45. Soren
SOREN
Her hand is too soft in mine, too damn small, and there’s especially too much warmth.
I don’t have any interest in this Offering, or any of the other bullshit my friends and family find so important, so why couldn’t I just mind my own damn business and leave her with the guys?
Didn’t we all just agree not to interfere with each other last night?
And now I’m suddenly the one on the outs while Hadrian is part of the team.
I don’t want anything to do with her. I don’t like her, and everything I’ve ever heard, read, or known about her was that she’s nothing more than a spoiled bitch, and that’s the nice parts.
She’s not any better than Arabella, even if the guys had a point about the car prank.
Why am I whisking her away right now, her hand in mine, like the idea of a little public exhibitionism offends me?
It doesn’t. I don’t care what they do, nor do I care about her.
I should turn her around and take her back to them just to preserve my own sanity.
Instead, we keep going until I find an empty classroom.
Her hand stays in mine, and some reasonable part of me notes I don’t have to keep touching her as I pull her inside.
Shutting the door behind us, I’m not sure what I want or what I’m doing.
I didn’t need to come in here with her. I could still leave her alone.
None of the times I’ve opened her door were necessary and each of these stupid steps are leading me astray.
As I’m figuring out how everything went to shit, Sable watches me, getting her own ideas.
“Thank you,” she says, wide blue eyes shining.
Her words barely make it through the cotton filling my ears, the throbbing in my brain as I try to shake just how fucking pretty she is, all hot and mussed like this.
They may have humiliated her, but it’s clear she’s turned on too.
Her hand slips out of mine, and I’m glad that she has some sanity and she’s using it for us both.
That changes in an instant, and the next thing I know, her arms wrap around me, her lips touch mine, and her entire body presses into me.
Fuck, she’s soft, and she smells sweet. The contact shoots straight to my cock, and all I want is to stick my tongue down her throat and taste more.
I allow the kiss to go on for a moment longer than I should before I push her off me.
“Don’t touch me. I'm not like those pathetic, horny assholes, and I do not want you,” I shout.
It’s much louder than necessary, and I feel like a brute when she takes a step back, looking like I’ve slapped her.
Fear in her features when she was looking at me all soft and gushy a moment before does something unpleasant to me.
“I’m sorry,” she says, but it doesn’t help the rage exploding inside me.
The Offerings have always been beneath me.
I’m not like the rest of them, and I neither needed nor wanted a whore.
What I need now is for her to be a shitty person.
That’s the only way to keep fighting because I’m so fucking attracted to her it’s insane.
She smells aroused. Hating her is the last thing forcing me to control myself.
I hate her , I insist. Wish she never goddamn came here!
In one swift, angry move, I shove the contents off the professor's desk, a flurry of papers and shattering glass fly across the room. Sable jumps and shrieks. Her fear fuels me. Maybe it’s petty, but it doesn’t matter if it will keep her fucking lips off me.
She holds up her hands as a sign of surrender, and a pang of guilt shoots through me as I catch her shake.
“Obviously, you’re not like them.” Her calm and measured tone surprises me.
Every physical sign points toward her being terrified, but she’s amazing at hiding it.
“You’re clearly one of them, so you could have done anything you wanted to me at any time, but you didn’t.
You haven’t even spoken to me until today when you helped me.
You don’t have to prove you’re different to me. ”
I don’t know what it is about being seen, but it takes the worst of the heat out of my anger.
Everything falls flat around me. My brother and the guys like to make fun of me for how different I feel I am, how learned, how above them, but it’s not fucking true.
I’m just not interested in the things they are, and I don’t want to keep playing the damn game.
Lex gets it better than the others. He’s bored with it, but he’s not trying to break free. I am.
My old best friend and current nemesis Hadrian is the only one out of the five of us who really believes he’s better than the rest. I make my choices on information rather than emotion, as they do. Yet here I am, acting on damn emotion just like them.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say as my regret sinks in. My hands dig into my hair and pull just to take the rest of the edge off my frustration.
“You don’t have any reason to be. I’m grateful you helped me.
That’s why I tried to kiss you.” She keeps her hands up, like she wants me to know I’m safe, but she’s the one who’s really afraid.
“I don’t know, I guess I got a little swept away in the hero thing?
” she asks sweetly as she looks down, her cheeks a deeper red than they were in front of the class.
“Hero thing?” I ask.
“Yeah, I didn’t exactly ask to be publicly humiliated.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you did when you signed up for this?”
She looks down, and I can’t quite read her expression.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“If you want.”
“Please don’t tell the others, but I didn’t know—never mind.
” She shakes her head like she’s thought better of sharing with me.
“You helped me. You didn’t ask to hear my problems.” Her throat sounds thick, and she clears it twice before switching tactics.
“I’m the one who is terribly sorry for pushing myself on you.
Thinking you wanted to kiss me just because you were willing to help me and I find you handsome was wrong. Thank you so much for your help.”
Her words slide a knife deep inside me and flay me open as surely as Lex’s blades.
What exactly is she talking about? What didn’t she know?
So many pieces of this don’t add up, and part of me wants to dig deeper.
To force her to tell me what she means. She’s gorgeous, there’s no denying that, and I have found her sinfully attractive since the first moment I saw her.
I can admit that at least to myself now.
“No, I don’t want to kiss you, but I shouldn’t be throwing things anyway.
I’m sorry I frightened you, especially after all that.
” The words sound so assured, but everything inside me screams uncertainty.
She smiles a little ruefully, as if what I said hurts her feelings, but she accepts it anyway.
The trouble is I’m hurting her feelings, and I’m a filthy goddamn liar.
“Do you mind just staying here with me for a little while? I’m just not ready to go back to dealing with Orion.”
“I can do that or take you back to your room for the day. It’s up to you.”
“Could you take me back to my room?” she asks gently. “I don’t want to inconvenience you, but I really don’t want to keep going to classes today.”
I nod, and her slight smile makes my heart race.
Rather than letting her dig deeper, I turn and lead her out of the classroom and back to her room.
She doesn’t say a word despite it taking nearly twenty minutes, and neither do I.
Even though she’s making me miss class and throwing off my entire week as a result, I don’t particularly mind the journey.
I unlock the door and open it for her. She smiles at me as she steps inside.
“Thank you,” Sable says, and I close the door without answering her, but I do not lock it. She can come and go as she pleases when she’s on my time, especially when I’m not sure what she meant by I didn’t know .
I don’t need access, I don’t need her trapped, and I don’t want anything to do with my brother’s stupid games.
The more time I spend with Sable, the more of a chance she has to confuse the situation.
After I leave her, I head down the stairs toward my next class.
I’m early, given I already missed one and don’t feel like walking in late to listen to half a lecture.
My plans change when Arabella Aragona, steps out and blocks my path.
“What the hell, Soren?” she asks as she approaches me. I roll my eyes, not really in the mood for her shit or anyone else's. Arabella isn’t someone I hang out with for her personality, and I honestly thought the feeling was mutual. I don’t usually hear from her unless she’s horny.
“I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, Arabella.”
“Are you fucking that girl with the rest of them?”
My back automatically goes up, and my first instinct is to ask her who the hell she thinks she is to even ask.
“That’s not really your business,” I answer, not ready to piss her off so much that I don’t have a booty call when I need one.
“Of course it’s my business. We’re dating.”
I don’t mean to offend her, but this time, I laugh.
“We hook up twice a month at most, sometimes once every other month. We don’t go out, we fuck. How are we dating exactly?”
She turns bright red, mouth pinching as my words sink in.
“Fine. I want more than that,” she says.
“I don’t,” I answer. “I think this has run its course.”
“Because of her!” she accuses.
“She doesn’t have anything to do with it,” I tell her in total sincerity. I don’t want Sable, I never will, but Arabella is quickly making sure I don’t want her either.
“I want to meet up later.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yes.” She takes a step toward me, cocking her head to the side and giving me a flirtatious smile and eye flutter.
“No, I’m really done,” I tell her as I start walking again.
“Don’t make choices you’re going to regret, Soren. There are a lot of guys at this school.”
I really, actually, do not fucking care, and I’d love it if she would leave me alone.