Page 137 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
I scramble backward until I hit something else.
“Easy, princess.” Hands catch me under my arms. Penn doesn’t lift me or make me stand. It’s more to steady me and stop my backward movement. “You got him.”
Oliver coughs.
“Don’t touch me.” I slap at Penn until he lets go, and I stand on wobbling legs. I whip around to face him and pale.
He has a mask on top of his head, too, and reality clicks into place.
“You stopped me from leaving through the main doors,” I accuse.
Betrayal.
I shove past him and rush up the stairs, saying a small prayer that this place is still empty. I get back to the section where I left my stuff. I shrug on my coat, which thankfully hits me at mid-thigh. Even though it covers me completely, I may as well be fucking naked from the waist down.
The drip of blood and cum out of me, smearing my upper thighs with every step, turns my stomach.
“I’m following you,” Penn announces when I’m back in the public hallway.
I walk briskly back to the main entrances, and I barely spare him a glance. Or rather, a look of utter disgust. Stopping just shy of the glass doors, I wheel around and jab my finger at him. “If either of you shows your face at my apartment, I’m going to cut off your balls and feed them to stray cats.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
I slam out the door without seeing another glimpse of Oliver.
Which is good, because I have a feeling he’s going to be starring in my nightmares next.
thirty-eight
sydney
Carter is waiting for me on my couch, his brows pinched with concern.
He wasn’t in on it.
He didn’t partake in my trauma.
That’s what makes him safe now. Not that he’s really to blame, that his hotheadedness caused this. It’s squarely on my shoulders, because I told him and didn’t stop him from being an idiot.
Doesn’t matter.
I kick off my shoes, barely hanging on to a blank face, but he understands something is wrong. He meets me halfway, opening his arms to me.
I fall into them, and the fucking dam breaks.
He eases me back to the couch, putting me on his lap before I can protest, and slowly unzips my coat. He doesn’t attempt to shush me or get me to stop crying, even though I instantly buried my face in his neck.
I don’t want to come out.
As soon as the coat is open, though, he freezes. “Please tell me this is your period and you didn’t get fucking brutalized.”
I lick my lips, tasting the salt from my tears. “I did, but it’s also my period.”
“Tell me,” he demands.
He strokes my hair, and it makes me cry harder. Because it fucking reminds me of Penn, and right now he’s no better than Oliver.
They were there.