Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Shiloh, a word,” Mr. X said as I tried to dash out of the classroom.
I squeezed my textbook tightly in front of my chest as I spun on my heel, with a polite smile plastered on my face. “I have to catch the bus, Mr. X,” I said, hoping he’d let me leave. Mr. X made me feel…unsettled. I didn’t like the way he watched me or found ways to touch me. Shayla had laughed it off when I’d tried to talk to her about it. She’d said that I was imagining things—that there was no way our high school’s beloved English teacher would be interested in a freshman girl.
“It won’t take long,” he said from where he sat behind his desk.
I stayed rooted where I was standing near the exit. My panic built and built with each student that left the class.
After the last student exited the classroom, Mr. X stood from his desk and walked over to the door. He toed the door stopper out from under the door and I watched, trying to stay calm as the door closed with a snick.
Mr. X put his hand on my lower back, making me jump a little, and ushered me further into the classroom. His hand slid down slightly as we walked. When his fingers flexed over my butt, bunching up the skirt of my uniform in the process, I quickly tried to step to the side and out of his reach. His hand locked around my upper arm and yanked me around until my backside met the front of his desk.
“Why are you shying away from me?” he asked, stepping close and trapping me between him and his desk. He put his hands on my shoulders and ran them down my arms. “We’ve shared so many moments. Are you mad I didn’t give in to you sooner? I’ve needed to be discreet in showing my affection for you. No one else will understand our need for one another.”
Tears filled my eyes as he yanked my textbook, my only shield, from my arms and tossed it to the floor. “Mr. X, please,” I pleaded, tears rolling down my cheeks. My whole body shook with fear.
“Shh, it’s alright. I’m giving in. I can’t take that look of longing you’ve been giving me any longer.” He stepped even closer, molding the front of his body with mine. “I’m going to give us what we both want.” Then he rubbed his erection in his pants against my stomach and I felt the urge to vomit.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I’d never given him a look. “No,” I said firmly as I tried to shove him back.
He grabbed me by my wrists with a chuckle and forced me to turn around. “Now, Shiloh, if you’re going to be naughty and play hard to get, I might have to punish you.” He held my hands together behind my back tightly and forced me to bend forward over his desk. His foot kicked my feet apart.
I cried out as he lifted my skirt over my hips. “Please stop!”
Please, someone save me!
Feeling defeated, I took a seat on the curb along the street in front of my house. I was tired and my hip was still sore. The bruise I had was large and ugly. As much as I wanted to run, my body was protesting. I itched to have a cigarette. It’d been weeks since I’d last had one and I was determined never to smoke one again. I had school in a few hours. So drinking was out of the question. My nightmares were only getting worse. Maybe it was time to go back to therapy. I quickly shoved that idea away. Therapy was the last thing I wanted to do.
My nightmare hadn’t woken me up too early this morning. The sun was already peeking over the mountains. I supposed I could go back inside and watch some TV.
“No marathon today?” someone said.
I glanced over my shoulder and found Knox standing behind me. He was holding a coffee mug. With his disheveled hair and sleepy eyes, he appeared to have just rolled out of bed. He was wearing black basketball shorts that hung low on his hips and a white tank that showed off his bulky muscles. The Stone brothers had the uncanny ability of looking gorgeous after just waking up. I hadn’t seen Keelan yet, but I was sure he was just as blessed. It was kind of unfair.
I looked away. “My hip is still sore.” Silence fell between us and I slipped into a daydream while staring out into the street.
“Want some breakfast?” he asked.
I peered back over my shoulder, a little skeptical I’d heard him right.
“The twins don’t normally like to get out of bed for another hour or so, but when it comes to you, they make an exception.” He was referring to the times the twins had come over for breakfast after I had woken Creed with my nightmares. “You can have the privilege of waking them.”
“Are you afraid of waking your little brothers?” I taunted with a smirk.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “No.”
“Hmm, sounds to me that you want to have a family breakfast and you need me to be the sacrificial lamb that has to wake the two sleeping demons,” I teased. I knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to poke the bear, but I was feeling testy this morning.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, trying to sound bored.
“Yes,” I said and bit my lip in an attempt not to smile. I stood stiffly from the curb and brushed the back of my purple leggings. My top was a matching sports bra I’d covered with a dark gray athletic jacket. I followed Knox inside and into the kitchen.
“There’s coffee, if you want some. Mugs are in the cabinet above the coffee maker and there’s creamer in the fridge,” Knox said while pointing to where things were before opening the fridge to pull out eggs, milk, and bacon, then headed over to the pantry and grabbed pancake mix.
Coffee sounded wonderful. I busied myself by fixing myself a cup. They had vanilla creamer in the fridge. I grabbed that. I was stirring a little bit of creamer into my coffee when Keelan zombied into the kitchen, rubbing his eye.
I had to fight to keep my face blank. There was nothing I could do about the blush that was working its way up the back of my neck. He was in red shorts, but he was shirtless. I tried not to stare at all his golden skin, chiseled muscles, and oh my, he had a lot of ink. There were tattoos sprinkled on his chest, ribs, hips, and his one arm that I already had seen. Only the upper portion of his other arm had a few tats.
Once he finished rubbing his eye, he noticed me. His brows shot up with surprise as he took me in, standing there trying not to gawk, before he looked at his brother. A Cheshire grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Good morning, Shiloh.”
“Good morning,” I said before taking a sip of my coffee. I sighed softly as the liquid caffeine went down. I hoped it kicked in soon. My body needed the boost. I took one more sip, then set my mug down on the counter and turned toward Knox, who was opening the bacon. “Would you like some help?”
His intense brown eyes met mine for a moment. “I just need you to be my sacrificial lamb.”
Knox was an intimidating creature. He was obviously a “take me or leave me” type of individual like Creed. Even though he had shown me repeatedly how much of a jerk he could be, I had a feeling it was a shield. Like Creed, Knox had a worthiness test. I wouldn’t be worthy in Knox’s eyes based on my character, which was how Creed decided. Knox challenged and pushed at people with his jerkish behavior. It was only a guess, but I believed that by not backing down, I might eventually get past Knox’s shields to see his good side. I refused to believe that someone who had taken on the responsibility of raising his brothers after their parents had died and helped raise them to be kind and wonderful was a bad person.
“Point me in the right direction and I’ll go wake up the Sleeping Beauties,” I said.
Keelan chuckled. “Good idea, sending her to wake them. She has a better chance of making it back alive.”
Knox pointed toward the hallway that was off the left side of the living room. I should have guessed because it was the side of their house that was closest to mine. I took off in that direction. Down the hall, I found three doors. One led into the bathroom and I assumed the other two would take me to each of the twins’ rooms. I tapped lightly on the first closed door before poking my head in, then walking in fully. So this is what a boy’s room looks like. It smelled masculine and it was tidier than I’d imagined it would be. Apart from the very full laundry basket of dirty clothes, the room was spotless. The room had a desk with a laptop, a dresser, and a queen bed pushed up against one side of the room. Creed was lying on his stomach, face pointed at the wall. He was shirtless and his faux hawk was smushed in different directions. I walked over to the bed and lightly touched his bare shoulder. “Creed, it’s time to wake up,” I said softly.
Creed groaned. “Fuck off,” he grumbled, making me laugh.
I climbed up onto the bed, leaned over his back, then lightly brushed my finger down the arch of his nose, tickling him. “Good morning, Sunshine. It’s time to open those pretty eyes.”
His nose scrunched before his hand reached up to capture mine, stopping me from tickling him anymore. “I don’t want to wake up. I’m dreaming about a pretty girl lying on top of me,” he mumbled with a tiny smile, then opened one eye to peek up at me. My cheeks became hot. His body shook underneath mine as he chuckled huskily. “You’re too cute,” he said with a tired voice. He pushed up from the bed without releasing my hand and turned just enough to wrap his free arm around my waist.
The next thing I knew, I was on my back and under him. His chest slightly squished mine as he burrowed his face into the crook of my neck and pretended to go back to sleep. His breath tickled my neck, making me giggle. I found bare skin when I grabbed his bicep with one hand and used the other to push up on his chest. “It’s time to wake up. Knox is making breakfast and I still need to wake up Colt.”
Creed pushed up onto his elbows and hovered above me. His eyes traveled to the clock on his nightstand before returning to look down at me, taking in my appearance. “Did you not go for a run this morning? And why are you waking me up at five-thirty?”
Without thought I brushed his blond locks away from his eyes. “My hip is still bothering me. Knox found me pouting on the curb and asked if I wanted to come over for breakfast.”
Creed pushed off of me and knelt by my legs as he frowned at my hip. “Do you think you need to get it looked at by a doctor?”
I shook my head. “It’s just sore and I have a huge bruise.”
His frown didn’t lessen. “Can you show me?”
I hesitated as I thought it over. It wasn’t like I would be showing him anything private and my jacket would still cover the scars on my stomach. I hooked my fingers into the side of my leggings and pulled them down past my hip bone, revealing the dark purplish bruise that was the size of my hand.
Creed hissed as he looked it over. He lightly trailed his fingers along the edge of my bruise, causing me to gasp. His eyes flicked to mine. “Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head.
His fingers trailed to the arch of my hip bone and the butterflies in my stomach fluttered. A look flashed across his face that I couldn’t decipher as he glanced back down at my hip. His pointer finger drew small circles, tickling me.
A giggle slipped out of me and Creed smiled. He pulled the side of my leggings back up and sat back on his haunches. “You should probably go wake Colt. I’ll be out in a minute.”
I sat up and clambered off his bed. I walked across the hall and gave Colt’s door a light tap before entering. Colt’s room was set up the same as Creed’s room only mirrored, with the same furniture. The only differences I noticed were that Creed’s room was decorated with darker colors and black bedding and also had a couple of posters on his wall. Colt’s room had lighter colors and blue bedding. Instead of posters, Colt displayed his medals and trophies he had earned from swimming. I wondered why Creed didn’t display his.
Colt was asleep on his back and was also shirtless. I sat next to him on the bed with my legs hanging off the side. He looked like a sleeping angel with the morning light hitting his golden hair and skin. I shook his shoulder gently. “Colt, wake up.”
His forehead scrunched as he groaned before his eyes squinted open. His eyes registered that it was me and the corners of his mouth curled up. “Hey, beautiful. What are you doing here?”
“Knox invited me over for breakfast.”
His brows rose. “Knox did?”
“I’ll explain at breakfast.” Playfully, I tugged on his hand.
He chuckled as he laced his fingers with mine and threw off his covers. Holding hands, we left his room for the kitchen.
The dining table was already set and Keelan, who was still shirtless, was carrying food to the table while Knox finished up at the stove. I was transfixed by the way Keelan’s muscles flexed a little as he leaned over the table to place a plate stacked with pancakes and a large bowl filled with scrambled eggs.
“You’re drooling,” a voice whispered next to my ear.
Letting go of Colt’s hand, I whipped around to find Creed standing behind us. Embarrassment consumed me but externally I tried to keep my cool. I put my hand on my good hip and stared Creed down. “Can you blame a girl for looking? Keelan is very pretty.”
“Thanks, Shiloh,” Keelan said, his tone hinting that he was amused.
My back was to him now and even though I was displaying fake bravado, there was no way I would’ve been able to look him in the eye right now without blushing like crazy. “You’re welcome,” I shot over my shoulder.
Both Colt and Creed frowned.
“I’ve tried to tell them that I’m the prettiest, but they’ve never believed me,” Keelan said.
Colt rolled his eyes and reclaimed my hand. He led me over to the chair I’d sat in last time I’d attempted to have a meal over here. Fingers crossed, things would turn out better.
“Why don’t you go put a shirt on, gorgeous?” Creed grumbled at Keelan as he made it over to the chair on my right. Colt snorted from where he sat on my left.
Keelan arched a brow at Creed. “You and Colt aren’t wearing shirts.”
“Maybe we should all put our shirts on,” Colt suggested. “I don’t want Shiloh to feel uncomfortable.”
The three of them glanced at me.
“I’m fine,” I assured. “Don’t feel the need to put your clothes on because I’m here.”
Knox erupted with laughter from where he stood at the stove, followed by Keelan and the twins. I gaped at all of them as they laughed, even Knox as he brought a plate of bacon to the table while shaking his head with a smile.
“Thanks for the permission to be naked, Shiloh,” Keelan said as his laughter settled.
“I—” Then it clicked. “Oh.”
That caused another round of laughter.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Knox said. “Let’s eat.”
Creed was the first to scoop up some scrambled eggs and put them on my plate, serving me like he had with lasagna the other night. Knox and Keelan watched in fascination as Colt reached across me to grab a bunch of bacon. He dropped some on my plate before plopping the rest on his.
“Thank you,” I mumbled and took a sip of my coffee that was already waiting for me at the table. I was more than capable of serving myself, but because I weirdly kind of liked that they did it, I stayed quiet.
The five of us ate, enjoying the food.
“I was going to text you the day you got hurt about getting together,” Keelan said to me. It took me a second to figure out what he was referring to. We had talked about him working with me to determine the best level of jiu-jitsu classes to take. “If you’re up to it, I have time this weekend,” he offered.
I opened my mouth to agree, but Creed spoke before me. “Her hip is still hurting her.”
“Sparring could make it worse,” Colt added.
They were right. If I pushed it, I might have to go longer without running. Then again, Keelan was nice enough to take time out of his schedule.
“Do you two speak for Shiloh now?” Knox grumbled.
Creed frowned at his brother and Colt gave me an apologetic smile.
“I might be well enough by Sunday,” I offered.
Keelan shook his head. “There’s no rush. Besides…” He gave me a mischievous grin. “I need you at one hundred percent to see all that you got.”