Tempting the Bully: The High School Bully Collection

by Bella King

  I decided to bring Atlas with me. Maybe he would want to watch me swim. Hell, we could even have sex in the locker room afterward. It was where he had first showed affection toward me by saving me from Jared. It would be a nice throwback.

  I met Atlas outside of the school building, the air full of sun and heat. It was the end of spring, but it felt like we were already halfway through summer. Atlas was standing next to his car, smiling at me in the same cocky way that he always did, except now, I didn’t see it as such. I saw it as rightful confidence.

  “Good day at school?” Atlas asked, leaning in for a kiss as I walked up to him, my hips swinging.

  “Not too bad,” I said, pressing my lips against his. The feeling of his hot skin against mine never got old. I loved to kiss him. “But I think we should stay at the school so I can go to swim practice.”

  Atlas raised an eyebrow. “Have you girl finally switched to bikinis?”

  I laughed. “No, Atlas, but Jennifer said I needed to make practice, or they would cut me from the team.”

  “Harsh,” he responded, wrinkling his nose.

  “Yeah, but I get where she’s coming from. We haven’t spent much time together since you and I started dating.”

  “Well, she doesn’t like me,” Atlas said, shaking his head.

  “She’s warming up to you a bit. I mean, you haven’t been mean to her at all,” I replied.

  “I never was,” he insisted, leaning against the hood of his black sports car.

  “I think you were,” I said, letting out a chuckle.

  “No way. I was mean to you,” he said.

  “Which meant you were mean to her. Remember at the lake when you kicked her clothes into the water. You sunk her phone with them.”

  “Oh shit, yeah, you’re right,” he said, hanging his head.

  I pushed his chin up with my finger. “Yeah, but don’t feel bad. She just has some bad experiences, and she’s not being persuaded by your cock like I am.”

  “Maybe she should be,” he replied, cracking a goofy smile.

  I slapped his arm. “That belongs to me, buddy.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, smiling. “It’s all yours, baby.”

  I smiled at him sweetly. I was happy that we had a good thing going, but I wanted Jennifer to feel better about it. Rachel and Beth hardly cared, but they had always been that way. They thought Atlas was cute long before I gave a damn about him.

  Jennifer was the only issue I had, and Atlas’s father was the only issue that he had. If there was a way that we could both get these things settled, it would be clear sailing. I didn’t think it would be so easy, but I wasn’t the type of person to leave something like this unsettled. My mother had taught me to finish something before starting the next, and I wanted to wrap things up nicely at Granite Hills before we went to college. It felt like the right thing to do.

  The first step for me was to attend swim practice again. I think Atlas would enjoy watching me swim anyway, even if I wasn’t wearing a bikini doing it. I thought my one-piece looked sexy without having to show that much skin. It was tight and sat high on my hips.

  We had a few hours to kill before practice though. I wanted to get a bite to eat with him, so I jumped into his car, burning myself on the seatbelt while I tried to buckle up. It had been sitting in the sun all day, soaking up the rays from the sun. This was shaping up to be one hot summer.

  Chapter 25

  What goes around, comes around.

  There was a diner located a few miles down the road from the school. If you got there early enough, you could get a good seat before any other students arrived. When it got too hot outside, the youth of Granite Hills would gather there instead of on the hills, filling their bellies before heading out to the lake.

  Atlas and I were skipping the lake today, but we still wanted to get in some greasy fries before swim practice. Atlas ate like a tank, consuming everything within a two-mile radius of him every time he was hungry. Now seemed like one of those times.

  “Damn, it’s so hot,” he said, rolling down all four windows in the car as we sped out of the school parking lot.

  “Yeah, and it’s not even summer yet,” I said, shaking my hair into the wind to dry the sweat that had already started to form since stepping into Atlas’s car. Maybe black hadn’t been the best choice of color for a car.

  Atlas sped up, causing wind to billow in from the outside. It smelled like pollen and clovers, and thankfully I wasn’t allergic. I loved the way the end of spring smelled, and it saddened me that not everyone got to enjoy it. I loved the freshness of new life, the warmth of the sun finally taking more than a few hours to cross the sky, and the energy that everyone seemed to have this time of year.

  I was excited about summer, and the free time I would have before I packed up and went to Granite Hills University. I hadn’t gotten enough time with Atlas because of how much studying I’d been doing leading up to my final exams. I still needed to pass them to get a scholarship.

  Part of me was still worried that my father wouldn’t have the money to help me with school. For now, he was paying for everything with his new job at H & H, but the company had been in a slump, and if it continued to go downhill, I didn’t know if he would have a job there for too much longer.

  I had voiced these concerns to Atlas, and he felt the same concern, but he assured me that he wouldn’t let his father lay off mine without first trying everything that they could to increase quarterly earnings. I didn’t know much about the situation within the company, but my father already seemed stressed about what he had walked into.

  My first challenge wasn’t something that I had no control over. It was the relationship that was slowly deteriorating with Jennifer after Atlas and I got together. I don’t know why she still didn’t trust him. It was like she was waiting for him to make some grand gesture that would win over her approval, but he had already done that for me. He saved me from Jared, and that was grand enough for me.

  But Jennifer was a hard nut to crack. She wouldn’t be so easy to please.

  I stuck my hand out the window as we raced down the smooth black road toward the diner. I imagined that my hand was a surfboard, riding the waves of wind as they hit my hand. I tilted it up, being dragged by the wind into the air, then dove down, the wind dragging my hand down with it.

  I loved to be in the car when Atlas drove. The long winding roads of Granite Hills were an absolute joy to travel through, with tall pine trees on either side and fresh black pavement put down every few years. Granite Hills was an amazing place if you were in the right wealth bracket, and together, Atlas and I were doing just fine.

  The parking lot in front of the diner was just starting to fill up. We had arrived early enough to get a good seat. Atlas parked the car in a wide spot, the only one left in the lot. There were three wide spots, unevenly measured at the diner. The old building had been standing for as long as Granite Hills existed, and with the growth that had arrived, some of the wide spaces had been split in half, leaving just three remaining.

  The students who owned large SUVs were shit out of luck if they pulled up to the diner during peak hours. They would have to park on the side of the road half a mile down, as the narrow spots were too small for their cars to pull into.

  Atlas may have been built like a tank, but he didn’t drive one. I appreciated that, because a lot of the football team insisted that you weren’t a real man unless you drove the biggest hunk of metal you good get your grubby little hands on. I disagreed. If car size was any measure of how big your dick was, then Atlas would have owned a monster truck.

  We entered the diner, Atlas pulling open the large wooden door by its brass handle and setting aside so that I could enter first. He had become such a gentleman in the last few weeks. I wondered if he would stay like that forever, or his jerkish ways would return after some time. To be honest, I liked it when he was a bit cruel sometimes.

  Other students were seated at the wide booths when we go
t there, but there was plenty of room for Atlas and me to snatch a booth by the window. We sat down, and a server was immediately at our table with sticky menus and two plastic cups full of ice-cold water.

  “I think I’m going to get the family meal,” Atlas said, barely glancing at the menu.

  We had been here so many times, that we had both memorized what was available. It was worth glancing down at it just to remind yourself what the options were though. Sometimes you would be in the mood for something other than what you always got, but that wasn’t the case today. Atlas always got the family meal, which was enough food for several people. He would always scarf it down faster than I could finish my regular meal.

  I just wanted fries today. They were hot, salty, and barely drained from the grease they were cooked in. That’s just the way they should be. Granite Hills was full of upscale restaurants and chic boutiques, but the diner was where the best food was at. Hands down.

  Atlas and I were served, and we just started digging in when Atlas jerked his head up. “Hey, what’s he doing here?” Atlas said, staring through the window behind me with a gaze so intense you would have thought he had seen a ghost.

  I snapped my head around, following his eyes until I met the most unlikely of people to be lurking around the diner parking lot. It was Jared, but how had h gotten out of jail?

  “What the fuck?” I exclaimed, ducking down into the booth and crawling onto Atlas’s lap.

  “He must be out on bail or something, the bastard,” Atlas growled. “I ought to kill that asshole,” he said, placing his hands on the table and beginning to rise.

  I tugged on his shirt. “Stop it. Don’t let him see us,” I whispered loudly.

  “Why not? He’s probably here looking for us. We should go say hi,” he replied, hate burning in his eyes.

  “No,” I pleaded, tugging his shirt to get him to stay low. The last thing I wanted was for Atlas to get in trouble trying to defend me from Jared. He had caused enough damage already. I didn’t want him to get close to my darling and hurt him.

  “I’m going to punch that fucker’s lights out,” Atlas said, trying to stand up.

  “Get down,” I said, grabbing his thick wrist and yanking him down.

  He fell back into his seat. Heads were starting to turn at the diner, and I didn’t like it. If Jared saw us, he might try to come inside and start something. As it stood now, he was just examining the cars outside. I wondered if he was looking for Atlas’s.

  “What is he doing?” Atlas asked, squinting his eyes and watching Jared like a hawk.

  I lifted my head up just enough to peek over the dusty windowsill. “Just walking around,” I said.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Atlas said, baring his teeth. “Let’s get him.”

  “I said no. He hasn’t done anything,” I insisted, clutching his shirt to make sure he didn’t spring up and run out of the diner after Jared.

  “Are you crazy? That asshole as done plenty,” he said, snarling the words.

  “And he’s going to jail for it. I’m sure he is. He’s just out on bail, right?”

  “Yeah, and that’s dangerous for him. I’ll kill the bitch if he tries to come in here,” Atlas replied, never taking his eyes off Jared.

  Jared walked casually outside, then rounded the corner and disappeared off to the side of the building. It was possible that he was leaving, but there was no way to tell. I didn’t know what car he drove.

  “I still need to go to swim practice,” I reminded Atlas, trying to distract him from Jared.

  “So, we should go outside,” he replied, jerking himself up out of the chair.

  “Can you calm down for a second?” I complained, my head almost bouncing off the table when I was propelled off Atlas’s lap. He was acting like an animal.

  “I’ll calm down when that fucker is back in jail.”

  “You’ll be the one in jail if you don’t stop. Let’s wait a while and then we can leave.”

  “You need to go there now, right?” He replied, pulling out his phone and showing me the time.

  “No,” I said, but he was right.

  “So, in five minutes.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want any trouble. We can slip out and go back to the school,” I said, my heart still beating fast in my chest from seeing Jared. It was scary to see him out, but who knows what he was up to. Atlas was a big guy, but he could easily get himself into trouble if he just went out and beat Jared to a pulp.

  I didn’t like that Jared was out of jail just as much as Atlas, but I valued our own lives and freedom enough to keep them away from each other. It didn’t need to be like this.

  Chapter 26

  The sun hides, even in the summer.

  Atlas and I didn’t see any sign of Jared as we cautiously crept out of the diner, hand in hand. I was ready to try to stop a full-on charge from Atlas if spotted Jared, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to if Atlas really wanted to do harm. He was triple my size and a hundred times stronger.

  Even though it was getting late and the sun was going down, I felt like it was hotter outside than it was before. The black asphalt shimmered in the tangerine sunlight and the smell of it rose up into my nostril, stinging the sensitive skin inside of my nose with its pungent aroma.

  I climbed into Atlas’s car, a feeling of dread in my gut at what was happening. I needed to visit my father and find out why Jared was out of jail so soon, but I couldn’t give up swim practice for it. Jennifer needed my attention, and I wouldn’t let Jared ruin that. He had already done enough.

  Atlas was quiet on he way back to school, with me rubbing his thigh through his light blue jeans. I still wanted to romp around in the locker rooms after the swim meet, but he looked like he wasn’t in the mood. Maybe that would change after he watched me glide through the crystal clear waters in my navy blue swimsuit with the other girls.

  We were almost late to practice because we had waited so long inside of the diner before leaving. I made Atlas wait longer than five minutes because I wanted to be sure that Jared wasn’t still out there waiting for us. I doubted that he had seen us, but you can never be too careful.

  “Virginia, finally. I thought you weren’t going to come,” Jennifer exclaimed, rushing up to me as Atlas and I entered the echoing swim room.

  “We encountered a bit of trouble,” I said, my face grim.

  “What? What’s the issue?” Jennifer asked, looking up at Atlas as though he were the problem.

  “We can talk about it later. I just want to get started with practice,” I said, my body urging me to jump into the water already. It had been so long, and now that I was near to the pool, I had the strong need to get in and start swimming again. My body missed it more than I had realized.

  Atlas didn’t say a word, instead looking blankly at Jennifer while she frowned at him. The situation between them hadn’t gotten much better. Jennifer was in her swimsuit, head cocked to the side and lips pursed as she looked at Atlas as though he had been the one to cause all the trouble.

  I went around her, heading for the locker room to get changed so that we could start practice. I wasn’t expecting Atlas to follow me in, but he did. I guess he didn’t want to be stuck out there with Jennifer glaring at him the whole time.

  “What’s her problem?” he asked, coming into the room when I had my pants halfway down.

  “I don’t know. She’s just frustrated about the swim team, I think,” I said, pulling down my pants past my ankles and kicking them off.

  “If that were the case, she wouldn’t need t be frowning at me all the damn time,” he replied, crossing his large arms over his broad chest.

  I looked up at him as I pulled my shirt off and dropped my bra to the floor. I gave him a smile and batted my lashes.

  No reaction.

  He wasn’t in a very good mood, and I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get anything from him after swimming. That was a shame, because in his aggressive state, I found him to be even more irresistible
than usual. I bounced on my toes, shaking my breasts in front of him.

  That got a reaction, but a small one. He smirked before returning to his grumpy face.

  I shook my head. Fine then. I guess I was just going to have to focus on my swimming this evening. I really needed to prove to Jennifer that I wanted to stay on the team, and I had only skipped practice because I was busy. I wouldn’t neglect the team anymore. I knew we had a competition coming up at the end of the year that I needed to be a part of.

  I pulled on my tight swimsuit, tracing my finger over the white school crest sewn into the breast close to the strap. Atlas looked lost in thought as I walked up to him barefoot. I placed a hand on his stomach, feeling his tight abs underneath his t-shirt, and kissed his forearm.

  “Go practice,” he said.

  “Not until you give me a kiss,” I replied. I wasn’t going to let him get away with being irritable for long. He still had to play nice.

  His face softened, and he leaned down to plant a kiss on my lips. That was when a heard yelling, and my stomach dropped. The dread that had been floating in my gut was now on full alert, rising up through my body like poison taking over a dead tree. Something was very wrong.

  Chapter 27

  Run, run, run far away. All that running and death still comes when it pleases.

  Atlas was out of the locker room before I was, bolting so fast that he seemed to blur through the exit. As a football player, he had experience in making quit dashes, and he displayed that skill often. I was impressed with how fast he was, on and off the field.

  I followed after him, my bare feet slapping against the cold floor as I ran out of the locker room to see what the commotion was about. My gut told me what I didn’t want to believe. It was Jared who was back to terrorize me.

  I looked around the corner of the doorway to see Jared walking quickly toward a group of girls on the swim team, waving around a giant machete, the blade gleaming like fire across the pool. Fuck, he was out of his mind. Why the hell had they let him out of jail?