11. Helen #3
A crack disrupted the music when my fist met the last boy’s face.
His groan split the air as he reeled back with blood spurting from his broken nose.
His friends shouted, half in fear they were next and half eager to defend their friend.
The smarter ones recognized the death glare on my face and backed off, hauling their blood-nosed friend away as he cried like a bitch.
“Hey, you can’t do that!” one of them raged at me.
My fist swung around so fast he didn’t get a chance to blink before my knuckles connected with his jaw.
Chaos erupted around me. A blissful distraction from errant feelings and creamy, pale thighs.
Each blow was brutal, unforgiving as my rage rained down on those idiots for daring to speak about Monty.
At some point Julian joined me, jabbing punches left and right and defending my blind spots.
One of the idiots got a hit in, jamming their fist into my temple. Their family signet ring cut the skin, and I felt the hot gush of blood flow hot and heavy down the side of my face. Screams grew louder than the music and the overhead lights flicked on.
After a few more hits, Julian and I drove the fools into the ground and the rest scattered. My blood coursed through me and my heart beat like a war drum, and that fire in my body narrowed my world to a single point where I glanced up and caught Monty’s calm stare from across the room.
No horror, no fear, no alarm at the sight of violence.
In fact, her eyes sparkled, lit up like liquid sapphires, and her full lips slightly parted.
When she caught my gaze, she nodded, then slipped away from her small group of friends.
I heaved in my next breath, watching as she vanished into the hallway.
I got lost in the over-excited crowd. Students fled, trying to escape the party before word of a fight broke out and teachers appeared. But I was like a bloodhound tracking prey, following hot on Monty’s heels through dark corridors.
She wanted me to follow. I know she did. Had she heard what those guys were saying about her? Had I mistaken that look in her eyes?
Pivoting into a dark, abandoned hallway several corridors from the party, dainty hands flashed out from a doorway and caught the back of my shirt.
A grunt kicked from my chest as I was abruptly yanked into what looked like a small janitorial closet.
The scent of grapefruit enveloped me in a tidal wave, nearly bringing me to my knees.
Or maybe that was the blood loss.
“You’re an insufferable idiot, Drake Graham,” Monty seethed. Her small hands fluttered around my head as she examined the bleeding gash at my temple.
Still breathing hard, flushed from the fight, my hands shook as I pulled her hands from my face. She didn’t jerk away when I placed them on my chest, hoping she felt the erratic pace of my heart on her palms.
“Why’d you pull me in here, Monty?”
She sucked in a breath. I closed my eyes, languishing in the feeling of her fingers twitching on my chest.
“Why’d you follow me?” She spoke in a whisper I strained to hear, as if she didn’t want to have the conversation at all.
My eyes dropped to her mouth, and I licked my bottom lip. Her lashes fluttered when she caught the motion. “If you don’t know, then I have nothing to say.”
Her hands fisted in the soft cotton of my t-shirt and jerked me down.
A surprised breath punched from my mouth a second before her lips crashed into mine.
Soft, warm, fruity Chapstick. I absorbed her taste and feel for an eternity before I snapped back to my senses, and all my urges yelled for me to grab, and take, and savor.
One time. Just one time. To slake my forbidden thirst.
But god-fucking-damn, she was sweet and ripe and practically purring against me.
And when I licked against the seam of her lips, her mouth parted for my tongue.
It was hurried, rushed, intense, and hungry.
She curled her arms around my neck and my hands dropped to her ass, holding her close against me.
Monty wiggled against my body, and I deepened the kiss, breathing her into my lungs.
All those years of hurting her, making her cry, and she was kissing me back with just as much passion.
I didn’t deserve her kiss. I didn’t deserve the salvation I craved in the depths of her eyes.
But there in her arms with her hot, sweet mouth claiming mine, the blood on my hands began to wash away.
Monty saw the blood, and she didn’t shrink away.
She saw the blood, and it sparked excitement in her.
Not damaged as I was, but capable of viciousness in her own right.
Helen Montgomery held the potential to become a dangerous woman someday, I realized as I flicked my tongue over hers and tasted her eager moan.
Fuck.
One kiss, one taste. It wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. During that first secret kiss in the secluded closet, I realized I needed more. I needed everything. I needed her to be mine.