Chapter 6 Yara
YARA
I was once told that life begins outside of your comfort zone, which in all honesty made me laugh, and then cry and then laugh some more, because my entire life has been lived outside of my comfort zone.
My upbringing, the schools I was forced to attend, this fucking place I was forced to move to, all of it was outside of my comfort zone.
The only saving grace with my current situation was that I studied what I really wanted and that I got accepted into the Art Academy here in St. Bipal's, which was part of the University.
But sitting outside next to the pool, with Xavier hovering behind me and Caleb and Ryder swimming, was so out of my comfort zone that my skin crawled and my heart stayed in the constant state of palpitations I never had before.
Xavier was standing behind me and even without turning around, I could feel his eyes on me.
On my shoulders.
On my neck.
On my back.
They left a scorching trail wherever they passed, and I'd be lying if I said that I knew what was happening, because I didn't. None of this made any sense.
His behavior didn't exactly scream that he was pissed off at me, more that he was trying to keep me away from his friends, but perhaps not for the reasons he initially told me about.
I didn't even dare thinking about it, but... Xavier was jealous.
He was fucking jealous, and I was too much inside my head to realize that the other day when he found me in one of the suites. When he asked me if I was fucking any of his friends.
When I felt he was insulting me because he thought I was beneath any of them.
Turns out that my stepbrother didn't like them touching me or being anywhere near me because he was just as sick as I was.
He was just as depraved, if not even more, and I reveled in it.
I wanted to drown in the toxicity the two of us were creating and never look back, because for the first time in my miserable life I was feeling something.
I was... I was almost alive, which made me equally sad and elated, mostly because I didn't want to feel alive with him.
I didn't want to have this desperate need to turn around and look at him, to feast on that six pack and the wicked V leading to the waistband of his swim trunks. Having him in my face today wasn't the healthiest nor the smartest thing, especially since I was detoxing myself from all things Xavier.
For three days I stayed mostly in my room.
For three days I ate leftovers and pretended he was never home.
For three fucking days I locked my doors, lying to myself that I didn't want him to knock.
But I did.
I wanted him to break down the door, to demand things I was so fucking ready to give it terrified me. He was an asshole, a bully most days, surrounded by people I didn't particularly like and I still wanted him.
Three days weren't enough to exorcise him from my system and I was starting to think that even a lifetime wouldn't be enough.
His eyes haunted me, finding me even in my dreams. Those dark orbs that could see more than I was ready to give were the reason why I haven't slept. They were the reason why my notebook had a drawing after a drawing of angry onyx eyes, looking straight into my soul.
Xavier Thornton was everywhere—in my dreams, in my bloodstream, crawling through my soul, cutting me with each new movement. He occupied my almost every waking thought and living in this house with him just across my room was a torture I never knew before.
I had boyfriends in the past. I had people I thought I loved, but nothing has ever felt like this.
Whatever was happening inside me was ever consuming, toxic, so fucking dark and I actually did not want it to stop.
Perhaps I wouldn't have been this obsessed with the man who was nothing but awful toward me from the moment he met me, and someone might want to dissect these feelings and tell me they only existed because deep down I always thought I was unworthy of the pure kind of love.
The kind that had your heart fluttering, putting the smile on your face every time you thought of that person.
There were no fluffy little feelings involved where Xavier was concerned. Nothing about this was pure or fluffy or even wanted, but the desperation living inside my veins craved him. It craved this madness, and I wasn't going to stop it.
Ryder started laughing at something Caleb had said, pulling my attention to them.
The two of them were probably the only friends of Xavier's I didn't actively try avoiding.
The rest of them could disappear as far as I was concerned, but these two didn't make me feel like I was nothing.
They actually talked to me, asked about my day, and in some other life they probably would've been my friends as well.
My lips started pulling into a small smile just thinking about this imaginary other life where I wasn't living in the constant state of anxiety, when the movement behind me had me sitting ramrod straight.
Xavier sat down just behind me on the sun lounger, his heat far too fucking close to me.
I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, and instead of moving away to create some distance between us, I leaned back, feeling him even more.
Neither one of us did anything else apart from sitting there, unmoving, waiting to see what the other one would do.
You could cut the tension in the air with the knife, and had I been smarter, less reckless, I wouldn't have been in this situation at all. But I wasn't thinking when I went downstairs in my bikini.
I was lost inside my head to notice someone else was in the house, and the moment I walked down was the moment I realized how much I had fucked up.
I was often told that I often failed to read the room, and when I agreed to have Ryder, Caleb and Xavier join me at the pool I didn't think about the consequences.
With my hands on Xavier's body the only thought that kept on flickering through my mind was that I wanted more. I needed more of him, even if it meant torturing myself to get it.
My hands shook as I pulled the little beach bag I brought with myself up from the ground, rummaging through it as I looked for my cigarettes. It was a nasty habit, the one I equal parts hated and loved, but I was never the one to shake off bad habits even if it meant they would kill me.
And Xavier was just another habit I wasn’t able to shake.
I opened the new pack I bought just yesterday and pulled the cigarette from the box, bringing it to my lips.
With my tongue darting out, I licked the cigarette and put the filter between my lips, hearing a rapid breathing from my back.
My fingers wrapped around the lighter I placed right next to my thigh, but before I could bring it closer to my waiting cigarette, another hand wrapped around mine, guiding me to the cigarette.
Xavier pressed against me, his chest flushed against my back. There was nothing else in this moment, no one else existed but the two of us existing in the little bubble.
His thumb rolled over the clicker, pressing it down and letting the fire lick the tip of my cigarette.
I always loved the first hit of the nicotine in my lungs.
It rolled over my tongue as I inhaled, trickling down my throat all the way to the center of my being, making me heady, almost dizzy, yet I knew that my dizziness this time had nothing to do with the cigarette but everything to do with the man behind me.
"Can I have one?" he asked, his voice raspy, deeper than earlier in the Living Room, reminding me of that night he came to my room. His chin was softly pressed to my right shoulder and the hand that was holding mine as we lit up the cigarette together was now resting on my thigh, just over the scars I’ve been hiding from the rest of the world.
With my eyes closed, I pushed back against him, wanting to hear that voice again.
"Please," that murmur came again, making me more reckless than ever before.
This was sick.
Insane.
He was my stepbrother.
His friends were in the pool right in front of us.
But I didn't care.
My eyes flew open as I brought the cigarette to my lips again, and without moving away, I moved my head to my right, just where his face was.
The smoke rolled around my tongue, yet I didn't inhale.
He pushed slightly back, looking at me with the same need in his eyes that was no doubt shining in mine, and as if he could read my mind, those lips parted just as I scooted closer, almost pressing my lips to his.
The smoke slowly coiled, pushing through my lips and between his as I exhaled.
I could see his dark eyelashes clearly now, almost as long as mine.
I could see the little scar on his nose and the barely there freckles over his nose.
I could see the yellow dots just around his irises, spread around haphazardly, making his eyes seem otherworldly right now.
His lips closed but he never moved away. "More," he rasped. His hand trailed from my thigh, over my arm and all the way to my neck, wrapping slowly. "I need more, Yara."
We both knew he wasn't talking about cigarettes, just as we both knew this was a dangerous game we were playing but neither one of us wanted to stop.
"Please," he said again, pressing his forehead to mine. "Give me more."
Raw desperation laced every single one of those words, every syllable hitting my heart, but I didn't know what to say.
Was this just another one of his games or did he actually feel the same way I did?
His fingers flexed as those dark eyes bore into mine, but I stayed mute, completely frozen as my cigarette burned, almost completely forgotten.
"I can get you your own," I whispered, feeling his breath on my lips. "I can—"
"No." One word. One fucking word that shouldn't have said everything, but it did. I didn't need big declarations of want, of need or love, because in that one word he said everything I needed to hear. "I don't want another cigarette. I want—"