Page 15 of The Sweetest Cruelty: Hudson (A Sawyer Brothers Story #1)

Get your head out of the gutter, Gage!

My blood buzzed. I was thoroughly pissed off.

Life had already fucked me over so many times I’d lost count.

And now all was revealed in its unpalatable glory.

The girl I’d met in the library that morning and Miller’s brat were the same person.

There was no way I could ever involve myself with anything Miller-related. Well, apart from the beer.

I was going to lose my shit, big time and my palms started to sweat again.

Casting an unsure glance around the room, Molly’s eyes snagged mine. Busted. Her entire expression lifted from uncertainty to elation as she saw me. Those blue eyes of hers twinkled with interest. She even lifted her hand and gave me a cute little wave.

I forced myself not to respond and blanked her like the dick I was. As I rolled my shoulders and turned back around to face those on my table, I caught a glimpse of disappointment on her sweet features. Making her feel like shit did not feel as good as I had thought it would.

Fuck me, she was hot. An image of my hands lifting her school skirt started to materialise, but I shut it down before my body took it too far. Getting a boner in the middle of the lunchroom was not the way to go.

God-fucking-damn it!

I felt like I’d received two slaps to the face. Not only was I attracted to the spawn of our principal and a man I hated, but the girl of my dreams had just been swept out of reach.

Her presence in the school and the man she was related to had also put a huge target on her back and I held the fucking gun.

I’d made a vow when I found out Miller had a kid that I’d make the brat's life miserable. That decision was made after receiving a thorough dressing-down from Principal Prick in front of the entire team as summer school ended. Everyone knew I was a grudge bearer of the worst kind.

It hadn’t been difficult to put the word out, and several other clicks had agreed to help make his/her first week not so nice. We didn’t know the sex of his kid at the time. Turned out it was a her, but that wouldn’t make it any easier, especially when she looked like that.

If Miller’s child had been male, I could have beaten the shit out of him. Although how I’d get away with it without getting thrown off the team had been a mitigating factor. What? I was temperamental; I usually acted first and thought about it later. Not the smartest of strategies, I know.

Reed was the thinker among all my brothers, and he rarely acted on impulse. Phoenix was a hothead like me, and Micah was the most relaxed. That’s why he enjoyed getting stoned so much.

He was found in a squat when he was three years old, buck naked, covered in his own shit, sitting between his dead overdosed parents.

Micah had been in the social services system longer than anyone I knew, yet he was the most down-to-earth.

He was placed in foster care with the same family as Reed when he was five.

As for Reed, no one knew his story, not even Reed.

Micah drummed his fingers on the table, calling, “Earth to Hudson.”

Shaking free of those tangled thoughts of darker times and suffering, I straightened in my seat. “Sorry. ”

Damn it.

I would have to bury my initial reaction and those feelings Molly had unearthed, and do what my peers expected of me.

Throwing my shit onto the lunch tray, I got ready to get down to business, determination threaded through every muscle.

The fact that she had not been above board regarding her identity caused anger and betrayal to burn through me.

Yeah, that’s it. Latch on to that! Keep telling yourself she’s a bitch. She lied and tricked you.

If something is too good to be true, it usually is.

One of my old case workers’ words came back to kick me in the ass.

She said this to me after the first family I had been placed with went to shit.

The elderly couple hadn’t been able to deal with the aggressive, screwed-up boy who had major problems with authority.

“We done?” the boys said in unison, moving to collect their shit.

“Almost,” I replied with a sinister smile; anger was like a rising tide in my chest.

I needed to put my plan in motion. I told myself, it didn’t make any difference that Miller’s kid was a pocket-sized, fine-looking female who appeared as sweet as candy.

Or that I’d gone all starry-eyed about her that very morning.

I would still get to him through her. Collateral damage could be a bitch.

Staring at my boys, I delivered my instructions.

“The principal’s daughter, Molly Miller, is still a target.” Fucking prep-school princess. I had misjudged her in the library. Little, innocent-looking Molly, who’d hidden who she truly was. She was deceitful, like all bitches. No different from the rest.

Annoyance blazed through me at how easily the girl had knocked me off my game.

Micah and Nix exchanged a worried look, but they didn’t question me. They had given up challenging me years ago.

They were my brothers, there to pick me up on my bullshit and then keep fucking listening to it. Just like everyone at school did.

I was a king, and Harbor Heights was my kingdom.

OK, time to stick to the plan. Let battle commence.

Leaving the tray, I shoved aggressively to my feet and twisted, turning toward the girl I now knew as the daughter of my enemy. As I stepped from the table, Micah and Nix flanked me as my determined stride ate up the space.

Molly and Storm’s eyes widened, and Storm did a strange back-and-forth thing .

The smile Molly had been wearing was wiped away, and confusion fuddled her face.

“What are you staring at, little girl? You see something you like?” I said, getting in her face.

She was so small that I had to fold half my body to achieve that nose-to-nose stance I was after.

Startled, Molly stepped back and glanced helplessly at Storm, who raised her hands, looking uncertain.

The cheerleader's stance gave off a ‘don’t look at me’ message.

So much for chicks before dicks , fickle little bitch.

No one will help you here Baby Miller, not unless I fucking allow it.

My eyes narrowed as she gathered the guts to respond. “Sorry, I thought you’d recognize me; we met this morning. In the library,” she explained almost breathlessly. Did she really think I didn’t remember her? How fucking insecure was that?

My gaze zoned in on the lunch tray Molly gripped in her fingers. She held it so tightly her knuckles were white.

Pushing my conscience to the side, I breathed in the anxiety which radiated from her pores. Fuck me, it was like an aphrodisiac and my dick twitched in my pants.

We were now the centre of attention, and our peers were like coyotes waiting for blood.

They wanted a show from their king.

Micah and Nix circled the girl like sharks out for blood, eyeing her up and down, a blatant sign of disrespect; like a couple of players weighing up the new piece of ass.

They both touched her, only fleetingly, but it was there.

Nix fanning her hair out, and Micah ran a finger up her arm.

I saw her body shudder at their attention, and a twinge of annoyance ran through me.

Why the fuck did I feel a sudden urge to break Micah’s finger?

“Oh, I remember you,” I stated before raising my head and speaking out loud, ensuring most people in the lunchroom heard me. “She was all over me like a fucking rash, boys. I swear to fuck,” I smirked, checking her out like she was severely lacking.

Nix moved up close to her back, which made Molly’s breath catch and forced her forward into my space. She was now surrounded, a worried expression marring those perfect features.

I caught Storm’s eye as she watched the scene, her expression guarded. I knew she wouldn’t intervene. She knew better.

“Fucking hell bro, and you said no?” Micah hissed, staring at Molly with an open leer. I knew they had my back, but the second they got me alone, there would be questions .

“Are you fucking kidding me. Look at her. Everyone knows stuck up bitches don’t know how to suck cock.”

“I don’t understand,” Molly panted with a pained expression.

Before she could say anything else, I tucked a few strands of her blonde hair behind her ear and leaned in to whisper against the cuff. I made sure it was loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I’d rather have my dick sucked by one of my brothers than the principal’s brat.”

Deciding against using the differences in our build against her, I moved past the girl, careful not to touch her, but cleverly tipping Molly’s lunch tray as I went, telling her to get out of my way.

My message to Storm and my audience was clear. The Sawyer Brothers had just outed the principal's kid. Everything I had put out there leading up to this girl’s first day at The Heights was confirmed.

Mess with the new girl at your leisure.

Molly’s tray flipped from her hand, crashing against her school shirt, leaving a stain from her juice box and what I assumed to be tomato pasta.

“Oops,” I sneered into her face before turning away. My brothers fell in beside me.

Glancing at her chest over my shoulder, I smirked at the sight; the burgundy mark was spreading. It looked like she’d been shot.

We left the cafeteria to the oohs and aahs of our peers, and the horrified look on Molly Miller’s face would stay with me for longer than I had bargained for.

The angel may have caught me with my pants down in the library, but that was when I’d thought her to be something she wasn’t.

She was the daughter of the man I despised, and I was the monster who made me.

MOLLY

What the hell just happened? One minute I was talking cordially with Storm, and the next I’d been dropped into the bottomless pit of Loserville. I dashed a hand against the damp patch on my shirt and quickly retrieved my ruined lunch from the floor, ignoring the eyes drilling into my skull .