Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
M y head thumps. Little hammers bang around inside, causing havoc. Opening one eye, I find Aurora staring down at me. I must still be dreaming. I had the most epic fucking dream about her last night.
“You might want to take these. Don’t worry. There’re only Tylenol. I’m not trying to poison you.” She holds out her palm. “Yet,” she adds, raising her brows at me when I take the pills from her.
“Aurora?”
“Last I checked, that’s who I am.”
“Sleeping Beauty. I must still be dreaming,” I groan, shoving the pills into my mouth and reaching for the water bottle in her other hand.
“Not dreaming,” she says. “You do remember last night, don’t you? It was only the most important night of our lives, Connor. Tell me you didn’t forget that we got married.”
I smile. “We got married? For real? That’s awesome.”
“You’re insane. And, no. I was joking, you ass. As if I’d marry you.” Aurora turns around. When she bends down to grab something off the floor, I get a full view of her ass hanging out of her tiny shorts.
“Wanna put a wager on it, mo mhuirnín ?” I can change her mind. I get that we’re doomed before we even begin. But it’s a ship I’m willing to go down on.
“Aw, Connor, baby, you don’t have enough money in the world to bet against me.” Aurora laughs, throwing my shirt at me. “Get dressed. I’ll drop you somewhere you can grab an Uber.”
“Why are you dropping me anywhere? I have a car.” I push up on the mattress and pull my shirt over my head.
“Kenny took your car. He left you a note on the kitchen counter,” she says.
I blink. Fucker took my car? He’s fucking dead. I’m going to fucking kill my own cousin. “I’m going to kill him,” I groan aloud.
“Oh, fun, can I help?” Aurora asks, and I actually think it’s a genuine offer.
“And ruin that pretty manicure by getting blood on your hands? Never,” I tell her.
“Don’t you worry. I can always paint my nails red. It was a bitch getting the blood off them yesterday,” she says, looking down at her white-tipped manicure.
“Actually I wanted to ask… What did you do to Melissa?” I know Kenny told me some story about Aurora beating the girl unconscious, but my cousin has a way of exaggerating things.
“Why? Did you like her or something?” Aurora glares at me. And I smile because she’s jealous, which means she likes me a lot more than she pretends to hate me.
“No. Just curious.” I shrug.
“I wasn’t going to do anything, but then I saw her in the bathroom and heard her talking to one of her friends about how she was going to meet up with you later and give you the best blow job of your life.
” Aurora’s gaze flicks down my body before she lifts her eyes to meet mine again.
“And then, I don’t know what happened. But somehow , her hair ended up tangled in my fist and her face was hitting the basin.
” She pauses. “A few times, her head hit the basin a few times. But then I remembered how she had her hand all over you earlier, so I grabbed it and stomped on her wrist until I heard it break.”
I stare at the girl in front of me. How the fuck can someone who looks so fucking… innocent be so fucking… unhinged? “Aurora, you can’t go around doing that to people.”
“Actually I can. And I did. If you really care that much about Melissa, you can go and see her at the hospital. I hear she’s awake. But you can find your own way there.” She closes her arms around her waist.
“I don’t want to see Melissa. I don’t want you getting into trouble because you’re jealous when you don’t have any reason to be.” I reach forward and tug Aurora towards me.
“Pfft, I’m not going to get into trouble. And besides, I happen to have the country’s best defense attorney on my payroll,” she says.
“Your father isn’t on your payroll, Aurora. And like I already told you… I don’t want anyone else, so no need to get all Harley Quinn on our classmates.”
“You’re right. My father wouldn’t charge to represent me. But I’m not crazy, Connor.” Aurora pushes away from me. “Also, you beat the shit out of Timothy because I kissed him. He didn’t even kiss me back.”
“I didn’t leave any broken bones,” I counter.
“So? It’s not my fault you’re not as good at fighting as I am.” She shrugs.
“How about we both agree not to go around fighting people? Or kissing anyone else either.”
“Is this your way of asking me to be… exclusive with you?” Aurora asks.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of other options right now. My dance card is literally full.”
“Who? And they won’t be able to dance if I break their legs,” I tell her.
“Now who’s the crazy one?” Aurora laughs. “Come on, I need to meet my cousin so I can borrow a uniform from her.”
I don’t miss how she doesn’t agree to my offer, but I’m not going to push it either. I’ll just make sure every guy within reaching distance knows not to fucking touch her.
True to her word, Aurora dropped me off just outside the city limits and told me to call an Uber. I get it. We shouldn’t be seen together. At least not until we figure out what the fuck we are.
Now, though, as I watch her from across the hall, I want nothing more than to walk over and make my fucking claim public knowledge.
“You know you’re being way too obvious,” Kenny says, stopping in front of me and blocking my view.
“You know, I can’t seem to find a fuck to give,” I tell him.
“You will when your father finds out about this little double life you’re leading.”
I shrug. I don’t fucking care what my family thinks about me seeing Aurora.
I don’t care what anyone thinks. She’s the first girl who’s managed to actually keep my interest for longer than an hour.
She’s literal fire, and I want to douse her in gasoline and see how bright she can burn.
I didn’t tell her how her craziness turns me on.
When she told me what she did to Melissa, I wasn’t appalled like I should have been. I was fucking horny.
Maybe we’re both insane. Or we’re the normal ones and everyone else around us is…
Nope, that doesn’t work. We’re insane. And what we are doing is insanely dangerous for both of us.
I won’t let her get caught, though. I know my family, and I know there are no limits to what they’d do to her if they found out she was sleeping with me. Just to prove a point that they could too. It wouldn’t even have anything to do with her last name.
“You got something to say, O’Malley?” Aurora’s cousin calls out to me.
I look around the now silent hall. “To you? No,” I answer him. Kenny moves to stand by my side.
“Then why the fuck are you staring?” Orlando goads.
I blink and force my lips into a smirk. “Isn’t that what people do at zoos? Stare at all the animals on display? My bad, I was waiting for you monkeys to start performing tricks,” I tell him.
Out of nowhere, something shiny and silver flies right past the side of my face. I turn and see the object on the floor before bending down to pick it up.
“Did you just throw a fucking ninja star at my head?” I ask Aurora.
“Next time, it’ll hit your face. That was a warning. Consider yourself lucky, O’Malley. I don’t usually give warnings,” she says, walking up to me. She smiles while plucking the star from my fingers, and then stomps off. “Don’t ever talk to my cousin like that again.”
“Didn’t realize the boys in your family needed the girls sticking up for them, princess,” I call out after her.
Aurora spins back around, and before I know it, that same throwing star is stabbed through my left arm. “I told you— one warning . You should have kept your pretty little mouth shut.”
“You think my mouth is pretty, princess?” I ask while silently cursing at the pain traveling up my arm. This is going to need fucking stitches.
With a shake of her head, Aurora continues storming off in the opposite direction. Her two cousins, Dante and Orlando, just stare at me before following her.
“That’s what you’re sleeping with? I’d be keeping one eye open if I were you,” Kenny mutters.
“She’s harmless.”
“Tell that to the thing sticking out of your arm.” He gestures in my direction before ripping the star out of my skin.
“Ow, fuck,” I hiss.
“Yeah, that needs stitching up,” Kenny tells me.
My phone pings with an incoming message. I pull it out of my pocket and glance at the screen.
Aurora:
Meet me in the library, last study room on the top floor. I’ll stitch up your arm.
Me:
You just stabbed me with a fucking ninja star.
Aurora:
You should have kept your mouth shut.
Me:
You didn’t have to stab me.
Aurora:
I did. You badmouthed my cousins. Are you coming or not?
Me:
Be there in a sec.
“You should change her name in your phone. Also, really? The girl just fucking stabbed you, Connor. What’s to say she’s not luring you there to finish the job?” Kenny asks me.
“Make sure I’m buried back in Boston. I don’t want my eternal rest to be in this hellhole of a city,” I tell him, and head to the library.
I follow Aurora’s instructions and find her in the last room with a medical kit laid out on the table.
I look from her to the needle in her gloved hands. “You’re not stitching me up.”
“Yes, I am. Sit down and shut up.” She points at the chair in front of her. “Take off your shirt.”
“If you wanted to get me naked, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to stab me,” I tell her. I shrug out of my blazer and undo the buttons of my shirt before slipping my arm free.
“I would say I’m sorry, if I was in fact sorry. But I’m not,” she says.
“Have you done this before?” I ask her.
“No, but I’m a quick learner.” She grins. “At least with this sort of stuff, I am.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. You going to be okay? Need something to bite down on?” She quirks a brow.
“Like you?” I mirror the gesture.
“I meant like a belt or something,” she says.
“I’m good.” I brace myself for both the pain and the infection I’m more than likely going to end up with for letting her do this.
Why the fuck am I letting her do this?
I look up into her eyes and I see it. The concern she’s hiding. “I’m okay, you know. Not the first time I’ve been stabbed.”
“Who else has stabbed you?” she asks… casually? “Want me to sort ?em out?”
“No, I don’t. I want you to kiss me better since it’s your fault I’m bleeding. Again,” I tell her.
Surprisingly, Aurora bends down. Her lips press over the open wound before she brings her mouth to mine. My hand wraps around the back of her head as I deepen the kiss, tasting a mixture of my own blood and her .