Chapter 16
Damon
I lie in the middle of my bed, waiting for Evan to come out of the bathroom.
“Is Chase going to be more of an issue?” Hawk leans against the headboard on one side of me, while Cam lies on the other side of the bed with his arms tucked under his head.
I told them about dinner with Chase’s family and how we were basically told to play nice.
“He knows I’m all over his girl and have access.” I smile. He doesn’t realize how ruined his little good girl is yet.
“What if he tells people at school?” Evan asks.
I lift my head to find Evan standing at the foot of the bed. “Come here, little devil.”
She crawls across the bed to my side. When she settles into her spot, I draw her in tight against me. This is where she belongs. In my arms. In my bed. Satisfied so many fucking times. Dripping with our cum. Ours.
“Are you worried?” I ask. “It doesn’t have to change anything.”
She laughs. “Are you sure you go to the same school I go to?”
“Your friend might have something to say about it,” I admit. Mia’s going to be a problem. I don’t know how yet, but she’ll become a problem for all of us.
“Mia doesn’t know, and I kept it from her.
” She pushes up so she can meet my eyes.
“I’m smart and talented, but that doesn’t make me popular.
It doesn’t put me on the map of our school.
Being here, with you, will. Girls will suddenly want to be my friends and maybe guys will actually notice I exist.”
Cam scoffs. “Hate to tell you, goody, but they already know. And if they didn’t before, that little outfit you wore last weekend put you on the map. You might be oblivious to the way the guys at our school watch you, but I’m not.”
She looks so confused. I reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear. Her gaze drops to mine. Cam’s right. She’s gorgeous in a non-plastic way that’s attracting more attention. It makes me want to claim her so they’ll all back off, because she’s mine.
“We don’t have to say anything.” I want to protect her because she’s right. The girls will try to be her friend to get closer to me. “We don’t have to change anything at school.”
She draws in a breath and rests her head on my chest. “We’re going to blow up his party? How do we do that?”
I rub my hand down her back. Maybe we shouldn’t push with her and just stick to our other plans.
What if Chase figures out Evan is part of my plan?
What if he hurts her? For the first time, I hesitate to use Evan for my revenge.
Maybe it was the way Chase put on an act for Evan and his parents.
Making it seem like he’s in love with her, and the adults fell for that shit.
Evan didn’t.
I don’t trust him with her. I never have.
He needs to keep his hands off her. But she’s right.
This won’t end well when everything comes out.
If I want to hurt him, he has to know about us.
If I tell him she’s mine, it will put a target on her back.
The girls will be jealous, catty bitches.
The guys will want to see what the big deal is.
I’m not about to let her go through that. Not if sex is all that’s between us. I don’t know if I believe that anymore. There may have never been a way to have Evan without something changing.
“The normal ways a party spreads.” Cam touches her hip. “Word of mouth. Eventually everyone hears about parties.”
“Won’t he be able to shut it down if he hears about it?” Evan yawns and her hand spreads over my ribs. Her touch is easy, comfortable. Most girls leave after sex. Most of the time I do the leaving. I thought Evan in my bed would make her want more.
My heart thumps a little harder as I realize it might have backfired.
“Not the way parties work, Annie.” Hawk glances toward her, but she’s tucked on my chest and I can feel her breathing evening out.
She works as hard on her play as I do on hockey. I respect that about her, which is unusual because I can count the women I respect on one finger. My mother had my respect and no other.
But Evan is earning my reluctant respect.
She’s doing what she can and adjusting to the things thrown in her path.
Like me. I came at her like a fucking hurricane, but she just wrapped herself around me and slipped easily into being what I look forward to in my day.
Those times I can see what she’s doing or when I finally get the chance to be with her make my fucking day.
Holding her while she sleeps…
“She asleep?” Cam asks after she doesn’t talk for a few minutes.
“Yeah,” Hawk says and runs his hand through his hair. “What are we going to do? Chase has some power at school. Not as much as we do, but more than Annie.”
“He wants her.” Cam touches her hair. “Did you find out why?”
“His parents seem to think he’s spending all his time with Evan.” I picked up on that. But she has to be more than just his fucking alibi. “They seem really happy that he’s with her. Like if you told your dad you got into Yale.”
“Fuck.” Cam shakes his head.
“Yeah, how will we get Annie untangled from him? Without fucking over her play?” Hawk turns on his side to look at her.
“First thing, the party. Let’s take away his freedom.” I glare up at the ceiling. Getting revenge and protecting Evan might not be something I can accomplish at the same time. Her breath skates across my chest. Right now, I’m not sure I’d choose revenge.
I wake up with Evan sprawled over me, my hand draped possessively over her hip. When I turn, her face is next to mine on the pillow, soft in sleep. Has anyone ever protected her?
It chased through my mind all night.
Has she ever had anyone she could turn to? When Chase abandoned her, she called Hawk. She didn’t call me because I’d been an ass with Olivia. But she didn’t call her mother or anyone else either.
How checked out of Evan’s life is her mom? The counselor my dad sent me to after Mom died talked a little about how people reacted to grief differently.
Evan is the most capable, put-together person I know. My dad holds on to me tighter, but did her mom just give up? Because Evan is so capable of taking care of herself?
Fuck.
Cam kisses her hair as he and Hawk get ready to leave. “I’ll start spreading the party rumor.”
I nod, and Hawk kisses Evan’s temple.
“You’ve got her?” Hawk’s green eyes meet mine.
“Yeah.” I tighten my arm around her. They can’t be with her like I can.
I may not understand it, but right now, Evan is mine. I don’t usually keep girls, but there’s something about her that draws me.
The lock clicks as Hawk relocks it on his way out. I breathe in her woodsy scent. Fuck, maybe she was a mistake I couldn’t resist. She was always meant to be in my path, whether by Chase or her mother. Always meant to be mine.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Thinking it’s an alarm, I reach for it. I unlock it with the passcode she never told me. She was nice enough to unlock it right in front of the camera once.
Unknown:
You can block my number but I’ll always find you
You’re mine, Evan
I know where you live
I watch you get in your car
I can get to you
Don’t think I can’t
And next time I’ll finish what I started
Who the fuck is this? And what the fuck do they want with Evan? I take a screenshot and send it to my phone before checking the number. It’s local. I delete the picture from her phone and put it back on the nightstand.
“Evan,” I say softly. I need to watch her reaction to the messages. To get a clear view of what’s happening.
She makes this soft little noise and burrows into my neck.
I chuckle. “Little devil, I need you to wake up.”
“Too early.” She wraps her arm around my waist and throws her leg over mine.
“Your phone’s been blowing up.” Unable to resist, I slide my hand under her shirt and over her bare hip, squeezing her ass cheek. I can’t wait to fuck this ass.
“Really?” She lifts her head and blinks at me with those stormy eyes.
I gesture to where it sits on the nightstand. Her gaze jerks to it before she blinks at me again. Her gaze drops to my lips. Hunger, desire, heat. Fuck, we’ve created an insatiable monster.
“If you check it, maybe I’ll have time to fuck you before we need to get ready for school.” I arch an eyebrow.
She wets her lips and rolls to the side to grab her phone. When she unlocks the screen, her brow furrows, and as she reads, she becomes paler.
“What is it?” I ask like I have no idea what she’s reading. I don’t need her to change her passcode.
“I…” She puts her hand over her mouth and drags in a breath. Her stormy eyes meet mine. “I don’t know who it’s from.”
“What is it?” Come on, little devil. Tell me. Trust me.
She draws in a breath. “I think someone is fucking with me.”
“You mean besides us?”
She puts her phone on her chest and turns to meet my gaze. “It could be someone from my past or just someone trying to mess with me. Maybe they noticed you paying attention to me. Maybe it’s Chase. I don’t know. But honestly, it kind of scares me.”
It’s written on her face. “May I?”
She looks at it again before passing me the phone. She turns on her side to watch me read it. “It’s not really a threat, right?”
I clench the phone. Anger burns through me upon reading it again. “You don’t have any clue who this is?”
She blows out a breath and drops her gaze from mine. She knows. Somewhere deep inside her, she knows. But will she tell me? When she lifts her gaze, she’s torn.
“It could be someone, but I don’t know how he would have gotten my number. Or how he would know where I live. And I’m probably overreacting.” Evan drops her gaze. That tracks with the girl I’ve gotten to know. Evan is logical. But fear isn’t always logical.
“I don’t believe you could overreact, Evan.”
She lifts her gaze to mine. “It could be any of those possibilities…”
“Or? Tell me, Evan. I can look into it, at least.”
She takes a deep breath. “When I was sixteen, the apartments we lived in, there was a boy who I knew from elementary school living there. He flirted with me and gave me candy and made me feel special.”
From what I know about Evan, she’s attention-starved. I’m sure it wasn’t easy back then. If her mother was with her boyfriend, leaving Evan alone to take care of herself, someone paying attention to her would have drawn her. Like Chase did. Like we did.
“He caught me alone and kissed me. I froze. I didn’t want him to kiss me.
” She holds my gaze like she’s begging me to believe her.
“If Mom hadn’t come looking for me, I’m not sure what he would have done.
I don’t know that I would have fought whatever he had planned or if I could have.
” A tear slips down her cheek. “But I got away so…”
Something falls into place. I reach out and brush the tear away. “Your first kiss?”
She nods. “I’m being stupid.”
But why wouldn’t she tell us the name during truth or dare? Is it someone we know? I try to think of anyone at Deimos or Anteros who would live in an apartment complex. One of the scholarship kids?
She sits up and holds out her hand for the phone. I look at the texts.
“Someone wants you to be afraid.” The more I think about these messages, the more I’m convinced whoever sent them wants her to be frightened. To be watching over her shoulder. Maybe they get off on that. The anticipation, her fear.
“It’s not like I don’t have a bunch of things happening right now. It might not even be him.” She searches my eyes.
I put the phone in her hand. “Who is it, Evan?”
She lifts her gaze to mine. “Jackson Riordan.”