12. Jasmine
JASMINE
I always thought six weeks into college I’d be the talk of the town—have at least three friends, dye my hair something cute like pastel blue, and learn how to shotgun a beer with my eyes closed. You know, normal college shit.
Instead, I have a live-in stalker with a smirk and accent that should be illegal, a situationship with the most beautiful girl in the world whose weirdly fine with sharing , and my professor has my panties somewhere, doing things to it that only should live in a nightmare, but my fucked up brain calls it fantasy.
College has been eventful…just eventful in all the wrong fucking ways.
My emotional support is a rapidly dying houseplant and a guy who kisses me like he owns my soul, but hey, English 101 is ridiculously easy, and Computer Science is less of a bore than I thought it would be. Three cheers for liberal arts education!
I’m about three pages into my five-page paper on Shakespeare’s love sonnets, where I expertly and with entirely too much personal conviction, claim that Shakespeare was, in fact, emotionally cheating on his wife.
The man wrote 126 poems to a beautiful young man with an easy going smile and the kind of bone structure that inspires ruin.
You can’t tell me that wasn’t emotional adultery at the very least. I even built a whole paragraph around Sonnet 20 and annotated it like it’s a crime scene, as an accompanying part of my essay.
I’m curled up in bed, laptop balanced on a pillow over my thighs, the glow of my desk lamp painting soft yellow light across the pages of the library book I borrowed and haven’t opened once.
There’s a half-drunk iced coffee sweating on the nightstand, and the scent of coconut lotion and overpriced wax melts is the only thing keeping me sane.
I lean over to take a sip of my coffee, and glance up from the screen, blinking. Normally, I would scream, get pissed off and tell Landon to go fuck himself, but finding him staring at me from a distance has become a normal occurrence now a days. I don’t even flinch.
“Again,” I say, swallowing the overly sweet and still kind of bitter coffee. “Watching me like that only makes you more of a fucking creep, Lan.”
He chuckles, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. Black shirt, grey sweats, tattooed forearms on full display like some kind of sinful exhibit.
“You need better instincts,” he sighs, moving deeper into my room, as if I fucking invited him.
“Hey, mi casa es no tu casa!” I screech as he perches himself up on the edge of my bed.
“ Tranquila, mami, ” he says, voice dipped in that gravel-soft tone that sends goosebumps up my spine.
“Oh, so now you’re bilingual and uninvited?” I roll my eyes and close my laptop with a huff. “Impressive. Truly.”
“ Tu cama me extranaba, ” he murmurs, running a lazy hand along the comforter. “And don’t lie—I know you missed me too.”
I throw a pillow at him. He catches it midair, like it’s a damn feather, and just smiles wider.
“You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re wearing my hoodie,” he points out, nodding toward the oversized black hoodie I forgot I stole from the laundry pile two days ago. “So I’d say we’re even.”
I glance down and groan. “Don’t read into it. Everything else was dirty.”
“Right…don’t worry,” he smirks, leans to the side on his right elbow. “I like you in my clothes…but sadly you need to change.”
“Why? Your girlfriend’s coming over?” I snort, moving my laptop to the side.
Landon slowly licks his lips, and it’s only now—sitting here in the soft glow of my lamp, still wearing his hoodie, still pretending like we’re not spiraling toward something dangerous—that I realize:
If he had a girlfriend back in Britain… I wouldn’t just be heartbroken. I’d be furious.
Rage in my bones, claws-out, you-used-me kind of fury. Because no one, no one , gets to be the first guy I can breathe around—the first one I let touch me without my skin crawling—and then turn around and pretend it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. I mean who does he think he is--
“Stop…” he coos, his voice low, warm, knowing. His fingertips wrap around my left ankle, gently. “I can see your mind running. There is no girlfriend, but we do have dinner.”
I sit up fast enough he has to release my ankle, and I cross my legs underneath me.“Dinner?”
“Yes,” he says, calm as ever. “You know—food, people, conversation. The works.”
I narrow my eyes. “What people? What food? What conversation?”
Landon sighs and runs a hand through his hair, standing up with that signature stretch that makes his shirt ride just high enough to show off his upsettingly sexy v-line.
“You’re going to meet some… unsavory friends of mine,” he says. “People I don’t get to say no to.”
My gut drops. “What?”
His eyes meet mine, steady and unblinking.
“We’ve been summoned,” he says. “By the Raiders.”
I almost choke on my own spit. “ The Raiders?”
Landon just nods, like we’re talking about the weather and not the most violent, untouchable biker gang this side of the country.
They’re what nightmares are made out of, and one of the reasons the Cartel isn’t as powerful as they could be is due to their alliance with the Italian Mafia.
Crossing the Raiders is like crossing fucking Italy and I’ve seen enough of the Godfather to know you don’t cross fucking Italy.
I scramble off the bed. “Landon, the Raiders? Are you insane ?”
“Sometimes,” he says, voice quiet. “But not right now. I don’t get to ignore them, Peach, and neither do you.”
My pulse spikes. “Why would they want me there?”
“I don’t know,” he says, tone clipped. “But you need to be dressed and ready. We leave in an hour.”
“An hour ?” I snap. “Landon, are you serious?—”
“And don’t wear anything that’ll get me into a fight.”
I blink. “Excuse me? First of all, I’ll wear whatever the hell I want. Second, that’s wildly misogynistic, and third?—”
He steps forward, cutting me off with the weight of his presence alone. His jaw is tight. His voice is low.
“And third,” he says, “if you show even an inch more skin than necessary, you might be dragging me out of there in a body bag.”
I go still. His eyes burn into mine—no teasing, no smirk.
“These guys, Jasmine, they’re entitled. They’re handsy.
And I can’t take on an entire biker gang in one room just because one of them decides to touch what’s mine.
But I will. You get that? I’ll go down swinging.
But I think you’d rather take me home breathing than bleeding out on their marble floors. ”
My mouth goes dry. The room feels colder somehow. I just nod.
He exhales, the tension in his shoulders tight as ever. His hand slides up the side of my head, gentle in a way that makes my chest ache. He pulls me in, presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Be ready in an hour.”
And then he’s gone. I don’t speak. Not because of the threat he painted so vividly, but because he called me Jasmine . Not Peach. Jasmine.
And Landon never uses my real name, so that must mean shit is getting real.
After I finish up my paragraph on the cheating life of Shakespeare, I take the longest shower of my life—half because I need the heat to loosen the knot forming in my spine, half because I’m procrastinating like my life doesn’t literally depend on what I wear tonight.
When I step out, the mirror’s fogged and my nerves are worse. I try on three different outfits. A dress that’s too short. A top that clings too tight. Jeans that look like I’m trying too hard.
Eventually, I settle on a black off-the-shoulder romper.
It’s fitted at the waist, loose around the sleeves, the shorts land mid-thigh and shows just enough skin to remind them I’m not weak—but not enough to invite attention I don’t want.
I throw on my heeled combat boots, the ones that make me feel ten feet tall and like I could kick through a man’s rib cage if necessary.
A little silver jewelry, and my hair pulled back into a high ponytail, the strands wavy from air drying from the shower.
I stare at myself in the mirror. Not a princess. Not bait, but still vulnerable to everything.
I crack open the door and poke my head out. “Hey.”
Landon’s lounging on the couch, scrolling through something on his phone, but he looks up the second he hears me.
His eyes rake over me in one slow, searing pass. He groans.
“Seriously?” he mutters. “You really want me dead tonight?”
I roll my eyes. “Stop being dramatic.”
“ You’re the one coming to a Raider sit-down in a sexy little romper that will force me to break at least two pairs of hands before we see Marcus.”
“Then give me your jacket and you won’t have to break any hands,” I say, lifting a brow. “And who’s Marcus?”
“Marcus is a fucking twat, and the head of the Raiders.” He says with a low sigh, as he stands and shrugs off the black leather jacket he’s wearing—his favorite one, the one that smells like smoke and danger and him.
It’s only then I notice: he changed too.
Gone is the lazy gym wear. Now he’s in a tight black long-sleeve that clings to his chest and arms like it was sewn onto him. Baggy grey jeans hang low on his hips, and his black boots are scuffed just enough to look like they’ve been through hell.
He looks like a fallen god. Like the kind of man you don’t survive loving.
A smirk creeps onto his face as he catches me staring. “Stop drooling,” he says, tossing me the jacket.
I catch it and shrug it on, burying myself in the warmth of it—his warmth.
“I’m not drooling,” I lie, zipping it halfway.
Landon steps closer. Just enough to make my breath hitch.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because we’re walking into hell tonight, Peach. And I need you sharp.”