park, had “Mormon” hair, and had barely socialized outside of church, this was a dangerous thought.
And a thrilling one.
“Your choice.” I spoke evenly. “I’m offering it. Though God knows why. You’ve been nothing but a disgusting, annoying man-baby since I met you.”
Fear clamped suddenly around my throat. Had that been my voice, saying those words?
He was going to murder me on the spot. But it felt so good to diminish him. Treat him like he’d been nothing more than a pest to me all this time–not a nightmare.
He flashed me as shadow of his cruel grin. “You’re shit scared of me.”
“No. I’m disgusted by you.”
The arrow found a chink in his armor. His expression was one I hadn’t seen before—one of doubt, of anger that came from a loss of control. And as satisfying as it was, I found myself in some strange, sick moment of sympathy with him. How must it feel to know that people didn’t like you? They feared you. Or, if they did like you, it was because of something you could give them. A couple of hours of entertainment on the baseball diamond. Something bought with your stepdad’s money.
Cole Heller had cowed people. He’d bought them. But he’d never earned their respect, their trust. Their love.
And that had to be a lonely life.
Whatever was between us was as fragile as the ice on a frozen twig. Anything could shatter it.
“It’s just a salve,” I told him. “It’ll get rid of the pain.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fine.” I started to put the tube back in my pocket.
His eyes flashed, and he licked his lips. “Wait.”
I met his gaze, raising my eyebrows like I was bored with the whole situation.
“Okay,” he muttered, holding out his hand. “I’ll use it.”
“I’m not letting you take the whole tube,” I said firmly. “Come here.”
“Why?” His eyes were narrow again.
“I’m going to put it on.”
He made a sound that might have been intended as a derisive snort. But it lacked any sort of edge. That doubt flared in his eyes again. He didn’t look like the monster I’d come to see him as. He looked, for an instant, terribly human.
Come here, I willed the wolf, trying to lower whatever imaginary weapon he thought I was wielding. My heart pounded hard enough to hurt. I was afraid I’d get my wish—that the beast would come up to me and sink his teeth into my throat. That I’d be played for a fool again.
He stepped toward me slowly. It might have been cute—his hesitancy, his awkward shuffle—if I didn’t know what an absolute scumbag he was.
He was still in sweatpants and a T-shirt from rec. And even dressed casually, there was a beauty, an elegance in him that I couldn’t stop myself from admiring. I carried the fantasy on, letting my gaze rake his body. There was a place where his neck met his shoulder— where the muscle was so beautifully defined, but that still looked tender and vulnerable—that I had the insane urge to touch.
He held out his hands tentatively, like he thought I might hack them off. And honestly, that would have been far more satisfying than what I was about to do instead.
I opened the tube and squirted some of the salve on my finger. Then, without letting myself hesitate, I spread it gently over the cracked skin of his right hand.
The last time Cole and I had touched, he’d been shoving my head toward the bird bath. I flinched, but then willed the memory to keep its distance. I’d never forgive him for that night. But I didn’t want to dwell on it either.
He winced but didn’t move as I stroked my finger over a particularly nasty cut. I put my other hand under his to give me a little more stability as I worked. He jolted.
“Relax,” I muttered.
I could feel him watching me. It was only a matter of time before he spoke. “Why are you holding my hand, TT? You that desperate for some of me?”
I rolled my eyes, but kept working. “You know it.”
As my skin drifted along his, I felt a million little prickles, like static electricity. He could feel it too;
I could tell by the way his breathing roughened. His hands were warm. The dusting of hair on their backs was light and soft. He jerked again as I rubbed the salve into his palms, and I was about to snap at him to keep still when I realized he was ticklish there.
I almost laughed.
So you are a human being, Cole Heller. Congratulations.
I increased the pressure of my touch, not ready to let go just yet. I could feel his breath lightly hitting my neck. The slight tremble in his wrists as he struggled to stay still.
His head had dipped so he could watch me work, but now he raised it slightly. I could sense his eyes on me, and I lifted my own gaze to meet his. Then I looked down again. His large hand was still cupped lightly in my smaller ones. The heat under my skin would have made me squirm, if I hadn’t felt the urge to keep still. Make this moment last.
Finally, I exhaled, and it was like being set free from a trance. “All set. You should start to feel better in a few minutes.” I let go of his hands, reluctant and relieved.
He glared at me. “Where’d you get that stuff?”
“My secret.”
He sighed and looked away.
“Does it feel better?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t feel worse.” He glanced down. “I think you missed a spot. There along the edge. Still hurts.”
I most definitely hadn’t. But I took his hand again anyway, and applied more salve. I grazed my thumb along the side of his hand, an unthinking gesture that didn’t target any particular injury. That may have been intended as comfort.
He jerked. “Are you done yet?” he demanded.
I let go. “You’re the one who told me I missed a spot.”
He yanked his hands away, clearly furious, though I wasn’t sure why. He glared at me, fire burning in his eyes. “This doesn’t change anything between us,” he said through his teeth.
“What would it change?” I asked evenly. I didn’t let any disappointment show in my expression or my voice. But I knew as well as he did that whatever strange spell had existed between us was broken.
“I don’t owe you anything.”
