Chapter 30
Creed
Six. That’s how many times I’ve had the doubtful pleasure of watching my best friend stumble over his feet, slur his words, and bounce off walls this evening.
He’s shitfaced when we leave Jed’s bar around one in the morning.
It takes him three tries to open the passenger door of my GMC and another five to buckle up.
He nods off with his head against the window, his breath fogging the rain-streaked glass, not a care in the fucking world while I’m still boiling.
I’d hoped his increasingly cheerful demeanor—increasing with every beer—and the hours that passed since he told me about Millie and Noah would douse my temper, but nope.
“Where are your keys?” I ask once we successfully make it to the sixth floor of the North Wing after I’ve talked Hyde out of knocking on Noah’s door.
I’m not sure which of us wanted to see him more.
“Back pocket.” He braces his forehead against the wall like he’s getting ready for a pat-down. “I’m so drunk. How do you function like this?”
I open his room, poking him through the door. “Define function.”
He laughs, parking his shoulder against the first wall it lands on. “Touché.”
Kicking his shoes off, he stumbles further in, falling face-first onto his bed with a groan. Having been in his position many times, I do what he always does for me.
Crack the window open and leave water and painkillers on the nightstand. He’s asleep once I’m done and I realize I should’ve started by helping him undress.
Too late now.
I turn him over, unbuckle his belt and pull it through the hoops, then stop at unzipping his jeans. It’s a small thing but fuck if it doesn’t make a big difference in the morning.
Somehow, not without difficulty, I tear off his hoodie and admit he deserves more credit for putting up with my drunk ass over the years. This is hard work.
His phone is last on the list. I pull it out of his pocket to set it on the nightstand but clock a message notification.
Millie: Are you still in the common room?
She sent it three hours ago, but it doesn’t look like Hyde replied, the message showing as unread.
That’s not like him. He always checks her texts and always replies.
I unlock the phone with the passcode I know by heart and go into the messages to confirm he hasn’t.
Noah’s name is at the top, a text fired off a minute after Millie’s arrived.
Hyde: Go check on Millie for me.
I gnash my teeth, envy filling my system. Hyde said he wouldn’t get in the middle, but this... this is him actively pushing Millie and Noah closer and I don’t fucking like that.
It’s my fault, isn’t it? She left the common room when she saw me with Zara, felt something, and needed Hyde. Was she sad? Disappointed? Resigned?
I don’t fucking know, but Noah sure does.
God, has he touched her? Is she his now?
She’s not scared of him the way she’s scared of me, and seeing Zara crawling all over me tonight only made things worse, I’m sure. I went out of my way to hurt her and she must’ve realized I’m a wreck.
My ribs cave in. I close my eyes, but that makes things worse. It makes me see the ecstasy painting her pretty face when she was in my arms. It makes me relive every second of having her close.
I glance at Hyde’s cell again, the war inside me coming to an end. It’s a breach of privacy but fuck it. I copy Millie’s number into my phone and leave Hyde’s cell beside a box of painkillers.
And for the next forty minutes, I talk myself out of texting her. It’s two in the morning, I’m sitting in my loveseat, showered, hair damp, sleep nowhere in sight thanks to the Molotov cocktail of contradicting emotions tearing me open.
I shouldn’t text her. Not after the shit I pulled. She doesn’t fucking need my crazy, but my hands are itching, and anger coils around my throat.
Me: Your brother’s wasted. I don’t think he saw your text.
That’s a lie, but she doesn’t need the details. She doesn’t need to know her brother’s meddling in her life.
Me: Did you need anything?
I don’t sign off either text with my name. I’m pretty sure mine’s the only number she’s missing. She’ll figure it out.
Toying with a half-empty bottle of water, I stare at the screen, growing more and more restless and feeling stupid for it.
It’s the middle of the night. She’s probably fast asleep.
I’m so preoccupied with waiting for a reply that I don’t notice when the message changes from delivered to read.
My insides twist. Why the fuck is she up still?
Is Noah still there?
He already kissed her. What if they’re kissing right now? What if he has his hands all over her?
She starts typing, then stops, then starts again, second-guessing her reply. I squeeze the phone harder, pissed off all over again.
I can’t take her silence.
Every time she stops talking when I show up it’s a small blade right in my sternum. Every time I see her talking to someone, smiling, laughing, it drives me insane.
I’ve been patient. So fucking patient, even if it’s been slowly killing me.
The deliberate way she refuses to speak to me is a constant flashback to the days I spent begging my father to say something.
I’m at my wits’ end, especially now I realize she won’t even type words easily if they’re aimed at me.
Millie Baby: Leave me alone.
That’s enough to send a shot of adrenaline through my system. Alone. So he’s not there?
Me: Are you alone?
Millie Baby: Fuck you, Creed.
I smile then groan when my cock reads into that message way too hard and juts upwards.
For a girl with doe eyes and heart-shaped lips, whose favorite color is dusty pink and who doesn’t say much at all, she can be surprisingly mouthy.
My head hits the backrest and my hand falls to my lap, squeezing my hard, aching length through the gray fabric.
Fuck, that feels good.
It’d feel ten times better if she were here, on me, her soaked little pussy choking my cock, those titillating gasps in my ear, nails drawing blood.
Me: Come fuck me yourself, baby.
I shouldn’t want that. I shouldn’t fucking want her knowing what she wants from me, but I do. Fuck, I do.
Right here, right now. Her hips bracketing mine, that tight pussy warming my cock. I want her sweet gasps in my ears, her lips in the crook of my neck, warm body in my arms while she rides me, guided by my hands.
Millie Baby: Try the brunette.
I dip my fingers under the waistband, then lower, and before I know what I’m doing, before I locate my last shred of restraint, I’m stroking myself with my left hand and typing out a message with my right.
Me: Are you jealous, baby? She’s not you. I don’t want her.
I pump from crown to hilt, half here, half in the fantasy, pleasure pulsing at the base of my spine. My phone vibrates in my palm as I thumb the bead of precum, my labored breaths the only sound in the room. I check her text and the warmth that’s been flaring behind my ribs freezes the fuck over.
I yank my hand away.
Millie Baby: You don’t want me, either. I already made you hurt me once.
Swallowing hard, I close my eyes, jumping back to the way she gasped when I pinned her into the gym mat and covered her petite body with mine. The way her thighs shook when I pushed her open...
She didn’t cry out when I took her virginity with a punishing thrust. She didn’t shove me away, didn’t ask me to stop. If anything, she clung to me as desperately as I did to her.
Did I hurt her?
I bruised her, but... did I hurt her?
Me: Did I?
I stare at the screen, my pulse thrumming. I’ve never considered myself stable. After everything my father put me through, I can’t be normal by any definition, but this is the first time I’ve felt truly certifiable.
A part of me hopes she’ll say yes.
A different part hopes she’ll say no.
I want her kneeling before me, lips around my cock. I want her to sit on my face and stay there until her body breaks for me. I want her under me, mouth open, skin marked with my fingertips, face pink from oxygen deprivation.
I also don’t want to be a fucking monster.
But maybe I never had a choice.
Maybe it’s in my DNA.
Millie Baby: You did.
She doesn’t soften the blow, blunter than fucking blunt. My chest pulls tight, breath catching in my throat, and my fingers flex, curling into my thigh as I force myself to stay still but I can’t fucking breathe right.
“I’m scared.”
I know, baby, I know.
Minutes pass and I’m at a loss. What the hell do I say to that? Do I reply? Leave her on read? I’m not sure whether I’m angry or ashamed, but the pressure in my skull won’t go away.
Then my screen lights up again.
Millie Baby: When you left because I was too much.
Millie Baby: When you touched her because she’s just enough.
Oh I’m a fucking idiot.
She didn’t mind what I did to her body. It wasn’t the roughness of that morning in the gym.
It was me walking away.
It was how I looked at her and made her feel like she was too much for wanting another desperate connection. Like I didn’t want her the same exact fucked-up way.
I did.
I do.
Jesus. She’s going to get me killed, I swear. Her brother will murder me in cold blood when he finds out, but there’s no force on God’s green earth that’d keep me away from Millie now.
I move. Phone in hand, I tear through the dark corridors and stop outside her room, barefoot, bare-chested, and not entirely sure how I got here.
Me: Open the door.
For a moment, nothing happens, then soft footsteps sound inside, the door opens, and her pretty face comes into view. My hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around her throat on instinct. I drag her into me with every intention of kissing her, but I stop.
Her eyes are big, bright and... rimmed pink.
My heart stutters.
Her cheeks glisten with tears, and she’s hot to the touch, her skin flushed, soft tremors running through her.
“Fuck,” I breathe, feeling like I’ve been shot. I pull her in, my hands cupping her cheeks. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry, I—”
She shuts me up with a kiss.