by Holly Renee
“Just get in the fucking car, Olly.”
I opened my driver’s side door and climbed in. Josie sat directly behind me, and I couldn’t help checking my rearview mirror as soon as she was in view.
And she was staring daggers at me.
She was pissed, that much was obvious, but there was no way I was going to let Will Hollis take them home. I had been watching him drink all damn night, and more than that, I had been watching him watch her.
I shouldn’t have fucking cared.
But for some stupid reason, I couldn’t let her leave with him.
The thought of her smiling at him like I had seen her do when I arrived at this stupid fucking party made me want to smash Will’s face in.
That anger was irrational and dumb, but Josie was mine. My want for her felt carnal and predatory.
Allie’s head was resting on her shoulder, and she was clearly already passed out. Allie was fun. I had always liked her since she had started working at the country club several years ago, but she also had a bit of a wild streak.
That fact always seemed to bug the shit out of Carson, but he never acted on it. If he was really into her, he never made a move.
Right now, he sat beside her and stared down at her like she had pissed him off beyond measure tonight, but the two of them barely even spoke.
That guy could have any girl he wanted, and he did, a lot. But he was always staring down Allie like she had robbed him of all the pleasure in life.
I wanted to say that was part of the reason I offered to take them home, but it would be a lie. I only fucking cared about Josie.
I would use Allie in whatever capacity I needed to get under Josie’s skin. Carson would just have to be pissed about it.
He could hate me if he needed to.
I drove to Josie’s house which wasn’t far from my own, and no one said a word. I could tell she wanted to, but she held her tongue. I wondered if she would have, had we been alone. Or would she have lashed out at me like I was the last person she wanted to be around?
I put the car in park and started to climb out.
“I got it from here.” Josie nudged Allie in the side as she unbuckled herself.
I leaned my head back into the car and stared at her. “You going to carry Allie in?”
She wasn’t listening to me though. She shook Allie’s shoulder, trying to wake her, and I waited. Allie looked like she was completely dead weight, and I had half a mind to watch her struggle to carry her inside.
Josie and Allie were roughly the same size, with the exception of Josie’s soft curves, and I knew there was no way in hell Josie would get her in the house.
“Carson, carry Allie.” I shut my front door to end any argument she may have had, and I took a deep breath before pulling her door open.
Carson already had Allie in his arms, but I wasn’t looking at them. I was staring down at Josie as she glared up at me.
“Do you need me to carry you too?” I cocked my head to the side, and I knew the moment the question passed my lips that it would piss her off.
Good.
I wanted to piss her off.
I wanted her to fight me.
“If you fucking touch me, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
I grinned as she scooted out of her seat, but I didn’t give her any space. I stayed exactly where I stood, my back against the door, and I waited for her to climb past me.
She was stubborn, but I would be unmovable.
“Excuse me.” Her knees pressed against my thighs as she remained perched on the edge of the seat to get out.
I didn’t budge. I stared down at her, and I waited for her next move.
She huffed and her cheeks reddened when she realized I had no intentions of just letting her pass me by, and she slid from her seat. Her body touched mine, and I knew she hated it. I didn’t. All of my blood went straight to my cock at the small feel of her. She tried to slide by me, but I reached out my hand and stopped her. I knew that asshole was in the house.
In her house.
And knowing he was so close, made me want to break something. It made me want to break her.
“Let me go, Beck.”
“And if I don’t?” I cocked an eyebrow and moved closer into her space. She smelled so good, but it wasn’t some expensive-ass perfume like most of these girls wore. It was something else. Something innocent and addicting. Even her scent begged me to ruin her.
“I’ll scream.”
As she said the words, her body moved the slightest bit closer to mine. Regardless of what she thought she wanted, her body felt differently.
Her breathing was faster than only moments before, and I couldn’t stop the urge to touch her. It was overwhelming.
The compulsion was all-consuming.
Lucas Vos could look out his window and see me touching her. He could watch exactly what I would do to her body.
I gripped her chin in my hand and forced her face to look up at me. I knew my grip was too tight, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t be gentle with her.
I refused.
I pulled her face closer to mine, and I could see the edge of fear in her eyes. They were clouded with lust, but her anxiety was still clear. “Did you scream the other night when you did what I told you to do?”
Our lips were so close to each other, and all I had to do was lean forward a fraction of an inch and I would have her. There wasn’t an ounce of resistance in her body. She wanted me as much as I wanted her. She wanted me as much as I wanted to destroy.
I wanted to taste her to see if the memory of her was accurate.
But I wouldn’t give her that.
She would have to beg me, and even then, I didn’t know that I would give in to her. Regardless of how badly I wanted to.
“I didn’t,” she said it like she meant it, but she was lying. There was a spark in her eyes and a flush on her chest that told me so. We both knew it too. I could smell the alcohol on her breath. I had watched her drink all night. She wasn’t as drunk as Allie, but she wasn’t completely thinking clearly either.
“You sure about that?” I trailed my hand down her throat, and I thrived on the sharp inhale of her breath. She didn’t move except for the rapid push and pull of her chest, and I felt mesmerized by the movement. “Did you imagine it was my hand on your pussy? Did you fight against it or were you so willing to let me have you?”
My thumb traced her collarbone as she shuddered, and I wished it was my tongue. I bet she tasted as sweet as she smelled. I bet she would squirm under my tongue and beg me for more.
And I would make her beg.
My fingers ran over the swell of her breast, a barely-there touch, but it was enough to unnerve her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Her voice was shaky as a tremor ran through her chest.
“Whatever the fuck I want.” Her eyes snapped to mine, and her anger returned full force.
She pushed past me, and I grinned. My cock was so hard against the zipper of my jeans. I pressed my hand against it to adjust myself before I closed the door behind me and followed her step for step. She almost tripped on the sidewalk, but I caught her around her waist.
“Don’t touch me.” She barely looked over her shoulder at me.
I lifted her in my arms and her body stiffened slightly. She was still dead weight in my arms, the alcohol too much for her to overcome. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying you inside before you trip and kill yourself.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t fight me. She laid her head back and looked up at the stars like she couldn’t care less if she was in my arms.
“You’re an asshole.” She blurted out to the sky, but I knew she was talking to me.
“I’ve been told that a time or two,” I muttered, but she wasn’t listening to me. She was lost in her own little world.
“But you’re a beautiful asshole.” She looked from the sky to me, and I knew it was the alcohol talking now. She would never admit such a thing wi
thout liquid courage.
“You think I’m beautiful?” I teased, but she just rolled her eyes again.
“You know you’re beautiful.” She lifted her hand and slapped my cheek playfully. “It’s your fatal flaw.”
“My beauty?” I chuckled.
“Your arrogance.” She blinked up at me. “My stepbrother has it too.”
I hated that she compared me to him. I fucking despised it. I was nothing like that piece of shit.
“Your stepbrother has more than one fatal flaw then.” If she thought his arrogance was the worst thing he possessed, then he had her fooled. But I knew she couldn’t be that far in the dark. I knew she had to be aware of the demons that hid in her house.
“He’s not as bad as you think he is.” She let her head fall back again.
She was wrong.
She was so fucking wrong, and my heart pounded in my chest as she defended him.
We reached the door, and I pushed inside. Joseph Vos was nowhere to be seen, but I wasn’t surprised. I rarely saw the man here when I was still friends with Lucas. If I did, he was always on the go.
Her father wasn’t the kind of man that could stay in the same place for long.
I shifted her in my arms as I climbed the steps.
“You hate me because of him. Don’t you?”
I looked down at her, and she was staring straight back up at me. There was a look in her eyes that I couldn’t quite place, something that dared me to be honest with her, but I refused to let my guard down because some pretty girl was in my arms and looking at me like she needed me.
Especially some pretty girl who was nothing but a pawn to me.
“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head, and it took everything in me not to kiss her. Her bottom lip had the perfect little arch, creating a shadow beneath, and I wanted to run my tongue across it. I wanted to run my tongue across every damn inch of her.
I made it to the top of the stairs, and I stopped in my tracks as I stared at Lucas’s open door. He stood there in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, and I was certain that he had been asleep before we arrived.
He ran his hand through his blond hair, then his sleep-filled eyes opened in shock as they met mine. I stepped forward with his sister in my arms, and I couldn’t stop the way my hands tightened around her.
My fingers could have been bruising her, and I wouldn’t have cared.
Whatever chance she had of escaping me was long gone the moment he looked down at her in my arms and I saw fury take over his features.
I ate it up, the feeling of power it gave me. I had barely even touched his sister, but he didn’t know that. All he knew is that she laid in my arms like she fucking belonged there, and she was staring up at me like she never wanted to leave.
She was staring up at me like she felt more at home in my arms than she ever would in these fucking tainted walls.
But he knew better.
He knew that I would use her in any way I needed to fuck with him. To pay him back for what he did to me. For what he did to her.
“What are you doing here?” His words were threatening as he stepped toward me, and I prayed he came closer. I prayed the motherfucker gave me the slightest reason to wreck his face again.
“Just taking care of your sister.” I cocked my head to the side as he stared at her in my arms.
He took a step closer to me and held out his arms as if I would ever just hand her over to him.
“I’ve got her.” He nodded his head, but he was out of his damn mind.
I would have never given her to him, especially not with the way she clung to me. Not with the way she was begging me with her eyes not to let her go. The tips of her fingers were turning white with the force of her hand clinging to my chest.
“That’s not going to happen.” I stepped to move past him, and he blocked my path. If she wasn’t in my arms, I would have knocked that damn look off his face, and no one would have been able to stop me. Not like last time. They would never have been able to pull me off of him again. “Get out of my fucking way, Lucas.”
“What are you doing with her, Beck?” His nostrils flared, and his chest puffed as if he was going to do something about it.
He had the nerve to act like he fucking cared.
Lucas didn’t care about anyone but himself. We both knew that.
He had proven it to us both.
“That’s none of your business.” I tightened my hold on her. “What I do with her is between me and her.”
Her fingers spasmed against me as her body squirmed.
My cock strained against my jeans, and I wanted to do everything to her. Everything.
Especially when I looked at the fury on Lucas’s face.
“Let him go and go to your room.” He spoke to her as if he was her real brother or even her father. He spoke to her as if he knew her intimately.
And it only made me want to destroy him even more.
“Get out of my way, Vos. I won’t tell you again.” I meant it too. We both knew it. We both knew that I would seize any opportunity to take a shot at him.
He backed out of my way, but he stood by her door watching me. I didn’t give a shit. He could watch whatever the fuck he wanted. He could watch while I destroyed his sister the way he had mine. While I destroyed him.
Carson had already laid Allie in Josie’s bed, and even though he would never admit it, I knew that he had been so gentle with her and tucked her in like she was the most precious thing on Earth. Even if he was currently staring down at her like he hated her.
I sat Josie on the edge of her bed, and I looked around as she balanced her hands on my shoulders. Her room looked nothing like her. It was frilly and posh, and she was, well, she was the exact opposite.
I barely knew anything about the girl, and even I knew that.
I pulled her shoes from her feet and dusted sand from her legs as she stared down at me.
“Should I pull these off too?” I tugged on the edge of her shorts, my fingers grazing her thighs, and she stiffened.
“Don’t even think about it.” Her words were firm, but her body squirmed gently beneath my hand.
“One day.” I laughed and noticed Lucas still standing at the door staring me down. I leaned closer to her as she scoffed, and I held his gaze.
“I told you that was never going to happen.” She looked up at me, and I hadn’t really noticed until that moment how the brown of her eyes was encased in swirls of green. They were enchanting and vulnerable and absolutely nothing like Lucas’s.
But that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
Josie Vos was the key to everything. I couldn’t touch Lucas without her.
And even though she was looking at me like she trusted me more than she ever should, I couldn’t let it fuck with my head.
I couldn’t let some pretty girl fuck with my plan.
“I guarantee it, princess.” I nipped at her earlobe, and she released a sharp inhale that was equal parts shock and lust.
I had planned to make her life a living hell from the moment I spotted her at the country club, and I would. But she was going to make it much easier than I thought.
She wanted me, regardless of what she was telling herself, and I would use that knowledge to my advantage.
I would use her, and I would make every moment of it worth it.
Chapter Nine
Josie
There was a pounding in my head that I couldn’t ignore. It seemed to block out everything else. My alarm was going off somewhere in the background, but I didn’t care. I just wanted it to stop. The blaring, the pounding, the sudden wave of nausea.
Shit. What the hell was I thinking last night?
The pounding fell away as memories of the night before bombarded me. Memories of me drinking, of Beck, of him carrying me all the way to my damn bed.
Nausea hit me again. This time harder.
I had let him carry me through this house and to my bed. I clung to him. I had wanted hi
m.
Oh, God.
I blinked my eyes open, and Allie was still dead to the world next to me. Her blonde hair was stuck to her face, and she let out the tiniest little snore. I would have left her there, let her not have to worry about how she felt for a little bit longer if the two of us didn’t have to be at work.
With customers and food and Beck. I hoped to God he wouldn’t be there. I didn’t want to see him. Not today, not ever again if I was being honest.
If we could just avoid each other altogether, that would be for the best. Because Beck Clermont confused me.
He hated me.
He said so. He looked at me like he did.
But there was some part of me that thought it was more than that. There was a part of me that thought maybe his hate was just a mask for something else, and that part was dangerous.
Whatever reason he had to hate me was completely lost to me. But if there was one thing I was sure of is that he did.
Even if there was more. Even if I was insane and thought that he could possibly want me.
He hated me more.
And I was going to be attending school with him in a couple of weeks. A school that I knew he ruled. A school where he could make my life a living hell.
There was only one solution when it came to him.
I needed to put my head down and avoid him like the plague. I needed to avoid him at all costs.
Or I would have to deal with the consequences, and I wasn’t prepared for that.
I had a plan.
And that plan did not include some privileged boy who hated me for no reason.
Regardless of how incredibly handsome he was. And he was. He was the most beautiful guy I had ever laid eyes on. But it was all part of who he was.
It was part of this damn persona that he portrayed.
I needed to keep my head down, study my ass off, and save as much money as I could for when I left here. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to become something more than a sum of my past and my father’s last name.
I shook Allie, trying to wake her up, and she groaned. I knew she was probably feeling doubly as bad as I did. Allie had far more to drink than me. She wasn’t even awake when we arrived back at my house.
