52. Harper
Chapter 52
Harper
I couldn’t be happier when my Uber delivers me to Dearth Manor that afternoon. The driver must have noticed my smudged makeup, the way I kept swaying, but he doesn’t say anything. Guess he sees a lot of girls my age going through shit. School is such a fucking bitch.
Letting myself in as quietly as possible, I sneak up the stairs to my room. I just want to wash my face, change into my bulkiest, comfiest clothes, and sleep for a week. My last class of the day was with Marissa, and because she sits in the front of the class, I had no choice but to stare at the back of her head for like an hour.
I stagger at the top of the stairs when I take a step that isn’t there, and giggle into my blazer’s sleeve at how stupid I am.
“I see you’re drinking again.”
The hair on my arm stands up straight at the sound of Jude’s voice so close to me. I spin around, knocking his chest by accident and plucking my hand away like it burns. This time of day we’re usually still at school. But since Jude isn’t at practice, I’m home earlier. Is Rosie here?
It’s not just the thought that I’m alone with Jude that makes me run. It’s the dark smile on his face, the intense slit of his eyes, the way the muscles in his neck cord as if he’s getting ready to snatch me.
I bounce off the wall, barely keeping my balance, and try to turn my bedroom door’s handle. Jude grabs the back of my neck and shoves me against the wood before I get it right.
“Know what I did today, Harper?” he asks, leaning so close that every word paints my face with his warm breath.
“Let go!” I push the words out through a grimace, desperate not to show him how much he’s hurting me.
“Nothing. I did absolutely fucking nothing. ” He bangs a fist into the wood beside my head, and my eyes squeeze closed on instinct. “And I hated every fucking second of it.”
He pulls me away, hand still clamped tight. God, how I wish I hadn’t had so much vodka. I’m a complete fucking mess right now. Nothing calm or collected about me. But how the hell else was I supposed to get through the day?
What I saw on the bathroom door wasn’t the last of it. When I was leaving Cinderhart High, heading for my Uber, I walked past a group of juniors. Usually, they wouldn’t dare say anything to a senior, but all three of the girls started panting, their tongues stuck out and their eyes crossed like lunatics.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Now this?
I try to tear Jude’s fingers off my neck, but he’s got such a good grip it’s impossible especially since I’m still trembling from the shock of him coming up behind me, from the vodka, from fucking everything.
Why do I even bother?
I go limp and let him haul me down the stairs. Right then I don’t even care where we’re going. I just want it to end.
He takes me to the kitchen and drags me in front of a cabinet. “Make us some popcorn,” he commands. When I don’t move, he slaps my ass so hard that I gasp. I can’t even turn my head to throw him a glare.
I go through the motions—taking out a bag of popcorn, unfolding it, putting it in the microwave, waiting for it to pop. The whole time, Jude teases me with his free hand. Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, grazing his knuckles down my cheek, caressing the curve of my ass.
A few days ago, his touch would have sent me into a frenzy. But now I barely feel anything. It’s like I disassociated the moment he crushed me against my bedroom door.
“Movie time!” he announces as soon as I’ve shaken the popcorn into a serving bowl. He grabs it from the counter, spilling kernels all over the floor as he swings it in a wide arc.
Something’s wrong. He’s acting wild like he’s out of his fucking mind. And he’s taking me back to the place where he sodomized me...I’m guessing so he can do it again. Or maybe this time he’ll take my virginity. If I told him he’d be my first, would he reconsider? I doubt it. It would probably turn him on.
The screening room is dark, and he doesn’t bother turning on the lights. He puts the popcorn down on the large daybed and sits, pulling me into his lap before I can escape. Slinging an arm around my waist, he keeps me pinned as he pushes a piece of popcorn against my lips.
“Open,” he murmurs.
But I don’t. Because fuck him.
He chuckles darkly as he eats the popcorn. “Thought we could watch a skin flick, what do you say? I found a real gem...thought you’d appreciate it. It’s so you. I’ve jerked off about six times to it already.”
I’m still wearing my school blazer, but he shoves the popcorn bowl aside and takes it off me, tossing it onto the nearest recliner. I expect him to keep undressing me, but all he does is graze his hands over my breasts before taking up the remote and pressing play.
Cheesy porn music blares through the stereo system. I grab his wrist, trying to drag his arm away from my middle. He just holds me tighter and nuzzles his head into my neck.
“Oh, you’re gonna want to see this, Sis. It’s really good.”
“Just do it,” I mutter, punching his arm. “Do whatever the fuck you want to me so I can go to bed.”
And never wake up.
But he just laughs quietly against my skin and gives me a soft kiss. “Hush, princess. It’ll be over sooner than you think.” I don’t imagine the dark undertones to his words. We’ve been playing this game of cat and mouse for too long. Everything is part of it. The way he sips his coffee in the morning, the curl of his lips, the cologne he wears. That smell envelops me.
Why is he all dressed up? I’d have expected him in sweats and a hoody, but he’s wearing freshly pressed jeans, a dark, long-sleeved shirt that highlights his muscular body. And cologne, freshly applied.
This can’t all be for me, can it?
He slides a hand up my skirt, and I whimper when he touches me through my underwear. On-screen, the porn music fades out and is replaced with loud, feminine panting. I’m reminded of the girls I walked past who stuck their tongues out at me. I still have no idea what that meant, but I’m guessing it’s a porn thing. I’ve seen one or two racy scenes in movies, but not proper porn. I never really needed it, and it wasn’t like my mom hid porn mags and stuff in her underwear drawer. The stuff she hid had nothing to do with sex.
Jude pushes my thighs apart and starts stroking me, humming wordlessly against the side of my neck.
Despite everything, his touch turns me on. I start tingling, the sensation sinking deep inside me. On-screen, the darkness is slowly starting to resolve into solid shapes. I make out a bed, nightstands. The lamps on them cast a reddish hue, but the color is mostly washed out like there’s a filter over it.
Jude slips a finger behind my underwear and lets out a low, pleased rumble. That’s when I smell the liquor on his breath. Brandy, whiskey, I don’t know. Fear prickles over my skin, and I try to pull away from him again.
“Ssh,” he whispers. “Just let it happen, Harper. Just let it happen.”
My eyes brim, but I blink furiously until the tears clear away. He’s teasingly gentle, barely a knuckle deep inside me, toying with me as if he knows I’m still trying to get into this. So why fight? Why ? If I can forget who he is, who I am, then I can enjoy this. It’s what I deserve, isn’t it?
Harpy Dearth, the whore.
That’s who I am, right?
So I force my eyes up and stare at the movie Jude put on for us, and I try to ignore what he’s doing to me. The vodka makes it easier than it should be, as does the way my body responds so eagerly to his touch. I’m wet, tingling, my core aching for something thicker, harder, more intense. He uses his thumb to brush feather-light touches against my clit, and my resolve melts like a marshmallow in a mug of hot chocolate.
I spread my legs and lean back against him, my eyes fluttering closed so I can lose myself in his touch.
“Eyes open, Harper.”
My lids feel too heavy, but I find myself obeying him. I guess just in case he decides to stop being gentle. That I won’t be able to handle. That I might struggle against. But he’s a fucking snake, this stepbrother of mine because he eases me into his touch one soft stroke at a time until I’m whimpering and squirming on his lap, silently begging for more.
On-screen, three figures slowly emerge from the gloom. The whole time it’s been just a blur of red and black, a woman panting and the sound of a man’s heavy breathing, the occasional moan or groan. I was starting to wonder what the hell could possibly feel so good...but then Jude uses a third finger to circle my hole.
I buck my hips so he has even more access to me, my knees unabashedly wide.
He groans, and for a moment sounds exactly like the actor in the movie. I shudder, reach down, and force his finger deeper inside me.
“Christ,” he growls. “You’re such a dirty little slut.”
His words wash over me in a tantalizing wave. I throw my head back as I laugh, and rest it on his shoulder. “Harpy Dearth is a whore,” I whisper.
“What’s that?”
“Stop talking, you’re ruining it.” I grab his wrist and force him to finger me properly, groaning as I add, “And fuck me harder.”
He pulls away from me with an angry growl. His hand—still damp from being inside me—claps around the front of my throat, his other squeezing painfully at my tit. “Don’t think for one fucking second you’re the one pulling the strings,” he warns. “We were having a good time...why don’t you just get over yourself and enjoy it?”
I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself again, perhaps with some tips on what he can shove up his asshole, when the girl on the video says, “Oh God, yeah, fuck me in the ass!”
Jude laughs roughly and rips my underwear down my legs. I start to struggle, but then the dark filter over the movie recedes, baring the three people in the shot. At this angle, I see two guys on the bed, the girl on her back between them. But why are the guy’s faces blurred?
The camera moves, exposing the girl’s bared nipple, her writhing body, the hands touching her all over. And, a second later, her face.
A jolt of shock goes through me.
Jude shoves his fingers deeper and nips at my ear. “You look tasty, Harper. You’d do good in porn, you know that? This tight little pussy of yours, that sweet voice.”
It’s so obviously not my fucking voice. It’s too high-pitched, too sweet. But on that screen? The girl pinned down on the bed by those two blurred-out boys?
That’s me.