by Esme Devlin
A wave of anger runs over me. Not because I’m jealous, why would I be jealous? But because he brought me here and abandoned me, and now he’s with her. He abandoned me for her. Now she’s winning. I curse myself for feeling that way because this isn't a game. I’m not in competition with her. She clearly wants Shaun's affections and I want him to leave me alone. So why does it feel like I’m losing?
“What the fuck is she doing here?” She spits the word she like it repulses her and I seethe. I don't give Shaun the opportunity to respond, although it doesn't look as if he’s going to anyway. He doesn't even acknowledge her, he just watches me. I’m not going to back down to her. I’m not going to let her think I can be pushed around.
“I think you’ll find he brought me here,” I inform her, mimicking her tone.
She looks at Shaun, as if expecting an explanation, and when he offers none she turns on me.
“Should have expected as much from a little slut like you. What, were you missing his fingers or something? Are you worried you were wearing too many clothes in the last video and want to do a retake?”
A few people in the room snigger and she smiles all the way to her eyes, clearly proud of herself.
“If anyone wants to do a retake I can assure you it’s Shaun,” I bite back. “Doesn't surprise me though, considering his usual standards.” I nod my head towards her and she clenches her jaw.
“Fucking slut. You’ll regret that.”
“Rosheen, quiet. Get back in your box,” Shaun interjects, laughing and practically shoving her from his lap as he stands up. She looks up at him, a worried look in her eyes but then catches me watching her and straightens her face. She moves off to the side and takes a seat next to a group of girls, who I can only assume are her friends.
The whole room turns to watch Shaun, as if they’re hanging on to his next word. As if they're waiting for his next move. It surprises me the power he has over these people. I knew he had his group of loyal followers, but there are more here than the four I’m accustomed to seeing him with. He’s a leader of some sort, of that I have no doubt about.
“There’s my princess,” he says loudly with a smile, as if he's announcing me to the room.
Chapter 12
Shaun
I take Lacey’s hand and lead her back through to the main room. I promised her a party, and I intend to give her one. The second we’re out of earshot from the others, she pulls me around to face her.
“What’s wrong with Stevie?”
I shrug casually. “Not sure, Calvin thinks she got spiked.”
She searches my face. “By who? Doesn’t she need like, an ambulance or something?”
“If we knew who did it, do you think they’d still be walking?” I tell her. “And no. She just needs to sleep it off. I’ve seen it before.” She nods but her face is still suspicious. “Stop worrying, Calvin will look after her.”
I pull her with me along the corridor and back into the party.
“What do you want to drink?” I ask her over the music.
She shakes her head at me. “Nothing.”
I go behind the makeshift bar and make her one anyway. I shove some ice, rum, syrup and strawberries in a blender and blitz them together, and she watches me with those innocent eyes while I work. Then I pour it into a cocktail glass and shove a strawberry on top. She looks at me like I’ve just spun straw into gold and then laughs before she takes a sip.
“This is actually quite good! What is it?” she asks.
“You’ve never had a strawberry daiquiri before? Christ woman, so many firsts.” I shake my head at her and she takes another drink.
“I’m not a big drinker,” she says.
“You’re not big on anything remotely fun or dangerous, are you?” I tease.
She shakes her head. “Not really. And I like it that way,” she tells me casually. I like that about her. She’s her own person, not giving a fuck about what everyone else is doing. Not caring what other people think. At least I think that’s the case, anyway; she might just be a superb actress. “What are you big on? You said this was your party?”
I shrug at her. “When you live in a small town, and you know you can’t ever leave, you learn to make your own fun.”
“This,” she looks around the room. “This is fun for you, is it?”
“It is now.” I smirk at her and she looks down at her drink, stirring it with her straw.
“Why can’t you leave?” she asks me.
I eye her from across the bar. She doesn’t miss a trick. “Same reason you came here. It’s where my father knows the money is.”
“Are you sure there isn’t something else?” she asks. I can tell she’s hanging on for my answer, and my pause makes her agitated. She suspects something.
“What else would there be?” I answer her with a question, not that I think for a second she will tell me what she knows. If she even knows anything.
We lock eyes, and for the first time tonight I really look at her. The cool white strip-light over the bar behind me makes her look paler than normal. She has no makeup on that I can see, likely because of me pulling her straight from her sleep. Her golden hair sits piled high into a messy bun, and bits of it have escaped, framing her face and tumbling around her shoulders. She looks bare, even though she’s fully dressed. There is a vulnerability to her and I can’t help finding it endearing.
Someone stumbles beside her and tries to take a seat next to her, and our stare breaks off at the same time. I have to look twice before I realize it’s Heather, and she is absolutely off her tits.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Sorry, am I interrupting something?” Heather slurs.
I catch Lacey looking from me to Heather and then back to me again. No one could mistake us for being anything other than brother and sister.
“You need to come with me right now,” I tell her. “I’ll have Tony take you home.”
“Fuck Tony!” she cries. “Fuck every single one of you. Get me a drink.”
I turn to Lacey and tell her to wait there while I come around the bar and take my sister’s arm. I try to pull her off the chair but even in her drunken state, she’s determined to stay put. Not wanting to cause a scene, I bend down to her ear so no one else can hear us.
“You need to go home, Heather. This isn’t healthy.”
“Go home and do what? Sit in my room? Stare at the walls? Think about what he did to me?” She’s looking at me like I’m the enemy here.
“He’s still doing it to you! Look at the state of you! You’re letting him win!”
“I’m letting him win?” she cries. “What are you doing about it?” She pushes my chest but I don't even flinch. I bend down further so our heads are side by side and take a hold of her arms.
“I’ve told you, I’m dealing with it.”
“You can't do anything. This is all your fault. I heard what you did to his little girlfriend.” I feel her body start to shake beside me, she’s crumbling. “You can't do anything.” She breaks down. My baby sister breaks down in front of me. In front of everyone. I wrap my arms around her and hold her steady for a minute.
“I’m going to fix it, I swear,” I promise her, but I don't think she’s even listening anymore. She’s too far gone. I scoop up her small frame easily in my arms and mouth to Lacey to stay put. Then I head off in search of Tony, or Scoot, or Doeboy. Someone I trust who’ll make sure she’s looked after while I deal with Lacey.
I find them in our private room, sitting around a table playing poker. Calvin is with them too, and I look around for Stevie, who hasn't left his lap all night since she was slipped a dodgy drink by god knows who, but she's lying down on one of the benches at the edge of the room. Everyone else seems to have gone to the party I just came from.
“Tony,” I say, and they all look up. “Look after Heather, will you? She’s in a bad way.”
“I’m fine,” she sniffs as I put her down and hold her arm to keep her st
eady.
“Do you know poker?” he asks her.
I laugh. “She knows snap.”
“Fuck you,” she mutters.
“Snap it is then!” Scoot announces, and he starts to round up the cards.
Confident in my friends ability to keep her occupied for at least a little while, I head back to the bar to get Lacey. Except when I arrive, her seat is empty. Little bitch. The last thing I need tonight is a game of fucking hide and seek.
Chapter 13
Lacey
I know he told me to stay put, but fuck him. Maybe it’s the strawberry rum making me extra ballsy, or maybe it’s just that I’m enjoying not doing what he tells me to for once. Either way, it’s too hot. The music is too loud. I need to get out of here.
I know I can’t go home. Even if I could find someone to take me, something is wrong with Stevie, and I won’t leave her here alone when she’s in that state. I just need some fresh air to clear my head.
I make my way across the dance floor where people are still giving it big-licks. There’s a smoke machine that’s letting off clouds like a steam-train and the strobe lights are back in full force. I pass through the two sets of double doors, glad to be out of there, and breathe in the cool night air.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but I feel like I’ve seen a different side to Shaun. I mull over the events of tonight in my head. First there was Rosheen. When she tried to start on me, he shut her down completely. And in front of everyone, too. So, that tells me he is fine with tormenting me, but she is not. At least, I think that’s what it means. Maybe he was just in a merciful mood tonight. I can’t help but wonder if that rule applies to others, too. What if it had been Tony? Or Calvin, who seems to be a sort of ‘second in command’. Would he have shut them down so easily?
Then there was the drink he made me. Okay, so it’s not exactly flowers in the pouring rain, but could it have been a peace offering of some sort? I think I might be overthinking that one. But we did have a conversation after it, and while he still teased and insulted me, he answered one of my questions honestly. It had felt like the first time he’d ever done that.
I have to wonder how the conversation would have gone if his sister hadn’t turned up. At least, I’m pretty certain it was his sister. They had near identical features, the same hair color, the same dark eyes and straight noses. She was like the female version of him. She was upset, about what - I don’t know, but he’d comforted her. He’d carried her away when she couldn’t walk. That was… different. The Shaun I know is rough, hard. There is nothing I recognize as gentle about Shaun Keagan. And yet, he’d been gentle with her.
After he’d swore at her, naturally.
I’m thinking maybe he just doesn’t like girls very much. Or at least, he doesn’t respect us. Me, his sister, even Rosheen. I don’t like her, but he was still out of order. What happened to him? Why does he treat girls that way?
Hundreds of questions, and only one that I can think of as ever being answered. He’s stuck here because his father basically owns the place. Why would you abandon your own kingdom?
As if I’d spoken of the devil, he appears right in front of me and stops my thoughts spinning out of control.
“Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says.
“I’ve been right here the whole time. I was too hot in there.”
“You shouldn’t wander about, it’s not safe,” he warns me.
I almost laugh at him. “You brought me here! And you left me earlier, or have you forgotten about that already?” I snap.
Shaun takes a breath that almost looks like a laugh and then shakes his head, walking towards me. “You’ve got an answer for everything, you, eh?”
“As do you,” I tell him.
“Like two peas in a pod.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m nothing like you,” I say.
Shaun shrugs off my insult. “But wouldn’t you like to be?”
“Like to be what? Arrogant? Cocky? A bully? A woman-hater? I can’t think of anything worse.”
He laughs at me properly this time and inches closer, until we’re almost touching. The cold wall of the building presses against my back and a shiver runs right through me. “What makes you think I hate women?”
“Hmm let’s see… The way you spoke to Rosheen, the way you spoke to your sister… and basically everything you’ve ever said and done to me since we met.”
He looks at me like I’ve said something highly amusing. “I don’t hate Rosheen; she just gets on my nerves sometimes. As for Heather, I don’t hate her either. I love her — she’s my sister. You, though. I’ve still not decided how I feel about you.”
“Bullshit. Why? Why do you hate me?” I ask him as I search his face. His expression gives nothing away, apart from the amusement that still lingers in his eyes.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Then why do it? It’s like you enjoy making me squirm.”
“Perhaps I do.” He shrugs and takes a hold of my wrists, pushing them against the wall low at my side. “Perhaps I enjoy it because you show not a fucking ounce of fear. I have to try so much harder with you.”
“If I cry and beg and tell you how much you terrify me, would that make you stop?” I ask him.
“That, princess, would probably just make my cock even harder than it is right now.”
I give him a sigh that ends in an eye-roll. “That’s your thing, is it?”
“It is.”
“Then I’ll be sure to never do that, ever,” I deadpan.
“Oh, you bore,” he says, mocking me. “What if doing that made all the other shit stop?”
“You want me to fuck you just to get my locker door back? I think I like it better without one,” I tell him.
“Ha! You wouldn't be doing the fucking, darlin,” he says as he slides my wrists up the wall until they‘re at the side of my head. My back arches involuntarily and it pushes my breasts out to meet his hard chest.
“Answers still no,” I tell him, as firmly as I can manage.
He opens his mouth, as if to respond, but no words come out. He looks down at my lips, and I lick them. He’s too close. There's not enough space between us for me to think clearly. The smell of him invades my senses. I feel his warm breath on my cheeks. He brings his head down and brushes his lips against mine, so soft that I barely even feel it. A tingle rips through my body and my stomach clenches. My heart-rate canters.
I want more.
This is so, so wrong.
“I fucking hate y…”
That’s the last thing that crosses my lips before he claims them. He crashes down against me, hard, and stops my words with his mouth. I don't know what to do. I know I need to stop this, but I can't. And it feels good. I’m so fucking angry at him, and yet, I’m kissing him right back.
He pushes his body against me and I feel his hard erection hit my stomach. I did that. I have that power of his body. I wriggle my wrists, and surprisingly he drops them for me. I immediately wrap them around his neck and pull him further down, trying to get him closer, trying desperately to make us fit together.
He crouches and his hands snake down my spine and around my ass. He lifts me up easily and spreads my thighs around his stomach so we’re now eye-level with each other. His hands rake over my bum, my thighs, kneading the muscles until I’m losing every ounce of good sense I ever possessed.
I groan as his tongue slides into my mouth, caressing yet dominating at the same time. I take it like I’m starving, like I need it, like I’m frantic, and his hands get firmer and angrier, moving up my back and scratching me. I moan from the pain, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s just… new. The pain, the danger, the fact this is so fucking wrong. It makes me wet. It makes me needy. It makes me want him even more.
It makes me want everything. Every last piece of him.
And that terrifies me.
I pull my head back. “Stop,” I say, though it’s more of a breathless wh
isper.
“Stop?”
“Stop.” He looks at me, his expression turning serious, and lets me slide down his body until my feet are planted back on the ground. “This is wrong.”
Shaun takes a step back, and for a second I regret it. I want him closer again, pressed up against me. I want to feel his need for me searing my stomach. But the logical part of my brain I’ve been suppressing knows I don't really want that. It’s just a chemical reaction.
“Doesn't feel wrong to me,” he says.
“You hate me? I hate you. This isn't right,” I tell him.
“I don't hate you.”
I search his face, trying to assess how much truth there is in that statement. Maybe he’s a good liar. People can say what they want to, it’s actions that are important. I don't believe him.
“I think you should take me home,” I say.
Chapter 14
Shaun
“Fine,” I agree. “We’ll take my sister too.”
The words came out harsher than I intended them to and her face hardens. I don’t bother apologizing though; I think I’ve given enough for one night.
It took every ounce of strength I had to stop when she asked me to. I would have taken her right there, up against the wall if I thought she would have appreciated it. There’s something about her. I can’t put my finger on it. I shouldn’t like her. I shouldn’t put myself into these situations with her. But I can’t fucking help myself.
Maybe that’s what it is? My father ordered me to get rid of her. She’s forbidden. She’s dangerous, even though she doesn’t know it. Maybe I just don’t like anyone to tell me I can’t have something. That would make sense.
But there’s something else. She intrigues me. She should hate me. She maintains she does hate me, but her eyes deceive her. She looks at me like she’s curious, not scared. Twice I’ve kissed her and twice I’ve felt her need, like a hunger. Like she’s starving. You don’t kiss someone you hate like that.