Page 19 of Deviant Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 4)

EMMIE

“Fuck,” I breathe, falling back against the lockers and tipping my head up to the ceiling, willing my body to calm the fuck down.

I’ve never reacted to any boy the way I do to Theo fucking Cirillo.

Sure, I’ve had my fair share of questionable hookups in my not-so-recent past, but almost all of them were drunken or high mistakes to pass some time.

Never have I ever stood in front of a guy and had to talk myself down from climbing him like a fucking tree.

But hell, he makes it hard work not to just say fuck it and go for it.

There’s a small part of me, the little whore that lives inside my cunt, mostly, that thinks I should just throw caution to the wind and jump him. Fuck out all this hate and tension that crackles between us every time we’re near. But then the bigger, more rational part of me pipes up, and I remember that I’ll probably have to bathe in bleach after he’s come anywhere near me.

His rep around Knight’s Ridge might not be as bad as Alex and Nico’s, or even Seb’s for that matter—pre-Stella, obviously—but fuck. I know for a fact that he’s touched enough of those fake Barbie dolls to know he doesn’t actually want me.

It’s just me and my lack of action since moving here that leads me down the wrong road.

So what, he’s pretty? Scratch that. Smoking fucking hot and exactly my type.

He's a class-A bellend.

Ignoring the towel that I dropped to the floor, I drag my clothes from my locker and tug on a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie to hide in.

I run a brush through my wet hair, but I don’t bother even attempting to dry it. I just plait it over my shoulder and call it a day.

“Haven’t I already suffered enough?” I mutter to myself when I step from the locker room and find tweedledee and tweedledum waiting for me. “You’re missing your third musketeer,” I tell them, not bothering to stop.

“Yeah, he left in dramatic fashion,” Alex mutters, rubbing at a red mark on his chin.

My eyes widen with realisation as he steps up beside me.

“Did he hit you?”

“Don’t think he took too kindly to our interruption.”

“I wonder why?” I mutter, rolling my eyes again. It seems my eyes are almost always skyward when I’m around these pricks.

“You get him all twisted up, shorty.”

“Ugh, don’t start with that,” I complain, assuming that they can only have got it from Xander.

“It suits.”

“I’m short, yeah. I get it. Did you actually want something? Matching bruise on the other side?” I offer.

“Not really, just to say to keep pushing him. I want to see him finally crack.”

“And to think, I thought you were friends and valued all his working body parts.”

“Cute. I think we all know that when you two collide, it won’t be to break bones.”

“I can assure you, there will be plenty of blood.”

“Fuck yeah,” Nico says, suddenly joining the conversation. “I knew you were kinky, shorty.”

“Whatever. Have you finished? I need to—”

“Emmie,” someone else calls as I point toward the exit, and when I look up, I find Mickey, the owner, marching my way.