by Bridle, Dee
I let my own orgasm claim me and I groaned long and hard as I emptied myself into her. I felt completely shattered. I gently collapsed onto her, feeling her warm skin under me as I kissed her neck. Aftershocks still travelled through me.
She rolled out from under me and I moved onto the bed beside her. My eyes were still closed in agony and ecstasy. Her hand clamped over my mouth and I opened my eyes.
She looked worried, sexy, and thoroughly fucking pleasured.
“You were too loud!” she whispered.
I chuckled and closed my eyes. I didn’t care if I was too loud. Let them hear me and know how fucking lucky I was to have my beautiful dark angel.
Ava
I awoke to the sound of his phone, knowing it was Janey’s ringtone before I opened my eyes. He swore next to me and sat up, trying to find his phone. I jumped up and grabbed his jeans from the floor. While passing him his phone, I saw that it was 2:00 a.m.
I listened to him answer it with a curt tone, the phone providing the only light in the darkened room.
“Where?” he asked suddenly, pulling away from me. “Just get out of there and wait for me. I’m coming right now. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said already out of the bed and starting to pull his jeans on.
I got out, too, and started to dress as he looked at me.
“I’ve got to go.”
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“I’ll be back later. I just need to go,” he said quickly putting his shoes on and grabbing his wallet and car keys. He slid his phone into his pocket.
“I’ll come with you,” I said, following him to the bedroom door.
He turned back to me.
“For fuck’s sake, Ava, no way. I can’t protect the both of you. Go back to bed.”
I must have looked shocked at his outburst and I almost wondered if this was all a dream as I watched him stride out of the bedroom door. I heard him swear again and then he turned back to me.
“Come on then, let’s go.”
I ran after him, out of the unit and down the stairs as his car flashed unlocked. As soon as I closed my car door, he was skidding in reverse up the driveway.
“Put your belt on,” he demanded as the car came to a sudden halt on the road, and then the wheels squealed as he sped off.
I gripped my seat and watched the streets flash by. He was changing gears like a race car driver and turning corners on two wheels. He was furious at whatever situation he was driving to and obviously because I had come with him.
He went through two amber lights, and I braced myself for impact as he overtook a slow car. We came to a busy intersection, and he was forced to stop at an already red light. He revved the engine, waiting for the light to turn green.
“Is she okay?” I asked quietly.
“No,” he said, plugging his phone into the dashboard. The screen lit up, and he pressed a couple of buttons. A map appeared.
“She never fucking is,” he said, accelerating off as the light turned green.
I swallowed and gripped the door. I looked at the screen and saw a marker on the map, which was moving slightly.
“Is that where we’re going?”
“That’s Janey’s phone,” he said, braking hard and then overtaking onto the wrong side of the road.
I closed my eyes.
He was changing gears again and then slowing down. I heard a soft beeping noise. I opened my eyes and saw that he was driving normally. I turned to him.
“Police,” he announced, driving past them.
“You get a warning?” I asked, as he started to speed up again.
He gave a tormented smile.
“There are some advantages to what I do.”
I looked at the map again.
“So is Janey in trouble?”
He turned a corner sharply and sped down a residential street.
“Yep,” he said turning another corner.
We pulled up at a house that seemed to have a party going on inside. He took the keys out and passed them to me.
“Stay in here,” he demanded. “Do not step foot outside this car.”
I took the keys.
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said.
“Lock the car when I get out,” he said opening the door and jumping out.
I locked it and watched him stride into the party.
It wasn’t long before he was leading Janey out of the party and towards the car. She was only in her bra and short skirt with her top scrunched into her hand as she walked across the lawn with bare feet with Zac holding her arm. Her makeup was smudged all over her face, and her hair was a tangled mess. She looked terrible.
I quickly unlocked the car and he got her into the back seat, slamming the door closed. He was then back in the driver’s seat and taking the keys from me and starting the engine. I looked at his hand and saw that it had blood on it. I cringed. What had happened? What did he have to do to get her out?
There was silence in the car as he sped off. He turned the screen off and concentrated on driving. I didn’t know whether to turn around and speak to Janey or not, because she hadn’t made a sound since she had been put in the car.
I looked at Zac and he glanced at me. He gave a slight shake of his head, so I turned to look out the window instead. I wondered what the hell was going on.
We were soon pulling up at a townhouse and parking in the driveway. Zac got out and I didn’t know whether to stay in the car again.
He pulled Janey out and I watched them walk past the car. An automatic porch light turned on, letting me see Janey properly. I took a sharp breath at the sight of her, her eyes unseeing, like I was looking at a vacant and dazed stranger.
He unlocked the front door and then took her inside, leaving the door open and motioning for me to come in. I jumped out and followed them inside, looking around at the large living area and the kitchen over to the right. Zac and Janey disappeared upstairs, and I waited for them as I took in a packet of Zac’s cigarettes on the coffee table and his hoodie hanging over one of the kitchen chairs. It was obviously their place, and as I heard water running, I imagined Janey was having a shower.
I sat down on the couch and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling it out. I had seen another side of Zac’s life that I had no idea about, and I could clearly see that there was something wrong with Janey. I knew he had tried to warn me that night all those weeks ago, telling me that she lived in a different world than me, and now I believed him.
He seemed to be Janey’s knight in shining armor, too. He was managing the only way he knew how, and my heart went out to him.
Zac
I found her in the kitchen later, sipping a coffee and smoking a cigarette. She wordlessly passed me her coffee and I took a sip.
“Smoking kills, you know,” I said with amusement.
She smiled and exhaled a stream of smoke.
“It’s all part of the bad girl program I’m on”.
I smiled and felt the strain of the last hour start to fall away from my shoulders. Janey at her worst was usually a force to be reckoned with but tonight she had been different, completely shut down. She was on a downward spiral again and I knew she needed proper help.
I focused on the beautiful girl in front of me. I could see that she had questions, but she wasn’t asking them and I was grateful for it. I didn’t even want to try and explain the complex world of Janey tonight.
I leaned in to her, capturing her lips softly with mine. I needed to lose myself in perfection for a while so I could pretend that everything was okay.
Chapter Thirteen: Temporary
Ava
We talked while we watched the sun rise from his bedroom that morning and with every word, every stroke, I fell for him just a little more.
“How many boys have you kissed?”
I blushed.
“Why? Am I terrible kisser?”
“No,” he said kissing me before adding, “I just want to know. There’
s some things I can’t find when I hack into people’s lives.”
I pulled back.
“You hacked into my life?”
He gave a slight shrug.
“Maybe a little.”
“What did you find?” I asked in a panic.
He laughed.
“Relax, you’re probably the cleanest person I know. I didn’t find out much.”
“Oh,” I said, lowering my eyes. “I guess clean means boring.”
“I wouldn’t describe you as boring,” he said kissing my neck. “I’ve had a constant hard-on, since the night I met you,” he murmured against my neck. “You’re a pretty fucking perfect package, if you ask me.”
I glowed from his words, my senses reeling as I leaned back and let him continue to kiss my neck. Then the self doubt crept in and the realization that this was all temporary.
“If only that was true,” I whispered to myself with my eyes now closed.
His lips stopped kissing me and he pulled away slightly.
“All those horny douches around you want in, Ava. That first night at the party, they were all eyeing you over with their tongues hanging out. You’re beautiful.”
I looked away from his piercing eyes, truly not believing him. If I was such a perfect package then he would want to keep me forever.
“I know it, everyone knows it. That’s why I tried to stay away. You deserve only the best, not some bottom feeder like me.”
“Don’t say that,” I said emotionally.
“But it doesn’t matter. You’re mine for the month, and then you can go and find your perfect boyfriend,” he said kissing me again. “And get what you deserve.”
The thought sent pain into my heart, and I shut my eyes tight to stop myself from doing something crazy like telling him I wanted more.
“So how many guys have you kissed?” he asked again.
“I’ve kissed two, well, three now with Tyler.”
“Pretty boy,” he said against my lips. “The one who wants in the most.”
I kissed him, not wanting to even think about Tyler.
He looked at me again with his piercing eyes. “Why don’t you speak about your mother?”
I paused at his question, nowhere near expecting it. Then I pulled back. He watched my reaction, his eyes narrowing as he waited.
“She disappeared five years ago.”
“As in…a missing person or disappeared from your life and moved on?” he asked next.
“I don’t know. I was never allowed to talk about it. My father was furious for years and would lose it if I ever mentioned her. I was always told to keep quiet about it all. She didn’t want to be with us, and I had to accept that.”
“You never tried to search for her?”
“I did, but she left with nothing. No phone, no driver’s license or bank cards. I had nothing to find her with. After the first year, the police kind of gave up, and so did my father. He always said that she had these foolish dreams of going to Paris. He suspects that she disappeared over there. It’s one place that I have always wanted to go, just in case it made me closer to her somehow.”
His eyes narrowed once more and he was about to say something else when I kissed him hungrily, wanting to stop the conversation. It hurt to talk about it, and I couldn’t deal with any more questions. She had left an empty chasm in my heart, and it would never heal.
He kissed me back, leaving the conversation alone as his hand slowly made its way over my breast. I leaned in closer to him, needing more.
“Did any of those douches get to second or third base when they kissed you?” he asked.
“No,” I gasped as he tweaked my nipple with his fingers.
“So this body is mine, every first touch, and every bit of pleasure belongs to me,” he breathed into my mouth.
“For three more weeks,” I whispered, trying to pretend that the idea was okay when it wasn’t. I couldn’t fathom how my life would be without him in it and a deep sadness and anxiety settled in my chest.
* * *
I awoke alone, hours later and took the opportunity to sit up in his bed and look around the room. He had a laptop set up on a desk against one wall and a bookshelf against the other with a stack of CDs. Posters of bands were up on the wall and clothes were piled up on a chair near the window. It was a typical guy’s room, and I wondered if he brought girls back here like he did at Noah’s.
My phone had been placed on the pillow next to me and I opened it to find a note from him.
Zac: Had to work – text me when you wake up
I knew he kept all sorts of weird hours with his hacking and couldn’t imagine being able to focus without any proper sleep. I had to wonder where he worked, seeming that his laptop was still here at his desk.
After a shower and putting on one of his T-shirts, I walked back into the room to find Janey sitting on the bed. She looked like the Janey I knew and grinned at me like last night had just been a bad dream.
“Hey babe,” she said with a smile.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, sitting down next to her on the bed.
“I’m cool,” she said with a quick smile.
I returned her smile, a little unsure of what to say next.
“He never has girls over here,” she said, nudging me playfully with her shoulder.
“Really?” I asked with unmasked delight.
“You’re breaking every one of his rules,” she grinned.
“I like your brother so much more than anyone realizes,” I said next.
“We can all see that”.
“The thought of finishing whatever is going on between us in a month, hurts like hell.”
“I did warn you,” she said putting her arm around me.
“I know,” I said in resignation.
My phone beeped and I grabbed it to see an invitation via Facebook for a school friend’s birthday party on Saturday night.
“Back to being popular again at school?” she asked with a wink.
“Well the word BITCH was replaced by BURNER and both have finally been scrubbed from my locker. Maybe if I go Saturday night, it will put a stop to things being thrown at my head and all the bitchy comments.”
“Didn’t Zac warn them to leave you alone?”
“The football team has,” I returned. “To them, I don’t even exist. It’s everyone else.”
Zac
I leaned against the wall just outside the bedroom door and closed my eyes. I hated that anyone had dared to torment her at school. I hated that this was my fault, and that she was still suffering from my actions.
She was getting too close, wanting more than the three weeks we had left. I could never give her what she wanted.
I listened to them laugh, and a part of me liked it that Janey seemed happy when she was with Ava. The other part of me was shit scared of the fall out when it was time for her to go. Admitting that she liked me in a way that reeked of commitment and care made me question what we were doing right now. I had jumped into this fully aware of the threat of her wanting more from me, but I hadn’t been thinking with my brain for the last couple of days.
It was inevitable that I was going to hurt her when it came to an end. Part of me considered if I needed to end it earlier. I had experienced perfection now, and she would always be my every fantasy. But maybe it was time to call an end before she invested any more time and interest in me. Or, maybe it was time to end it before I lost my fucking head in the clouds and questioned everything. In such a small amount of time, she had become a part of me and my survival instinct was to deflect and destroy.
I needed to ruin Antony.
I needed to distance myself from her for good and put an end to her torment.
My mind raced with possibilities.
* * *
Ava
As I turned the alarm off on my phone the next morning, Zac groaned at the interruption and stuck a pillow over his head. I regretfully got out of bed, knowing that another unexplained absence
from school would get my father called. I got dressed quickly and grabbed my things, planning on going home first to shower and get into my uniform.
“Take my car,” he mumbled from under the pillow.
“Are you serious?”
“Bring it back in one piece.”
I smiled at the idea of borrowing his car like he was a real boyfriend. I quickly leaned over the bed and kissed his shoulder.
“See you later on this afternoon then.”
He mumbled something incoherently, and I walked out, leaving him to sleep.
His car sat outside, dark, sleek and powerful, just like its owner. I was positive that at full speed, it was quite untouchable, just like him.
* * *
It didn’t take long for me to know something was wrong when I got to school. Something big was being gossiped about, and for a change, it wasn’t about me. In no time, I was being shown a video, a horrible despicable video of my obviously drugged friend with Antony and Nathan.
I watched Antony laugh into the camera and then walk over to a bed, touching Sophie who was sitting and waiting for him. Her actions were slow like she had been drugged as he got her to touch him, and then they started to get onto the bed.
Another person entered the screen, and I could see it was Nathan. I wanted to be sick, as fury riled up in me. Surely, she hadn’t known that there was a camera. I watched as she started to satisfy one with her mouth while looking directly into the camera with a vacant look.
I collected my things and left school behind to go and find her, knowing she would need me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I drove towards her house. I knew she must have been going through hell these last couple of days while I was too busy being happy with Zac. I was livid as I made my way to her house, thinking that Antony and Nathan were completely evil assholes.
I bypassed her housekeeper at the front door and took the stairs two at a time. I quickly opened her bedroom door and saw her sitting on the floor against her bed, hugging her knees.