by Vera Hollins
My brows dove into a deep frown as I watched him walk out. He hadn’t even let me agree to it!
“I’m going to go out there and choke the life out of him,” I said under my breath. We weren’t even on the date yet, and I already regretted it.
I turned back to look at Mateo, and he shrugged. “Just as I said. Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
Since Shreya was due to arrive soon, I stood up and patted him on his shoulder. “Whatever. I’m leaving. Be nice to Shreya and give her a kiss she won’t ever forget.”
He smirked. “Sure, boss. Text me if you need backup.”
Not even ten backups would be enough to get me out of the clutches of that deviant guy, but I nodded and left money on the table for my meal as I stood up.
My legs were made of jelly as they took me to the parking lot, and my heart probably beat a hundred miles a minute. I wasn’t quite dressed for a date in a plain white My Chemical Romance T-shirt, black ripped jeans, and leather boots, but at least I was wearing my dark, heavy makeup and my bob was spot-on.
He was leaning against his car with his hands in his pockets, and I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t all six feet of gorgeous. A lock of his hair fell over his forehead, and I wanted to push it back, just to feel the silky texture against my fingertips.
Eww. I should brainwash myself so I’d stop thinking such sappy thoughts.
His keen eyes went down my body the moment he noticed me approaching. They studied me intimately, like they were undressing me piece by piece. My body reacted to this way more intensely than ever before, as if last night had opened the dam and now it couldn’t get enough of him.
“Stop staring.” I stopped in front of him with my hands placed upon my hips. “I’m not the Super Bowl halftime show.”
He smirked. He didn’t move from his spot. “Acting snarky all over again. So predictable. I’d actually be surprised if you threw yourself into my arms after last night. Plenty of girls would do just that, but not you.”
Predictable? He thought I was predictable? I’d show him who was predictable.
Without giving it a second thought, I did just that. I jumped on him and wrapped my legs around his waist, forcing his arms to reach out to hold me. But I didn’t do this in a romantic sense. Hell, no. I grabbed his gelled hair and yanked it.
“Ouch! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Throwing myself at you.” I yanked at his hair again. My hands were becoming sticky. “Geez, did you use the whole bottle of gel on your hair? It’s too sticky.”
With a growl, he spun us around and pressed me against his car. “You wanna play rough? Let’s play rough.”
He buried his head into my neck and sucked my skin into his mouth.
I froze, reminded of the painful bites he had left on my neck. I pushed against Masen to dislodge him from my neck, but then again, there wasn’t any pain. Masen wasn’t biting me. The contact of his lips wasn’t aggressive. On the contrary, they produced warmth that pulsed through me and evoked pleasure. I closed my eyes as a moan threatened to slip out of me.
But then it dawned on me—this asshole was giving me a hickey.
“Cut it out, you leech,” I screeched.
He had the balls to chuckle. He went in for another hickey, and I grabbed him by his hair and tugged it hard, pulling him away from my neck. His lips formed a big smirk, his eyes the deepest shade of blue.
“Who said you could give me a hickey, huh? Do you want to get punched that badly?”
He ran his teeth over his smiling lip. “If that’s what it takes to make the whole world see you’re mine, sure.”
My stomach fluttered. His. Why did that sound so wickedly good?
“Let’s go to see a movie,” he said before I could reply. He lowered me down. He tilted his head to the side when he saw my expression. “I already see ‘no’ forming in your head.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. He was right. I was automatically set to “no” when it came to anything related to him, which proved his previous statement that I was predictable.
Well, no can do! No, sir.
“Okay, yes. Let’s go to see a movie,” I said through clamped teeth.
His forehead creased. “You’ll really go with me to see a movie?”
“I didn’t speak Mandarin, Barbie. I said yes, or do I need to hire a translator for you to understand that?”
He let out a chuckle and leaned his forehead against mine, cupping my cheeks. “What am I going to do with you?” he whispered with deep longing in his voice.
My heart swelled, and the snarky retort died on my lips. “Why do you even bother with me? I’m a pain in the ass.”
He smiled and said something that stole more of my heart: “Yes, you are, but you’re my pain in the ass.”
His.
He nuzzled my neck with his nose. “Are you afraid now?”
The genuine concern in his soft tone didn’t fail to stun me, disarming me.
The answer was yes. Yes, I was afraid—of falling in love with him.
The realization sent a twinge to my chest that turned into a dull ache, and I drew away to look at him. I wanted to hide behind my sarcasm, to tell him I was Thanos and nothing scared me. But I knew I should stop hiding my emotions already.
So, I took a deep breath and said, “Of you? No. Of this?” I motioned between us. “Absolutely.”
If he was surprised by my honesty, he didn’t show it. He sighed and moved the pad of his thumb over my jaw, which turned me warm all over. “I feel the same. This is all new to me.”
“So, don’t fuck this up. If you do, I’ll find the most gruesome way imaginable to kill you.”
He smiled one of his radiant smiles and left a small kiss on my lips. “Likewise, Satan. Likewise.”
There was one thing Masen and I would always agree on: horror movies.
Choosing to see a horror movie about a professor with a strange obsession with knives was a no-brainer. The theater was empty, save for a few guys, and we grabbed seats at the back, loaded up with popcorn and soda cups. Only after the theater went dark and all conversations stopped, it fully hit me how close we would be for the next hour and a half. His scent was enticing, tempting me to move closer to him and maybe give him a kiss or two.
“You look too tense,” he told me when the first—of many more to come, I was willing to bet—commercial started, his lips only a breath away from my skin. He hooked his finger around a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear. I shivered. “Is it because of the movie?”
I could feel him smirking. He knew damn well it was because of him, and he was taunting me.
So, he wanted to play that game. Okay, then. Two could play it.
I cast him a seductive gaze and placed my hand on his thigh. His eyes widened, and his smirk dropped. The muscles underneath my hand grew taut.
I let my eyes move over his face and body slowly, smirking. “You look too tense, baby,” I said in a sugary voice I didn’t even recognize. “Is it because of the movie?”
He gulped. He actually gulped, and his eyes darted between my lips and my hand on his thigh. I glanced at my hand, and a sweet jolt hit my stomach when I saw the bulge in his jeans had grown bigger.
Okay, I should be scared. I should retract my hand like I’d been burned and feel disgusted, but my body had another plan. It was enjoying this moment too much. It was enjoying having this power over him. I wasn’t losing control. I was gaining it, and I loved it.
His eyes grew hooded, and he said in a husky tone, “Move that hand higher and see if it’s because of the movie or not.”
Holy hell.
Our gazes locked, and I’d never wanted him more than now. It was crazy. We were in a theater, about to watch a horror movie, yet all I could think about was what it would be like if I actually did what he’d suggested.
I smiled sweetly at him and moved my hand higher . . . but to his face. I grinned at him as I cupped his chin. “Here. Is this high enough?�
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I winked and removed my hand from his face, turning to look at the screen because the movie was starting. A long exhale left my mouth. My heart was pumping too hard after what had just happened between us.
I expected him to be touchy-feely with me during the movie, but he didn’t touch me even once, keeping his hand on the armrest next to mine without moving it. It was another one of his games, I was sure of it, and it was working because I couldn’t stop imagining that hand on mine. I’d gobbled up all my popcorn and downed my drink, so I didn’t have anything to do with my hands, and for the life of me, I couldn’t focus on anything happening on the movie screen, because all I was thinking about was him.
Coming here with him had been a bad, bad idea.
And then, just when I thought I would go crazy if he didn’t touch me, he covered my hand with his, and hell, that felt too good. I didn’t move to intertwine my fingers with his, but I let him touch me, basking in the feel of our connected hands, just like in the haunted house.
On the screen, the professor tied the protagonist to a chair and ran the tip of his knife over her face, promising to carve his name on her cheeks before he cut out her tongue. The dried blood of his previous victims colored the walls and floor of the room, completing the gut-churning scene.
Masen leaned to whisper into my ear. “This is the moment you get terrified and snuggle up to me.”
His voice in my ear sent shivers through me. I didn’t take my eyes off the screen. “Is this your subtle way of telling me you’re afraid, Barbie? Aww, come here, big boy.” I tugged his arm. “Lean here. I’ll keep you safe.” I patted the hollow between my shoulder and neck, my sarcasm dripping off each word.
His only response was to bite that hollow, and I hissed, taken back to that night.
He bit my neck again and again and again, breaking my skin and soul, and I let out a piercing scream that was forever unheard in the depths of the woods that stole my life.
I shoved him away, anger tearing into me. “Don’t do that ever again,” I hissed.
He frowned in confusion. “Do what?”
I ignored his question and returned my gaze to the screen, but I didn’t see anything, fighting against the old, destructive emotions that were getting to me. If he said even a word, I was going to lash out at him, and I didn’t want to lash out at him. I hated myself for being so easily thrown off the edge and turned into this mess. I just wanted this anger to ebb away.
Masen stayed silent. His eyes were glued to the screen, but I knew he wasn’t paying any attention to the movie, either. The tension between us grew thick, pulsating, and I cursed myself for ruining the moment. It wasn’t his fault. The old me would have blamed him and given him hell for doing this to me, but he hadn’t done anything to me. I was too broken.
We remained silent during the rest of the movie, and when the lights came on at the end, I was the first to jump from my seat and rush for the exit, avoiding looking at Masen, who was right behind me.
The evening air was chilly; it soothed the heat that rolled over my tense body, but it did a bad job of ending my inner storm. We reached the parking lot.
“Look, if I did something wrong back there, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I stopped next to his car, disarmed by his words. Suddenly, my eyes became teary, and I sucked in a deep breath, placing my hands against the roof of his car to support myself. I was shaking. I wanted to punch something badly, to wallow in my self-destructive urges, but that would be letting that endless dark cycle I’d been following continue.
He was right; he didn’t know. And I couldn’t be mad at him for that.
“Don’t ever bite me,” I said in a raspy voice. I was unmoving, my head hung low. “That’s what he did before he—he . . .” I closed my eyes, and my tears dripped down to the pavement. “Fuck it, I can do this. I can say it.” I took a deep breath. “That’s what that fucker did before he raped me. He left bites all over my neck and then he destroyed my life. And no matter how much I begged him to stop, he didn’t.”
He hugged me from behind, and I turned rigid. I tried to shrug him off. “I don’t need your comfort. I’m not a toddler.”
He hugged me even more tightly. “Shut the fuck up and let me hold you for a second. You won’t break apart if you let someone take care of you for a change.”
He leaned his head against my shoulder and pressed me against his body like he was my anchor, my buffer against all the bad in this world, and I sank into his warmth, letting it fill me and keep me safe. I closed my eyes. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
“One second has passed,” I whispered.
“Shut up.”
I pressed my cheek against his, keeping my eyes closed. I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know. I took another deep breath.
“It happened on Halloween, more than three years ago. Real spooky, right?” I said and let out an empty chuckle as a way of joking, but he didn’t find it funny. He remained quiet as he held me in his firm embrace.
“We were in the woods, sitting next to a bonfire. The music was so damn loud. I wanted him. I wanted that guy from the moment I saw him, so when he pulled me away from the bonfire and into the dark woods, I let him. I wanted what was supposed to happen . . . until I didn’t. Until I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. I didn’t want it, but by then, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t defend myself. I couldn’t do anything as he took my virginity and innocence, turning me into this . . . this.
“And you know what the worst part is? Besides having my freedom and choices taken away from me? I thought it was my fault. When he finished and told me, ‘You wanted this, too, so don’t act innocent now,’ I believed him, because, yes, I had wanted that. He was just responding to the signals I’d been sending him the whole evening, right? He was just doing what I’d told him I wanted him to do. Can’t blame the guy, right? I wore the clothes I chose to seduce him. I smiled seductive smiles. I played my part. Can’t blame the guy. Right?”
I sobbed, a powerful shudder ripping through me, and he tightened his arms around me. His body was more rigid than I’d ever felt it before.
“So, when I went to the police and reported the bastard, he made me feel as though I was ruining his life. Like I was overreacting. Attention seeker. He called me that.” I fisted my hands. “And I actually believed him. I believed it was all in my mind, and I was the bad guy there.”
I sniffled. “Only later, through therapy, I was able to come to terms with what had happened. It wasn’t my fault. It was never my fault because once you say no—it’s no. There’s nothing blurry or gray about that. It’s a goddamn no.”
I wiped at my cheeks, but the damn tears kept falling, finally free after all these years of my suppressing them.
He held me quietly as I cried, not saying a single word until I let it all out. I sagged against him when my eyes turned dry. I felt depleted, but also lighter than I’d ever felt since that night.
Masen’s stiff arms were locked around me, and I felt tension radiating off his body. “Barbie?”
“I swear to you,” he said through clamped teeth, his voice dangerously low and thick. “I swear to you, if he weren’t in prison, I’d kill him. I’d strangle the shithead.”
“And why do you care?”
“Because I care about you. So much.”
My heart clenched in my chest. I believed him, so why was this ghost of doubt still here? “Impossible, since all we ever do is hate on each other.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. I’m not him. I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you.” He turned me around and placed his hand on my cheek. “You’ve gotten under my skin, and I can’t get you out of my system. I don’t even want you out anymore.”
I hadn’t even realized he’d backed me against his car. He placed his other hand on my waist, creating tingles on my skin with his searing touch.
“Go ahead and say I’m a fool,” he continued. “Deny me. Insult me all you want. But I’ll still l
ike you. Maybe even more.”
My heart pumped faster. He likes me. “Because you get hard when a girl is fucked up? It’s your secret fetish?”
He didn’t even blink, completely ignoring my snide remark. “Because you and I are both scarred. We’re the same. And we can understand each other.”
Scarred.
He’d said exactly what I’d thought. We were the same.
Both living with scars that were a part of who we were. For better or worse.
I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t use my defense mechanism. I couldn’t resist him.
“Well, guess what? I like you, too.”
The moment the words slipped over my lips, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. This felt right. More right than anything. I wound my arms around his neck and touched my lips to his, initiating the kiss for a change. It started slow, tentative, but then our lips molded against each other and fused into a deeper kiss, and it was raw and hot. He pressed me against his car and ran his hands down my back, touching me with a burning need, and a flurry of emotions unfolded in my chest.
I felt like I was flying, able to explore a new world I’d never known, and just like last night, I felt free. Liberated. Unchained.
And despite how fucked up I was, despite everything I’d done to him—all the insults, all the abuse, all that anger and hate—he wasn’t running away from me. He wasn’t retaliating. He wanted to help me. He liked me just the way I was.
But I had to do better. I couldn’t keep hurting him. I needed to be better than this.
A tear escaped my eye and touched the corner of my lips, and he felt it. He drew away to look at me with a soft smile.
“I’ve never made a girl cry by kissing her.”
Embarrassed, I wiped my eyes. “Shush. And if you say a word about this to anyone, I’ll—”
“Cut off my dick, I know.” He opened his car door and eased into his seat. “Come here.” He reached for me and pulled me onto his lap, and as I adjusted myself to straddle him, a sliver of insecurity settled within me. “I won’t hurt you,” he said reassuringly, as if he’d sensed exactly how I felt.
He closed the door, wrapping us in the darkness of his car, and held my waist gently. He didn’t move his hands as we looked at each other, and I knew this was him giving me space and control. He was letting me pull the strings here.