30. Penelope
PENELOPE
After taking a shower, I try to sleep, but it’s impossible.
Vicious, kinky fuckery has taken over every dream I have, every waking thought.
I turn and toss and after every dream I wake covered in sweat and with a pounding heart.
But worst of all is the throbbing in my pussy, reminding me of how badly I’ve grown addicted to the games these boys play with my body.
Sighing, I roll around in bed, only to find out the sun has already risen.
Great, there goes my night. I’ve only slept a couple of hours, at most.
Suddenly, my phone buzzes, pulling me from my thoughts. I fish it from underneath my bed and check. It’s Dad.
Dad: How’s it going there? Still unsure about everything?
Penelope: Studying is fine. Hard time with some boys. But doing my best with what I have. Still searching.
Dad: Don’t push yourself too hard. I don’t want you dead too.
Penelope: That won’t happen.
Dad: I will protect you.
Penelope: I know.
Dad: Message me if you need me, and I will be there.
Penelope: Thank you.
His comments always make me smile. He’s so protective over me. Always has been.
But me going to Spine Ridge University has even put him on edge, out of all people.
I’m the only daughter he has left. I can’t disappoint him.
I get up from the bed and put on my short black dress and pumps before I walk out the door and head straight for the Skull the person who cut off the finger or the person who told him to do it: Me.
Shivers run up and down my spine as our eyes connect.
“Where did you leave it anyway?” I ask, morbid curiosity making me talk before I realize it.
“In a little box,” he casually replies.
“He takes trophies.” Dylan shrugs.
“Trophies …” I shudder.
Felix steps forward, walking until he’s right up in my face. Always in my aura, too close for comfort. But being in his vicinity also has something empowering. Something viciously addictive. Like he oozes violence I can siphon away from him.
His eyes have only grown more bloodshot since I last saw him, and it makes me wonder if he ever really sleeps. At all.
His hand rises to grab a strand of my hair. “You’re wondering what trophy I’d take from you, aren’t you?” My lips part, but I don’t know what to say, so he leans in to whisper, “I’d take the one thing you wouldn’t ever give to me freely … Your heart.”
I lean away.
“Out of all the things that could scare you, that’s the one?” he says, a smirk slowly appearing on his face.
For some reason, it makes me blush.
I don’t ever fucking blush. Not for anyone.
Until he came along.
“Why did you come here, Pen?” he asks, twirling my hair around his finger. “Is your pussy hungry for more cock?”
My eyes widen. “What? No, I—”
“Wait, you fucked her?” Dylan suddenly interjects. I turn to look at him, and he narrows his eyes at me. “When?”
“None of your business,” Felix barks back, releasing my hair.
Dylan steps forward. “Did you forget our fucking deal?” He’s right up in Felix’s face now, intimidating him. “She belongs to all of us.”
Felix snarls back, “I’ve already marked her.”
Dylan pushes him. “Fuck off. You don’t get to claim that.”
Alistair snorts. “I can’t believe you guys are fighting over this. Did you forget we made an agreement with her?”
“You should’ve fucking told us you fucked her in private,” Dylan says.
Alistair and I quickly exchange glances.
They’re all talking about me like I’m not even here, and the rest of the boys who live in this frat house have now also come out of their rooms to see what’s going on.
Suddenly, Felix whips out a knife and points it right at Dylan’s face. “You wanna fight, pretty boy?”
“Is that supposed to be an insult, shovel face?” Dylan retorts, pulling out his own knife too now. “C’mon then. Show me what you’ve got.”
Are they really fighting over me?
My face flushes with heat.
Until Felix suddenly swipes the knife in Dylan’s direction, who barely manages to dodge.
“Stop!” I yell, and I push myself between them. “Don’t fight over me.”
Felix’s fist tightens around the knife as he stares down Dylan, who’s throwing daggers with his eyes instead of the knife in his hands.
“Yeah, Dylan … don’t fight over her. She obviously already belongs to me,” Felix says, tilting his head.
I can tell he’s really enjoying this, and for some reason, it makes my pussy clench, but I ignore the feeling as I’m far too busy trying to stop these two from murdering each other.
“Fine,” Dylan finally concedes and tucks away his knife. “You want her? Then you can deal with your shitty plans by yourself.”
He turns around and storms past Alistair and out the building. Alistair sheepishly stares at both of us before he runs out the door too, following Dylan.
I guess those two are more tightknit than I originally thought.
“Well that escalated quickly,” someone in the back says.
“Leave us,” Felix says.
All of the people watching go back to the room they were in like they never even came out in the first place. Quiet as a mouse.
I guess that’s the kind of power he holds.
Felix grabs my hand and tugs me along, but all I can focus on is how his hand feels when it touches mine, how I can feel every vein, and even his pulse.
Goose bumps scatter across my skin.
Why?
Why do they affect me like this?
He takes me to the back, into a private room with a fireplace and a pool table in the middle, along with a lofty couch and a giant TV.
He goes to the bar in the left corner and grabs two glasses, filling them both with some expensive-looking liquor. I stand in the middle of the room, awkward as hell, wondering why the fuck I’m even here.
Every time I’m in the vicinity of these boys, I lose all train of thought, and it’s infuriating.
Felix walks toward me and holds out a glass. “Drink.”
“Oh, I don’t want anything, thanks.”
He stares me down. “I didn’t ask.”
Well, pissing him off is the last thing on my to-do list after I saw what he’s capable of.
Reluctantly, I take the glass from his hand.
“Sip,” he says.
I bring the glass to my lips, and he watches me intently, his eyes taking in every inch of movement from my lips, to my tongue to even my throat as I swallow down a tiny bit of the hot concoction.
“Good girl.”
I almost choke on it.
“Stop,” I splutter, and I put the glass down on the pool table.
“Hmm. That pool table costs a ton,” he replies. “I wouldn’t put that there.”
“Or what?”
“I’ve hurt people for less,” he says, taking a sip himself. “You were there.”
Now I’m really starting to feel the chills.
“Is this your way of forcing people not to talk? By intimidating them?” I say.
“No,” he replies, and tilts his head. “I don’t need to force you to do anything. I just have to say ‘good girl.’”
I’m stunned as the blush appears on my cheeks, but I quickly force it to go away. “Look, what we have is an exchange. A deal. That’s all it is.”
He raises his brows and steps forward, right up into my face. “You sure about that, little slut?”
“Positive,” I reply, swallowing from the burn still lingering in my throat.
He leans over, his finger drawing a line down my cheek the same way he did in the basement. “Is that why your lips opened so easily when I kissed you?”
“I …”
I can’t even formulate the words with him so up close, those deadly eyes haunting my very soul. God, I can’t look away, not even if I tried. His lips inch closer and closer until mine start to lean in. I’m desperate to feel again what I felt that night, that pure, out of this world ecstasy.
“You’re a bad liar, Pen,” he whispers, and he leans away right before I almost fall into him.
Fucker.
“You’re manipulating me,” I say through gritted teeth.
He takes another casual sip of his drink. “Call it what you want.”
“Look, I didn’t come here for you to taunt me.”
He saunters to the red leather couch and flops down, still swirling that drink while staring me down. “Then tell me why you came here if not to be fucked by me.”
I’m trying to keep my composure here, but he’s making it damn hard on me.