Page 69 of The Wallflower
“No catch. I admit I've let things slip a little. Football is important, and they'll bench me if my grades fall too far. Anything but stellar performance is a failure to my father.” The mere mention of him makes my blood boil. The rage and anger are always lurking beneath the mask, threatening to bubble up and over and reveal the real man beneath. I remember herquestion from last night. She wanted to know why my friends would speak to my father and tell him things, and I don’t have an answer. I’m trying to figure that out myself.
"Oh yes, I forgot. You rich boys and your overbearing need to please your fathers.” She shakes her head, and the tension snaps, crackling and popping like fire. I lurch forward and grip her by the back of the neck, giving her no escape. A kitten-like whimper escapes her lips, and I squeeze a little tighter. I want to hear her make that sound again, for me. Only ever for me.
“Let go of me,” she hisses.
“No, because what you said pissed me off, and you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying unless I’m inside you or physically touching you.” I peer down at her, noticing the slight dilation in her pupils and the rapid rise and fall of her chest. I’d bet her nipples are tight little peaks, and that pretty pussy of hers probably weeps in despair for my cock at this very moment. Perhaps I’ve made a slut out of the sweet and innocent wallflower.
“This has nothing to do with pleasing my father. I don’t give a fuck about what my father wants. This is what I want. Football… It means something to me. It’s one of the few things that actually fucking matter in my life, and if I don’t have it as an outlet…” I’m unable to finish speaking because confessing out loud what I might become terrifies me.
I banish the thoughts away. “Plus, you could use the money, and I’m nothing but a helpful guy.”
She pulls back, and I release her from my grasp, her pretty eyes narrowed to slits. “I need the money, but I don’t need your money, and before you say anything else, yes, there's a difference.”
Sometimes I think she wants to push me to my limits just to see how far I’m willing to go. “So I’ve been told by you oncebefore, but I’m afraid you forget who I am and what I’m willing to do to get what I want.”
“How could I possibly forget? If my memory serves me correctly, any time you can’t get what you want from me, you take it.”
All I can do is smirk because if she’s trying to make me believe that she didn’t want what happened to happen between us last night, then she’ll need to try way fucking harder. “If you want me to believe you don’t want it next time, maybe don’t come so hard you strangle the life out of my cock while you’re milking it with your cunt, and I might believe you.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. We barely get along. I’m pretty sure you’re going to kill me soon, and if you don’t kill me, I know I’mdefinitelygoing to kill you.”
“I’m harder to kill than I look, baby.” I wink.
Her expression turns serious, and her little button nose wrinkles, “I don’t know…”
Frustration stacks like concrete blocks deep in my gut. Why is she showing so much resistance to tutoring me, yet she has no problem saying yes to jackasses like Stewart? I know it’s going to make me an asshole to threaten her like this, but I do it anyway because I want her to understand that there isn’t any other way around this. She’ll do what I want her to do by choice or by force. It’s up to her which road we take.
“I mean, if it’s really an issue, I can go to the dean and share with him that you’re refusing to offer me services and discriminating against me, claiming that I’m a rich jock who shouldn’t need services.”
I watch as her face morphs into anger. “Prime example of why we should not do this and why I will, in fact, kill you.”
“You wish you could kill me, but then if you killed me, who would make you come so hard you nearly pass out?” The question makes the centers of her cheeks turn a soft pink color,and I gently run the pad of my finger over her flesh. “The answer is no one, by the way, because just in case you get any other stupid ideas about going out with other men next time, I won’t be so nice. Next time, I’ll kill the fucker right in front of you, and then I’ll fuck you and use his blood as lube.”
“You’re absolutely insane,” she whispers. My phone dings with an incoming text that I ignore. I’m not done with this conversation yet, and I don’t want my attention to deviate elsewhere.
“Believe me, I know… But for five hundred dollars a week, you’re putting up with me."
“I didn’t agree to that,” she growls angrily. “And blackmail is pretty low, even for you. You know I need the money from these sessions.”
“Then I guess you better make the right choice, flower.”
I leave the choice in her hands and push up and out of my seat. Before I leave, I press my lips to the crown of her head, letting them linger there for a moment longer than necessary. Her intoxicating strawberry scent fills my lungs, and I breathe as much of it into my lungs as I can. Where she’s concerned, I’m more out of control than I ever expected to be, but I don’t care. Before her, I never had a choice. I never had a voice. Now it’s like the pieces of the mask I’m forced to wear are slowly chipping away, revealing my real identity beneath.
CHAPTER 24
BEL
Nervous energy ripplesthrough me as I stare at the cell phone screen. It’s only been three days since Drew announced I would be tutoring him and only him. I hate the idea of being alone with him again, but I don’t have much choice.
I’m not sure what he would do if I chose to tutor the other students still… but I don’t want to find out. Something deep in my gut leads me to believe this man is far more deviant and dangerous than even I know, and pushing him would be a dumb idea. He has money, a family, a future—everything I don’t—so his strange obsession with me makes no sense. I’m no one, nothing, yet he won’t leave me alone.
What would I even do if he left me alone?
Goose bumps erupt across my skin, and my thoughts swirl. With Drew, I’m out of my comfort zone. He pushes me to my limits, and when I think I can’t go any further, he shows me a new limit. He makes me feel, and I hate it. I hate how much my body craves him when he’s not here, and how my thoughts always trail back to him. Even with all the hate that seems to pulse for him in my veins, a small part of me craves his darkness and danger. That craves the jagged pieces of his heart.
All over again, I’m reminded of him overtaking my thoughts. I decide then that I need a distraction. I grab my phone and type out a quick message, sending the mass text to all my clients, letting them know I’ll be canceling all future sessions. It’s not worth the risk of losing the money he’s offered me, not when money is the one thing I need the most.
Doing this means inviting that man into my life. It means no longer pretending I didn't have a choice when things happen between us. I've been telling myself it's been all him this whole time, but it hasn’t. He’s never done anything that I didn’t want him to do. A tiny voice in the back of my head reminds me that I’m the one who joined The Hunt, and I'm the one who went into those woods. How could I have expected someone like Drew, though? How could I have known what would happen? That I would be noticed by the ruthless, vindictive man who always gets what he wants? I never could’ve anticipated him, but that’s the thing. You don’t predict the bad happening.