Chapter 25
25
RUE
A pounding noise comes at me from a distance. I roll onto my side and yank the covers over my head. My first alarm for school hasn’t gone off yet, and I would like more sleep.
The pounding intensifies.
“Mason,” I yell into the darkness. “Mason, I think someone’s at your door.”
He’s in his bedroom.
Mason is an insomniac and a gamer. Combine those two things, and he is up until early morning but functions like a regular human at his job, living off a few hours of sleep. Lucky. I’m useless unless I get in a good seven hours.
There’s a rush of air at my back. I scoot closer to the cushion and bury my face in the fabric. The door opens, followed by heavy footfalls. Large arms wrap around my waist. I’m hoisted up and slung over a broad shoulder. I’m hanging upside down and staring at the carpet.
What the…?
“Get her damn boots,” A booming voice growls out.
“Malice?” I lift my upper torso to get a good view of him. “Put me down!”
“Zip it, Rue. I’m so pissed at you.”
He storms out the door. Mason follows us out with my boots in one hand and the black duffel in the other. I mouth, “Help me.”
He shakes his head and mouths back, “Your funeral.”
I glare.
He smirks.
Malice dumps me in the passenger seat of his car. He grabs my stuff from Mason and tosses the items in the back seat without saying a word. But his actions say it all. He slams the car door of his precious sports car, hits the start button, and peels out of the parking space in front of Mason’s townhouse.
I peek at the time on the dash. It’s midnight. The bewitching hour. Or more like the angry hour. Malice shifts gears and we’re speeding down the main road out of Mason’s neighborhood. I close my eyes and don’t open them until we’re parked.
We’re not at the house. Bare branches hang low. I crack open the window. There is silence except for the car’s engine. Were it summer, the weeping willow tree would hang over the car like an umbrella.
Malice shuts off the engine. We sit in silence. I turn on the music, hoping the tunes will drown out the anger rolling off his body as this noise that grates on my nerves. What right does he have to be mad at me because I decided to spend the night at my friend’s house? We weren’t the ones caught canoodling on the bed.
He shuts off the music and grips the steering wheel with his shoulders pulled to his core. “Do you have any clue how I felt when I went to your room to apologize and found the bed empty and the window open? Then I couldn’t find you on the path or anywhere near the house. When Leigh told me you were with Mason…” He pounds his fist on the steering column. “How do you think it made me feel knowing you were at a different guy’s place other than mine, Rue?”
Unbelievable .
“You probably felt how I did when you brought Cassie over.”
“Pissed? Jealous? Hurt?”
“Yes,” I mutter.
He scoots the seat back and yanks me on his lap until I’m straddling his thighs. My chin is gripped between his fingers. Malice’s face is half in the moonlight and half in the darkness. He was so worried that he turned caveman on me, hauling me over his shoulder out of Mason’s place.
This big lug. My big, sexy guy. I trace one brow and then the other. He brings my hand to the side of his face. Malice winces. I hold his hand to the moonlight. He pounded on the metal door so hard.
I drop featherlight kisses along the skin. “Never hurt yourself for me.”
He shakes his head. “I searched the pathway. Went looking for you on the rooftop. I knew you were up there when Cassie was over. Nothing happened. It was stupid and insensitive of me to bring her over, but it turned out to be a good thing. She’s not in a good place right now, though she says she’s over what happened. But a person can’t get over something god-awful with a snap of their fingers.”
I wrap my arms around him. “We’ll figure everything out together. It’ll be okay.”
Malice strokes up and down my back. He cups my neck. Large, thick fingers splay over my skin. I shiver from the touch and not the cold, but Malice turns on the engine and the heat.
“You have so much hair, and I love it, Rue.” He slides his fingers in my hair and holds the weight of the strands in his hands. “I dig the color too. It’s so black that I have a clear view of your full red lips, one more top-heavy, and your expressive, gorgeous brown eyes.”
He strokes the pad of his thumb along the crest of my cheek. Malice’s gaze hangs on my mouth. I swallow.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Will kissing me make you happy?”
“Happier than I have a right to be.” He skims his finger over my bottom lip and then the top one. “Perfection at its finest.”
No one has ever described my disproportionate lips as “perfection.” Releasing a slow breath, I tip my head forward. Malice meets me halfway. Our mouths touch.
Malice kisses me gently. His hold on my hips is firm. His thick fingers weaving in and out of my hair is heaven on earth. I will never tire of his kisses and his touches. Soft one moment. Urgent and possessive the next.
“What were you doing spending the night at Mason’s?” he murmurs over my mouth. “Was it payback for having Cassie over?”
“I wish, but no. But what you did hurt.”
He drops a kiss on my forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“Cassie. The party. Getting suspended again. Those things hurt me. You’re setting me up to fail.” There, I said what’s on my mind.
“Failure keeps you near me.”
“Because that’s all I’ve been my whole life, right? A failure? A regret?”
“Jesus, no.”
“Then succeed, Malice. Make your parents proud and trust you again. Get the grades up. Stop partying. Find a job.”
“And the good deeds?”
“Continue them. Being a mentor to a junior high school kid.” As part of the “Biggie” program that Malice started. “And also volunteering at day camps during school breaks is you. You would’ve made a great big brother.”
“What you said means a lot to me, Rue.”
“Have you told your parents?”
“Fuck, no.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll think I’m doing it to fill a void. My mom wanted two more kids, but something happened when I was born, and the doctors told her she couldn’t risk her life by getting pregnant again.”
“How—”
“I overheard my father and grandmother talking about it during one of our holiday dinners. I’m the only child of a Sterling. My uncles all have a second, third, or fourth sons. No girls. Ours would’ve been the first, Rue. Just like I was your first, and you were mine.”
He tucks pieces of my hair behind my ears. I look deeply into his eyes.
“Do you regret I was your first?”
“Never. If I had my way, you would be my first in every lifetime.”
What he confesses takes my breath away. And Malice didn’t do the things he did because he wanted me to fail and for everyone to see I’m a failure.
He wants me near, and I would like to stay with him too, but not in a situation where I am paid to keep an eye on him. I’ll prove everyone wrong and succeed, even if it means leaving Malice’s side. Most of all, I want Malice to be happy and for his parents to notice they raised a good kid. Like me with my mom, all Malice ever wanted was his parents’ attention.
I scoot back on his lap and play with the hem of his shirt. “I feel the same. You would be my first in every lifetime too.” I reach out and interlock my fingers behind his neck. “Trace not breaking up with me bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Damn right, it does. That traitorous mother-effer better do the deed soon.”
“He will.”
“Or you can take the lead and do the breaking up.”
“It’s not expected of me.”
“Explain,” he says with a grumpy face.
“Trace has a reputation for breaking girls’ hearts. I won’t be the exception. I’ll get bullied more for being the heartbreaker.”
“His reputation needs a good pummeling. Humble the boy, Rue.”
“That’s for another girl to do.” Sorrow Sophia. “Anyways, he’s your friend, and I like him.”
“Will you have more guy friends after graduation?” Hardened eyes and a clenched jaw replaces the grumpy expression.
Why is he angry? He’ll have so many girls wanting his attention that he’ll forget I exist.
“I’m hoping so. I’m more of a guy’s girl than a girl’s girl.” I shrug. Leigh is one of the few girls I trust and can call a friend. Baily is another good friend, but we’re not close. The closest friend I had, other than Red, is Malice.
“What about you? Will you have friend girls wherever you land?”
“Wherever I land?”
“Well, yeah. You’re not planning on sticking around Cambridge, remember?” My heart aching, I lean into him until we’re forehead to forehead, eye to eye. “You’ll have your pick of the girls. They’ll be your friends and your girlfriends. What a rough life you have ahead of you, Malice.”
By then, I’ll be over him. I’ll wish for Malice’s happiness every time I remember his smile, laughter, and compliments about my hair, eyes, and lips.
“There will be plenty of other guys for them to choose from. College campuses are huge with thousands of students.”
He doesn’t deny having his pick of girls. I crawl back into my seat. “Can we head back to your place now? It’s a school night, and I need my beauty sleep.”
He sets his hand on my thigh. Malice’s large paw is heavy and warm. “I don’t want you anywhere near Mason’s place again, you hear?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Friend, my ass. The only reason a thirty-three-year-old has a girl your age over is for easy tail.”
“Are you saying I’m a slut?”
“ Rue .”
“I have every right to stay over at my friend’s house. I stayed over at Shay’s, Red’s, and Winslow’s. Will you ban me from their places too?”
“Hell, yeah. Where you go, I go, and no way in bloody hell will I step foot in your boys’ places.”
“Will you stop having Cassie over if I do?”
“I was already planning on it. My place should only be lived in by us, Rue.”
My irritation and anger deflate like a popped balloon.
“Really?”
“Yes. It didn’t feel right having Cassie in my room.”
“Again,” I say.
He sighs. “Again.”
He puts me back on his lap and cradles my face in his palms. “Spend the night with me in my bed, Rue. Make new memories and take away the old ones. We’ll cuddle. Talk. Wake up together.”
“Just cuddling?”
“Cuddling only. Cross my heart and hope to die, I’ll tell the randy beast in my pants to settle the fuck down.”
I laugh. He is so cute when he makes an X over his heart and then looks down at his groin with a mock glower on his face.
“Yes, I’ll spend the night with you,” I murmur over his mouth.
We kiss nice and slow. His hands roam over my hips, sides, and arms. His fingers splay over my butt. He caresses me and brings me closer to the heat between his legs. I groan and grind on him. He deepens the kiss. I press my body into his until there isn’t space between us.
I love how I can tuck my small body into his larger one. He is my shield from the storm. A dam that holds back my need to cause destruction with my thievery. Being with Malice, the bad boy, makes me want to be a better person. For him. For me. For us. For our unborn baby.
Sadness overwhelms me. Mason saw his first love with someone else. They had a child together. Will that be me in a few years? I’ll fall… Scratch that. I’m in love with Malice and falling deeper the longer I’m with him. He’s my first love. He’ll abandon me just like everyone else in my life. I’m not good for him. He’s too good for me. I’ll only bring him and his dreams down with a bad reputation that never goes away. And it won’t go away if I follow him to wherever he may land.
I end our kiss. “Let’s go home, Malice. I want you to hold me.”
“Anything for you, babe.”
We drive home. I stare out the window. “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron fills the car. My hand in his, Malice brings my fingertips to his mouth and drops kisses on each one.
At the house, I shower and change into my PJs. I walk in on Malice changing the sheets and grabbing my pillow and covers from my bed. He is true to his word.
We cuddle, talk, and wake up together as the sunlight streams through the windows.
Malice isn’t my first boyfriend. Technically, Trace is. But I hope I can experience what it would be like to have the guy of my dreams fall head-over-heels for me before graduation, even though he’ll break my heart when he leaves for bigger and better things.