13. Helen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
One secret kiss driven by teenage hormones and a twisted enjoyment of his brutality was a simple lapse in judgment.
Easy enough to play off as a mistake. Go our separate ways and never speak of it again.
No matter how hot his mouth was on mine or the intoxicating way he ground himself against me.
When we walked out of that closet, disheveled, flushed, breathing hard, Drake and I should have turned in opposite directions and never looked back.
But that wasn’t what happened—not by a long shot.
Drake kept hold of my hand, dropped his head on my shoulder with his fingers lingering in my curls.
His shaky sigh against me sounded broken or desperate.
Instead of letting me go, he held tight, like he couldn’t bear to part with the feeling of me in his hands.
His fingers fisted the back of my dress, and his hot, ragged breath tickled my shoulder.
After that night, all semblance of our rivalry vanished.
Glares became shared glances across classrooms. Required distance vanished, turning into the back of our hands bumping together in hallways, his finger hooking with mine for a split second that stretched an eternity.
And notes in his rushed handwriting with meeting times snuck into my pockets.
I tried to ignore it, to fight the pull in the beginning.
It felt like a betrayal to kiss my bully for the past six years once.
Seeing him again would be catastrophic for my emotions and state of mind.
In an unfortunate turn of events, my body turned against me, and I found my legs marching off to meet him. Again and again and again.
Perhaps there was something to be said about the allure of a bad boy.
How embarrassing for me, really.
Drake kissed like a man starved for air, and only the breath in my lungs would sustain him.
Dark alcoves, supply closets, and empty classrooms became a battleground where we fought not with words or weapons, but tongue and teeth and greedy hands.
He aroused a spark within me, a bud of need that flowered in a carnal hunger.
And then it burned and burned and burned until by the end of our sixth year we made plans to meet in secret back in New York.
Simple enough. A few months from turning eighteen, and my parents had trusted me to go off on my own for the past two years. All I had to do was order the family driver to leave me in the city for shopping and they were none the wiser when I slipped into the subway and rode across town.
It was a warm early summer morning when I stopped on the street, head craned back and staring up at the towering luxury hotel. It wasn’t the location or opulence that intimidated me, but the insinuation and the person waiting within. Nerves gripped my insides, mingling with fluttering exhilaration.
Stolen kisses and wandering hands back at school, across the sea in London, was one thing. Secret meetings back home weren’t nothing. It meant something, and I was a fool for considering it.
A bigger fool for crossing the lobby and riding the elevator up to the suite number written on the scrap of paper worn thin and creased in my purse. I fiddled with the hem of my yellow sundress on my walk through the hall, doubting everything—especially my sanity.
“Bordel de merde!” I cursed, brushing my errant curls behind my ears with trembling fingers.
My hand hesitated, hovering an inch from the door as fear held me back. Manacles of anxiety weighed my arms down, yanking me away from the door. I turned my back, taking the first step away.
What was I doing? It was a mistake to show up. To what? Let my enemy kiss me? No, I’d gotten swept up in the excitement at school, and nothing good would come of anything more.
I got two steps away when the door clicked open.
“Monty?” His voice didn’t hold the usual sneer or smug arrogance. The longing pulled me back, like a leash dragging me to hell. But I was weak against that warmth, that heat, and the forbidden passion he offered.
“Drake,” I sighed, shivering with nerves.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t say that.” He reached into the hall and grabbed my hand, gingerly swiping his thumb over my wrist. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
I let him lead me into the room, barely taking stock of the lavish, costly suite. His firm grip was an anchor keeping me steady in a turbulent sea of unknowns.
“Since when?” His grin infected me, and I smiled with him, expecting him to say something cheesy about our last heated make-out session on the last day of school. He almost hadn’t let me go in time to catch our flights back to the States.
Drake cupped my face, tipping my head back.
My breath caught in the back of my throat when he pressed close, almost kissing, but not quite.
Tension shrouded reality, wrapping up my world in sin and silk until he and I were the only two beings in existence.
His exhale on my lips sent a coil of need straight to my center.
“Since the beginning, Monty. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you bit me. My only happy days were ones when you noticed me or glared at me. Even when you hated me, I was glad to have your attention.”
I gasped into his mouth. My fingers curled in his crisp oxford button down, clawing at him, pulling him closer. It wasn’t an apology for his actions over the past several years. People in our world didn’t do that. We were above apologies and forgiveness.
But his words almost felt like one.
“Drake. Mon Dieu, pourquoi suis-je ici?” I licked my lips, and his darkened brown eyes tracked the movement. “You never told me why you fought those boys at the party. Lord knows I’ve heard worse. I’ve seen worse.”
His hand cradled the back of my head, securing me in place and holding me with astounding adoration. Yet the ferocity and possessiveness in his eyes was what gripped me, ensnared me, thrilled the spark in my core.
“I know the kitten has claws. I know you understand the savagery of the world we’re a part of. But I protect what’s mine,” he smirked, “always.”
Mine.
A year ago, that claim would have ignited my anger. I would have lashed out in some way or other. But in our stolen moments over the last few months, I’d grown to know Drake on a deeper level. I knew he didn’t mean it as one might possess an object. He meant it as a devotee to a deity.
“Drake,” I sighed as my heart jettisoned me into his snare.
I kissed him. A crash of mouths and gnashing teeth.
Sharing hot breaths and gasps. He licked into my mouth, and I let him plunder my tongue.
His hands roamed in a silent question, and I moaned my permission.
I nearly shied away when he removed my clothes, but he held tight and stared at me with open adulation.
Then we were bare, skin to skin, and falling onto the plush king-sized bed.
Alone together, enemies tangled in a web of desire.
A tangle of limbs and shared pleasure. Drake moved slowly, allowing me to enjoy my first time, and I melted as he claimed me.
It was wonderful, and beautiful, and we shouldn’t have done it.
We shouldn’t have done it.
We shouldn’t have done any of it.
10 YEARS AGO
“Our families can’t find out,” Monty said in the weeks before returning to school. I hugged her closer, relishing in the feel of her bare skin on mine. The sweet citrus smell of her shampoo filled my nose, and I wanted to keep my face buried in her hair.
“Why? Scared of my dad, are you?”
She pulled herself up, wrapping the sheet around her chest before sliding out of bed. “No.” Her laugh was shaky, nervous. “No, my father would kill you.”
I frowned. “He wouldn’t be the first to try.”
Monty went still, halfway to her discarded clothes on the desk. She glared over her shoulder at me, and I experienced the same sharp thrill her furious expression always gave me.
“What did he make you do this time?” Her voice wavered. She clutched her shirt in a shaking fist, bottom lip jutted out with her furious little pout.
I sat up in the hotel bed, the same suite we’d used for our trysts throughout the summer, then shrugged.
My gaze strayed to the windows, watching dust motes dance in the afternoon sunlight.
She looked so beautiful naked in the sunlight, like something golden, like an angel. I wished she’d return to the bed.
“Don’t do that, Drake. Don’t shut me out now.
” Her voice rose with her anger. “You call me in the middle of the night begging me to meet you here again and again. Each time you show up with bruises, scratches, and dried blood under your fingernails.” A sniffle made my neck snap around almost fast enough to break.
“You can’t use my body to ease your guilt over the things your father makes you do. ”
“That’s not… that’s not what I’m doing, Monty. How could you say that?” I leapt off the bed, following her to the desk. “You know this means more to me. You mean more to me.”
I caught her face and brushed my thumbs over the escaping tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes, rimmed red and crystalline, were prettier than they should have been. She’d always been so pretty when she cried. Though now her agony twisted a knife deeper in my chest.
“Then tell me,” she pleaded, holding my face with matching tenderness.
I shook my head free of her hands and dropped my head on her shoulder. Nuzzled into her neck, I inhaled the perfume of her skin. She sighed but tangled her fingers in my hair and held me, embraced me.
“Your family doesn’t use you the way mine does. I don’t want to burden you.”
She sat me down on the edge of the bed, still tangled together. We remained silent, stewing in understanding. Little Monty might have seen the savage things our families did, but she didn’t have blood on her hands. I wanted to keep it that way.
Then she sniffed and pulled back, smoothing my hair back while blinking tears away. “That’s why our parents can’t find out we’ve been meeting.”