Defiant Princess: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Boys of Oak Park Prep Book 2)

by Callie Rose

  It was a thought that terrified and excited me—stepping up to really pursue my dream—but the excitement far outweighed the fear.

  Maintaining control, I lowered my leg in a graceful arc, smiling at my reflection in the mirror as I did. My conversation with Philip two days ago had been playing on a constant loop in my mind, but the dance studio was my little haven away from all those thoughts and worries.

  I switched legs, progressing through a series of movements, but froze when I heard the door open behind me.

  Finn?

  An irrational excitement and an equal anger rose in my chest, but when I glanced at the mirror, I saw Oliver slipping into the room behind me. The tension in my shoulders dissipated, replaced by mild irritation. I’d mentioned to him on our last date that I used this room to dance during gym, but I hadn’t meant it as an invitation to join me.

  This was my haven.

  My escape.

  My freedom.

  “Hey.” He grinned, running a hand through his curly dark hair. “I slipped away from the volleyball game—thought I’d come up and see some of your moves.”

  “I was just about to take a break, actually,” I said evasively.

  “Oh.” His grin widened as he crossed the small space toward me. “Well, that’s even better. I didn’t really want to see you dance anyway.”

  My brows pulled together, and I turned to face him, the irritation at his interruption shifting to annoyance. Dance was what I loved, and he made it sound stupid.

  “Well, then, you shouldn’t have come up.” I put my hands on my hips, taking a deep breath. A small trickle of sweat worked its way down between my breasts.

  Oliver’s gaze tracked over my black leotard and bare legs, and he pursed his lips slightly. “Nah. It was definitely worth it. I don’t need to see you dance to enjoy the view.”

  He reached me in two more strides and pulled me into his arms, pressing his lips to mine. That feeling of wrongness that had flared up every time I tried to kiss him before resurfaced, stronger this time, and I wriggled out of his grip. “Oliver, I don’t—”

  “Come on, Talia.” He laughed, looping his arms around my waist again and tugging me toward him. “I’ve been pretty patient, but you can’t go around dressed like that and expect me not to want you.”

  “I’m not going around,” I shot back, pressing hard on his arms to break his grip again. “I came up here to work.”

  He stepped into my space for the third time, one arm grasping my waist like a vise while the other skated up over my breast. “Sure you did. So did I.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I shoved at his chest, and he gave up groping my boob to wrap that arm around me too, pinning me to him. My heart beat harder in my chest as I stared at his bland, friendly face. His lips were curved up in a smile, as if the two of us shared some secret.

  “Talia,” he said softly, hiking me tighter against him. He was hard. I could feel his dick pressing into my stomach, and it made the wrong kind of butterflies flap around wildly, like they too were trying to escape. “Come on. You can cut the act out. I saw that video. We all saw it. You like sex. And that’s okay. It’s more than okay. Don’t let anybody make you feel bad about who you are.”

  As I blinked, trying to process those words, he swooped his head down and kissed me. Hard. I wrenched my mouth away, but he grabbed my jaw with one hand, forcing my face back to meet his.

  “Jesus, Oliver, cut it out!” I shoved him hard and managed to slip his grasp for a second, but he was on me again in a blink, his body suddenly seeming bigger, more threatening than it ever had before.

  “Come on, Talia. Come on. Just once. I put in all the fucking work. Just once.”

  He pawed at me as he muttered, backing me up toward the mirror until my ass hit the barre, trapping me against it with the weight of his pelvis. His lips were on the skin of my neck, my ear, and the only word I could think of was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  I flailed and kicked, trying to shove him off me, and when he slipped a hand down the front of my leotard, the feel of his palm on my breast sent a shockwave of panic spiraling through me. I screamed, hurling myself to the side. We both stumbled, and there was a ripping sound before I went down to my hands and knees. I didn’t turn around, didn’t even stop to see where he was, just scrambled back to my feet and threw myself toward the door.

  My hands hit it with a loud smack, and I shoved it open, waves of adrenaline making me feel sick as I sprinted down the hall. The locker room. The locker room. I’d be safe in the locker room.

  I rounded the corner toward the stairs—

  And smashed into a body.

  There was a grunt, and large hands caught my arms, steadying me. Cole stared down at me, and his expression shifted in less than a second as he took in my appearance.

  Every bit of softness drained from his features, replaced by a fury I’d never seen before, and his blue gaze flicked past me before he let go of my arms and strode down the hall with long, purposeful strides.

  I stood frozen for a moment, watching the place where he’d disappeared around the corner.

  The door opened and closed.

  A single raised voice started to speak, but it was cut off by noises I knew well.

  Grunts and yells echoed from the room, punctuated by the sound of a solid fist hitting flesh.

  Slowly, almost against my will, I moved down the hall, drawn by the sound and a terrible, morbid need to see.

  I pulled open the door to the studio, and my stomach flipped. Cole must’ve come in here like a fucking Terminator. I wasn’t sure if Oliver had gotten a single punch in, but if he hadn’t already, he never would now. He was on the floor, Cole kneeling over him, half straddling his body. The larger boy held the front of Oliver’s shirt in one hand while his other hand rained down blows like he was trying to kill him. Oliver was grunting, screaming, and moaning, but Cole was silent. Focused.

  My gaze fixed on the sight, and for the second time, I froze.

  The sight before me was terrifying, but somehow, I couldn’t lift a finger to try to stop it.

  My breath suspended in my lungs as I watched Cole’s fist descend over and over, his knuckles smeared red with blood—just like Oliver’s nose and teeth.

  When I finally sucked in a breath, it was on a gasp, my seizing lungs working too hard to draw in oxygen.

  It wasn’t a loud sound, but Cole’s head snapped up to me like a predator catching a new scent. His piercing blue gaze landed on me again, and he rose to his feet, hurling Oliver away from him like a sack of potatoes. The other boy landed on his ass and rolled onto his side, coughing and wheezing as he crawled to his feet. He started toward me, but before panic at his approach could really register, he pushed past me and ran down the hall.

  The door shut with a click behind him, leaving Cole and me alone in the room. Splotches of blood were smeared on the light wood floor, and little droplets marked the path where Oliver had fled.

  Cole stared at me, his broad chest rising and falling fast, his hands still clenched into fists. And it was only as my shock began to fade that I realized how he had known at a single glance what’d happened to me. The right strap of my leotard had torn when I pulled away from Oliver’s grasp. It hung uselessly down my front now, the fabric on that side drooping so low it left almost my entire breast exposed.

  I reached my opposite hand to lift the fabric, covering myself quickly, and that sharp movement seemed to jerk Cole out of his stasis. He crossed the room with the same determined stride, running his hands over me to check for injuries.

  “What the fuck did he do?” he grunted. “Motherfucker.”

  His touch was rough, leaving little smears of red on my skin from the blood that still coated his knuckles, and it struck me how completely made of violence Cole was—how even his tenderness had an element of violence to it.

  It made me think of his father, of my father, and as he skated his hands roughly over my arms, sides, and ne
ck, I noticed a new mark on his face, just below his eye.

  Had he gotten that from his dad, or the fight club?

  Had he started the fight club as a way to hide the injuries he got from his father?

  Without thought, my fingertips drifted up to brush over the small, purple bruise. It was a light touch, but Cole jerked away as if I’d hit him, stepping back and staring at me in shock. His gaze fell to my hand, which was still holding up the useless strap of my leotard, and he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, yanking it over his head.

  “Here.”

  He shoved it toward me, and I took it slowly, watching him with a wary gaze. His tattooed chest glistened with sweat, the swirls of black ink almost seeming to move on their own accord as his muscles bunched and flexed. The rage in him sat just below the surface, pulsing under his skin.

  Without taking my gaze off of him, I released the strap and quickly pulled the shirt over my head. It smelled like him, a faint hint of ginger and pine, and it covered my leotard completely, the hem reaching my upper thighs.

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement, the veins in his neck still standing out. “What happened?”

  I shook my head, crossing my arms almost defensively over my stomach. “You know what happened.”

  His fist tightened, and he paced a few steps, looking like he wished he hadn’t let Oliver go yet. “Fucking asshole.”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned back to me sharply. “That the first time he tried something?”

  I shook my head as I started to turn away. “What do you care?”

  “Talia.” His voice was like a hammer falling. “Was it. The. First. Time?”

  Without turning back to face him, I nodded.

  Cole cursed under his breath, and I could hear him pacing again. “Goddammit. Why would he—”

  “Because he thought it would be easy!” Now I did turn, and when his shocked blue gaze met mine, I huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “Why are you acting so surprised, Cole? You told the whole school I was a slut. That I was trash. That I would fuck—have fucked—anything that moved. Once you put something out in the world, you can’t take it back. You can’t just snap your fingers and undo it. And you guys put a lot of fucking effort into that video. Into making it all look real. Are you really that surprised Oliver believed you?”

  He shook his head, his lips pressing together so hard they turned white. “That’s not an excuse.”

  “No. It’s not.” I didn’t look away from his intense stare. “It’s a reason. And you gave it to him.”

  His face contorted in a grimace, and the angry, pulsing energy inside him spiked again. He turned on his heel, pacing across the expanse of the room. “People are fucking idiots. That’s not—”

  “Not what?” I stepped forward, cutting off his path.

  Cole pulled up abruptly, stopping in front of me. I had just seen him practically destroy a boy not much smaller than he was. I knew he could get through me if he wanted—he’d used his size to intimidate me before. But instead, he just stood stock still, his chest less than a foot from mine, his body rigid and taut.

  “This wasn’t what I wanted,” he murmured roughly. His right hand—the one still smeared with Oliver’s blood—reached up to cradle my jaw. “It wasn’t.”

  I shrugged, unable to look away from his churning blue eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s what happened.”

  When I started to step back, a look of pain and panic flashed in his expression, and his grip tightened for just a second before he forced it to relax, his fingertips slipping away from my cheek.

  His hand was still outstretched between us when I turned and walked away.

  Chapter 11

  As I walked down the hall toward the stairs to the first floor of the gymnasium, my legs began to shake with latent adrenaline. The entirety of the fucked up events that’d just unfolded hit me like a ton of bricks, and I sank down onto the steps, holding onto the railing and sucking in deep gulps of air like they were the only things keeping me afloat.

  I could still feel the flat of Oliver’s palm against my breast, the jolt that’d gone through me like a painful electric shock at the contact. It made my skin crawl, made me feel dirty even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  The sight of Cole punching him floated through my mind—his fist flying relentlessly, striking over and over. I’d watched, and I hadn’t tried to stop him. I hadn’t wanted to. It’d been horrible and terrifying, but somehow, oddly comforting.

  A memory rose of the night I’d tended Cole’s injuries after he’d fought Preston, the boy who had talked shit about Penny. Cole’s voice had resonated with truth as he had promised me he took care of the people he cared about. And for just a moment, I had let myself wonder what my life might be like if I had someone who cared about me that much.

  Someone who would level cities to protect me.

  I sat on the stairs until the end of the period, and I never saw Cole pass by. I wasn’t sure what he was doing in the studio. Sitting and staring into space like I was? Taking out the rest of his aggression on the downed heavy bags?

  A sudden vision of the bags lying in dismembered pieces all over the room popped into my head, and a vaguely hysterical laugh burst from my lips.

  When I finally hauled myself to my feet, I was able to make it down the steps without falling. I lingered at the foot of the stairs, not wanting to field questions about why the hell I was wearing Cole’s shirt. Part of me just wanted to go back to my dorm, but I had to at least get my backpack from my locker.

  The crowd of students heading out of the building thinned, and I was about to move forward when Maggie stepped into the hall. She glanced over at me, and her eyes widened.

  “Talia?”

  Fuck.

  It was too late to shrink back and hide around the corner. I walked toward her, trying to push down the churning in my gut and put on a normal expression. I could tell the smile I attempted was more like a grimace, and Maggie’s jaw dropped in horror as I neared.

  “Are you okay? What happened? There’s… blood on your face.”

  I reached a hand up to my cheek.

  Oh. From Cole’s fingers.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I was…”

  Jesus. What fucking explanation in the world was there for the way I looked? I was too tired and shell-shocked to come up with something that sounded even remotely believable, so instead, when I opened my mouth, the truth fell out.

  “I was attacked.”

  “What?” Her voice was shrill, too loud. “Are you—!”

  “It’s okay. He’s gone now. I just—need to get my clothes.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” She looked a little shaken up herself, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information she’d been given, but she stepped forward and wrapped an arm around me. “Come on.”

  She led me into the locker room, which was mercifully just about empty.

  Except for Leah.

  When the auburn-haired girl saw me enter, supported by Maggie, her expression froze.

  Maggie shook her head impatiently. “Your feud can wait, Leah, okay? Talia got attacked. She needs help.”

  “What?” Leah sprang to her feet, some of her usual spark returning as her gaze darted around—as if my attacker might be lurking right around the corner. “Who? What?”

  Maggie led me over to the sink and used a wet paper towel to wipe away Oliver’s blood. As she worked, I explained in a few short sentences what’d happened. I kept everything blunt and factual, refusing to let myself fall back into a tailspin as I relived the events. Leah crept closer as I spoke, and by the time I finished talking, both girls stood in front of me, twin expressions of horror on their faces.

  “It’s okay,” I finished softly. “I’m not hurt.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Leah said, her voice fierce. “That’s not the point. Just because you can’t point to a bruise doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt you.”

  “Yeah.�
�� Maggie smoothed back the wisps of hair that’d fallen from her white-blonde ponytail. “Shit. What are you gonna do?”

  I shook my head. “I dunno. Report him, I guess. I just need to… think about it.”

  When I had reported Adena’s attack on me last year, nothing had happened. She’d gotten a vague, half-assed slap on the wrist and that was it. And I knew this would be even worse. This was the kind of shit that got swept under the rug all the time.

  Maggie looked scandalized that I wasn’t already marching to the dean’s office, but Leah nodded sadly. “Yeah. I get it.”

  I looked at her, taking in the smattering of freckles across her nose, the sharp angle of her auburn bob, the expressiveness of her eyes. I hadn’t really seen her in what felt like forever. Our paths had crossed plenty of times, but we’d been keeping a distance from each other for months, from long before my grandparents sent me back to Sand Valley.

  Her familiar features made a twinge of sadness pinch my heart, and I looked down at the long counter that held three sinks lined up in a row. “I’m sorry.”

  Maggie’s eyebrows rose hopefully, but Leah looked away. “Don’t be. It’s fine. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

  It was a deflection. I could hear it and see it. I’d let her use the same deflection all last semester, as we slowly drifted apart until there was a giant chasm of space between us.

  “No, I do.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair, the movement bringing another dose of Cole’s ginger and pine scent to my nose. I exhaled forcefully, trying to drive it out of my system. “I shouldn’t have ditched you, and I especially shouldn’t have ditched you for the Princes. It was fucking stupid.”

  Her lips pursed, and she cocked her head to one side. “It was pretty fucking stupid. But… it’s not like it’s all your fault. I told you to do it. I guess I just got mad that you did it so well. They took you into their little club so completely. It was like they fucking brainwashed you.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Except, I guess they didn’t really take you in at all. Fucking assholes.”