Hate Me Like You Do, page 23
“Knox?” I ask quietly.
His face burns red. With a shake of his head he looks at me once then quickly turns away.
“You… you,” he sputters, “you like Reed, you practically paw all over him. Now, Landon. You like Landon?”
“I like you too, though” I step closer but he takes a step back. Saying the words makes me feel like I’m exposed to the world for what I truly am. For the mystifying attraction that started the day I landed on his doorstep.
“Bullshit, Violet. Don’t you dare mess with me.”
“Me? Mess with you?” I throw a hand in the air, utterly offended. “You think I’d let you take my virginity if I didn’t like you?”
Knox stiffens. “Did you like Damon?”
“That was different.”
“It doesn’t feel very different.” He looks at me again only to spin away from me toward the wall. It’s like he is still trying to run away from me.
“Are you mad?” My words feel lost in the air between us but eventually he looks me in the eye.
“I’m not mad. I’m so goddamn turned on I’m certain if I step any closer I may end up fucking you so hard it’ll hurt.” His hands tremble as they run over his face.
I didn’t look. Didn’t even think to notice. But there, a bulge at the front of his pants gives it away.
“Okay.” I break the silence between us.
“Okay?” He coughs.
I nod slowly.
Between us we share a seductive smile and an extended look of awe that ultimately spells out the same thing: Knox is going to fuck me right here, right now.
One finger at a time I release my hold on Landon’s comforter the material falling to reveal my naked body. Knox doesn’t waste time, doesn’t bother to eye me up and down. No, he rushes to me kissing me with so much ferocity my body nearly goes limp.
We are a collision of heat and passion. Roaming hands and teeth fuel the moment. One of Knox’s hands trails down and cups my sex.
He pulls away. “You’re still dripping, freshly fucked.”
I’m nervous for a split second thinking he is about to drop his hold on me and run away. Instead, he groans and squeezes me tighter.
“Get over there.” Knox tilts his head toward the bed.
I walk to the bed feeling exposed and the tiniest bit self conscious. He doesn’t bother with his shirt, only unbuckles his pants and kicks them off before following me on predatory steps.
“Bend over.”
Without thinking I give him a roll of my eyes. “You’re so bossy.”
As I bend over his hand slaps against my ass. The sting of the smack leaves me with a gasp. His fingers weave into my hair and he pulls my head back, leaning over me.
“Don’t talk back.” He tugs my hair harder.
I bite my lip to keep from responding again. My body lunges forward as he slams himself into me so quickly I lose all my breath.
I’m still so sensitive from the last round it takes little effort before I’m moaning into a pillow. Knox doesn’t try to be sweet, he just does as he said he would.
He fucks.
Thirty-Five
Knox
Mr. Heethers sets down a plate overflowing with fruit. He smiles gently at the four of us sitting at the table. “Mr. Ronan had to step out of the house for a moment. I’ll advise you when he is returning to pick you up for the trial.”
He gives a soft look to Violet, patting her shoulder as he walks by. Vi cringes away from his touch. She doesn’t need his sympathy.
“No shit?” Reed beams next to Violet. “Man if we had known that, we could have ate freaking breakfast on the couch.”
She looks at him, relaxing her shoulders. Both her hand and his are suspiciously missing from the table and I wonder if I lean down if I would find them interlaced together. If the three of us are what it takes to make her feel alive again, well, sign me up for a fucking orgy.
My mind reels back to the moment I left Landon’s room. A very naked image of Violet was ingrained in me and oh, I wanted her so bad. I’m sure if someone who was just an onlooker had watched they would have laughed. The scene could have been comical. Me jogging away, Dee chasing me wrapped up in a blanket, and Landon standing with his mouth open in shock.
Still baffles me that it all unfolded like that.
Landon plucks a crepe from a serving tray laying it on his plate before layering it with fruits. He clears his throat in the noticeable awkward silence. “Can we just talk about the elephant in the room?”
“What elephant?” Reed says through a big bite.
“You all broke the rule.” Violet glances at each of us slowly. Pointedly.
Reed looks down at their hands, confirming my suspicions, then up at her.
Landon laughs loudly. “Reed too?”
Vi looks more alive then I’ve seen her in a long time. A rapidly growing grin is plastered to her face. She lets go of Reed’s hand and covers her crimson cheeks.
“It’s not the first time we’ve shared a woman.”
Everyone stills at my words. I’m not sure why. I’m not lying. I’m pretty sure Violet has actually bore witness to one of the times we took our turns with a girl. Granted, it was a little bit different. There wasn’t any true emotion tied up in it. I guess this is new territory.
“I’m not sure it’s the same thing.” Reed finally chuckles lightly, shrugging off the uncomfortable tension.
“I’m nothing like Makayla.” Violet points her fork at me, chewing slowly on her bite of sausage.
“You know her name?” Landon sounds appalled.
Curiosity arouses me. I lean closer, waiting for a response.
“You know after y’all have sex and I disappear for a little bit?” She waits for us to nod. “Usually, I’m feeding the poor girls some sort of snack in the kitchen or helping them search for their lost fucking panties.”
“No.” Reed shakes his head. “I thought you just ran off to masterbate.”
Her face turns red again. Violet doesn’t run off to hide and masterbate. That thought makes me want to laugh. No, she tries to hide it under the covers of my bed. It’s torturous really. Made me insane the first time I caught it, had to go round two with Kylie to make up for it.
The simple thought of it has me standing, grabbing the can of whipped cream and kneeling down between her smooth thighs. Those big emerald eyes of hers watch my every move, her food forgotten now. I shake the can slowly and the sweet cream slides along her inner thigh. I hold her watchful gaze the entire time I lower my head, my tongue slipping from my lips and I lick it off her with agonizing slowness she gasps.
And I’m rock fucking hard the moment I hear it.
I push her skirt a bit higher, feeling the heat of three watchful gazes along my body with every move I make against her skin. Higher I aim the nozzle, half an inch from her black lace panties.
“What are you doing?” she finally rasps out, her fingers trembling at her sides.
Another dollop of the sweetness runs across her skin and I open my mouth wide to suck it off the apex of her thigh, her fingers twisting through my hair as the flat of my tongue slides dangerously close to her pussy.
“I’m sharing you. Clearly,” I whisper against her damp skin.
Confusion clashes in her pretty gaze.
“Kiss Reed.” My command has both of them lifting their brows at me. Even Landon blinks at me like he’s not sure what the hells going on. “Kiss him and I’ll keep going,” I barter.
And that’s all it takes.
She slams her lips to his and I can just make out a smile tensing his mouth just before his tongue slides slowly out and he strokes her, nips at her and bites her until she’s moaning against his kiss.
And I dip my head once more, my fingers lifting to the sheer lace of her panties.
Until a door slams. A resounding sound within the breathy silence.
I stand immediately, a trained reaction to present that nothing is wrong. Nothing is out of the ordinary. Nothing is going to set him off.
Unfortunately, Reed is slower.
He pulls back from Violet, his hooded eyes glancing up to the man looming behind them. The line that’s cracking hard through my father’s lips is a nodding sign of the anger he’s containing within him.
Landon stands slowly. “Mr. Reyes. Ready for the upcoming trial?” The easy smile he passes my father is meant to distract.
It’s something that works on girls at our school. It works on the teachers. It works on everyone in his life.
It does not work on a man like Ronan Reyes.
“Reed,” my father starts on an ominously calm tone. “Tonight, after you accompany my daughter to her mother’s trial, after you soothe her, and after you take care of her like a high school sweetheart who’s failed the twelfth grade one too many times, I’m going to kill you.”
“W-what?” Reed’s entire body stiffens and I can tell by the way he’s looking at my father that he’s trying to calculate the best way to step back out of this situation.
“I told my daughter to stop whoring around with boys who hold no value. And you–you’re the rusty wheat penny she keeps trying to collect.” As if he’s collecting his briefcase, he grips the hair at the base of Violet’s neck and hauls her backward, dragging her over the chair until it falls completely to the floor as she kicks and screams.
I’m striding after them, feet storming, breath seething.
My hand grips his shoulder before I even think about it. And every part of him stills.
Violet looks up at me from the floor, her head shaking back and forth as if she’s pleading for me to go fucking sit back down.
But it’s too late.
Slowly, my father glances down at the hand that’s still lingering on his smooth gray suit jacket.
“If you wanted to do the honors of shooting your best friend in the face, all you had to do was say so, son,” he whispers only to me. “All of you get in the car. We have a trial to attend. And then a celebration to have tonight.”
My hand drops. He keeps walking out to the garage. Vi’s screams echo.
An engine starts.
And still I stand there.
Because I fucked up.
Again.
Thirty-Six
Landon
There’s something about courtrooms. The formality of it all. The tension and the emotions that they hold inside the stuffy wide rooms.
It’s worse knowing the threat of what Ronan promised Reed.
And why?
Because he kissed her?
Because he...loved her?
I glance at my friend seated next to me and Reed’s gaze is a glossy vacancy. We were all so damn worried about Dee. We never paused to worry about ourselves as well.
He can’t kill Reed. He–he can’t.
Her hand grips mine and I can see it when her anxiety shifts from us, to her mother.
The thin woman stumbles in her cuffs but she lowers herself down into the sleek brown chair when the judge says a few formal words.
More formalities.
It’s incredibly hard to follow for me and I can see it’s just as hard for Dee. She keeps flicking her wide gaze from the judge to her mother and then back again.
But soon after a drone of endless chatter, a decision is made.
“Defendant, Veronica Demure, is hereby found not guilty to the charges of second degree vehicular manslaughter, facing up to fifteen years of imprisonment and 10,000 in fines, has been released on parole…”
Not. Guilty.
Shit. That’s bad.
When someone dies, you don’t just skip off into the sunset without so much as a slap on the wrists.
Not without snitching on... someone.
The words of the old judge fade away as my lips part with a gasp at the same time as Dee does the same. Happiness spreads across her face but my heart is pounding a warning sound so loud I can’t hear anything else.
Even as I look up to Ronan, and see complete fucking bitter rage when he looks from Veronica...
To his daughter.
Thirty-Seven
Dee
Silence is weird. It’s weird in the way that you can feel it. And in the way that your brain replaces that utter silence with a ringing noise. Like a thousand alarms are all going off at once.
Good and bad things happened during that trial this afternoon. But only bad things will happen during the night tonight.
My breath catches again for the third time like I just can’t take a fucking breath to save my life.
To save Reed’s life.
The long black town car turns down the winding road to the Reyes’ mansion. Streets that I’m far too familiar with. We pass the store with the damn bee necklace that seems far too insignificant now, a small restaurant, and then eventually drive through the thick mess of trees that hides the nicest part of town.
The dark truth of what hides beyond these trees would shock the world.
For once, I wish I was walking instead of getting a ride. Public transport is never this quiet or this terrifying.
My fingers twitch on my lap as anxiety crawls through my body. I hold my back straight and stare ahead as if I’m unphased. I pretend like I didn’t just hear my mother was being released early. That everything my father was using me for leverage for was for nothing instead of using me to threaten someone he seems to have had a lot of power over for a long, long time.
His fingers grip the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are white within the moonlight. The car ride is jerky and far too fast.
I wish we could choose our parents. Wonder what my life could have been if I wasn’t born with a selfish mother and a criminal father.
I sure as hell wouldn’t have spent my day sweating in the freezing cold courtroom next to a deadly businessman. Though I have yet to learn what business he really does.
Our tires squeal slightly against the pavement as the car turns into the garage, the large door sliding up to reveal a couple of their other shining vehicles.
We jerk to a stop and I send a fleeting glance back at the boys. Their blank stares match my own. We’re all strung so tight we would probably play a tragically beautiful melody if we were fastened to a violin.
“Go inside,” Ronan says with eerie calmness.
In unison, we all reach for our seatbelts, removing them after the click of the release. Air rushes in from outside smelling like oil, gas, and other vehicle related fluids when the back doors swing open and the boys slide out of their seats.
I reach for my door too. With a tug of the handle it pops open, only to be shut again. Ronan’s heavy arm is against me, holding the door closed as we stare at each other for several passing seconds.
“Not you.” His words are said with a sounding click as he locks us in the car together.
Just outside, Landon, Knox, and Reed all stop where they are. Together they watch us with careful scrutiny. My eyes search them nervously but I keep the tension in my spine locked in place.
My father looks sickly. His cheeks are still rosy red but the rest of his skin has gone utterly pale and a sweat has fallen over his forehead. Steady hands run through his hair.
“Your cunt of a mother knew.” He blows out a long hiss of air. “She knew what the price was if she snitched on our past. And she’s so fucking selfish she chose herself. I want you to know that. I want you to know it’s not me who’s responsible for what is about to happen, Pretty Girl. I wanted--I wanted things to be so different for us.” The violent shake of his words set me on edge but the glint in his eyes is so much worse.
I’ve never seen him so recklessly uncouth.
Every word is a realization, a heart shattering moment of fear.
Both of his hands reach out for me as I’m turning toward the window, grasping at the door, scratching and clawing at cool metal. Anything to find an escape. Before I can so much as graze the door lock my head jerks back by my hair then immediately slams into the glass.
A cry erupts and it takes me a moment to realize the foreign noise came from me. Pain radiates through my skull so much so that I can’t tell what part of me is actually hurt. Hot, sticky blood drips down my cheek.
Landon, Reed, and Knox all rush back toward the car. I can hear the sound of their voices calling out my name, demanding Ronan to stop, and the slap of the door handles as they pull at them with no success.
“You will not run away from me.” He growls sending the urge for me to run back through my body. Every hair on my arms is standing. My muscles tense and the desire to flee floods my system. Where can I go?
It’s a slow motion torture as one by one his fingers wrap around my throat. I make attempts to pull away but he is strong. So much stronger than me.
He’s too strong.
And I’m going to die.
Pure unbridled panic sears through me. Thrashing, my hands reach for him. His arms, his face, his hands, his face, his hair, his face. I claw at anything and everything frantic for a solution.
This isn’t the end. This can’t be the end. I can’t die because of my mother’s endless selfishness.
I can’t!
My head feels like it is burning, likely to explode at any moment. My lungs aching, begging for air. Vaguely, I’m aware of the agony of his fingers digging into my throat. Around the edges my vision feels fuzzy, my body slowly relaxing.
Sharp pin pricks sprinkle over my skin. I blink. Reed’s arm is reaching through broken glass overhead unlocking the doors. Across from me Landon flings open the driver door, Knox and him pulling at Ronan with shaking force.
Their efforts allow me one large gasping gulp of air. Cool air hits the back of my throat almost as painfully as Ronan’s hands grip me again.
My hand drops to my side, a jagged object slicing at my fingertips. Fumbling numb fingers surround the large piece of glass.
