Chapter 41 Juliet
JULIET
Months later…
Gio’s teeth scrape down the side of my throat, eliciting a gush of wetness between my legs in reaction. “Hey, I’m trying to text,” I mutter, though I’m far from annoyed.
“I’m not stopping you,” G replies even as he nuzzles against my skin. I hurriedly finish the message I’d been sending Mads, telling her to be safe on her flight, and shove the phone back into my pocket.
“Done?” Gio asks.
I hum in the back of my throat and relax against him. “For now.”
“Worried about your friend?” Gio guesses, continuing his ministrations, lips trailing a path up and down the side of my throat.
“Good guess.” My voice is breathy as I arch to meet the touch of his mouth. “She’s on her way to Hazelwood.”
“She’ll be fine,” Gio assures me.
“I know.” Anyone who can survive Roquel can probably handle a school full of rich assholes. “But still…”
“You’ll miss her.” Firm, hard hands grip my hips as he lifts me up onto his lap.
“Of course.” I suck back a moan even as I rock against his groin, the hard press of his cock jutting up against my thighs and ass.
“She’s leaving everything she knows, and I know she won’t be back—her parents made it pretty clear that if she didn’t marry someone from that church of theirs, they’d cut her off. ”
“She’s lucky to have you,” Gio whispers against me, and though I know he’s probably more focused on grinding his dick against my core, I appreciate the sentiment. “Maybe we’ll fly over and visit her sometime.”
A moan finally escapes me as he reaches around and grips my tits, squeezing them briefly before dropping his hands back to my hips.
“No more talking about Mads.” I gasp, sliding myself back and forth as if I can get his cock to somehow hit my clit even with our clothes still on.
A poor excuse for sexual relief, but since we graduated and summer started, it’s more than I’ve gotten lately.
We’ve all been so busy, and I’ve been cramming as many hours in at The Dionysus Lounge as I can to save up for our move to Eastpoint that I haven’t been able to fuck my guys as much as I want.
“God damn, Prep Girl, you feel so fucking good,” he murmurs against me, his breath hot on my skin. “Why don’t you wear more skirts?” His complaint makes me chuckle as he fingers the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans. “If you did, I could just unzip and—”
“Can you fucking not,” Lex snaps, cutting G off before he can finish that little fantasy of his.
Gio muffles a laugh against me and his hands smooth around to my belly, curving upward until he cups my tits and roughly squeezes them. “Jealous?” Gio’s tone is taunting.
“Fuck you.” Lex growls from the driver’s seat. The hands he has anchored on the steering wheel are practically white over the knuckles.
A thump echoes from the trunk of the SUV and then muffled shouting.
I try—I really do—to keep from laughing, but I can’t help it.
Now that everything’s over, it’s like a door has opened up inside me and I can actually feel genuine happiness again for more than a brief second.
It bubbles up and fills me, turning my veins into rivers of heat as Gio chuckles against my nape.
“Can you at least wait until I can play too?” Lex asks, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “We’re almost there.”
This time, my groan is for an entirely different reason. Shoving my hand back, I press my palm into Gio’s forehead, pushing his mouth away from my throat. “Fine,” I say, sliding off his lap and huffing as I cross my arms.
“Thank you, baby.”
“No!” Gio whines. “No ‘thank you, baby’—get back over here!”
“Ah!” I squeal as Gio grabs me by my waist and tries to drag me back over his thighs.
I kick and laugh, prying his fingers off me one second only to have them switching to another location.
My thigh, my wrist, my biceps—anywhere he can get hold of me is up for grabs.
“Gio, stop it! You’re going to make Lex wreck! ”
“Lex would never wreck with you in the car,” Gio argues.
Through some begging and pleading, but mostly sheer determination and a lot of muscle strength, Gio manages to get me back on his lap.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and Gio plucks it out for me before I can even reach it. He scowls at the name on the screen before he tosses the phone to the floorboards.
“Hey, what the fuck!” I reach for it only to have him draw me up short.
“It was just your dad,” he says through a grumble.
I roll my eyes. “Maybe I wanted to answer it.”
Gio and Lex both snort at the same time. “You’ve been avoiding both of them ever since the cops finally tracked down your mom and informed her that Morpheus was dead and your dad was exonerated of the charges,” G reminds me. “They weren’t there when you needed them and you don’t need them now.”
My eyes find the screen of my phone as my dad’s name flashes once more and the device vibrates against the floor of the SUV. When the screen goes dark, I lean back.
“Principal Long says I should forgive them,” I say.
“And what does Cory say?” Gio props his chin on my shoulder as he asks the question, and I blow out a breath.
“Cory says that I don’t need to talk to them if I don’t want to, but that they’re only human and everyone makes mistakes.” My lips twist into a grimace even as the words leave my lips.
“Can you forgive their mistakes?” he asks.
I shrug. “Yes, but I can’t forget how they made me feel.” Abandoned. Unloved. Worthless.
“Then do what you want,” Gio says, jumping his thighs beneath me and making me gasp in surprise. “Life’s too short to give a fuck what anybody else thinks anyway.”
A sharp knocking sound echoes up from the back of the SUV and both Gio and I glance over our shoulders. Gio is the one who punches his elbow into the seat, and snaps, “Shut up!” at the man tied up back there.
I glance over my shoulder as Lex pulls off the highway and onto a darkened country road. There’s another thumping sound from the trunk and something slams against the back of the bench seat. Gio releases a low sound of irritation and slides me off his thighs.
“Want me to handle him?” I ask.
He pauses and lifts a brow. “Be my guest, Prep Girl.”
I grin and then reach down to the duffle sitting at our feet. It takes a moment to find what I’m looking for, but when I do, I hold it up with a triumphant smile. “Got it!”
Gio snickers and leans to the side, peering back as I flip around on my knees and lean over the back of the seat. The crackling buzz of the Taser bursts to life a moment before I shove the pronged ends against Darrio Vargas’ naked and bruised side.
A scream rises from behind the dirty sock we’d shoved in his mouth as a gag.
His eyes roll back into his head as his body shakes uncontrollably, wiggling back and forth like a fish ripped from the ocean.
I feel no guilt when I hold it against his side a bit longer than necessary, though he’s clearly already in agony.
Even if my parents are just neglectful assholes who’d rather run than protect me, Darrio physically tormented Gio for most of his life. I feel no remorse for my actions or for what we’re about to do. He’s getting what’s coming to him.
“Damn, girl, don’t kill him before we get there.” Gio chuckles, shaking his head. There’s no actual concern in his voice as I turn back around and toss the Taser into the duffle.
“We’re there,” Lex says in the next minute, and I lean forward between the front two seats, peering out through the windshield.
The shack of a hunting cabin is so dilapidated that I can’t imagine anyone actually staying the night inside unless they’re really into ghost stories or high out of their minds.
Not that anyone else would really be this far out from civilization.
My attention moves away from the shack and over to the line of trees that circles the entire place.
There’s hardly a yard at all for the structure, the trees have practically taken over the land.
“We’re not staying the night here, are we?” I ask, my upper lip curling back. If they say yes, I’m gonna be camping out in the fucking SUV because there’s no way I’m lying down in a place like that. A shudder works through me as I imagine all sorts of creepy-crawly little bugs.
Gio snorts and grips my hips to bring me back into my seat. “No, Prep Girl,” he says. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about that. We’re not staying the night out here.”
Headlights dance across the dirt road, over the slanted shack and then around it as Lex directs the vehicle farther up the path. “Where are you going?” I glance at him.
Before he can answer, however, I see a light in the distance and sit forward once more. There’s a big-ass fire flickering from a large metal barrel sitting in the center of a clearing several yards up from the house. The SUV bumps over rocks and the dual beams shine over a motorcycle.
“Nolan!” I say excitedly before turning and smacking the shit out of Gio.
“Ow! What the hell did I do!” Despite his complaint and cupping his completely uninjured shoulder, his lips are spread into a wide smile.
“You told me he couldn’t come because he was with his mom!”
Bouncing on my ass, I scoot closer to the door. “Don’t you dare jump out while I’m still driving,” Lex barks, voice deep and serious.
I roll my eyes, but grip the door handle anyway, anticipating the inevitable slowdown. Gio has one hand on my arm and Lex is glaring at me in the rearview mirror. So, I dutifully wait until the car has come to a full-fledged stop before I throw open the back door and leap out onto the ground.
Nolan is a grinning maniac, standing in front of a much newer building with rows upon rows of trees at his back. I sprint towards him and when he opens his arms, throw myself into his chest.