Fall: A High School Bully Romance (Sunset Beach High Book 1)

by McKayla Box

  “Shit,” I say.

  “What?”

  “My shoes. They're in Gina's car.”

  He smiles, his teeth glowing in the dark. “Better to be barefoot than in jail, New Girl.”

  I know he's calling me that to try and get to me, so I let it go.

  He pulls the board out of the water and lays it on the dock next to the paddle and heads for the front of the dock.

  “You're just going to leave it here?” I say, pointing at the board.

  He turns and looks at me, then the board. He starts to say something, then stops. He looks at me again. “No one's gonna take it. It'll be here when I come back.” He turns back and keeps walking.

  I follow him to the front of the dock and step off onto what feels like freshly cut grass. The lawn covers the slope beneath the massive house, running at least a hundred yards in either direction. I turn around. The view across the bay and across the point out to the ocean is incredible. The water shimmers underneath the stars.

  I turn around and he's striding up the lawn toward the house.

  “What are you doing?” I ask in a whisper.

  He turns around with a wicked grin on his face. “Don't you wanna have a little fun, New Girl?”

  “No, I just wanna go home,” I tell him.

  He shakes his head like it's the dumbest thing he's ever heard and I reluctantly follow him up the hill. He stops at one of the massive windows on the side of the house and puts his face to the glass, looking inside.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss at him.

  “Looks empty,” he says. “And I know a way in.”

  “You what?” I say, disbelieving. “No. We're not going in. Are you crazy?”

  He laughs and continues up the hill, alongside the house.

  “We just got away from the police,” I whisper, walking behind him. “Why would we do anything to bring them here? And this is a lot fucking worse! Breaking into someone's house?”

  “I didn't say we were breaking in,” he says over his shoulder. “I said I know a way in. Pay attention.”

  His arrogance is so irritating and I want to punch him right in the kidneys, but his back is thick with muscle and I'm sure I'll just end up breaking my hand.

  We reach the top of the hill and he stops next to a door in the side of the house. I look in through one of the windows. The inside matches the outside, with polished wooden floors, granite counter tops, and expensive-looking furniture, all of it taken right from the pages of a modern architecture magazine. I can't imagine what the house is worth, given it's location and how it's decorated.

  Trevor reaches up to tap the key pad and I slap at his arm. “What are you doing?”

  He looks at me with an amused smile. “I told you I know a way in.”

  “With the key pad?” I say. “You know the alarm code?”

  “Yeah,” he says, turning back to it. “I got it off the dark web. You worry too much, New Girl.”

  “The dark web? Are you fucking serious?”

  He laughs and reaches for it again and I knock his arm down again. “Don't. Don't do this.” I throw my hands up. “Or you know what? Go ahead and do it. I'm out of here.”

  He reaches up one more time and taps the numbers on the key pad. The numbers illuminate in the dark and beep as he touches a five number sequence, the beeping sounding like car horns in the quiet of the night. The pad emits a long beep and the deadbolt grinds in the lock, then makes a clicking sound. Trevor grabs the doorknob, then opens the door.

  He smiles at me. “Now or never, New Girl.” He steps into the house, leaving me to make my decision.

  I stand there for a moment, the cool air of the air conditioned home rushing outward. I know I shouldn't go in. I know he's just goading me, teasing me, seeing if I'll follow along and I know I shouldn't. But I don't have my shoes, my friends are most likely being arrested, and I don't know where I am. I have my phone and I could call my dad, but that feels like the worst possible choice.

  I take a deep breath and follow Trevor into the house.

  THIRTY

  I close the door behind me, as if that will somehow protect me. The floors are cold beneath my feet and I hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room. There are no lights on, but the space is lit up by the stars and the lights from outside. We're in the space between the kitchen and the living room and surrounded by floor to ceiling windows that run at least thirty feet high. It's almost like we're outside. There's a massive leather sectional in the middle of the sitting area with a large glass table. A huge flat screen is mounted on the wall between two of the windows.

  I hear a door open and I turn around in panic, but it's just Trevor. He's standing in the kitchen, peering into the stainless steel fridge.

  His face is lit up from the light inside of the fridge. “You want anything? There's a shit ton of beer in here.” He pulls out two bottles of Pacifico with one hand and holds them up.

  “Jesus,” I say, my voice still a whisper. “No! Put them back.”

  He chuckles, closes the fridge, and twists the caps off both of them. He sets on one the marble island between us, pushes it toward me, then takes a long drink from the one in his hand, never taking his eyes off of me.

  I hesitate, then take the beer off the island, hoping the beer will settle my nerves. It's cold and crisp, but doesn't do a whole lot for my nerves. I set the bottle down. “Okay. You've proven your point. You're totally off the rails crazy. Can we go now?”

  “Off the rails crazy,” he mutters, smiling, rubbing at his chin like he's thinking about it. “I think I like that, New Girl.”

  “If you fucking call me that one more time,” I say.

  He raises an eyebrow. “You'll what?”

  I pick up the beer and take another long drink because I don't have an answer for him.

  He lets the eyebrow fall, takes another drink from the beer, then motions for me to follow him. “Come on. Let's go take a look around.”

  “What?” I say, incredulous. “No! What if someone's here?”

  “If someone was here, we would've known by now,” he says. “Stop worrying. Presley.”

  I don't understand how I can both hate and love at the same time the way he says my name. I squeeze the beer bottle in my hand and follow him out of the kitchen.

  We're in a long, dark hallway. There's expensive looking, abstract paintings on the walls, the kind of art that someone buys if they have too much money and don't know what to do with it. We pass an enormous bathroom and then he turns into a room at the end of the hallway. My stomach is doing flip-flops and I take another drink from the beer before I follow him in.

  It's like a smaller version of the living area. The windows are just as big and tall, with an expansive view of the bay on the other side. There's a king bed against one wall, unmade, black sheets with a white comforter in disarray. There's another flatscreen between two of the windows, a pile of what look like gaming systems beneath it on a shelf. There's a door that opens to the outside and in the corner next to the door, two surfboards lean against the wall. On the walls without windows, oversized photographs of surfers hang. I walk over to one of them to get a closer look.

  It's a perfect shot, taken by a photographer in the water, the camera on the surface of the ocean, looking straight into an almost perfectly shaped barrel of a wave. Inside the barrel, there's a guy on a board, crouched down, eyes wide, concentrating on the water and his ride, staying just beneath the water as it curls over the top of his blond hair.

  I lean in closer.

  And realize the surfer is Trevor.

  I whip around.

  He's sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, watching me, waiting, trying to hold in a laugh.

  “That's you,” I say. “In the picture.”

  He nods and takes a drink from the beer.

  I look around the room, think about leaving the board on the dock, him punching the key pad outside, pulling the beers from the frid
ge.

  I look at him. “This is your house.”

  He nods again, grinning.

  I don't know whether to laugh or throw my beer at him. “What the hell?”

  “You never asked,” he says, shrugging. “You just assumed I was breaking in. I specifically said I wasn't breaking in.”

  I start to say something, then stop.

  Because he's right.

  Dammit.

  I take another look around the room. “You live here? For real?”

  “Yeah. My dad bought it a couple years ago. He wanted a house near the water,” Trevor says. “This was best he could do.”

  “Uh, I'd say this might be the best anyone could do.”

  He shrugs again. “It's cool.”

  I walk to the window. The water can't be more than ten feet from the glass. I spy a small, brick walkway from his door to the water. In the dark, I make out what looks like a wetsuit on the grass and another surfboard.

  “Easy access,” he says.

  I jump because he's come up right behind me and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck.

  “I can take two steps and be on the water,” he says. “Not the waves, but I can be on the water. Most of the time I paddle out around the point to get to the ocean.”

  Now I know what his upper body looks like it belongs to a Greek god.

  “That's a long way,” I say.

  “It's not that far,” he says.

  We stand there in the dark for a moment. I'm looking at the water, but I'm thinking about him. I can feel the heat off of his body.

  “You left me the other night,” I finally say. “Why?”

  “You left me,” he answers. “For Derek.”

  I turn around and he's literally an inch away, looking down at me, all blue eyes and tan muscle.

  “I didn't leave you,” I say. “And I sure as hell didn't leave you for Derek. Everyone was on the sand.”

  “He was the first one to you,” he says. “You hugged him.”

  “He hugged me.”

  “You didn't have to let him do that.”

  “All he did was congratulate me,” I say. “Like everyone else.”

  He stares at me for a moment. “He touched you.”

  “So?”

  “So I told you I didn't like that.”

  My heart is thumping hard inside my chest. The beer is wet in my hand. I can see him clearly in the dark now.

  “You can't control me,” I tell him, not sure if that's the actual truth.

  He leans down and kisses me. His hand snakes behind my neck, his fingers warm against my skin. I kiss him back, wrapping my arm around his waist, my fingers against the muscles in his back. Glass crashes on the floor next to us and I realize he's dropped his beer as his other arm comes around me and pulls me into him.

  I drop my bottle, too, the glass shattering against the floor.

  Neither of us cares.

  He keeps the one hand behind my neck, his tongue teasing the inside of my mouth, and lifts me up with the other arm. I wrap my legs around him and kiss him harder. He spins us around and moves us to the bed. He lays me down against the comforter and puts his weight on top of me, moving his mouth from mine to my neck. I groan and lift up against him, realizing how badly I want him. I run my hands up his back and through his hair. He pushes his hips back into me, meeting me, and driving me back into the bed.

  “You're mine,” he whispers in my ear, his tongue tickling my earlobe. “New Girl.”

  I hesitate and he stops for just a second.

  Then I laugh and he does, too.

  I dig my fingers into his back and he pushes against me again. His mouth finds mine again and I want to swallow him whole, devour him in a way I've never wanted anyone before. He slips a hand under my shirt and I shiver as his fingers slide along my skin. I slide both my hands downward on his back and tuck my one of my hands into his waistband, bringing it around to the front. I find him and wrap my fingers around him. He moans and it's the greatest sound I've ever heard in my life.

  “Presley,” he whispers in my ear.

  And that's now the greatest sound I've ever heard in my life. The way he says my name, it's full of lust and want and everything I'm feeling right at that moment. I don't even have to think about what I want.

  I know what I want.

  I pull down on his waistband and he doesn't resist, letting his shorts drop down his legs. He kicks them off and I can't move my hands fast enough over his body, trying to feel every inch of him. His hands come down to my shorts, his fingers playing with the edge of them.

  “Do it,” I whisper in his ear. “Do it.”

  He pulls them down and I can feel him against me. He's hovering above me now and my arms are wrapped around him, clinging to him.

  “You sure?” he asks.

  It makes me want him more.

  “Yes,” I say, burying my face against his neck.

  One of his hands leaves me and I hear paper tearing. I feel his hand between us and I want to move my hand to him, but I'm hanging onto him, suspended from his body. He eases us back down into the bed and his hand moves out from between us, bracing himself so he doesn't crush me in the bed.

  He pushes into me and light explodes in my head, a massive flash of pain jolting through me. But it passes quickly and we're moving together. My heart threatens to burst from my chest and my fingers are digging into his hair as I hold onto him, like he's the only thing I've ever wanted in my life.

  Because, right at that moment, he is.

  THIRTY ONE

  “Get up.”

  I try to open my eyes, but they are nearly glued shut.

  “New Girl,” Trevor says. “Get up.”

  I force my eyes open. I'm twisted in the sheets and he's standing over me, completely naked. I realize I am, too.

  I squint into the light behind him. “What?”

  “You need to get up,” he says. “School.”

  That wakes me up and I sit up, pulling the sheet around me.

  He laughs. “No need for the sheet. I've already seen you.” He spreads his arms wide. “And look at me.”

  Jesus, yes. Look at him. It's all I can do to not grab him and pull him back into the bed.

  But panic is starting to bubble up in my stomach. “What time is it?”

  “Six,” he says. “You passed out. After the third time.”

  “Shit,” I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “My dad,” I say, searching the sheets for my clothes. “He didn't know I went out last night. Where the fuck is my phone?”

  He frowns at me, then shrugs. “How the fuck would I know?”

  The ease with which we fell into bed hours earlier is gone, now replaced by a tension that I can't quite figure out. I finally find my shorts buried under the sheets and yank them toward me. I fumble through the pockets until I find my phone. I quick check the screen and finally take a breath when the lock screen is empty. He hasn't called and he hasn't texted, meaning he got home late enough that he never checked my room.

  But he'll be expecting me at breakfast.

  “You have to get me home,” I say.

  He frowns again. “What? I'm going surfing.”

  I dig through the sheets until I've found all of my underwear and clothes. I drop the sheet and start pulling everything on. “You have to get me home or my dad will freak.”

  “He won't care,” he says. “My dad doesn't give a shit about anything.”

  “My dad does,” I say, pulling my shorts up and standing up. “You have to take me home.”

  He smirks, like it's the dumbest thing he's ever heard. “I'm going surfing and then to school. So you can either come with me or not. I don't care.”

  I don't care.

  Not the words I'd expected to hear after having sex all night.

  The first time I've ever had sex with anyone.

  I am so, so dumb.

  “Never mind,”
I say, pulling my shirt on over my bra. “I'll get home on my own.”

  “You're seriously leaving?” he asks, like he can't believe what he's hearing.

  “Yeah, I'm seriously leaving,” I say, sliding my finger across the screen of phone and fighting off the tears I can feel forming in my eyes. “I need to get home. You don't understand.”

  “I was waking you up to be nice,” he says. “To make sure you had time to get ready for school. Not so you could run out of here.”

  I find Bridget's name in my texts. “Thanks. A ton. But I need to get home. Which you don't seem to get.”

  “Yeah, I really fucking don't,” he says, shaking his head. “Fine. Get the fuck out then.”

  His words cut into my like razor blades.

  I look at him, hoping he can't see the tears. “You know, no matter what you've been told, the world doesn't revolve around you.” I shake my head. “How do you go from being like you were last night to...this?”

  He walks over and makes a show of pulling on his shorts, taking his time to pull them all the way up. “Thanks for last night. But don't expect it to be a regular thing.”

  The blades cut deeper into me, but I refuse to show him. “I was gonna say the same thing.”

  He walks to the corner of the room and picks up one of the surfboards. “Sure you were. You were saying something completely different just a couple of hours ago.” He tucks the board under his arm. “In fact, I think you were screaming it. They might've heard it across the bay.”

  I hate that he's right. I hate that he made me feel so good. And I hate that he's now making me feel so bad.

  So I say the one thing I know will hurt him. “I screamed louder with Derek.”

  He freezes and everything in his expression goes cold. I know I've struck a blow and while there's a small part of me that feels good, there's also a part of me that's scared that I've done it. Because I know I can't take it back.

  I wait for him to fire back, to say something else to me to try and hurt me.

  Instead, he turns and opens the door to his backyard without saying a word. He slams it behind him, strides to the water, and dives in, landing gracefully on the board, and paddling away from the house.