Psycho: A Dark College Romance (Hillcrest University Book 4)

by Candace Wondrak

  Ash’s movement picked up speed, and I felt myself starting to lose it. It was impossible not to lose it when she rode me like one of those bucking bulls in bars. Her speed was unmatchable, and as my balls clenched and I felt the pressure exploding into a burst of pleasure, a groan came from my chest, my hips starting to buck of their own accord. I came inside of her, my cum bursting out of me as if it’d been waiting forever.

  My eyes peeked open, and I let out another ragged breath as she slowly pulled herself off me, landing beside me and curling into me. The condom wrapped around my cock was full of white cum, and the outer portion of it was slick with her wetness. Ash sighed into me, and I let myself relax for a few moments, enjoying the feeling of being with her, of holding her, before getting up to clean myself off.

  By the time I returned to the room, she was fast asleep.

  I stood in the hall, leaning on the door frame, not wanting to go in and wake her up, not when she looked so peaceful, her naked body tangled atop the sheets, her legs splayed out. How could anyone look at her and want to hurt her or use her? God, she was perfect.

  I must’ve been too entranced in watching Ash to notice that Travis had come inside and up the stairs. He reeked of tobacco and smoke, and he looked vastly unhappy. His blue gaze glanced down, and it was then that I realized I stood there, naked. I was about to say something, to turn away—even hurry into the dark bedroom and crawl onto that bed with her—but Travis spoke first.

  My naked body wasn’t something he lingered on. His azure stare turned into the room as he stood beside me, and he looked at Ash’s still form. Under his breath, he muttered, “I’m going to kill him.” Spoken seriously, without a trace of hesitation. Spoken like a promise and not a threat.

  Spoken kind of like a psycho.

  I could do nothing but stare at him in wonder. Travis had mentioned chains earlier, and now this? I knew his family must’ve done some shady business, but just the way he spoke it, how matter-of-factly he was about it…I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the family business was. How did his family make all of its money?

  Talking about chains and murder—those were not two subjects everyday people spoke about.

  “I’m going to call my brother in the morning and see what we can do about him,” Travis went on. “We need to get him out of the picture.” I knew why he was so adamant, and I couldn’t blame him. Not only was Ray her ex, but he was a serial killer. That was kind of hard to overlook.

  Plus, you know, she slept with him. That was probably the primary reason Travis wanted to kill him, and I felt the same. I’d never killed anyone before, never thought about it, but Ray? I think I could make an exception for that one.

  I said nothing, because what could I say to that? I didn’t want to plot…I just wanted to enjoy Ash, now that I had her. My feet drew me back into the room, and I gently got on the bed, moving softly to try to not wake her. I didn’t bother to put on any clothes, didn’t bother to cover up. Ash was naked, I was naked; Travis had seen us both, and still getting Ray out of the picture was on the forefront of his mind.

  Or at least, that’s what I thought was on the forefront of his mind, until he shuffled in the room after flicking off the hall light. Travis moved to the opposite side of the bed, and through the darkness, as my eyes adjusted, I watched him slide off his shoes before climbing up and laying on her other side.

  This…this was weird, wasn’t it?

  Maybe I should put on some clothes…

  This was definitely weird.

  Chapter Thirteen – Ash

  The next day my feet hurt even worse, somehow. It hurt to walk. Every single step I took was agony. I’d sent Declan to the dorm to get me some clothes, along with going to the store to get me the morning after pill—no unwanted pregnancies from my psycho ex, thank you very much—and some slippers. Maybe slippers would make it easier to walk as my feet healed.

  Travis was outside in the back, pacing the patio as he spoke on the phone. Every other door and window in the house was locked. Declan took Sawyer’s key when he went. We were locked down in this mansion, although I knew locks wouldn’t keep Ray out. They’d only slow him down.

  I sat on the couch in the living room, watching whatever show was on—something about two brothers who hunted demons, though I had no idea how the hell they made any money to travel across the country to do it constantly. My feet were propped up, resting on the coffee table before the couch.

  My eyes fell to my knuckles, to the scabs dotting them. I still hadn’t texted Kelsey to make sure she made it home safely, and honestly I didn’t want to talk to her for a while. Seeing them together was something out of a nightmare, and it was a view I’d never forget.

  Ray’s knife still sat on the counter, but it was out of mind as long as it was out of my sight. I would do my best not to think about Ray.

  I ran my fingers through my hair, staring at the ends. I’d also given Declan the go-ahead to dig through my shit and find my dye. These faded tips were killing me, almost as much as my serial killer ex would once he got his hands on me.

  Wait, no. I wasn’t supposed to think about that guy.

  I let out a groan. Maybe I’d shower, get my hair clean. Clean hair always made dye stick better when it came to semi-permanent dye. There was literally nothing else to do here, not with Travis so talkative on the phone—though from the window it looked as if he wore a perpetual scowl.

  Shower it was.

  Heaving myself off the couch and wincing once my feet touched the carpet, I slowly made my way to the staircase. My speed was that of a snail as I walked up the steps. I had to walk on the sides of my feet; the soles were blistered and angry from me walking for hours and hours on them on straight concrete.

  I’d skip classes for a day or two, maybe three, but then I’d go. Whether Travis or Declan accompanied me to my classes, waited outside in the halls for me, was up to them. They clearly didn’t want me to be alone, which made sense. Me threatening to kill myself might just push Ray off the deep end.

  You know, because my serial killer ex wasn’t already off the deep end before.

  I walked into the first full bathroom, not expecting to see the renter of this house bent over the toilet, throwing up, but alas, that’s exactly what I saw as my feet met the bathroom tile: Sawyer, throwing up. A wonderful sight. Really, I’d never seen anything better.

  No, wait, you know what? I did see something better, and that was him piledriving my best friend.

  Was I bitter about it? Maybe.

  Okay, definitely.

  Even though the bathroom was a huge one, I still smelled the vomit in the air…and, I realized as Sawyer reached for the handle to flush away his puke, it smelled so bad because Sawyer hadn’t quite made it in the toilet. Not all the way.

  Ugh. Gag me. There were other bathrooms in this house, other showers I could use. I was about to turn to leave to find one of those bathrooms when I watched Sawyer wipe his lower lip with a shaky hand.

  He looked…pale. Like shit, actually. Sawyer Salvatore looked like he’d just rolled in trash, with his shirt stained in vomit and his hair still greasy from the Halloween party. Thick stubble lined his face, and his green eyes had a difficult time focusing on me.

  I must’ve had a questioning look on my face, for he muttered, “I’m fine.” His voice broke as he spoke the two words; he certainly didn’t sound fine, and he didn’t look it, either. If I had to guess, I’d say he felt like shit. Travis was making him quit whatever drug he was on and alcohol cold turkey. That was bound to be tough.

  Sawyer deserved every bit of hardship, I believed that, but as I stared at him, as the smell of his vomit permeated through the air, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

  Fuck. Why did I feel sorry for him? I shouldn’t. He was a fuck-up, but…so was I. If I was born into a rich family like Sawyer, I’d probably be a fucktard, too. He’d lost his sister, pushed his friends away. He’d alienated himself from everyone.

  “
When’s the last time you took a shower? When’s the last time you bathed or changed clothes?” I shouldn’t care, I shouldn’t help him, but…I wanted to. I went into the bathroom, breathing through my mouth as I limped around him, yanking open the shower curtain. “Come on,” I said. “Get off your ass and get in that shower.”

  “Fuck off,” Sawyer muttered, struggling to get up.

  It was…almost heartbreaking to see a man the size of Sawyer having trouble doing the tiniest of things, like standing. Seeing his body shake and beads of sweat pool along his hairline. He hardly looked like a person right now. He was just a mess.

  Once he got up, he started to sway, and I caught his large body, nearly falling back because my injured feet couldn’t hold the added weight of his large frame. He just had to be a bodybuilder, huh?

  “Come on,” I said again, struggling to guide us back. I lifted one of my feet over the edge of the tub, and Sawyer followed suit, though I heard him mumbling under his breath that he didn’t need any help. I rolled my eyes at that, because clearly the asshole needed more help than he realized.

  I might’ve gotten some of his puke smeared on my chin, which was fucking nasty, but soon the showerhead would be running and hopefully it would all wash down the drain.

  “You smell awful,” I told him, turning us so that he’d get the brunt of the water first. “You need to bathe, Sawyer.” I released his large frame, figuring he was steady now, and went to turn on the water, making the temperature warm but not too hot. His skin had felt clammy and cold; I didn’t want to shock his senses too much.

  “I don’t need your help,” Sawyer muttered, the water hitting the top of his head.

  I said nothing as I reached for the shampoo bottle and flicked the lid open. It smelled good, its fragrance musky and manly. It’d be a start to masking the odor coming off him. “You can take your clothes off or not. I don’t care,” I said. My clothes, which were technically his, were getting wetter by the minute. His were already soaked through. “But you are going to wash that hair and get that vomit off you.”

  Sawyer must’ve realized I meant business, because he then struggled to take off his shirt. It was the same shirt he’d worn to the party, the same pants, too. He hadn’t gone inside his dresser or closet for new clothes, just keeping the same shit on. His feet were bare; he must’ve kicked off his socks at some point.

  Even though it was dumb, my eyes still scanned the six-pack once it was free. Those well-defined squares called out to me, made me warm up in a place I shouldn’t notice. Not when it came to Sawyer. Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy for being so hot and making me feel these stupid things.

  I hated him, I really did.

  Except…I didn’t.

  I tore my eyes off his stomach, shoving the bottle in his direction. By the look of him, he wasn’t going to take his pants off, which was fine. I did not need to see Sawyer’s dick right now. I was liable to cut it clean off after where it was. He dropped the shirt outside the tub, and it landed in a seeping wet mess on the tile. He grabbed the bottle from me and worked to lather up his hair. The bottle was roughly handed back to me.

  The Halloween grease, the bodily oil from not washing his hair for days, went down the drain. Or, well, into his wet jeans and then into the drain. After his hair was rinsed, I reached for a bar of soap next. His face, his armpits, everything needed a good scrubbing.

  Technically, his dick needed a good scrubbing too…which I should not be around for. Again, kind of felt like cutting it off, but maybe that was just my psycho ex talking through me.

  Once he took the soap from me, once his face was washed, I made moves to get out. The shower was larger than the one in my dorm room, so it wasn’t exactly cramped, but watching Sawyer rub his soapy hands on himself was not what I would call a fun time. Maybe I’d call it fun if I didn’t just see him fucking my friend, but eh. That was the state of my life. I’d find a different bathroom to wash my own hair.

  I was about to walk out, to leave Sawyer to his own devices—because surely he’d feel like shit for quite a while longer, and I wouldn’t be there to baby him through it all—but he grabbed my wrist as I went for the curtain.

  He was still strong, even though his arm trembled. He definitely had the shakes.

  “What?” I asked, sounding a bit snippier than I intended. What I really wanted to do was punch this guy in the face, but I knew that was an overreaction, just like cutting off his dick was. His dick wasn’t mine, and neither was the body it belonged to.

  Sawyer’s iron grip would not let me go, and he moved me in front of the water. As the showerhead pelted my hair with warm water, Sawyer dropped the soap and…lost it.

  He just lost it.

  He sunk to his knees, buried his face against my neck, his nose grazing my collarbone above the hemline of the shirt, and his arms wrapped around me, holding me close, refusing to let me go. Sawyer, in that moment, lost the cockiness that made him Sawyer. No longer the rude playboy and just a rich boy who’d been trying to hold it together. Glue only worked for so long. Avoiding the truth only prolonged it.

  This was Sawyer Salvatore falling apart.

  He said nothing, nor did I. Though his body shook with tremors, I felt his shoulders begin to shake a bit more, with a firmer intensity. Maybe what I felt on my neck was the water from the shower, but a teeny, tiny part of me would’ve sworn that Sawyer was crying.

  Sawyer. Crying. I just…what?

  “I hate this,” Sawyer muttered against me. “I hate this so much.”

  What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? What was I supposed to do? This was never taught in any class I’d taken, How to Comfort a Broken Rich Boy 101, and it was so far out of my wheelhouse that it took me a long while before I even began to return his embrace. I cradled his wet head against me, running a hand over his still-pink hair.

  “I know,” I said, even though I didn’t know what he was feeling. It wasn’t hard to imagine—I felt the same when it came to Ray. I hated it, too. I hated everything about this past weekend.

  He probably hated himself, his life, his past, whatever he thought his future was. I bet he hated literally everything right now, and even though it was stupid, I felt sorry for him. I shouldn’t; I knew I shouldn’t, and yet it was like I couldn’t control my heart when it came to this ridiculously sexy fuckup.

  Minutes ticked by, and he didn’t let me go. I couldn’t help but wonder if Sawyer had ever let himself fall apart before. Yes, we all knew what his go-to’s were when it came to not feeling: sex, drugs, and booze—but I wasn’t talking about distractions. I was talking about facing the truth, facing reality, and letting his walls crumble. Letting himself weep for his sister.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” I told him, not even knowing if I believed it myself.

  Sawyer’s arms around me tightened, and even though his shoulders no longer shook like he was crying, I still felt them tremble uncontrollably. “No,” he murmured against my throat. “It’s not.” He seemed a firm believer in that, which was downright depressing. Really, why would he try to be a better person when he believed everything was going to go to shit in the end? There was nothing worth being good for, no one worth proving himself to.

  I smiled to myself, even though there was absolutely nothing to grin about. “I hope I’m there in the end to prove you wrong, then.” Silently, I added, I hope we’re all there. A testament to Ray and his murderous tendencies. I wanted us all to survive in the end; sue me.

  Sawyer then leaned back, his arms finally loosening around me as his hands moved to my sides. Even though he was on his knees and his head was pretty much level with my breasts—which you could totally see through the wet, white fabric of my shirt—his emerald eyes remained leveled with mine.

  Bloodshot as they were, they were still beautiful eyes. Emeralds sitting in a handsome face, eyes that anyone could get lost in. That face and those eyes played a huge part in how easy it was for Sawyer to reel the girls in. Even me. Because, d
eep down, the mess that was Sawyer Salvatore was exactly the kind of mess I liked.

  When he said nothing, only stared at me and made me feel all different kinds of confused, I spoke softly, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” I set my hands on his and pushed them off my hips. We locked eyes, and with one hand on the shower curtain, I couldn’t help but feel like I shouldn’t leave him.

  Fucking stupid.

  What was even stupider? Me, running my other hand down his face, my fingertips catching his stubble. Just a quick touch, a tender caress I hated to call a caress, down his right cheek and along his square jaw.

  Oh, that face. That face got him into so much trouble.

  I said nothing as my hand fell away from his face, and I turned to climb out. This time, he let me go. This time he merely watched me as I went, my clothes and hair dripping onto the tile below. I grabbed a towel before leaving the bathroom, doing my best to dry myself off. Declan would be back with my own clothes soon enough.

  That was…not a situation that should be repeated. I should know better by now than to get lost in the mess that was Sawyer. Oh, well. He had his drugs, and I had mine.

  Mine just happened to have dicks on them.

  Chapter Fourteen – Declan

  It was stupid of me to think I’d grab everything from the dorm and the store and return with no problems. Just plain stupid. With how crazy everything was, with how topsy-turvy my life had become, I should’ve known we wouldn’t go a single day without something happening. Granted, it wasn’t something huge, but it was enough.

  Walking up to Sawyer’s front door, lugging a backpack full of clothes for Ash and a bag from the store with everything she said she’d need—including a pill I did not want to think too much about—I thought I’d grab the key from my pocket and go right on in.

  But I was wrong. I supposed I still could’ve done so, but that would’ve meant ignoring the box resting just outside the front door.