Page 75 of Soul So Dark

I hate the way he says it, like he’s realized that I don’t belong wherever he is. My chest tightens at the thought of never speaking to Alex again after today. Maybe grief is making him do weird things just like everyone else. Maybe he’s realizing what a mistake he’s made and he has to erase it before Colson or anyone else finds out. But I don’t think it’s a mistake. He doesn’t talk to me like it’s a mistake.

Still, the fury keeps gnawing at me, seeking vengeance for images in my mind that I still can’t forget.

“So, you’re just afraid of Colson, is that it?”

Alex’s face hardens. “You’ve got a big mouth for such a small girl. What if I put you on your knees right here, Dal?” A rush of adrenaline shoots through my veins. “When’s the last time anyone came back here? I could put you to work for a good 40 minutes before your next class. How many times you think you could make me come in 40 minutes?”

Another jolt of electricity shoots through my stomach all the way down my thighs. I’m terrified, but it’s also the most alive I’ve felt in weeks. Before I know what’s happening, Alex grabs me around the waist with one arm and lifts me onto the table top. We stare at each other for an excruciating amount of time until Alex finally glances down at his hand.

“Open,Angelína,” he commands.

“Why?” I croak, my throat parched.

He grins with amusement. “I want to see if that mouth can do anything besides talk shit all day.”

Alex flips the glasses case in the air and catches it next to my face, then he reaches up and squeezes my jaw with his other hand. My mouth falls open and the hard plastic clips my teeth as he gently pushes it past my lips. I squint as my jaw stretches the further back it goes, until he slides his other hand around the back of my neck, holding me immobile against the cinderblock wall.

His lip twitches with sick amusement when the case finally hits the back of my tongue, unable to go any further. Then he holds it there while I suck panicked gasps of air through my nose. To my horror, I feel a faint tickle in the corner of my mouth and realize a thin string of spit is trickling down my jaw.

My heart beats faster, if that's even possible. He tricked me. Alex Barrera tricked me and I don't even know how he did it. And to add insult to injury, now I'm drooling all over his hand while he has me pinned against the wall with my legs dangling in mid-air—the pinnacle of freshman humiliation.

“Suck.”

Enraptured by his gaze, I slowly let my mouth relax and run my tongue along the bottom of the case, my jaw opening and closing while more spit seeps down my chin.

“Now take a deep breath,” he instructs, “and when you breathe out, open your mouth wider.”

I don’t know what compels me to do what he says. Maybe it’s fear. Or maybe it’s the sheer morbid curiosity he invokes whenever I’m in his presence. Whatever it is, I can’t get enough of the adrenaline-fueled high it’s giving me.

I breathe in through my nose, and as soon as I let my breath out, my jaw relaxes and he slides the case further, but I don’t gag.

“Shit, Dal,” he murmurs almost painfully, “how deep can you take it?”

His eyes locked on mine, Alex drops his hand from my neck and runs it up my shirt, stopping midway up my ribs. I pull back slightly, startled by the sensation.

“I definitely didn’t say you could stop sucking,” he warns.

I strain to move my jaw, but my muscles are sore and this time I might start gagging. My chest heaves as I try to breathe and maintain some semblance of dignity. But Alex only smiles, and finally slides the case out of my mouth, trailing a string of spit as he sets it on the table next to me.

I quickly reach up to wipe my chin, but he grabs my wrist and pulls it back down. “No, your mouth looks good all wet.” Then he reaches up and grasps the sides of my neck, tilting my chin up with his thumbs like he’s examining my face. “You’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever met, but you’re still dangerous,” he leans in close with a whisper, “like us.”

When he says it, my muscles tense and something happens deep in my gut. Alex is the first soul to compare me to the force that is my brother, and it’s the first time I’ve ever thought of it as a compliment.

And I actually smile.

He pulls back with a skeptical look. “So sweet that you’ve never even kissed a man, have you?”

“Yes, I have, Alex,” I say with a roll of my eyes.

“Who?Bostwick?” he snickers. “I said aman,not a bratty kid with an inferiority complex.”

I won’t admit anything to him. I’ll remain stoic and act like he’s not reading every thought in my head like it’s on a damn teleprompter. He doesn’t need to know what happened over winter break, some of which I can’t even remember myself after the copious amounts of “festive holiday punch.” Alex doesn’t need to know I might’ve kissed Austin, but it was fuzzy and neither of us have acknowledged it since.

“Like you?” Now I’m the one nearly touching my nose to his. “Luring girls into dark closets—again?”

“You need to get used to seeing me in dark places,Angelína, because if I have to keep seeing you without touching you, I’m going to go fucking insane.”

My stomach flips on itself with every name he calls me and I lose all sense of rationality. I reach up and clench the chest of his hoodie, pulling him toward me. And when his lips meet mine, I want to drink him up before he disappears again.