Page 32

Picking my head up, my own heart racing, I stare down at her. She has her eyes closed. I can still feel her spit on my face and I like the feeling as I undo the button on her jeans, pull down the zipper and slide my hand into her pants, cupping her hot cunt over her underwear.

She still keeps her eyes closed.

Says nothing.

“God, you’re so wet , baby.” I hook my index finger into the side of her underwear, slipping it underneath, running my finger down her slit. “So fucking needy.”

She’s barely breathing. I’m on my knees now over her, and I let go of her wrists, tug down her jeans until they’re to her hips. She keeps her hands over her head, clenched into fists, still refusing to look at me.

I shove her underwear to the side, drinking in the sight of her as I play with her, running my knuckles down her, watching her shiver.

“Look at me, Remi.”

She doesn’t.

I grab her hip, pulling her closer to me through the grass as I sit back on my knees, propping her leg up on my thigh, yanking her jeans down further, bending her knee so I have more access.

I keep running my knuckles up and down her slit, watching her body react, feeling how soaked she is, even as she refuses to acknowledge it.

I dig my fingertips into her hips. “If I’m going to cheat on my girlfriend for you again, I need you to thank me for it.”

Her eyes fly open then, glaring up at me, her arms still over her head. “You are psychotic,” she whispers.

I let go of her hip, pull down her underwear, and she shifts her body, letting me.

Like she’s needed me. My hand comes to her inner thigh again, twisting so I have a better view of her.

“Yeah, so you’ve said, baby,” I tell her, staring at her perfect pussy.

The slight swell of her hips. I push a finger into her, feeling how tight she is around me.

“God, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. About you.”

She whimpers and I look up, smiling down at her.

“You hate me?” I ask her. “You hate this?”

She doesn’t answer, but she blinks up at me and says, “Don’t hurt me, Cortland.” Just like she did that night.

My breath catches, my pulse accelerating.

Is this a game?

Does she mean it?

“I’m not, baby,” I tell her, the same thing I said that night as I finger her slowly, loving how her walls squeeze around me. “I won’t.” I go to add another finger inside her, and she bites her lip, holding my gaze.

I lean down over her, repositioning myself, my hand between us, my knees on either side of her hips.

She spreads her legs wider, giving me more access. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I promise her, speaking over her mouth, my lips brushing hers. “No one will know.”

Slowly, she nods, her hands coming to my shoulders, one running through my hair as I add another finger inside of her.

“Fuck,” I whisper against her mouth. “You feel so fucking good.”

She bucks her hips, giving in, running her tongue over my piercing.

“Has anyone else been here, since you were in my bed?” I ask her quietly as I finger her, my thumb finding her swollen clit.

She doesn’t answer me, her jaw clenched tight.

I add another finger, and I can barely move inside of her.

She stiffens, making it harder to push in and out of her.

“Hey, relax. Open up for me,” I tell her, kissing her while she’s somewhat sober for the first time in over a year, a gentle kiss until her tongue is in my mouth and I pull on the ball of her piercing.

She cries out and I taste blood before I release her. “Relax, and it won’t hurt,” I warn her.

Slowly, she takes a breath in. Out. Her walls grow wetter, stretching around my fingers. I keep running my thumb over her clit, kissing her again, hearing her moan into my mouth.

“Tell me,” I command her, pulling away, both of us breathless as I keep circling her, keep finger fucking her. “Tell me who’s touched you.”

Her nails dig into the back of my neck as she stares up at me like I’m god and she can’t stand being a believer. “You,” she whispers. “Storm.”

I finger her harder, her body jolting with every thrust as she says my friends’ name.

“Brinklin.”

I bring my free hand to her neck, softly circling her throat.

“ Chase.” She whispers his name and then her walls tighten on my fingers and she’s tipping her chin up, her neck arched, lips parted as she moans my name.

I lean over her, spit in her mouth as she comes to pay her back for spitting on my face.

Her cheeks flush pink, and she’s breathing hard, her nails so deep into my skin, but she swallows it all down.

“You like coming all over my fingers with my friends’ names in your mouth, pretty baby?” I ask her, feeling her relax, her hold on my neck loosening.

When I know she’s done, I drag my wet fingers up her body, over her hips, then to her mouth, tracing them over her lips.

She swallows, staring up at me with her lips parted.

“Yes,” she whispers, and my stomach flips.

“Yeah?” My fingers are between us, and I push the three that were inside of her into her mouth, loving the feel of her tongue ring on the pad of my index finger. “Who’s psychotic now?”

She sucks my fingers, and my eyes almost roll back in my head and she hasn’t even touched my dick.

I pull my fingers out, tugging down her bottom lip with them as I do. I lick her top one, and she whimpers into my mouth again.

Then I grab her jaw, fingers splayed on her cheek as I kiss her so fucking hard, neither of us are breathing. Her nails slide to my arms, digging into my biceps, and I just kiss her harder, wanting to fuck her right here but knowing, somewhere in my brain, it’s not a good idea.

Finally, I pull away from her, letting her go as I sink back on my heels.

She looks away, pulling up her underwear and her jeans, buttoning them before she sits up, running a hand through her hair, staring at the ground.

“You know something, Remi?” I ask her without looking at her. I turn from her, snatch her phone from where it fell under the bench and hand it to her, our fingers brushing against each other before I drop my hand.

“Don’t feel too fucked up over this. You’re not the only one who gets off on reminders.” My eyes roam over her body. “Grab your shit. I’m not leaving you out here by yourself.”

She takes her phone and gets to her feet, but then she glares at me, dusting off the back of her pants. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”

I laugh and bring my fingers to my mouth, sucking her off of me before I drop my hand.

Her face flushes red and I relish in it. “Sure tastes like you didn’t mind.”

She steps close to me, her eyes narrowed. “I mean it. ” She stands on her tiptoes, her hand smacking against my chest as she gets in my face. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

My blood heats. “Don’t hit me, baby.” But I keep my hands by my sides.

She hits me anyway, not backing down. I know what she’s feeling. She hates herself for letting me touch her and she’s taking it all out on me. “I don’t want you,” she says, like she can convince herself.

For a second, I just stare at her, my chest heaving. I let her hit me again. And again. Then I reach out and grab her arm to keep it still, a startled gasp leaving her lips.

“We never got to talk about this, you know,” I tell her quietly. She tries to hit me with her other hand but I grab that one too, both of her wrists pinned together between us. “We never got to really work this shit out.”

She stops squirming. With her eyes searching mine, she whispers, “There’s nothing to work out.” I loosen my grip on her wrists but don’t let go as she sinks back on her heels. “You got away with a crime and I have to live with it while you get to do whatever the hell you want to.”

I shake my head, smiling small at her. “You think I don’t think about it?”

“What’s there to think about, Cortland?” she demands. “For you, what do you play in your head when you think of that night? Do you think about pinning me to that tree?”

Yeah. I do.

“Do you think about yanking down my jeans, your forearm pressed against my heart?” Her voice breaks, but she takes a steady breath, not letting me see all of her pain.

I think about my mouth on yours. My tongue on your throat. My teeth against your skin. How good you felt when I got to fuck you for the first time.

“Do you think about how much I thought you would never, ever hurt me?” Her lower lip trembles.

I feel my stomach curl into knots but look into her eyes when I say, “Baby, I didn’t hurt you.”

She twists her hands and this time I let her go.

She steps back, putting space between us.

“Do you think,” she closes her eyes a second, breathing in.

Out. “About how your friends got to feel everything you felt? Every inch of my body that you used,” my heart pounds too hard in my chest, “ they used?”

For a moment, we just stare at each other in the dark. “What do you want me to say, Remi? That I hate that part? That I regret letting anyone else touch you? That if I could change one thing, it would be that I protected you?”

Her eyes are big and sad. Both of our chests heave.

“What do you want to hear? To make it all better for you?”

She reaches out. Her palm presses close to my chest, over my heart. That gesture alone makes me want to cry. I wonder if she can feel how fast my pulse is beating.

I slide my arms up her forearms, then to her side, down her hips. Slipping my fingers under her hoodie, I yank her closer to me, loving the feel of her body pressed up against mine.

“Tell me how to fix it, baby. Tell me what you need, Remi.”

“I need…” She trails off, resting her forehead to my chest.

I kiss her ear, then lower, on her neck.

“I need you to let me go.” Her voice is little more than a whisper. “I need you to let this go. I need you to release me.”

I slide my hands lower down her back, my fingers brushing the waistband of her jeans. “Let you go?”

“Yes,” she pleads with me. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I can. You ruined that possibility. Of me ever letting you go. ” I speak those words against her ear, and feel a shiver run through her body with my breath on her skin.

“You can’t get it out of your mind either? You replay it over and over and over and wonder where the fuck you went wrong? When it all went to fucking shit?”

I hear her swallow in the darkness and quiet of the cemetery. “Yes,” she whispers. “It’s on a loop in my head.”

I nudge her head to the side with my nose and she lets me, my lips opening over her skin. “So are those cuffs around my wrist. The cops in my goddamn house.”

She stiffens but doesn’t move away.

“You deserved that,” she breathes, and she presses her body close to mine. “You deserved worse.”

I laugh against her skin. “You deserve what you claimed I did to you.”

“You don’t mean that,” she whispers.

No. I don’t mean it. And if anyone ever did that to her, I’d kill them.

But I don’t say anything. Can’t say anything.

“I hate you so much,” she says in my silence, choking on the words.

She doesn’t. She can’t. Because I can’t hate her either . “Come home with me.”

Her answer is immediate. “No.”

“Are you with anyone, Remi?” I ask her, changing the subject, making her mad instead of sad. I know from experience anger is easier to deal with. I nudge my nose over her neck. “Is someone missing you right now? Is someone going to be pissed I touched their property?”

“I’m no one’s property.” But despite the real anger in her words, she doesn’t back away.

I groan, sucking her skin between my teeth and listening to her whimper.

“You’re right,” I whisper, “because if you were anyone’s but mine, I’d kill him, baby. Because you’ve been in my head for a year. You never left.”

She’s so still.

But only for a moment.

Then she’s squirming in my arms, pushing hard against my chest. “Cortland,” she gasps against my shirt, “let me go?—”

“Shh, shh, shh, baby.”

She’s still fighting, thrashing in my arms.

“Who is he? Someone in your phone called you babe.” She starts going wild, indignation in her gasp.

But I hold her tighter and her cries are muffled as much as I’m smothering her, my chin on her head as I stare out at the tombstones, imagining burying anyone who’s ever touched her like I have. “Who do I need to kill, pretty baby?”

She keeps fighting, her nails digging hard into my skin now, and it’s painful, but I just close my eyes and squeeze her tighter.

After a minute, she stops fighting me, breathing hard in my arms, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Please,” she whispers in the dark, “please let me go.”

“Tell me it’s only been me.” I want to hear her say the words.

“You’re sick.” Her voice is so quiet, and she’s so still. “You’re so sick.”

“Tell me, baby.”

“You’re fucked up, Cortland.”

I hold her tighter, forearms locked around her back as I inhale her.

I wrap one hand around the back of her neck gently, still keeping her pinned to me. I think about those cuts on her arm.

“And now, so are you.” I shift my hand to the front of her neck, pushing her back so I can take in her eyes as she glares up at me. I lean down close, in her space. “Isn’t that right, Remi?”

She closes her eyes tight, her full lips pulling down at the corners. I remember them wrapped around Brinklin’s cock. She had no idea what to do with it. He gave up after he pushed into her mouth once. Twice. He jerked himself off before he came in her mouth. I thought she enjoyed trying, though.

She was so innocent.

So, so beautiful.

“Say, ‘that’s right, Cortland,’” I whisper, brushing my mouth over hers.

She swallows, the sound audible in the night as we both hold our breath, waiting. But finally, she gives it to me.

What I need.

“That’s right, Cortland.”

And as I grab her shit, slinging her backpack over my shoulder, my arm wrapped around her while I walk her back to her dorm once more, grateful Maya showed me the way before, I know what she said is true.

I’m so fucked up.

She fucked me up.