by Bella King
“Stop showing me your legs,” I said as she moved her skirt again, revealing more of her soft, pale thighs.
“I don’t listen to men who insult me,” she said, her voice high and mighty.
God, I needed to destroy this woman. Everything she stood for made me sick, and her cute little actions were beginning to madden me. I reached over and took a large portion of her thigh in my hand and squeezed it, looking into her eyes to see her reaction.
Scarlet’s eyes shot open wide, but she didn’t resist my touch. She smiled after a moment, placing her hand on mine. “How does that feel?” She asked, “Good?”
I jerked my hand away, frustrated that she seemed to like it. Why was she acting like a therapist instead of a rich girl who was about to be overwhelmed in a car with a raving lunatic from school? She seemed clueless about the consequences of her behavior, but I guess that ran in the family.
She titled her head at me, seeming to look through me with those bright blue eyes. “Why are you so strange?”
I laughed. “I’m strange? You’re pretty weird yourself. Any other woman would have jumped out of the car and ran for it by now.”
“I’m not like other women,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you either.”
“Oh really?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded.
Chapter 11
Scarlet
I’m going to be honest. The way that Dylan was behaving freaked me the fuck out, but I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of finding out why he was so strange toward me. He didn’t seem to be that way toward anyone else, and I needed to know why.
He was different, glaring at me with his deep eyes, blonde hair in disarray as he frowned. He was attractive like this, more so than he should have been for a man so hellbent on terrorizing me. He wanted me to be afraid of him, but I wasn’t going to play his game. If he had a reason for all this, then I wanted to know it. I wouldn’t back down until I did.
Dylan reached out a hand again, going toward my thigh as if to challenge me to say no to him. I simply wouldn’t, no matter what happened. I wasn’t going to bow to his immature tactics. I knew him enough now to know that he was using sex like a threat against me, but I was aroused by him just as much as I could tell he was aroused by me.
Somebody would have to give in this situation, but it wasn’t going to be me. No, I wasn’t going to let him gain the upper hand, even if that meant getting under him and letting him have his way with me.
“Are you sure you’re not afraid?” Dylan asked, squeezing his large fingers into my thigh so hard that I felt my lower leg begin to tingle as it lost sensation.
“Dylan, do you really think I would be scared of you? You can’t bully me just because I have more money than you,” I said.
“Who says that’s the reason?” He asked, loosening his grip and beginning to move his fingers up my skirt.
My heart thudded in my chest as his hand approached a place that no man had touched me before. My body was screaming at me to do something, but I was too stubborn to tell him to knock it off. He was playing some kind of sick power game with me, and I had learned enough in my years not to give in to it. I was the one with the power here.
“What’s the reason why you’re behaving like this?” I asked him. “It’s certainly not just because you’re attracted to me.”
“I want to fuck you, that’s why,” he said, his voice throaty and primal.
I shook my head. “That’s not it. You can’t fool me,” I said. I sounded confident, but I was starting to feel a lot less of that because of how close his fingers were to my panties. I felt like he could hear my heart beating beneath my ribcage as he moved in closer.
“How would you feel if I was the one to claim your pussy? What would everyone at school say if a rich girl like you had sex with a poor guy like me.”
“I wouldn’t tell them,” I said.
“But I would,” he said, his finger touching the fabric between my legs.
I jumped at his touch, and he laughed at me. The bastard let out a hearty chuckle at my reaction. This had gone too far, and I didn’t like this game anymore. He was being cruel just for the sake of it. The only thing that I could gather as to why he was like this was that I was rich, and he wasn’t. That was a piss poor reason to try to bully me.
I grabbed his thick wrist, pushing his hand away from my pussy. “That’s far enough. I think we’re done here.”
“I’m not done,” he said, lifting the arm I had pushed and grabbing my wrist. “I’m going to ruin you, Scarlet, just like you ruined me.”
We seemed to be getting somewhere. Instead of acting scared at his actions, I grew curious. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“Nothing,” he blurted, throwing my hand away and sitting back in his seat. “Let’s go.”
“No, you said I had ruined you. What does that mean?” I said, unwilling to let it go so easily. I could tell it made him uncomfortable., There was something he wasn’t telling me. I knew he wasn’t just some crazy guy who couldn’t decide if he wanted to murder me in cold blood or have sex with me.
“You said that you were done, so we’re done,” he snapped.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on. You can’t just back out of this because I asked you a hard question. Tell me why I supposedly ruined you or I’m not buying you the damn car,” I said, using what little leverage I had against him.
He clenched his teeth, the muscles in his jaw dancing wildly under his stubbled face. The air was tense as cars zoomed by us on the road, going home to enjoy their weekend, no doubt. Dylan and I, on the other hand, were stuck in a car we snatched off the dealer's lot, battling for power over one another. This was more exciting than one of my father’s boring dinners, at least.
Dylan took a breath through his nose, then out of his mouth. “I’m not going to tell you. Keep the fucking car,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt and jumping out of the car. He slammed the door behind him, walking out onto the street, barely missing an oncoming car. He walked away from the car, moving onto a safe side of the road.
I shook my head. This guy was sick in the head or something. If he had such a strong reason to be hating on me like this, then he should tell me or stop it altogether.
I watched him walk down the road, but it was clear that he had no idea where he was going. I slid into the driver’s seat and shifted the car back into drive, creeping forward behind him. He shot me the middle finger when he realized that I was following him, which made me laugh. He tried so hard to be a bully, but he wasn’t doing that great of a job.
I followed him with the car for a few minutes while he trudged onward, trying to appear like he knew where he was going. After a while in the hot afternoon sun, he turned around, shaking his head and wiping the sweat from his forehead. He got back to the car, opened the door, and sat down beside me with a huff.
“Ready to go to the dealership?” I asked him.
“Not if you want me to answer your stupid questions,” he replied.
I sighed. “Well, I think you can at least give me something to go on. You’re awfully secretive about everything.”
“There’s nothing to say,” he said, trying to brush it off.
“Okay but tell me one thing. Why were you staring at me so much before we met?” I asked, wanting to get at least a little information from him.
He stared off into space, probably trying to think up some lie he could tell me. “I thought you looked interesting,” he finally said.
“Ugh, could you please be honest for once?” I begged. This was beyond frustrating. If he didn’t actually tell me anything, then I wasn’t going to get him this car. He could drop out of school for all I cared.
Dylan looked at me, his eyes wrought with emotion. I couldn’t tell if he was feeling anger, sadness, lust, or something else, but whatever it was, it seemed to consume him entirely. He didn’t say anything. He shook his head, once again, refusing to let me know
what was going on in that disheveled head of his.
“Fine,” I said sharply. I didn’t have it in me to drop him off without buying the car, but I wanted him to know that I was pissed. If he thought he could act like this and get any attention at all from me, then he was dead wrong. I didn’t roll like that.
I slammed my foot down on the pedal, jerking the car forward down the street and doing a quick U-turn to head back to the dealership. I glanced at Dylan to see him trying to hide his concern under a scowl as I flew down the streets at breakneck speed, throwing all caution to the wind as we skidded around corners and blew through stop signs.
We arrived back at the dealership, where I parked the car right in front of the main office. I went inside without Dylan, who insisted on staying in the car with his mouth sealed shut. That was alright because I didn’t want to hear from him. Nothing he was saying to me made sense anyway.
I made quick work of the papers that I had to sign, and I walked out of the door with a jingling set of keys for Dylan’s new car. I hoped he enjoyed it and stopped acting like a moron around me. I should have been nicer, considering what I was doing for him.
“Take these and drive yourself home,” I said when I pulled open the door to the car. I tossed the keys into Dylan’s lap.
He didn’t flinch. I just stared forward, not acknowledging me at all.
“Hello? I bought you a car. What are you going to say?” I asked, expecting more than dead silence.
He looked at me, his eyes softening as he picked up the keys. “Thank you, Scarlet,” he said.
“That’s better,” I replied. “I’m going to go home now. I suppose I’m not going to see you at the creek later, but you’re welcome to come,” I said.
He shrugged. “I might be there after work.”
“Okay,” I said, lingering around for a moment longer to see if he had anything to say.
He didn’t.
I left the car, walking back to mine. By the time I looked back, he was already speeding away, probably eager to get away from me after the weird tension that had formed between us. I suspected it had always been there, even if I didn’t know it, but now it was worse. He was hiding something from me, and I was going to find out what it was.
Chapter 12
Dylan
That bitch sure knew how to stick her snooty nose into other people’s business. I wasn’t happy that I had let so much slip in front of her, but I was even more irritated by her questions afterward. This was my game, and she would be the victim. I didn’t like how much power she seemed to have gained over me already.
I slowed the car down the minute I was far enough away from Scarlet. She drove like she was trying to kill someone, and while it was nice to do that on her dime, the car was officially mine now and I couldn’t risk losing it. Besides, I still didn’t have car insurance.
I rolled down the narrow roads, watching the buildings get progressively worse as I approached the familiar trailer park area of town. I grimaced at the dust flying up the sides of my new days as I approached the house. It was so much nicer than what I had previously owned that it seemed a shame to get it dirty out here.
What was more, I would now have to worry about someone trying to break into it because it was nicer than the other cars in the neighborhood. I wondered if this was more of a curse than a blessing because of where I lived. I didn’t want to have to set mouse traps in the car just to keep people out like I had in the storage area.
I couldn’t shake it out of my head that somehow Scarlet was still trying to screw me over, despite her not knowing anything that happened to my family in the past. If she did know, then she would be a lot more suspicious of me than she was now.
I didn’t tell my mother about the new car. I went home, parking it around the back of the trailer, and immediately went to my room without eating dinner. I wasn’t in the mood for food. I would be eating early in the morning before working at my uncle’s repair shop anyway. I needed sleep more than anything.
I didn’t bother taking my clothes off before I laid in bed and closed my eyes. I fell asleep quickly, mentally exhausted from the afternoon with Scarlet. She was really something else, but she tired me. I wasn’t used to dealing with new people.
The next morning, I was met with rays of pale sunlight through the window as my alarm clock beeped. It was a brutal sound, unwelcome in my dreams, shaking my mind awake when it didn’t want to be woken up. I had no choice, though, because I had to work on the weekends.
I stretched, arching my back and popping several locations in my spine. I longed for a better bed to sleep on at night. This spring-ridden piece of crap was ruining my back. Soon, I would have the back pain of a much older man at the ripe age of 19. It wasn’t fair, but then again, nothing in my life was fair.
I rose from my bed, getting undressed while thinking about how good Scarlet would look climbing out of her fancy plush bed completely naked. The sunlight reflecting off her pale skin, the way her eyes would glow bright blue, and the way her dark hair would cascade over her small shoulders were enough to make me feel aroused again. I could hardly control my sexual urges toward her, and it was getting worse the more I saw her.
The funny thing was that she seemed to enjoy it. She treated my aggressive behavior like a game. I wanted to prove to her that I was the wrong one to fuck with, but the deeper I got into her life, the less I felt like ruining her and the more I felt like claiming her perfect body. I could do both at once, I suppose.
I stepped into a pair of oil-stained blue jeans and pulled a black t-shirt over my head. It was hard work at the mechanic’s, but the money is what put me through school. I had to do it, and my uncle wasn’t all that bad. He could be a grumpy old man, but most of the time he was fair with me. I appreciated that.
I went to the kitchen, tiptoeing past my mother’s room so that I wouldn’t wake her up. She was a heavy sleeper, but I wanted to make sure she got enough rest after the long day’s she worked at her job.
I opened the fridge, digging around for any leftovers that I could take. There was a sandwich in there that she had made for me last night, wrapped in foil with my name on it. She was so good to me. I could have never done this without her.
I grabbed the sandwich and placed it in my bag, following it up with a bottle of water from the giant pack wrapped in plastic that always sat by the fridge. I would have liked to drink tap water, but it wasn’t clean enough around here. It was a shame, because that was more money that we had to waste on something to drink, and people wondered why I drank so much out of the water fountain at school. This was why.
I zipped up my old black bag with the sandwich and water and slipped out the door to circle around the side of the trailer. The car was still parked there, looking sorely out of place next to the dirty old trailer, but I loved it already. It ran so smoothly and had zero problems. I could drive safely with it without fearing that it would fall apart and leave me stranded out in the middle of the road.
I tried to pull the door open without unlocking it, resulting in an ear-piercing alarm squealing at a volume that I was certain would wake up everyone in the trailer park.
“Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed jumping back and fishing for the keys in my front pocket. My fingers found the unlock button on them before I even pulled them out, shutting the damn car up before someone called the cops.
I had forgotten that this car needed to be unlocked before I got in. I had some things to get used to after owning a barely-drivable junker for so long. I shook my head at myself as I pulled open the unlocked door and slid into the driver’s seat. It was so much cleaner in this car than my last one. The previous one always smelled like car oil and sweat.
I drove to work the same way I always did, with heightened caution toward all the other cars on the road. It wasn’t a long drive and there wasn’t much traffic, but I still had to be careful. I was still only one accident away from having no means of transportation and my license revoked for driving illegally. Soon th
ough, that would be the least of my worries.
I pulled into the repair shop parking lot and was surprised to see my uncle sitting out in the front on a plastic lawn chair. He usually sat in it during his smoke breaks, but that was only during slow days. It was bright and early in the morning, which meant that he should have been inside the shop, getting ready.
I stepped out of my car, confused as to what was going on. I approached him, cupping a hand over my eyes to block out the glaring sun. He looked peaceful, almost happy, which was unusual. It must not be anything that bad, but I was curious as to what had happened that had him sitting out here like he had nothing to do today.
“What’s going on?” I asked as he stood up.
He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette and took another puff. “Sold the place,” he said simply.
I was taken aback. “What?” I asked, my voice cracking. Perhaps I hadn’t heard him right.
“Yep, an elderly gentleman came here this morning to buy up the whole strip. I think he’s some kind of businessman wanting to build out here. I can’t imagine what he would want with an old repair shop. I suppose he’ll just bulldoze it.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So, you’re not going to be running the place anymore?”
“Nope,” he said happily, pulling out another cigarette before he had even finished the one between his dry lips. “I’m retired. The man offered me a price I couldn’t turn down. Good business, if you ask me.”
I was stunned, but also suspicious. Who would want o buy up all this area, and for what? The local residents in this area were pretty poor, so it had to be from someone outside the area, probably the richer portion of town.
“So, I’m out of a job?” I asked.
“I guess so,” my uncle said, showing next to no sympathy.