10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Surprise, surprise—Lena did not hang around to chitchat with Connor.
As soon as Professor Marsh ended his lecture, she hightailed it out of there.
Connor and I walked back to the apartment in silence, his sucker now gone and a pen now in its place.
I didn’t have another class today, and I planned to crawl into bed and stay there. Hopefully unconscious.
When I was two steps away from the door, his hand closed around my shoulder.
“Give it to me.”
I sighed. “Give you what, Connor?”
“Whatever that girl slipped you.”
I shot him a contemptuous glare over my shoulder. “Not everything is your business—”
He shoved me, startling the breath out of me. I threw my hands out to catch myself so I didn’t bash my face on the side of the building. The rough brick exterior scraped my skin as my palms slammed into it instead.
Then Connor’s arms wound around my waist in some kind of fucked-up bear hug from behind. Keeping my body locked against his with one arm, he slid his hand into one of my back pockets and then the other.
I threw elbows backwards. Most of them landed, but he didn’t seem bothered.
“If you wanted to cop a feel, you could’ve just asked,” I seethed as he, not finding what he wanted, plunged his fingers into the far more invasive front pocket and dug around.
I lashed out, one foot between his legs, bashing one of his ankles and then the other with all the strength I had. His feet remained planted like fucking oak trees.
Finally, I stretched, slapping at him over my shoulders and getting the side of his head a couple of times so hard his ears must’ve rung.
But he moved on, rifling through my other front pocket, finally pulling out the piece of paper Lena had given me with her info on it.
The second he released me, I whipped around to face him, the fury within me demanding to be unleashed.
I was pissed at him, but I also wasn’t that happy with myself. How come I could toss Malcolm around—a fucking gladiator vampire—like a stuffed animal, but no matter how hard I tried, Connor remained unmoved?
“You fucking prick!” I yelled.
He unfolded the corner of Lena’s textbook page. His eyes scanned it quickly. He blinked as if filing the info away in his memory. Then he refolded it. For a second, I thought he was going to give it back to me. But, no, he folded it again and again and again.
I watched it grow impossibly smaller, frozen in a flashback of him ripping up my mom’s letter, her final words to me, into useless confetti. I wanted to fucking kill him.
He held it up between two fingers and eyed it. I expected him to flick it to the grass, but instead, he popped it into his mouth.
And swallowed it down.
I charged at him, my hands balling into fists, which I slammed into his chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He stood as emotionless and as still as a statue while I pummeled him.
Then when the bones in my fingers felt like they would turn to dust with one more blow, he said, simply, “Are you done?”
My breath came raggedly. My shoulders had slumped. My pulse raged.
“I’m going to talk to the dean,” I managed, my chest heaving. I pulled my damn shoulders back. “I’m going to talk to the dean.”
He rolled his eyes. Sounding utterly exasperated, he said, “You’re taking your ass inside this apartment.”
He pointed at the door.
I could make a run for it, but he would catch me.
I stared at him. I wasn’t going to move. I wasn’t going to blink. He would be the one to surrender, the one to look away.
And it took a long, uncomfortable moment, but he did.
He stepped around me and unlocked the door. Pushed it open.
Lifting his chin, he said, “In.”
I narrowed my eyes at him but stormed inside. He followed.
“Should I go to my room, Daddy?” I asked.
Kade, who sat on the couch, turned and looked at us with his mask’s hollow eyes.
“I have somewhere to be,” Connor said to Kade.
My mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion. He’d literally just learned where Lena lived, so how could it not?
“You better not hurt her,” I said. “I swear to god, Connor, if you—”
“Where’s Malcolm?” Connor asked Kade, as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“In the shower,” Kade said.
“Not that I care, but isn’t that something you two usually do together?” Connor asked. “Your own personal efforts to save the planet, conserve water and all?”
Since I’d been at Whispering Ivy, I’d seen him pay zero attention to Kade. This sudden—and weird—interest in Kade and Malcolm’s dynamic was purely to poke at me.
Look at me, Tuesday, acting like I give a shit about Kade, while treating you like a dead houseplant.
“Connor!” I shouted.
“Tuesday is not to leave this apartment until I return. Period. You stay with her, or Malcolm does. I don’t give a fuck, but if she gets out, both of you will be very, very sorry.”
Like I was his fucking pet hamster.
Kade saluted.
As soon as Connor turned around, I sprinted after him, launching myself and leaping onto his back. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders.
“The hell…” Connor groaned, disentangling my clasped fingers.
I tightened my hold, readjusting so my hands clamped around his neck.
“I’m going to be late, street leech,” he ground out through clenched teeth while we struggled.
I wasn’t falling for it. That was just a distraction to get me to loosen my grip.
“You cannot threaten Lena. You cannot manhandle her, and you cannot shove her, and you cannot treat her the way you’ve treated me! She doesn’t deserve it!” I kneed him hard in the back.
“Jesus Christ, you’re exhausting. I have better shit to do than argue with you.” He slid me off him with ease and flipped me onto my back to the floor.
My eyes smarted with tears from the sudden impact.
Connor dropped into a crouch over me, the pen in his mouth bobbing up and down.
“Lena doesn’t exist to me. She’s nothing,” he said. “But I’m very curious why you’ve grown so protective of her when you’ve known her for about five minutes.”
Good question. Especially since most of the time I’d known her, I’d been suspicious of her… Part of me still was. But the better questions sprouted from within my own words.
You cannot threaten Lena. You cannot manhandle her, and you cannot shove her, and you cannot treat her the way you’ve treated me! She doesn’t deserve it!
Somewhere deep down, did I think I deserved how they were treating me?
“Lena is the only person on this campus who has extended any sort of kindness to me,” I spat.
He studied me for a minute. Then he just…nodded.
“Jones,” he said, rising to his feet. “She doesn’t leave this apartment.”
“She doesn’t leave this apartment,” Kade parroted back.
That’s what you think, Boo.
Connor left.
Agitated, I hauled myself to my feet and paced. Waiting for Kade to turn his attention back to the television. Waiting for Connor to get far enough away from the apartment.
Now.
Instead of making a break for it—dramatic but would draw instant attention—I began pacing on a slight diagonal instead of straight back and forth. Each time I crossed the room, I drew closer to the door.
Kade turned up the volume on the TV.
Controlling my breathing was more of a task than it should’ve been. My palms were sweaty, so I wiped them on my pants.
I was close enough that I could have my fingers on the doorknob with a couple of big strides. I was close enough to see…
“No,” I said. “No! Are you fucking kidding me!”
A fancy keypad now hung by the door…which was locked, as I suspected and confirmed by walking over and yanking on the knob.
“You have to have a seven-digit code to get out,” a voice with a little too much glee in it informed me.
Malcolm.
I glanced over my shoulder.
He sauntered down the hall towards us, nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, and fixed me with those depthless gray eyes of his. Water dribbled down the carved muscles of his tan skin.
“You’ll never figure it out,” he said. “But by all means, keep yourself busy trying till I get back.”
“You going somewhere?” Kade asked, watching him closely through his mask.
“And when I get back…” Malcolm said to me, ignoring Kade. He stood close enough to touch me now, and he did, gently caressing the side of my face with the back of his knuckles. His intoxicating dark leather and soap smell enveloped me. “When I get back, I expect you waiting. Wet and ready.”
I didn’t say anything. Denying it would be silly. If he wanted to, I would. At this point, I was so constantly horny, my body always on the brink of starvation for the next orgasm, I would probably fuck anyone who asked.
As if sensing my thoughts, he tipped up his chin and then went back to his room.
I resumed pacing like the caged animal I fucking was. When he returned five minutes later, fully dressed, the only plan I’d come up with was to rush the door when he opened it and try to run faster than he did.
A flimsy plan, at best.
And if I ran away, he had no incentive to protect Lena.
I strode over to him. “Her last name is Cruz,” I whispered.
He paused in buttoning the left cuff of his dress shirt and looked up at me. “I’ll put the word out. No one will touch her.”
Did no one include Connor?
“But you will pay up in due time.” He licked his lips. “Fuck, I bet you’re delicious.”
“I’m afraid Connor is on the way to her dorm now,” I said.
He could decide that if Connor was the one who wanted to hurt her, our deal was off. After all, Connor seemed to be the king of this twisted-ass castle.
“I think he’s going to…”
Malcolm looked at me like I’d said I thought Connor had sprouted a horn and was becoming a pretty, pretty unicorn.
He shook his head. “Doubtful. Connor is on his way to the same meeting I am. And he wouldn’t miss it.”
Oh, okay, so some Secret Society of Douches where they were President and Vice President.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
He sighed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
All I could do was hope he was right.
“Okay. Also, I need to talk to Dean Bennett.” Running away wasn’t an option, for now, but I needed someone to loosen the rope around my neck. He was the only one with the power to do it. “While you’re gone, can Kade take me over to—”