The Mercy Academy Box Set: A Complete High School Bully Romance Series

by Lane Hart

  “I’m serious mom. A friend needs our help. Could we take them in?”

  “Them? I thought you said kid, singular.”

  “Actually, it’s two young kids…”

  “Two!” she exclaims.

  “And Maddie, who is my age.”

  “Jesus, Aric,” she falls back in the chair again like I took all the air out of her. “A girl your age has two children already? That’s awful, but it sounds like she got herself into that situation, honey.”

  “No, mom. Maddie is their older sister, and she’s the only one who takes care of them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Her parents haven’t been around for years. She struggles to get by, but she does it. Barely. Now she needs help.”

  “What’s going on with you? Why are you so gung-ho about being the one to help them?”

  “Because…I don’t know!” I say when I throw my uninjured arm up in the air. “Because no one else will help; and if they get split up, it will be awful for them. They’re a family. They should be together!”

  “That’s so sweet, honey. It’s great to see you wanting to help others instead of…”

  “Being a spoiled dick?” I supply.

  “I was going to say a self-entitled bully, but your words work too,” she says. “Give me their names and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Seriously?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Seriously. If they’re important to you, then I want to try and help too.”

  I’m off the sofa and tackling her in a hug with my good arm a second later. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “No, thank you, sweetie. I thought you were going to ask for a new car. This is so much better!”

  Chapter 33

  Maddie

  The lawyer’s office was a bust. Or lawyer offices I should say. No one would take me, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, seriously. They all basically told me that I didn’t have a chance of getting Matt and Mandy back unless I could show proof of income above poverty level to prove I can afford to take care of them.

  What I wanted to tell them was that I’ve been doing just fine raising them for the past three years on my own. But I couldn’t and it wouldn’t matter. In fact, telling them how long we’ve been without parents would probably make things worse.

  My last stop of the day before coming home was to the DSS office since they wouldn’t return any of my phone calls.

  After waiting forever, a case worker told me that Matt and Mandy have already been placed in a foster home and would be kept together at least. She promised to check with the foster parents to see if they would allow me to have visitation.

  Until I see them and hold them and check them over for injuries, I won’t be able to sleep or eat or…function.

  Seeing Aric sitting on my steps, right arm in a sling, his head bent over his phone, waiting for me even though he should be in school makes my heart swell because at least I know I won’t be alone tonight.

  “Hey,” I say in greeting, causing him to glance up from the device.

  “Hey!” he replies, and then he’s on his feet and pulling me to him. “Any luck today?”

  “No, fucking attorneys all blew me off,” I mutter against his chest, wishing I could drown myself in his comforting, rich boy scent to forget about everything else going on. I’m so weak from exhaustion that I sway in his hold.

  “Have you had anything to eat today?” Aric asks, and I shake my head. “Not since lunch yesterday.”

  “Come home with me. My parents invited you to have dinner with us.”

  “No, I can’t,” I tell him when I pull away. “You didn’t tell them about me, about what’s going on, did you?”

  “I’ve told them a lot about the girl I’m in love with,” he answers, which takes some of the sting out.

  “They’re gonna hate me and think I’m a gold digger.”

  “No, they won’t,” he counters. “Please? They want to meet you and help. My dad knows attorneys…”

  “I look horrible. I don’t want to meet them when I may start bawling in my dinner plate.”

  “Come on. It’ll be fine. I promise. If it’s too much, we can go eat in my room,” he offers.

  “Okay,” I finally agree on a heavy sigh, mostly because I’m too tired to argue and too sad to go inside the trailer, knowing that Matt and Mandy aren’t in there.

  “Great! Thank you,” Aric says, sounding way too excited. He takes my hand and I let him pull me up the hill and into the passenger seat of his car.

  When he climbs in the driver seat, I can’t help but tell him, “This is the first time I’ve ever been in your Lamborghini.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Aric replies with a smile as he pulls onto the road, heading to his house. “What do you think? It could be yours in a few months…”

  “I doubt it,” I tell him as I run my fingertips over the door panel. “I can’t go back to school until I figure all of this out.”

  “Hopefully it won’t take long,” he says.

  I stare silently out the window as we wind through the roads, the houses getting bigger and more expensive as we go until we’re in the richest neighborhood in the county.

  Aric gets out first and comes around to hold open my door for me. “Come on. It won’t be as bad as you think.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I tell him as I get out and stand in the driveway with him, staring up at the beautiful, enormous, two-story home in front of us. It’s like something from a magazine, a place where the perfect little rich family would live. And just one house over is the Sullivans’ house…

  Grabbing my hand with his left, Aric intertwines our fingers and then he’s tugging me inside.

  “Mom? Dad? We’re back,” he calls out as soon as we walk through the door.

  “In the dining room!” a woman, who I’m guessing is his mother, replies.

  The interior is just as nice as the outside, all high ceilings and immaculately clean, not a speck of dust or a single item out of place. Even the magazines spread out on the glass coffee table in the living room are carefully arranged, fanned out an equal distance apart.

  It’s nothing like our rusty, rundown trailer that still smells like the cigarettes my mother smoked. That’s all she left us, her stench. No matter how much I clean it, the scent always lurks, a constant reminder that I’ll never escape poverty no matter how hard I may try. It’s my family’s destiny, and I don’t belong in Aric’s perfect world.

  He tries to urge me down a hallway, but I dig my heels into the hardwood floors.

  “I can’t…I’m sorry,” I tell him, unwilling to endure his parents’ loathing of me tonight when I’m already so disgusted with myself for screwing everything up.

  Aric lets my hand go, and then he’s cupping the side of my face and placing a soft kiss on my lips. It’s the first one since before homecoming. It’s not demanding or urgent with need. Instead, his lips are just a gentle coaxing, his way of telling me that I’m safe here with him no matter what.

  “I know you don’t fully trust me just yet,” he says softly as his forehead stays pressed to mine and his fingers stroke along my jaw. “I’ll have to earn that confidence you had in me back after I messed up and hurt you. I get that, baby, I do. But I need you to have a little faith in me right now, okay? Because I promise you that I am never going to hurt you again, especially not now, today, when you’ve been trying to take on the world all alone.”

  I’ve run out of tears to cry or else I would probably be a blubbering mess after his sweet words. Unable to speak, I give him a nod of agreement and then try to push all of the pain and sadness down for just a few minutes to finally meet his parents.

  Aric takes my hand again, and I let him propel me forward, giving him the benefit of the doubt that his parents won’t tear down what little is left of my confidence.

  “Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, Maddie,” he announces while I use his much bigger body as a shield in front of me when we first walk into
the dining room. But then he lets go of my hand to slip his left arm around my back to draw me forward so that I’m standing next to him.

  “Hi, it’s, ah, nice to meet you,” I tell them when I finally lift my eyes to the couple at the end of the table before two more chairs screech, drawing my attention to them.

  “Maddie!” my sister, my sister, exclaims as she jumps up and runs around the table to me.

  My mouth falls open in shock and surprise and relief as I drop to my knees to wrap her in my arms just as Matt gets up from his seat silently and piles in on us.

  “I was so worried about you two!” I tell them as I slam my eyes shut to pray that this isn’t a dream, that they’re really here with me. Newly replenished tears race down my cheeks as I squeeze my brother and sister to me even tighter.

  Once I’m certain that this is real, that they won’t disappear, I release my hold on them a little to see their faces. “What…how…what are you doing here?” I stammer in confusion.

  “We’re gonna live with the Princes,” Matt explains. “All three of us.”

  “But…I don’t understand,” I say when I’m finally able to stand up and look to Aric and then his parents, who I just met thirty seconds ago, while trying to wipe the wetness from my face. “How did you do this?” I ask them.

  “Who wants to make an ice cream sundae for dessert?” Aric’s dad asks, and Matt and Mandy both raise their hands. “Wow, so quiet and polite. Maybe you two can show Aric and Caroline a thing or two. Come with me to the kitchen and tell me what sort of toppings you like.”

  “You have more than one?” Mandy asks as she and Matt follow his dad out of the dining room.

  “Oh yeah. We’ve got chocolate syrup, sprinkles, M&Ms…” I hear him say as they disappear so I can get some answers.

  Clearing his throat, Aric is the first to speak while his mom stands up from her seat at the table and rests her hands on the back of it. “Mom and dad are fostering Matt and Mandy. There were a lot of hoops to jump through on short notice but a sizable donation to the program helped speed things along.”

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you were worried about them,” he says.

  Lowering my voice, I say, “Aric, I didn’t need you to do this!”

  “Last night you called me because you needed my help and I wanted to help.”

  “I appreciate you helping, but I was going to figure out how to get them back on my own,” I reply.

  “You’re not their mother, Maddie,” Aric says, his words so harsh that I feel the physical blow to my chest. “You’re their sister. And you’ve sacrificed enough to take care of them. You deserve a break. And my mom is thrilled they’re here. Dad too.”

  “Aric’s right,” his mom says, speaking for the first time. “I’ve always wanted more children. Matt and Mandy are just wonderful. They insist on sharing a room even though they could have their own. Last night at the children’s shelter they were separated into girl and boy rooms, which I believe upset them.”

  “Yeah,” I say around the knot in my throat thinking about Mandy crying herself to sleep because she was someplace new and alone while Matt probably didn’t get any rest worrying about her. “They share a room at home.”

  “Well, as long as they’re comfortable,” she says with a small smile. “And you’ll have your own room too.”

  “Me?” I ask as I look between Aric and his mother.

  “Aric was certain you would want to stay here with them,” she says.

  “I…I can’t.”

  “Sure you can,” Aric says. “At least until you graduate. You won’t have to worry about rent or any other bills, just studying to stay at the top of our class.”

  “I don’t know. This is a lot to take in right now.”

  “You need to eat a decent meal and get some rest tonight,” Aric tells me. “Then tomorrow we can talk. If you want to go back to the trailer tomorrow night, then I won’t stop you, but I know you would be happier here, with them.”

  Aric’s mom goes around the table and picks up a huge empty plate and then starts spooning roast beef, potatoes and carrots on it, adding a few fluffy rolls.

  “Here you go, Maddie. Dig in, and there’s plenty for seconds if you’re still hungry,” she says when she offers me the plate.

  I open my mouth to refuse, but then my stomach growls so loudly that the neighbors probably heard. So instead, I accept the offer and tell her, “Thank you, Mrs. Prince.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. And thank you for making my son a better person,” she says while reaching up to pat Aric’s cheek. “Now, I’ll leave you two to eat and go see how the sundaes are coming along.”

  “You’re pissed, aren’t you?” Aric asks when I stand there frozen with the heavy plate in my hands.

  “I’m…I don’t know what I am,” I tell him honestly. “How could I be mad at you for helping my brother and sister?”

  “Easy,” he says as he turns to the table and uses his good hand to pile food up on an empty plate. “You hate pity, and that’s what you think all this is.”

  “Isn’t it?” I ask when I take a seat in one of the chairs, too exhausted to keep myself upright any longer.

  “No, baby,” he responds as he finally sits down across from me to dig in. Reaching over, he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “This is what you do for people you care about – you take care of them, just like you’ve been taking care of Matt and Mandy for years without any help, not because you felt sorry for them or an obligation, but because you just take care of the ones you love. Period. Now eat before I come over there and force feed you.”

  I shake my head and smile weakly before I do as I’m told for once.

  Chapter 34

  Aric

  Maddie stayed the night, which shocked the shit out of me. Although, it wasn’t all that surprising when Mandy asked Maddie to stay with her and Matt until she fell asleep.

  I’m so tired from staying up all last night holding Maddie while she cried that it doesn’t take me long to pass out.

  A light, feathery touch on the side of my face is what pulls me out of a deep sleep. When I peek out of one eye, I find Maddie’s face hovering inches above mine. The soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminates her long red waves that are hanging down her shoulders and draped onto my chest, making her look like an angel.

  “Hey,” I say hoarsely as I reach out to pat the side of one of her legs that’s straddling my waist. “You okay, baby? Did you get some sleep?”

  “Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “I woke up and realized that I didn’t thank you for what you did.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” she replies. “I should have thanked you instead of getting defensive. I’m not used to having anyone do nice things for me.”

  “I want to do lots of nice things for you,” I tell her right before her mouth slants over mine. As soon as our dueling tongues touch, I get hard and Maddie notices. She grinds her body down on my length, making me groan into our kiss.

  When she pulls away, breaking our kiss, I slip my palm up from her thigh to her waist about to urge her to come back down to my mouth when Maddie grabs the bottom of her t-shirt, one of mine she borrowed to sleep in, and jerks it over her head, leaving her naked from the waist up.

  “Fuck, baby, what are you doing?” I ask her when my shaft swells even more as I cup one of her beautiful tits.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Making me crazy,” I mutter because I think I know where this is headed and I’m all for it if Maddie is sure.

  “I want you inside of me,” Maddie whispers when she leans down to crush her mouth to mine again.

  “What about waiting…until…graduation?” I ask against her lips between deep, urgent kisses.

  “I’m tired of waiting,” she says, rolling off of me to her side to shove her shorts and panties down and off before pulling the covers down to resume h
er position on top of me, now completely naked with only my boxer briefs between us.

  “You’re sure?” I ask, stroking my palm up to her amazing ass and back down again.

  “Yes. You’re not a distraction. You won’t be a regret. Ever,” she says, confidently slapping both of her palms down on my chest. “I want you to be my first, right now, tonight, because I love you and I need you like I’ve never needed anyone before.”

  How could I fucking argue with that? Maddie’s a smart girl, and I know she wouldn’t be here in my room on top of me naked unless she was 100% certain that she wants to do this. My only concern is that I can’t throw her on her back and take her how I want because of my fucked-up shoulder.

  So, rather than keep trying to talk her out of her decision, I simply smile up at her and tell her, “I love you too.”

  Grinning back at me, she says, “Sort of figured as much when you convinced your parents to take in my brother and sister.”

  “Good. Now, how about you straddle my face so I can kiss you.”

  “How can you kiss me if I’m…oh,” she replies, her lips parting with understanding.

  “Having one good arm sucks. Any other time I would already have you on your back with my face buried between your legs,” I explain. I swat at her bottom and then suggest, “Why don’t you grab a condom from that top drawer for us before we get too carried away and forget it?”

  “Okay. This one?” Maddie asks when she stretches over to the nightstand on my right, making her bare, heavy tits sway as she works the drawer open and grabs a rubber from the box. Before she’s finished, I scoot over and latch my lips around her closest nipple. My chest swells with masculine pride when her entire body shivers above me from that one move. And while I love the way her nipple responds to my mouth, I’m desperate to taste her somewhere else.

  Reaching around to squeeze Maddie’s incredible ass with my left hand, I drag her up my chest until she’s sitting on my face while my tongue licks a path down her slit.