Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
His motel room is gray and dull.
That’s the first thing I notice when I step in.
It’s also very clean and made up. Generic. With a desk under the window, a slim-backed chair, a chest with drawers by its side. Tons of weights stacked up in one corner. A door that probably leads to the bathroom.
And a bed.
I’m not looking at the bed yet for some strange reason. But from what I can gather from the corners of my eyes, it has crisp white sheets with a dark gray blanket on the foot.
I walk in, my feet muffled on the gray carpet.
Unlike my heartbeats.
My heartbeats are loud. So very loud and I bet he can hear them.
My Arrow.
Who’s just stepped in after me and closed the door with a click.
I feel that tiny click in my bare thighs.
Well, I’m wearing a plaid skirt tonight that I borrowed from Poe. Up until he showed up at the bar, I was feeling cold even in his jacket.
But not anymore.
My thighs don’t feel cold at all. Not even when I was riding behind him and we were speeding down the highway, wind whipping against my flesh.
In fact, they were hot.
Like they are now.
When I reach the opposite wall, I turn around and lean against it.
Arrow is doing the same. He’s leaning against the door, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes on me.
I press my thighs together. “There’s a lot of gray in this room.”
My first words to him ever since we left the bar.
He tips his chin, his stubbled, rough jaw catching the overhead light. “I like gray.”
His first words to me after he said that I belonged with him.
Biting my lip at the memory, I tell him, “Gray’s super dull.”
“Unlike sunshine yellow.”
I look at his hair then. It’s all messed up, strands falling over his arched brows.
And I regret being so far away from him. Where I can’t smooth them away.
I don’t know why I chose this spot to stand against when all I want – all I’ve ever wanted – is to be close to him.
As it is, I dig my nails into my sweaty palms and shift on my feet, feeling the scrape of the wall on the backs of my thighs. “How’d you know I was at the bar?”
“You wanted to learn things, yeah?” When I hesitantly nod, he murmurs, “It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d go for that.”
I clench my thighs again, getting sort of restless. “I thought you didn’t wanna waste your time on teaching me.”
“I don’t,” he clips. “But I don’t want other guys teaching you either.”
My breaths escalate.
It’s such a guy thing to say – I don’t want you but I don’t want anyone else to have you either.
And maybe because I’m such a girl, it starts up a quickening in my lower stomach. “Why not?”
Something about what I said makes him move away from the door and I shiver in his jacket.
His footsteps should be muffled like mine were but they aren’t. They’re loud and thudding. They pulse and vibrate.
I feel all of that, the sound of his approach and the blazing look in his eyes, in between my legs.
He pauses right before me and my lips part at how big he looks right now, big and tall and warm and I curl my toes in my soccer cleats, the old ones.
Not the ones he bought me. I’m keeping those safe under my bed.
“Because you’re my friend,” he replies in a rough tone, his eyes flickering down to my heaving chest before moving back up to my face.
I don’t know which word he has emphasized more, my or friend. Which word sends a shock of current running down my spine, and I don’t even have the time for such nonsense because he leans over and puts a hand on the wall, just above my head, and whispers, “And only I get to teach things to you.”
I swallow. “I’m –”
“What’s this one called?”
He doesn’t have to explain his question to me. I already know what he’s referring to. He’s looking at my painted lips.
“C-cherry Picker,” I whisper.
I actually went rogue on my usual color choice – dark and different shades of coral – and went with something super red, Wyn’s favorite.
Arrow brings his free hand up and traces the bottom of my lip with his thumb. “Cherry Picker.”
“I thought it suited the miserable occasion.”
His thumb digs into the center of my lip and he forces my mouth to part, narrowing his eyes. “Were you going to let him pick your cherry?”
I rake my nails up and down the wall as my pussy flutters at his possessive gesture. “I… I thought about it.”
He almost mashes my lower lip with my teeth. “You did, huh.”
“I mean, I –”
“You thought about letting him tear through that little piece of flesh between your legs.” His hand moves down from my lips and he wraps his fingers around my throat. “You thought about bleeding on his cock. Is that what you’re telling me?”
An intense spasm rolls through my channel at the graphic image he paints – my blood on his cock – and his possessive hold on me. “Arrow, please.”
“Please what?” he whispers, his hand a hot brand on my throat.
“Please don’t say things like that, Arrow?
Or please don’t lose your shit thinking about that virgin pussy being violated by that drunk motherfucker?
Or maybe…” He squeezes my throat and I’m almost off the ground, teetering on my tiptoes.
“Or maybe don’t lock me up in this motel room, Arrow, and go hunting for him.
Don’t think about beating the living shit out of that dumb fuck.
Is that what you’re pleading for, Salem?
Don’t kill him. The cherry picker you chose for yourself. ”
He can’t beat him up, can he?
I mean, that’s what he got suspended for, beating someone up.
Oh God, he can’t do that and I can’t let him.
But still, my whole body is buzzing with his violent reaction. My whole body is ablaze with his possessiveness, his raw domination over me.
This is bad, Salem. You can’t revel in these things.
“You can’t do that. You can’t beat him up, Arrow,” I blurt out, my heart jumping up to my throat and pounding against his palm. “Your team won’t like that, you beating someone else up in a bar, in front of everyone.”
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me as he whispers, “And this time, they won’t be able to pull me off him until I finish the job.”
I have to clench my teeth in order to tamp down the electric thrill his words fill my belly with and something really stupid and dangerous slips out of my mouth, but I stop myself at the last second. “Have you…”
“Have I what?”
I don’t know what I hope to accomplish by asking this question but I can’t help it. I have to know. Because God, he looks so angry and wild and so crazy possessive.
“Have you always been like this? B-before.”
Stupid, stupid question.
Stupid, stupid Salem.
What would this accomplish anyway? Why do I care how he was before, when he was with my sister?
But the thing is, I don’t think he was like this. I don’t think he was this crazy dominating and crazy possessive. Sarah would have hated that.
Because Jesus Christ, I love every inch of this.
I love every fucking inch of his deep-seated need to control me.
When understanding breaks over his face like dawn, I fall in love with him even more. Because it only manages to darken his features. It only manages to make him wilder, more possessive, more… mine.
He leans forward, his grip on me still absolute. “No, I wasn’t.” His thumb digs into my fluttering pulse. “Maybe it’s you. Maybe you bring out the worst in me. And you wanted me, didn’t you? You wanted my fire. My heat. My fury.”
I jerk out a nod.
He throws out a mean, tight smile. “Well, you got me. Every broken, cut-open piece of me.”
Good.
I want him, however he comes. I want him to burn me, cut me, slice me open.
I don’t care.
I’ll still smile at him. I’ll still love him. I’ll still dive into the ocean and jump off an airplane for him.
He’s my Arrow.
My darling Arrow.
I swallow, feeling as crazy as him, feeling as submissive and feminine as he feels dominating and masculine. “I just wanted to be… perfect. For you. I wanted him to take that piece of me away that made me unfit so you’d –”
He cuts off my words when he steps into me even more.
On top of that, he pushes my neck back, so I look him directly in the eyes.
“You wanted to be perfect for me,” he rasps.
“Yes.”
A harsh look ripples over his face, and I don’t know if he wants to kiss me or kill me.
“Do you know what I’ve been doing all week? Ever since you started leaving your sexy fucking notes in my mailbox?”
“What?”
“I’ve been jerking off,” he says with clenched teeth. “I’ve been jerking off like a goddamn teenager, here, in my room. At the school, in my fucking office. I’ve had to stop myself three times – three fucking times – from sending for you so I could see.”
“See what?”
“Your virgin pussy,” he rumbles. “So I could see if you’re really not wearing any panties under those schoolgirl skirts of yours.
If you’re really walking around the school hallways with that tight piece between your legs, all bare and unprotected.
So I could see if your pussy is really as swollen and pouty as I think it is. ”
Finally, I let go of the wall and clutch his t-shirt, my mouth all open and panting, my eyes all glazed over with lust.
But he’s not done yet.
He delivers his final line as he almost kisses my lips. “If you got any more perfect for me than you already are, I’d fucking lose my mind. I’d bend you over and fuck you in front of the whole school while they watch and gasp and talk about rule-breaking.”
Perfect.
He called me perfect for him.
Oh my God.
I don’t… I don’t know what to do. This is all I’ve ever wanted. To be perfect for him.
I don’t know what to say except, “Arrow, I –”
But he cuts me off again, his lips pressing into mine so hard, his teeth digging into my plump flesh. “Do you remember the rules?”
I arch my spine, trying to get closer to him. “What rules?”
He watches my struggle but doesn’t help me. He simply states, “My rules. Rules of being my fuck doll. You remember what I told you?”