Trophy: High School Bully Romance (Kennedy Academy Book 3)

by Mae Doyle

  “You need to tell me exactly what you saw.”

  Chapter 7

  Nora

  I had no idea that any person could be this mad with another human and not kill them, but Teague somehow managed to make himself release my neck. I rubbed it and rubbed it, but it’s still sore and I know that it’s going to bruise.

  Not that anyone at school will care that it’s going to look like someone tried to strangle me. In fact, they’ll probably all be disappointed that my attacker didn’t succeed. Everyone at Kennedy Academy hates me, including the hot guy now staring at me. Especially the hot guy now staring at me. He always looks at me like he’s hungry, and now is no different. I swallow hard, trying to clear my thoughts.

  I know that I need to answer his question, but I’m wondering how vague I can be without getting in trouble and making him angrier. Now that he knows I was in his precious little storage unit, there’s no way that he’s going to let me get away from here until he knows exactly what I saw.

  The thought gives me chills. If I had known what I would find in there, I never would have taken the key. It took me a few hours once I got back to my room to piece everything together and to figure out exactly what I had seen, but I think I got it all straight.

  I’d love to ask Teague if I’m right, but he looks like he has murder on the mind and I’m the one on the menu.

  “Just a bunch of boxes.” The lie flows easily from my mouth and I hope that he buys it. Just a bunch of boxes…that I opened up and looked in. In fact, I spent so much time digging through the boxes that Jeremy even came to the door to ask if was okay and ready to go.

  Thank God I didn’t let him know what I found. Teague would kill him. He’s only keeping me alive because…

  Because why? I frown and look at Teague, trying to read his thoughts, but it’s impossible. Every single time that I think we may actually have a connection, something happens. As much as my body wants Teague to touch me and to love me, some part of me is always going to be afraid of him, and for good reason.

  If what I saw in the boxes is real, then I haven’t been as afraid of Teague as I should be.

  “What was in the boxes, Nora?” He reaches out and takes my hand, lightly running his thumb across the back of my knuckles before bringing it up to his mouth and kissing my fingertips. I gasp as the heat from his mouth flows through me, settling deep in my stomach. And between my legs. Of course.

  “Paperwork.” I’m trying to be as vague as possible, but I have a feeling that he’s going to see straight through me. There’s nothing stupid about Teague. I’m learning that over and over.

  “Mmhmm, paperwork. Paperwork and some other things, right?”

  Lots of other things. More money than I could count. Some guns, which I made sure not to touch, and even a velvet pouch full of diamonds. I have no idea where Teague got all of those things, but something tells me he didn’t happen upon them by accident. There’s no reason why he would have so much stuff stashed away in a storage unit, but he does. Or did. I lost the key, so now I don’t know what happens.

  Even though I try my best to keep my face neutral, he must see all of this written clearly across it, because his face darkens. “You went through the boxes, didn’t you, Nora?” His voice is darker and thicker than I’ve heard before, and I shiver a little as it crawls through my veins. I can’t help but feel like I’m drowning in his voice every time he talks to me, especially when he says my name.

  I should be terrified of Teague, and I am, but there’s something about him that pulls me towards him. It’s stupid, really, for me to feel so drawn to someone who hates me as much as he does, but I can’t help it.

  I nod, keeping my eyes locked on his, barely breathing. “I did. I’m so sorry. But I don’t know what any of it was. I have no idea where it came from or anything, and I promise that I won’t tell anyone what I saw.” I pause, and then remember that I want to drive one particular point home. “Jeremy didn’t see anything, Teague, I promise. He waited in the car, I made sure of that.”

  It takes a herculean effort for me to look up and into his eyes. I’m not sure what I’m going to see there, and I’m terrified that he’s going to hate me. If he still looks like he wants to kill me…well, then I better run. Swallowing hard, I prepare myself to look at up at him, waiting on his verdict.

  “Did you take anything? Besides my key, I mean.” He’s stopped stroking my hand and is now squeezing it, hard. Harder than is comfortable. Gasping, I look down at how he has our fingers interlaced. “Look at me, Nora.”

  I do, and I don’t expect the feeling I get when I lock eyes with him. His are darker than normal, dangerous and full of eddies and tides that could easily pull me out from the safety of my real life and drown me. I don’t want to know what happens when Teague is really mad at someone. I don’t want to know what he’ll do to me.

  “I swear, I didn’t.” I’d been tempted, of course. Who wouldn’t be tempted by stacks of cash and a bag full of diamonds? But as much as I wanted the money to improve my life, I knew that it was too dangerous. “I left everything.”

  “Well, I’d like to believe you, but it’s not like I can go and check, is it? Since you threw the key away like an idiot.” His words sting and I duck my head to avoid looking at him. After a moment, he continues. “Think you can find it?”

  My head snaps up. “The key?” I don’t want him to put my head back under water. The thought is terrifying, and I pull my hand away from his. “Please, no –”

  He cuts me off. “I’m not going to dunk you again, you idiot. But you owe me.” He stands, pulling me with him, his eyes searching the creek. “That key is gone, and it was the only one, you know.”

  I didn’t know. A chill runs through me as I think about what we’ll have to do to get back into the storage unit. “Can’t you just leave everything there?”

  He laughs, but it’s hollow and echoing. I don’t like the way it wraps around me, binding me to him. He’s dangerous, I see that now. More dangerous than I thought before. If I thought that him chasing me down in the woods was as bad as it could get, then I was wrong.

  Dead wrong.

  “No, Nora, I can’t. I’m holding it all there for someone who may need it at any moment. Now that you broke into it and then lost the key, we’re going to have to cut the lock and move it.”

  Wait, what? “We’re going to have to move it? Don’t you mean that you’ll have to move it?”

  Knowing Teague, I’m not going to be able to get out of this so easily. I fucked up, big time, and I have a feeling that he’s going to punish me by making me help him get into the storage unit and then move the things that are there.

  My suspicions are confirmed when he reaches out and pulls me go him. I lean into him, my mind screaming at me to fight it, my body wanting to relax into him and feel the support that his offers. I’m torn in half. I may as well be two separate people for the way that he makes me feel.

  “Of course not, Nora. You wanted to be involved so badly, so there’s no way that I’m going to leave you out of the fun now.” He strokes my hair, gently working out any knots that formed when he plunged my head under the water.

  His touch is mesmerizing. I know that I need to fight him and stand up, but when he turns his head and brushes his lips against mine, I open them, allowing him to kiss me. The same pull that I feel whenever we’re together shoots through me. I’m drawn to him, no matter how dangerous it is.

  And I’m beginning to see just how dangerous being around Teague really may be.

  Teague

  I didn’t mean to kiss Nora, and I sure as hell didn’t expect her to kiss me back, but her soft little mouth was right there, begging for me to kiss her. Even though she almost ruined everything for me and for my mom, I can’t help but want her.

  It’s a fucking sickness, and I’m beginning to think that the only cure is to be as far away from her as possible. She moans, leaning into me, and I pull back, pushing her off of me, but still grabbing he
r wrist with one hand.

  “You ready to go, Nora?” As much as I like the wet t-shirt thing that she has going on and the way that her nipples are protruding through her sweater, we really should get her home and changed. I need to figure out how I’m going to get into the storage unit without having to hire a locksmith to come and cut the lock.

  But if I’m honest with myself, I also just need to be away from Nora right now. Out of the woods. Someplace where there are lights and walls, with electricity and other people. It’s the only way that I think I’ll be able to really keep my hands off of her. The sight of her, dripping wet and pathetic, twists something in me, even though I’m the reason that she looks like that. If we continue to stand out here in the woods then I’m going to forget why I’m so pissed at her. She does something to me – softens a part of me that’s not meant to soften, and I don’t like it.

  “Now?” She shivers and looks around us. “Where?”

  “Home.” I drop my grip to her hand and pull her from the woods, headed back to my truck. Even though I’m trying to look as calm as possible, my mind is whirring as I think about how in the world I’m going to fix what Nora did. I can’t turn to my mom for help – she doesn’t even know about the storage unit. She doesn’t know that I have these things for my dad – from my dad – and even if she did, she wouldn’t want them. I can easily see her pulling everything out of the unit in a rage and throwing it away, burning the money, and kicking me out.

  This is between me and my dad. I like to think of it as an insurance policy. Even though he’s a dick who left when I was younger, he didn’t leave us completely high and dry. That money is there for when we need it, and the papers? Well, the papers are there to bring down one of the most powerful families in Blacksburg, but only if necessary.

  The Wards don’t like to cause a fuss or stir the pot, but we will when our family is threatened, and Nora threatened everything about my way of life, even though she didn’t know that’s what she was doing. Normally, that would mean that I needed to destroy her, but something’s holding me back.

  Goddammit. There’s something about Nora that’s gotten under my skin. I need to fix this fuckup with the storage unit, and fast. The fact that the key is just out here, even though it would be damn near impossible for someone to find, gives me chills. There’s always someone waiting to take your place at the top. I learned that a long damn time ago, and I’m not interested in giving anyone the chance to knock me down.

  We drive back to my house in silence, and I’m relieved when we pull up and my mom isn’t there. I don’t give a shit if she’s playing tennis or at a charity event as long as I don’t have to worry about her seeing Nora come in looking like a half-drowned rat.

  “Go change.” We’re standing on the front porch while I think, and she turns to the door to do as I asked, but then turns back.

  “Teague,” she begins, but then she stops when she sees the look on my face.

  “I told you to go change, Nora. Or do you think that ignoring what I need you to do is the best option for you right now?” I’m not going to hurt her, not now. When I had her head under the water and felt her muscles twisting and straining against me, part of me wanted to kill her. I wanted to see the last bubbles of her breath float up around her head until she stilled, but I’m managed to stop myself before it got to that point.

  It’s like I’m coming down from that high, now. I know that the low is going to be bad, and I just hope that this is all worth it.

  ***

  “What do we do now?” Nora joins me in kitchen where I’ve made us both a snack. Without answering, I push her plate towards her. She opens her mouth to argue and probably to accuse me of trying to poison her, but she clamps it shut when I lean over and take a bite of her sandwich.

  She really has to stop thinking that I’m going to poison her. I could have killed her today in the woods, so why the hell would I bring her here to do it? “You gotta give up on the whole poisoning thing, Nora,” I tell her around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly.

  “You did almost kill me in the creek just now.” She takes a pointed bite of her sandwich and then drops it back down to her plate, glaring at me. Her hair is still dripping wet and she has a few small sticks caught in it that she must not have noticed when she changed shirts. My hand hovers near her head and I consider pulling them out, but I stop myself.

  I don’t need to help her. I don’t need to groom her, for fuck’s sake. We just have to get through all of this and then things can go back to normal. Me hating her. Her driving me nuts.

  She’s still glaring at me, even as she eats her sandwich, which is fine. She can glare all she wants, but now that she stole my key and then threw it into the fucking creek, she has to help me. We have to make sure that nobody finds out about the storage unit, least of all my mom.

  Who, by the way, then takes that inopportune moment to come sashaying in through the kitchen window, her tennis skirt flapping as she hurries through the door. Seeing the two of us in the kitchen, she stops and runs a hand through her hair, looking more flustered than I’ve seen her in years.

  “Hey, you two. Having an afternoon snack?” Her eyes fall on Nora and she frowns. “You just get out of the shower or something?”

  Nora nods and takes a huge bite of her sandwich. My mom narrows her eyes a little and then turns to me. “Everything okay here?”

  “Peachy.” The lie feels thick coming out of my mouth, but my mom doesn’t seem to notice. She slides her eyes over Nora again, wrinkling her nose a little when she’s hit with the full smell of the creek water. Nora stinks, there’s no doubt about it, and I’m surprised that it took my mom this long to sniff her out.

  Before she can say anything, though, I grab Nora by the arm and pull her away from the counter. “Let’s go study,” I tell her, my fingers digging into her arm. She grabs the rest of her sandwich off of her plate and follows after me, casting one glance at my mom over her shoulder, but not arguing.

  Good. The less that my mom knows about everything, including the storage unit, the better. Right now, I just want to get Nora out of her sight and figure out what the hell I’m going to do. We make it all the way up the stairs and into my room before she starts talking again, which has got to be a fucking record for her since she always has something to say.

  “You want to explain what’s going on?” I stare, aghast, as she perches on the edge of my bed and crosses her arms across her chest, tipping her head to the side a little as she looks at me. “Or should I go talk to your mom about what I found?”

  “You do that,” I tell her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her off of my bed, “and we’ll pay another visit to the creek.” She just looked so damn comfortable sitting on my bed that it was unnerving. I don’t like the way she made herself at home in my space, but I have to remind myself that this isn’t the first time she’s been in here.

  “Then what’s the plan?” She pops the last bite of sandwich into her mouth and hops up to lean against my desk, dangerously close to the stack of papers where she found my storage unit key. I scowl and lean back in my desk chair, propping my feet up next to her.

  “The plan is to figure out how to move everything so that I can make sure it’s all locked up properly again since you fucked that up.” I can feel the beginning of a plan forming in my mind, but I need a little time to think it through before I know if it’s a good option or not.

  “Why don’t you tell me what was in there and then I’ll help you figure out where we should stash it?” When I don’t answer right away, she grabs my foot and shoves it, knocking it off of the desk and onto the floor.

  “Shit, Nora, what was that for?” I stand up and close the gap between us like I’m drawn to her. We’re magnetic. We’re explosive. There’s nothing healthy about the two of us being so close to each other all the time, but I can’t fucking help it.

  “To make you listen to me. Look, Teague,” she says, sighing, “I want to help you, but if you won�
�t tell me what’s going on then I don’t know how I can. So…spill.”

  She’s breathing hard and I can see her chest rising and falling under her thin shirt. She tossed on one of her old t-shirts when we got back from the woods. Not only is she covered in paint splatters, but it has a few holes in it where I can see her skin peeping through. The sight of her stomach through the holes and the way it hangs from her skinny frame makes me want to reach out and caress her, but I know that that’s not a good idea.

  “You know what? I’m going to handle this on my own.” Nora takes a step back, surprise on her face. I’m sure that she thinks this is another one of my tricks, but I don’t care. I can’t have her in my space right now if I’m going to concentrate. She’s distracting and, worse than that, makes me worry.

  I don’t have the luxury of worrying about another person right now, which is why she needs to leave.

  “You don’t want my help?” She cocks her head to the side a little, reminding me of a puppy. “Is this a trick?”

  “Maybe.” My voice sounds gruff, even to my ears, but I don’t care. I have to get her out of here so that I can clear my head. “I’m going for a run. You can go do whatever, as long as you stay the fuck out of my room.”

  “I’m coming with you.” She straightens up her back a little like it’s going to make the idea of her keeping pace with me any less pathetic.

  “You?” I laugh and push her aside as I walk for my door. My sneakers are downstairs, and the more I think about it, the more appealing the idea of a run is. I have to get out of this house before I suffocate.

  “Yeah, me.” She shoves past me and darts down the hall to her room. “Just wait a second, I have shorts here somewhere!” Her voice carries to me from her open door. I pause, leaning against the wall, my eyes closed. Nora changing clothes. Nora sweaty from running. There’s a million mental images running through my head, none of them helpful.