CHAPTER SIX #2
My breath hitched in my throat. He’d thought of everything.
I took another step back. The dangerous expression on his face set all my senses on high alert, and for the first time, I felt like he could seriously hurt me.
“Don’t come any closer.”
He ignored me. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“You don’t know it was me.”
“Oh, but I do. Who else would be in my room at that time of day? Emily already cleaned my room this morning.”
I refused to concede, switching directions before I could meet the wall behind me. “It could be anyone.”
He followed me closely, never letting up my gaze. “Really? Because anyone would go out of their way to break into my room . . . or open it if they had access to the key.”
I jutted my chin, fisting my hands to stop them from shaking. I was running out of space to retreat. “And so what if I did? You moved into my house and threatened me, vowing to ruin me. Of course, I’ll do anything to protect myself.”
“Yeah, I know what lengths you’d go to ‘protect’ yourself.”
I hit the vanity table, and I grasped it behind me to keep my balance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re no stranger to hurting others to save your ass, and you know it.
But it won’t help you this time.” He narrowed his gaze.
“Did you really think I’d be that stupid to keep anything important in my room, least of all that video?
” He tilted his head. “Though something tells me that’s not what you were looking for.
Maybe you were looking for something to get me to leave? ”
My fingers curled around the edge of the table, my gaze faltering.
He smiled. “So you were. It’s funny how you think kicking me out of here would save you from me.”
My breathing halted. “What does that mean?”
He took the last step separating us, leaving absolutely no space between us, and my heart threatened to burst out of my chest. “It means I’ll follow you to the edge of the world if I have to. You’re not safe from me anywhere.”
Oh God. “You’re crossing the line, Zach! Just what do you want to leave me alone? Money? Reconstructive surgery? What?” I pressed my hand against my mouth as his eyes flared, regretting the words the moment they were out.
“Zach, I . . . I didn’t mean that. I—”
With a growl, he grabbed me by my hips and picked me up. He deposited me roughly on the vanity table, causing the bottles of my expensive makeup to crash down on the floor.
“What are you doing?!” I shoved at his shoulders, but he didn’t budge an inch. “Let go of me!”
“I told you what I fucking want. I want you to suffer. And nothing you can offer me will save you from what I’ll do to you.” He forced his way between my thighs.
“Get away from me!” I raised my hands to push him away again, but he grabbed my wrists and locked them together behind me in one hand, rendering me immobile. He shifted his other hand up my thigh, and I went rigid, every part of me all too aware of his touch.
I started to tell him to stop, but his thumb grazed the inside part of my thigh and a jolt of sensation skated over my skin, forcing me to press my lips together so I wouldn’t moan.
“What is it? Don’t you just hate that I am touching you?
” He slipped his hand under the hem of my shorts and stopped only an inch away from the edge of my panties.
My pussy clenched in response. “That this pimply, ugly nerd ‘who wouldn’t even know where to put it if it ever happened to him’ is touching you? ”
That was the thing—I didn’t hate his touch.
And those words I’d said to him once were just a pretense.
If only he knew he’d always been perfect to me.
If only he knew he was the only one I’d ever truly wanted.
Now that he was touching me, after I’d been pining away for him for so long .
. . it was like finally having a drop of water in the middle of a desert, and I hated it because it was no more than a weapon he could use against me.
His mouth latched onto my neck, and it took everything in me not to moan as he left a soft, wet kiss and slid his hand down to my knee, a touch so sensual it had all my nerves quivering.
But my body betrayed me, and I could see he noticed that when he pulled away and spotted my hardened nipples, visible even under my shirt and bra.
He looked at me with wonder in his expression. “You want this?” His gaze shifted between my eyes, searching for something, and a place deep within me unraveled when his eyes darkened with desire.
“You’re such a sick bitch,” he said on a groan. There was no stopping my moan this time when he pinched my nipple through my clothes.
I clamped my teeth together, glaring at him. “You’re wrong. I don’t want this.”
“You sure?” He pinched my other nipple, and my whole body jerked like it had been electrified.
“Aah, Zach.” I bit my lip and tilted my head back, my eyes fluttering closed before I could stop them.
This was bad. I shouldn’t be enjoying this, but here I was, practically offering myself to him on a silver platter to do just what he’d said.
He returned his lips to my neck and made a hurried line of kisses across the expanse of my skin, and the sensations he invoked in me made my body thrum from head to toe.
“So any face will do? Add a few muscles and you’re all for it? So sick.” He sounded disgusted, but his body betrayed him as well, the hard bulge in his pants more than obvious. On some level, he enjoyed this too.
“You’re wrong,” I repeated.
“So you keep saying, but here we are.” His lips lowered to my breasts, and I jerked on the table as his lips wrapped around my nipple through the fabric, more pleasure rushing through me.
His hand moved lower, down to my shorts, and I could do nothing but watch as he slid his fingers almost to the spot that was now aching, making me lock all my muscles so I wouldn’t buckle or even worse—push my hips toward him for more.
I bit my lip. “Stop.”
“You’re still keeping up the pretense?” His hand moved up to my neck. His fingers slid across my jaw to the sensitive place beneath my ear, sending tingles in their wake. “I could make you come now, and I wouldn’t even have to break a sweat.”
“Think again.”
“I don’t need to. Your body told me everything I need to know.” He shifted his hand to the back of my neck and threaded his fingers into my hair. “I could go on, but don’t worry. That’s not what your punishment is this time.” His hand closed around my hair in a tight grip and yanked at it.
“Zach? Zach, what—”
“I hear you’re paid a small fortune for hair ads.” He grabbed the scissors next to me and brought them straight to my hair. “Your hair is quite an asset, right?”
Oh my God.
“Stop—” I raised my hand to snatch the scissors from him, but he pressed the tip of them against my neck almost enough to sting, and I winced.
His expression turned diabolical. “Careful. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want me to cut you.”
I stared at him with a wide gaze, panic cutting through me. “Don’t do this.”
“Why not? You did worse to me. You’d think this would be going too far?”
“Please, Zach. Please don’t do it.”
He smirked. “There’s that word again. Please. So docile when you need to be. But pleading didn’t stop you from burning my fucking jeans in that locker room. Why should I act any differently?”
“Because . . . because . . .” My mind was blank. There was nothing I could say that would make a difference. He’d already made up his mind. He could go and hurt me in the worst way imaginable if he wanted, and there would be nothing I could do.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” In one quick move, he cut my hair all the way up to my shoulders.
“No!” I shoved at him with all my force, but it was too late.
He stepped back with my hair clutched in his hand, and I could only stare at it in horror as he released it along with the scissors in his other hand. They fell as though in slow motion and dispersed over the floor.
I couldn’t look away from it. I couldn’t breathe. He’d just cut my hair.
“I hope there’s nothing in your contract forbidding you from cutting your hair. Though you can always use wigs or hair extensions. You’re already fake enough, so they’d fit in nicely.”
I raised my gaze to his, my heart beating an uneven rhythm. “How . . . how could you do this?”
His eyes were empty, containing no remorse or anything.
“You suffered no consequences for what you did. You continued living your life as though nothing had happened, shooting those ads with a fake-ass smile and flaunting yourself around like nothing was wrong in the world. But pretending will only get you so far. You will suffer consequences.”
I took in a shuddering breath and suppressed the need to wrap my arms around me, my chest flaring with pain. He was too cruel, too far gone.
He pulled his phone out and snapped a photo of me, his lips forming a cruel grin. “That’s it. That’s the expression I want. Pure despair.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, pain lacerating me.
He stepped back, pocketing his phone. “You’re too concerned with finding something to use against me, but you’re forgetting that you have so many weaknesses.
I could spend days exploiting them, and I still wouldn’t exhaust them.
” He turned to leave and stopped at the door, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Don’t ever snoop through my room or go behind my back again.
You’d like what I’d do to you even less.
” With that, he stepped outside and slammed the door shut.