Chaos at Westbrook High (The Kingston Brothers #3)

Chapter 9

Shit.Shit, he’s so close. Too close. Too close to me…too close to my apartment…too close to my brother…

How does he know where I live?

I don’t ask that question, or any of the others swimming through my head, because I’m too focused on the glare on his face, the one that wasn’t there the last time I saw him or any of the other times. He’s…he’s not looking at me the same. I don’t know why that knots my stomach. I shouldn’t care what he thinks of me and I don’t, damn it, but there it is, twisting me up inside and making me feel…scared? Guilty? Sad?

Fuck that.

The only thing Kai Kingston makes me feel is rage, so it’s probably a good thing he feels the same way about me now.

His blue eyes narrow as if he’s trying to see through mine, those four words echoing in the too small space between us.

You lied to me.

Finally snapping myself out of my temporary paralysis, I shake my head with a small, disbelieving laugh. This entitled prick. Even if I did lie to him, which I didn’t, not really, I owe him nothing. Not an explanation. Not an argument or a fight. Not a goddamn thing.

“What?” he asks, taking yet another step forward, using his body to stop me from walking away. “You gonna act like you haven’t known who I am to him the entire time I’ve been chasing you? Damn it, Hailey, you’ve always known.”

“And?”

“And,” he echoes angrily. “Why didn’t you say something?”

That bitter laugh slips out of me again, and it’s me moving closer to himthis time, tipping my head back to meet his eyes head on. “What did you expect me to say? I don’t care who you are to him or anybody else. I don’t care that you’re his cousin. And I don’t owe you shit.”

“The fuck you don’t,” he snaps, quickly shutting his mouth as if he didn’t mean to say that.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he mutters, glancing down at the cleaning supplies on the ground beside us. “What are you even doing?”

“Wait, what did you mean?—”

God, that look. It cuts into me like a knife to my throat, and it’s not hard to see why everyone’s scared to breathe around him when he acts like this. Like he’s got no problem ruining my life if I so much as open my mouth without permission. Like he’d enjoy it, even. He looks so cruel and menacing right now, the bad boy Kingston brother wearing his all black clothes, his inked body, his dark hair falling over his eyes. And that glare…

“What are you doing?” he asks again.

“Cleaning Derek’s car,” I say dryly, doing my best to hide my anxiety with sarcasm.

He stares at the hose as if he’s never seen one before. “Why can’t Derek do it himself?”

Because he’s drunk—again—and he refuses to move his lazy ass and get shit done. When I got home from work, I found him exactly where I left him before school this morning, passed out on the couch as if him picking me up today never even happened. I got mad again and almost woke him up, but I knew there was no point in trying, so instead I snatched his car keys and asked my neighbors on the ground floor if I could borrow their hose. I scrubbed the inside of the car and got rid of the drugs first, not because I wanted to, but because if I don’t do the things that need doing around here, they’d never get done. Derek can’t bring himself to give a shit about anything right now, not even the car Elijah gave him the day he got his driver’s license four years ago.

He loves this fucking car.

And I know it’s just that—a car—but it breaks my heart to see him so depressed that he’s stopped caring about what happens to it.

I clamp my teeth together while I fight the urge to cry. What a fucking mess I am.

Kai looks deep into my eyes, searching for something I refuse to show him.

“You know there are these places called car washes that’ll do it for you, right?” he asks.

“You know regular people can’t just pull cash out of their asses, right, rich boy?”

He smirks at that, seemingly amused by me and my big mouth. He tips his chin at the apartment building I grew up in. “Is he up there?”

“He’s none of your business.”

“You’re protective of him,” he observes, his dark eyes bouncing between mine. “You’re trying to protect him from me. Why?”

“You know why.”

He moves closer again, and I step back again, adjusting my grip on the handle of the hose I’m still holding. He’s laughing at me now, not with his mouth but with his eyes, clearly seeing my intent before I’ve even fully thought about it.

“You really think a little water’s gonna keep me away from you?”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I remind him, but the breathy sound of my voice betrays me.

Damn it.

“I think you are. And maybe you should be.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re Derek’s girl,” he says like it’s a fact, his lip curling in disgust. “That makes you my enemy.”

“I’m not his girl.”

“What are you then?” he asks, his eyes flashing with menace. “His whore?”

Motherfucker.

My nostrils flare, and I’m this close to pissing him off for real this time.

Don’t do it, you child. Don’t do it, don’t?—

“Are he and my uncle paying for you to go to Westbrook so long as you keep giving him a hole to stick his dick int?—”

I do it. I lift the hose and soak the bastard. Satisfaction rolls through me for half a second while he spits the water from his mouth, but then he’s coming for me, easily snatching the handle from my hand and pointing it upright beside us, soaking us both. I squeal and stumble back a step, but he doesn’t let me fall, locking his right arm around my waist as the freezing water rains down on us.

“You know if you wanted to get wet with me, all you had to do was ask,” he teases, burying his face into my neck.

“Kai, turn it off!” I shout, punching his shoulders and twisting in his grip. He doesn’t turn it off, and he sure as shit doesn’t let me go. He’s enjoying this, laughing as he towers over me with his height and his body. I lean all the way away from him, and he’s right on top of me now, the front of my cap the only thing keeping our foreheads from touching. I’m trying to use my weight to push him off, but I’m also clinging to him for some reason, my heart racing in my chest as he overpowers me, lying me down across the hood of Derek’s car. Eyes locked on mine, he drops the hose on the ground. I’m not sure how we got here, both of us dripping wet, his hips between my thighs, his mouth hovering over mine. He’s too damn close again, and I’m horrified over how much I don’t hate it.

“Fuck, I love that look on your face,” he whispers, leaning on his forearm beside my head, using his thumb to push the hat off my head. “You still hate me but you want me too, don’t you?”

“I…” I look down at my shaky fingers wrapped around his wet shirt, visibly shivering when I realize how hard his dick is against my pussy.

He knows I can feel it through our clothes. The return of his stupid smirk confirms that. And Jesus Christ, I think he knows how much it’s affecting me.

“I wanna hatefuck you so bad right now.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” His big hand slowly travels over my side, my stomach, then down to my inner thigh, his thumb teasing the edge of my pussy over my shorts. “I’ll pull your hair and you can bite my neck. It’ll make me fuck you even harder, rougher,” he adds, his voice low and gravelly. “I could make you feel so fucking good, right here on the hood of his car.”

“You’re insane,” I rasp, dropping my eyes to that neck he was talking about, imagining it before I can stop myself, the way it would feel to sink my teeth into his inked skin while he fucks me.

“Is that a yes?”

I open my mouth, but no words come out. He grins like he’s got me, and then I finally come to my senses and knock my fist into his chest. “That’s a not a chance in hell.”

“Why not?”

I try to shove him, but he refuses to move his heavy body off mine.

“Because I don’t like you, and I don’t want you,” I growl, craning my neck to check no one’s watching from the building beside us.

He’s laughing at me again, using his fingers to move the hair stuck to my face, slowly dipping his head to speak over my lips. “Tell me to get off you.”

“What?”

“When you fight me, it feels like foreplay. Your body’s betraying you, so use your words instead. Tell me to get off, and I’m gone.”

I glare, and he smirks, the cocky fucker.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I hate you.”

“Mm,” he says, peeling himself off me just as the sound of a familiar car engine rumbles loudly beside us. I tense, but I don’t dare look over there. I refuse to let them see my fear.

Still flat on my back, my damp shirt ridden up to my ribs, Kai runs his finger over my hip bone, then across my waistband to the other one. I slap his hand away. He chuckles.

“We’re gonna have so much fun playing this game, baby girl.”

My glare deepens as he backs away. “What’s the game?”

“You are,” he says simply.