Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Indi
As luck would have it, I don’t have any classes with Briar for the rest of the day. And it drives me crazy, because I don’t even bump into him in the hall, and I’m on tenterhooks to see how he’ll respond to me after the shit I said at lunch. But no luck. By the end of the day, my ego’s deflated like a birthday balloon a day after the party.
I trudge up the stairs to detention, feeling more than a little apprehensive at seeing Briar again. By now, he’d have recovered and thought up something nasty for me in exchange for embarrassing him in front of the entire school. And I have no choice but to be here in this classroom while he sets his plan in motion.
Room 301 couldn’t have made a more perfect prison. For one, it’s fucking tiny. The curtains on the windows block out all but the most stubborn chinks of light. I spend a few seconds thinking crazy thoughts about Denard and sunlight before I spot an old-school projector in the middle of the classroom.
Yeah, that makes more sense. But only barely.
Briar’s all the way in the back, but the rest of the kids are all in front. There are seven of us in total, and one very righteous looking Denard leaning against a small desk near a projector screen.
As I enter, Denard pushes away from the desk and saunters over to me. He sticks out an arm, and for a terrifying moment I think he’s going to touch me.
Cold, dry fingers and long nails—the stuff of nightmares.
Instead, he flicks off the lights.
“You’re late, Ms. Virgo,” Denard says as he walks back to his desk.
I barely manage not to roll my eyes. “Sorry, Sir.”
He pulls his mouth to the side, but then flicks his fingers at the middle of the row of seats. “You can make up the time tomorrow. I have somewhere to be this afternoon.”
Coffin shopping, perhaps?
There are enough chinks in the curtains to allow a little ambiance to filter through, but I still bump my knee on one of the seats as I weave my way past the filled seats. The closest open one is only two seats away from Briar, but it will have to do. As I turn around to sit, I happen to catch his eye.
His expression doesn’t change in the slightest.
I sit hurriedly and pile my books on the tiny desk. Dammit, I thought I could use this time to study. I need to complete last weekend’s assignment and hand it in to Mr. Veroza tomorrow. Then I have five chapters of Computer Science to catch up on. But it looks like we’re about to be subjected to an educational video made in the eighties and narrated by a chain-smoking pedophile.
“So I’ve been wondering…you really a virgin, or what?”
My spine stiffens, more from the touch of warm breath on my neck than from Briar’s question. In the gloom, I hadn’t noticed him moving closer. Now he’s right behind me, and the tiny fold- away desk between us is obviously not a big enough buffer to keep him away. His presence shouldn’t have put me on edge—we’re in a classroom full of students, after all, but it does, and that pisses me off.
“Fuck off, you deviant,” I whisper, doing my best not to move my lips.
Denard fiddles with the projector until it clicks and whirs to life.
True enough, the gritty title, ‘ Getting High in High School ’ blooms onto the screen. I grimace, and then shiver as Briar blows against the back of my neck.
“You trying to get yourself more detention?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder to glare at him.
He shrugs. “Got nothing better to do.”
“Then why the hell not just go to prison, huh?”
Even in the low light, I can see darkness flooding Briar’s eyes. He looks away, eyes now trained on the screen. Faded colors paint his face as the projector spews out its ancient lecture.
I face forward and do my best to zone out while the rest of the video plays, but less than a minute later, another breath warms the back of my neck. I stem the temptation of turning around and scowling at Briar. It won’t do any good, anyway.
Hands slide over my shoulder. They’re so big, his thumbs touch my neck and his pinkies almost don’t have enough space.
“Why so tense, Angel?”
I grit my teeth, but I force myself not to say anything.
Why am I tense Briar? Because I’m getting a fucking shoulder rub from a rapist, that’s why.
His thumbs stroke the side of my neck.
I immediately look up at Mr. Denard, but the teacher’s head is down and he’s busy on his cellphone. Everyone else in detention is either catching forty winks or busy on their phones too. Meanwhile, the video is playing so loud, I doubt anyone would hear us having a full-on conversation.
They definitely don’t hear him dragging away his desk, or bringing his chair closer to mine.
I feel him shift—there’s weight on my shoulders one second, gone the next—and then his knees wrap around my seat.
“You know what I think?” Briar murmurs as he settles down behind me. His breath stirs the fine hairs by my ear, and that makes me squirm in my seat. “I think you’re too serious.”
Serious about making you pay for what you did, yeah.
God, I wish I could just yell at him. Maybe I should go to the police. It would be my word against theirs but, fuck, it has to do something, right?
This is probably exactly what Addy had to go through all those months ago. Why she went off the rails and had to be told to leave Briar alone.
“You know what’ll loosen you up, Angel?”
His hand slides down the front of my chest. He squeezes my breast hard enough to make me bite my lip, and then his hand sinks lower, and lower, and lower.
“Losing your v-card,” he whispers, his lips touching my ear.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I should go sit somewhere else. Raise my hand and hope Mr. Denard will take my side for a change.
But if I lead him on, there’s a chance we can pick up right where we left off.
I don’t fucking know.
No, no more lies. The truth. I will squeeze it out of him one way or the other.
Briar slides his hand around my throat. I’m flung back to my episode in the tub, where the thought of him doing just this tipped me over the edge.
“Was it you?” I murmur, shifting despite myself as his other hand smooths my skirt over my thigh. “Were you in my house?”
Briar’s soft chuckle warms the back of my neck and sends another flurry of goosebumps over my skin. “What the hell are you on about?”
It must have been him. I want it to be him. And how fucked up is that? Beyond-thought fucked up, that’s what.
Briar grabs the edge of my skirt and draws it up my leg. Higher. Higher. Where his fingertips brush my skin, electric tingles crackle like branches of lightning through a stormy sky.
“You’re tensing up again.”
“Because you have your hand up my fucking skirt.”
“Relax, Angel. I can’t finger you out of being a virgin.”
I let out a soft huff, and then clamp my lips shut when his fingertips reach the seam of my underwear.
If Denard was to look up... If any of the five students in front of us happened to look back…
I shift in my seat, and grab Briar’s wrist. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because—”
‘Because I said so,’ suddenly doesn’t seem a good enough reason when Briar runs a knuckle over my underwear… right above my clit.
My head falls back before I can catch it, and our cheeks brush. I sit up straight immediately, blinking to force myself to focus. I squeeze his wrist hard, but he just strokes me again.
“You really don’t understand the meaning of the word, no, do you?” I say it through a soft laugh, trying to be glib, failing miserably.
He grabs my pussy and squeezes so hard I almost gasp out loud. Luckily, I seal my lips just in time and sit up real straight.
My entire body responds to that merciless grip. Where I was getting all tingly and nice, I’m suddenly aching, the feeling so close to pain I can’t decide if it’s good or bad.
“And you don’t know when to shut up,” he whispers. “I’m doing you a fucking favor.”
Heat blooms on my cheeks. I dig my fingers into his wrist until I feel wetness pooling in my nails. “Stop touching me, or I’ll scream.”
Something brushes the side of my neck, and I shiver when I realize it’s his mouth. I squeeze his wrist again, but he doesn’t notice. Instead, he eases up on my pussy and strokes me again.
The contrast between that fierce grip and his gentle caress makes my core clench like a fist.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
But it doesn’t matter how many times I yell that mantra in my head, it doesn’t change my body’s response.
He’s making me wet.
I don’t want him to stop.
And I know that makes me some kind of twisted enabler but for the life of me…I don’t want him to stop.
Briar
This isn’t what I’d planned. I was going to tie her shoelaces together again. Maybe push her into the wall on the way out. Whisper obscenities in her ear that I would immediately deny when she ratted me out to Denard.
But that’s the problem, see?
She’s not fighting me. Sure, she’s drawn blood from my wrist, but she could have stopped this a second after I grabbed her tit.
She wants me, and that blows my fucking mind.
Maybe she is a virgin. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Else why the fuck would she let me grope her like this?
I move my hand away. I stop kissing the side of her neck.
She’s done it again. Somehow, this little slip of a girl’s gone and made me lose control.
I have to get out of here. Out of this classroom, away from her intoxicating aura. I have to?—
Her arm trembles, and that brings me back to the here and now.
Warmth spills from her pussy. Her legs were a little open, and there’s still an inch of space between her thighs.
I could leave, but then she’d have won. Because Indi fucking Virgo doesn’t seem to understand that I have all the power here. If I want to finger-fuck her in detention, then that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.
“Open your legs,” I whisper into her ear.
When she doesn’t move, doesn’t obey, I nip her earlobe.
She squirms frantically before opening her thighs.
“More.” When she obeys instantly, I lick the side of her neck in reward and feel her shiver against my tongue. “More.”
This time, when I run my knuckle over her clit, my skin comes back damp. My cock hardens at the thought that she’s wet for me, that she opened her legs for me, that she still hasn’t brought an end to her ordeal.
Fuck, how I wish we weren’t in class right now.
The things I could do to her…