Chapter Twenty Three #2
He goes for my throat, but we’ve done this dance so many times I know his every tell.
The twitch of his shoulder before he lunges, the way his weight shifts to his right foot, the faint hiss of breath before he commits.
Every fight has been a rehearsal, a script I’ve studied and memorized, every failure feeding me knowledge, sharpening and molding me into his personal nemesis.
That’s why, on orientation day, I picked the biggest fucker in the room.
Ripped muscle never beats a calculated mind.
I duck low and ram my shoulder into his ribs just left of center, the crack of impact sweet in my ear as I slam him into the wall, my fist driving into his gut hard enough to drag a strangled gasp from him.
It’s not pain, it’s surprise, and I revel in it.
Sweeping his legs, I crash down with him, straddling his waist and hurling a punch straight into his granite jaw.
The pain that splinters up my knuckles is pure rapture, and each punch after that only feeds the half-formed erection pressing against my zipper. Clayton’s hand finds my throat, clamping down, and the noise that breaks out of me is dangerously close to a groan.
“Tighter,” I rasp, slamming my fist into his temple to encourage him.
His legs snap around my waist, bucking me off in a violent spin, and in one smooth movement I’m pinned, his grip even tighter around my throat.
Black dots creep into the corners of my vision as his fist pounds into my face, each strike a violent and brutal.
The split in my lip from yesterday reopens, the slice of pain almost getting me off quicker than Harper did. Almost.
“Fuck yeah. Give me more, Big Boy.” Clayton tears himself off me as if I’ve burned him, leaving me splayed on the floor with blood dripping down my lips, copper sweet and addictive on my tongue.
“You’re so fucking twisted. I’ll never understand why she let you near her,” Clayton growls, stalking away with his fists still balled. “Is that why you called me here, you sick bastard? To goad and then fight me?”
I open my mouth to reply that actually, I called him here because I can’t trust my lackies to carry a hot, naked woman out of my house and not be tempted.
I may not want Harper maddeningly in love with me, because clingy girls give me the biggest ick, but that doesn’t mean I want her at anyone’s mercy.
At least I know Clayton is too noble to touch her.
And yeah, maybe a little bit, I wanted to goad him into a fight. But I don’t get to say any of that.
The door beside me flies open and a lithe half-dressed nymph bursts into the hall, hurdling over my body without pause.
The shirt, my shirt, rides high as she vaults, flashing a glimpse of rounded perfection, her bed-tangled hair messed up divinely in a way that appears freshly fucked. My brain stutters.
“Oh Clay, thank God! Get me out of here before anyone sees me here!”
Hold up, what did she say? I shove myself upright, grabbing Harper’s shoulder and spinning her back to face me. Clayton’s chest rumbles when his eyes catch the hickey blooming on her neck. If only he knew there are bite marks all over her breasts and thighs, branding her as mine. Wait, no, fuck.
Harper’s gaze holds mine, not even tempted to dip to where my shirt is loosely buttoned over my stomach.
To where her claw marks bled me dry beneath my tattoos.
Her lips are beautifully bruised, their deepened red and slightly puffy appearance sending an arrow of lust straight to my dick.
Yet, all of the desire from last night has vanished, distaste left in its wake.
“Why are you in such a rush to leave?” I ask harshly, accusation in my tone. Harper reads my lips, not bothering to turn on the mic clutched in her hand.
“I don’t want anyone to know that I…” She waves in the air, gesturing to all of me. My left eye twitches.
“You’re ashamed? Of me? That’s not right,” I shake my head. Behind her, Clayton chuckles, tapping her arm for her attention. She blinks up at him with wide, green eyes. Looking at him like he’s her damn savior. Yeah, I’ve really fucked up here.
“This idiot,” Clay nudges his chin in my direction but maintains her eye contact, “thought one night would make you fall head over heels in love with him.” His grin is wider than I’ve ever seen, encouraging the same to grow over Harper’s face.
She giggles, once, twice, and suddenly dies in a fit of hysterics whilst holding her sides.
Clayton laughs too, taunting echoes booming around the hallway.
Harper raises her hand to rest it on his chest, absorbing his laughter through her fingertips.
All the while, I stand there, heat rushing to my cheeks, bile rising in my throat.
“You thought,” Harper manages to force through her hysteria, “you have some sort of magical dick.” She’s wheezing now, tears streaming through the smudged mascara from last night.
I narrow my eyes, grinding my teeth. I don’t know if Harper has ever heard herself laugh, but it isn’t the cute, restrained, hidden behind a hand type that girls usually do.
It’s full-bodied and loud, grating against my ears, particularly because it’s aimed at me.
Clayton winds an arm around her shoulders, making a half-ass attempt to put a finger over his lips to stop her from waking the entire house.
Somehow, it doesn’t have the same effect when he is also howling, and the house is stirring already.
I plaster myself to the wall, watching them leave like I wanted, despite the regret cutting deeper than any blade.
She’s walked out on me. Barely looked at me. I’m stuck rooted in place, unable to decide how to react until they’ve disappeared, finally out of my vicinity. I’ve never been laughed at before, not behind my back, not right in my face. No one would dare.
I chase after them, even though they’re long gone, emotions I don’t understand bringing me to the open front door.
A bitter icy chill seeps straight through my shirt, freezing over the fire burning in the pit of my stomach.
I welcome it, inhaling deeply, standing there until my toes go numb and my chest holds a different kind of burn.
This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go.
Woo her, fuck her, forget her. That was the plan, and I got what I wanted.
I had her screaming my name, clawing at me like I was the last breath in her lungs, begging for the strength only I can give.
And somehow, I’m the one standing here furious, and dare I say lusting for her.
How do I still want more? Why do I crave her like she didn’t just humiliate me?
I don’t chase seconds. I don’t circle back.
I’m in a house filled with women I could have at the snap of my fingers.
Yet not a single one appeals to me. I didn’t ruin Harper. She’s ruined me.
Ugh, where is my self-respect? I’m not going to stand here and pine for a girl who just left with someone else, regardless of my part in that scenario.
Nor am I going to stand here being made to look like a fool.
Slamming the door closed, I turn and kick a nearby inflatable ball with all my might.
The neon orange sphere bounces off the wall to my left and slams right back into my face.
I can’t contain my bellow now, grabbing the offensive piece of plastic and marching into the kitchen.
Jagged knife in hand, I slaughter the shit out of it until the limp plastic falls to my feet.
“That’s it! Everybody out!” I roar, my fists clenched as tight as my jaw.
Bodies suddenly jolt up and scurry like rats, most piling out of the door without their clothes.
A pounding in my head starts to pulse as I spiral into a depth of rage I haven’t stooped to in a while.
Now that it’s back, I suddenly realize how long it’s actually been.
Around two or three weeks I reckon, just before a green eyed girl steamrolled into my life and turned my world on its head.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit stewing in misery all day. I need to purge it from my system, fast, because if I don’t, it will spread and consume every thought. I’ve learnt from experience I make shitty choices when I’m distracted. This morning is case and point.
Grabbing a female with electric blue hair by the arm as she tries to leave, I pull her outside onto the porch. A line of piercings follows the outline of her ears which instantly reminds me of Harper’s receivers. I physically slap myself to knock the image from my mind, much to her confusion.
“I need you to hurt me,” I rasp. Her brown eyes widen and she tries to step away but I latch onto her wrist to hold her in place. “No catch or repercussions. Just do as I say and I’ll make sure you graduate with honors.”
Her fear stirs something unpleasant in me, not guilt, but recognition.
As if she sees what I am trying to bury, and I cannot allow that.
On her hesitant nod, I pull a pack of cigarettes and my zippo from my back-jean pocket, handing them to her and removing my shirt.
Tossing it over the balcony railing, I point to the bare patch of skin on my lower back and brace myself.
Not for pain but for the clean disconnection it brings, the one thing that stills the anarchy in my being.
The pain I can control. When nothing happens, when hesitation clogs the air between us, I growl at her over my shoulder until she sparks up a flame.
The first sting comes and with it the flood, a surge of white static coursing through me, cutting off the noise that has been screaming inside my skull.
I hear myself groan, low and guttural, welcoming the release like an addict chasing a fix.
“Again,” I bark, because once is never enough, because I know what it takes to scrape myself hollow until the emotions can no longer find a place to settle.
No amount of therapy has been able to help me, to stop these urges.
They’re not urges, not impulses, but survival tactics written into my bones.
It is a base need which calls to me like a whisper on the wind, drawing me into a lull of peace others would run from.
Long story short, I’m broken, but this is how I keep myself stitched together, as crude and temporary as it may be.
My unwilling torturer grabs a plastic cup from the floor and uses jacuzzi water to throw across my back.
Like the damage, my internal agony is extinguished almost instantly, leaving behind the kind of emptiness I crave.
She frets about the redness and the scarring until I shoo her away, needing to be alone now with only the afterglow of agony for company.
Once the marks have healed, I’ll just have them tattooed over and it will be like they never existed, hidden beneath my ink the way everything else in my life is.
Bending to pick up the cigarettes she dropped, I place one between my lips to spark up on a relaxing inhale.
Everyone has different routines and quirks, here’s mine, a ritual of obliteration and rebirth.
Of burying what I don’t want to acknowledge beneath layers of loathing.
This way, I’m safe. No one can hurt me, no one can reject me or laugh in my face, and no one dares to walk out on me.
At least one thing has become clear through all of this.
I dropped the ball. I gave Harper Addams too much power over me.
Every thrust, every broken gasp, every shuddering roll of her hips.
The way her skin glowed against mine, the way she rode me with those perfect curves, the way her eyes rolled back every time my piercing hit her sweet spot.
I lost my precious control, and I will do whatever it takes to get it back.