14. Pandora #2
“But they hurt you,” I say. I try to touch his ass again, but he swats my hand away.
“Leave it. I can handle a bit of pain,” he growls back.
I try to imagine what they did to him. A whipping? A beating? A belting? River would have taken the pain stoically, and my body gets a bit warmer when I envision his face scrunched up in pain.
I want to see it too. That would be so hot.
…I have enough sense not to say that out loud, though.
I place my hands on his hips and step closer. “Thank you,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss his jaw. “I know you did that for… for Rachel.” And for me .
He grabs me by the hair and yanks me closer, kissing my lips hard.
“Don’t do this again,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“You want to talk, you do it on my schedule. I’m not failing my classes because you’re too impatient to wait even twenty minutes to talk.
” He releases me and pushes me back so hard I almost stumble.
I steady myself and glare at him. “If you hadn’t ignored me for two days in a row, I wouldn’t have had to resort to desperate measures. Like stalking. That thing you were doing to me?”
“I was busy ,” he emphasizes. “In case you aren’t aware, hell week is called that for a reason. If you want me in Chaos, you need to let me do what I need to do.”
“You’re too busy to let me know that you’re okay?” I step into his personal space again. “You can think what you want about me, River, but I know ‘hell week’ isn’t a piece of cake. So of course I was worried about you.”
He eyes me suspiciously, then sighs. Running a hand through his hair, he replies, “It’s been harder than I expected, all right? I needed to decompress when I wasn’t running around doing their stupid errands or being humiliated in front of the entire fraternity.”
“Yeah? What kind of shit are they making you do? Besides beating you?” I wish I could see his ass now. I want to run my hands over the bruises and make him squirm. I bet I could make him hard if I alternate my touches, painful and pleasurable all at once.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “What’s going on with your investigation? Made any progress?”
I lean against him and huff. “Nope. Blaze and Asch haven’t contacted me again either. Maybe Blaze had enough after he fucked me outside the greenhouse?—”
River grabs me by my upper arms, squeezing tight. “He did what?” he snarls, his eyes flashing dangerously. “You let him fuck you like that?”
“Uh, should I not have?” I ask. “He had me pinned on the soft dirt, his hand around my neck. He kept squeezing, cutting off my air…”
I can practically feel River’s jealousy. “And you got off on that, huh?” he challenges me.
“I might have.” I wrap my arms around his torso and settle my hands on his ass, making him grimace. “Did I give you the impression I was vanilla? You’re really unobservant if yes.”
He squeezes my ass tightly. “No, I don’t think you’re vanilla, or celibate, or even a one-person woman,” he replies. “It shouldn't surprise me that you’re into public hate-fucks either.”
“Isn’t that what we did the other day?” I raise my eyebrows. “Pot, meet kettle.”
River grits his teeth. “Yeah, okay,” he says.
It’s not like he can argue. “So now you know I’m fine, and you’ve gotten me kicked out of class.
Things are going to get worse with Chaos before they get better, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to check in.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they make us ditch our phones so there’s no evidence of what they’re doing. ”
I give his ass a small squeeze, and he flinches again. My cunt throbs.
Not the time, not the time.
“Are you getting close to Blaze and Asch?” I ask. “I know Asch is going to be your ‘big brother,’ whatever the fuck that means.”
He scoffs. “I have no idea, but I don’t think it’s going to be helpful. For whatever reason, he’s not too popular. He follows Blaze around like a puppy, though, and Blaze is one of the officers. So it shouldn’t hurt , at least.”
“Like I said. He’s Blaze’s bitch.” I nuzzle his collar with my mouth. “If they’re mean to you, just let me know. I’ll set them straight.”
River rolls his eyes. “I can handle myself, Pandora.” He smiles, though there’s nothing humorous about it. “You made sure I had plenty of practice with that.”
“I’d be happy to help out.” I grin. “It would be hot, wouldn’t it? If we had Blaze tied down, and we took a knife to him. We could cut cute little designs onto him and make Asch lick him clean.”
“You are seriously disturbed, you know that?” River says. But I’m positive I see a flicker of interest in his expression.
I lean in to kiss him properly.
The lecture hall doors open, and students start filing out. I ignore them and press my lips to River’s.
River’s hands knead my ass cheeks, and he kisses me hard. He’s pulling away before I have the chance to really get into it, though, and he takes a step back. “Class,” he says, though I’m pleased to hear the roughness in his voice. “At least pretend you’re here to learn something, Pandora.”
“I went to class this morning!” I protest. “Biology 101. They even promised a dissection next semester, but if we have to dissect a frog I will riot.”
He arches a brow. “Really? You won’t dissect a frog, but you’d dissect a human body without batting an eye?”
“Frog didn’t do anything,” I point out. “Just an innocent little amphibian. Oh, did I tell you, Lilly and Thorn had tadpoles. Only a handful made it, but it was pretty exciting seeing the baby froglets growing.”
“How many of them did you bring with you?” River asks.
“None,” I say. “I figured one pet on campus is enough. Speaking of which! Papa finally got all the stuff shipped to me. Want to see my baby blood python?” I link my arm with River, and we start walking out of the building while I chatter about my pets.
He at least pretends to be interested, and I appreciate that.
For a moment, it’s almost like old times.
If only he’d stop pretending he hates me.
That doesn’t matter, though. As long as he’s willing to go along with my plans, I have plenty of time to win him over.