Chapter 14
14
Aviva
O ver the next week or so, Jack’s declaration that I was his “cumdumpster” followed me everywhere. On campus, everyone I walked by went silent, only to explode into laughter once I’d passed them. In the cafeteria, I was surrounded by guys in Kings jerseys—either members of the team or team groupies—who did the slut cough, except they’d exchanged “slut” for “cumdumpster” when they fake coughed. Tovah made the mistake of posting a picture of us on Instagram and tagging me. Her comment section exploded with people saying what a trashy slut I must be for Jack Hat Trick Feldman to announce publicly that I was nothing to him but a set of holes. And someone had the balls to graffiti the study carrel I’d rented with the delightful word on it. The library was replacing it, but who knew how long that would be?
Cumdumpster. I thought I’d hated princess because of my past, but I’d had no idea how bad it could get. I avoided talking to everyone but Tovah and my professors, called out sick from work (Dick hadn’t fought me on it), and counted down the days until the weekend. I planned to hide out in our apartment and watch Ted Lasso , like I should’ve done last weekend instead of going to that godforsaken party. Luckily, Jack had disappeared. Maybe this time, he was done with me.
I could only hope.
Jack confused me. He’d defended me to Dick, protected me, kissed me like I mattered to him. The tenderness had fucked with my head so I’d bitten his lip, but it was like my small action had triggered something in him and brought out the cruel asshole he really was, not the protective boyfriend type he’d pretended to be for five seconds.
Tovah, for her part, was livid. She’d ranted all week about “doing a murder, just a small but painful murder,” and begged me to let her go after Jack “in any way I possibly can.” In fact, she’d written an op-ed in The Daily Queen asking, “Do We Let Our Campus’ Hockey Gods Get Away With Too Much?” The editor-in-chief had pulled her aside and told her no way were they running the article; the Kings were their biggest advertiser.
I told her it was okay, that I was okay.
And in some ways, I was.
Under normal circumstances, the bullying would have destroyed me. And I wouldn’t pretend that being under such a malicious microscope didn’t hurt, because it did. My anxiety was through the roof, my nerves were shot, I was sleeping like shit, and there were even times I had to force myself not to burst into tears. But these weren’t normal circumstances. I had more important things to care about than my reputation at a university I’d never intended to be at in the first place.
All that mattered was proving that Joshua Jensen had abused Asher so I could help Asher get his life and his future back.
Since hacking into Joshua’s cloud account hadn’t worked, I had to pivot to other tactics. I completely doubted that Asher was the coach’s first victim, and I couldn’t imagine no one had talked, so I spent the week diving deep into college hockey Reddits and other college sports forums, searching every version of Joshua Jensen’s name I could think of to see if there was a single whisper of misconduct.
All I found was a single, buried post: JJ’s a real dick, and only thinks with his dick. But the user, motherpucker22, had disappeared off of Reddit and deleted their account. I searched for them on every other social media site.
Nothing.
I was frustrated and desperate. This had to be a lead, so then why couldn’t I find anything? I felt like I was failing my brother—and myself.
Unfortunately, my focus on justice meant other things slipped my mind. Namely, the semester-long partner project for Deviant Psychology.
Until one day, more than a week after Cumpdumpster-gate, I was rudely reminded of said project with this text from an unknown number:
Hey, study buddy, when are we doing this thing?
My stomach dropped out of my body and through the earth. It probably landed somewhere in hell.
It had to be Jack.
doing what thing
Not even asking who this is?
the red flags that popped up on my phone made it pretty obvious
He sent back a smirking emoji. I hadn’t even know there was a smirking emoji.
Meet me at the hockey house in an hour so we can figure out what our topic is.
Like I was an idiot. I wasn’t going near the hockey house.
meet me at M Libe
Ellipses danced across my phone’s screen, before he finally responded.
Sure, princess. If you think being in public will keep you safe from me, I’ll play your little game. You win.
For now.
I stared at my phone, uneasy. There was a part of me—a small part—that felt, if not happy, then excited that he hadn’t completely disappeared. I hated that part. Jack and I were adversaries, and I had to keep my guard up around him. The only games we’d played so far were his, and I’d lost all of them. And maybe in Jack’s eyes these were games, and I’d won this one, but I knew better. We weren’t playing a game. We were fighting a war. And I needed to win.
Malek Library, otherwise known as “M Libe”, was the oldest building on Reina’s campus. It was a large, dark, gothic structure, covered in climbing vines. Inside, it was dimly lit, aided by the soft glow of Tiffany lamps. Large oak tables and small study carrels filled cavernous rooms, surrounded by books that looked more for show than research.
I tried to find us a table on the first floor, hoping that all the quiet students would keep Jack on his best behavior, but there was no room, so I was forced to find us a table on the third floor, which, although not completely empty, was much less crowded. The one silver lining was that everyone was too focused on studying to take much notice of the most infamous girl on campus.
I practically jumped out of my chair when someone squeezed the back of my neck.
“Careful there, princess. You might hurt yourself,” Jack chided, but he sounded more amused than concerned.
And of course he did. Why would he be concerned for me? Sure, he’d stood up for me to Dick and threatened him, but moments later he’d humiliated me in front of everyone. I was nothing more than a hockey puck to slap around the ice until he got bored of me.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “You scared the complete fuck out of me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did I?”
He must have showered right before meeting me. His short, dark, straight hair was damp, and he smelled like lemony soap and that musky Jack scent that tempted me to lean into him. It didn’t help that his white t-shirt and faded jeans stretched across his broad chest and powerful thighs, respectively.
He settled into the chair across from me, eyes probing my face.
“We should get started,” I told him.
He ignored me. “How are you?”
I glared. “Really? You’re going to ask me how I am? You painted a huge target on my back. Everyone here is shit talking me, in person and online. I can’t go anywhere without being whispered about or laughed at. Or cat-called, propositioned…”
His jaw worked, and there was a look in his eyes I couldn’t read. “Cat-called? Propositioned?”
“Every guy on campus thinks I’m easy. And they’ve had no problem with letting me know it.”
He growled.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said abruptly. “No one is going to be fucking propositioning you anymore.”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
He shook his head. “I already told you why.”
You’re mine.
“And yet here you are, in public,” he mused.
“Here I am.”
He looked closer at me. Was that admiration in his silver-gray eyes?
“You know, most people would have cracked under the pressure. Being mocked, torn apart online?—”
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered.
“—ostracized…it would have broken most people. But you—you’ve held your head high and it hasn’t distracted you from your priorities. I don’t understand, how are you this strong?”
My cheeks heated with the praise. “Because I’ve dealt with so much worse in my life,” I told him. “It’s not that it hasn’t affected me, but I refuse to let it break me. I refuse to let anything break me. There are things more important than my reputation.”
“So strong,” he murmured. “So brave.”
And then he leaned over the table, raising a hand to stroke my cheek. A shiver broke out, lighting up my spine.
I flinched away. “Don’t,” I said, my throat tight. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you.”
Someone shushed us. I turned to see a student at a study carrel glaring at us. They looked at Jack, blushed, and looked back down at their computer.
“Sorry,” they said, like they were the ones who’d broken the rules. It was truly amazing how being around a celebrity—and Jack was a celebrity—warped people’s minds and values. Parasocial relationships were wild.
I cleared my throat. “We need to decide on a topic for the project.” I squared my shoulders. He was going to hate what I said next. “I was thinking we could do it on the connection between power and sexual narcissism.”
He shook his head, a shark’s grin flashing on his gorgeous face. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Never.”
“Strong, brave, and tenacious,” he murmured. “Too bad though, because that’s not what we’re doing.”
“Oh, you have an idea?”
“Yeah. I think we do our project on the symptoms of sexual repression and shame around sex. Sound familiar?”
“I’m not repressed,” I hissed. My cheeks heated.
He hummed. “Are you sure, princess?”
“Don’t call me princess.”
His eyes, warm a moment ago, hardened. “I’ll call you whatever I want, Aviva. And I’ve changed my mind. You’re right, we should do our project on sex and power—specifically the psychology behind giving up power in sex, the freedom in submission and consensual nonconsent. That feels…apt.”
I swallowed. The room, once chilly, grew sweltering. “Submission isn’t deviant.”
His eyes were intense. “No, but it is considered divergent behavior.”
“And what’s between us isn’t consensual.”
He shrugged. Once again, I couldn’t read the look in his eyes. “You’re right. It’s not. But you still want it, don’t you, princess? Even though you tell yourself you don’t?”
“Jack.” I glanced around. “Not here.”
It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I’d dared him, and as he shook his head at me before slowly disappearing under the table, I regretted my words.
“Jack,” I hissed again. “You can’t?—”
But he either didn’t hear me, or didn’t care, because a moment later, my leggings were being pulled down, and my panties followed. And then my thighs were being pushed open and his mouth was on me and his tongue was drawing gentle circles around my clit and he was sucking it between his lips and working it and working me and I had to cover my mouth with my hand and trap my long, desperate, helpless whimper so everyone around us didn’t figure out what he was doing to me.
He fingered me as he licked and sucked, one finger, then two, stretching me. The ache felt so good. I was still new to this, new to sex, and as he played with my pussy and lit up my whole body with pleasure, a thought came to me: Jack was shaping me around him. Around his own need, his own desire. My body was his Pygmalion as he molded me into exactly what he wanted me to be. Until I craved him, craved this so badly, I worried I’d never want anyone else.
And then I wasn’t thinking anymore because he’d bitten down, because I was too busy coming, on his face, his fingers, completely out of control around strangers. I couldn’t care as the sharp, brutal pleasure took over my every thought and feeling. I shook apart into pieces, my thighs caught in his grip as he feasted on me. It was too much, but he wouldn’t stop, just worked my clit more, worked me harder, faster, and I fell apart all over again. And then again. And then again.
Finally, he released me, dropping a kiss on my mound so tender I almost cried. It was in complete opposition with the rest of his treatment of me. All these quick but sweet moments threw me, and I expected that was the point.
He pulled my underwear and leggings back up as I slumped back in my chair, drained. Moments later, he reappeared from beneath the table, his mouth wet with me.
“You can’t tell me you didn’t want that,” he murmured. “I can taste how much you want it. Don’t deny it or deny me, princess.”
I tried to say don’t call me princess , but my body was too buzzed.
Especially when he stood up from his chair, came around the other side of the table, and leaned down to kiss me. I tasted myself on him as he poured intensity into the kiss, into my mouth, and he was right, because I wanted it, wanted him.
And I didn’t know how to make it stop.
When he pulled away, he lifted my chin with a finger, staring into my eyes. “If you like that, you’re going to love what I do next. ”
His words chilled me. Not only because of the threat in them, but because I believed him.
I stood, gathering up my old crappy laptop and notebook as I stared up at him, refusing to be cowed. “I won’t love it, because there’s nothing you do that’s loveable, and there’s nothing about you that’s loveable, Jack Feldman. I wish I’d never met you, and I can’t wait for the day you’re finally out of my life for good.”
With that, I stormed out of the library.
But I could feel his eyes tracking me the whole time.
And part of me—a part I hated as much as I hated him?
Liked it.